• DOI:10.2307/2709257
• Corpus ID: 55409226

Luther and the Justifiability of Resistance to Legitimate Authority

@article{Bowman1979LutherAT,
  title={Luther and the Justifiability of Resistance to Legitimate Authority},
  author={Cynthia Grant Bowman},
  journal={Journal of the History of Ideas},
  year={1979},
  volume={40},
  pages={3}
}

• C. Bowman
• Published 1979
• History
• Journal of the History of Ideas

The works of Martin Luther and of other early Protestant writers are often completely neglected by students and scholars of political thought in this country. If his period is considered at all, Luther is generally dealt with cursorily, as a stepping-stone to Calvin and the Huguenots, essential to political and intellectual history but not very interesting in his own right. The impression frequently given is that Luther was a latter-day Augustine in his views of secular authority, endorsing its legitimacy for the Christian and counselling strict obedience to the powers-that-be. One reason for this conclusion, which I contend is a mistaken one, is that the writings translated, collected, and anthologized for academic use are those which Luther wrote during the early years of his clash with the Roman church and the associated notion of a universal Christendom represented by the Holy Roman Empire. Reading, for example, the 1523 work, Temporal Authority, the student finds that Luther was concerned to "provide a sound basis for the civil law and sword, so no one will doubt that it is in the world by God's will and ordinance."' The image of the political system which pervaded the work was of a hierarchical order of authorities established by God. Power flowed downwards, and those in inferior positions were obligated to obey those set above them in the hierarchy. The implications for the possibility of resistance in Germany were clear: although the use of force might be permissible against an equal or inferior authority, a prince could never justly wage war against his overlord, the emperor.2 It went without saying that a private subject might never actively resist the authorities set over him, but Luther nonetheless allowed for the possibility of refusal to obey in cases when the prince trespassed upon the jurisdiction belonging of right only to God. Under such circumstances the Christian's two duties, to God and to his prince, might come into conflict; and the proper response to such a dilemma was that which Saint Augustine had prescribed-passive resistance, that is, to disobey but submit to whatever punishment might be assigned for disobedience.3