Luther and Erasmus: The Controversy Concerning the Bondage of the Will

At the time of the Reformation, many hoped Martin Luther and Erasmus could unite against the errors of the Roman Catholic Church. Luther himself was tempted to unite with Erasmus because Erasmus was a great Renaissance scholar who studied the classics and the Greek New Testament. Examining the Roman Catholic Church, Erasmus was infuriated with the abuses in the Roman Catholic Church, especially those of the clergy. These abuses are vividly described in the satire of his book, The Praise of Folly. Erasmus called for reform in the Roman Catholic Church. Erasmus could have been a great help to the Reformation, so it seemed, by using the Renaissance in the service of the Reformation.

But a great chasm separated these two men. Luther loved the truth of God's Word as that was revealed to him through his own struggles with the assurance of salvation. Therefore Luther wanted true reformation in the church, which would be a reformation in doctrine and practice. Erasmus cared little about a right knowledge of truth. He simply wanted moral reform in the Roman Catholic Church. He did not want to leave the church, but remained supportive of the Pope.

This fundamental difference points out another difference between the two men. Martin Luther was bound by the Word of God. Therefore the content of the Scripture was of utmost importance to him. But Erasmus did not hold to this same high view of Scripture. Erasmus was a Renaissance rationalist who placed reason above Scripture. Therefore the truth of Scripture was not that important to him.

The two men could not have fellowship with each other, for the two movements which they represented were antithetical to each other. The fundamental differences came out especially in the debate over the freedom of the will.

From 1517 on, the chasm between Luther and Erasmus grew. The more Luther learned about Erasmus, the less he wanted anything to do with him. Melanchthon tried to play the mediator between Luther and Erasmus with no success. But many hated Erasmus because he was so outspoken against the church. These haters of Erasmus tried to discredit him by associating him with Luther, who was outside the church by this time. Erasmus continued to deny this unity, saying he did not know much about the writings of Luther. But as Luther took a stronger stand against the doctrinal abuses of Rome, Erasmus was forced either to agree with Luther or to dissociate himself from Luther. Erasmus chose the latter.

Many factors came together which finally caused Erasmus to wield his pen against Luther. Erasmus was under constant pressure from the Pope and later the king of England to refute the views of Luther. When Luther became more outspoken against Erasmus, Erasmus finally decided to write against him. On September 1, 1524, Erasmus published his treatise On the Freedom of the Will. In December of 1525, Luther responded with The Bondage of the Will.

Packer and Johnston call The Bondage of the Will "the greatest piece of theological writing that ever came from Luther's pen."1 Although Erasmus writes with eloquence, his writing cannot compare with that of Luther the theologian. Erasmus writes as one who cares little about the subject, while Luther writes with passion and conviction, giving glory to God. In his work, Luther defends the heart of the gospel over against the Pelagian error as defended by Erasmus. This controversy is of utmost importance.

In this paper, I will summarize both sides of the controversy, looking at what each taught and defended. Secondly, I will examine the biblical approach of each man. Finally, the main issues will be pointed out and the implications of the controversy will be drawn out for the church today.

Erasmus defines free-will or free choice as "a power of the human will by which a man can apply himself to the things which lead to eternal salvation or turn away from them." By this, Erasmus means that man has voluntary or free power of himself to choose the way which leads to salvation apart from the grace of God.

Erasmus attempts to answer the question how man is saved: Is it the work of God or the work of man according to his free will? Erasmus answers that it is not one or the other. Salvation does not have to be one or the other, for God and man cooperate. On the one hand, Erasmus defines free-will, saying man can choose freely by himself, but on the other hand, he wants to retain the necessity of grace for salvation. Those who do good works by free-will do not attain the end they desire unless aided by God's grace. Therefore, in regard to salvation, man cooperates with God. Both must play their part in order for a man to be saved. Erasmus expresses it this way: "Those who support free choice nonetheless admit that a soul which is obstinate in evil cannot be softened into true repentance without the help of heavenly grace." Also, attributing all things to divine grace, Erasmus states,

And the upshot of it is that we should not arrogate anything to ourselves but attribute all things we have received to divine grace … that our will might be synergos (fellow-worker) with grace although grace is itself sufficient for all things and has no need of the assistance of any human will."

In his work On the Freedom of the Will, Erasmus defends this synergistic view of salvation. According to Erasmus, God and man, nature and grace, cooperate together in the salvation of a man. With this view of salvation, Erasmus tries to steer clear of outright Pelagianism and denies the necessity of human action which Martin Luther defends.

On the basis of an apocryphal passage (Ecclesiasticas 15:14-17), Erasmus begins his defense with the origin of free-will. Erasmus says that Adam, as he was created, had a free-will to choose good or to turn to evil. In Paradise, man's will was free and upright to choose. Adam did not depend upon the grace of God, but chose to do all things voluntarily. The question which follows is, "What happened to the will when Adam sinned; does man still retain this free-will?" Erasmus would answer, "Yes." Erasmus says that the will is born out of a man's reason. In the fall, man's reason was obscured but was not extinguished. Therefore the will, by which we choose, is depraved so that it cannot change its ways. The will serves sin. But this is qualified. Man's ability to choose freely or voluntarily is not hindered.

By this depravity of the will, Erasmus does not mean that man can do no good. Because of the fall, the will is "inclined" to evil, but can still do good. Notice, he says the will is only "inclined" to evil. Therefore the will can freely or voluntarily choose between good and evil. This is what he says in his definition: free-will is "a power of the human will by which a man can apply himself to the things which lead to eternal salvation." Not only does the human will have power, although a little power, but the will has power by which a man merits salvation.

This free choice of man is necessary according to Erasmus in order for there to be sin. In order for a man to be guilty of sin, he must be able to know the difference between good and evil, and he must be able to choose between doing good and doing evil. A man is responsible only if he has the ability to choose good or evil. If the free-will of man is taken away, Erasmus says that man ceases to be a man.

For this freedom of the will, Erasmus claims to find much support in Scripture. According to Erasmus, when Scripture speaks of "choosing," it implies that man can freely choose. Also, whenever the Scripture uses commands, threats, exhortations, blessings, and cursings, it follows that man is capable of choosing whether or not he will obey.

Erasmus defines the work of man's will by which he can freely choose after the fall. Here he makes distinctions in his idea of a "threefold kind of law" which is made up of the "law of nature, law of works, and law of faith." First, this law of nature is in all men. By this law of nature, men do good by doing to others what they would want others to do to them. Having this law of nature, all men have a knowledge of God. By this law of nature, the will can choose good, but the will in this condition is useless for salvation. Therefore more is needed. The law of works is man's choice when he hears the threats of punishment which God gives. When a man hears these threats, he either continues to forsake God, or he desires God's grace. When a man desires God's grace, he then receives the law of faith which cures the sinful inclinations of his reason. A man has this law of faith only by divine grace.

In connection with this threefold kind of law, Erasmus distinguishes between three graces of God. First, in all men, even in those who remain in sin, a grace is implanted by God. But this grace is infected by sin. This grace arouses men by a certain knowledge of God to seek Him. The second grace is peculiar grace which arouses the sinner to repent. This does not involve the abolishing of sin or justification. But rather, a man becomes "a candidate for the highest grace." By this grace offered to all men, God invites all, and the sinner must come desiring God's grace. This grace helps the will to desire God. The final grace is the concluding grace which completes what was started. This is saving grace only for those who come by their free-will. Man begins on the path to salvation, after which God completes what man started. Along with man's natural abilities according to his will, God works by His grace. This is the synergos, or cooperation, which Erasmus defends.

