By the early 1520s Erasmus and Luther were celebrities—the two most widely known figures in all of Europe. They had some initial fairly cordial correspondence and they possessed several similarities; for example,
• Their writings were widely known and very popular.
• Both were superb, engaging writers.
• Both were highly critical of the church hierarchy and of many church practices.
• Both had been monks and priests in the Roman Church; they knew first-hand the things they criticized.
• Both opposed scholasticism as misguided and pointless.
• Both had grave misgivings about reason—especially as used in theology and philosophy.
• Both had a large following of enthusiastic adherents as well as many powerful detractors.
• Neither had any wealth or helpful family connections.
It was reasonably expected by many that they would become a team, but that was not to be.
Erasmus was likely born in 1469, so he was approximately fourteen years older than Luther. Though he became a monk and priest, his real love was literature; he devoured the ancient classics, teaching himself Greek in the process and aligning himself with the developing humanism of key Renaissance figures. He wrote and taught in Cambridge, Paris, Basel, Louvain, Brussels, and other cities dazzling people everywhere with his brilliance, wit, and beautiful Latin.
Along the way, he became famous as a satirist, and much of his satire was directed against the clergy and the Roman Church’s hierarchy. Praise of Folly, 1511, became a huge bestseller, and his anonymous skit about Peter’s denial of Pope Julius II’s entrance into heaven was both devastating and hilarious.
Erasmus also had a serious side to his scholarship. He wrote and published a critical version of the Greek New Testament with notes in which he, among other things, pointed out weaknesses in the Latin Vulgate, the official Bible of the Roman Catholic Church. Luther greatly admired it and used it for his New Testament translation from Greek into German, but traditionalists in the Roman Church accused Erasmus of heresy.
Nevertheless, Erasmus never really turned against the Roman Church. He was against indulgences, relics, a profligate papacy and clergy, and much more, to be sure, but he always hoped that humanistic learning would make its way into the Church enough that the Church would become more like the early church and Jesus himself—simpler, compassionate, and peace-loving.
The very earliest correspondence between Luther and Erasmus showed their mutual respect but also how different their temperaments were. In March of 1519, Luther wrote a friendly and admiring letter to Erasmus in which he also appealed for the latter’s friendship.1 In May, Erasmus responded expressing his admiration and his agreement with much that Luther was doing. He mentioned, though, that some of Luther’s foes had accused Erasmus of being an aid to Luther in his writings and of being a “standard-bearer” for Luther; he didn’t like the accusation. He wrote, “I have testified to them that you are entirely unknown to me, that I have not read your books, and neither approve nor disapprove of your writings.”2
Erasmus’ temperament is then shown even more fully in the advice he offered to Luther much as a mentor would offer to a younger colleague:
It might be wiser of you to denounce those who misuse the Pope’s authority than to censure the Pope himself. So also with kings and princes. Old institutions cannot be rooted up in an instant. Quiet argument may do more than wholesale condemnation. Avoid all appearance of sedition. Keep cool. Do not get angry. Do not hate anybody. Do not be excited over the noise you have made.3
The contrasts between the two became ever clearer. Erasmus used bitter satire and coupled his attacks with humor; Luther presented his attacks in straightforward, tough language. Erasmus wrote in a sophisticated, beautiful language for intellectuals in all countries; Luther used a clear German and Latin to make his points crystal-clear for all people and especially for the Germans. Erasmus was willing to hold back for the sake of peace; Luther would sacrifice peace for the sake of God’s truth.
Moreover, Erasmus was a man of letters; Luther was a pastor and a theologian—even a prophet in the sense of one who boldly proclaims God’s Word no matter what. It is no doubt significant, too, for understanding their differences that Erasmus was beholden to Charles V for a stipend and to the humanists in the Roman Church hierarchy for their protection and support; Luther had no such financial dependency.
Erasmus’ concern for truth and his respect for Luther is shown in the fact that he had encouraged Frederick of Saxony (Frederick the Wise) to help and to protect Luther. But, as indicated above, he never became one of Luther’s followers as such, despite accusations to that effect, and he felt himself trapped in the middle between Luther’s adherents and ecclesiastical officials. He was criticized both by those who believed he was disingenuous for not siding with Luther (they thought he had started what Luther was continuing), and also by those in the Roman Church who thought he did side with Luther. He replied to both that he only wanted peace and healthy reform in the Church and that he was not a party in the dispute.4 Not surprisingly, his response satisfied neither group of critics.
