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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 February 2009
Luther's theology rests upon a sure foundation—namely, his discovery of the grace of the sovereign God. Perhaps the most cogent evidence for this assertion is to be found in his vigorous refutation of Erasmus' Diatribe on the freedom of the will.
page 24 note 1 Having responded ‘… to both outward prodding and inner conviction …’ Erasmus wrote his classic treatise against Luther: A Diatribe Or Sermon Concerning Free Will (Erasmus-Luther: Discourse on Free Will, translated and edited by Winter, Ernst F. [Frederick Ungar, New York, 1961], p. ix)Google Scholar. It appeared on 1st September 1524 in Basel. Luther's response, The Bondage of the Will, was not published until December 1525. All references to the latter in this essay are from the Packer and Johnston translation (Fleming H. Revell, New Jersey, 1957), and will be noted with the page numbers set off in parentheses.
page 24 note 2 Sydney Cave documents our appeal to the singularity of the Reformer's soteriological vision when he writes: ‘Luther's movement… had its origin, not in scepticism but in faith; not in a criticism of traditional dogmas, but in a rediscovery of the Gospel. We have here no innovation in doctrine, but an immense reduction, a concentration on the one article of saving faith in Christ' (The Doctrine of the Person of Christ [Duckworth, London, 1925], p. 139).Google Scholar
page 25 note 1 Huizinga, Johan, Erasmus and the Age of Reformation (Harper and Row, New York, 1957), p. 162.Google Scholar
page 26 note 1 Philip S. Watson points out that Luther had a dominant interest in what he frequently termed ‘the theological knowledge of man and the theological knowledge of God’. He was prone to insist that‘… the proper subject of theology is man as guilty on account of sin and lost, and God the justifier and saviour of man as a sinner’ (Let God Be God: An Interpretation of the Theology of Martin Luther [Fortress Press, Philadelphia, 1947], p. 23).Google Scholar
page 27 note 1 Luther speaks to this same issue in his 1535 ‘Commentary on Galatians’ when he writes: ‘… Whoever seeks righteousness apart from faith and through works denies God and makes himself into God. This is what he thinks: “If I do this work, I shall be righteous, I shall be the victor over sin, death, the devil, the wrath of God, and hell; and I shall attain eternal life.” Now what is this … but to arrogate to oneself a work that belongs to God alone, and to show that one is God?’ The Reformer sees this as a gross violation of the First Commandment (Luther's Works: Lectures on Galatians, vol. 26, edited by Pelikan, Jaroslav [Concordia, Saint Louis, 1963], P. 258).Google Scholar
page 28 note 1 Luther is arguing in the same vein when he writes: ‘… man should realise that in regard to his money and possessions he has a right to use them, to do or to leave undone, according to his own “free-will”—though that very “free-will” is overruled by the free-will of God alone, according to His own pleasure. However, with regard to God, and in all that bears on salvation or damnation, he has no “free-will”, but is a captive, prisoner and bondslave, either to the will of God, or to the will of Satan' (Packer and Johnston, op. cit., p. 107).
page 29 note 1 This point is expressed with clarity by Packer and Johnston in the ‘Historical and Theological Introduction’ to their translation of The Bondage of the Will. On p. 48 they write: ‘… Luther's denial of “free-will” has nothing to do with the psychology of action. That human choices are spontaneous and not forced he knows and affirms. … It was man's total inability to save himself, and the sovereignty of Divine grace in his salvation, that Luther was affirming when he denied “free-will”, and it was the contrary that Erasmus was affirming when he maintained “free-will”. The “free-will” in question was “free-will” in relation to God and the things of God. … [Luther] does not say that man through sin has ceased to be man (which was Erasmus' persistent misconception of his meaning), but that man through sin has ceased to be good. He has now no power to please God. He is unable to do anything but continue in sin.’
page 30 note 1 Luther's appeal to the ‘God hidden, God revealed’ principle is one indication of his Nominalistic heritage. In this tradition a similar, though by no means identical, distinction was drawn between potentia dei absolute and potentia dei ordinata.
