Luther on Doctors, Lawyers, Theologians, and “Man as sinner.”

It is amazing how our vocations change how we see the world.

Martin Luther noticed this and mentions it in his masterful introduction to Psalm 51.

Lawyers think of a man as the master of his property. Doctors think of a man in terms of health. Theologians, on the other hand, think of man a s sinner.

Here’s the quotation:

This is the twofold theological knowledge which David teaches in this psalm, so that the content of the psalm is the theological knowledge of man and also the theological knowledge of God. Let no one, therefore, ponder the Divine Majesty, what God has done and how mighty He is; or think of man as the master of his property, the way the lawyer does; or of his health, the way the physician does. But let him think of man as sinner.

The proper subject of theology is man guilty of sin and condemned, and God the Justifier and Savior of man the sinner. Whatever is asked or discussed in theology outside this subject, is error and poison. All Scripture points to this, that God commends His kindness to us and in His Son restores to righteousness and life the nature that has fallen into sin and condemnation. The issue here is not this physical life—what we should eat, what work we should undertake, how we should rule our family, how we should till the soil. All these things were created before man in Paradise and were put into man’s hands when God said (Gen. 1:28), “Have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air.” The issue here is the future and eternal life; the God who justifies, repairs, and makes alive; and man, who fell from righteousness and life into sin and eternal death. Whoever follows this aim in reading the Holy Scriptures will read holy things fruitfully.

Martin Luther, LW 12:311.