Oratio, Meditatio, Tentatio: Touchstones for Luthers Pastoral Theology

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Oratio, Meditatio, Tentatio Touchstones for
Luthers Pastoral Theology
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For Further Reading

• Theology the Lutheran Way by Oswald Bayer

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From the Preface to the Wittenberg Edition of
Luthers German Writings (1539)

• Moreover, I am to point you to a correct way of
  studying theology, for I have had practice in
  that. If you keep at it, you will become so
  learned that you yourself could (if it were
  necessary) write books just as good as those of
  the fathers and councils, even as I (in God) dare
  to presume and boast, without arrogance and
  lying, that in the matter of writing books I do
  not stand much behind some of the fathers. Of my
  life I can by no means make the same boast. This
  is the way taught by the holy King David (and
  doubtlessly used by all the patriarchs and
  prophets) in the one hundred and nineteenth
  Psalm. There you will find three rules, amply
  presented throughout the whole Psalm. They are
  Oratio, Meditatio, Tentatio (AE 34285)

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Luthers Rules Correspond to the Marks of the
Church

• Preface to the Wittenberg Edition (1539)
• Oratio
• Meditatio
• Tentatio
• On the Councils and the Church (1539)
• Holy Word of God
• Baptism
• Sacrament of the Altar
• Office of the Keys
• Calling of Ministers
• Prayer, Public Praise Thanksgiving
• Sacred Cross

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From Contemplation and Speculation to Suffering

• The popular medieval scheme for theology was
  lectio, oratio, contemplatio. Luther breaks from
  this pattern. Westhelle observes Luthers schema
  begins with oratio, which is more than prayer it
  is all God-talk, talk of and to God when one
  knows that reason will not suffice. Second is
  meditatio in which he includes lectio which is
  not limited to meditation in the internal sense
  but also external, hence engaging others in
  reflection. Luther does not follow the third
  medieval rule, contemplation, but instead he
  brings up a very different and original concept,
  tentatio, which becomes the foremost the
  touchstone he calls it and the last
  characteristic of theological reflection (The
  Scandalous God, 35-36). Thus Luther moves away
  from the speculative theology of scholasticism
  and the contemplative spirituality of mysticism.

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How Theologians are Made

• For Luther, theologians are made not simply by
  "understanding, reading or speculating" but "by
  living, no rather by dying and being damned" (WA
  5/16328-29) as he said in a lecture on Psalm
  511 in 1520.
• The experience which Luther alludes to is the
  experience of the Scripture.
• The Scriptures interpret us.
• The life of the theologian is the passive life,
  the receptive life.

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The Wisdom of the Holy Scripture

• "Holy Scriptures constitute a book which turns
  the wisdom of all other books into foolishness,
  because not one teaches about eternal life except
  this one alone" (AE 34285). Bayer writes "It is
  clear from the place where Luther condenses his
  whole understanding of theology into three terms
  oratio, meditatio, tentatio, that his instruction
  about the correct method of studying theology is
  not a capitulation to some preconceived notion of
  science, but it is solely a matter of the
  authority of Scripture. Just as theology is
  nothing but the interpretation of Scripture, the
  understanding of theology is the same" (Bayer).

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Praying Psalm 119

• Those who pray this psalm fully surrender their
  own destiny to the destiny of God's word. They
  see their relationship to God as nothing else
  than a relationship to his word" (Bayer)

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Oratio

• This is the prayer modeled by David in Psalm 119
• "Almost from the outset, Psalm 119 takes on
  fundamental significance for Luther's battle with
  the pope, who wants to prevent him from remaining
  with the word through which 'I became a
  Christian' the word of absolution. From the
  beginning of the Reformation, this psalm is seen
  as a prayer for the victory of God's word against
  its enemies. In fact, it is seen as a double
  prayer that was turned into a hymn verse in 1543
  Lord, keep us steadfast in your word and curb the
  pope's and the Turk's sword" (Bayer)

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Oratio

• Prayer is the voice of faith
• "The richness of the Word of God ought to
  determine our prayer, not the poverty of our
  heart" (Bonhoeffer)
• Note Luthers translation of Psalm 119172, My
  tongue will answer with your words (Bayer)
• Prayer that invokes God (calls upon the name of
  the Lord) is grounded in the first three
  petitions of the Lord's Prayer. Note Luther's
  explanation in the Small Catechism.

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Meditatio

• Luther uses meditation in a way that departs
  from the tradition
• For Luther it is outward rather than inward
  listening
• Meditatio is grounded in the externum verbum (See
  Smalcald Articles IIIVIII)
• Luther "Let him who wants to contemplate in the
  right way reflect on his Baptism let him read
  his Bible, hear sermons, honor father and mother,
  and come to the aid of a brother in distress. But
  let him not shut himself up in a nook.. .and
  their entertain himself with his devotions and
  thus suppose that he is sitting in God's bosom
  and has fellowship with God without Christ,
  without the Word, without the sacraments" (AE
  3275)
• Those who seek the Spirit inside themselves in
  realms too deep for words find only ghosts
  (Bayer).

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God Straight Up!

