It is probable that the three fragments, “On the unfreedom of the
human will,” etc., which are in agreement with this last Disputation,
date from the late autumn of 1516. Here “the captivity and slavery
of the will” (“_voluntas necessario serva et captiva_”) with regard
to the doing of what is good, i.e. “to merit and demerit,” is again
emphasised. Freedom in respect of “those other, lower matters which
come under the dominion of the will” is indeed conceded.[630] But as
the modern Protestant editor of the texts in question remarks, “even
this freedom is merely apparent,”[631] for Luther says briefly but
meaningly: “I do not deny that the will is free, or rather _seems
to itself_ to be free (‘_imo videatur sibi libera_’)[632] by the
freedom of contrariety and of contradiction with regard to its lower
objects.” Here we already have a clear indication of the determinism
which Luther was to advocate at a later date, according to which God’s
Omnipotence works all things in man, even indifferent matters.[633] In
these fragments it is, however, chiefly a question of moral actions.
Where it is a question of acts having some moral value Luther’s answer
is already quite definite: “The will when confronted with temptation
cannot without grace avoid falling; by its own powers it is able to
will only what is evil.”[634]
A year later the “Disputation against the theology of the Schoolmen”
of September 4, 1517, which has been already described generally (vol.
i., p. 312), laid the axe at the root of free-will in respect of what
is good; its tenor is even more decided, and it greatly exaggerates
the corruption of man by original sin: “It is false that the will is
free to choose between a thing and its contrary [in the moral order];
without grace the human will must of necessity do what is opposed to
the will of God.” Hence nature “must be put to death absolutely.”[635]
Concerning the Heidelberg Disputation in April, 1518, we need only
recall the fact, that Luther caused the thesis to be defended, that,
after the Fall, free-will is but a name, and that when man does the
best he can, he simply commits a mortal sin. The doctrine of the
sinfulness of the works performed by the natural man, which he had
held even previously, he now supplements by an addition, in the nature
of a challenge: “_Liberum arbitrium post peccatum res est de solo
titulo_.”[636]
In the Disputation with Eck at Leipzig in the following year, owing to
his views on the subject not yet being generally known, they were not
directly discussed.
When, however, after its termination, Luther, in August, 1519,
published the Latin “Resolutions” on the Leipzig Disputation, he
proclaimed himself to the world as a most determined opponent of
free-will, not even confining himself to attacking the power for doing
what is good.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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