Shadowboxing with Luther, Playing for Grace:

Erasmus' Discourse on the Free Will as Public Performance and Humanist Definition

by Gregory Loselle 

Among the many issues the Protestant Reformation brought to the fore in public theological discourse, the seeming contradiction between the freedom of the human will and the power of an omniscient God was crucial in determining the course of both Protestant theology and the interpretation of Scripture by Protestant and Catholic alike. In the face of Luther's hardening conviction that man is essentially powerless before the will of God--a force Luther called necessity--Desiderius Erasmus sought to engage Luther in public debate through the publication of his Discourse on Free Will (1524), a pamphlet arguing the opposite position--the position of the Catholic Church--with reference to Scripture, ecclesiastical tradition, and deductive logic. Keenly aware that the argument would take place in the court of learned opinion, before the many interested readers both men had garnered across Europe, Erasmus couches his argument, which would come to encompass a definition of man and his position in relation to God, as a learned entertainment on theological themes.

Ingratiating his audience early on, Erasmus paints himself in shades of comic humility: "Here some will surely close their ears and exclaim, 'Oh prodigy! Erasmus dares to contend with Luther, a fly with an elephant?'" (Erasmus 5) Even so, he acknowledges his rival as an opponent worthy of his best efforts, and is careful to stress that no personal animosity motivates him: this is to be a theological debate, on principles only. "Let no one misinterpret our battle. We are not two gladiators incited against each other. I want to argue only against one of Luther's teachings, illuminating, if this be possible ... the truth, the investigation of which has always been the most reputable activity of scholars." (6) In stressing the scholarly aspect of their differences, however, Erasmus is as much as confessing his awareness that his comments will cause heated debate. He is, after all, delivering the opening salvo in a confrontation in which Luther will certainly feel honor-bound to reply--and he will. Therefore Erasmus keeps his public persona as a scholar firmly in view, declaring that "There will be no invective, and for two reasons: it does not behoove Christians so to act; and moreover, the truth, which by excessive quarreling is often lost, is discovered with greater certainty without it. (6)

That said, Erasmus plays to the crowds by launching into a tongue-in-cheek exposition of the fallacies of Lutheran doctrine, while countering blandly with points from Scripture. Before he has even advanced his proofs, Erasmus imagines the objections Luther and his followers will make:

If it is objected: what can large numbers contribute to an understanding of the Spirit? I answer: what can a small number of people? If they object: what can a bishop's miter contribute to an understanding of Holy Scripture? I answer: what can a hood and cowl? If they say: what can philosophical understanding contribute? I answer: what can ignorance? If they say: what can a congregated synod, in which perhaps nobody is inspired by the Spirit? I answer: what can a private gathering of a few contribute, none of whom probably has the Spirit? (16)

Ignoring for the moment the cheap shot with which he ends his mock dialogue, the passage can be analyzed for the forces informing Erasmus' position, which he has not directly stated; his irenic desires find comfort in consensus, the prime example of which is the unity of the Church; he prefers rationality to intuition; and he does not place high value on personal apprehension of Divine Will. In fact, his belief in intellect nearly begs the questions he will seek to answer throughout the Discourse: without free will, after all, what good is intellect? and what then is the nature of the relationship between man and God?

While willing to accept the prophetic writings of scripture, Erasmus is deeply distrustful of the Lutheran reliance on personal apprehension of the divine. His faith in 'a congregated synod,' which he expressly admits may be as prone to error as any individual--presumably Luther--at least has the advantage of multiple points of view. With this guarantee, the Spirit may be more easily invoked and, given the antiquity of the Christian revelation, the temporal element serves to reinforce and multiply the possible opportunities for the corrective influence of divine concern for humanity, so that "even if Christ's Spirit might permit his people to be in error on an unimportant question on which man's salvation does not depend, no one could believe that his Spirit has deliberately overlooked error in his Church for 1300 years, and that he did not deem one of all the pious and saintly Fathers worthy enough to be inspired..." (19)

In other words, Luther's convictions born of personal inspiration to the contrary, truth must reside in the teachings of the Church because it is the Church, exclusively through which God will, Erasmus trusts, make his will known. In his shadow-boxing match, Luther's very status opposite Erasmus, once Erasmus has chosen to cloak himself in the mantle of Rome, guarantees the apostate's misdirection. When so many have discussed the same issue for so long, Erasmus seems to say, the possibility of error surviving within the Catechism is unthinkable. Thirteen centuries of theologians, he wants to assert, just can't be wrong.

