馬丁路德論世俗政權及戰爭

Martin Luther's View on Temporal Authority and War

廖元威(Yuan-wei Liao)

《華神期刊》 8期 (2016/11) Pp. 61-85

並列摘要

Without understanding Luther's Doctrine of the Two Kingdoms it would be difficult to appropriately understand Luther's view on war because the two themes are closely connected in his thought. God has established two realms or kingdoms as well as two governments, with the Temporal Authority as the left-hand government and the Church as the right-hand government, according to Luther. The authority of launching a war belongs only to the left-hand kingdom of God which is the civil government, not the Church. Luther thus by all means denies the medieval view that the Church has the authority to wage a Holy War. In the 1520s, Luther insists that the inferior magistrates are by no means permitted to wage war against their superiors. However, when the Augsburg Confession was rejected by Charles V and the Lutherans under military threat, Luther was persuaded that the Protestant princes were entitled the right of self-defense in cases of ＂atrocious injury.＂ Since late 1536, Luther started to endorse Melanchthon's position based on the natural law that it is legal to defeat forces with forces, and concurred with the idea that Elector John Frederic should fight against the Emperor once under severe threat. Luther's view on war was definitely shaped during the Peasant War and the imminent danger of Turkish invasion into the Holy Roman Empire. It was specifically during the latter that Luther made his mature statement against the idea of Holy War.