what is good.
“Free-will,” he says here, “is purely passive in every one of its acts (‘in omni actu suo’) which can come under the term of will. … A good act comes wholly and entirely (‘totus et totaliter’) from God, because the whole activity of the will consists in the Divine action which extends to the members and powers of both body and soul, no other activity existing.”[637] In another passage of the “Resolutions” he says: “At whatever hour of our life we may find ourselves we are the slaves either of concupiscence or of charity, for both govern free-will (‘utraque enim dominabitur libero arbitrio’).”[638] Julius Köstlin is right when he sees in such words the complete renunciation of free-will. “Of man’s free-will in the ordinary sense of the term, or of any independent choice for good or for evil which should include the possibility of a different decision, there is, according to Luther, no question.” Köstlin points out that Luther does not here go into the question as to whether the sinfulness and corruption of the lost are to be attributed to God, Who did not cause His saving grace to be sufficiently efficacious in them.[639] Luther certainly contrived to avoid this dangerous objection, not only here, but also for long after when speaking on the subject of the will.
In the “Resolutions” Luther had merely represented his opposition to free-will as the consequence of his doctrine of the corruption of human nature due to original sin, but subsequent to the appearance of the Bull of Excommunication he goes further and declares the denial of the “liberum arbitrium” to be nothing less than the fundamental article of his teaching (“articulus omnium optimus et rerum nostrarum summa”).[640] Among the propositions condemned by the Papal Bull was Luther’s thesis directed against free-will at the Heidelberg Disputation. It was given in Luther’s own words, viz. that free-will is a mere empty name, etc.
In defence of the condemned propositions Luther wrote, in 1520, the “Assertio omnium articulorum,” which was published in 1521. To prove his denial of free-will it is usual to quote his “De servo arbitrio,” but the “Assertio” already contains in substance all the strictures embodied in his later attacks.
After dealing with other subjects, he there declares that, as for the question of free-will, he had expressed himself far too feebly when speaking of the semblance of freedom; the term “liberum arbitrium” was a device of the devil; hence he withdraws his previous statement which erred on the side of weakness; he ought to have said that free-will was a lie, an invention (“figmentum in rebus”). “No one has the power even to think anything evil or good, but everything takes place agreeably with stern necessity (‘omnia de necessitate absolute eveniunt’), as Wiclif rightly taught, though his proposition was condemned by the Council of Constance.”[641]
Luther now appeals to the belief in fate with which the heathen were already acquainted. He also appeals to the Gospel which surely gives him reason, for does not Christ say (Matt. x.): “Not a sparrow shall fall to the ground without your Father in Heaven,” and “the very hairs of your head are all numbered”? And in Isaias xli. does not God mockingly challenge the people: “Do ye also good and evil if you can”? The Pope and the defenders of the Bull, with their doctrine of free-will, he looks upon as prophets of Baal and he calls to them ironically: “Cheer up and be men; do what you can, attempt what is possible, and prepare yourselves for grace by your own free-will. It is a great disgrace that you are unable to produce anything from experience in support of your teaching.”
“The experience of all,” he says boldly, “testifies to the contrary”; God has our life in His hands, and how much more all our actions, even the most insignificant. It is Pelagian to say that free-will is able, by means of earnest effort (“si studiose laboret”), to do anything good; it is Pelagian to think that the will can prepare itself for grace; Pelagian too, is the principle handed down in the schools, that God gives His grace to the man who does what he can. For if we do what we can, we perform the works of the flesh! “Do we not know the works which are of the flesh? St. Paul specifies them, Galatians v.: Fornication, uncleanness, immodesty, luxury, envies, murders, etc. This is what free-will works, i.e. what is of its nature, viz. works of death; for in Romans viii. we read: ‘The wisdom of the flesh is death and an enemy to God.’ How can we then speak of preparation for grace by enmity with God, of preparation for life by death?”[642]
In these somewhat disorderly effusions of his pen he repeatedly harks back to the Bible, strangely forcing his texts. Paul denies free-will, saying in Ephesians i.: “God works all in all,” thus confirming the fact “that man, even when he does and thinks what is wrong, is not responsible.”[643] “God even works what is evil in the impious,”[644] as is written in Proverbs xvi.: “The Lord hath made all things for Himself, the wicked also for the evil day,” and in Romans i., of the heathen: “God delivered them up to a reprobate sense to do those things which are not convenient.”
Room is also found for philosophical arguments: God as the highest Being cannot permit Himself to be influenced by man’s changeableness, in the way that free-will would involve; on the contrary, He must, by virtue of His nature, determine everything Himself, down to the very smallest matters; nor does He do so merely by the “influentia generalis” (“concursus divinus generalis”), which, according to the “chatterboxes,” alone assists our free-will; free-will must perish (“periit”) in order to make room for a strict and compelling influence. This applies to our pardon, for we cannot elicit or snatch this from God by our own efforts, as though we surprised Him in slumber. “O furor, furorum omnium novissimus!” he exclaims of the Papal Bull in the midst of this philosophical and theological digression: “All is of necessity, for we—every man and every creature—live and act not as we will, but as God wills. In God’s presence the will ceases to exist.”[645]
It is not surprising that Augustine also is made to bear witness in his favour.
This Doctor of the Church, though in many passages he declares himself emphatically in favour of free-will, nevertheless frequently in his works against the Pelagians asserts (perhaps too strongly were we to consider his words apart from that heated controversy) that, without grace, and left to itself, free-will cannot as a rule avoid sin; on such occasions he does not always express the firm conviction he also holds, viz. that the will nevertheless of its own strength is able to do what is naturally good. In one passage, he says for instance, apparently quite generally: “Free-will in its captive state has strength only to sin; for righteousness it has none until it has been set free by God, and then only with His help.”[646] And elsewhere again: “Free-will can do nothing but sin, when the path of truth is hidden.”[647] This latter assertion Luther places as a trump card at the head of the discussion of his thirty-sixth condemned proposition, though he alters the wording.[648] As a matter of fact it is not difficult to prove, as we shall do below, that Luther was quite wrong in appealing to the Doctor of Hippo in support of his own teaching.
Of more importance for the present account is the significant position which Luther assigns to his supposed rediscovery of the doctrine of the captive will. He is full of enthusiasm for the idea of a religion of the enslaved will. This new religion of the enslaved will appears to him in the light of a “theology of the cross,” which, in return for his renunciation of free-will, descends upon man in order to point out to him the true road to God. “For what honour remains to God were we able to accomplish so much?” “The world has allowed itself to be seduced by the flattering doctrine of free-will which is pleasing to nature.”[649] If any point of his teaching, then certainly that of the captive will is to be accounted one of the “most sublime mysteries of our faith and religion, which only the godless know not, but to which the true Christian holds fast.”[650]
It fills one with grief and tears, he says, to see how the Pope and his followers—poor creatures—in their frivolity and madness, fail to recognise this truth. All the other Popish articles are endurable in comparison with this vital point, the Papacy, Councils, Indulgences and all the other unnecessary tomfoolery.[651] Not one jot do they understand concerning the will. Sooner shall the heavens fall than their eyes be opened to this basic truth. Christ, it is true, has nought to do with Belial, or darkness with light. The Popish Church knows only how to teach and to sell good works, its worldly