LUTHERAN THEOLOGICAL REVIEW - Brock University

STEPHENSON: LET YOUR HOLY ANGEL BE WITH ME 41
Maybe the Enlightenment had a grain of truth on its side when it resolved to
explain even catastrophic happenings in terms of this-worldly secondary
causes. But modernism certainly went too far when it had Kant’s
autonomous man write the script of his own history as the master of his own
destiny. Luther’s naïveté runs more with the grain of Scripture and
experience than does the terrible hubris of the scientific materialist. A strong
echo of the De servo arbitrio is to be heard in both the Reformer’s
angelology and demonology. His comments on the closing chapters of
Daniel attest his view that under the hand of God superhuman powers of
good and ill are at work shaping the fate of humankind. This opinion cannot
be dismissed as unbiblical mediaevalism. And both Luther’s demonology
and his angelology speak powerfully to our post-modernist world that in the
last decade of the second millennium has developed an ambivalent
fascination with angels. Weak man may not in fact be an independent rider
capable of choosing his own course, but rather a lowly beast ridden either by
God or by the Devil. Beings touted as angels may turn out to be devils
disguised as agents of light. Moreover, angels may not be accessible through
the yellow pages, but may rather be servants of the crucified, risen, and
ascended God-Man assigned to guard those who belong to Him. Indeed, our
epoch of resurgent paganism may yet find much needed wisdom in the
Reformer’s charming, naïve, and deeply believing Michaelmas sermon of
1530.
John R. Stephenson is Associate Professor of Historical Theology at
Concordia Lutheran Theological Seminary, St. Catharines, Ontario.