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What Luther advanced in his Commentary on Romans, against man’s power of choice for what is good, has been summed up as follows by Johann Ficker, the editor of the Commentary: Luther allowed nothing to deter him from following up his new theories, nor did he even shrink from setting up the proposition of “the absolute impossibility of any good in the natural sphere,” or from “stating in the strongest terms of determinism the exclusive power and action of the salutary and unconditional Divine Will.”[624]

In his sermon on the Feast of St. Stephen, in 1515, Luther had spoken of the inward voice in man (“synteresis”), which urges him towards what is good and to true happiness, thereby implying the admission of free-will in man. This, he says, is capable of accepting or refusing God’s grace, though he is careful to add that the remnant of vital force represented by the synteresis does not indicate a condition of health nor afford any cause for boasting in God’s sight, the whole state of man being one of corruption; the synteresis, in fact, constitutes a danger to us because it leads us to trust in our own powers (“voluntas, sapientia”), so that we are readily induced to regard our restoration by grace as unnecessary. Such confidence in his own powers leads man to place himself on the side of those who crucified Christ, for such a one has a wrong opinion of righteousness and looks on Christ as superfluous, who is the source of righteousness. “Thus it comes about,” he cries, “that grace is most strongly opposed by those who boast most of it”; a paradoxical saying which often occurs in Luther’s early sermons and which plainly owes its origin to his quarrel with the “Little Saints.”[625]

Not here alone, but frequently in the sermons of those days, we hear Luther warning the people against misusing the synteresis. His opposition to man’s natural powers leads him at times so far that he represents the synteresis merely as a vague and practically worthless faculty. It is true he declares that he simply wishes to obviate an irreligious over-esteem of free-will, but he really goes further, now admitting, now rejecting it; his explanations let us see that “here there is an unsolved contradiction in his theology. He fails to explain how the remnant of vital force still in us is to be made use of by Divine grace so as to produce health,” and how “it can be of any importance or worth for the attainment of salvation in the domain of reason and will.” “Is there, then, no right use for the synteresis? Luther not only tells us nothing of this, but the natural consequence of much that he says is an answer to the question in the negative, although it should undoubtedly have been answered in the affirmative.”[626]

If we cast a glance at the other sermons which coincide in point of time with his Commentary on Romans, we shall find in certain remarks on the regeneration of man a foretaste of his later teaching regarding free-will. He says, for instance, of the attainment of the state of grace, that here regeneration takes place not only “without our seeking, praying, knocking, simply by the mercy of God,” but also that it resembles natural generation, where the child does nothing (“ipso nihil agente”); no man can be born for heaven by his own operation and merits (“sua opera suoque merito”). He contrasts those who are generated of God “in the spirit” with those who live after the flesh, and who often “make a great show of spirituality”: they are, he says, “carnal-spiritual” and, “with their horrid, hypocritical spirituality, are doomed to destruction.”[627]

According to these sermons it is plain that God is the only worker in the man who is thus born of God. In him free-will for doing what is good does not come into account, for the good works of the righteous man are God’s works, and his virtues and excellence are really God’s. “He works all in all, all is His, He, the One Almighty Being, does all things,” so we read in Luther’s sermon on August 15, 1516, the Feast of the Assumption, i.e. at a time when by his study of the Epistle to the Romans he had been confirmed in his bias against man’s natural powers.[628]

The Wittenberg Disputation in 1516, “On man’s powers and will without grace,” immediately followed his lectures on the Epistle to the Romans; here we find it stated in plain words, that “man’s will without grace is not free, but captive, though not unwillingly.”[629] To complete what has already been said (vol. i., p. 310 ff.) we may add that the proof of this is sought in that the will sins in everything, and that, according to Scripture, “Whoever sins is the slave of sin.” We learn also from the Bible, we read, that we are then truly free when the Son (of God) makes us free. The natural man without grace is an evil tree, as such he can only desire and do what is evil. This degradation of the human will was intended to form the basis for a new appreciation of the grace and merits of Christ.

