The reformation of conscience: Rhetoric in the Lutheran casuistry of Friedrich Balduin (1575--1627)

In this dissertation, I examine the idea of conscience, and a selection of his resolutions to cases of conscience advanced by the early seventeenth-century Lutheran pastor and theologian Friedrich Balduin. The dissertation contains fourteen chapters which can be divided roughly into three parts.;In the first part, Chapter 1 surveys the historiography of casuistry, and notes the conspicuous absence of the history of Lutheran casuistry in that historiography. Chapter 2 traces the history of the idea of conscience in the Lutheran confession and suggests how and why Balduin transformed that idea. Chapter 3 provides a biographical sketch of Balduin's life, education, and work. Chapter 4 examines why Balduin became the first Lutheran casuist, and indicates the general shape of his casuistry.;In the second part, Chapter 5 describes Balduin's theological and methodological debt to Philip Melanchthon, and shows how metaphysical concerns characteristic of the early seventeenth century led Balduin to modify Melanchthon's theological methodology. Chapter 6 depicts Balduin's discussion of the word "conscience," and explores why that word, and words in general, were important to him. Chapter 7 examines Balduin's distinctive borrowings from Alexander of Hales for his definition of conscience, and how his definition according differs from that of certain Calvinist contemporaries of his who derived their definition of conscience from Thomas Aquinas. Chapter 8 explores how unlike the Calvinists, Balduin himself turned to Aquinas for a description of the functions of conscience, and shows how these functions correspond closely to those ascribed to rhetoric by Aristotle and Cicero.;In the third part, chapters 9-14, I discuss a selection of Balduin's cases. Chapter 9 looks at Balduin's cases of conscience involving duels and honor. Chapter 10 examines cases involving usury. Chapter 11 is concerned with cases having to do with poverty and its relief. Chapter 12 deals with cases involving angels, and chapter 13, cases involving evil spirits. Chapter 14 explores Balduin's assessment of what it means to have a "good conscience," and how a good conscience is acquired and maintained.;It would take many years to study all of the topics Balduin addressed. I have chosen to study the following cases for the following reasons. Duels and usury were common cases in the literature of casuistry. The cases of charity and poverty illustrate the distinctiveness of Balduin's casuistry. Those involving angels and devils helped keep this study historical. In his discussion of dueling, Balduin asserted the moral authority of the Christian community over the that of the nobility whose social legitimacy was based on honor. In dealing with usury and poverty, for Aristotelian and Ciceronian as well as Christian reasons, Balduin privileged the needs and obligations of the community over the private interests of individuals. In cases involving angels, Balduin argued that Christians could look to angels for protection or moral inspiration, but not for new spiritual revelations; Balduin wanted to establish the church as the legitimate moral authority, and cast himself, as a Christian pastor and theologian, in an idealized role of moral leadership comparable to that of Cicero's ideal orator. The cases involving angels show how Balduin used a "renaissance humanist sense of the past" to try to eliminate the potential problem of unauthorized divine revelations. Finally, the perception of the prevalence and power of evil in the world during Balduin's time made it important to him to deal decisively with cases of conscience involving evil spirits. The case of "good conscience" is important because in it Balduin offered a kind of summary of what he was trying to accomplish. The chief themes linking all of these diverse cases together is Balduin's idea that conscience is a communal entity whose functions are analogous to those of rhetoric. This meant that the resolution of its cases depends on the education of conscience through the art of persuasion.