Blog 8: Free will or pre-destination part 2 – Luther and the Bondage of the Will

By Richard Keeble

Martin Luther gave Erasmus “a thunderbolt by which free choice is completely prostrated and shattered” (*p. 118).

When I first read Erasmus’ arguments and summarised them in Free will or pre-destination part 1, I admit to being thoroughly convinced by them, and found it difficult to see how Luther could respond with anything overtly contradicting them. It seemed to me that Erasmus’ hope of trying to bridge the deep divide between Luther and the Church remained reasonable in the strength of his debate. Clearly, I (and perhaps Erasmus himself) had not reckoned with the extent to which Luther differed from the Dutch scholar, in temperament as well as doctrine:

“your book struck me as so cheap and paltry that I felt profoundly sorry for you, defiling as you were your very elegant and ingenious style with such trash, and quite disgusted utterly at the unworthy manner that was being conveyed in such rich ornaments of eloquence, like refuse or ordure being carried in gold and silver vases” (p. 102)

Far from my own initial reaction, Luther groaned: “I have never seen a feebler book on free choice” (p. 118).

He published his provoked response to Erasmus in December 1525, De Servo Arbitrio, On the Bondage of the Will, amidst claims that he had finally met his match and had suffered a great blow to his reputation from the intellectual might of Erasmus. And while it is true that Luther’s response was delayed, he made it clear that this was due to “neither pressure of work, nor any fear of you [Erasmus], but sheer disgust, anger, and contempt, or – to put it plainly – my considered judgement on your Diatribe that dampened my eagerness to answer you” (p. 103). Contrary to Erasmus’ belief that the topic of free will and predestination was not a vital or particularly significant one, Luther set out the basis of his argument:

“Here, then, is something fundamentally necessary and salutary for a Christian, to know that God foreknows nothing contingently, but that he foresees and purposes and does all things by his immutable, eternal, and infallible will” (p. 118)

Luther’s first major section is concerned with attacking Erasmus’ assertion of free will, whilst the second asserts his own arguments for predestination. This blog is concerned with the former section, whilst the latter shall be explored in Free will or pre-destination part 3. For the first, he begins by elucidating the consequences of Erasmus’ own submission that the will of God is immutable. For Luther, it is both impious and self-contradictory to acknowledge this and yet limit the role of God’s will to the extent Erasmus seems to want to:

“You declare that the will of God is to be understood as immutable. Do you, then, believe that he foreknows without willing, or wills without knowing? If his foreknowledge is an attribute of his will, then his will is eternal and unchanging, because that is its nature; if his will is an attribute of his foreknowledge, then his foreknowledge is eternal and unchanging, because that is its nature. From this it follows irrefutably that everything we do, everything that happens, even if it seems to us to happen mutably and contingently, happens in fact nonetheless necessarily and immutably, if you have regard to the will of God” (p. 119)

Following in the theological footsteps of Saint Augustine, surely as Erasmus knew he would, Luther appeals ever to the absolute sovereignty of God and his superlative qualities. Luther’s respect of this, what he would doubtlessly see as piety, is as much a weapon for him as logic and reason. Hence, when he goes on to attack Erasmus’ point on the dangers of preaching the doctrine of predestination to ordinary people, Luther is far more concerned with theological truth than sociological effects: “To wish to stop these tumults, therefore, is nothing else but to wish to supress and prohibit the Word of God. For the Word of God comes, whenever it comes, to change and renew the world” (p. 129). Never above mocking his opponents, Luther rages:

“The apostle Paul, in his epistle to the Romans, discusses these same things, not in a corner, but publicly and before all the world, in the freest manner and in even harsher terms, when he says ‘Whom he will he hardenenth,’ and, ‘God, willing to show his wrath,’ etc. [Rom. 9:18, 22] What could be harsher (to the carnal nature at any rate) than Christ’s saying: ‘Many are called, but few chosen’ [Matt. 22:14], or: ‘I know whom I have chosen’ [John 13:18]? We have it, of course, on your own authority that nothing more profitless could be said than things like these, because ungodly men are led by them to fall into desperation, hatred, and blasphemy. Here, I see, you are of the opinion that the truth and usefulness of Scripture is to be measured and judged by the reactions of men, and the most ungodly men at that, so that only what has proved pleasing or seemed tolerable to them should be deemed true, divine, and salutary, while the opposite should forthwith be deemed useless, false, and pernicious” (p. 135)

