What to Make of Luther's Theological Diversity

Abstract

How to construct a theology for our ecumenical age in which we accept the diversity of theological positions without violating one's own commitments is a pressing theological question. The article uses the diversity in Martin Luther's own work as a test case. This diversity has been a compelling, largely neglected problem for Luther's work. In the Reformer's often overlooked reflections on his own theological diversity and how he envisions it can be reconciled, we find an overlooked model for doing constructive theology today—an approach that takes seriously the pastoral mandate to offer those themes in Christian faith that best address the situation or context that requires attention. Links between Luther's thinking and the insights of modern quantum physics (esp. its concepts of Complementarity and the Theory of Everything) are explored.