Erasmus defends the free-will of man with a view to meriting salvation. This brings us to the heart of the matter. Erasmus begins with the premise that a man merits salvation. In order for a man to merit salvation, he cannot be completely carried by God, but he must have a free-will by which he chooses God voluntarily. Therefore, Erasmus concludes that by the exercise of his free-will, man merits salvation with God. When man obeys, God imputes this to his merit. Therefore Erasmus says, "This surely goes to show that it is not wrong to say that man does something…." Concerning the merit of man's works, Erasmus distinguishes with the Scholastics between congruent and condign merit. The former is that which a man performs by his own strength, making him a "fit subject for the gift of internal grace." This work of man removed the barrier which keeps God from giving grace. The barrier removed is man's unworthiness for grace, which God gives only to those who are fit for it. With the gift of grace, man can do works which before he could not do. God rewards these gifts with salvation. Therefore, with the help or aid of the grace of God, a man merits eternal salvation.

Although he says a man merits salvation, Erasmus wants to say that salvation is by God's grace. In order to hold both the free-will of man and the grace of God in salvation, Erasmus tries to show the two are not opposed to each other. He says, "It is not wrong to say that man does something yet attributes the sum of all he does to God as the author." Explaining the relationship between grace and free-will, Erasmus says that the grace of God and the free-will of man, as two causes, come together in one action "in such a way, however, that grace is the principle cause and the will secondary, which can do nothing apart from the principle cause since the principle is sufficient in itself." Therefore, in regard to salvation, God and man work together. Man has a free-will, but this will cannot attain salvation of itself. The will needs a boost from grace in order to merit eternal life.

Erasmus uses many pictures to describe the relationship between works and grace. He calls grace an "advisor," "helper," and "architect." Just as the builder of a house needs the architect to show him what to do and to set him straight when he does something wrong, so also man needs the assistance of God to help him where he is lacking. The free-will of man is aided by a necessary helper: grace. Therefore Erasmus says, "as we show a boy an apple and he runs for it ... so God knocks at our soul with His grace and we willingly embrace it." In this example, we are like a boy who cannot walk. The boy wants the apple, but he needs his father to assist him in obtaining the apple. So also, we need the assistance of God's grace. Man has a free-will by which he can seek after God, but this is not enough for him to merit salvation. By embracing God's grace with his free-will, man merits God's grace so that by his free-will and the help of God's grace he merits eternal life. This is a summary of what Erasmus defends.

Erasmus also deals with the relationship of God's foreknowledge and man's free-will. On the one hand, God does what he wills, but, on the other hand, God's will does not impose anything on man's will, for then man's will would not be free or voluntary. Therefore God's foreknowledge is not determinative, but He simply knows what man will choose. Men deserve punishment from eternity simply because God knows they will not choose the good, but will choose the evil. Man can resist the ordained will of God. The only thing man cannot resist is when God wills in miracles. When God performs some "supernatural" work, this cannot be resisted by men. For example, when Jesus performed a miracle, the man whose sight returned could not refuse to be healed. According to Erasmus, because man's will is free, God's will and foreknowledge depend on man's will except when He performs miracles.

This is a summary of what Erasmus taught in his treatise On the Freedom of the Will. In response to this treatise, Luther wrote The Bondage of the Will. We turn to this book of Luther.

Martin Luther gives a thorough defense of the sovereign grace of God over against the "semi-Pelagianism" of Erasmus by going through much of Erasmus' On the Freedom of the Will phrase by phrase. Against the cooperating work of salvation defended by Erasmus, Luther attacks Erasmus at the very heart of the issue. Luther's thesis is that "free-will is a nonentity, a thing consisting of name alone" because man is a slave to sin. Therefore salvation is the sovereign work of God alone.

In the "Diatribe," Luther says, Erasmus makes no sense. It seems Erasmus speaks out of both sides of his mouth. On the one hand, he says that man's will cannot will any good, yet on the other hand, he says man has a free-will. Other contradictions also exist in Erasmus' thought. Erasmus says that man has the power to choose good, but he also says that man needs grace to do good. Opposing Erasmus, Luther rightly points out that if there is free-will, there is no need for grace. Because of these contradictions in Erasmus, Luther says Erasmus "argues like a man drunk or asleep, blurting out between snores, 'Yes,' 'No.' " Not only does this view of Erasmus not make sense, but this is not what Scripture says concerning the will of man and the grace of God.

According to Luther, Erasmus does not prove his point, namely, the idea that man with his free-will cooperates in salvation with God. Throughout his work, Luther shows that Erasmus supports and agrees with the Pelagians. In fact, Erasmus' view is more despicable than Pelagianism because he is not honest and because the grace of God is cheapened. Only a small work is needed in order for a man to merit the grace of God.

Because Erasmus does not take up the question of what man can actually do of himself as fallen in Adam, Luther takes up the question of the ability of man. Here, Luther comes to the heart of his critique of the Diatribe in which he denies free-will and shows that God must be and is sovereign in salvation. Luther's arguments follow two lines: first, he shows that man is enslaved to sin and does not have a free-will; secondly, he shows that the truth of God's sovereign rule, by which He accomplishes His will according to His counsel, is opposed to free-will.

First, Luther successfully defends the thesis that there is no such entity as free-will because the will is enslaved to sin. Luther often says there is no such thing as free-will. The will of man without the grace of God "is not free at all, but is the permanent prisoner and bondslave of evil since it cannot turn itself to good." The free-will lost its freedom in the fall so that now the will is a slave to sin. This means the will can will no good. Therefore man does and wills sin "necessarily." Luther further describes the condition of man's will when he explains a passage from Ezekiel: "It cannot but fall into a worse condition, and add to its sins despair and impenitence unless God comes straightway to its help and calls it back and raises it up by the word of His promise."

Luther makes a crucial distinction in explaining what he means when he says man sins "necessarily." This does not mean "compulsion." A man without the Spirit is not forced, kicking and screaming, to sin but voluntarily does evil. Nevertheless, because man is enslaved to sin, his will cannot change itself. He only wills or chooses to sin of himself. He cannot change this willingness of his: he wills and desires evil. Man is wholly evil, thinking nothing but evil thoughts. Therefore there is no free-will.

Because this is the condition of man, he cannot merit eternal life. The enslaved will cannot merit anything with God because it can do no good. The only thing which man deserves is eternal punishment. By this, Luther also shows that there is no free-will.

In connection with man's merit, Luther describes the true biblical uses of the law. The purpose of the law of God is not to show men how they can merit salvation, but the law is given so that men might see their sinfulness and their own unworthiness. The law condemns the works of man, for when he judges himself according to the law, man sees that he can do no good. Therefore, he is driven to the cross. The law also serves as a guide for what the believer should do. But the law does not say anything about the ability of man to obey it.

Not only should the idea of free-will be rejected because man is enslaved to sin, but also because of who God is and the relationship between God and man. A man cannot act independently of God. Analyzing what Erasmus said, Luther says that God is not God, but He is an idol, because the freedom of man rules. Everything depends on man for salvation. Therefore man can merit salvation apart from God. A God that depends on man is not God.

Denying this horrible view of Erasmus, Luther proclaims the sovereignty of God in salvation. Because God is sovereign in all things and especially in salvation, there is no free-will.