However, the primary element of Luther’s argument addresses Erasmus’ own admission that without God we cannot attain salvation, a vital but inevitable flaw in Erasmus’ position. The implications regarding human will, therefore, are clear to Luther, namely that the human will is in itself incapable and thus lacking in freedom:

“When it has been proved that salvation is beyond our own powers and devices, and depends on the work of God alone… does it not follow that when God is not present and at work in us everything we do is evil and we necessarily do what is of no avail for salvation? For it is not we, but only God, who works salvation in us, then before he works we can do nothing of saving significance, whether we wish to or not… when a man is without the Spirit of God he does not do evil against his will, as if he were taken by the scruff of his neck and forced to it… but he does it of his own accord and with a ready will” (p. 139)

Luther hammers home this point repeatedly: that one is either in God or one is not, thus one’s will is either captive to God’s will or captive to sin. Whichever end it serves, whether it be righteous or evil, the will is in bondage according to the pre-disposition of the individual in question, whether he or she abides in God or not in God. Essentially, Luther asserts the frightening implications of Christ’s declaration in Matthew 12:30, “He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad”. When the will belongs to sin, which due to the doctrine of original sin, particularly as detailed by Augustine, is the natural and default state of fallen man, then the will can do nothing but act sinfully and “can do nothing of saving significance”. Accordingly, if it finds bondage in the will of God, “it goes on willing and delighting in and loving the good, just as before it willed and delighted in and loved evil… So not even here is there any free choice, or freedom to turn oneself in another direction or will something different, so long as the Spirit and grace of God remain in a man” (p. 140)

Thus Erasmus seems, to Luther, to utterly undermine his own argument. In admitting that human free will is unable to attain salvation independent of the will and grace of God, Erasmus has posited a human will which, whilst apparently free, is of itself nothing but subject to sin: “in matters pertaining to salvation or damnation, a man has no free choice, but is a captive, subject and slave either of the will of God or the will of Satan” (p. 143). Luther’s argument follows:

“If anyone told you that a thing was free which could operate by its own power only in one direction (the bad one), while the other (the good one) it could of course operate, though not by its own power, but only by the help of another – would you be able to keep a straight face, my friend?” (p. 175)

He gives the example of a small log flowing down a stream. On its own it can only flow down the stream, down every little waterfall it encounters. Only when assisted, pushed by human hands up the stream or waterfall could it act contrary to its downward nature. Luther observes how strange it would be to call such a small, floating log free, when alone it is specifically bound to one direction. Thus, to portray the human individual as in some sense neutral, able to observe the paths available and in a detached manner decide between the one or the other is nonsensical to Luther: “It is, moreover, a mere dialectical fiction that there is in man a neutral and unqualified willing, nor can those who assert it prove it” (p. 180).

Contrary therefore to Erasmus’ example of the sailor thanking God for the assistance in the storm, which nevertheless does not exclude the sailor’s own efforts in the prevalence of his ship, for Luther every righteous act is not born of some union of God’s assistance with human will which freely chose God’s grace, but rather is the teleological result of a will captive to God’s purpose. To use the illustration of the trees from Matthew 7, good fruit is the result of a good tree, whilst bad fruit the result of a bad tree. The good tree does not choose to bring forth good or bad fruit but rather produces good fruit simply because it is a good tree, i.e. it is bound to bring forth good fruit by its nature, to which it is captive and from which it cannot deviate. It follows in the context of original sin that fundamentally all human beings are bad trees, whose fruit of itself is bad in that it cannot attain salvation. This demonstrates the necessity of Christ’s intercession and sacrifice according to Luther, properly contextualising that central declaration in John’s Gospel: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). We are thus only saved through the will and grace of God. Only then may we truly become good trees. Therefore, in concluding the allegory Jesus declares:

“Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them. Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 7:19-21).

