Bondage of the Will and the Luther-Erasmus Debate

Bondage of the Will is exhibit A in the arguments of the Reformed that Luther is really on "their" side, that we Lutherans canonize him with our lips, but in reality anathemize the doctrine he taught.

In fact, the situation is this: Luther did go further in double predestination than the Concordianists later did, but he also vehemently diasgreed with the idea of the Perseverance of the Saints, calling its proponents deluded enthusiasts. His whole theology was built, more importantly, on universal atonement.

For explication of these points relating to Martin Luther's Bondage of the Will and his debate with Erasmus, I have a number of posts:

First of all, a straight forward comparison of the Reformed vs. (Augsburg) Evangelical teaching on predestination here:

Lutheranism Between Calvinism and Arminianism

Second of all, a screed against Erasmus's position in the debate:

My Take on Erasmus

Now let's get into Luther's response in particular.

The main issue for Luther, I contend, is not the philosophical one of abstract free will, but rather that of theodicy, or the justification of God's justice:

A Florilegium on Luther's Theodicy

Here's the key quote: "Free will is taught, he contends, in the end because no other teaching seems to man's intellect to acquit God of the charge of being unjust. But to make free will the reason why some are saved and some aren't, he argues, makes God no longer God. So what theodicy does he present? That of leaving God God, but insisting that He is also the Son of Man."

I present this issue again in the writings of two other Judeo-Christian writers generally not seen as being relevant, but both of whom think and plead in ways remarkably parallel to Martin Luther and both of whom find "free will" to be utterly inadequate as a theodicy:

The Theodicy of Bondage of the Will in Novel Form

and

"How Do I Get a Gracious God?" in the Intertestamental Era

My reading of the issues is very different from the usual one in Catholic circles which sees Luther's problem as basically personal, and in the end morbid. More here:

Why the Pontificator and I Don't Agree What the Issue Is

Essential point: "As indicated in his title, Fr. Kimel thinks the crux of the issue is 'who is responsible for Luther's anfechtung [temptations to curse God and die]'? This is another outgrowth of his seeing such anfechtungen as a species of spiritual illness. Perhaps it is relevant to some other debate over Luther's anfechtung, but I don't think it is relevant to my reading of it. Why? Because I don't blame . . . "temptation"-inducing thoughts . . . on the late medieval Catholicism, on Judaism, on double predestination or any other culturally/theologically contingent phenomenon. I blame them on the facts of life that anyone can see around them. One can eliminate such thoughts only by eliminating injustice, unbelief, and immorality in the world, or else by abandoning belief in a just and good Creator who orders all things and is holy and condemns sin. . . . I don't believe free will solves the issue at all. Uriel's comfort is no comfort to those who mourn."

Next there is a sharpening of the polemical point with the Calvinists:

Luther Did Not Believe in Limited Atonement

Here's the key quote:

"Luther based his whole theology on the will of God Incarnate being for the salvation of all Adam's children. And since he also indignantly rejected Perserverance of the Saints, and clearly thought the means of grace of God Incarnate resistible by unrepentant sinners, Luther was at best a 2.5 point Calvinist, which is not much of a Calvinist at all."

And on the perseverance of the saints:

The Perseverance of the Saints: We're Right, They're Wrong

Key graf: "Luther regarded David in his year after murdering Uriah as having lost the faith, while just as clearly the Westminster divines thought the opposite. Rarely do we have such a nice and clear-cut distinction."

But isn't Luther's position different from that of the Concordianists? Well, yes, it is, something which Hermann Sasse already pointed out. See here:

TULIP and God's Universal Salvific Will -- Again

I let Dr. Sasse have the last word:

We would say, in reply to Calvin, that it is not our task to reconcile these Scripture passages in such a way as to resolve the contradiction between the God of wrath and the God of mercy, between the Judge and the Savior of the world, into a logical and consistent idea of God. We must rather acknowledge that the reality of God has two sides. We dare not gloss over the words of judgment and wrath, nor may we take the greatness and the glory away from the words of grace and mercy.

My Take on Erasmus

Josh S. has just put up his comments on Erasmus's Diatribe against Luther on the question of free will at Here We Stand.

I wrote the following comments about Erasmus's diatribe on Chris Park's now defunct Scopos blog (he seems to start them up and then delete them every couple of months or so). The page numbers are keyed to a different edition than Josh S. used, one by Ernst Winter which is now out of print. I should also note that in his introduction Prof. Winter is obviously more sympathetic to Erasmus than to Luther, and that Erasmus is presented in full and Luther only in selections. So one would assume the translation does him justice. (I've read Luther on the Bondage of the Will in the J.I. Packer and O.R. Johnston translation.)

