Trinitarian Grace in Martin Luther's The Bondage of the Will by Miikka Ruokanen

Abstract

Reviewed by: Trinitarian Grace in Martin Luther's The Bondage of the Will by Miikka Ruokanen Mark Mattes Trinitarian Grace in Martin Luther's The Bondage of the Will. By Miikka Ruokanen. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. xiii + 222 pp. One might think that commentators have picked over the Bondage of the Will so many times that there would be nothing further to discover. In this reworking of a Cambridge University dissertation, Finnish missionary and scholar Miikka Ruokanen proves this supposition wrong. He discerns pneumatological and trinitarian dimensions [End Page 208] within the Bondage of the Will and shows their bearing on Luther's theology. Additionally, he sees Erasmus and Luther debating less over the power of the human will and more over the nature of God. Drawing from late medieval Nominalist views of grace configured by means of a pactum theology, where God promises to give his grace to those who do their very best, Erasmus saw God as fair, not arbitrary, even if that relaxes divine omnipotence or at least makes it less threatening to humans. In contrast, Luther emphasized not a "juridical-like relationship" between God and humanity, but an "intimate relationship with transcendence" of humanity with either God, who is wholly good, or Satan (11–13). This of course leads to the question of whether or not Luther's view of justification is forensic, but Ruokanen deals with that matter only to reassert the new Finnish perspective in which justification is based on union with Christ and not the verdict of "not guilty" for Jesus' sake. Ruokanen eschews an existentialist theology of the Word since what is important about the Word is not how it alters a human's core but instead how through it the Spirit unites believers to Christ. So, for Luther, salvation involves the agency of the entire triune life to bring the Spirit's indwelling within believers. This work is triune since (1) Christ obtains remission of sins for sinners through his work upon the cross, (2) the Spirit offers forgiveness to believers in the mission of the church, and (3) the Father is the source of this mercy obtained by Christ and proffered by the Spirit (105). Many readers of Lutheran Quarterly will disagree with Ruokanen's contention that "union with Christ" is not a consequence of forensic justification but the essence of justification, that is, justification is constituted not only by God's favor given in Christ but also the donum, the "real presence" of Christ in the believer (29). That said, Ruokanen is no slavish disciple of Tuomo Mannermaa. He freely criticizes Mannermaa for underemphasizing the work of Christ in his focus on the person of Christ (170). Likewise, he acknowledges Gerhard Forde as a pioneer who lifted up the pneumatological dimension embedded in the Bondage of the Will. Ruokanen notes that the categories of the rational, the judicial, and the moral, which Erasmus applied to heavenly matters, Luther limited to earthly matters. That is, what for Erasmus is soteriological [End Page 209] is for Luther merely ethical (43). For Luther, renovation, the new birth, is no prudential calculation but instead wholly a work of the Holy Spirit. With respect to humans' eternal destiny, humans have "no neutrality"; they are ridden either by God or the devil (55). Ruokanen handles Luther's response to scholastic categories deftly. Luther notes that necessity is not externally imposed on humans (73). God compels no one to do evil; instead, humans choose evil deeds freely. God's foreknowledge of Judas' betrayal led to no coercion of Judas. Judas' evil will is such that he cannot change it. That said, the devil and evil persons can serve as instruments of God in the world (79). For Ruokanen, Luther allows God to be God (123), a Being not on a continuum with his creatures. God is, after all, the summum bonum (81) and all entities exist only because they share in his life through his creation of them. With respect to his creation, God is completely free. Indeed, he exercises his will as his law for creation (126). Towards the end, Ruokanen raises the question of rapprochement between Erasmus and Luther: "Looking from a distance...