to place the relationship between grace and free-will in an even clearer light, and though in the work he is rather reserved, yet his refinement of judgment and his eloquence more than compensate for his defects; these at least insured him great applause in an age so favourable to Humanism. Even the theologians were, on the whole, satisfied with the scriptural proofs adduced by so learned a man, whose linguistic knowledge and exegetical skill gave all the more weight to his work. Many cultured laymen breathed more freely, as though relieved of a heavy burden, when the authoritative voice of the great scholar was at last raised against Luther and in defence of free-will, that basic truth of sane human reason and pillar of all religious belief.
Ulrich Zasius, the Freiburg-im-Breisgau lawyer, who had hitherto been hesitating, wrote in enthusiastic praise of the work to Boniface Amerbach.[738] Duke George of Saxony expressed his thanks to the author in a letter, with the honest and not altogether unwarranted remark: “Had you come to your present decision three years ago, and withstood Luther’s shameful heresies in writing instead of merely opposing him secretly, as though you were not willing to do him much harm, the flames would not have extended so far and we should not now find ourselves in the distressing present state of things.”[739] The moderation with which the champion of free-will wrote, was commended even by Melanchthon in a letter to Erasmus (“perplacuit tua moderatio”).[740] With this, other critics, Martin Lipsius for instance, agreed.[741]
Luther was forced unwillingly to admit the kindness displayed by Erasmus, but the fact that the keen intellect of his opponent should have singled out for animadversion the most vital point of his teaching, as he termed it, was very bitter to him. The question dealt with, he said, certainly constituted the central point of the quarrel; it is absolutely essential that we should know what and how much we are capable of in our relations to God, otherwise we remain ignorant of God’s work, nay, of God Himself, and are unable to honour, to thank, or to serve Him.[742] Luther accordingly admitted, concerning Erasmus’s work—and this he was in his own way anxious to see regarded as it deserved—that the author, unlike his previous opponents, “had seized upon the real question at issue, the ‘summa causæ’ ”; he had not scolded him on the Papacy, indulgences and similar subjects, but had hit upon the cardinal point, and held the knife at his (Luther’s) throat. God had not, however, yet bestowed upon Erasmus the grace which would have fitted him to deal with the controversy. “God has not so willed nor given it; perhaps He may bestow it later and make this opponent capable of defending my doctrine more efficaciously than I can myself, seeing he is so far beyond me in all other things [especially in worldly learning].” These words, so remarkable from the psychological standpoint, are to be found in Luther’s reply.[743]
In his “Diatribe” Erasmus dwelt with emphasis and success on the fact that, according to Luther, not merely every good, but also every evil must be referred to God; this was in contradiction with the nature of God and was excluded by His holiness. According to Luther, God inflicted eternal damnation on sinners, whereas they, in so far as they were not free agents, could not be held responsible for their sins; what Luther had advanced demanded that God should act contrary to His eternal Goodness and Mercy; it would also follow that earthly laws and penalties were superfluous, because without free-will no one could be responsible; finally, the doctrine involved the overthrow of the whole moral order.
The scriptural passages bearing on the question, more particularly those appealed to by Luther in his “Assertio,” are examined with philological exactitude and with sobriety.
“Erasmus, in defending free-will,” writes A. Taube, a Protestant theologian, “fights for responsibility, duty, guilt and repentance, ideas which are essential to Christian piety. He vindicates the capacity of the natural man for salvation, without which the identity between the old and the new man cannot be maintained, and without which the new life imparted by God’s grace ceases to be a result of moral effort and becomes rather the last term of a magical process. He combats the fatalism which is incompatible with Christian piety and which Luther contrived to avoid only by his want of logic: he vindicates the moral character of the Christian religion, to which, from the standpoint of Luther’s theology, it was impossible to do justice.”[744]
The work of Erasmus reached Wittenberg in September, 1524. Luther treated it with contempt and ostentatiously repudiated it. He wrote to Spalatin, on November 1, that it disgusted him; he had been able to read only two pages of it; it was tedious to him to reply to so unlearned a book by so learned a man.[745] All the same, he did write a lengthy and detailed answer; that he delayed doing so until late in the following year is to be accounted for by the Peasant-War with its terrors, which entirely engrossed his attention; it was also the year of his marriage. In estimating the value of the reply, upon which he then set to work with great energy, we must bear in mind the state of the author and the inward and outward experiences through which he had just gone. The impression made on his mind by the events of those days has left its stamp in the even more than usually extreme utterances contained in his reply to Erasmus. When once he had begun the work he carried it to its end with a rush; he himself admits that it was composed in excessive haste. We also know to whose influence his final decision to take the work in hand was due, viz. to Catherine Bora. “It was only at her request” that he undertook the work, when she pointed out to him, “that his foes might see in his obstinate silence an admission of defeat.”[746]
Luther’s Book “On the Enslaved Will” against Erasmus
The title “De servo arbitrio,” “On the enslaved will,” was borrowed by Luther from a misunderstood saying of St. Augustine’s.[747] While the book which bears it was still in the press his friend Jonas commenced a German version and entitled it: “Dass der freie Wille nichts sei.”[748]
However grotesque and exaggerated some of the principal theses of the famous work, Luther was at pains to declare therein that they were the result of most careful deliberation and were not written in the heat of controversy. Hence, as a Protestant historian says, “we must not seek to hide or explain them away, as was soon done by Luther’s followers and has been attempted even in our own day.”[749] Another Protestant scholar, in the preface to his study on the work “De servo arbitrio,” remarks that “quite rightly it caused great scandal and wonder,” and goes on to point out that “the hard, offensive theory” which it champions was “no mere result of haste or of annoyance with Erasmus, coupled with the desire clearly to define his own position with regard to the latter,” but really “expresses the matured conviction of the Reformer.”[750]
In this lengthy, badly arranged and rather confused work we see, first, that Luther gives the widest limits to his denial of free-will and declares man to be absolutely devoid of freedom of choice, even in the performance of works not connected with salvation, and moral acts generally. He does, indeed, casually remark that man is free “in inferioribus,” and that the question is whether he also possesses free-will in respect of God (“an erga Deum habeat liberum arbitrium”).[751] “But it is doubtful whether we are to take Luther at his word.” For “as a matter of fact he shows clearly enough that he does not wish this limitation to be taken literally.”[752] “That his intentions are, on the contrary, of the most radical character, is plain from many other passages where he attacks free-will everywhere, and represents all that we do and everything that occurs (‘omnia quæ facimus et omnia quæ fiunt’), as taking place in accordance with inexorable necessity.”[753] He lays it down as a principle that God’s omnipotence excludes all choice on man’s part, and again supports this on an argument from the Divine omniscience; God from all eternity sees all things, even the most insignificant, by virtue of His prescience, hence they must happen. Even where God acts on man apart from the influence of grace (“citra gratiam spiritus”), according to Luther, it is He Who works all in all, as the Apostle says, “even in the impious.” “All that He has made, He moves, impels and urges forward (‘movet, agit, rapit’) with the force of His omnipotence which none can escape or alter; all must yield compliance and obedience according to the nature of the power conferred on them by God.”[754]
In the same way as he here speaks of a certain “power” in the creature, so also, in the same connection, he refers to “our co-operation” in the universal