Johann Gerhard on the Law of God

Johann Gerhard on the Law of God

Robert Bellarmine, Jesuit and Roman Catholic Cardinal, asserted that man can do more than the Law requires, for if it were impossible for man to keep the Law, it would not be binding, because the impossible does not bind anyone.  Johann Gerhard responds:

“One must distinguish between nature as it was instituted and nature as it has become destituted.  God gave His Law to man in the state of innocence, when man’s powers were still sound and whole, but in the fall and by his own fault man fell into disability.  God’s Law and justice does not become any less rigorous by this.  Why should it?  Are his obligation and workload removed if a debtor is reduced to the last line of poverty by his own fault? Of course not.  Rather, the obligation to repay his creditor remains sound in its entirety.”

Gerhard, Johann (1582-1637) Loci Theologici.  Theological Commonplaces.  On the Law of God: On the Ceremonial and Forensic Laws; translated by Richard J. Dinda; edited with annotations by Benjamin T.G. Mayes and Joshua J. Hayes.  St. Louis: Concordia Publishing, 2015.  Commonplace XVI, 217.