page 31 note 1 To be sure, in other contexts Luther argues that there is a certain knowledge of God which is mediated to man apart from his Word. This is what he calls the general knowledge of God. Let us listen to his testimony: ‘There is a twofold knowledge of God; the general and the particular. All men have the general knowledge, namely, that God is, that he has created heaven and earth, that he is just, that he punishes the wicked, etc. But what God thinks of us, what he wants to give and to do to deliver us from sin and death and to save us—which is the particular and the true knowledge of God—this men do not know.’ (Luther's Works: Lectures on Galatians, vol. 26, edited by Pelikan, Jaroslav, p. 399.)Google Scholar
An excellent discussion of this twofold knowledge of God in Luther's thought is presented on pp. 73–96 of the Watson book cited above. The conclusion reached by Watson is that fallen man's general knowledge of God does not lead to true religion, but to idolatry. The only saving knowledge of God is of a particular nature. This latter type is ‘a knowledge which, explicitly or implicitly, may be said to contain Christ’ (93).
However, the point at issue still stands—namely, that man can never know God as he is in himself, apart from revelation, be it general or particular.
page 32 note 1 On pp. 208–9 of the work being discussed Luther raises two questions, and then answers them.
Question: Why does God not cease from that movement of his omnipotence by which the will of the ungodly is moved to go on being evil, and to grow worse?
Answer: If God did this he would cease to be God.
Question: Then why does God not alter those evil wills which he moves?
Answer: This is to ask a question which touches on the secrets of his Majesty. It is not for us to inquire into these mysteries, but to adore them.
page 33 note 1 As Packer and Johnston have rightly pointed out, this thrust in the Reformer's thought is an appeal to the doctrine of monergistic regeneration—‘the doctrine, that is, that the faith which receives Christ for justification is itself the free gift of a sovereign God. … Here was the crucial issue: whether God is the author, not merely of justification, but also of faith; whether, in the last analysis, Christianity is a religion of utter reliance on God for salvation and all things necessary to it, or of selfreliance and self-effort. … The principle of sola fide is not rightly understood till it is seen as anchored in the broader principle of sola gratia’ (58–59).
page 34 note 1 With regard to the problem of necessity Luther offers this important clarifying word: ‘I could wish … that a better term was available for our discussion than the accepted one, necessity, which cannot accurately be used of either man's will or God's. Its meaning is too harsh, and foreign to the subject; for it suggests some sort of compulsion, and something that is against one's will, which is no part of the view under debate. The will, whether it be God's or man's, does what it does, good or bad, under no compulsion, but just as it wants or pleases, as if totally free. Yet the will of God which rules over our mutable will, is changeless and sure…; and our will, principally because of its corruption, can do no good of itself. The reader's understanding, therefore, must supply what the word itself fails to convey, from his knowledge of the intended signification—the immutable will of God on the one hand, and the impotence of our corrupt will on the other (81). The essential point being made is that man is not compelled either to continue in sin or to accept salvation. However, apart from God he is powerless either to alter the one or to effect the other. The activity of God is the sole motivating force in both instances.
page 35 note 1 Commenting on the choice to be made, Luther writes: ‘Is it not an audacious way of searching, to try and harmonize the wholly free foreknowledge of God with our own freedom, and to be ready to deny the foreknowledge of God if it does not allow us freedom and if it imposes necessity on us …?’ (a 16).
page 35 note 2 Luther put the issue most succinctly when he wrote: ‘The Diatribe said, and all the Sophists say, that we obtain the grace of God by our own endeavour, and are thereby made ready to receive it, not, indeed, as of condignity, but as of congruity. This is plainly to deny Christ.
‘By this doctrine [i.e. ‘free-will’] they [i.e., Erasmus and the Sophists] have made Christ to be, no longer a sweet Mediator, but a dreadful Judge, whom they strive to placate by the intercessions of the Mother and of the Saints, and by devising many works, rites, observances and vows, by which they aim to appease Christ so that he may give them grace’ (305).
Quite clearly, in denying the freedom of the will, Luther is attempting to secure the doctrine of justification by grace through faith over against the semi-Pelagian view being defended by Erasmus—the view that appealed to the distinction between meritum de congruo and meritum de condigno. This latter view tended to support a doctrine of justification by merit.
page 36 note 1 Watson, op. cit., p. 78.
page 37 note 1 Bainton, Roland H., Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther (The New American Library, New York, 1955), p. 172.Google Scholar
page 39 note 1 Watson, op. cit., p. 164.
page 39 note 2 This is why Luther can say that he is not concerned with the life, but with doctrines. See p. 29, note 24 of the work cited immediately above.