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

Protestant Reformed Theological Journal ^ | April 1999 | Garrett J. Eriks

[P-Marlowe]

Well, I am Orthodox, so Papal encyclicals do not apply (yet), because regrettably we are not in communion with the Bishop of Rome (over some "minor" :-) theological issues that have kept us apart for about 1,000 years)

That would make you a protestant.

[jo kus]

I wouldn't label baptism as a means - it's an ordinance, and meant to take place AFTER someone has been regenerated by the Spirit, as a public confession of faith.

"There is also an antitype which now saves us--baptism (not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God), through the resurrection of Jesus Christ" (1 Peter 3:21)

"Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost" (Titus 3:5)

"Except a man be born of water and [of] the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." (John 3:5) Baptism is not MERELY an ordinance. It is the sacrament through which the Spirit comes to us to regenerate us. It is through baptism that we are buried with Christ, the means of remission of our sins.

The means that God uses will involve His Word, so while people may be saved while AT church, in hearing the message, it's dishonest to say that the church is what saves.

Dishonest? No, it is the truth. Christ established a Church, not a Bible or a Book. This Church He commissioned to preach and teach the world, to BAPTIZE them in the name of the Trinity, making them children of God. It is through the Church that we even receive this preaching and teaching, whether in oral or written form. And finally, it is the Church through whom Christ acts in proclaiming His saving Word and through whom He also sanctifies His people, making them holy. It is through the Church that Christ continues to remain present among His people today. THEY continue the incarnation.

Regards

[kosta50]

You were taken to school over this before, do you really want to go through it again?

Oh, forgive me your "holiness." How ungrateful of me! How charitable of you! You might do much more good by taking to school all those bishops and patriarchs who don't know anything about Scripture or how to read them. I am just a little confused believer, so why waste your talent on the likes of me, as much as I appreciate your generous offer.

[HarleyD]

Odd: "Man is wholly evil, thinking nothing but evil thoughts. Therefore there is no free-will." Is it not antithetical to Evil that one turns the fallen will toward God's Grace in Christ? Such an act is not Evil thus the premise rests upon a fundamental flaw in reasoning ...

And that is precisely the problem. For man to turn the fallen will towards God’s Grace would be a righteous work of God. But we know from scripture man is incapable of doing any righteous act before God (Romans 3) and is a “slave to sin” (Romans 6). How then can unrighteous man do a righteous act?

If man’s will is lethargic and God brings man around to make the right choice, why doesn’t every man make the right choice? Is God incapable of bringing everyone to a point of repentance and salvation? He certainly was able to bring Paul around. He simply spoke to the disciples, “Come follow me” and they dropped everything they were doing to follow Christ. Some like Jeremiah and John the Baptist never made a choice as they were filled with the Holy Spirit in the womb and consecrated before they were born.

Any act of man in his salvation, be it cooperation or faith, cheapens the act of God’s grace. It lacks honesty before God in the role that God’s mercy plays in the election of believers and the sovereignty of God in our life. This is why this was so roundly condemned by the early church fathers at the Council of Orange.

The fundamental flaw in reasoning rests with those who support free will.

[kosta50]

That would make you a protestant

Hardly. First, Protestants have not been around for 1,000 years. Second, the Orthodox did not leave the Church. :-)

[ItsOurTimeNow]

>>So, why was our Lord baptized?<<

For His own glory. I certainly hope you're not suggesting that Christ himself was in need of regeneration?

Mt 3:15 - But Jesus answered him, "Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness."

[xzins]

I was listening to some preacher read a piece of a devotional that was quoting CS Lewis...I don't know which of Lewis' works it comes from.

Summarizing from memory, it suggested that God has put together an inviolable framework of events (a plan) that will not be affected by any creature's activity, but that within that framework he permits free activity on the part of his creatures.

It was an interesting thought. I wish I knew the source. Anyone have any idea?

[kosta50]

Jo don't you know they don't quote +Peter?

[HarleyD]

Isn't that the same as saying God planned evil? He set out a plan that includes Him Allowing evil. So evil is in His plan, so He planned evil. That's wrong.

Unless you're a universalist who believes God doesn't know future events, no matter what soteriology you choose you have to accept the fact that God knew even before the foundations of the world who would be saved and who would be condemned. God still went ahead and created the world. Wouldn't you say that God planned evil? Otherwise you're denying God's omniscience.

[ItsOurTimeNow]

>>It is the sacrament through which the Spirit comes to us to regenerate us.<< So, Paul himself wasn't regenerated until three days after his experience on the road to Damascus? I wasn't baptized in water until well after my regeneration. Don't confuse spiritual baptism with baptism by water. <> In the beginning was the WORD and the WORD was with God and the WORD was God. Not the church. Faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the Word. You give far too much credit to the brick and mortar.

[ItsOurTimeNow]

No need to take offense, none was meant, so please check your hostility at the door.

My point is, given your penchant for arguing in circles and not backing your positions with scripture, we'd just end up going round and around again. Frankly, I don't have the time or energy.

You have a knack for being shown point-by-point refutations for your postitions, and only responding to one or two items, ignoring the rest. It makes debate with you pointless.

[kosta50]

I certainly hope you're not suggesting that Christ himself was in need of regeneration?

I don't remember suggesting that.

[jo kus]

No, Christ chose to save you by grace alone through faith alone. Show me anywhere in the Bible where it says you are saved through any other means or any other instrument.

I agree we are saved by grace alone, but not faith alone. The Scripture actually says the opposite, that we are NOT saved by faith alone (James 2:24). NOWHERE does the Scripture say we are saved by faith ALONE. It tells us that we are not saved by works of the law (Romans 3:28), but language tells us that Paul is not excluding OTHER means of salvation.