Ultimately, Luther associates human will with sin: “free choice avails for nothing but sinning. This is Augustine’s view, which he expresses in many places, but particularly in his book On the Spirit and the Letter… where he uses those very words” (p. 180). Therefore, when contemplating Erasmus’ identification of different viewpoints on free will and predestination, particularly the last and harshest, that “of Wyclif and Luther, that free choice is an empty name and all that we do come about by sheer necessity” (p. 180), Luther concludes:

“when it has been conceded and agreed that free choice, having lost its liberty, is perforce in bondage to sin and cannot will anything good, I can make no other sense of these words than that free choice is an empty phrase, of which the reality has been lost. Lost liberty, according to my grammar, is no liberty at all, and to give the name of liberty to something that has no liberty, is to employ an empty phrase… I for my part cannot call lost health, health; and if I ascribed it to a sick person, I do not think I should have ascribed anything but an empty name” (pp. 180-181)

Finally, Luther addresses Erasmus’ use of Old and New Testament quotes which seem to imply free will through the word choice. Typically, he argues essentially that it is impious to presume that the phrase asserts human free will when it might also reasonably assert God’s power:

“I mention these things merely in order to show Reason how foolish she is in tacking her inferences onto the Scriptures… If now God deals with us as a father with his children, so as to show our ignorant selves our helplessness, or like a good doctor makes our disease known to us, or tramples on us as enemies of his who proudly resist his counsel, and in laws which he issues (the most effective method of all) says: ‘Do, hear, keep,’ or, ‘If thou shalt hear, if thou wilt, if thou shalt do,’ will the correct conclusion to be drawn from this be: ‘Therefore we can act freely, or else God is mocking us?’ Why does it not rather follow: ‘Therefore, God is putting us to the test so as to lead us by means of the law to a knowledge of our impotence if we are his friends or truly and deservedly to trample on and mock us if we are his proud enemies’? That is the reason why God gives laws, as Paul teaches (Rom. 3:20). For human nature is so blind that it does not know its own powers, or rather diseases, and so proud as to imagine that it knows and can do everything; and for this pride and blindness God has no readier remedy than the propounding of his law” (p. 185)

Exhortations and commands from God in the Old Testament to act in a certain way in order to attain salvation do not, for Luther, necessarily point to the free will of the one being addressed. Instead, certain Godly standards and principles are elucidated which demonstrate man’s fallen state:

“by such sayings man is shown what he ought to do, not what he can do. Cain therefore is being told that he ought to master sin and keep its appetite under his control; but this he neither did nor could do, as he was already held down under the alien yoke of Satan. For it is well known that the Hebrews frequently use the future indicative for the imperative, as in Ex. 20(:3, 13): ‘Thou shalt have none other gods’; ‘Thou shalt not kill’; ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery’; and countless similar instances. Otherwise, if they were taken indicatively (as they are expressed), they would be promises of God, and since God cannot lie, the result would be that no man would sin, and then there would be no need of them as precepts” (p. 189)

Moreover, when addressing Erasmus’ arguments regarding New Testament verses like Matthew 19:17, Luther muses: “‘If you would enter into life, keep the commandments.’ With what effrontery would it be said, ‘If you will…’ to one whose will is not free? So asks Diatribe. To which we reply: So the will is free, is it, according to this word of Christ? But you were wanting to prove that free choice cannot will anything good, but necessarily serves sin, in the absence of grace. With what face, then, do you now make it wholly free?” (p. 208). Erasmus has already made such statements meaningless as he has conceded that without God, human will is purely sinful. Furthermore, Luther sees such Bible quotes as supportive not of free will, but precisely the opposite, that by them the extent of God’s predestination and influence is made known:

“they are used not only in order to show the impotence of free choice, by means of which none of them is done, but also to intimate that someday all such things will be done, though by a power not our own but God’s – if we are to admit at all that such expressions contain some indication of things possible and intended to be done. They might be interpreted like this: ‘If someday you have the will to keep the commandments (which you will have, however, not from yourself, but from God, who will give it to whom he will), then they will preserve you.’ Or to speak more frankly, these expressions, and particularly the subjunctive clauses, seem to be put as they are because of our ignorance of the predestination of God, which they imply, as if what they meant to say was this: ‘If you will; if you are willing,’ that is, ‘If you are such in the sight of God that he deigns to give you this will to keep the commandments, you will be saved.’ By this turn of phrase we are given to understand both things, namely, that we can do nothing of ourselves, and that whatever we do, God works it in us.” (p. 209)