It is probable that the three fragments, “On the unfreedom of the human will,” etc., which are in agreement with this last Disputation, date from the late autumn of 1516. Here “the captivity and slavery of the will” (“voluntas necessario serva et captiva”) with regard to the doing of what is good, i.e. “to merit and demerit,” is again emphasised. Freedom in respect of “those other, lower matters which come under the dominion of the will” is indeed conceded.[630] But as the modern Protestant editor of the texts in question remarks, “even this freedom is merely apparent,”[631] for Luther says briefly but meaningly: “I do not deny that the will is free, or rather seems to itself to be free (‘imo videatur sibi libera’)[632] by the freedom of contrariety and of contradiction with regard to its lower objects.” Here we already have a clear indication of the determinism which Luther was to advocate at a later date, according to which God’s Omnipotence works all things in man, even indifferent matters.[633] In these fragments it is, however, chiefly a question of moral actions. Where it is a question of acts having some moral value Luther’s answer is already quite definite: “The will when confronted with temptation cannot without grace avoid falling; by its own powers it is able to will only what is evil.”[634]

A year later the “Disputation against the theology of the Schoolmen” of September 4, 1517, which has been already described generally (vol. i., p. 312), laid the axe at the root of free-will in respect of what is good; its tenor is even more decided, and it greatly exaggerates the corruption of man by original sin: “It is false that the will is free to choose between a thing and its contrary [in the moral order]; without grace the human will must of necessity do what is opposed to the will of God.” Hence nature “must be put to death absolutely.”[635]

Concerning the Heidelberg Disputation in April, 1518, we need only recall the fact, that Luther caused the thesis to be defended, that, after the Fall, free-will is but a name, and that when man does the best he can, he simply commits a mortal sin. The doctrine of the sinfulness of the works performed by the natural man, which he had held even previously, he now supplements by an addition, in the nature of a challenge: “Liberum arbitrium post peccatum res est de solo titulo.”[636]

In the Disputation with Eck at Leipzig in the following year, owing to his views on the subject not yet being generally known, they were not directly discussed.

When, however, after its termination, Luther, in August, 1519, published the Latin “Resolutions” on the Leipzig Disputation, he proclaimed himself to the world as a most determined opponent of free-will, not even confining himself to attacking the power for doing what is good.

“Free-will,” he says here, “is purely passive in every one of its acts (‘in omni actu suo’) which can come under the term of will. … A good act comes wholly and entirely (‘totus et totaliter’) from God, because the whole activity of the will consists in the Divine action which extends to the members and powers of both body and soul, no other activity existing.”[637] In another passage of the “Resolutions” he says: “At whatever hour of our life we may find ourselves we are the slaves either of concupiscence or of charity, for both govern free-will (‘utraque enim dominabitur libero arbitrio’).”[638] Julius Köstlin is right when he sees in such words the complete renunciation of free-will. “Of man’s free-will in the ordinary sense of the term, or of any independent choice for good or for evil which should include the possibility of a different decision, there is, according to Luther, no question.” Köstlin points out that Luther does not here go into the question as to whether the sinfulness and corruption of the lost are to be attributed to God, Who did not cause His saving grace to be sufficiently efficacious in them.[639] Luther certainly contrived to avoid this dangerous objection, not only here, but also for long after when speaking on the subject of the will.

In the “Resolutions” Luther had merely represented his opposition to free-will as the consequence of his doctrine of the corruption of human nature due to original sin, but subsequent to the appearance of the Bull of Excommunication he goes further and declares the denial of the “liberum arbitrium” to be nothing less than the fundamental article of his teaching (“articulus omnium optimus et rerum nostrarum summa”).[640] Among the propositions condemned by the Papal Bull was Luther’s thesis directed against free-will at the Heidelberg Disputation. It was given in Luther’s own words, viz. that free-will is a mere empty name, etc.