Luther begins with the fact that God alone has a free-will. This means only God can will or not will the law, gospel, sin, and death. God does not act out of necessity, but freely. He alone is independent in all He decrees and does. Therefore man cannot have a free-will by which he acts independently of God, because God is immutable, omnipotent, and sovereign over all. Luther says that God is omnipotent, knowing all. Therefore we do nothing of ourselves. We can only act according to God's infallible, immutable counsel.

The great error of free-willism is that it ascribes divinity to man's free-will. God is not God anymore. If man has a free-will, this implies God is not omnipotent, controlling all of our actions. Free-will also implies that God makes mistakes and changes. Man must then fix the mistakes. Over against this, Luther says there can be no free-will because we are under the "mastery of God." We can do nothing apart from God by our own strength because we are enslaved to sin.

Luther also understands the difficulties which follow from saying that God is sovereign so that all things happen necessarily. Luther states: "If God foreknows a thing, it necessarily happens." The problem between God's foreknowledge and man's freedom cannot be completely solved. God sovereignly decrees all things that happen, and they happen as He has decreed them necessarily. Does this mean that when a man sins, he sins because God has decreed that sin? Luther would answer, Yes. But God does not act contrary to what man is. Man cannot will good, but he only seeks after sinful lusts. The nature of man is corrupted, so that he is turned from God. But God works in men and in Satan according to what they are. The sinner is still under the control of the omnipotent God, "which means, since they are evil and perverted themselves, that when they are impelled to action by this movement of Divine omnipotence they do only that which is perverted or evil." When God works in evil men, evil results. But God is not evil. He is good. He does not do evil, but He uses evil instruments. The sin is the fault of those evil instruments and not the fault of God.

Luther asks himself the question, Why then did God let Adam fall so all men have his sin? The sovereignty of God must not be questioned, because God's will is beyond any earthly standard. Nothing is equal to God and His will. Answering the question above, Luther replies, "What God wills is not right because He ought or was bound, so to will, on the contrary, what takes place must be right because He so wills it." This is the hidden mystery of God's absolute sovereignty over all things.

God is sovereign over all things. He is sovereign in salvation. Is salvation a work of God and man? Luther answers negatively. God alone saves. Therefore salvation cannot be based on the merits of men's works. Man's obedience does not obtain salvation, according to Luther. Some become the sons of God "not by carnal birth, nor by zeal for the law, nor by any other human effort, but only by being born of God." Grace does not come by our own effort, but by the grace of Jesus Christ. To deny grace is to deny Jesus Christ. For Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Free-will says that it is the way, the truth, and the life. Therefore free-will denies Jesus Christ. This is a serious error.

God saves by His grace and Spirit in such away that the will is turned by Him. Only when the will is changed can it will and desire the good. Luther describes a struggle between God and Satan. Erasmus says man stands between God and Satan, who are as spectators waiting for man to make his choice. But Luther compares this struggle to a horse having two riders. "If God rides, it wills and goes where God goes…. If Satan rides, it wills and goes where Satan goes." The horse does not have the choice of which rider it wants. We have Satan riding us until God throws him off. In the same way, we are enslaved to sin until God breaks the power of sin. The salvation of a man depends upon the free work of God, who alone is sovereign and able to save men. Therefore this work in the will by God is a radical change whereby the willing of the soul is freed from sin. This beautiful truth stands over against Erasmus' grace, which gives man a booster shot in what he can do of himself.

This truth of the sovereignty of God in salvation is comforting to us. When man trusts in himself, he has no comfort that he is saved. Because man is enslaved to sin and because God is the sovereign, controlling all things according to His sovereign, immutable will, there is no free-will. The free-will of man does not save him. God alone saves.

The battle begins with the fundamental difference separating Luther and Erasmus in regard to the doctrine of Scripture. Erasmus defends the obscurity of Scripture. Basically, Erasmus says man cannot know with certainty many of the things in Scripture. Some things in God's Word are plain, while many are not. He applies the obscurity of Scripture to the controversy concerning the freedom of the will. In the camp of the hidden things of God, which include the hour of our death and when the last judgment will occur, Erasmus places "whether our will accomplishes anything in things pertaining to salvation." Because Scripture is unclear about these things, what one believes about these matters is not important. Erasmus did not want controversy, but he wanted peace. For him, the discussion of the hidden things is worthless because it causes the church to lose her love and unity.

Against this idea of the obscurity of Scripture, Luther defends the perspicuity of Scripture. Luther defines perspicuity as being twofold. The external word itself is clear, as that which God has written for His people. But man cannot understand this word of himself. Therefore Scripture is clear to God's people only by the work of the Holy Spirit in their hearts.

The authority of Scripture is found in God Himself. God's Word must not be measured by man, for this leads to paradoxes, of which Erasmus is a case in point. By saying Scripture is paradoxical, Erasmus denies the authority of God's Word.

Luther does not deny that some passages are difficult to understand. This is not because the Word is unclear or because the work of the Holy Spirit is weak. Rather, we do not understand some passages because of our own weakness.

If Scripture is obscure, then this opposes what God is doing in revelation. Scripture is light which reveals the truth. If it is obscure, then why did God give it to us? According to Luther, not even the difficult to understand doctrines such as the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the unpardonable sin are obscure. Therefore the issue of the freedom of the will is not obscure. If the Scripture is unclear about the doctrine of the will of man, then this doctrine is not from Scripture.

Because Scripture is clear, Luther strongly attacks Erasmus on this fundamental point. Luther says, "The Scriptures are perfectly clear in their teaching, and that by their help such a defense of our position may be made that our adversaries cannot resist." This is what Luther hoped to show to Erasmus. The teaching of Scripture is fundamental. On this point of perspicuity, Luther has Erasmus by the horns. Erasmus says Scripture is not clear on this matter of the freedom of the will, yet he appeals to the church fathers for support. The church fathers base their doctrine of the free-will on Scripture. On the basis of the perspicuity of Scripture, Luther challenges Erasmus to find even one passage that supports his view of free-will. Luther emphasizes that not one can be found.

Luther also attacks Erasmus when he says what one believes concerning the freedom of the will does not matter. Luther sums up Erasmus' position this way: "In a word, what you say comes to this: that you do not think it matters a scrap what any one believes anywhere, as long as the world is at peace." Erasmus says the knowledge of free-will is useless and non-essential. Over against this, Luther says, "then neither God, Christ, Gospel, faith, nor anything else even of Judaism, let alone Christianity, is left!" Positively, Luther says about the importance of the truth: "I hold that a solemn and vital truth, of eternal consequences, is at stake in the discussion." Luther was willing to defend the truth even to death because of its importance as that which is taught in Scripture.

A word must also be said about the differing views of the interpretation of Scripture. Erasmus was not an exegete. He was a great scholar of the languages, but this did not make him an able exegete. Erasmus does not rely on the Word of God of itself, but he turns to the church fathers and to reason for the interpretation of Scripture. In regard to the passage out of Ecclesiasticas which Erasmus uses, Luther says the dispute there is not over the teaching of Scripture, but over human reason. Erasmus generalizes from a particular case, saying that since a passage mentions willing, this must mean a man has a free-will. In this regard, Luther also says that Erasmus "fashions and refashions the words of God as he pleases." Erasmus was concerned not with what God says in His Word, but with what he wanted God to say.

Not only does Erasmus use his own reason to interpret Scripture, but following in the Roman Catholic tradition he goes back to the church fathers. His work is filled with many quotes from the church fathers' interpretation of different passages. The idea is that the church alone has the authority to interpret Scripture. Erasmus goes so far in this that Luther accuses Erasmus of placing the fathers above the inspired apostle Paul.

