In Christianity, an antinomian is one who denies the fixed meaning and applicability of moral law and believes that salvation is attained solely through faith and divine grace. Many antinomians, however, believe that Christians will obey moral law despite being free from it.
The distinction between antinomian and other Christian views on moral law is that antinomians believe that obedience to the law is motivated by an internal principle flowing from belief rather than from any external compulsion.[1]
The term antinomianism emerged soon after the Protestant Reformation (c.1517) and has historically been used as apejorative against Christian thinkers or sects who carried their belief in justification by faith further than was customary.[2] Antinomianism in modern times is commonly seen as the theological opposite to Legalism or Works righteousness, the notion that obedience to religious law earns salvation. This makes antinomianism an exaggeration of justification by faith alone.
Examples are Martin Luther's critique of antinomianism and the Antinomian Controversy of the 17th century Massachusetts Bay Colony. Although the term originated in the 16th century, the topic has its roots in Christian views on the old covenant extending back to the 1st century. It can also be extended to any individual who rejects a socially established morality.[3] Few groups, other than Christian anarchists or Jewish anarchists, explicitly call themselves antinomian.
Etymology[edit]
Christianity[edit]
Antinomianism has been a point of doctrinal contention in the history of Christianity, especially in Protestantism. Given the Protestant belief in justification through faith alone, versus on the basis of merit or good works or works of mercy, most Protestants consider themselves saved without having to keep the commandments of the Mosaic Law as a whole. However, consistent with the Reformed formula, “We are justified by faith alone but not by a faith that is alone”,[4] salvific faith has overall been seen as one that effected obedience, in contrast to rejecting moral constraint.
The term "antinomianism" was coined by Martin Luther during the Reformation, to criticize extreme interpretations of the new Lutheran soteriology.[5] In the 18th century, antinomianism would also be severely attacked by John Wesley.[6]
A general consensus has been historically reached as to which laws of the Old Testament Christians are still enjoined to keep. These moral laws, as opposed to civil or ceremonial laws, are derivative of what St. Paul refers to as the natural law (Rom. 2.14-15). Mosaic law has authority only insofar as it reflects the commands of Christ and the natural law. Christian sects and theologians who believe that they are freed from more moral constraint than is customary are often called "antinomian" by their critics. Thus the classic Methodist commentator Adam Clarke held, "The Gospel proclaims liberty from the ceremonial law: but binds you still faster under the moral law. To be freed from the ceremonial law is the Gospel liberty; to pretend freedom from the moral law is Antinomianism."[7] The contemporary Evangelical theologian J. I. Packer states that Antinomianism "which means being anti-law, is a name for several views." [8]
Gnosticism[edit]
Although the term came into use only in the sixteenth century, the doctrine itself can be traced in the teaching of earlier beliefs.[9] Early Gnostic sects were accused of failure to follow the Mosaic Law in terms that suggest the modern term "antinomian". Some Gnostic sects did not accept parts of the Old Testament moral law. For example, the Manichaeans held that their spiritual being was unaffected by the action of matter and regarded carnal sins as being, at worst, forms of bodily disease.Marcionism, though technically not gnostic, rejected the Hebrew Bible in its entirety. Such deviations from the moral law were criticized by proto-orthodox rivals of the Gnostics, who ascribed various aberrant and licentious acts to them. A biblical example of such criticism can be found in Revelation 2:6–15, which criticizes theNicolaitanes, an early Gnostic sect.
