Kliefoth’s Beichte und Absolution

Kliefoth – Beichte und Absolution

The Time of the Reformation – 254

The Lutheran Reformation –one can say –was born out of the article on confession and absolution, for internally Luther was made into a reformer in that moment in the cell when that monch “comforted” him “with holy absolution,” and externally the Reformation commenced with the battle over the papistic indulgence. It is precisely for this reason that the Reformations theological and ecclesial product is essentially soteriological. 
In their first stages, the Lutheran Reformation and the formation of the Lutheran church were strongly defined by the personal development of the reformers, especially that of Luther and Melanchthon.  In his first public appearance, Luther has strong Roman reminiscences; then, for a long time, he very onsidedly throws himself into the arms of of subjective freedom; until the Enthusiasts, Calstadt, the peasants, the Anabaptists, the school him; and only then does he develop his task of gathering the church.  This personal development of Luther also extends to the doctrine of confession and absolution: by gathering together his occasional remarks and writings on confession and related matters chronologically, one could write a history of his conceptions of confession.  Indeed, the doctrine of confession and absolution holds together so many other articles of faith, e.g. concerning the Word of God, the preaching office, the church, etc., with respect to which a development took place in Luther’s views.  The development of Melanchton is more that of a scholar refining and expanding his views on the basis of research; however, there is also no lack of development and growth in his conceptions of confession and absolution.  It cannot lie within our plan to dive deeply into this protohistory of our church’s doctrine and order in this article on confession and absolution, as useful as a rigorous account thereof would be over against many current tendencies which deign to place the actual core of the “reformatory” in that which Luther overcame in himself.  Instead, we will extend our account to that form which confession and absolution have taken in our church’s doctrine and in our church orders, glancing back only on those individual points without which this form cannot be recognized. 
The “confession and absolution” of the Lutheran church formed in opposition to the Roman “sacrament of penance.”  Its doctrinal development connects directly to the exclusion of the previous development, in antithesis to the definitions of the Council of Florence from 1439, and rectifies the definitions that penance [poenitentia] is a confession consisting of contrition, confession, and satisfaction.  Its practice formed in opposition to the dreadful misuses which had latched onto the medieval practice of confession.  Previously, we have only looked at the doctrinal form of the Roman sacrament of penance and its form with respect to church orders.  However, every ecclesial institution manifests itself somewhat differently in life than in doctrine and canon, sometimes better, sometimes worse; and the Roman sacramentum poenitentiae manifested itself much worse in life than in doctrine.  Whoever is looking for a terse overview of abuses which arose in the life of the church and private lives of Christians from the sacrament of penance, an overview which nevertheless traces the individual manifestations back to false principles, should simple read the section “On the false penance of the papists” in the Smalcald Articles.  The doctrine and practice of the Lutheran church grew out of opposition to the perverted doctrine and practice of the existing church. Nevertheless it would be a mistake to believe that the Lutheran church acted only antithetically and oppositionally, mechanically held the a position contradictory to the Roman position or abstractly denied it. There is, to be sure, another view of the Reformation which imagines that Luther and his followers made up a brand new church out of thin air and this view is then very inclined to accept that if the Lutheran church maintained many things from the old church this was done through an inconsistent application of principle and as a result of numerous condescensions, wherefore a few things must still now be reformed retroactively. But this view is devoid of all truth.  When the Reformation happened, the church was corrupt in doctrine and practice, but the church had been in existence for fifteen centuries; it was necessary to establish a new church, rather the task was to cleanse an existing church of abuses according to principles which had been misjudged, but had now been brought to light again, in order that the church herself and that which had been spared by those abuses might be retained.  With what clarity the Lutheran church acknowledged this task and with what historical-critical prowess she accomplished this task is rarely as clearly displayed as in her treatment of the practice of confession. The reformers knew very well the historical developments in this matter: Chemnitz was more thoroughly acquainted with the history of the practice of confession, and had more insight into the changes it underwent, than Augustine, for example.  And this clarity directed the Reformers’ practical approach: they left no question which raised in the course of the historical development of confession undiscussed or unsolved; the church upturned the entire extant institution of confession, but did not upturn a single correct and sound factor,even if it had its origin in scholasticism like the absolution, and reincorporating old institutions that had long since come into disuse, they organically combined the results of the entire historical development.
