Recent events in Canterbury and Rome underscore this year’s significant anniversaries. I am not thinking here of the obvious one: the 1700th year since the first ecumenical council set in motion the creedal discussions that culminated in the Nicene Creed of 381. I am thinking rather of the 500th anniversary of the centerpiece of the early Reformation, Martin Luther’s treatise De Servo Arbitrio, and the 180th anniversary of the reception of John Henry Newman into the Catholic Church. They would make strange bedfellows, but both would be distressed by recent events and for a similar reason.
The differences between Luther and Newman are immense, not least on the issue at the heart of De Servo Arbitrio: the clarity of Scripture. But their understanding of Christianity does share an important principle. Christianity is at its core a doctrinal faith, defined by dogmatic statements. Confronted with Erasmus’s reduction of the faith to vague practical pieties, a concern partially driven by the Dutchman’s desire to defuse doctrinal conflict, Luther asserted that any Christianity without assertions was no Christianity at all. And in his Apologia Pro Vita Sua, Newman argued that a basic point of continuity between his teenage Protestantism and his later Roman Catholicism was his conviction that Christianity was a dogmatic faith.
This has practical implications for those Protestants and Catholics who share this conviction: Christian doctrine stands prior to, and is formative of, all Christian practice, whether institutional or personal. Neither the church nor any individual who belongs to her is a free, autonomous individual. Rather, they are bound to a form of life. From preaching to pastoral care to behavior in the workplace or on social media, Christian truth determines Christian behavior. This is not to claim that Christians are automata who respond mechanistically to life’s challenges. But it is to say that Christians are to judge how to respond by looking to the prior shape of the faith. Read More»
Carl Trueman | “Lessons From Luther And Newman” | October 9, 2025
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