In defence of the condemned propositions Luther wrote, in 1520, the “Assertio omnium articulorum,” which was published in 1521. To prove his denial of free-will it is usual to quote his “De servo arbitrio,” but the “Assertio” already contains in substance all the strictures embodied in his later attacks.

After dealing with other subjects, he there declares that, as for the question of free-will, he had expressed himself far too feebly when speaking of the semblance of freedom; the term “liberum arbitrium” was a device of the devil; hence he withdraws his previous statement which erred on the side of weakness; he ought to have said that free-will was a lie, an invention (“figmentum in rebus”). “No one has the power even to think anything evil or good, but everything takes place agreeably with stern necessity (‘omnia de necessitate absolute eveniunt’), as Wiclif rightly taught, though his proposition was condemned by the Council of Constance.”[641]

Luther now appeals to the belief in fate with which the heathen were already acquainted. He also appeals to the Gospel which surely gives him reason, for does not Christ say (Matt. x.): “Not a sparrow shall fall to the ground without your Father in Heaven,” and “the very hairs of your head are all numbered”? And in Isaias xli. does not God mockingly challenge the people: “Do ye also good and evil if you can”? The Pope and the defenders of the Bull, with their doctrine of free-will, he looks upon as prophets of Baal and he calls to them ironically: “Cheer up and be men; do what you can, attempt what is possible, and prepare yourselves for grace by your own free-will. It is a great disgrace that you are unable to produce anything from experience in support of your teaching.”

“The experience of all,” he says boldly, “testifies to the contrary”; God has our life in His hands, and how much more all our actions, even the most insignificant. It is Pelagian to say that free-will is able, by means of earnest effort (“si studiose laboret”), to do anything good; it is Pelagian to think that the will can prepare itself for grace; Pelagian too, is the principle handed down in the schools, that God gives His grace to the man who does what he can. For if we do what we can, we perform the works of the flesh! “Do we not know the works which are of the flesh? St. Paul specifies them, Galatians v.: Fornication, uncleanness, immodesty, luxury, envies, murders, etc. This is what free-will works, i.e. what is of its nature, viz. works of death; for in Romans viii. we read: ‘The wisdom of the flesh is death and an enemy to God.’ How can we then speak of preparation for grace by enmity with God, of preparation for life by death?”[642]

In these somewhat disorderly effusions of his pen he repeatedly harks back to the Bible, strangely forcing his texts. Paul denies free-will, saying in Ephesians i.: “God works all in all,” thus confirming the fact “that man, even when he does and thinks what is wrong, is not responsible.”[643] “God even works what is evil in the impious,”[644] as is written in Proverbs xvi.: “The Lord hath made all things for Himself, the wicked also for the evil day,” and in Romans i., of the heathen: “God delivered them up to a reprobate sense to do those things which are not convenient.”

Room is also found for philosophical arguments: God as the highest Being cannot permit Himself to be influenced by man’s changeableness, in the way that free-will would involve; on the contrary, He must, by virtue of His nature, determine everything Himself, down to the very smallest matters; nor does He do so merely by the “influentia generalis” (“concursus divinus generalis”), which, according to the “chatterboxes,” alone assists our free-will; free-will must perish (“periit”) in order to make room for a strict and compelling influence. This applies to our pardon, for we cannot elicit or snatch this from God by our own efforts, as though we surprised Him in slumber. “O furor, furorum omnium novissimus!” he exclaims of the Papal Bull in the midst of this philosophical and theological digression: “All is of necessity, for we—every man and every creature—live and act not as we will, but as God wills. In God’s presence the will ceases to exist.”[645]

It is not surprising that Augustine also is made to bear witness in his favour.

