De libero arbitrio diatribe sive collatio
De libero arbitrio diatribe sive collatio is the Latin title of a polemical work written by Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam in 1524. It is commonly called The Freedom of the Will or On Free Will in English. It was written to call out Martin Luther's revival of John Wycliffe's teaching that "everything happens by absolute necessity".
Erasmus' civil but deliberately provocative book mixes evangelical concerns that God has revealed himself as merciful not arbitrary and the conclusion in the Epilogue that where there are scriptures both in favour and against, theologians should moderate their opinions or hold them moderately: dogma is created by the church not theologians. In his view, a gently held synergism mediates the scriptural passages best, and moderates the exaggerations of both Pelagius and Manichaeus.
In response, Luther wrote his important work On the Bondage of the Will, against which Erasmus in turn wrote the two-volume book Hyperaspistes, which Luther did not respond to.
Background
De libero arbitrio diatribe sive collatio was nominally written to refute a specific teaching of Martin Luther, on the question of free will. Luther had become increasingly aggressive in his attacks on the Roman Catholic Church to well beyond irenical Erasmus' reformist agenda.One of the propositions ascribed to Luther and anathemized by Pope Leo X's bull Exsurge domine was that "Free will after sin is a matter of title only; and as long as one does what is in him, one sins mortally."
Luther responded, publishing his Latin Assertio omnium articulorum which included the statement "God effects the evil deeds of the impious" as part of the Wycliffian claim that "everything happens by pure necessity," so denying free will.
Erasmus' mentor Bishop John Fisher published a detailed response to the Latin version's arguments as Confutation of the Lutheran Assertion in 1523. In the same year, Catherine of Aragon's confessor Alphonso de Villa Sancta put out De libero arbitrio aduersus Melanchtonem, on Melancthon's version of Luther's theory.
Erasmus also had decided necessity/free will was a subject of core disagreement deserving a public airing, and strategized for several years with friends and correspondents on how to respond with proper moderation without making the situation worse for all, especially for the rigorous humanist classicist/biblicist/patristic reform agenda of "bonae litterae". He sent the draft to English King Henry VIII for comments, and received a note from Pope Clement VII encouraging publication, and a letter came from Martin Luther recommending he kept silent.
File:Erasmus, Roundel, 1532, by Hans Holbein.png|thumb|Portrait of Erasmus by Hans Holbein the Younger
Erasmus' eventual irenical strategy had three prongs:
- first, a dialogue Inquisitio de fide to turn down the general heat and danger, and to set the stage for calm debate, which asked the question of whether Lutherans were heretics and, because they accepted the Creed, proposed that Lutherans must not be classed as heretics;
- second, six months later, a small book On Free Will addressed as much to issues of limits of authority, discourse, biblical interpretation, as to free choice of humans in the things of God;
- third, published the same day as On Free Will, a small book De immensa misericordia dei, written ostensibly as a model sermon which provided Erasmus' positive alternative to Luther's idea in a non-controversial genre, without mentioning him. It set up that God was not arbitrary, against the claims of predestination; notably it sets "mercy" as a synonym for all kinds of grace, allowing a far broader range of scriptures to be applied than those that used the term "grace": "What is the grace of God, if not the mercy of God?"
Terminology
- Synergism is the idea that adult salvation or justification involves some sort of unequal co-operation This is the view that Erasmus believes explains scripture and tradition better in On Free Will. One version of this is the doctrine of prevenient grace associated with Augustine, who taught that without grace the will is captive.
- Monergism is the idea that God brings about an individual's salvation or justification regardless of their co-operation. This is the view associated with the early leaders of the Reformation such as Martin Luther. One version of this is the doctrine of irresistible grace associated with John Calvin.
- Semi-Pelagianism is the idea that the commencement of conversion is a free choice, with grace supervening only later.
- Pelagianism is the idea that humans have free will to achieve perfection. In some popular Protestant views synergism, semi-Pelagianism and Pelagianism reduce to effectively the same position, which is that humankind is basically good.
