The Cross Alone is Our Theology
Via On Being a Theologian of the Cross, pp. 77-81
Thesis 20. That person deserves to be called a theologian, however, who comprehends the visible and manifest things of God through suffering and the cross.
What is meant here by the “visible and manifest things of God?” The Latin original furnishes a hint as to what Luther had in mind. The word here translated as “manifest” is posteriora. It means “back” or “hinder parts.” This indicates that the discussion is intended to call to mind the event in Exodus 33:18-23 in which Moses asks to see God’s glory–even Moses has the aspirations of a theologian of glory! God tells Moses that no one can see God’s face and live. Consequently Moses is to hide in a cleft in the rock when God approaches. God covers Moses’ eyes and allows him to see only his back, the posteriora, as he passes by. God, that is, actually prevents Moses from seeing his glory. To be sure, that is on the one hand a gracious act since no one can look on God’s face and live. But for a theologian of glory it is on the other hand a supreme put-down. God won’t let even Moses see what every theologian of glory so desperately wants to see. God allows Moses to see only his back when he has passed by. In Luther’s mind here it is the suffering, despised, and crucified Jesus that takes the place of God’s backside. No doubt Luther uses this somewhat offensive image precisely to shock the theologian of glory in us. This comes out in his proof for this thesis:
The manifest and visible things of God are placed in opposition to the invisible, namely, his human nature, weakness, foolishness. The Apostle in 1 Cor. 1[:25] calls them the weakness and folly of God. Because men misused the knowledge of God through works, God wished again to be recognized in suffering, and to condemn wisdom concerning invisible things by means of the wisdom concerning visible things, so that those who did not honor God as manifested in his works should honor him as he is hidden in his suffering. [LW 31.52]
Correcting the sight of the theologian of glory is a drastic business. In his proof Luther uses language taken from St. Paul (quoting Isaiah) in 1 Corinthians 1:19, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise….” The cross therefore is actually intended to destroy the sight of the theologian of glory. In the cross God actively hides himself. God simply refuses to be known in any other way.
Theologians of the cross are those from whom all support other than the cross has simply been torn away. The situation is not that we might sit back and upon reflection calmly chose to be this or that sort of theologian. If we look at instead of through it or behind, the cross tears away all other possibilities. So as theologians of the cross we operate on the premise that faith in the crucified and risen one is all we have going for us. All the supports of the theology of glory are destroyed by the cross. The cross is then end result of the theology of glory. So it is finished. There are no escape hatches. By faith we become a human being, a person of this world, a truly historical being, because there is nothing to do now but wait, hope, pray, and trust in the promise of him who nevertheless conquers, the crucified and risen Jesus. By faith we are simply in Christ, waiting to see what will happen to and in us. As Luther could put it in his most famous saying in the commentary on the first twenty-two Psalms from about this time, “The cross alone is out theology” (CRUX sola est nostra Theologia). [WA 5.176.32]