In contrast to Erasmus, Luther interprets Scripture with Scripture. Seeing the Word of God as inspired by the Holy Spirit, Luther also trusts in the work of the Holy Spirit to interpret that Word. One of the fundamental points of Reformed hermeneutics is that Scripture interprets Scripture. Luther follows this. When Luther deals with a passage, he does not take it out of context as Erasmus does. Instead, he examines the context and checks other passages which use the same words.

Also, Luther does not add figures or devise implications as Erasmus does. But rather, Luther sticks to the simple and plain meaning of Scripture. He says, "Everywhere we should stick to just the simple, natural meaning of the words, as yielded by the rules of grammar and the habits of speech that God has created among men." In the controversy over the bondage of the will, both the formal and material principles of the Reformation were at stake.

Now we must examine some of the important passages for each man. This is a difficult task because they both refer to so many passages. We must content ourselves with looking at those which are fundamental for the main points of the controversy.

Showing the weakness of his view of Scripture, Erasmus begins with a passage from an apocryphal book: Ecclesiasticas 15:14-17. Erasmus uses this passage to show the origin of the free will and that the will continues to be free after the fall.

Following this passage, Erasmus looks at many passages from the Old Testament to prove that man has a free-will. He turns to Genesis 4:6, 7, which records God speaking to Cain after he offered his displeasing sacrifice to God. Verse 7 says, "If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? And if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door." Erasmus says that God sets before Cain a reward if he chooses the good. But if he chooses the evil, he will be punished. This implies that Cain has a will which can overcome evil and do the good.

From here, Erasmus looks at different passages using the word "choose." He says Scripture uses the word "choose" because man can freely choose. This is the only way it makes sense.

Erasmus also looks at many passages which use the word "if" in the Old Testament and also the commands of the Old Testament. For example, Isaiah 1:19,20 and 21:12 use the words "if … then." These conditions in Scripture imply that a man can do these things. Deuteronomy 30:14 is an example of a command. In this passage, Israel is commanded to love God with all their heart and soul. This command was given because Moses and the people had it in them to obey. Erasmus comes to these conclusions by implication.

Using a plethora of New Testament texts, Erasmus tries to support the idea of the freedom of the will. Once again, Erasmus appeals to those texts which speak of conditions. John 14:15 says, "If ye love me, keep my commandments." Also, in John 15:7 we read, "If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you." These passages imply that man is able to fulfill the conditions by his free-will.

Remarkably, Erasmus identifies Paul as "the champion of free choice." Referring to passages in which Paul exhorts and commands, Erasmus says that this implies the ability to obey. An example is I Corinthians 9:24,25: "Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain. And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible." Man is able to obey this command because he has a free-will.

These texts can be placed together because Luther responds to them as a whole. Luther does treat many of these texts separately, but often comes back to the same point. Luther's response to Genesis 4:7 applies to all of the commands and conditions to which Erasmus refers: "Man is shown, not what he can do, but what he ought to do." Similarly, Luther responds to Deuteronomy 30:19: "It is from this passage that I derive my answer to you: that by the words of the law man is admonished and taught, not what he can do, but what he ought to do; that is, that he may know sin, not that he may believe that he has any strength." The exhortations and commands of the New Testament given through the apostle Paul are not written to show what we can do, but rather, after the gospel is preached, they encourage those justified and saved to live in the Spirit.

From these passages, Erasmus also taught that man merited salvation by his obedience or a man merited punishment by his disobedience, all of which was based on man's ability according to his free-will. Erasmus jumps from reward to merit. He does this in the conditional phrases of Scripture especially. But Luther says that merit is not proved from reward. God uses rewards in Scripture to exhort us and threaten us so that the godly persevere. Rewards are not that which a man merits.

The heart of the battle of the biblical texts is found in their treatment of passages from the book of Romans, especially Romans 9. Here, Erasmus treats Romans 9 as a passage which seems to oppose the freedom of the will but does not.

Erasmus begins his treatment of Romans 9 by considering the hardening of Pharaoh's heart. He treats this in connection with what Romans 9:18 says, "Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will, he hardeneth." To interpret this passage, Erasmus turns to Jerome, who says, "God hardens when he does not at once punish the sinner and has mercy as soon as he invites repentance by means of afflictions." God's hardening and mercy are the results of what man does. God has mercy "on those who recognize the goodness of God and repent…." Also, this hardening is not something which God does, but something which Pharaoh did by not repenting. God was longsuffering to Pharaoh, not punishing him immediately, during which Pharaoh hardened his heart. God simply gave the occasion for the hardening of his heart. Therefore the blame can be placed on Pharaoh.

Although Erasmus claims to take the literal meaning of the passage, Luther is outraged at this interpretation. Luther objects:

Positively, Luther explains this hardening of the heart of Pharaoh. God does this, therefore Pharaoh's heart is necessarily hardened. But God does not do something which is opposed to the nature of Pharaoh. Pharoah is enslaved to sin. When he hears the word of God through Moses which irritates his evil will, Pharaoh's heart is hardened. Luther explains it this way:

Once again, Luther objects. Luther defends the necessity of consequence to what God decrees. Luther says, "If God foreknows a thing, it necessarily takes place." Therefore, in regard to Jacob and Esau, they did not attain their positions by their own free-will. Romans 9 emphasizes that they were not yet born and that they had not yet done good or evil. Without any works of obedience or disobedience, the one was master and the other was the servant. Jacob was rewarded not on the basis of anything he had done. Jacob was loved and Esau was hated even before the world began. Jacob loved God because God loved him. Therefore the source of salvation is not the free-will of man, but God's eternal decree. Paul is not the great champion of the freedom of the will.

In defense of the literal meaning of Romans 9:21-23, Luther shows that these verses oppose free-will as well. Luther examines the passage in the context of what Paul is saying. The emphasis in the earlier verses is not man, but what God does. He is sovereign in salvation. Here also, the emphasis is the potter. God is sovereign, almighty, and free. Man is enslaved to sin and acts out of necessity according to all God decrees. Luther shows that this is the emphasis of Romans 9 with sound exegetical work.

After refuting the texts to which Erasmus refers, Luther continues to show that Scripture denies the freedom of the will and teaches the sovereignty of God in salvation. He begins with Romans 1:18 which says, "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness." Luther says this means all men are ungodly and are unrighteous. Therefore, all deserve the wrath of God. The best a man can do is evil. Referring to Romans 3:9, Luther proves the same thing. Both Jews and Greeks are all under sin. They will and do nothing but evil. Man has no power to seek after good because there is none that doeth good (Ps. 14:3). Therefore, men are "ignorant of and despise God! Here is unbelief, disobedience, sacrilege, blasphemy towards God, cruelty and mercilessness towards one's neighbors and love of self in all things of God and man." Luther's conclusion to the matter is this: man is enslaved to sin.

Man cannot obtain salvation by his works. Romans 3:20 says that by the works of the law no man can be justified in God's sight. It is impossible for a man to merit salvation by his works. Salvation must be the sovereign work of God.

Luther thunders against free-will in connection with Romans 3:21-16 which proclaims salvation by grace alone through faith.58 Free-will is opposed to faith. These are two different ways of salvation. Luther shows that a man cannot be saved by his works, therefore it must be by faith in Jesus Christ. Justification is free, of grace, and without works because man possesses no worthiness for it.

