II.
(Continued from page 245.)
IN our last issue we saw that a considerable amount of confusion in connection with the theological controversy on the Will arose from the want of clear and definite definitions of the terms used. Erasmus cannot be blamed for any obscurity in his definition for he says: “I consider Free-will in this light: that it is a power in the human will, by which, a man may apply himself to those things which lead unto eternal salvation, or turn away from the same.” The issue here is clear and distinct and Luther delivers shattering and well-merited blows to this doctrine which we consider quite unscriptural. But it will be at once observed that the question at issue is really “liberty” and “ability.” “The controversy,” says Dr. Hodge, “between Luther and Erasmus was really about ability, nominally it was about free-will. Luther’s book is entitled De Servo Arbitrio, that of Erasmus, De Libero Arbitrio. During the sixteenth century “free-will” was used in the sense defined by Erasmus and it is in this sense the term is used in the Reformation symbols. Now, if the combatants had confined themselves to this aspect of the question all would have been simple as the issue could be clearly settled by the unmistakable evidence of Scripture but it so happened that in the discussion of “ability” and “inability” other questions came into the discussion. In their argument the question of God’s decree came in. Does this not imply necessity? Luther answers it does though he is careful to draw a distinction between the “necessity of compulsion” and the “necessity of immutability.” The former he rejects but supports the latter and in doing so is careful to point out that this kind of necessity does not imply that violence is done to the will but nevertheless the will was carried along by the natural operation of God. By this latter statement and others made by Luther which are of a much stronger kind we discover that his doctrine of “necessity” leads us to positions which are untenable and inconsistent with the Confessional doctrine. The Westminster Divines, conscious of the objections made against the doctrine of the divine decrees forestall criticism by certain statements they make in the III. Chapter of the Confession—”God from all eternity did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass: yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.” That is, they deny that the doctrine of the divine decrees as stated by them, whatever necessity (or “certainty” as Dr. C. Hodge prefers to term it) it implies, does not imply that (1) violence is done to the will of the creatures (2) that liberty or contingency of second causes is taken away. Again, in the V. Chapter on Providence it is stated: “Although, in relation to the foreknowledge and decree of God, the first cause, all things come to pass immutably and infallibly; yet, by the same providence, He ordereth them to fall out according to the nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely or contingently” (sec. ii.). That is, God has ordained whatsoever comes to pass and He has made provision that all that He has ordained should be actually brought about. This might appear, and has been alleged, to involve an absolute, universal necessity on all agents and all events. The Westminster Divines protested against such an inference of the doctrine stated in Chap. V. of the Confession by asserting that their doctrine does not imply the taking away of the liberty of second causes. When God created man at the beginning he had freedom of will and this freedom of will was not ruled out of question by what Luther would call the necessity of immutability—the one was not antagonistic to the other—but as this would naturally lead us into another field which we do not purpose to enter meantime we refrain from pursuing this line of thought. It has been made clear, we trust, in the course of this article that the Westminster Divines were extremely careful to forestall any argument that would ascribe to their doctrines of the divine decrees and providence that God was the author of sin or that His foreordination implied a necessity that robbed the agent of his free agency. In the IX. Chapter of the Confession the first section asserts that “God hath endued the will of man with that natural liberty, that it is neither forced nor by any absolute necessity of nature determined to good or evil.” This is a general statement on the will and in the following sections the Divines set forth what they believe true concerning the will of man (1) in a state of innocence—”he had freedom and power to will and to do that which is good and wellpleasing to God; but yet mutably, so that he might fall from it;” (2) in a sinful state—he “lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation; so as a natural man, being altogether averse from that good, and dead in sin, is not able, by his own strength, to convert himself, or prepare himself thereunto;” (3) in a regenerate state—he is freed from his natural bondage under sin and God by “His grace alone enables him freely to will and to do that which is spiritually good; yet so as that, by reason of his remaining corruption, he doth not perfectly nor only will that which is good, but doth also will that which is evil;” (4) in a state of glory—”the will of man is made perfectly and immutably free to do good alone in the state of glory only.” In these sections—at least in sections ii. to v.—it will be seen that the Westminster Divines are dealing with the question of man’s ability in what Boston termed his “fourfold state.” In his state of innocence they assert he had ability to do God’s will; in his fallen state he has totally lost this ability; in his regenerate state he is enabled by God’s grace alone to do that which is spiritually good; and, in the state of glory the bondage under which he was brought by sin is completely taken away and he is made perfectly and immutably free to do good alone. Dr. Cunningham who has discussed these questions in his Historical Theology and Reformers and Theology of the Reformation—works which every one who values clear thinking, massive learning and scriptural treatment ought to study—sums up the Westminster position in these words: “The Reformers and the older Calvinistic divines ascribed to man before his fall a freedom or liberty of will which they denied to man as he is, and the only necessity or bondage which they ascribed to man as he is, was an inability to will what is spiritually good and acceptable to God, as a result or consequence simply of the entire depravity of his moral nature, i.e., of his actual dispositions and tendencies. This was the only necessity they advocated as having anything like direct and explicit sanction from Scripture, or as indispensably necessary to the exposition and defence of their system of theology—not a necessity deduced from anything in God’s purposes and providence, or from anything in man’s mental constitution applicable to men, as men, or simply as creatures, but from a special feature in men’s character as fallen and depraved. This necessity or bondage under which they held man fallen, as distinguished from man unfallen, to lie, resolved itself into the entire absence in fallen man of holy and good dispositions or tendencies, and the prevalence in his moral nature of what is ungodly and depraved” (Hist. Theology, I. 585). Had Luther confined his attention to the doctrine of the bondage of the will without bringing into his argument certain views on necessity inconsistent with the above quoted statement of Dr. Cunningham it would not have been necessary for us to call attention to the matter. As it is Luther has produced one of the ablest books ever written on the bondage of the will. Man’s total inability is maintained and proved from Scripture notwithstanding all the subtle arguments of Erasmus. In relation to this doctrine he discusses also why commands and exhortations were addressed to man by God though he was unable to obey them.
In again commending this notable work to our readers we conclude with Dr. Cunningham’s estimate of Luther’s book “which,” he says, “is perhaps, upon the whole, the finest specimen he has left of his talents as a theologian, and which is thoroughly Calvinistic in its doctrinal views” (Historical Theology, I. 591).
[^1]: The Bondage of the Will by Martin Luther, the Celebrated Reformer: Being his Reply to Erasmus. Translated by Henry Cole, M.A., with slight alteration from Edward Thomas Vaughan, M.A. Corrected by Henry Atherton. London: Sovereign Grace Union, 98 Camberwell Grove. Price, 10/6.