• So the cry goes up, Give me a God I can be
  proud of, like a pure idea or a transcendent
  goal. Once that happens humans are on a mission
  for more than self-knowledge they want
  recognition that they are right and have risen
  above particular places, times, and cultures.
  They do not want to smell of particularity and
  parochialism. They are bound and determined to be
  like God knowing the difference between good and
  evil, believing in their own power to believe,
  becoming proud of their own existence without the
  need to depend on God for every little thing, and
  so not eternally bound to God by trust in
  specific promises. They come to thing that they
  want God straight up, with no words or fruit
  trees or bodies of water and testaments given in
  words, wine, bread and no Jews. But for Luther
  this is all false spirituality that stands
  outside Gods house trying to peer through the
  windows and catch God with his clothes off. Yet
  there is nothing more dangerous than a religious
  peeping Tom
• - Steven Paulson, Luther for Armchair
  Theologians, 109-110

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Meditatio

• Luther likened meditation to a cow chewing its
  cud. In his commentary on Deuteronomy 14lof
  1525, he writes "To chew the cud, however, is to
  take up the Word with delight and meditate with
  supreme diligence, so that (according to the
  proverb) one does not permit it to go into one
  ear and out the other, but holds it firmly in the
  heart, swallows it, and absorbs it into the
  intestines" (AE 9136)
• See Luther's advice in his "A Simple Way to Pray"
  (1535) where he suggest taking each of the
  commandments, each part of the Creed "in their
  fourfold aspect, namely, as a school text, song
  book, penitential book, and prayer book" (AE
  43209).

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Tentatio

• God uses tentatio (spiritual affliction, trial,
  and temptation) to drive a way from self and to
  His promises alone.
• "Anyone who meditates can expect to suffer.
  Luther once again also allows Psalm 119 to
  prescribe this experience. Therefore in light of
  this third rule, he expects students of theology
  also to see themselves in the role of the
  psalmist who 'complains so often about all kinds
  of enemies.. .that he has to put up with because
  he meditates, that is, because he is occupied
  with God's word (as has been said) in all manner
  of ways'" (Bayer).

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Tentatio

• Tentatio happens within the context of a person's
  vocation.
• Tentatio is testing, temptation, and trial which
  occurs when God and his word intersect with us
  and our world" (Pfeiffer). Suffering happens
  precisely because a person is faithful to his
  calling.
• Note Luther's comments on "cross bearing" (see AE
  51195-208). "Peace with God brings conflict and
  adversity with the world, the flesh, and the
  devil" (Hein).
• "When we meditate on the first commandment we
  are involved in a battle between the one Lord and
  the many lords (cf. 1 Cor. 85f)" (Bayer).

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Tentatio

• Pastors are not exempt from tentatio. In fact God
  uses it to draw us away from our own abilities to
  the gifts He gives in the Gospel and the
  Sacraments. See II Corinthians 41-12.
• Note Luther on Genesis 3232, our Lord Jesus
  Christ, tested Jacob not to destroy him but to
  confirm and strengthen him and that in his fight
  he might more correctly learn the might of the
  promise (AE 6144).

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Tentatio

• Tentatio raises the issue of the hidden God.
• In meeting the Deus nudus, the human being
  cannot decide if it confronted by God or the
  devil the Anfechtungen are only conquered by
  turning to God in his revelation (Alfvag).

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Tentatio

• "I did not learn my theology all at once, but had
  to search constantly deeper and deeper for it. My
  temptations did that for me, for no one can
  understand Holy Scripture without practice and
  temptations. That is what the enthusiasts and
  sects lack. They don't have the right critic, the
  devil, who is the best teacher of theology. If we
  don't have that kind of devil, then we become
  nothing but speculative theologians, who do
  nothing but walk around in our own thoughts and
  speculate with our reason alone as to whether
  things should be like this, or like that" says
  Luther in a "table talk" of 1532 (AE 5450).

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Tentatio

• Luther is thankful for his enemies. God uses them
  to make him a real theologian
• Luther even speaks of the devil as the doctor of
  consolation
• Temptation turns the student of Gods Word into a
  real theologian.

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Tentatio

• Spiritual attack (Anfechtung) itself is not the
  touchstone of the genuineness of faith, if by
  faith we mean the truthfulness and credibility of
  the believer. Rather it is the touchstone of
  God's word, which demonstrates its credibility
  and power in times of spiritual attack and fight
  against it" (Bayer)

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Tentatio

• Luther (Galatians 1535) "Therefore I admonish
  you, especially those of you who are to become
  instructors of consciences, as well as each of
  you individually, that you exercise yourselves
  continually by study, by reading, by meditation
  and by prayer, so that in temptation you will be
  able to instruct consciences, both your own and
  others, and take them from the law to grace, from
  active righteous to passive righteousness, in
  short from Moses to Christ. In affliction and in
  the conflict of conscience it is the devil's
  habit to frighten us with the law and to set
  against us the consciousness of sin, our wicked
  past, the wrath and judgment of God, hell, and
  eternal death, so that he may drive us into
  despair, subject us to himself, and pluck us from
  Christ" (AE 2610).

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Tentatio

• "He (Luther) is comforted in times of trial and
  spiritual attack (Anfechtung) by the promises of
  Christ's word. But he cannot hold onto that
  comfort, the 'forgiveness of sins' as 'life and
  salvation,' by his own strength. He remains
  forever dependent on the power of God himself,
  the Holy Spirit, to be able to overcome once
  again every new spiritual attack (Bayer).