Finally, we notice that Luther points out the comprehensive terms of the apostle Paul to show that there is no free-will in man. All are sinners. There is none that is righteous, and none that doeth good. Paul uses many others also. Therefore, justification and salvation are without works and without the law.

Over against the idea of free-will stands the clear teaching of Scripture. Luther clearly exegetes God's Word to show this. In summary, the truth of predestination denies the free-will of man. Because salvation is by grace and faith, salvation is not by works. Faith and grace are of no avail if salvation is by the works of man. Also, the only thing the law works is wrath. The law displays the unworthiness, sinfulness, and guilt of man. As children of Adam we can do no good. Luther argues along these lines to show that a free-will does not exist in man. Salvation is by grace alone.

Luther is not interested in abstract theological concepts. He does not take up this debate with Erasmus on a purely intellectual level. The main issue is salvation: how does God save? Luther himself defines the issue on which the debate hinges:

So it is not irreligious, idle, or superfluous, but in the highest degree wholesome and necessary, for a Christian to know whether or not his will has anything to do in matters pertaining to salvation…. This is the hinge on which our discussion turns, the crucial issue between us.

Luther finds it necessary to investigate from Scripture what ability the will of man has and how this is related to God and His grace. If one does not know this, he does not know Christianity. Luther brings this against Erasmus because he shows no interest in the truth regarding how it is that some are saved.

Although the broad issue of the debate is how God saves, the specific issue is the sovereignty of God in salvation. The main issue for Luther is that man does not have a free-will by which he merits eternal life, but God sovereignly saves those whom He has chosen.

Luther is pursuing the question, "Is God, God?" This means, is God the omnipotent who reigns over all and who sovereignly saves, or does He depend on man? If God depends on man for anything, then He is not God. Therefore Luther asks the question of himself: Who will try to reform his life, believe, and love God? His answer, "Nobody." No man can do this of himself. He needs God. "The elect, who fear God, will be reformed by the Holy Spirit; the rest will perish unreformed." Luther defends this truth so vigorously because it is the heart of the gospel. God is the sovereign God of salvation. If salvation depends on the works of man, he cannot be saved.

Certain implications necessarily follow from the views of salvation defended by both men. First, we must consider the implications which show the falsehood of Erasmus' view of salvation.

When Erasmus speaks of merit, he is really speaking as a Pelagian. This was offensive to Erasmus because he specifically claimed that he was not a Pelagian. But Luther rightly points out that Erasmus says man merits salvation. According to the idea of merit, man performs an act separate from God, which act is the basis of salvation. He deserves a reward. This is opposed to grace. Therefore, if merit is at all involved, man saves himself. This makes Erasmus no different from the Pelagians except that the Pelagians are honest. Pelagians honestly confess that man merits eternal life. Erasmus tries to give the appearance that he is against the Pelagians although he really is a Pelagian. Packer and Johnston make this analysis:

Another implication of the synergistic view of salvation held to by Erasmus is that God is not God. Because salvation depends upon the free-will of man according to Erasmus, man ascribes divinity to himself. God is not God because He depends upon man. Man himself determines whether or not he will be saved. Therefore the study of soteriology is not the study of what God does in salvation, but soteriology is a study of what man does with God to deserve eternal life.

This means God's grace is not irresistible, but man can reject the grace of God. Man then has more power than God. God watches passively to see what man will do.

Finally, a serious implication of the view of Erasmus is that he denies salvation is found in Jesus Christ alone. In his Diatribe, Erasmus rarely mentions Jesus Christ. This shows something is wrong. This does follow from what Erasmus says. The emphasis for Erasmus is what man must do to be saved and not on what God has done in Jesus Christ. Therefore Jesus Christ is not the only way of salvation and is not that important.

Over against the implications of Erasmus' view are the orthodox implications of Luther's view. God is sovereign in salvation. God elects His people, He sent Jesus Christ, and reveals Jesus Christ only to His people. It is God who turns the enslaved wills of His people so that they seek after Him. Salvation does not depend upon the work of man in any sense.

The basis of salvation is Jesus Christ alone. Because man is enslaved to sin, He must be turned from that sin. He must be saved from that sin through the satisfaction of the justice of God. A man needs the work of Jesus Christ on the cross to be saved. A man needs the new life of Jesus Christ in order to inherit eternal life. The merits of man do not save because he merits nothing with God. A man needs the merits of Jesus Christ for eternal life. A man needs faith by which he is united to Christ.

The source of this salvation is election. God saves only those whom He elects. Those who receive that new life of Christ are those whom God has chosen. God is sovereign in salvation.

Because God is sovereign in salvation, His grace cannot be resisted. Erasmus says that the reason some do not believe is because they reject the grace which God has given to them. Luther implies that God does not show grace to all men. Instead, He saves and shows favor only to those who are His children. In them, God of necessity, efficaciously accomplishes His purpose.

Because man cannot merit eternal life, saving faith is not a work of man by which he merits anything with God. Works do not justify a man. Salvation is the work of God alone in Jesus Christ and through the Holy Spirit. Faith is a gift of God whereby we are united to Jesus Christ and receive the new life found in Him. Even the knowledge and confidence as the activity of faith are the gifts of faith.

Finally, only with this view of salvation that God is sovereign can a man have comfort that he will be saved. Because God is sovereign in salvation and because His counsel is immutable, we cannot fall from the grace of God. He preserves those who are His children. Erasmus could not have this comfort because he held that man determines his own salvation.

Although this controversy happened almost five hundred years ago, it is significant for the church today. The error of "semi-Pelagianism" is still alive in the church today. Much of the church world sides with Erasmus today, even among those who claim to be "Reformed." If a "Reformed" or Lutheran church denies what Luther says and sides with Erasmus, they despise the reformation of the church in the sixteenth century. They might as well go back to the Roman Catholic Church.

This controversy is important today because many deny that Jesus Christ is the only way of salvation. A man can worship heathen gods and be saved. This follows from making works the basis of salvation. Over against this error, Martin Luther proclaimed the sovereignty of God in salvation. He proclaimed Jesus Christ as the only way of salvation. We must do the same.

The error of Pelagianism attacks the church in many different forms. We have seen that in the history of the Protestant Reformed Churches. The sovereignty of God in salvation has been attacked by the errors of common grace and a conditional covenant. Over against these errors, some in the church world have remained steadfast by the grace of God. God does not love all. Nor does He show favor to all men in the preaching of gospel. Erasmus himself said that God showed grace to all men and God does not hate any man. The Arminians said the same thing at the time of the Synod of Dordt. Yet, men who defend common grace claim to be Reformed. They are not.

Also, in this synergistic view of salvation, we see the principles of the bilateral, conditional covenant view which is in many "Reformed" churches. If God and man work together in salvation, then the covenant must be a pact in which both God and man must hold up each one's end of the agreement. Over against this we must proclaim the sovereignty of God in salvation especially in regard to the covenant. The covenant is not conditional and bilateral. God works unconditionally and unilaterally in the covenant of grace.

Finally, we must apply the truth of the sovereignty of God defended by Luther to ourselves. We could say there is a Pelagian in all of us. We know God sovereignly saves, but we often show by our practice that we proudly want to sneak a few of our works in the back door. We must depend upon God for all things.

May this truth which Martin Luther defended, the truth of the sovereignty of God in salvation, be preserved in the church.

I realize that I read scriptures partly on the way I have been taught. I admit I have a frame of reference. I just believe that frame of reference is faithful to the scriptures, as opposed to also being faithful to other teachings. As little as possible is added or subtracted from the plain meaning.