This Doctor of the Church, though in many passages he declares himself emphatically in favour of free-will, nevertheless frequently in his works against the Pelagians asserts (perhaps too strongly were we to consider his words apart from that heated controversy) that, without grace, and left to itself, free-will cannot as a rule avoid sin; on such occasions he does not always express the firm conviction he also holds, viz. that the will nevertheless of its own strength is able to do what is naturally good. In one passage, he says for instance, apparently quite generally: “Free-will in its captive state has strength only to sin; for righteousness it has none until it has been set free by God, and then only with His help.”[646] And elsewhere again: “Free-will can do nothing but sin, when the path of truth is hidden.”[647] This latter assertion Luther places as a trump card at the head of the discussion of his thirty-sixth condemned proposition, though he alters the wording.[648] As a matter of fact it is not difficult to prove, as we shall do below, that Luther was quite wrong in appealing to the Doctor of Hippo in support of his own teaching.

Of more importance for the present account is the significant position which Luther assigns to his supposed rediscovery of the doctrine of the captive will. He is full of enthusiasm for the idea of a religion of the enslaved will. This new religion of the enslaved will appears to him in the light of a “theology of the cross,” which, in return for his renunciation of free-will, descends upon man in order to point out to him the true road to God. “For what honour remains to God were we able to accomplish so much?” “The world has allowed itself to be seduced by the flattering doctrine of free-will which is pleasing to nature.”[649] If any point of his teaching, then certainly that of the captive will is to be accounted one of the “most sublime mysteries of our faith and religion, which only the godless know not, but to which the true Christian holds fast.”[650]

It fills one with grief and tears, he says, to see how the Pope and his followers—poor creatures—in their frivolity and madness, fail to recognise this truth. All the other Popish articles are endurable in comparison with this vital point, the Papacy, Councils, Indulgences and all the other unnecessary tomfoolery.[651] Not one jot do they understand concerning the will. Sooner shall the heavens fall than their eyes be opened to this basic truth. Christ, it is true, has nought to do with Belial, or darkness with light. The Popish Church knows only how to teach and to sell good works, its worldly pomp does not agree with our theology of the cross, which condemns all that the Pope approves, and produces martyrs. … That Church, given up to riches, luxury and worldliness, is determined to rule. But it rules without the cross, and that is the strongest proof by which I overcome it. … Without the cross, without suffering, the faithful city is become a harlot, and the true kingdom of Antichrist incarnate.[652]

He concludes, congratulating himself upon his having given Holy Scripture its rights.

Scripture is “full” of the doctrine on grace described above, but for at least three hundred years no writer has taken pity upon grace and written in its defence, on the contrary all have written against it. “Minds have now become so dulled by their habitual delusion that I see no one who is able to oppose us on the ground of Holy Scripture. We need an Esdras to bring forth the Bible again, for [the Popish] Nabuchodonosor has trampled it under foot to such an extent that no trace of even one syllable remains.”[653] He is grateful for the cheering “revival of the study of Greek and Hebrew throughout the world,” and is glad to think that he has turned this to good account in his biblical labours. With this consolation he writes his final “Amen” at the end of this curious document on the religion of the captive will.

Since Luther in the above “Assertio” against the Bull of condemnation sets up Scripture as the sole foundation of theology—he could not well do otherwise, seeing that he had rejected all external ecclesiastical authority—we might have anticipated that, in the application of his newly proclaimed principle of the Bible only, he would have taken pains to demonstrate its advantages in this work on free-will by the exercise of some caution in his exegesis. It is true that he declares, when defending the theory of the Bible only: “Whoever seeks primarily and solely the teaching of God’s Word, upon him the spirit of God will come down and expel our spirit so that we shall arrive at theological truth without fail.” “I will not expound the Scripture by my own spirit, or by the spirit of any man, but will interpret it merely by itself and according to its own spirit.”[654] And again: It often happens that circumstances and a mysterious, incomprehensible impulse will give to one man a right understanding such as is hidden from the industry of others.[655] Yet when, on the basis of the Bible only, he attempts to “overthrow his papistical opponents at the first onslaught,”[656] he brings forward texts which no one, not even Luther’s best friend, could regard as having any bearing on the subject.

