From Steve Wedgeworth:

Wright states:

The natural world, in this case, would be autonomous or free of God’s law, so that people could make their own rules as they go about their lives and work.  Moreover, this talk of spiritual life and Luthardt’s general emphasis on morality seem to demonstrate charges that Luthardt reduced Christianity to a matter of mentality or Gesinnung, to the interior of the Christian.  This would clearly be contrary to Luther’s teaching.

(21)

Wright then goes on to show that this is actually an inaccurate reading of Luthardt.  Due to the recent misuse of traditional terms like “natural law” and “reason,” readers are easily confused when they read Luthardt.  According to Wright, “Luthardt declared that even though these institutions were under reason, they ‘are not really profane, but God’s endowment, order, and will, and God is present in the same’” (22).  Wright adds, “The natural law, which humankind knows through reason, was God-ordained too.”

So while many modern readers might be tempted to lay the blame of the modern “two-kingdoms” view on Luthardt, this is actually not the case.  Of course, this is not to say that Luthardt plays no role in the development of the modern doctrine.  In fact, Wright goes on to show that Luthardt was influential on the next major thinker in this line of thought, Ernst Troeltsch.

Wright identifies Troeltsch as the primary culprit for the wide-spread misreading of Luther’s position on the two kingdoms.  Wright states:

In his Social Teaching of the Christian Churches, Troeltsch argued that, with his teaching about the two kingdoms, Luther had promoted a dual morality for Christians; that is, one Christian moral law over against a worldly moral code under autonomous reason.  According to Troeltsch, in Luther’s teaching, the Decalogue and the natural law were opposed to one other.

(26)

Wright goes on to say:

Troeltsch spoke of the “autonomy of the various zones of value” (Wertgebiete).  Hence, many scholars believe that he was responsible for promoting the idea that ethical values develop out of unique historical experiences; that is, the are autonomously determined in their own spheres (the economic sphere, for example).  Of course, this was most certainly not a view presented by Luther in the sixteenth-century.

(26)

Wright finds that Troeltsch promotes a Machiavellian Luther.  He does not go so far as to sanction an immoral state, and Troeltsch also noted that “reason” and “natural law” are divine institutions.  Nevertheless, Wright believes that Troeltsch “had opened a door that would be difficult to close” (28).  Wright sees the misreadings of Luther that will appear in the works of Weber and Niebuhr both directly stemming from Troeltsch.  Indeed, it would be Niebuhr’s famous Christ and Culture that most widely promoted this new misreading of Luther’s view.

Read the whole thing at Steve Wedgeworth’s blog entry.