Following this bit of disingenuity, Erasmus again puts words into his imagined opponents' mouths: "If my opponents respond, 'Erasmus is like an old wine-skin unable to hold the new wine which they offer to the world,' ... they at least ought to consider us as Christ did Nicodemus [a reference to John, 3]...." (19-20) So he transforms himself into an old wine-skin of humility and yet a direct heir of primitive Christian beneficence. In doing so, he has pulled Socrates' trick of professing his own ignorance, advertising a guilelessness that, while suspect, serves the rhetorical function of masking his true purpose, knowledge and skills, thus leaving his interlocutors with the choice of accepting his dubious self-characterization or risking the disapprobation of onlookers by attacking a man who has just characterized himself as a student worthy of the Teacher's most basic and empathetic ministrations.

So, in mock-probity--now that this cat's breath smells suspiciously of canary--he defines his terms: "By freedom of the will, we understand ... the power of human will whereby man can apply to or turn away from that which leads to eternal salvation." (20) And the game is on.

Erasmus begins his argument with reference to the Fall, and cites Adam's choice to eat the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil as the primal example of free will and its consequences: "In Adam it seems ... the will was weakened ... because of his immoderate love of his wife to whose desires he gave preference over his obedience to God's commandments." (It is worth noting that, in the case of Eve, who had previously eaten the fruit, Erasmus attributes her failing not only to a failure of will, but also "[of] reason and intellect, the fountain of all good and all evil. It seems that the snake succeeded in persuading her...." thus making her seem the more easily swayed of the two. Adam, it seems, represents the purer example.) Erasmus is willing to concede the inherently sinful nature of man, through citation of original sin--"Just as the sin of our first parents was passed on to their descendants, so we also inherited the propensity to sin." (22)

It is propensity then, not nature, that Erasmus is concerned with, and propensity need not be an inherent and unchanging feature of our makeup. He rejects the Lutheran characterization of man as inherently sinful, bound by a force of predestination, and instead paints him as able to strive for what is good. "... Christ mentions not necessity, but the good works of men, when he invites all to participate in the eternal kingdom." (39)

We choose to sin, and thus deserve punishment for acts which define us as moral agents rather than automatons bound by divine necessity, as Luther would assert. Clearly then, the concept of sin, for Erasmus, as well as its just punishment, relies on a comparison of man's will and God's. Culpability is at issue only if man is free to act against God's will. "Those who deny any freedom of the will and affirm absolute necessity, admit that God works in man not only the good works, but also evil ones. It seems to follow that inasmuch as man can never be the author of good works, he can also never be called the author of evil ones. This opinion seems obviously to attribute cruelty and injustice to God, something religious ears abhor violently." (88)

Since God is, for the moment, the putative author of all evil, Erasmus turns to Scripture to cite a different source for damnation and let the Divine Will off the hook. Using one of the most accessible villains of Scripture, the Pharaoh of Exodus, Erasmus considers him as a test case for the provenance of evil. He affirms that Pharaoh could have chosen other than he did, but that his free will, acting without divine guidance in the form of grace, allowed him to work evil. "In reality, Pharaoh was created with a will enabling him to move in both directions. He has turned evil on his own account, since he has preferred his own inclination, rather than obey God's commandments." (48)

Given that Pharaoh chose to 'prefer his own inclination' and thereby sinned by choosing to act against God's will, he deserves punishment:

God had wanted Pharaoh to perish miserably. He was justified in wishing this, and it was good that the tyrant did perish. The will of God, however, did not force him to persist in his wrong. Thus a master may give and order to a servant whose bad character he knows. Such an order may offer the opportunity for sin and, caught in it, his punishment may serve as a lesson to others. The master knows beforehand that the servant will sin, and thus display his real character; in a certain sense, he wills his destruction and his sin. Nonetheless, this does not excuse the servant, for he sins out of his own malice. He has deserved that his malice be known to all and be punished. But where could you assume the beginning of merit where there is eternal necessity and where there is no free will? (50)

