he pours out his scorn on the efforts of the olden theologians to harmonise free-will with eternal election to grace.
His last word is that all we say of God is imperfect, inaccurate and altogether inadequate. As a matter of fact, however, as a Protestant critic already cited says,[768] “By the ‘voluntas occulta’ everything is called in question that Christian theology affirms concerning God on the authority of the gospel. Luther not only saw, but allowed, these consequences, yet as he was perfectly alive to the danger which they constituted, he is careful to warn people against going further into the question of the ‘Deus maiestatis.’ ‘Non est interrogandum, cur ita faciat, sed reverendus Deus, qui talia et possit et velit. …’ Luther always held fast to the actuality and rights of the Secret Will. That he never forsook this standpoint even later, when the ‘voluntas beneplaciti’ alone was of interest to him, has been established by recent research. In his practice, however, we find but little trace of what was really an essential part of Luther’s theology.”
The same theologian is of opinion that the inconsistencies in which Luther at last finds himself entangled are the best refutation of his denial of free-will and the powers of the natural man.[769]
A second consequence of his teaching may also be pointed out here. From his theory of the enslaved will Luther was forced to deduce that God is responsible for evil.
“It is indeed an offence to sound common sense and to natural reason to hear that God is pleased to abandon men, to harden and to damn them, as though He—He, the All-Merciful, the All-Perfect—took delight in sin and torment. Who would not be horrified at this? … and yet we cannot get away from this, notwithstanding the many attempts that have been made to save the holiness of God. … Reason must always insist upon the compulsion God imposes on man.”[770]
According to Luther it is quite wrong to wish to judge of God’s secret, inscrutable action.[771] Fly, he repeats again and again, from these stumbling-blocks to faith. “Quærere non licet.”[772] Adore the hidden ruling. “Adorare decet.”[773]
It is true that the author, here as elsewhere, shows a certain reluctance to credit to God Himself the performance of what is evil; he prefers to speak of God’s action as though it merely supplied man, whose own inclination is towards what is evil, with the power and ability to act.[774] The same theory is to be met with in Calvin.[775] But, the critics in Luther’s own camp objected:[776] “This does not settle the question, Luther must go further. … He admits that, after all, God not only has a part in the origin of sin, since owing to His omnipotence He is the cause of all things (‘causa principalis omnium’), but even made Adam to sin.[777] And yet, precisely on account of the difficulty, faith will not relinquish it.” “Surely a ‘credo,’ not only ‘quamquam,’ but, ‘quia, absurdum.’ ”[778]
We may, in the third place, cast a glance at the ethical consequences of the theory.
Luther refuses to admit what all people naturally believe, viz. that if God gives commandments man must be able either to obey, or to disobey, and thus incur guilt. What he teaches is, that God has a right and reasons of His own to impose commandments even though there should be no free-will; since without Him we are unable to keep the commandments He gives them for the wise purpose of teaching us how little we are capable of. The law is intended to awaken in us a sense of indigence, a desire for redemption, and the consciousness of guilt. When once this is present, God’s power does the rest; but the groundwork of all salvation is that we should become conscious of our nothingness, for which reason the belief in the enslaved will is to be proclaimed everywhere as the supreme virtue.
“God,” he says, “has promised His grace first and foremost to the abandoned and to those who despair. Man cannot, however, be completely humbled so long as he is not conscious that his salvation is entirely beyond his own powers, plans and efforts, beyond both his will and his works, and depends solely upon the free choice, will and decree of another (‘ex alterius arbitrio, consilio, voluntate’).”[779]
Hence, instead of a moral responsibility for not keeping the commandments, all there is in man is a certain compunction for being unable to keep them. But this is surely very different from the consciousness of guilt. “Without free-will there is no guilt.” “Luther can no longer assert that guilt is incurred by the rejection of grace.” If a sense of guilt actually exists it cannot but be a subjective delusion, nor can it fail to be recognised as such as soon as we perceive the true state of the case, viz. that it is all due to delusive suggestion. “When Luther instances Adam’s fall as a proof of guilt, we can only see in this an admission of his perplexity. In this matter Luther’s theology—I mean Luther’s own theology—is altogether at fault.”[780]
The greatest stress is laid by the champion of the “enslaved will” on the alleged importance of this doctrine for the personal assurance of salvation.
It is this doctrine alone, he says, which can impart to timorous man the pacifying certainty that he will find a happy eternity at the hands of the Almighty, Who guides him; on the other hand, the assumption of free-will shows man a dangerous abyss, ever yawning, into which the abuse of his freedom threatens to plunge him. Better to trust to God than to our own free-will.
“Since God,” he writes, “has taken my salvation upon Himself and wills to save me, not by my own works but by His grace and mercy, I am certain and secure (‘securus et certus’) that no devil and no misfortune can tear me out of His hands. … This is how all the pious glory in their God.”[781]
With enthusiasm he describes this consciousness, carefully refraining, however, from looking at the other side, where perchance predestination to hell, even without free-will, may lie.[782] When it presses on him against his will he at once drowns the thought with the consoling words of St. Paul on the greatness of the inscrutable ways of God. His justice must indeed be unsearchable, otherwise there would be no faith, but in the light of eternal glory we shall realise what we cannot now understand.[783]
The not over-enthusiastic critic, whom we have frequently had occasion to quote, remarks: “Seeing that faith according to Luther is no act of our will, but a mere form given to it by God, … Luther is right in saying, that the very slightest deviation from determinism is fatal to his whole position. His ‘fides’ is ‘fides specialissima.’ ” It is the assurance of personal salvation. But even though “combined with a courageous certainty of salvation, Luther’s views, taken as they stand, would still offer no consolation to the tempted, so that when Luther has to deal with such he is forced to put these views in the background.” The critic goes on to wonder: “How if the thought, which Luther himself is unable to overcome, should trouble a man and make him believe that he is of the number of those whom the ‘voluntas maiestatis’ wills to hand over to destruction?” His conclusion is: “The certainty of salvation, about which Luther is so anxious, cannot be reached by starting from his premises.”[784]
At the end of his “De servo arbitrio,” summing up all he had said, Luther appeals to God’s rule and to His unchangeable predestination of all things, even the most insignificant; likewise to the empire of the devil and his power over spirits. His words on this matter cannot be read without amazement.
“If we believe that Satan is the Prince of this world, who constantly attacks the Kingdom of Christ with all his might and never releases the human beings he has enslaved without being forced to do so by the power of the Spirit of God, then it is clear that there can be no free-will.”[785] Either God or Satan rules over men; to this pet thought he adds: “The matter stands simply thus … when God is in us, the devil is absent and then we can will only what is good; but when God is not there, the devil is, and then we can will only what is evil. Neither God nor Satan leaves us with an indifferent will.”[786] “When the stronger of the two comes upon us,”[787] he says, “and makes a prey of us, snatching us away from our former ruler, we become servants and prisoners to such an extent that we desire and do gladly what he wills (‘ut velimus et faciamus libenter quæ ipse velit’). Thus the human will stands,” Luther continues, using a simile which has become famous, “like a saddle-horse between the two. If God mounts