Luther Examined and Reexamined: A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for RevaluationDau, W. H. T. (William Herman Theodore)
Religion
Luther Examined and Reexamined: A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation
Dau, W. H. T. (William Herman Theodore)
Luther, Martin, 1483-1546
He will begin to distrust the Gospel as a very inefficient
instrument, and this will lead him to become indifferent to it, and
finally fall away from it entirely. A real danger of apostasy and
despair exists wherever the Roman dogma of man's natural free will is
proclaimed.
It is, however, doing Luther a flagrant injustice when he is made to
deny that man has no longer any natural reason and will in the secular
affairs of this life. Luther used to divide the entire life of man into
two hemispheres, the upper embracing man's relation to God, holy things,
the interests of the soul here and hereafter, and the lower, embracing
the purely human, temporal, and secular interests of man. It is only in
the higher hemisphere that Luther denies the existence of free will.
Throughout his writings Luther asserts the existence, the actual
operation, and the necessity of human free will, though sadly weakened
by sin, in the affairs of this present life. It will be sufficient to
cite as evidence the Augsburg Confession which was drawn up with
Luther's aid and submitted to Emperor Charles V in 1530 as the joint
belief of Luther and his followers. "Of the Freedom of the Will," say
the Protestant confessors, "they teach that man's will has some liberty
for the attainment of civil righteousness and for the choice of things
subject to reason. Nevertheless, it has not power, without the Holy
Ghost, to work the righteousness of God, that is, spiritual
righteousness, since the natural man receiveth not the things of the
Spirit of God (1 Cor. 2, 14); but this righteousness is wrought in the
heart when the Holy Ghost is received through the Word. These things are
said in as many words by Augustine in his _Hypognosticon_ (Book III):
'We grant that all men have a certain freedom of will in judging
according to natural reason; not such freedom, however, whereby it is
capable, without God, either to begin, much less to complete aught in
things pertaining to God, but only in works of this life, whether good
or evil. "Good" I call those works which spring from the good in Nature,
that is, to have a will to labor in the field, to eat and drink, to have
a friend, to clothe oneself, to build a house, to marry, to keep cattle,
to learn divers useful arts, or whatsoever good pertains to this life,
none of which things are without dependence on the providence of God;
yea, of Him and through Him they are and have their beginning. "Evil" I
call such things as, to have a will to worship an idol, to commit
murder,' etc." (Art. 18.)
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