Luther, for his side, probably never trusted Erasmus to have the courage to stand by his convictions in the face of criticism. He saw Erasmus as a member of an elite intellectual society—far from the deeply committed person that he was.
Before we turn to an examination of the key documents in the free will debate between Luther and Erasmus, it is important to realize that neither was interested in the broad philosophical issue of determinism vs. indeterminism. The determinist says that every event that occurs, including all human thoughts and actions, is determined by antecedent conditions, and the indeterminist claims that at least some events are not determined in this way but are the result either of choice or chance. This issue was not the issue for either Luther or Erasmus.
Erasmus’ concern was with morality, for he saw morality as the essence of Christianity. As Christians we are called upon to live lives in keeping with the 10 Commandments and the injunctions of the New Testament, he believed. For him, we ought to live according to high Christian standards, and God would never demand this if it were not possible. “Ought implies can” is the way philosophers today would describe his point. Erasmus held, too, that God comes to our aid with his mercy and takes care of our failings. For him we could say that “ought implies can with the aid of God’s mercy.” He was concerned that some of Luther’s earlier “assertions” undercut Christian morality by asserting that humans “cannot no matter what.”
Luther, on the other hand, was not primarily concerned about morality per se; he did not see morality as the essence of Christianity. For Luther Christianity is about the grace of God offering salvation through Christ. He did not see how any Christian could define Christianity in terms that did not include “Christ” and “salvation” and “grace,” so he disagreed completely with Erasmus’ understanding. Moreover, Luther thought that by implication Erasmus was saying that a person could help win God’s favor (and salvation) by the right moral effort, and this Luther denied with total conviction; it was a major part of his attack on the Roman Church.
Thus, the debate was really about whether a person could help win God’s favor by moral choice and striving. For Luther this is impossible because until a person receives God’s grace and forgiveness, that person is under the control of Satan and of sin. Man has no free will to begin to move close to God and to do God’s will. For Erasmus man must have the free will to begin to please God for morality and for Christianity to have any meaning.
Luther’s The Bondage of the Will, 1525, was written as an answer to Erasmus’ On the Freedom of the Will, also called the Diatribe, 1524.5 Erasmus had had serious reservations about Luther for several years, and he finally published a document that took exception to a basic element in Luther’s theology and not just to his style. Erasmus did not consider himself to be a theologian, but he believed he could point out a fundamental flaw in Luther. He had indeed put his finger on a genuine cornerstone of Luther’s theology, and he opened the opportunity for Luther to write what many consider to be his finest theological writing of all. Luther appreciated Erasmus’ focusing on this most vital issue.
In On the Freedom of the Will, it is clear that Erasmus despised theological assertions and controversy. As indicated above, he believed that Christianity is fundamentally a faith of simple moral commitment based on a loving God and a life-style of love and peace. But morality requires free will. If a person is urged by a loving and gracious God to do what is morally right, that person must have a free will to be able to choose to do what is right. And God would not urge a person to do something if that person had no choice and only acted out of necessity. This is true even if we give God all praise for His grace and forgiveness. In his book, Erasmus supported his claims by offering interpretations of several key biblical passages.
Luther regarded Erasmus’ position as a system of “work righteousness” and semi-Pelagian heresy according to which a person can cooperate with God to gain salvation. The Bondage of the Will opens with a brief greeting in which Luther acknowledged Erasmus’ superior talent but expressed his disappointment and low opinion of the scholar’s book, whereupon he then immediately argued that Erasmus’ disdain of assertions and his preference for skeptical withholding of judgment is totally unsuited for a Christian. Christianity, Luther argued, citing many biblical passages, is grounded in assertions—God’s assertions found in Scripture and confessed boldly by the believer.
Luther objected strongly to Erasmus’ contention that some things in Scripture are clear but that some are obscure and unknowable. Perhaps there are flaws in our knowledge of terms and phrases, Luther claimed, but Scripture is clear in its claims. For Luther, the Bible speaks with absolute clarity about Christ and the salvation God has won for us.
