“The Hinge On Which All Turns”

How important is the topic of Free-will?

Many, (as in, nearly all) Christians believe that by the power of their ”free-will” they chose to believe in and follow after Christ. The historical name for free-will is Pelagianism or semi-Pelagianism which is the belief that the Original Sin of Adam and Eve have no effect upon the individual’s ability to choose good or evil.

Objection: “Is free-will really important? After all, I believe in Jesus so what is the big deal?”

A well known college campus group states it this way. “We are to put aside the peripheral issues [doctrinal issues] that divide us …. Men are reminded that the real issue is Jesus Christ, and that we are to love one another even if we do not agree theologically or philosophically. I encourage you to apply this principle of LOVE and acceptance with all of your Christian friends, and help make Christ the real issue.”

Doctrine, for this author, is a “peripheral issue.” How does teaching that we ought to believe in an abstract, idealized Jesus square with the writings of John the Apostle? “If we say that we have fellowship with Him [Jesus] and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth…” (I John 1:16) and (John 3:19-21; 2 Timothy 4:3; 2 Peter 3:16-17)

Martin Luther, who initiated the Protestant Reformation in 1517, selected free-will as the topic of his most important book. Luther placed so much importance on Bondage Of The Will or in Latin: De Servo Arbitrio’, literally, “Concerning Bound Choice”, that he was, relatively speaking, indifferent regarding the fate of his many books, letters, sermons and pamphlets.

“Regarding the plan to collect my writings in volumes, I am quite cool and not at all eager about it because, roused by a Saturnian hunger, I would rather see them all devoured. For I acknowledge none of them to be really a book of mine, except perhaps the one: Bondage of the Will and the Catechism.”

Martin Luther, not one to mince words, is quite clear in his opposition to free-will; he wrote, “If any man ascribes anything of salvation, even the very least thing, to the free will of man, he knows nothing of grace, and he has not learned Jesus Christ rightly.”

More than anything else, it was the disagreement over free-will and not the selling of indulgences that alienated Luther and the Catholic Church. Indulgences may have gotten the ball rolling; in much the same way that the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand triggered WWI, but indulgences were secondary in importance when compared to the issue of free-will.

In Bondage Of The Will, Luther complements Desiderius Erasmus for his insight in choosing to debate Luther over the issue of free-will, which is for Luther the essential point of the Reformation and the very heart of the Gospel.

I give you [Erasmus] hearty praise and commendation on this further account—that you alone, in contrast with all others, have attacked the real thing, that is, the essential issue. You have not wearied me with those extraneous’ issues about the Papacy, purgatory, indulgences and such like—trifles, rather than issues—in respect of which almost all to date have sought my blood (though without success); you, and you alone, have seen the hinge on which all turns, and aimed for the vital spot. For that I heartily thank you; for it is more gratifying to me to deal with this issue [free-will], insofar as time and leisure permit me to do so.

Luther was not alone in his assessment that free-will was the essential element of the Reformation. John Calvin wrote, “The Papists [Catholic Church] … hold that man, through his own free will, returns to God; and on this point is our greatest contest with them at this day.”

Neither did the dispute over free-will begin with Martin Luther and Desiderius Erasmus. I have already noted that historically free-will was known as Pelagianism, named after its best known adherent and teacher, a monk named Pelagius in the fourth Century A.D. Augustine of Hippo (354-430 A.D.) opposed Pelagianism by asserting that salvation is the work of God alone and not of human origin. It was not until 529 A.D., long after the death of Augustine, that the semi-Pelagianism controversy was suppressed, (at least for a time) after the decision of the Synod of Orange. All of the leaders of the Protestant Reformation; Luther, John Calvin, Ulrich Zwingli opposed the doctrine of free-will as did the pre-Reformation teachers John Wycliffe and John Hus.

Free-will is contrary to God’s sovereign grace offered to us freely as a gift in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The doctrine of Justification by Faith, a pillar of Protestantism, is the belief that justification before God is a passive justice which we cannot obtain by striving or personal merit. It is impossible to overstate the importance of understanding Grace; for it was by grace that you were saved through faith, not of yourselves, lest any man should boast. (Eph 2:9; Rom 4:4)