Naturally. The search for the "Real" Jesus continues. Do you realize that EVERYONE says what you are? Jehovah Witnesses, Unitarians, Docetists, Arians, and any other group of people looking at the Book? We ALL have our perceptions of what God is trying to say... None of us were there, so, as all good scholars do, we make God into our own ideas and thoughts of Whom He is and what He has revealed.

To me, the plain meaning of this, without ANY background, would be clear. It would take a serious twisting of interpretation to change the meaning of these words. I am surprised you tried to make this point.

Again, you should read up more on Christian heresies. The Docetists say that Christ merely "pretended" to die. There is very little discussion on the agony of Christ - almost as if He was silent on the cross. The Gnostics have various different explanations as well. THEY say that God COULD NOT die on the cross. It was a substitution of Judas Iscariot or Simon the Cyrenean. The Muslims ALSO say the same thing - God didn't die on the cross. EVERYONE, including you, has a paradigm that they approach Scriptures with. These people don't think that God could suffer and die, so any "clear" Scripture is obviously a spiritual, not literal meaning. It is the Catholic faith that you draw the majority of your paradigms from.

I disagree. The only way to get to secret knowledge or anything else extra-Biblical is to build it in artificially.

Baloney. Who said that everything must be written down for it to be official? You are too enamoured with the US Justice system, I think. Much of the Jewish Scripture is based on oral traditions passed down CENTURIES until they were written down. Many of our ancient manuscripts of history or biographies are written hundreds of years AFTER the fact. Much of our information that we have is based on traditions passed down orally at least for some period of time - often for generations. Did you learn to eat by reading a book? Do you think people 1500 years ago learned by reading books? Or that they were overly concerned with written material?

I don't think the Gnostics thought that knowledge and belief were the same thing, at least to how we use the terms. I just implied in a recent post to you that some of the Pygmies will be saved without any formal knowledge. What would the Gnostics say to that? :)

You are probably correct. However, faith in something comes from knowledge. And it also depends on what kind of knowledge we are talking about. For example, when Paul talks about "knowing" the Lord, he is not discussing "book" knowledge, but experiential knowledge attained from a personal relationship. Thus, the Book is not needed absolutely for such experiences. We can come to know Christ WITHOUT a book in this manner. The Gnostic's concept of knowledge was based on God's secret revelation to them alone. The Catholic concept of knowledge was that ALL had this knowledge of experiencing Christ available to them - IF they turn from sin and place their faith in Him. What would the Gnostics say about the Pygmies? Perhaps they would agree. It would depend on the Pygmies knowledge meshing with the Gnostics view on the cosmic reality around them.

I figured I had a shot at a match with Augustine, but I didn't know about Aquinas. Thanks. :)

Catholics are taught that the elect are predestined irrestistibly by God. He actively brings His elect to Him WITHOUT overriding their will. This is an important thing to keep in balance - both realities must be maintained. But God does NOT actively choose people for perdition. Man does that on his own despite the efforts that God makes. Yes, man CAN and DOES refuse God. And God's wrath to them is shown in Romans 1:18-28. This is the basics on Catholic teaching on predestination. There is a lot of room for speculation within these parameters.

Regards

It doesn't matter where you locate the physical center as long as you don't become dogmatic and literalistic about where the center is

But we tend to do just that! We place the physical, rational, etc. over spiritual. The worst error is when we cloak the physical, rational, with spiritual and present it as absolute truth.

The Fathers have argued that reason is not the way to reach or understand the spiritual, and that only through prayer, when "reason ceases and words fall silent" can we reach God.

If mankind, the Church especially, did not read into the Scripture "scientifically," Galileo's discoveries would have been hailed, as all science should be hailed, for giving us a more glorious idea of God's Creation. Nothing in the Scripture contradicts science when Scripture is read spiritually, and not literalistically or dogmatically, because the physical world and the spiritual world are separate, and mutually exclusive: science makes working models; Scriptures makes virtuous men.

What made Galileo's discoveries subject to "vehement suspicion of heresy" was precisely dogmatic and literalistic interpretation of the center.

But, in all fairness, this is easier said now then it was in Galileo's days, and I wonder how many of us would have sided with the Church, for the Old World Order was not without precedence and its own proofs.

Because of this state of affairs, FK, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Not because God failed but because we did and He loves His creation

Kolo, this was a beautfil reply. Unfortunately, some of our Protestant counterparts see God's omnipotences as micormanagement. We see God as a loving Father who allows His children freedom to choose in order to give each and every human a chance to come to Him on his own when called. Calvinists apparently see that as God not being in control.

In our faith, God is doing everything for us; in theirs, God is doing everything for Himself and His own Glory. In ours we are His children; in theirs, we are His tools and toys, like little lead soldiers.

Everying hinges on the phronema or mindset. A glass can be half full or half empty. The two will never agree.

I don't think you misunderstood me, as I really didn't explain myself, and I'd like to do that now.

Thank you. I admire the Rev. Spurgeon's works. He was a very powerful preacher in an age where man was placing himself on a pedestal WITHOUT realizing that God was more than a "voice in the ear". I agree that God is instrumental in what we do in our own lives. However, I don't think one can KNOW how much exactly He does and what we do to "do" something. Human subconsciousness is quite subjective. I don't think it is a matter of God doing 87% or 99%. But I also don't see it as I have no choice. In every moral situation in where I am conscious of a decision, I feel within myself the "war" to choose one or the other. I do not feel an inexorable drive (as if I was a puppet) to do good. I normally choose good in these situations because I mentally am trying to show my love for Christ. I realize that God put that desire within me. But during those moments, I also feel that I COULD say "No". Thus, these discussions on free will.

Your quote, at first, appeared to belittle Christians who held to free will by misrepresenting their view as if they believe that man does EVERYTHING to achieve God. That is certainly not what Catholics believe. I don't know about Armianism. But we are taught the middle road, so to speak. We try to balance what Scripture tells us - that God moves within us the will and desire to please Him - AND - that man has free will and is expected to choose the good and not the evil. He is held accountable for THAT choice.

Your comments regarding religious discussion are refreshing and make good points. I also hear that "voice" in me that tells me it is time to stop and let it be. I admit that this thread has become a bit lengthy, and we are, frankly, pretty much where we started. Has anyone (perhaps besides Forest Keeper) come away with a different opinion regarding this question? While I don't condemn people for having different opinions, I am wondering about how people come to these conclusions. Certainly, people must be wondering about how I came to my conclusions. Quite frankly, I doubt whether God will judge us based on how much we know, or how correct our knowledge is, but what we do with what we have been given. The parable of the Talents (Mat 25) should be a guiding rule for us.

Best wishes this Easter

Are you saying that the man Jesus used His free will to just choose not to sin?

Is the man Jesus separate from the God Jesus? They are the same person! Thus, when Jesus did something, BOTH natures acted - although in given situations, His divine nature was more noticeable, and in other situations, His human nature was more noticeable. There is NO purpose of the Temptation in the Desert story OTHER than to show that Jesus, as man, COULD refuse the Tempter. If Jesus was using His "God Powers", what would be the point? That would be like me demonstrating to a 4 year old how I can pick up 200 pounds and he can't. The point is that man CAN - when they rely on God and His ways - turn from evil choices.

Well, then you are also chuckling at other Catholics! You told me yourself that some Catholics believe that God sees the decisions of man for Him, and bases His decisions for election upon them.