At this point, the issue of free will was taken up. This is what Erasmus had written in On the Freedom of the Will:
So in my opinion, as far as free choice is concerned, what we have learnt from Holy Writ is this: if we are in the way of true religion we should eagerly press on to better things, forgetting the things that are behind; if we are entangled in sins, we should strive with all our might, have recourse to the remedy of penitence and entreat by all means the mercy of the Lord, without which no human will or endeavor is effective; and whatever is evil in us, let us impute to ourselves, whatever is good let us ascribe wholly to the divine benevolence, to which we owe our very being; then for the rest, let us believe that whatever befalls us in this life, whether joyful or sad, it has been sent by God for our salvation, and that no wrong can be done to anyone by him, who by nature is just, even if some things happen that we feel we have not deserved, nor should anyone despair of forgiveness from a God who is by nature most merciful. To hold fast to these things, I say, is in my judgment sufficient for Christian godliness, and we have no call to force our way with irreverent inquisitiveness into those concealed, not to say superfluous, things, such as: whether God foreknows anything contingently; whether our will accomplishes anything in things pertaining to eternal salvation; whether it simply suffers the action of grace; whether what we do, be it of good or ill, we do by necessity or rather suffer to be done to us.6
In his response, Luther first summarized Erasmus’ point as follows: “that we should strive with all our might, have recourse to the remedy of penitence, and entreat by all means the mercy of the Lord, without which no human will or endeavor is effective; also, that no one should despair of the pardon of God who is by nature most merciful.”7
Luther went on to write, “These words of yours devoid of Christ, devoid of the Spirit, are colder than ice itself, so that they even tarnish the beauty of your eloquence. Perhaps they were dragged out of you, poor fellow, by fear of the pontiffs and tyrants.”8 Luther found Erasmus’ position to be indecisive and confusing. How much does man contribute by his striving? How much does God contribute by his mercy? And why shouldn’t it be important to investigate this issue to reach a definitive conclusion/assertion?
Luther made his point strongly:
When … you order [Christians] not to be inquisitive about what they can and cannot do in the matter of obtaining eternal salvation, this is beyond question the unforgiveable sin. For as long as they are ignorant of what and how much they can do, they will not know what they should do; and being ignorant of what they should do, they cannot repent if they do wrong; and impenitence is the unforgivable sin.
Thus Luther has refocused the issue. For him the real issue is obtaining salvation.
At this point Luther was willing to take a definitive step. He was willing to accept the full consequences, as far as salvation is concerned, of God’s omniscience. God knows all—without regard to time or place. He knows the future as fully as the past. And God has full free will to determine what will happen; man does not.
Scholastics had explored the logic of God’s omniscience to an amazing degree. For them the issue encompasses even personal trivial choices. But this matter of logic was of no interest to Luther. His interest was in whether a person has any freedom to do God’s will and thus to contribute to winning His favor and salvation. On this Luther claimed a decisive “No.” Until God takes hold of a person and through Christ and the Holy Spirit brings that person to faith and salvation and the subsequent good works, a person is under the control of Satan and sin. On this there is absolutely no free will. Until God frees us because of Christ, we are under the control of Satan.
In response to Erasmus’ claim that his position was in accordance with many Church Fathers and with general Church history, Luther replied that the Church has often made mistakes and that the only reliable truth is in Scripture.
After arguing against the interpretations Erasmus gave of several biblical passages, Luther offered additional passages to support his own position. He then presented his conclusions in which he reiterated five central points.
