Grace, Free Will, and the Reformation Debate

Luther, in speaking of the doctrine of election or predestination, which is so controversial, made the comment that in his judgment election is the core ecclesia, or the very heart of the church. Again, you have to remember that Luther was an Augustinian monk, and his primary mentor theologically was Augustine, and it was Augustine who had emphasized so strongly centuries earlier his concept of sola gratia, that we are saved by grace and by grace alone. [00:04:20]

And in his “Diatribe,” Erasmus argued that the whole issue of free will in this debate was a matter that was really not all that important. It was an academic point – a technicality – that could better be left to scholars and not something that people should be all of that concerned about. [00:05:43]

Erasmus had said that the doctrine of free will is, “One of those useless doctrines that we can do without.” Luther said, “It is irreligious, idle, and superfluous, you say, to want to know whether our will affects anything in matters pertaining to eternal salvation or whether it is wholly passive under the work of grace? [00:07:43]

Now, what Luther is saying here is this: that the question of what part God plays in my salvation and what part I play in my salvation has everything to do with our religious posture before God and everything to do with our understanding of the grace of God, our appreciation of the grace of God, our worship of God, and our dependence on God. [00:08:59]

Am I to reduce the glory that belongs to God for my redemption and arrogate some of the praise and glory to myself, or is it proper in the religious spirit of the Christian heart to understand that salvation is of the Lord, that we have been rescued as slaves who could not liberate themselves, as debtors who could not pay their debt so that we sing praises to God’s grace throughout our lives. [00:10:13]

Erasmus said, “This would open a floodgate of iniquity and would spread such news openly to the people.” Then he raised this practical question, “If this doctrine of election were to be taught, what wicked man would amend his life? Who would believe that God loved him, and who would fight against his flesh?” [00:12:00]

Luther said, “So be it.” Luther’s willing to go to the final point on this. He said, “Hey, what’s at stake here is the character of God, and if by teaching what the Bible teaches about our utter dependence upon the grace of God to redeem us, is going to cause people not to strive to come to God in their spiritual death” – he said, “If that’s the floodgate of iniquity and that it’s opened,” he said, “let it be open.” [00:14:04]

Again, he’s saying, “The problem that we have in our fallen condition is that nobody wants God. We don’t want God in our thinking, we don’t want God in our lives, and we are not pursuing God over heaven and earth. We’re fleeing from God as far and as fast as we possibly can; and our only hope is that if God seeks us out and turns us around and brings us to Himself. [00:15:21]

He says, “I suppose then, that this power of the human will means the power or faculty or disposition or aptitude to will or not to will, to choose or reject, to approve or disapprove, and to perform all the other actions of the will. Now, what it means for this same power to apply itself or to turn away, I do not see, unless it refers to the actual willing or not willing, choosing or rejecting, approving or disapproving – that is, the very action of the will itself. [00:16:08]

If this person says, “Yes,” to grace, it can only be because this person wants to say “Yes,” to grace, and if this person says, “No,” to grace, it can only be because this person wants to say, “No,” to grace. What could be more simple than that? Well that’s simple – to state the problem, or to state the question is simple, but again, the difficulty is in determining why one person would say “Yes,” and another person would say, “No.” [00:18:15]

He says that according to Luther, if God knows everything in advance and what is going to take place, then all things that happen in this world happen by necessity, and if all things happen by necessity, then we can’t possibly be free at all. For Erasmus, necessity means coercion. If my actions are necessary with respect to God’s foreknowledge, according to Erasmus, than they must take place through some kind of coercion. [00:21:47]

Luther said, “No, no, no, no, no, no.” He said, “God does not force me to make the decisions that I make in my normal daily living, but they are necessary with respect to His knowledge, because if God knows today what I am going to do freely tomorrow, without His coercion, will I do that tomorrow? Is it certain that I will do it tomorrow? It is of necessity of certainty insofar as it most certainly will come to pass because God doesn’t make mistakes in His knowledge, but that doesn’t mean that God is forcing me to do it, or that I’m forced by chance or anything else. [00:22:04]