Having reread Erasmus's Diatribe over the weekend, I found my opinion well confirmed. It is execrable stuff. As a kindly, avuncular, yet professorial popular moralist he is a great writer, and even a solid thinker. But his work is an perfect illustration of why "moralism" is a bad word when speaking of Christian theologians.

In my following points, I am not being at all original. I find virtually every reaction I have is one that I remember reading in Luther's reply.

First, let me note: nowhere in the quotation you cited, and nowhere in the Diatribe is there any clear, ringing statement about what freedom Christ wins us. In fact apart from some perfunctory agreement with the Reformers' words on p. 80 (Ernst Winter's translation), he never speaks of rebirth, of release from bondage to sin, death, and the devil, of being made free by Christ. In a Christian discussion of the will, this is inexcusable. Absolutely inexcusable.

Secondly, he speaks of grace, and even defines it, according to the scholastics (pp. 28-30), but whenever he speaks clearly of the role of grace that cooperates with the will, he seems to be speaking of common grace with which we are born (p. 86, 49, 68, etc.) Christ is referred to but only as the creator, p. 68, not as our redeemer from slavery (yes, he refers to "redeeming" or "redemption" as a word here and there, but in his argument he does nothing with it).

Thirdly, he simply flatly denies Paul on the purpose of the law. "No one is justified by the law, rather by the law we become conscious of Sin," "The law is the pedagogue to lead us to Christ," "Once I was alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came sin sprang to life and I died." Where even once does Erasmus agree with this? Rather at every point, he believes that the purpose of the law, whether natural, that of good works, or of faith (p. 24) is to make people actually better. Even philosophers can obtain through natural law can obtain some true love of God without Christ at all (pp. 27-28).

Fourthly, he clearly, if covertly, classified Scripture as simply "exhortation and persuasion", not as the foundation of true doctrine. Let's look how he does it. On p. 92, he divides Christian literature into two types. In "exhortation and persuasion" exaggeration is acceptable: to the discouraged you ascribe everything to free will, to the proud you ascribe everything to God's grace. But in "investigation of truth" exaggeration is not allowable. Yet throughout his discussion of the Bible, he claims that phrases like "without Me you can do nothing" (p. 67), "every hair on your head is numbered" (pp. 75-76) or "Oh man who art thou to reply to God?” (p. 50) are simply exaggeration for effect. Where does this put Scripture? In the category of moral preaching directed solely to a "free will." Where is there "discussion of the truth"? Among the Fathers, the scholastics, among the philosophers (I am sorry if I am beginning to sound like a fundamentalist ranter but this is the kind of thing that makes the most violent sort of fundamentalist rage seem fitting.) Indeed apart from this reading as a kind of second-rate devotional literature he seems to find little use for Scripture: "It is a fact that the Holy Scriptures is in most instances either obscure or figurative, or seems, at first sight, to contradict itself" (p. 94). For this reason he must use his hermeneutic of all passages being either moral exhortation to diligence or else dissuasions to arrogance.

Fifthly, he says he is as uninterested as he possibly can get away with in assertions about the things of God (p. 6). This lack of interest in assertions comes in his believing that so many issues have not really been decided clearly, including not just Reformation era debates, but the Trinity, the two persons in Christ, and so on (p. 9). He even admits if he thought the Church taught wrongly, he would rather let it slide, rather than cause trouble (p. 11). Contrast this to what truly Christian writers (like Luther) know as the essence of Christianity: it is assertions upon which one will stake one's life: Christ died for your sins; Christ is the only-begotten Son of God; you are dead in your trespasses and sins; believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved; be baptized and wash away your sins; this cup is the new covenant in my blood.

And sixthly, he goes so far as to countenance dishonesty in teaching in the church, so as to keep the mob, the rabble, from getting out from under the knout of the Law (pp. 11-12). What is that but to admit either that what is taught in the church has nothing to do with salvation (since after all, its only certain content is moral law) or else that the common herd is incapable of salvation. Perhaps that is why he posits the soul and spirit of the philosophers--the pagans!--as the honorable part of human nature, the one which does not need redemption (pp. 63-64).

I am sorry to land a steaming pile of (not very original) evangelical denunciation on your weblog, but you did ask for comments. The only thing to add to what Luther already said about Erasmus, is what we've learned in the last few centuries. People like him -- they go under the name of "broad churchmen," "latitudinarians," "modernists," "liberals" and they use slogans like "doctrine divides, mission unites", "pastoral sensitivity", and "possibility thinking" -- kill churches, if they are allowed to do so. May it never be!

