The Ultimate Theological Showdown
It takes a very special sort of person to have the gall to spar with the man who would become the first editor of the New Testament, but Martin Luther was anything but a normal man. A firebrand, theological revolutionary, and publicly condemned by the Roman Catholic Church. Luther was a man of conviction and responded to Pope Leo X’s excommunication by publicly burning the papal bull, declaring him to be a heretic. Obviously, this was not a man who had any regard for positions or authority. In the years between 1524 and 1534, Martin Luther would publicly spar with the theological heavyweight of his time. Desiderius Erasmus.
Quick View
Martin Luther was a man of deep passions, to the point of near mania. Luther had spent his life as a Roman Catholic priest and then later rejected the Church’s teachings on how works essentially earn your salvation. Luther forged a theology that emphasized the free grace of God, while downplaying man’s efforts in both justification and sanctification.
We now shift our focus to Desiderius Erasmus, who was well known in his time, more so than Luther ever was. Erasmus was the towering intellectual and theological heavyweight of his day. He had spent thirty years interacting with important figures in ecclesaistical and intellectual circles Including the man who would later become Pope Adrian VI. This was a man who literally had friends in high places.
Erasmus attracted the attention of men like Martin Luther not necessarily because of his intellectual status, but because he was the editor of the ‘Textus Receptus’, or received text. Possibly the most important text in the entire history of Bible translation. It was the first time that anyone had gone back over Jerome’s Latin Vulgate and revised it. Erasmus himself noted with some humor that, ‘Editing the New Testament has gained me friends everywhere’. Even with Martin Luther, it seemed.
Erasmus Sympathizes with Luther
Erasmus was one of the first major champions of Church reform. He openly criticized and mocked priests who didn’t read their Bibles, and loathed the Church’s use of indulgences, calling it ‘soul trafficking’. When Martin Luther came onto the scene, Erasmus was one of the first to come to Luther’s defense. Erasmus believed that Luther deserved to be heard out and that he was raising important points. Though he criticized Luther’s sharp tone and what Erasmus saw as an extreme worldview, Erasmus wrote a letter to Pope Leo X asking the Pope not to condemn the fiery theologian, calling him a ‘mighty trumpet of gospel truth.’
Back home in Germany, Martin Luther was working on his own translation. Luther was attempting the colossal task of translating the Bible into German, something never before attempted. Martin Luther was undertaking the monumental task all by himself, a serious accomplishment. Yet even Luther needed more resources than he realized. He made extensive use of Erasmus’s newly compiled Textus Receptus in order to create his own German translation.
So what happened between these two men? What would ever cause them to fight in the public manner they did? It all had to do with the issue of free will, not unlike the debate between Augustine and Pelagius.
This is where the plot thickens. In 1523, Pope Adrian VI asked Erasmus to write a confirmation that he believed in salvation through good works. Pope Adrian VI died before reading it, and his successor, Pope Clement VII, read the text. In 1524, Erasmus completed and published ‘On Free Will’, essentially a philosophical exploration of the belief in free will.
Enemies With The Same Goals
What makes the disagreement between Erasmus and Luther so interesting was the symbiotic relationship between the two. Luther used the ‘Textus Receptus’ to create his own German translation. Erasmus was impressed and influenced to some degree by Luther’s impassioned arguments against the selling of indulgences. Even more intriguing was the fact that Erasmus was openly critical of many tenets of Roman catholic theology, causing Erasmus to sympathize with Luther. Luther saw in Erasmus a potential ally. In 1519, he wrote to Erasmus asking him to join the Reformation, but Erasmus refused.
Deep down, Erasmus could never bring himself to reject the entire Church. When Erasmus wrote ‘On The Freedom of the Will’, he was subtly attacking religious monasticism. Erasmus was making an attack on the right of monks to define what is good and instead suggesting that all had the ability to define and choose good because of their free will. Erasmus was a champion of the common people and expressed his desire that all would have access to the Scriptures, “I would to God the plowman would sing a text of scripture at his plow and that the weaver at his loom would drive away the tediousness of time with it”. It is unclear whether the Roman Catholic Church ever understood the intent of Erasmus. Martin Luther, however, did take notice, which enraged him to put it mildly. Luther wrote a fiery response to Erasmus called ‘On the Bondage of the Will’, a work that would be regarded as Luther’s magnum opus.