First, God’s omniscience rules out any free choice in any other creature:
I will here bring this little book to an end, though I am prepared if need be to carry the debate farther. However, I think quite enough has been done here to satisfy the godly and anyone who is willing to admit the truth without being obstinate. For if we believe it to be true that God foreknows and predestines all things, that he can neither be mistaken in his foreknowledge nor hindered in his predestination, and that nothing takes place but as he wills it (as reason itself is forced to admit), then on the testimony of reason itself there cannot be any free choice in man or angel or any creature.9
Second, Satan’s control over us until God rescues us likewise leaves no room for free will:
Similarly, if we believe that Satan is the ruler of this world, who is forever plotting and fighting against the Kingdom of Christ with all his powers, and that he will not let men go who are his captives unless he is forced to do so by the divine power of the Spirit, then again it is evident that there can be no such thing as free choice.10
Third, until God rescues us, all of our actions are necessarily directed toward evil:
Similarly, if we believe that original sin has so ruined us that even in those who are led by the Spirit it causes a great deal of trouble by struggling against the good, it is clear that in a man devoid of the Spirit there is nothing left that can turn toward the good, but only toward evil.11
Fourth, the history of both Jews and Gentiles shows that without God’s grace a human can only will the evil.
Again, if the Jews, who pursued righteousness to the utmost of their powers, rather ran headlong into unrighteousness, while Gentiles, who pursued ungodliness, attained righteousness freely and unexpectedly, then it is also manifest from this very fact and experience that man without grace can will nothing but evil.12
Finally, as Christians we must confess that Christ’s redemption requires us to believe that we were necessarily lost without Him:
To sum up: If we believe that Christ has redeemed men by his blood, we are bound to confess that the whole man was lost; otherwise, we should make Christ either superfluous or the redeemer of only the lowest part of man, which would be blasphemy and sacrilege.13
In a parting shot, Luther wrote in all capitals: “I for my part in this book HAVE NOT DISCOURSED, BUT HAVE ASSERTED AND DO ASSERT.”14
Luther believed that he had won the debate hands down. He considered this writing to be his greatest polemical work. The book was widely acclaimed (also denounced by many) immediately after its publication, and many theologians and others have praised it since then.
The book shows huge strengths including:
• Luther demonstrated the importance of assertions for a Christian.
• He had the courage and conviction to disagree with a popular, recognized authority.
• He was willing to accept that esteemed Church Fathers and later theologians made significant errors and sometimes strayed from Scripture.
• He saw vividly the Pelagian heresy that lies behind a moralistic version of Christianity.
• He understood the Gospel entirely in Christological terms.
• He recognized the full power of Satan’s control of the unregenerated person.
• He understood the total import of sola gratia—that we are saved by God’s grace alone.
• He showed with great skill the errors in some of Erasmus’ interpretations of Scripture and offered insightful interpretations of his own.
• He demonstrated that we are totally dependent upon God’s grace and that even faith is a gift of grace.
• He accepted his conclusions about our lack of free will with complete conviction even if some saw them as irrational or counterproductive.
Nevertheless, on the philosophical level, Luther did not argue how the role of Satan can be reconciled with God, who is omnipotent. Likewise, he did not propose that an omnipotent being might be able to create creatures with at least limited free choice, a more Augustinian position. In addition, Luther was willing in talking of free will to deal with a logical issue that was more akin to the approach of Scholasticism—despite the fact that both he and Erasmus viewed such thinking negatively.
Theologically, he might have acceded to Erasmus’ point that there are some passages that are difficult for us to understand without implying that the doctrines central to Christianity and to salvation are unclear.
Luther was right to point out the flaws of the Pelagian, moralistic, and cautious proposals that Erasmus had made. Of course, his language could have been gentler though likely there was no way to bring Erasmus to change his views. It should be noted, too, that Erasmus’ satire could be terribly disrespectful, and that Luther’s aggressive approach may have been necessary to keep his points from being lost or compromised in endless back-and-forth.15
A word needs to be said about the doctrine of predestination. The Calvinist position of double predestination is that God’s determination of events extends to his controlling who will be saved and who will not be saved. This goes further than Luther was willing to go. Luther’s emphasis was that God can and does overcome Satan’s total control over our will and that he graciously brings us to salvation. He protects and “predestines” his people through the work of the Holy Spirit. Luther did not purse the “logic” of the issue further.
In the end, The Bondage of the Will must be celebrated as a great work of Christian theology. It shows beautifully that a Christian must make bold assertions. It argues forcefully for the basic doctrine that we are entirely dependent upon God’s unfathomable grace for every single aspect of our salvation and for all of the spiritual blessings that He showers upon us through the Holy Spirit. In a very literal sense, Luther wished to give God all glory.