Content
The conclusions Erasmus reached also drew upon a large array of notable authorities, including, from the Patristic period, Origen, John Chrysostom, Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine, in addition to many leading Scholastic authors, such as Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus. He also engaged with recent thought on the state of the question, including the perspectives of the via moderna school and of Lorenzo Valla, whose ideas he rejected.
Preface
Erasmus' thesis was not simply in favour of undogmatic synergism, but that Luther's assertive theology was not grounded and bounded adequately, as can be seen from the headings of the Preface:- Luther's supposed infallibility
- Objectivity and scepticism
- Having an open mind
- Difficulties in the scripture
- Essence of Christian piety
- Man's limited capacity to know
- Unsuitability of Luther's teachings
For Erasmus, the heart of the issue was not theology but the role of prudence in limiting what can be claimed theologically: "what a loophole the publication of this opinion would open to godlessness among innumerable people."
Erasmus asserted that over-definition of doctrine historically leads to violence and more schism or heresy. The mentality and mechanisms of heretic-hunting were encouraged, not relieved, by adding to the articles of faith, this hunting then requiring terrors and threats. Erasmus' extremely tentative affirmation comes from these reflections: not only is any nasty disputation un-Christian, but the assertion of extra doctrines promotes, in effect, evil. Later opposing commenters interpreted this as that Erasmus loved Peace more than Truth.
He found no justification in consensus or history for Luther's idea on necessity, except for Manichaeus and John Wycliff.
He suggested that his own preferences might owe to personality more than to other sources. These were "red rags to a bull" for Luther.
Free Will
Erasmus adopted an unusual definition of Free Will: the ability of an individual to turn themselves to the things of God. So this included not only conversion but more general daily moments.In his response, Luther split his definition of Free Will to cover on the one hand moral things—where he allowed free choice to operate— and on the other hand conversion issues—where predestination was the proper explanation to the necessary exclusion of free choice.
Synergism and Causation
Erasmus explains prevenient grace by the analogy of a pre-toddler, too weak to walk on his own yet. His parent shows the child an apple as an incentive, and supports the child as the child takes steps towards the apple. But the child could not have raised himself without the parent's lifting, nor seen the apple without the parent's showing, nor have stepped without the parent's support, nor grasped the apple unless the parent put it into his small hands. So the child owes everything to the parent, yet the child has not done nothing.Pan-Biblical Evidence
Erasmus took his evidence not so much from one explicit Bible passage, but also from the innumerable passages that command humans to do things. In view of the dozens of passages analyzed "So it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that there is in us a will that can turn one way or the other." God, being neither mad nor cruel, would not command humans to do things that are completely impossible: believing or converting is one. These commands make no sense without free-will: the justice of God requires natural justice: humans cannot be held responsible if they have no choice.As far as God is concerned, Luther's view was that God can do anything, even logically impossible things, and that they are good because God did them ; while Erasmus' view is that God really is good and nothing bad can be ascribed to him.
Foreknowledge and predestination
In part, the disputation between Erasmus and Luther came down to differences of opinion regarding the doctrines of divine justice and divine omniscience and omnipotence. While Luther and many of his fellow reformers prioritized the control and power which God held over creation, Erasmus prioritized the justice and liberality of God toward humankind.Luther and other reformers proposed that humanity was stripped of free will by sin and that divine predestination ruled all activity within the mortal realm. They held that God was completely omniscient and omnipotent; that anything which happened had to be the result of God's explicit will, and that God's foreknowledge of events in fact brought the events into being.
Erasmus however argued that foreknowledge did not equal predestination. Instead, Erasmus compared God to an astronomer who knows that a solar eclipse is going to occur. The astronomer's foreknowledge does nothing to cause the eclipse—rather his knowledge of what is to come proceeds from an intimate familiarity with the workings of the cosmos. Erasmus held that, as the creator of both the cosmos and mankind, God was so intimately familiar with his creations that he was capable of perfectly predicting events which were to come, even if they were contrary to God's explicit will. He cited biblical examples of God offering prophetic warnings of impending disasters which were contingent on human repentance, as in the case of the prophet Jonah and the people of Nineveh.