 Conversely, God's punishment does not imply that Pharaoh couldn't have chosen otherwise: it is just in itself. Therefore, evil does not originate with God, but in man's unwillingness to conform to God's authority. "The evil of an action does not proceed from God, but from our own will, except ... one might state that God is the cause of the evil of the human will only insofar as he leaves the will to itself and does not turn it aside by grace." (53)

The alternative--that Divine Will, or necessity, is the cause of all actions--he rejects out of hand, as much for its reduction of man to the status of a pawn of an impersonal God as for the imputation that evil acts must therefore spring from a divine source. "[W] orst of all is obviously the opinion of those who maintain that free will is an empty name and that neither ... did it or could it accomplish anything..." In effect, Erasmus argues, the denial of free will forces us to concede that "God causes in us evil as well as good, and that everything happens of mere necessity." (31)

Erasmus posits the influence of grace as a decisive factor is helping to guide the will in the salvation of the individual soul, and cautions that influence is not necessarily binding, even when it originates in the divine. "The one who guides does not necessarily force. Nonetheless, as mentioned before, nobody denies that God could forcefully influence the thinking capacity of man, expel his original intentions and inculcate another, yes, even deprive him of his intellect. But this does not change the fact that, normally speaking, our wills are free." (66) So free will functions in concert with grace in effecting salvation. "What the architect is for the apprentice, grace is for our will." (77)

The comparison of two similar human occupations--architect and apprentice--is revealing. Erasmus hints that free will links man and God by a simulacrum of voluntary function, so that man's free will is a reflection of the Divine:

The mercy of God offers everyone favorable opportunities for repentance. One needs only attach the rest of one's own will to God's help, which merely invites to, but does not compel to betterment. Furthermore, one finds the opinion, that it is within our power to turn our will towards or away from grace--just as it is our pleasure to open or close our eyes against light. (29)

 In making this assertion, Erasmus is stating that man has the will to choose good--which Luther would deny--and affirming that, in effect, the choice of good over evil--of salvation over sin--is within man's power. " ... [W]hy does one so often hear of reward, if there is no merit in it at all? How would obedience of those following God's commandments be praised, and disobedience be damned?" (81) Without choice, our works are reduced to the status of mere function, without merit, our nature as believers becoming a mechanical part of divine necessity, without moral weight: "When Scripture talks of good and bad works, as well as reward, I don't understand how necessity fits in. Neither nature nor necessity can earn merit. ... However, faith itself is a work and the free will participates to a considerable measure in it by turning to or away from faith." (38)

The need to compromise allows Erasmus to meet Luther on the common ground of human culpability, but he characterizes grace as an aid, not the prime agent, of salvation. "Sin-absolving grace can to a degree aid in our overcoming sin, but not extirpate it. Not that grace could not accomplish this, but because it does not profit us." (23) Allowing that grace plays a part in salvation, Erasmus' argument relies on the citation of Scripture to support the counterassertion that man can affect his salvation through freely choosing compliance with the will of God. "Nothing can grow, if heaven does not send the rain, Nevertheless, good soil produces good fruits, while bad soil can produce no good fruits. But since human endeavor alone accomplished nothing without divine help, everything is attributed to divine benefaction." (70) That man's compliance is not the sole factor in his achievement of righteousness is also one of Erasmus' concessions to Luther; in fact, he is careful to characterize the role of free will--and hence the importance of the whole discussion--as a matter of lesser importance in the scope of human activity: "Whoever wanted to counter despair or a false sense of security, and thereby spur man to hope and aspiration, has actually overrated the freedom of the will." (26)

Freedom allows the ability to reward or punish, even for God. Without it, without the freedom of the sinner to reject sin and choose merit for its own--and his soul's--sake, then God's authority, as outlined in Scripture, is suspect. "Now if man could do nothing, there would be no room for merit and guilt; consequently also none for punishment and reward." But this does not imply that will is everything, for the same equation of sin and punishment also allows Erasmus to posit that a totally free man would have no need of divine guidance: "If, on the other hand, man were to do all, there would be no room for grace, which is very often mentioned and emphasized by Paul." (59) The aid of grace allows the free will to function for the soul's salvation, and it is in the is combination of good works rightly chosen and the beneficent influence of God that man functions as an agent of his own salvation. "Even the healthy eye of a man does not see in the darkness, and when it is blinded, it does not see anything in light, either. Thus the will can do nothing, though free, if withdrawing from grace." (86)

