Private judgment or conscience. . .

Luther famously said,  “Unless I am convinced by Scripture and plain reason, my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything, for to go against conscience would be neither right nor safe. God help me. Here I stand, I can do no other.”  It was a profound moment.  Summoned to the Diet of Worms in 1521 A.D., he was not merely asked to recant his teaching and writings but commanded to and he knew what was at stake.  It was nothing less than his own life.

Scripture and plain reason were not here equated as equal authorities but Scripture as the lens through which reason sees the truth God has written.  So also conscience was not personal or private judgment but the conscience informed by the Scriptures, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and through reason transformed by the Spirit who enlightens mind and heart.  I only wish we remembered this about Luther rather than charging him with personal and private judgment that reigns over everything else -- something that has sort of become the Protestant way of things.  So, for example, you cannot appeal to conscience as if it were over Scripture -- how can it be wrong when it feels so right.  Lutherans have been all over the page with Luther's words about conscience and yet the Reformer was not exactly plowing new ground here.  Luther was attempting to stand in the long line of those who were being compelled to conform to something other than Scripture and clear reason.

Existentialism has certainly explored more fully the nature of individual existence and freedom.  It has highlighted the importance of authentic personal choice and authentic responsibility and living and this has taken Luther's words as support for the duty and responsibility of individuals to shape their own lives, to have ownership of their actions and to be in charge of their own decisions. No one in their right mind, however, would place Luther in the modern camp of supreme personal autonomy.  Luther was a child of this age in which there was no such political, moral, or existential ideal of such personal and individual autonomy.  Indeed, Luther by his actions sided with order and would readily agree with the Scriptural condemnation of every person doing what is right in his own eyes — the charge God laid against His people (Deuteronomy 12:8; Judges 17:6; 21:25).  Indeed, Luther would find no cause in common with those who opine today that few things are really black and white and that doctrinal issues, moral questions, and Christian principles are almost indistinguishable in a sea of gray.

While politicians love the idea of personal judgment and individual conscience apart from governing authority as a whole, Luther would not countenance it.  From Mario Cuomo at Notre Dame to Biden, Roman Catholics have appealed to conscience while refusing to let clear and consistent church teaching inform their governance, especially with respect to abortion but not only so.  In the UK a priest actually had the gall to refuse the Sacrament to a politician who voted for assisted suicide.  It seems that few recall the example of St Ambrose's excommunication of the Emperor Theodosius.   Truth to power has become a political thing and less a pastoral concern for the soul.  That is a sad statement but true no less.

Some today will cite the Roman Catholic Church's Catechism that would seem to insist that conscience must be followed even when it is in error.  Of course, such a statement does not stand outside of the Spirit's own formation of conscience through Word and reason -- as Luther certainly would insist.  Conscience is an internal witness not of the autonomous self or reason apart from the Spirit but as testament to both the the working of the Spirit and the voice of God's Word.  How quickly we forget that conscience cannot approve what God's Word has condemned no matter how well reasoned such approval or how deep the desire of the heart for it.  Where Roman Catholics would insert the Church and the pope, Lutherans well remember that John Henry Newman do not fail to insist that Scripture as the unchanging voice of God still speaking the truth that saves is the foundation for the Church and for those who would be called her leaders. In our time, the danger is less that people will listen to the pope as the true authoritative voice but that popes and church leaders will appeal themselves to something other than Scripture and thereby enshrine private judgment with a status neither Luther nor the Church has meant to give it.  You cannot appeal to conscience over Scripture or to reason apart from the inspiration of the Spirit and end up where Luther did before the Diet at Worms.  No matter how attractive, it will always end up with tyranny of feelings or individual autonomy over any moral or dogmatic truth and this cannot be claimed in the name of God.