The Debate Begins
‘On the Bondage of the Will’ is an intense work, and Luther didn’t hold back in what he thought of Erasmus. Luther would describe Erasmus as a ‘pretender, hypocrite and atheist’. Luther’s impassioned attacks had to do with the concept of free will somehow being offensive to God’s omnipotence. In Luther’s view, if people truly did have free will, then it meant that God was not all-powerful, because it would mean that people would have the ability to act outside of His power.
Publicly attacking a man like Erasmus was bound to gain attention, and Luther certainly garnered attention. Luther’s fairly small work, compared to Erasmus’s 500+ page tome, quickly circulated. Erasmus must have read the book because in 1526 he quickly wrote a 600+ page response called ‘Hyperaspistes’, meaning ‘shieldbearer’ or ‘defender’. Clearly, Erasmus was a long-winded speaker. Although Luther’s name was never mentioned, all of his fundamental beliefs were directly attacked.
It is important to note that Erasmus appeared to be a humanist, and rather than arguing Scripturally, Erasmus approached the issue from essentially a human rights perspective. Erasmus is considered a progressive of his time and was arguing more against elitism in the Roman Catholic Church. At his core, Erasmus was attempting to create a sort of spiritualized humanism. In the philosopher’s view, if all were judged individually for their sins, based on free will, then all were equally capable of righteousness as well. For example, Erasmus defined free will 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.” Erasmus also approached the issue from a logical viewpoint, how could God judge people for their sins if we have no control to do right or wrong? “If we are entangled in sins, let us strive with all our might and have recourse to the remedy of penitence, that by all means we may entreat the mercy of the Lord without which no human will or endeavor is effective; and what is evil in us, let us impute to ourselves and what is good, let is ascribe wholly to divine benevolence.”
Luther approached the issue from the belief that God was all-powerful and actively controlled everything in the world, including every man’s decisions. Therefore, no man could possibly make a decision to do good or ill apart from God specifically allowing it. As Luther himself said, “For if it is not we, but only God, who works salvation in us, then before he works we can do nothing of saving significance, whether we wish to or not.” And if anyone felt that this was an ambiguous statement, Luther went on, “We must therefore go all out and completely deny free choice, referring everything to God.”
The debate grew bitter between the two, and despite having similar goals, they never reconciled. Erasmus loathed the corrupt practices and rites of the Roman Catholic Church, but could never bring himself to condemn the entire Roman church. He took the viewpoint of ‘don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater’. Throughout his life, Erasmus would sympathize with the newly forming Reformation, but could never support it, considering the movement far too radical. Martin Luther, on the other hand, preferred to take a blowtorch to the entire church structure. Erasmus died in 1536, and Luther commented, “The famous Erasmus has died in Basel without a priest or prayers, ready for Hell.”
Calvin Codifies The Reformation
Truthfully, this debate may have never gone past these two had John Calvin not been an ardent student of Luther. John Calvin was the man who would codify the beliefs of the Reformers, and essentially distilled Luther’s beliefs in his seminal ‘Institutes of the Christian Religion’. Calvin would preach heavily from texts of Scripture, and his work became regarded as one of the greatest works of theology ever written. Virtually every Protestant belief and denomination ultimately traces its roots back to Calvin’s work. “Institutes of the Christian Religion” is to Protestant beliefs what the Constitution is to the American government.
Later on in Church history, the issue would be raised again with the work of Jacob Arminius, a Dutch theologian who was a strong opponent of Calvinism. Arminius would take issue with Calvin, Luther, and Augustine (basically the holy trinity of Reformed theologians), and thus sparked yet another major theological debate. (A discussion for another time)
This is a very important moment in the history of both the Church and theology in general. This seemingly obscure debate set the stage for the Protestant Reformation. It was Luther’s impassioned (and near-obsessive) belief in free grace that sparked the Reformation. Today, even Protestants still debate the issue of free will and grace.