Cross-posted at Here We Stand.

McGrath's Intellectual Origins, Part I

From here

Part I: The Intellectual Context

1. The Shape of Late Medieval Religious Thought

1.a. The Rise of Lay Religion. Layfolk were more, not less, religious than before in the late Middle Ages, but the parish clergy was very inadequate, so the lay folk began to resent the low level of Christian life in the institutional church.

1.b. The Crisis of Authority in the Church. Rapid change in philosophy occurred just as the "Babylonian captivity" of the Papacy in Avignon, followed by the Schism, and the Conciliar Movement, meant that doctrinal diversity went unpunished and church teaching unclarified.

1.c. The Development of Doctrinal Diversity. Diversity was not primarily a matter of religious orders (Dominican theology vs. Franciscan vs. Augustinian, etc.). But universities did develop their own theological positions. The new via moderna [modern way] challenged the via antiqua [old way], particularly in the question of God’s freedom in salvation. The old way said, in the nature of things, justification must involve "created habits of grace" infused within the sinner; God would not be free to justify in any other way (presumably, although McGrath doesn’t elaborate, because it would be dishonestly declaring righteous what was not in fact righteous). The via moderna thought of this as erroneously limiting God’s freedom. Instead they argued this way: God created the world entirely freely, and was free to set up in the world whatever conditions of salvation He desired. Once He creates the world in a particular with particular conditions of salvation, however, He is bound by them, but only because He freely chose to be bound by such a covenant with His creation. Thus, even though He might work through "created habits of grace," it was divine acceptation itself, rather than than those "habits," which were the ultimate cause of justification. Hence in the via moderna the present order of salvation (whatever it was, and thinkers disagreed on the particular means) was radically contingent, depending only on the sovereign will of God. Ockham, for example, was famous for speculating that God might have become incarnate as a stone, a block of wood, or even a donkey. Another source of diversity was in the writings of Augustine. Augustine had massive authority, but pseudonymous writings (writings falsely ascribed to him) were rampant. Writings ascribed to him, for example, argued for semi-Pelagian views. Also, theologians largely worked from edited collections of "sentences" that ripped the patristic writings out of context. Another fourteenth century controversy was over the maculist (Mary was subject to original sin) and the immaculist (she was not) positions. Representatives of the via moderna proposed virtually Pelagian views of salvation, while representatives of the schola Augustiniana moderna ("modern Augustinian school") argued ferociously against all Pelagianism. In all of these controversies, the hierarchy had not spoken, leaving people like Luther free to assume the teachings they rejected had official support. Here McGrath touches on his famous view of "Luther’s mistake," that Luther was simply ignorant of the fact that the church had never officially supported Pelagianism, and hence his attack on Pelagianism was erroneously projected onto the church as a whole.

1.d. Forerunners of the Reformation. The search for "forerunners" in medieval heretics is pointless. The Reformation was influenced by the mainstream of late medieval Catholicism, not the outliers.

2. Humanism and the Reformation

2.a. Humanism: The Problem of Definition. Humanism is not an early outburst of Enlightenment paganism, not a genuinely Christian movement in response to heresy, nor a movement dedicated to reviving republicanism. Instead it was a cosmpolitan educational movement, concerned with reviving written and spoken eloquence by going back to the ancient exemplars of beautiful style. Humanists were all over the block as far as religious, political, or philosophical views, but were a lot more Christian than usually thought.

2.b. Characteristic features of Northern European Humanism. Northern Humanists weren’t any different from Italian humanists. They despised the barbarous style of the scholastics, preferred the patristic writers because of their beautiful style, and in general adopted a "the older, the better" attitude to Christian writings.

2.c. Humanism and the Origins of the Reformed Church. Swiss humanism was a nationalist version of it, concerned with Swiss revival. Zwingli was heavily influenced by them and Erasmian humanism: his agenda for Christian revival was, like Erasmus’s "philosophy of Christ", based on moral reform and an emphasis on the "interior" or purely spiritual character of religion. Justification was not an important issue to him. Later though he became more dominated by the Stoic idea of predestination and human depravity (yes, Stoic - - he quoted Seneca, not Paul to prove these points.) Bucer was even more Erasmian, and mistook Luther’s teaching for Erasmianism. Calvin was also influenced by humanism, but was un-humanist in taking justification as a central issue.

2.d. Humanism and the Origins of the Lutheran Church. The vera theologia ("true theology") which Luther, Karlstadt, and their allies promoted was little influenced by humanism, but downgraded the scholastics and exalted the New Testament and Augustine, thus making them look like humanists. Humanists helped propagate Luther’s views without understanding that his fundamental theological preoccupations were different.