"For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?"(Romans 8:24)

"Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water. The like figure whereunto [even] baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ:' (1 Peter 3:20-21) "If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire." (1 Cor 3:14-15)

, which goes well with: "Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only." (James 2:24), or

"(For not the hearers of the law [are] just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified." (Romans 2:13)

"We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not [his] brother abideth in death." (1 John 3:14)

"And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment." (1 John 3:23)

"Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day." (John 6:54)

"And though I have [the gift of] prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing." (1 Cor 13:2)

We are saved by faith, by hope, by baptism, by his "works" (which is also called "love"), by abiding in Christ through the Eucharist, and as the last verse states, faith working through love, not alone.

Most of the verses that discuss faith and salvation are implying that one also walks in the commandments and loves their neighbor. Faith without love doesn't save.

Regards Regards

[jo kus]

Jo don't you know they don't quote +Peter?

Oops. Is that the NT "Apocrypha"?

Regards

[jo kus]

So, Paul himself wasn't regenerated until three days after his experience on the road to Damascus?

Does the Scripture say that Paul was regenerated before his Baptism?

I wasn't baptized in water until well after my regeneration.

How do you know you were regenerated BEFORE your baptism? Regeneration is a spiritual effect.

In the beginning was the WORD and the WORD was with God and the WORD was God. Not the church.

I never said that the Church is the Word of God. I said that we receive God's Word (His teachings) through the Apostolic Church. CHRIST is the Word who works through His Church. The Chruch makes Christ present today because it does the same thing that He did - it preaches and teaches, and it sanctifies. Through it, God continues to bring His Kingdom to men.

You give far too much credit to the brick and mortar.

I am not talking about the building, but the Apostolic Church, which is a community of believers who continue in the Apostolic succession.

Regards

[P-Marlowe]

James 2:24

Is justified (dikaioutai). Present passive indicative of dikaiow, here not "is made righteous," but "is shown to be righteous." James is discussing the proof of faith, not the initial act of being set right with God (Paul's idea in Rom_4:1-10).

OK jokus. If you are saved, then according to your theology, you must have done a lot of good works to merit your salvation. Can you give me an example of your good works?

How can I emulate jo kus that I might be saved?

[kosta50]

Harley, evil has been understood in the Apostolic Church for the last 2,000 years as absence of God (in our hearts). That which is not of God is evil. God did not create a non-God. Evil is not a creature of God.

No one doubts that He knew what would happen, but He allows things to develop and uses unorthodox means to accomplish His plan (such as dying on the Cross, suffering in flesh, etc.). Looking at how this unfolds, He is not a Micromanager as you Protestants think of Him.

God teaches us only good. Whatever God created (read Genesis) was good.

Humans are authors of evil. Even when we do justice, we commit evil.

God cannot be the author of evil, because it is not something that glorifies Him. And His creation was done for His own glory, I think you'd agree. Otherwise, if evil also glorifies Him, God is both good and evil, and that would mean that He is not simple, indivisible, eternal and unchanging.

You guys are stuck on this omniscience and omnipotence trap, like the question "If God is all powerful, can He make a rock so heavy that even He cannot pick up?" That's not how God's omnipotence is. That's man's foolishness.

[HarleyD]

My understanding on "free will" is that we are not free until the Son has set us free. It is when the Son has set us free then we are free indeed. Afterwards, believers are free to follow God's leadings or fall into sin. If we fall into sin God will reprove and chastise us much like He did Jonah, simply because we are His own.

Somehow Protestants have lost this concept in regards to salvation. We think that somehow we ask the Son to set us free but this is no different then the Roman Catholic belief that we "cooperate" with God; that man has the ability to do something that is good. At the root it's the same belief; a belief that drove the Reformers away.

We put together elaborate philosophies of all sorts of things to explain man's free will in choosing God. This was always a puzzlement to me. I remember reading many different discussions on various views from many sources. All of them pull bits and pieces of scripture but they ignore others. I've never was comfortable with any of these veiws simply because they don't explain some of the great conversions within scripture like Paul, Jeremiah, John the Baptist, Lydia, etc. all who were saved against their will. It doesn't explain how our Lord Jesus could simply walk up to Matthew and say, "Come follow me." and Matthew would just leave everything and go. That is the power of God and His right to elect whom He wills. I start from the premise that God saves everyone exactly the same way. These salvation experiences lie outside of the "free will" norm.

If you really want to see how "philosophically tolerant" Christians are in pondering man's relation to God, simply suggest that perhaps God predestines and elects men and see the type of reaction you will encounter. Hoo-boy. There are only two religions of the world; free will and God's sovereignty in election. And not many believe in God's sovereignty any more.

[kosta50]

It makes debate with you pointless

Ditto. You are under no obligation to debate or to respond to my posts. That being so, however, I do not think that you have taken me to school simply because you believe you have.

I think there is a certain degree of arrogance in presuming that you know better than the Church. Please feel free to take the Church to school with your out-of-context bible verse arguments.

I think your Protestant approach does nothing more than create more "true" denominations, as it is evidenced by the ever-growing number of such assemblies. What I see is a man-made church with self-apointed "popes," all claiming that their version of the truth is the Truth.

I simply believe what the collective wisdom of the Church has known as the Truth delivered to the Apostles since the Pentecost. If I am saying something contrary to the teaching of the Church, by all means correct me.

[kosta50]

Please see #727. You guys are using the "works" in an out-of-context way.