Dead & Deadly
Via On Being a Theologian of the Cross, pp. 43-45
Thesis 8. By so much more are the orks of man mortal sins when they are done without fear and in unadulterated, evil self-security.
If the works even of the righteous are not just venial but deadly sins when done without fear of God, quite obviously works done entirely without fear of God in complete self-security or heedlessness are all the more deadly.
Theses 9. To say that works without Christ are dead, but not mortal, appears to constitute a perilous surrender fo the fear of God.
Thesis 10. Indeed, it is very difficult to see how a work can be dead and at the same time not a harmful and mortal sin.
Theses 9 and 10 belong together and undercut another scholastic distinction that compromises the true fear of God, the distinction between dead works and deadly (mortal) works. Theses 7 and 8 have insisted that works done without fear of God by either the righteous or unrighteous are mortal sins. But theologians of glory are always looking for loopholes. What is one to say of works that are genuinely good but done by nonbelievers, that is, works “without Christ”? Are they also simply mortal sins? It is a question any theology professor knows well. Students constantly worry about the “benevolent pagan.” The scholastic tradition tried to handle this, as usual, by making a distinction between works that are dead but not deadly (mortal). Good works done “without Christ” are said to be dead in the sense that (being without grace) they are not meritorious, but still they were not such as to be mortal, that is, deserving of eternal condemnation. There was apparently some debate over whether the works actually prepared one for grace or even earned some lesser punishment.
Luther finds the distinction both perilous for piety and ultimately incomprehensible. Once again the issue is the fear of God. To say that a work is dead but not deadly is perilous for piety because it leaves the unbeliever some room for avoiding the crisis inherent in the command to fear God. As long as we can comfort ourselves that our works are only dead, but not deadly, we can “postpone” both giving glory to God and, consequently, turning to God. Thus, for Luther the scholastic distinction between dead and deadly is a very dangerous move that will only result in taking glory from God and delaying the conversion of the unbeliever. We do the unbeliever no favors thereby. “For if that person offends [God] who withdraws glory from him, how much more does that person offend him who continues to withdraw glory from him and does this boldly!” Theological attempts to be “gracious” to the nonbeliever only lead to further disaster.
