Bondage
of the Will
|
As long as we
are here in this world we have to sin. This life is not a dwelling
place of righteousness.
|
Martin Luther
|
The humanist Erasmus
of Rotterdam (1469
–
1536) had written a book on
free will.
Martin Luther, the runaway Augustinian monk, published in 1525 a
rebuttal, De
Servo Arbitrio (Concerning the Bondage of
the Will), written in powerful
Latin and very much in the
spirit of Saint Augustine himself.
Luther made it crystal clear that it is "essentially necessary and wholesome for
Christians to know that God
foreknows
nothing by contingency, but that He foresees, purposes, and does all
things
according to His immutable, eternal, and infallible will. By this
thunderbolt,
'Free-will' is thrown prostrate, and utterly dashed to pieces. Those,
therefore, who would assert 'Free-will,' must either deny this
thunderbolt, or
pretend not to see it, or push it from them."
So if we believe “it to
be true, that God fore-knows and fore-ordains all things; that He can
be
neither deceived nor hindered in His Prescience and Predestination; and
that
nothing can take place but according to His Will, (which reason herself
is
compelled to confess;) then, even according to the testimony of reason
herself,
there can be no "Free-will" – in man, – in angel, – or in any
creature!”
“If we believe that
Satan is the
prince of this world, ever ensnaring and fighting against the kingdom
of Christ
with all his powers; and that he does not let go his captives without
being
forced by the Divine Power of the Spirit; it is manifest, that there
can be no
such thing as "Free-will!”
“If we believe that
original sin has
so destroyed us, that even in the godly who are led by the Spirit, it
causes
the utmost molestation by striving against that which is good; it is
manifest,
that there can be nothing left in a man devoid of the Spirit, which can
turn
itself towards good, but which must turn towards evil!”
“If the Jews, who
followed after
righteousness with all their powers, ran rather into unrighteousness,
while the
Gentiles who followed after unrighteousness attained unto a free
righteousness
which they never hoped for; it is equally manifest, from their very
works, and
from experience, that man, without grace, can do nothing but will evil!”
“Finally: If we believe
that Christ
redeemed men by His blood, we are compelled to confess, that the whole
man was
lost: otherwise, we shall make Christ superfluous, or a Redeemer of the
grossest part of man only, – which is blasphemy and sacrilege!”
This may sound like the statement of a
raving fanatic,
but so far it is Christian doctrine pure and simple, and as far as I
know, it
doesn’t contradict even the Catholic statement of faith. Jesus himself
said
that the "very hairs of your head are all numbered" (Mt. 10:30; also see Mt. 22:1-14) and "many
are called but few the chosen;" (Mk. 10:17-27; Mt. 5:10-12, 5:14-15;). Yet the zeal with which Luther carried
the attack
against Erasmus, was all his own:
“Here then, I see, you
suppose that
the truth and the utility of the Scripture are to be weighed and judged
of
according to the opinion of men, so that, what pleases or seems
bearable,
should be deemed true, divine, and wholesome: and what has the contrary
effect,
should at once be deemed useless, false, and pernicious. What else can you
mean by all this,
than that the words of God should depend on, stand on, and fall by, the
will
and authority of men?”
Luther
had a point! The
concept of “scripture,” of a
text of undisputed authority, is an intellectual obscenity, yet once we
accept
the premise the conclusion is inevitable:
“This is the highest
degree of faith
– to believe that He is merciful, who saves so few and damns so many;
to
believe Him just, who makes us necessarily damnable, that He may seem
to
delight in the torments of the miserable, and to be an object of hatred
rather
than of love. If, therefore, I could by any means comprehend how that
same God
can be merciful and just, who carries the appearance of so much wrath
and
iniquity, there would be no need of faith. But since that cannot be
comprehended, there is room for exercising faith, while God kills and
the faith
of life is exercised in death” (Luther).
As far as I am concerned a rather
desperate “faith.” But then again, Luther may have overlooked
something. After all, the fewer are “saved” the greater the joy for the
selected few gloating over the divine spectacle. In the words of the
Angelic Doctor: “In order that the
happiness of the saints may be more delightful to them and that they
may render more copious thanks to God, they are allowed to see
perfectly the sufferings of the damned. Divine justice and their own
deliverance will be the direct cause of the joy of the blessed, while
the pains of the damned will cause it indirectly, and the blessed in
glory will have no pity for the damned" (Thomas Aquinas,
Summa Contra Gentiles, III, supp. 94, a 1-3).
© – 1/9/2009 – by
michael sympson, 875 words, all rights
reserved
