In Todd Hains' recent study, Martin Luther and the Rule of Faith, the fundamental struggle for a right reading and usage of Scripture consists of how the Bible is meant for God's people. Historians and biographers commonly acknowledge the various identifiers through which the life of the sixteenth-century Augustinian friar Martin Luther can be observed, including as monk, professor and pastor. Although Luther held many of these roles simultaneously, Hains emphasises that fundamentally, ‘Whether in life or death, the ministry of the word was Luther's vocation’ (p. 1). The fulfillment of this office entailed that Luther could neither escape the everyday pastoral care of souls nor the battle against God and the enemies of God's people. These enemies (e.g. the Church of Rome, the Schwärmer), as it turned out, also wielded the same ‘sword’ of Scripture, and so Hains highlights Luther's notion of the ongoing fight of ‘Scripture against Scripture’ that characterised his three decades of service in the ministerial office. The answer against both fronts for the right interpretation and handling of Scripture was reading it according to ‘the analogy of faith’ (p. 3).
Claims about what the analogia fidei is abound, so Hains wisely grounds his investigation upon Luther's sermons on Romans 12:6, a locus classicus for grasping the concept. Overall, Hains prioritises Luther's preaching for his source material, supplementing it with other writings (and genres) from Luther's corpus. This method provides a fair sampling of Luther's understanding of the analogy of faith across his career that evinces both theory and practice at work in his thought. Careful study of Luther's sermons on Romans 12:6 reveal, according to Hains, that the Wittenberg pastor identified the ‘catechism’ as the proper analogia fidei for faithful interpretation of Scripture. In chapter 2, ‘The Ancient Catechism’, Hains strives to demonstrate that for Luther the catechism was qualified to serve as the referent of the Apostle Paul's ‘analogy of faith’ in Romans 12:6, because it expressed Scripture's primary substance (res), that is, ‘the trinitarian history, word, and work as given in the Bible’ (p. 32). It was comprised of the Ten Commandments, the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and in many cases Luther also included the sacraments (baptism, communion and absolution). As a pedagogical tool, it guided ‘simple Christians’ – for whom Luther believed the Bible was intended – in sound Christian faith and doctrine, promoting Jesus Christ as its central subject matter and training readers in the proper distinction between law and gospel. Chapter 3, ‘The Childish Doctrine’, presents Luther's understanding of the catechism part by part. As the analogy of faith, it ‘unfolds the inner logic of the Bible’, and thus, serves as the best ‘rule’ for interpreting Scripture with Scripture (pp. 78–9).
With his study's primary claim established, Hains spends chapters 4–8 demonstrating Luther's practice of working with the catechism as the analogy of faith for reading the Pentateuch (ch. 4), the historical books (ch. 5), the Wisdom books (ch. 6), the prophets (ch. 7), and the New Testament (ch. 8). Each case study offers a focused window into Luther's usage of the catechism when interpreting biblical texts, but probably the clearest example comes from the Reformer's interaction with the Psalms in chapter 6. Hains narrows his scope to Luther's teaching and preaching on Psalm 72, showing how he reads it according to the second and third articles of the Creed, and then briefly features a quick analysis of Luther's, Summaries of the Psalms (1531–1532). This particular writing displays Luther's attempt to connect each psalm with relevant portions of the Ten Commandments and the Lord's Prayer (the helpful table on p. 115 shows how Luther practiced this use of the analogy of faith for Pss 1–31).
Hains has gifted Luther studies with a significant contribution that continues to shed needed light upon the overarching pastoral nature of the Reformer's engagement with Scripture, an endeavour always intended for the people of God. He has argued a compelling case, with extensive investigation into the primary sources for identifying the catechism as structuring Luther's general conception of ‘the analogy of faith’. One question that lingers pertains to the relationship between Scripture and the analogia fidei. The strongest cases for Luther's reading of the Bible according to the catechism as ‘the analogy of faith’ arguably occur when he explicitly invokes the Ten Commandments or the Lord's Prayer (see e.g. the excursus on Luther's Summaries of the Psalms on pp. 111–12); however, multiple instances where the articles of the Creed were cited as playing an interpretive role seemed more ambiguous. For example, in chapter 6 with the aforementioned sermons on Psalm 72, Hains proposes that Luther interprets the messianic king according to the second article, leading to a view of this royal figure that coheres with God the Son incarnate confessed in the Creed. Yet is this outcome the result of the second article's (res) theological presence in his reading of the Psalm or the biblical text's (verba) literal sense pressure upon Luther's faithful exegesis? Certainly, Luther benefits from living on this side of Nicaea and Chalcedon for his theological grammar, but probing this distinction engages broader discussions about the nature of the regula fidei, concerning whether it should be foremost regarded as a summary of doctrine (i.e. tradition) or a hermeneutical tool that discloses the Bible's (especially the Old Testament's) own material witness. Most likely, Hains’ answer would be ‘yes’, given his presentation of how closely Luther associates the analogy of faith with the Bible and God's Word. Still, one wonders if the evidence actually showcases more so Luther's movement from ‘text to faith’ than from ‘faith to text’.
Besides this important discussion, Hains’ book invites many other avenues for vibrant dialogue that similarly extend beyond Luther scholarship into the fields of biblical hermeneutics, theological interpretation of Scripture, and pastoralia. The extensive footnotes demonstrate how thoroughly conversant Hains is with the relevant scholarship – English and German – yet he has written a lucid and lively volume for a much broader readership. Much akin to the catechetical spirit of his study, Hains prefaces his book with a ‘Prayer to Receive God's Word’. May the Triune Lord answer his prayer, using this superb volume to do just that.
