Luther's Outlaw God by Steven D. Paulson

Abstract

Luther's Outlaw God by Steven D. Paulson Matthew Becker Luther's Outlaw God. Vol 1: Hiddenness, Evil, and Predestination. Vol. 2: Hidden in the Cross. Vol. 3: Sacraments and God's Attack on the Promise. By Steven D. Paulson. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2018–2021. 1117 pp. Steven Paulson's trilogy offers an extended and erudite argument for sharply distinguishing between "God unpreached" ("God naked," God silent) and "God preached" ("God clothed" in his word). Several related distinctions made by the mature Luther—but which have been distorted, minimized, or outright rejected by important Western philosophers from Plato to Derrida and by influential theologians from Origen to Jüngel—are also analyzed and given a fresh articulation. These corollary contrasts include the sharp differentiations between law and gospel, divine wrath and divine mercy, and the opposing ways in which God hides and reveals himself. Readers who are familiar with the theology of Gerhard Forde, who was Paulson's teacher and preacher, will hear his voice in nearly every chapter. But the primary speaker is the great Reformer himself, who is frequently quoted from his principal works: De servo arbitrio, the Large Catechism, the 1531/1535 Galatians commentary, and the late lectures on Genesis. Along the way, Paulson also draws upon other writings, such as Luther's lectures on Deuteronomy, Jonah, and Hebrews, and his reflections on Job. One would be mistaken, however, to conclude that this opus magnum is merely another study of Luther's theology. Rather, the author brings the Wittenberger into lengthy and intricate debates with a whole host of thinkers, ancient, medieval, and modern. Paulson thus uses Luther to identify and criticize neurasthenic or otherwise diseased theological positions and to [End Page 84] set forth the purely preached gospel as the only truly proper way to deal with our deepest problem as human sinners coram deo. The first volume introduces the three basic ways in which God hides himself in relation to divine predestination ("the great offense of life" [1.142]) and human evil: God the Father, hidden in the things of creation as masks; God the Son, who is hated by sinners for electing the wrong individuals with the wrong means (a death on a cross) and with the wrong promise ("apart from law"); and God the Holy Spirit, who hides in gospel preaching and sacraments. Crucial for Paulson is Luther's conclusion that God is "an outlaw God," "who gives the law, but is not the law" (1.xxxiv). There is no such thing as an "eternal divine law." The initial volume provides a close analysis of Luther's relentless critique of Erasmus' humanistic, moralistic defense of free choice in relation to divine foreknowledge and election. Here the author effectively demonstrates that for Luther God is hidden in ways that philosophers and theologians consistently misunderstand and minimize. Luther came to think of God outside of the box of the law. Indeed, God is so concealed that the difference between fate and chance, predestination and damnation, joy and despair, death and life depends entirely upon a preacher. God could not be more completely hidden than that, because it means that God is not the law that everyone assumes and hopes for, and God's freedom comes to a creature through a creature in the simplest form of a word that promises forgiveness. God is an outlaw, and so both dangerous and surprisingly free (1.xii.). In this light, an individual will either have God preached for the sake of faith alone, or God unpreached, which leaves the sinner thrown back upon various errant and uncertain ways of speculating about sin, evil, and predestination, usually by rationalizing about the relationship between God's law and morality. Typical answers to the neuralgic questions of modern theology regarding "God and evil" "not only fail to save," but they "actually destroy faith" (1.104). True theology thus serves proclamation, not human reasoning in its vain search for a convincing theological understanding of theodicy. The first volume unpacks several biblical passages (such as the call and mission of Moses relative to Pharaoh, the preaching of Isaiah, [End Page 85] the case of Judas, and Paul's teaching in Romans, especially 9–11...