The second post cataloging Martin Luther’s comments on Aristotle’s ethics and Ethics.

It is sometimes thought that Luther softened his view of Aristotle toward the end of his life. I think that there is a good case that this re-evaluation started much earlier.^[1]

The entry below can serve as evidence. In remarks on Psalm 127 first published in 1534, Luther speaks highly of Aristotle’s Ethics and Politics, as well as of Xenophon, Plato, and Cicero, while noting that they are all inferior to Solomon as a “teacher of politics” (doctor politicus). Why? Interestingly, the answer is presented in terms of Aristotelian fourfold causality: the pagans knew the material and formal causes of government, without knowing its efficient and final causes. But Solomon, who had the Holy Spirit in addition to reason and experience, did. It is worth noting that Luther, the father of the classical version of “two kingdoms” thought, holds the politics of the Bible in high esteem and maintains a thoroughly theistic and non-secularist conception of the political.

There is more that is relevant in Luther’s introductory remarks to the Psalm that I may return to later. But, for today, here is this. I ended a lot of clauses with a preposition; get over it.

Translation (WA 40/3:202-4)

This Psalm has the heading “of Solomon,” and it is quite likely that Solomon is its author. For we see in all the books of Solomon that he is, generally speaking, a teacher of politics. Nor does he treat the principal article of his father David concerning justification or concerning Christ as the heir and descendent of David, but he treats those matters where he spent his time and was placed by God, namely politics. He does this, moreover, in such a way that no philosopher has ever taught about politics in a comparable manner. For he transfers all of politics to faith, and, whatever is done, be it in the commonwealth or in the household, this he refers to God’s administration–something that other writers, whether philosophers or orators, do not do. For although they dictate laws and write arguments by which the commonwealth can be rightly administered and the family beautifully governed, they still do not know where a successful outcome is to be sought from, in order for the things they have rightly deliberated about end in success. For they know only the material and formal cause of both political and household governance, but they do not know their final and efficient cause–that is, they are ignorant of where political and household governance come from and who they are preserved by, as well as what they aim at.

Aristotle, therefore, in his Ethics and Politics, likewise Xenophon, Plato, Cicero, and others, although they wrote excellently about the commonwealth, still did not touch on its true final and efficient cause. For they think that the final and chief cause is political peace, honor, glory, etc. But they establish the efficient cause as being the wise man, or the prudent magistrate, or, as they themselves say, the good man and citizen. But we shall hear Solomon to discuss the matter in a different and more proper way.

Philosophers, therefore, rightly maintain the formal cause as to how a commonwealth should be managed, as to the fact that sometimes commutative justice, sometimes distributive justice should be followed, and that according to the latter the guilty should be punished and the innocent defended, while according to the former contracts should be established, etc. They treat this cause in the most beautiful and best way, but this is not enough; for, when these things have been instituted in such a way, a successful outcome is still lacking. We see the wisest men to be weighed down and disturbed when they see that a successful outcome is absent from their most beautiful deliberations. For they have the most just and honorable laws, and they take the greatest pains for those laws to be preserved, but they get stuck on the efficient and final cause. For, because they decree the end to be glory, peace, and wealth, but these outcomes do not always happen, but often even the opposite occurs, it is therefore clear that these outcomes are not the final cause. On the other hand, some other person is more fortunate by how much he is worse and more negligent: the disturbance cause by this matter rouses good men to impatience to a greater degree. For that reason, everything depends on our knowing the reason why things happen in this way, that is, that good men are commonly in the worst condition, just as many dissolute and ill-willed household managers prosper, while the best are in need.

Therefore, it is apparent that philosophers and gentiles cannot speak of the governance of commonwealths and households in the same way as the Holy Spirit, for they themselves have and follow reason alone. But Solomon has the Holy Spirit, who teaches him about the final and efficient cause of the governance of political jurisdictions and households; and he has reason and experience, too, because he governed both his commonwealth and his home.^[2]