Chapter 5 Nicholas of Cusa and Martin Luther on Christ and the Coincidence of Opposites
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In De docta ignorantia (1440) Nicholas of Cusa centers his conception of the coincidence of opposites in the person and work of Christ. In The Freedom of a Christian, Martin Luther concentrates his theology on the inter-connected dynamic of Christ and the Christian in a transcendent-immanent coincidence of opposites: liberty and servitude, saint and sinner, soul and body, infinite and finite, heaven and earth. Hitherto there have been few attempts to examine Cusanus’ theological method of learned ignorance and the corollary Christocentric coincidence of opposites in light of Luther’s fundamental teaching on Christian liberty and justification by faith alone through Christ alone. While theological differences remain, Cusanus’ theology and theological method of Christ and the coincidence of opposites bear striking similarities with the coincidental Christology of Luther’s The Freedom of a Christian thereby proposing a new perspective on the importance of Christology and the coincidence of opposites in Luther and pre-Reformation thought.