The Concept of God in Luther and the Lutheran Confessions

This essay concerns itself chiefly with the concept of God, revealed especially in His works of creation and preservation, as the obiectum amabile, whom men are not merely to adore, but pre-eminently to love. However, since the Deus Creator is also the Deus Redemptor and Deus Sanctificator, it must, on the one hand, go beyond the narrow scope of the First Article of the Apostles\u27 Creed as explained by Luther in his Large and Small Catechisms, while, on the other, it cannot nearly exhaust the great wealth of weighty truths that come within the compass of the study of the Divine Being as man\u27s Maker and Keeper. The point of emphasis in this article is on the fact that Luther, of whose teachings the Lutheran Confessions are hardly more than an application and elaboration, envisaged God principally in the glory of His grace and love and so as the obiectum amabile. He did not approach the theology of God from the point of view of His absolute lordship, or sovereignty, as did Calvin and in part also the medieval theologians, but from that of divine love depicted in the Gospel