In reference to Paul's letter to the Romans, one of the Lutheran mainstays, Erasmus writes, "How could the disdain of a commandment be imputed, if there is no free will? And how could God invite us to do penitence, when he has caused impenitence? And how could a condemnation be justified, when the judge himself has compelled the committing of an outrage?" (40) The freedom of the will functions here in reinforcing the righteousness of divine justice; God is a better, fairer judge for man's freedom, and this freedom makes justice, in the form of divine retribution, not only possible, but inevitable. In other words, Pharaoh had it coming to him.

Erasmus warns us that we should be careful, however, not to dwell too much on the degradation of man, ignoring his free will to choose to do good. Man is not so debased, and faith is not so powerful, that the intention of man cannot affect his merits in deserving his salvation, or in working in accord with the will of God to create the good. "We oppose those who conclude like this: 'Man is unable to accomplish anything unless God's grace helps him. Therefore there are no good works of man.' We propose rather the more acceptable conclusion: Man is able to accomplish all things, if God's grace aids him. Therefore it is possible that all works of man be good." (78)

All of this is not to say, however, that man is completely free to earn salvation by his merits alone. "I ask, what merit can he gain who owes completely to him from whom he received these forces all he is able to do by his natural intelligence and free will? Nevertheless, God credits us with precisely with this that we do not turn our hearts away from his grace, and that we concentrate our natural abilities on simple obedience. This proves at least that man can accomplish something, but nevertheless he ascribes the sum total of all his doings to God, who is the author whence originates man's ability to unite his striving to God's grace. (77)

Salvation then becomes a joint venture between God and man. "All Scripture exclaims: help, aid, assistance and support. But who could be designated as helper unless he helped one doing something? The potter does not 'help' the clay in the forming of a vessel, nor the carpenter his axe in the making of a bench." (78) So this argument is also about the nature of man, whom Erasmus is loath to deprive of the full range of moral action that freedom of will allows. "You hear again and again of preparing, choosing, preventing, meaningless words, if the will of man were not also free to do good, and not just evil." Clearly, the power of choice is intimately tied to the definition of functional humanity, conditioning and helping to define man's relationship with God. "What's the meaning of obedience, praised everywhere, if man in his good as well as evil works is just a tool of God's, like the hatchet for the carpenter?" (44)

The relationship of human freedom to human salvation--a sort of covenant implied between God and man--and the importance that free will assumes in a mutuality of action is unthinkable to Erasmus under the Lutheran dispensation: "[I]t would be like addressing a man whose hands are tied in such a manner that he can only reach with them to the left, 'To your right is excellent wine, to your left you have poison. Take what you like.'" (33) So, without free will we are not mankind, nor is God God.

With the poison on the table and our hands untied, freedom clearly poses threats as well as benefits, imposing obligations that further define the place of man in the divine scheme. "[T]he Lord says in Isaiah: 'If you be willing to hearken to me, you will eat the good things of the land. But if you will not, and will provoke me to wrath, the sword shall devour you.' (Isaiah, 1, 19)" Without freedom, however, Erasmus hints, divine wrath is meaningless, mankind loses his volitional identity with God, and the relationship between human and divine becomes mechanistic and impersonal, robbing mankind of the ability to cooperate in a moral universe in which his ability to affect his own salvation is one of the essential elements in defining his status. "Since the above is often said to sinners, I do not see how one can avoid attributing to them a free will capable of choosing the good because the will presumes certitude and discernment...." (33)

As he sums up his proofs from the Old Testament, Erasmus returns us to Eden and places the fruit in our hands.