Up to now, we have always found that the various forms of penance and the practice of confession were based upon various views of sin and various distinctions of sins.  With the exception of the older distinction between public and private sins, which the Lutheran church took up again and admitted according to her interpretation, as we will see, all of the other older distinctions and classifications of sins had flowed out of pelagian or semi-pelagian assumptions which then wreaked such havok that one hoped to achieve forgiveness through one’s own accomplishments, though satisfactions.  This was especially the case with the views of sin and sins which undergirded the Roman sacrament of penance, for when it was demanded that all sins be confessed, sin itself was forgotten among the sins; and when confession and absolution were only considered necessary for the forgiveness of mortal sins, one reduced the severity of other sins as lighter and more negligible.  The ostensible sternness of the Roman system of confession was and is, at its deepest root, moral laxity. Thus the Lutheran church had to begin by juxtaposing another, more correct view of sin and sins to that of the Roman church.  “It was impossible,” Luther begins his depiction “of the false repentance of the papists” in the Smalcald Articles, “for them to correctly teach concerning penance, because they do not do acknowledge the right sins, for they do not rightly understand original sin, but rather say: the natural powers of man remain whole and uncorrupted, reason can teach rightly, and the will can do what is right so that God will certainly give grace when a man does what is in himself according to his free will.  Now, it must follow from this that they only repentented of actual sins such as evil, intentional thoughts (for evil emotions, lust, and excitement were not sins), wicked words, wicked works which free will could have avoided.”  And Chemnitz continues: “Besides this must be observed in the present chapter that they teach that only mortal sins are to be confessed; such that absolution is not necessary for the remission of venial sins, but that they can be expiated with other remedies.  Here the reader will observe that the papist who require the enumeration of everything, exclude from confession and absolution the greatest part of those sins which are truly sins in the sight of God.  Firstly, they do not want to include in confession the internal uncleanliness and the evil dwelling in the flesh, because they teach that wicked desire which remains in the reborn should not be regarded as sin.  The they judge many actual misdeeds to be so trivial that absolution is not necessary for them to be remitted. But absolution is nothing other than the voice of the gospel announcing the remission of sins on account of Christ’s merit.  Therefore, the Council of Trent teaches that venial sins cannot be expiated with absolution, i.e. they cannot be remitted on account of Christ, but with other remedies.”  Conversely, Luther continues in the Smalcald Articles that the repentance preached to us by the Apostle Paul teaches “us [what] sin [is], namely that we all lost, there is nothing good in us from top to bottom, and that we must become completely new and different men.  This repentance is not piecemeal, like with those papists who actual sins, nor is it uncertain like with theirs, for this repentance does not dispute whether something is a sin or not, but throws everything into a heap and says it is all nothing but sin with us.  Why would we spend time searching, dividing and distinguishing?”  Therefore, the object of repentance and, consequently, of confession and absolution is everything, without distinction, which occurs to the Christian from the evil desire resulting from original sin and remaining after baptism to the individual, actual sins, regardless of whether they are public or private, serious or trivial, large or small.
These sins of the reborn also require forgiveness.  The enthusiasts at the time of the Reformation established the opinion, and the doctrine of the Reformed took up the same from its dogma of predestination: that whoever had once believed [fromm geworden], could not fall angina, , or if he he sinned hereafter, nevertheless would remain in faith and in a state of grace.  The Lutheran Confessions repeatedly reject this opinion and Chemnitz states: “Firstly, therefore, our churches expressly teach that the baptized, if the admit actions against their conscience, do not retain, but rather drive out faith and the Holy Spirit, lay aside the grace of justification and eternal life