But I am chuckling at the idea of WAITING for man, not on whether God sees our responses or not in choosing His elect. {God did not wait with baited breath} God sees ALL time, FK, as one action. Why would He have to wait or guess or whatever? His decision is made outside of time based on His view of ALL time at the same time...Maybe we should just give up here.

GOD SCRAMBLED??? Here again are two examples of you making God dependent upon man. You have God working around man's free will decisions. You can't escape it, even as you convey the point unintentionally.

I don't know what to tell you, other than to remind you that God works outside of time, not within time. He already foresaw Adam's sin before He even created Adam in time. His one view of all time, His one blink of the eye, consists of ALL our decisions and all of our actions. Thus, He infinite wisdom is able to take into account actions that have not even occured yet in time. All I can tell you is that the Scriptures maintain TWO truths. That God's will be done and man has free will. We try to maintain both truths without eliminating the other. At this point, God has not revealed exactly how that occurs. My personal view is that God, from within eternity, sees all actions and takes into account these actions by granting His graces to ensure that the final result of His will is met. Thus, God is not "waiting" on us. He sees something and acts on it - but before it happens. Thus, He is the driving force AND we have free will.

I believe that men are ultimately responsible for their own evil, even when they have no capacity to do "good".

How can man be responsible for their actions if they can only DO one action??? Even humans do not condemn people who are severly retarded to death! But you would have God doing just that! The God of Love condemning His creation for not doing what that man CANNOT do to begin with! What a Just Judge your God is... Sorry, you need to put things in persective here. God does not command what man cannot do. Would you condemn someone to death for not being able to pick up 20000 pounds with their bare hands?

Regards

We see a difference between death/corruption and moral guilt. The former we are born with as a result of the ancestral sin, and the latter we acquire as a result of our actions.

This must refer only to physical death, I am presuming. So, are you saying that all of Paul's comparisons that we have been talking about are between eternal spiritual life and only physical death? Doesn't it make more sense that he was comparing spiritual life and spiritual death? Don't all of us, as Christians, believe that physical death is merely a transition, it's what happens after that is important? "Eternally" speaking, isn't physical death, to us, really no big deal?

We do not believe that the Theotokos was born without the results of ancestral sin, in the sense of the tendency to death and corruption. We do believe that she lived a morally guiltless life, and was thus a worthy vessel for the conception and birth of Christ. We do not believe that "the fix was in" for her. We believe that she had no other tools at her disposal than the ones we do.

I think I would find this much more plausible if you said the fix WAS in. :) Mary had no other help than the rest of us, and yet she turns out to be the only human in the history of mankind (except Jesus) to choose to never sin? And, it was just a coincidence that this person turned out to be a woman? And, it was just a coincidence that she lived in an area that would bring her to Bethlehem for a census? And, it was just a coincidence that her lineage happened to be perfectly in line with scriptural requirements? I'm sure there are more. Without a special dispensation from God, what are the odds that one and only one person out of billions and billions would "choose" to never sin? I don't see it.

...the same Carl Sagan intoning about "billions and billions"

Ha! You and I must be about the same age. How well I remember Sagan and that "Starship Enterprise" television set.

You know, the whole Galileo incident has taken quite a beating on this thread. One interesting thing to note is that nothing of that sort ever happened, as far as I know, in the Eastern Church.

But on the other hand, while the Byzantine Empire saw great advances in practical technology, it was not particularly prominent in anything we would call experimental or theoretical science.

Of course, there was something about Western Christendom that produced a Galileo. Nothing has been so consistent as the ability of Western Christendom to make continual leaps in scientific knowledge and technology. Many explanations have been given for this, and the favorite of those who dislike Christianity is the explanation that it was all an accident of history.

But I don't think so. At the root of the rise of Western science was precisely the fact that Western religion promoted an analytical and systematizing mindset and involved the idea of an orderly universe where phenomena could be observed and predicted. If one's religion doesn't involve a faith in an orderly universe, scientific and technological progress is not terrilby likely.

What is interesting and (to me) incontrovertable is that this process accelerated exponentially after the Protestant Reformation, and the further cutting free of the independent analytical mind from the guidance of tradition. The modern industrial and technological world is in no small part the child of Protestantism. Whether that world is a spiritually healthy one is quite another question.

But getting back to Galileo, I think that it is helpful to think of this not so much as a conflict between religious dogma and science, but between an older scientific dogma and a newer scientific construct.

Anyone who has spent any time around the scientific world will know that some of the fiercest and most brutal bloodlettings are between supposedly objective scientists who are discussing supposedly hard facts and purportedly logical theoretical constructs. In my own little field of expertise, I have seen tremendous advances -- and yet every single time, the scientific establishment has resisted those advances. I've seen virulent public disputes at scientific meetings that make our theological discussions on FR seem like child's play.

At the root of those virulent disputes is the fact, as I have pointed out repeatedly on this thread, that even the hardest of sciences are not nearly as hard as the credulous modern man believes them to be. The "hard facts," are rarely as incontrovertible and hard as the average laymen, with his essentially religious faith in modern science, supposes them to be.

Scientists know this -- thus the bloodlettings involved in their internecine disputes.

In fairness to the keepers of the old guard, the other side of things is that for every truly revolutionary advance in science and technology, there are 10 more that claim to be advances but which are quite simply errors. If one immediately embraces every supposed "advance," this can be dangerous, because of the consequences of embracing an "advance" that turns out, upon closer examination or with the passage of time and experience, to be wrong.

I see no need to look on it as either coincidence or as coersion. As the Scripture says, Christ came "in the fullness of time..." I don't think it is terribly profitable to try to describe it in other than those Biblical terms.

As we have belabored on this thread repeatedly, prophecy is not a blueprint that God wrote in the past, then manipulating things in such a way to make sure everyone followed his blueprint in the future, lest he look stupid for having put something in his blueprint that wasn't followed.

This implies that God has a past and a future.

Prophecy is God speaking from outside time to us who are inside time. He inspires someone from our past to foretell what will happen in our future. It doesn't need to be more complicated than that.

I don't think that when the Gospels say things like "that the Scripture might be fulfilled," they mean that Christ was play-acting and reading lines from a script. They are simply a literary way of reminding the readers that this or that event had been prophesied long ago. It is a way of saying that the God of the Christians is the very same God the Hebrews had worshipped all along. It is also another way of showing what Orthodox Christians have always believed: that "the Lord God" of the Old Testament is none other than the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity.

This is why every icon of Christ has, in the nimbus behind Christ's head, the Greek words "o on" (sorry, unlike Kolokotronis, I don't know how to do omicron and omega in html) -- which are the words in the LXX by which the Lord identifies himself to Moses from the burning bush when Moses asks him who he should say has sent him: "He who is." (Unlike translations based on the Hebrew, the LXX uses a clearly masculine pronoun, incidentally.)

Wrong. Thirty-five years ago you could still find a physicist talking about a cetrifugal force. But that force doesn't exist; it only appears to exist; it is a fictitious force. A gravity field does not emerge to push you into your seat.