That hitherto Luther has primarily attacked Erasmus’ own points and their actual implications without submitting too many major principles of his own is a testament to the thoroughness which Luther was prepared to deploy against his opponent, and indicates the mass which his own arguments will attain. In the next and final part of Free will and pre-destination the second half of his response will be examined, in which he switches from attacking Erasmus’ assertions to proclaiming and maintaining major Scriptural arguments in support of predestination and the sovereign will of God. While here has been presented only the gist of Luther’s extensive criticisms of Erasmus’ Diatribe On the Freedom of the Will, nevertheless I must admit to a shift of my own position away from Erasmus and closer to Luther’s own position, in part if not totally. The strength of Luther’s own arguments remains to be seen, and shall be the subject of the next and final part in the Free will or pre-destination series.

*Martin Luther, Luther and Erasmus: Free Will and Salvation, Edited by E. Gordon Rupp and Philip S. Watson, The Westminster Press 1964

Blog 6: Free will or pre-destination part 1 – Erasmus and the Freedom of the Will

By Richard Keeble

I ask that the reader cast his mind back to the theological tension of 1520. The papal bull, Exsurge Domine, has called for a certain monk to recant his 95 Theses or face excommunication. The lethargic Pope Leo X has effectively declared war on the reformer, and battle lines which have long been in the making are now being actualised. The books of Martin Luther begin to fuel the fires, while Luther himself prepares to face the Catholic Church and select the life of a hunted outlaw.

Caught within this deadly standoff was the prominent Dutch scholar Desiderius Erasmus. This was a man who also had urged the Church to reform, who had held a somewhat amiable correspondence with Luther, and had hitherto reserved judging the young man. It is perhaps therefore not surprising that Erasmus found himself attacked at the pulpit of Louvain, the preacher demanding: “You wrote for Luther, now write against him!”

This was the first of many such “suggestions”, which were quickly being heard from many corners. Frantically, Erasmus yearned:

“Let us not devour each other like fish. Why upset the whole world over paradoxes, some unintelligible, some debatable, some unprofitable? The world is full of rage, hate, and wars. What will the end be if we employ only bulls and the stake? It is no great feat to burn a little man. It is a great achievement to persuade him.”

But neither Luther nor the Church would budge. From all sides the pressure mounted for Erasmus to denounce the monk, and in so doing wipe away his own suspected heretical leanings. This was no easy choice, for Erasmus had abhorred the abuses of the Church just as he resisted the Lutheran wrath. “I am a heretic to both sides”, he complained.

When he eventually bowed to the pressure, Erasmus sought a suitable topic to distance himself from Luther. Henry VIII had proposed one some time before: the freedom of the will. Even in this Erasmus sought to heal the great divisions, for he saw in this topic the chance for reconciliation; a potential debate on a subject he considered non-essential to the faith.

Erasmus finally published his treatise in September 1524, designating it: On the Freedom of the Will: A Diatribe or Discourse by Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam. He knew this subject would find disagreement from Luther, a scholar so inspired by Augustinian theology. Here follows most of the essential arguments the reluctant Erasmus pit against his controversial opponent:

“Certainly I do not consider Luther himself would be indignant if anybody should find occasion to differ from him, since he permits himself to call in question the decrees, not only of all the doctors of the Church, but of all the schools, councils and popes; and since he acknowledges this plainly and openly, it ought not to be counted by his friends as cheating if I take a leaf out of his book.”

Erasmus elucidates the great danger of Luther’s position, which is the view that the individual’s actions are not the result of free will but are pre-destined. Such a view removes the responsibility each individual holds for his own actions, and so in Erasmus’ view opens “a window to impiety… especially in view of the slowness of mind of mortal men, their sloth, their malice, and their incurable propensity toward all manner of evil.”