3. Late Medieval Theology and the Reformation

3.a. Nominalism: The Problem of Definition. Nominalism, like humanism, did not have a single theological program. Yes, there was a new method represented by William of Ockham and others who did differ from Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, and Duns Scotus, in arguing that universal concepts (such as "whiteness" or "beauty") are "names" or "terms" not "realities" existing outside the mind. But there was vast disagreement between "nominalists" even on philosophical issues, let alone theological.

3.b. Via Moderna [The Modern Way]: This was the term used in the fifteenth century for the non-Albertist/Aquinist/Scotist schools. As described in section I.c., the via moderna’s first big idea was distinguishing hypothetical and actual means of salvation. This meant God is reliable in the world he actually created, although he would have been free to create a wholly different plan of salvation. God’s freedom vis a vis hypothetical possibilities is his "absolute power"; that in relation to the actual world is his "ordained power." Ockham thus argues that infused "created habits of grace" while used by God in justification in his ordained power were not necessary in his absolute power. This opened the possibility for thinking of justification as being purely by divine decree, not infusion of righteousness. But major via moderna thinkers like Gabriel Biel argued that God had freely chosen to make a covenant in which he bound himself to justify all those who did quod in se est (roughly "did their best"). This transition from an ontological (justification comes from a real change in one’s being) to a covenantal understanding (justification comes by fulfilling the covenant with God) of justification undercut the Old Testament/New Testament distinction, removed any essential role for Christ, and cast Christ as a legislator giving the terms of a covenant, not as a savior. The second big idea of the via moderna was voluntarism, that is, the idea that things in this world are good or bad solely by God’s arbitrary will or decree, not by any inherent quality in them that made them intrinsically good or bad apart from God’s will. This will is reliable and ordained in this world ("ordained power") but could have been different in some other world ("absolute power").

3.c. Schola Augustiniana Moderna [The Modern Augustinian School]. Within the Augustinian order there were both old-style realists and new-style nominalists. The latter were the schola Augustiniana moderna, which was nominalist and voluntarist (like the via moderna) but ferociously anti-Pelagian (and hence opposed to the via moderna thinkers like Gabriel Biel) and non-covenantal.

3.d. Late Medieval Theology and the Origins of Reformed Theology. Zwingli had interest in Duns Scotus, but soon moved out of that circle into Erasmian humanism. Calvin (and Peter Vermigli, a.k.a. Peter Martyr) probably did pick up the nominalist, voluntarist, and anti-Pelagian views of the schola Augustiniana moderna, but explicit biographical proof is lacking.

3.e. Late Medieval Theology and the Origins of Lutheran Theology. Although an Augustinian monk, Luther's early education was based on the via moderna (esp. Gabriel Biel) and not the schola Augustiniana moderna. When he came to Wittenberg in 1508 it was part of an academic shift there from a curriculum based on the via antiqua to the via moderna. The schola Augustiniana moderna remained unknown. His theological breakthrough of 1515-16 was a rejection of his youthful Gabriel Biel-style, "God will not deny his grace to those who do their best," thinking. He and Karlstadt both read Augustine’s anti-Pelagian writings as early as 1515, but did not come in contact with the schola Augustiniana moderna writers until 1519. Luther’s reformation thus began as a new academic theological school within nominalism opposed to the via moderna.

Continued . . .

Originally posted at Here We Stand

McGrath's Intellectual Origins, Part II

From here

Part II: Sources and Methods

4. Scripture: Translation, Text, and Tradition

4.a. The Medieval Consensus on the Theological Priority of Scripture. Virtually all medieval theologians, including St. Thomas, agree that Scripture is the "ground of faith" and its authority derives from God’s authorship alone, and transmits the truths that people need to be saved. Christian theology is ultimately just exposition of Scripture.

4.b. The Vulgate Translation of the Bible. The Vulgate was the only Bible used on a widespread basis. From the twelfth century, the glossa ordinaria, a running commentary composed c. 1175, became the usual basis of interpretation. Pre-Reformation vernacular Bibles were all translated from the Vulgate and had little influence, even as a challenge.

4.c. The Humanist Return ad fontes [to the sources]. This meant going back to Greek and Hebrew, and reading the early Fathers, not the scholastic theologians. Knowledge of Hebrew and Greek advanced rapidly after 1505.

