[Music] martin luther was an augustinian monk who objected to a number of church practices that had become common during his day most famously the sale of indulgences which in luther's time more or less involved making an offering to the church for the purpose of decreasing one's own or a loved one's time in purgatory drawing on the central theological insight that salvation comes by grace alone through faith alone rather than through works or one's own merit luther shifted the focus of the moral life for luther ethics is not primarily a matter of following a set of
rules or laws but is best understood as a free and thankful response to the grace of god which comes as a pure gift from faith flow forth love and joy in the lord and from love a cheerful willing free spirit disposed to serve our neighbor voluntarily without taking any account of gratitude or ingratitude praise or blame he says for luther the christian lives out of the freedom of the gospel rather than under the obligation of the law those who are influenced by luther often emphasize a strong distinction between law and gospel the purpose of law
is to curb human sin to show us how much we need the gospel but the gospel is the engine of the moral life the experience of god's grace and forgiveness is what drives us toward love and action we could say that for luther ethics is the divine imperative what we must do which flows out of the divine indicative what christ has already done luther believed there were distinct orders of creation that had been ordained by god to preserve the sinful and broken world these include political orders like the government domestic orders like family and marriage
economic orders like markets these orders belong to the realm of law rather than grace and they have their own distinct rules so when christians participate in these orders they should seek to be merciful and kind as far as they can but the rules of the orders have their own independence before god to try to christianize the market or the political order itself would be a fool's errand this is sometimes called luther's two kingdoms theology while the church is the location of god's spiritual kingdom the state represents god's temporal kingdom where worldly power harshly restrains evil
luther gives us a picture of the moral life as a free response to god's grace he believes this will lead us into a sort of freedom and joy that cannot be had so long as we're trying to justify ourselves by living according to that law the christian has an otherworldly faith that stands in tension with the orders of creation which provides structure and order for our common life [Music]
