"Simul iustus et peccator" in Augustine, Aquinas, and Luther: Toward Putting the Debate in Context

The practice of the confession of sins is the primary context of the specifically Lutheran form of Pauline-Augustinian theology. This slowly evolving practice had, by the early fourteenth century, led to the emergence of the dialectic of the complacent and the despairing conscience. Crucial in this development is the thirteenth-century universalization of the requirement that all one's mortal sins be confessed as the ordinary condition of salvation. Neither Augustine nor Aquinas was confronted with this kind of conscience; their theologies do not address its problems. Luther's theology of 1515 focuses only on the problem of complacency, but between 1515 and 1518/1519 he develops a theological response to both complacency and despair. The more positive attitude toward Luther's theology taken by Catholic scholars during the 1960s reflects, in part, the rapid change in Catholic confessional practice. The context within which Luther's theology was formulated breaks down so that what differentiated Luther from Aquinas and other Augustinians seems less important.