He quotes, for instance, the passage where the believer is likened to the branch of the vine which must remain engrafted on Christ the true vine, in order to escape the fire of hell, and finds therein a proof of his own view, that grace completely evacuates the will, a proof so strong that he exclaims: “You speak with the voice of a harlot, O most holy Vicar of Christ, in thus contradicting your Master who speaks of the vine.”[657] Another example. In Proverbs xvi. it is written: “It is the part of man to prepare the soul and of the Lord to govern the tongue,” hence man, reasons Luther, who cannot even control his tongue, has no free-will to do what is good.[658] There too we read: “The heart of man disposeth his way, but the Lord must direct his steps,” and further on: “As the divisions of water, the heart of the king is in the hand of the Lord, whithersoever He will He shall turn it.” After adducing these texts, which merely emphasise the general Providence of God, Luther thinks he is justified in demanding: “Where then is free-will? It is a pure creation of fancy.”[659]

The saying of the clay and the potter (Isa. lxiv. 8) which manifestly alludes to the Creation and expresses man’s consequent state of dependence, he refers without more ado, both here and also later, to a continuous, purely passive relationship to God which entirely excludes free-will.[660] When Christ says (Matt. xxiii. 37; Luke xiii. 34) that He wished to gather the children of Jerusalem like a hen under His wings, but that they would not (καὶ οὐκ ἠθελήσατε), Luther takes this as meaning: They could not; they did not wish to, simply because they did not possess that free-will which his foes believe in. It might however be said, he thinks, that Christ only “spoke there in human fashion” of the willingness of Jerusalem, i.e. “merely according to man’s mode of speech,” just as Scripture, for the sake of the simple, frequently speaks of God as though He were a man.[661] It is plain from his explanation that Luther, as an eminent Protestant and theologian says, “was seeking to escape from the testimony to the Divine Will that all men be saved.”[662]

The best text against the hated free-will appeared to him to be Ephesians ii. 3, where St. Paul deals with original sin and its ethical consequences. “We were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.” “There is not,” so he assures his readers, a “clearer, more concise and striking testimony in the Bible against free-will”; “for if all by reason of their nature are children of wrath, then free-will is also a child of wrath,”[663] etc.

He handled Scripture as an executioner would handle a criminal. All unconsciously he was ever doing violence to the words of the Bible. We naturally wonder whether in the whole history of exegesis such twisting of the sense of the Bible had ever before been perpetrated. Yet we find these interpretations in the very pages where Luther first exposed his programme of the Bible only, and declared that he at least would expound the Word of God according to its own sense, according to the “Spirit of God,” and setting aside all personal prejudice. The old interpretation, on the other hand, which was to be found in the book of Lyra, with which Luther was acquainted, gave the correct meaning retained among scholars to our own day, not merely of the texts already quoted, but of many other striking passages alleged by Luther then or afterwards against free-will.

Luther proceeds rather more cautiously in the German edition of the “Assertio,” which speedily followed the Latin.

It deals with the denial of free-will at considerably less length. Perhaps, as was often the case with him, after he had recovered from the first excitement caused by the condemnation of the articles, he may have been sobered, or perhaps he was reluctant to let loose all the glaring and disquieting theses of the “Assertio” in the wide circle of his German readers, whom they might have startled and whose fidelity to his cause was at that time, after the sentence of outlawry, such a vital matter to him. In later editions of the Latin text some of his sayings were softened even during his lifetime so as to avoid giving offence.

Luther had been careful in the “Assertio,” just as he had been in his previous treatment of the subject, not to take into consideration the consequences involved by his denial of free-will; that, for instance, it follows that it is not man who actually does what is evil, but rather God who works in him, and that many were condemned merely on account of the necessity of sinning imposed upon them by God. Of this he has as yet nothing to say, though he was, shortly after, to make an attempt to obviate the difficulties.