4.d. Critique of the Vulgate. Humanist criticism attacked the Vulgate as inaccurate, indirectly weakening the accepted basis for a number of doctrines. Erasmus’s Greek edition of the New Testament was pretty bad by modern philological standards, but still was influential in dethroning the Vulgate.

4.e. The Concept of Tradition. Contrary to post-Tridentine apologetic, late medieval theologians generally held that Scripture is the sole material basis of Christian theology. They believed the Pope’s power was limited to questions of discipline. Doctrines that did not depend on Scripture were distinctly subsidiary.

4.f. The Principle Sola Scriptura. It was not a Reformation innovation. But different streams in late medieval theology are visible: the via moderna tended to emphasize ecclesiastical positivism (church determinations on discipline), the Thomists the coinherence of Scripture and theology with the Papal role restricted to deciding disputed points, and the schola Augustiniana moderna emphasized Scripture over church determinations or metaphysics.

5. The Interpretation of Scripture

5.a. Scholasticism: The Fourfold Sense of Scripture. This was the literal, the allegorical (types of Christ), the anagogical (eschatology), and tropological (morals). Luther used this fourfold division up to 1519.

5.b. Humanism: The Letter and the Spirit. Eventually, humanists rejected the fourfold sense. Erasmus sought moral interpretations. Others, wary of Judaizing in the Old Testament, began around 1500-1510 to distinguish a "literal-historical" sense - - the killing letter - - and a "literal-prophetic" sense - - the saving Spirit - - with the latter reading the Old Testament Christologically.

5.c. Hermeneutics and the Origin of the Reformed Church. Zwingli followed Erasmus closely, but also used typological and allegorical methods (despite criticizing the later). Bucer preferred moral readings.

5.d. Hermeneutics and the Origin of the Lutheran Church. Luther at first used the fourfold sense, but added the distinction of the historical letter and the Christological Spirit. This prophetic reading IS the literal sense. Law and gospel is another common distinction for Luther. His tropological (moral) readings tend to emphasize not what we do, but what God has done. McGrath seems annoyed by the fact that while Luther used the fourfold sense, he felt increasingly free to depart from it without adopting some explicit new hermeneutic. Karlstadt by contrast emphasized the literal sense.

6. The Patristic Testimony

6.a. The Scholastic Reception of Augustine. Augustine was the big authority, but was studied atomistically in "sentences" and there were many works falsely ascribed to him. Hence Augustine was used to support a variety of opinions, some diametrically opposed to what he actually wrote. The fourteenth-fifteenth century schola Augustiniana moderna took the lead in demonstrating the spurious nature of these works, and emphasizing Augustine’s anti-Pelagian writings.

6.b. The Humanist Reception of Augustine. The humanists liked all the fathers better than the scholastics, because they were older and their style was better. Erasmus especially admired first Origen and then Jerome.

6.c. The Patristic Testimony and the Origins of the Reformed Church. Zwingli wasn’t much interested in Augustine, and used his sacramental ideas more than his soteriological ones. By Calvin’s time, Augustine was back on his throne as chief patristic source.

6.d. The Patristic Testimony and the Origins of the Lutheran Church. Luther was influenced through and through by Augustine. But as McGrath points out with apparent annoyance, his idea of imputed, extrinsic righteousness as opposed to infused, intrinsic righteousness, is not from Augustine at all. Karlstadt was a more loyal Augustinian: distinguishing not law and gospel, but law and grace, and not justification by faith alone, but by grace alone. Staupitz advocated double predestination. Melanchthon thought of Augustine as the father who restored the church in declension. Similarities between the Wittenberg school and the schola Augustiniana moderna and humanist return ad fontes appear to be entirely independent. Zwingli and the early Reformers, however, were much closer to the Rennaissance humanist program.

Conclusion: The Intellectual Heterogeneity of the Early Reformation.

The Wittenberg Reformation engaged scholastic theology deeply and critically, and was "desk-bound," academic, dull, and stolid, not populist and reforming. The Swiss Reformation simply ignored scholasticism and was vital, engaging life in its fullness, not just in theological formulations; it was the program of a whole social and ecclesiastical movement. New philological, textual, and exegetical methods were more important for the Reformed than the Wittenberg Reformation. Again, the diversity of late medieval thought, the absence of consensus or an effective magisterium must be noted. Most every one believed in sola scriptura, but the scriptura that was sola was being challenged through philology and Greco-Hebrew studies. Finally, justification by faith was not central to all the Reformation, just the Wittenberg one. It was not important to Zwingli, and only became important to the Reformed with the rise of Calvin. Even at the level of theology (let alone social and political history) the Reformation was not one movement but a constellation of movement.

Originally posted at Here We Stand