Could it be stated any more plainly? God shows what is good and what is evil. He offers as recompense death or life. He relinquishes to man the freedom of choice. It would be ridiculous to command one to make a choice, if he were incapable of turning in either direction. That's like saying to someone who stands at the crossroads 'choose either one,' when only one is passable. (32)

 While Erasmus is keen to yield no truly important theological advantage to Luther and his proponents--"[C]are should be taken not to deny the freedom of the will, while praising faith. For if this happens, there is no telling how the problem of divine justice and mercy could be solved."--he is also mindful that his stance on the freedom of the will, an issue that had assumed greater importance during his lifetime than it had hitherto, is only one part of the larger battle with the Protestant movement. (84) Keeping in mind that his Discourse is a public statement, which would inevitably involve many readers whose range of opinion will be most broad, Erasmus is conscious that the battle around him is greater than his immediate concerns, and finally stresses the vast commonalities the two opposing viewpoints still shared:

It has been made plain that the opinion, as I have been elucidating it, when accepted, does not eliminate the pious and Christian things Luther argues for--concerning the highest love of God; the rejection of exclusive faith in merits, works and our strength; the complete trust in God according to his promises. (94)

 His concessions, and his courtesy, however, will fall on deaf ears. Luther, a much less subtle and ideologically flexible thinker, will answer five years later with his The Enslaved Will (1529), a pamphlet which allows no compromise, and one which he would later declare one of his best works. Perhaps Erasmus failed to recognize that what was for him a scholarly debate on the scope and quality of man and his relationship with God, is for Luther the definition of another type of man altogether: not the reformer whose trust is placed firmly in grace, but the uncompromising revolutionary, sure of his rectitude and able, not only to reform, but to revise the function of Christianity, and with it man's place in the cosmos

Anthony, Karen. "Of Course It's a Reference to Bird-Hunting, Dear:" All Your 12-Year-Old Really Needs to Know. Seattle: Parenting Press, 2000

 

Barton, William. Things Unspoken: Getting a Word in Edgewise at the NEH Seminar. Private Sound Recording, Summer, 2000

 

Cummings, Randy. Back to Bassics: the Influence of Contemporary Popular Music on the Translation of Petrarch. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 2000

 

Darden, Will. Eat Your Heart Out, I Get to Go Home Everyday! Interview, Coaching Magazine, June 2000

 

Debolt, John. Surviving in the Federal Witness Protection Program: One Successful Strategy. New York: Sing Sing Press, 2000

 

Delano, Greg. "Don't Make Me Pull this Car Over!" The Delano Code of Law. Coalinga, Ca: Commuter Publications, 2000

 

--, Katie. What I Did for Love: Seeing America, One Rest Stop at a Time. Coalinga, CA: Delano Press, 2000

 

Erasmus, Desiderius. Discourse on Free Will. Ernst Winter, trans. New York: Frederick Unger, 1961

 

Eastham, Jack. Emergency First Aid for Cuts and Abrasions. Durham: Duke U Hospital Press, 2000

 

Ewell, Janet. The Bird and I, Or: You Brought Your WHAT?! University Housing Monthly, June 2000

 

Gould, Anne. Barefoot, Pregnant, and Living in Student Housing--But At Least I Have it Better than Katie Delano! Durham, NC: Summer Survival Press, 2000

 

--, David. God and Man in Boca Raton. Boca Raton, FL: God's Waiting Room Press, 2000

 

Immediata, Mary Beth. I'm Really Too Nice to Tease. Durham, NC: Innocuous Press, 2000

 

Jones, Donald. What Am I Doing With All These Old People? Esquire Magazine, July, 2000

 

Kavanaugh, Patricia. Mon Dieu! All This Way and I End Up with Another Californian! Salt Lake City: Peregrinations Press, 2000

 

Loselle, Gregory. Search for the Center: The Bagel-Donut Diet-- Six Weeks to the Same Old You. Durham: Bruegger's Press, 2000

 

Mannebach, Wayne. A Bibliography for Making Friends with Francesco Petrarch, Niccolo Machiavelli, Desiderius Erasmus and Select Historical Persons, Issues and Events. Manuscript, 2000

 

Overaker, Lewis. A Double-Valium in a Waffle Cone: Ice Cream and the Treatment of Anxiety. Ben & Jerry's Employee Monthly, August 2000

 

Witt, Ronald. Swim With The Sharks--and Survive! Hillsboro, NC: Jaws Press, 2000.

 

First Published August 1, 2000; Last Updated June 12, 2002

Copyright 2000-2002 G.J.L.