Lutheranism[edit]
See also: Martin Luther § Antinomian controversy
The term "antinomianism" was coined by Martin Luther during the Reformation, to criticize extreme interpretations of the new Lutheran soteriology.[5] The Lutheran Church benefited from early antinomian controversies by becoming more precise in distinguishing between Law and Gospel and justification and sanctification. Martin Luther developed 258 theses during his six antinomian disputations, which continue to provide doctrinal guidance to Lutherans today.[5]
Upon hearing that he was being charged with rejection of the Old Testament moral law, Luther responded: "And truly, I wonder exceedingly, how it came to be imputed to me, that I should reject the Law or ten Commandments, there being extant so many of my own expositions (and those of several sorts) upon the Commandments, which also are daily expounded, and used in our Churches, to say nothing of the Confession and Apology, and other books of ours."[10] In his "Introduction to Romans," Luther stated that saving faith is, "a living, creative, active and powerful thing, this faith. Faith cannot help doing good works constantly. It doesn’t stop to ask if good works ought to be done, but before anyone asks, it already has done them and continues to do them without ceasing. Anyone who does not do good works in this manner is an unbeliever...Thus, it is just as impossible to separate faith and works as it is to separate heat and light from fire!"[11]
First Antinomian controversy[edit]
As early as 1525, Johannes Agricola, in his commentary on Luke, advanced his idea that the law was a futile attempt of God to work the restoration of mankind. He maintained that while non-Christians were still held to the Mosaic law, Christians were entirely free from it, being under the Gospel alone. He viewed sin as a malady or impurity rather than an offense rendering the sinner guilty and damnable before God. The sinner was the subject of God's pity rather than of his wrath. To Agricola, the purpose of repentance was to abstain from evil rather than the contrition of a guilty conscience. The law had no role in repentance, which came about after one came to faith and was caused by the knowledge of the love of God alone.[5]
In contrast, Philipp Melanchthon urged that repentance must precede faith, and that knowledge of the moral law is needed to produce repentance. He later wrote in theAugsburg Confession, that repentance had two parts. "One is contrition, that is, terrors smiting the conscience through the knowledge of sin; the other is faith, which is born of the Gospel, or of absolution, and believes that for Christ's sake, sins are forgiven, comforts the conscience, and delivers it from terrors."[12]
Shortly after Melanchthon drew up the 1527 Articles of Visitation in June, Agricola began to be verbally aggressive toward him, but Martin Luther succeeded in smoothing out the difficulty at Torgau in December 1527. However, Agricola did not change his ideas, and later depicted Luther as disagreeing with him. After Agricola moved to Wittenberg, he still maintained that while the law must be used in the courthouse, it must not be used in the church. He said that repentance comes from hearing the good news only and does not precede but rather follows faith. He continued to disseminate this doctrine in books, despite receiving various warnings from Luther.[5]
Luther, with reluctance, at last believed he had to make public comment against antinomianism and its promoters in 1538 and 1539.[13] Agricola apparently yielded, and Luther's book Against the Antinomians (1539)[14] was to serve as Agricola's recantation. This was the first use of the term Antinomian.[15][9] But the conflict flared up again, and Agricola sued Luther. He said that Luther had slandered him in his disputations, Against the Antinomians, and in his On the Councils and Churches (1539). But before the case could be brought to trial, Agricola, though he had bound himself to remain at Wittenberg, left the city and moved to Berlin, where he had been offered a position as preacher to the court. After his arrival there, he made peace with the Saxons, acknowledged his "error", and gradually conformed his doctrine to that which he had before opposed and assailed. He still used such terms as gospel and repentance in a different manner than Luther.[5]
Second Antinomian controversy[edit]
The antinomian doctrine, however, was not eliminated from Lutheranism. Melanchthon and those who agreed with him, called Philippists, were checked by the Gnesio-Lutherans in the Second Antinomian Controversy during the Augsburg Interim. The Philippists ascribed to the Gospel alone the ability to work repentance, to the exclusion of the law. They blurred the distinction between Law and Gospel by considering the Gospel itself to be a moral law. They did not identify Christ's fulfillment of the law with the commandments which humans are expected to follow.[5]
As a result, the Book of Concord rejects antinomianism in the last confession of faith. The Formula of Concord rejects antinominism in the fifth article, On the Law and the Gospel[16] and in the sixth article, On the Third Use of the Law.[17]