As well as citing the vast majority of the Church Fathers as supportive of his cause, the primary meat of Erasmus’ argument concerns itself with: “Scripture Passages That Support Free Choice”. Pride of place is given “to a passage in the book called Ecclesiasticus, or the Wisdom of Sirach, ch. 15(:14-17)”:

“God made man from the beginning, and left him in the hand of his own counsel. He added his commandments and precepts. If thou wilt observe the commandments, and keep acceptable fidelity forever, they shall preserve thee. He hath set water and fire before thee; stretch forth thine hand for which thou wilt. Before man is life and death, good and evil; that which he shall choose shall be given him.”

The Book of Ecclesiasticus is a Jewish work of ethical teachings from approximately 200-175 BC and is generally considered the earliest witness to a canon of the books of the prophets. Not only does Erasmus see the exclusion of this book from the Bible as unjustified, but he goes on to identify Biblical passages which also uphold free choice. He draws attention to God’s command in Genesis: “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die” (2:16-17). Since the Fall of Mankind, where free choice was indeed exercised, one has been able to identify good from evil, a significant ability according to Erasmus:

“If the power to distinguish between good and evil and the will of God had been hidden from men, it could not be imputed to them if they made the wrong choice. If the will had not been free, sin could not have been imputed, for sin would cease to be sin if it were not voluntary, save when error or the restriction of the will is itself the fruit of sin.”

The Old Testament seems to Erasmus the best location for support of the existence of free choice. He observes God’s conditions depending on the choice of Cain (Genesis 4:6-7) and draws special attention to the Divine interaction with Moses: “‘I have set before your face the way of life and the way of death. Choose what is good and walk in it.’ What could be put more plainly? God shows what is good, what is evil, shows the different rewards of death and life, leaves man freedom to choose”. Yet the most recurring aspect of the texts Erasmus utilises is the significance of the word “if”: “If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword” (Isaiah 1:19-20); “If you will not listen to me, to walk in my law” (Jeremiah 26:4). There are many other Old Testament passages which Erasmus identifies, including Joel 2:12; Jonah 3:8; Isaiah 46:8; Jeremiah 26:3; Psalms 81:13 and 34:12-13.

Yet Erasmus does not limit his focus to such passages from the Old Testament: “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess” (Matthew 19:21); “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23). As Erasmus observes from Matthew 19:17 “Again, elsewhere: ‘If you would enter into life, keep the commandments.’ With what effrontery would it be said: ‘If you will…’ to one whose will is not free?” As before, many passages are provided, including Matthew 11:28; Luke 23:34; John 1:12 and 6:67; but, as Erasmus says, “we will not weary the reader by going over all the passages of this kind, since they are so countless that they will readily catch the eye of any reader… I prudently pass over many texts which are in The Acts and in the Apocalypse lest I tire the reader. These many texts have induced learned and holy men not to take free choice entirely away”.

One feels one must credit Erasmus with the point that all such passages do seem to presuppose the ability of the listener to choose freely. This positivity applies further when he tackles the significant issue of Exodus 9:12 “But the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he did not listen to them”. If God had hardened Pharaoh’s heart, then it seems that no matter what the will of Pharaoh may have been, he would not have listened. To maintain the role of free will, Erasmus uses the explanation of the Church Father Origen from his Peri archōn (On Beginnings):

“Origen… declares that an occasion of hardening was given by God, but he would throw back the blame on Pharaoh who, by his evil deeds, was made more obstinate through those things which should have brought him to repentance, just as by the action of the same rain cultivated land brings forth excellent fruit, and uncultivated land thorns and thistles, and just as by the action of the same sun, wax melts and mud hardens, so the forbearance of God that tolerates the sinner brings some to repentance and makes others more obstinate in wrongdoing.”

Another possible objection to Biblical free will is the case of Judas Iscariot. For Erasmus this is not a matter of pre-destination but foreknowledge on the part of God. In this sense Judas’ betrayal was necessary. Yet in another sense, it was committed utterly freely, and Judas retained the power to refuse to undertake it. “You say, ‘What if he had changed his mind?’ The foreknowledge of God would not have been falsified, nor his will hindered, since he himself would have foreknown and intended beforehand that Judas should change his mind”.