I was referring to the General Relativity Equivalence Principle:

Experiments performed in a uniformly accelerating reference frame with acceleration a are indistinguishable from the same experiments performed in a non-accelerating reference frame which is situated in a gravitational field where the acceleration of gravity = g = -a = intensity of gravity field. One way of stating this fundamental principle of general relativity is to say that gravitational mass is identical to inertial mass.
(Principle of Equivalence)

Given our laser beam focus on the free will and the errors of Luther, it is a bit offtopic. The classic example is that the gravity one experiences in a static elevator at the earth surface is undistingushable from the inertial force in an accelerating elevator in the outer space. Gravity is acceleraion; the underlying physical reality is that either gravity or acceleration are different labels we put on the curvature of timespace. Likewise, in an accelerating car the observer experiences one curvature that pushes him and his coffee downward, formed by the mass of the earth, and he normally refers to that one as the earth gravitational pull; and the other curvature pushing him to the backrest of the seat and the coffee to the edge of the cup, created by the energy of the engine, and he normally refers to that one as inertial force. If instead of a car accelerating along the surface of the earth we had a car-shaped spaceship accelerating upward (toward the roof of the car) and pulled by a planet behind its hood, with a proper adjustment of the energy of that spaceship providing the upward thrust, and the size of the planet providing the rearward pull, we would have the exact same observations, even though the directions of gravity and acceleration have been swapped, gravity threatening to spill the coffee and acceleration securing it inside the cup.

The famous ontological equivalence of mass (source of gravity) and energy (source of acceleration) follows from this example.

In fighting various heresies, the Church established trough Councils that Christ had two natures, one fully Divine and one fully human and that the two did not mix. As such Jesus, the Man, knew of His special blessing but was not acting like Christ the Gd. So, I reject the "inside information" theory of Forest Keeper.

Really, the two did not mix? In that case, who was Jesus telling us to believe in? His invisible, and separate, alter-ego? What did Jesus mean when He said "I and the Father are one"? To be consistent, you must believe that the man Jesus NEVER claimed to be God. I am amazed you are saying this. I guess the Jews were way ahead of you.

If He was walking around with the "inside knowledge" then He was more than Adam.

It is controversial to you that Jesus was more than Adam? Words fail me.

Unless He was in every way like us except that He (as fully human without "inside information") chose not to sin but could have sinned according to His human nature, the whole thing was a show.

How in the universe do you come to that conclusion? Jesus was ONLY human, or else His existence was a show? How did the human Jesus perform miracles? Did the Father send down special powers, BYPASSING the divinity in Christ, to Jesus the man? Where do you get this stuff? :)

What made Galileo's discoveries subject to "vehement suspicion of heresy" was precisely dogmatic and literalistic interpretation of the center.

I remember reading some detail about Galileo, and I was convinced at the time that the heresy Galileo was accused of was indeed a theological heresy. The naked assertion that the earth revolves around the sun would not have been considered heretical. Another part of Galileo's guilt was that at least according to his fellow scientists he did not really prove his physics satisfactorily -- he was correct, as we know now, but his proof was not sufficient. I do not remember the particulars.

We often take the popular history of science for granted: the Catholic Church had taught geocentrism and was against science, so it supressed scientific research, and Galileo was a model scientist who got victimized. In fact the Church supported science but insisted on rigor both in theology and in science.

That's funny, given that religious wars were the reason for some many millions of deaths and endless conquests. Scientific controversies exist until proven otherwise. The Apostolic Church has been in schism for almost one thousand years.

It's neither the science nor religion but human nature that is at the heart of that. More often than not, the crux is personal preference.

The "hard facts," are rarely as incontrovertible and hard as the average laymen, with his essentially religious faith in modern science, supposes them to be

Well, the arrangement of planets in our solar system is what I would call a "hard fact." What is not agreed upon is the convention that would make Pluto and other "captured" objects, a "hard" planet.

I mean, the cause of tuberculosis is pretty much a "hard fact" barring any unusual mutation. And optical formulations based on pure mathematics faithfully reproduce and predict the behavior of light although we can't really define light in simple terms.

I would say, that most of science, excluding the forefront, is a reliable source of knowledge and working models. The "faith" in science comes from the "hard" fact that it works. Disagreements come from personal differences, specific needs, etc.

We often take the popular history of science for granted: the Catholic Church had taught geocentrism and was against science, so it suppressed scientific research, and Galileo was a model scientist who got victimized. In fact the Church supported science but insisted on rigor both in theology and in science

You are right on both accounts. The only people who are truly against science are some extreme Evangelical Christian sects, Bible literalists.

As to the second statement, yes, Galileo was permitted by two or three Popes to continue his work. That is an important consideration. The disclaimer that was required with all books of science was to be printed at the very beginning saying, to the effect, that we may never know what is true and therefore assure the readership that the author does not posit his work as something challenging dogma.

I couldn't agree more. Science is a working model based on limited knowledge and such knowledge cannot be universal, complete, perfect. We must never assume that we have seen all physical phenomena, but it is easy to understand that in Galileo's world there were no wireless communications, save for spiritual consumption. I mean, who has seen radio waves?

Galileo was sunder "vehement suspicion of heresy" by only a portion of the Roman Inquisition. While he could not explain the carted studded Moon and perhaps had to accept the Vatican "explanation" that the "devil" was distoritong our view, or that the "strange appendages" on Saturn were also satanic distortion, but once he observed Venus change its fully illuminated face to a crescent shaped one, he knew that the geocentric system was incorrect and he could prove it. He violated therefore the disclaimer that proceeded all his works.

I must add that Galileo assured everyone that he did not forget about God, but that was all in vain. I can see how this can happen given the historical and cultural prejudices that we are all subject to.

(sorry, unlike Kolokotronis, I don't know how to do omicron and omega in html)

It is not HTML, really. HTML does not have a reliable way to produce Greek letters in any browser. If you install a Greek character set in your computer and go to a Greek website, you will see Greek in a variety of fonts because the server supplies a page-level language meta information; you cannot do so by posting into a page served in English by the Free Republic server. What Kolokotronis uses is a hack that works ofr some readers, but not for others, and only with one "Greek" font. It is not really even Greek, as I am about to explain. MS-Windows computers have a font called "symbol". It associates Greek glyphs with Latin letters, rather idiotically, by how they look. For example, W is glyphed Omega because it sort of looks like it (both Omicron and Omega sound as O in most languages). If your computer has this font, -- and it is a part of the stadnard Windows intallation -- you can select that font in your word processor, and type "o Wn" and get Omicron Omega Nu glyphed. If you don't --e.g. you have a Mac or a Linux, -- you get "o Wn" in the default font of that machine.

HTML allows to specify the font. The tag is , or what have you. You can add two other attributes, SIZE or COLOR. It has to be closed with

This is what I am going to type at the end of this message:

o Wn 
o Wn 
o Wn

And this is how it is going to look in your browser. If you have Symbol and Wingdings, you will see "o Wn" glyphed in these fonts, and if you don't, you will only see "o Wn" each time.

o Wn
o Wn
o Wn

Where do you get this stuff? [Christ had two natures that were separate and not mixed]

I would say I get it from the Fathers, such as +John of Damascus, who writes:

Confessing, then, the same Jesus Christ, our Lord, to be perfect God and perfect man, we hold that the same has all the attributes of the Father save that of being ingenerate, and all the attributes of the first Adam, save only his sin, these attributes being body and the intelligent and rational soul; and further that He has, corresponding to the two natures, the two sets of natural qualities belonging to the two natures: two natural volitions, one divine and one human, two natural, energies, one divine and one human, two natural free-wills, one divine and one human, and two kinds of wisdom and knowledge, one divine and one human. For being of like essence with God and the Father, He wills and energises freely as God, and being also of like essence with us He likewise wills and energises freely as man." [Exact exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Book Book III, Chapter XIII]

His two natres are united in one Person, but are not mixed. Thus, Christ is one Person, with two distinct wills and two distinct natures, united but not mixed.

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