Grisar Hartmann

LUTHER (Vol. 1-6)


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after such wanderings out of the right path and the exhibition of such mental confusion, Luther could proclaim so loudly the victory of his “servum arbitrium.” He describes his proof of the “unchanging, eternal and infallible will by which God foresees, orders and carries out all things” as a “thunderbolt” launched against the Erasmic and Popish heresy.

      Even the editor of the Weimar edition of the “De servo arbitrio” is unable to refrain from remarking in connection with one such passage: “It cannot be denied that this mechanical conception of a God, Who is constantly at work, reeks strongly of pantheism.”[829] He also quotes the opinion of Kattenbusch: “Luther occasionally expresses his idea [of God’s constant action] very imperfectly.” “God becomes to a certain extent the slave of His own Power,” and all things “lose their resistance when in His presence.” “There is no doubt that the whole conception is strongly impregnated with pantheism.”[830] Kattenbusch says further: “Relying on such an argument, Luther could not fail to advocate the view that everything is determined by God, even what has no bearing on morality or religion.” Finally he concludes: “We were therefore right in refusing, as we did, to admit that Luther’s proposition: ‘Omnia necessario fiunt’ (p. 134 in the Erl. ed.) applied merely to the domain of morals, as Luther himself tries to make us believe.”[831] This subsequent explanation given by Luther is only a fresh proof of his mental confusion. Kattenbusch brings forward other evidences of the conflicting currents in Luther’s train of thought; for instance, in his conception of God and of destiny; into these we have, however, no time to enter.[832]

      The theoretical weakness of Luther’s attack on free-will and its manifest bias in his own religious psychology caused the theologian O. Scheel to exclaim regretfully: “Luther impressed a deterministic stamp on the fundamental religious ideas which he put before the world.” Luther’s determinism was vainly repudiated as a “reformed heresy” by the later Protestants. It is true that Luther based his predestinarian sayings on his “personal experience of salvation, which he felt to have been a free gift,” but then his “religious state was not normal,” as Kattenbusch already had “rightly pointed out.” Luther’s doctrine of the distinction between the “Deus absconditus” and the “Deus revelatus” Scheel ascribes to a false conception of God,[833] though he is inclined to look with favour on Luther’s fatalism, finding therein “nothing irreligious,” but merely Luther’s lively “trust in God”; he even speaks of the “religious power and truth inherent in this idea.”[834]

      Under another aspect the work exhibits, better than any other, the undeniable qualities of its writer, the elasticity of his mind, his humour and imagination, and his startling readiness to turn every circumstance to advantage; at the same time, undoubtedly because it was a case of breaking a lance with Erasmus, the style is more polished than usual and the language less abusive. The editor of the Weimar edition speaks of the book as the “most brilliant of Luther’s Latin polemics, nay, perhaps the most brilliant of all his controversial works.”[835]

      Luther would not have committed this great work to writing had not his mind been full of the subject. How far calm deliberation had any place in the matter it is as hard to determine here, as it is in so many of his other productions, where feeling seems to hold the reins. It is likewise difficult to understand how Luther, in practice, managed to compromise with the ideas he expounds, more especially as he was the leader of a movement on the banner of which was inscribed, not the gloomy domination of fatalism, but the amelioration of religious conditions by means of moral effort in all directions. The contradiction between lack of freedom on the one hand, and practice and the general belief in free-will on the other, was a rock which he circumnavigated daily, thanks to his self-persuasion that the strands drawn by the Divine Omnipotence around the will were of such a nature as not to be perceptible and could therefore be ignored. We believe ourselves to be free, and do not feel any constraint because we surrender ourselves willingly to be guided to the right or to the left; this, however, is merely due to the exceptional fineness of the threads which set the machine in motion.

      For an ennobling of human nature and of the Christian state such a system was certainly not adapted. A tragic fate ordained that the apostasy, of which the cause was ostensibly the deepening of religious life and feeling, should bear this bitter fruit. Freedom had been proclaimed for the examination of religious truth, and now, the “submission of every man” is categorically demanded to doctrines opposed to free-will and to the dignity of the Christian. Nevertheless, both then and later, even to the present day, this curious, assertive book, like the somewhat diffident one of Erasmus, to which it was a reply—both of them so characteristic of the mind of their authors—have drawn many to examine the spirit of that age and of its two spokesmen.[836]

      In the work “De servo arbitrio,” Luther speaks of Laurentius Valla as one who had cherished similar views.[837] In his “Table-Talk” he praises his opinions on free-will and the simplicity which he cultivated both in piety and learning. “Laurentius Valla,” he says, “is the best ‘Wal’ [Italian] I have ever come across in my life.”[838] Opinions differ widely as to Valla’s views, which are expressed with enigmatical obscurity in his Dialogue “De libero arbitrio.” At a later date Erasmus took his part against Luther, rightly pointing out that Valla was seeking to explain popularly how it is that the Divine foreknowledge does not necessarily make all things happen without freedom and of necessity.[839] Valla was a Humanist and critic, but neither a theologian nor a philosopher. In the question at issue he left the decision to faith, but laid great stress on the objections raised by reason. According to a modern historian he did not deny free-will, but merely left the problem, “which he neither could nor would solve,” to the Omnipotence of God.[840]

      Luther’s Later Dicta on the Enslaved Will and on Predestination

      Luther always remained faithful to the position taken up in his great work “De servo arbitrio,” as to both the absence of freedom and predestination.

      In the Disputations of which we have records, he frequently reverts to his denial of free-will.

      In a Disputation of December 18, 1537, for the sake of debate the objection is advanced, that there is no purpose in making good resolutions owing to the will not being free: “Man,” says the opposer, “has no free-will, hence he can make no good resolutions, and sins of necessity whether he wishes to or not.” The professor’s reply runs: “Nego consequentiam. Man, it is true, cannot of himself alter his inclination to sin; he has this inclination and sins willingly, neither under compulsion nor unwillingly. Man’s will, not God, is the author of sin.”[841] On another occasion, on January 29, 1536, the objector refers to the opinions of great Churchmen of olden times, that some freedom of the will exists. The reply is: “What such men say is not to be accepted as gospel-truth; they often gave proof of weakness and stood in need of additional purification by the ‘remissio peccatorum.’ You youngsters must not get into the habit of deriding them, yet we esteem Holy Scripture more highly.”[842]—In the same year we read the following in the theses of the School: “It is godless philosophy, and censured by theology, to assert that ‘liberum arbitrium’ exists in man for the forming of a just judgment and a good intention, or that it is man’s business to choose between good and evil, life and death, etc. He who speaks thus does not know what man really is, and does not understand in the least what he is talking about.”[843]

      Melanchthon, however, found urgent reasons in the growing immorality of the young men at the University and the sight of the evil results in the religious life of the people produced by the new doctrine of the will and good works to revise what he had said on free-will in his “Loci Theologici.” In the course of time he took up an altogether different standpoint, coming at last to acknowledge free-will and a certain co-operation with grace (“Synergismus”).[844] Luther, nevertheless, was loath to break with him on account of this divergence in doctrine; out of esteem for so indispensable a fellow-worker, he even recommended to his hearers the new edition of the “Loci” without a word about the corrections in question.

      But Luther himself never surrendered his favourite idea in spite of his anxiety and horror at the effect his preaching produced on the people, who