The final significant Biblical extract Erasmus addresses which seems to deny free will is that of the potter and the clay: “‘Oh house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter had done?’ says the Lord. ‘Behold, like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel’”, taken from Jeremiah 18:6 and referred to by Paul in Romans 9:21-23. Clearly this seems to imply that man is governed not by the freedom of the will, but the design and intent of God. Yet Erasmus calls for us not to read this as a detailed comparison: “This potter makes a vase for dishonour not on account of preceding merits, just as he rejects some Jews, but on account of unbelief”. Erasmus argues that if one takes the potter and the clay comparison literally, then so too must one literally interpret another certain passage: “If anyone purifies himself”. Thus Erasmus contends:

“this interpretation of Paul will be found to contradict himself, for in the former passage he puts everything in the hands of God, but here he puts it all in the hands of man. And yet each passage is right, though each makes a different point. The first shuts the mouth murmuring against God, the other incites to endeavour and is a warning against complacency or despair.”

Erasmus compares the potter and the clay with the Isaiah 10:15, “Shall the axe vaunt itself over him who hews with it, or the saw magnify itself against him who wields it?” The difference between such tools and a human being is that the human being is living and rational, thus Erasmus states that “if an axe had been such, it would not have been absurd to say that they had shared in the action of the craftsman”. Another comparison is made between the potter and the clay and the master and his servant. Though the servant carries out the will of the master, he retains his free will: “The master lays down his commands and supplies what is needed, nor could the servant do anything apart from his master, and yet nobody says the servant does nothing at all when he follows the orders of his lord”. Finally Erasmus addresses the context of the original analogy, “These things are said against a wicked king, whose cruelty God has used to chastise his own people… So this analogy does not fit the taking away of free choice, but rebukes the pride of a wicked ruler who attributed his deeds not to God but to his own might and wisdom”.

Despite Erasmus’ support of free will, he never denies the role of God’s grace in gaining salvation: “since our own efforts are so puny, the whole is ascribed to God, just as a sailor who has brought his ship safely into port out of a heavy storm does not say: ‘I saved the ship’ but ‘God saved it.’ And yet his skill and his labour were not entirely useless”. For Erasmus, reaching salvation was not a matter of pre-destination or purely free choice, though free choice initiates. He envisaged man working with the grace of God, having freely chosen to do so:

“But as to the phrase in Phil. 2(:13): ‘For God is at work in us, both to will and to work for his good pleasure,’ this does not exclude free choice, for when Paul says, ‘for his good pleasure,’ if you refer it to man, as Ambrose interprets it, you understand by it that a good will cooperates with the action of grace.”

All such passages as Matthew 10:20, “For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you”, is seen by Erasmus as referring to the will of man striving with the Spirit and grace of God. He applies this also, for instance, to Acts 4:8, “Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them…” etc.

The notion of pre-destination remains a suspicious and dangerous one for Erasmus. In his Epilogue he illustrates a number of apt analogies, this perhaps the most striking:

“if a master were to free a slave who had merited nothing, he might have reason perhaps to say to the other servants who murmured against this, ‘You are no worse off if I am kinder to this one; you have your due.’ But anyone would deem a master cruel and unjust who flogged his slave to death because his body was too short or his nose too long or because of some other inelegance in his form. Would not the slave rightly cry out to his master under the blows, ‘Why am I punished for what I cannot help?’ and he would say this with still more justice if it were in his lord’s power to alter the bodily blemish of his slave, as it is in the power of God to change our will, or if the lord had himself given the slave this deformity which had offended, as for example by cutting off his nose or making his face hideous with scars. In this same way God, in the view of some, works even evil in us.”

Thus Erasmus awaited Luther’s inevitable literary onslaught, and I leave it for the reader to decide for himself or herself whether this wait should have been endured with trepidation. As Erasmus himself concludes:

“Although I am getting on in years, I am not, and shall never be, ashamed or annoyed to learn from any young man if he teaches me more evident truths with evangelical courtesy… I have completed my discourse; now let others pass judgment.”