4. Necessity of External Assistance—This weakness in man leads him to feel the necessity of an external support to operate as a fulcrum for the human will, a power that may be added to its present power and sustain it at need. Man seeks this fulcrum on all sides; he demands it in the encouragement of friends, in the councils of the wise; but as the visible world, the human society, do not always answer to his desires, the soul goes beyond the visible world, above human relations, to seek this fulcrum of which it has need. Hence the religious sentiment develops itself: man addresses himself to God, and invokes his aid through prayer.
5. Man Finds the Help he Seeks—Such is the nature of man that when he sincerely asks this support he obtains it; that is, seeking it is almost sufficient to secure it. Whosoever feeling his will weak invokes the encouragement of a friend, the influence of wise councils, the support of public opinion, or who addresses himself to God by prayer, soon feels his will fortified in a certain measure and for a certain time.
6. Influence of Spiritual World on Liberty—There are spiritual influences at work on man—the empire of the spiritual world upon liberty. There are certain changes, certain moral events which manifest themselves in man without his being able to refer their origin to an act of his will, or being able to recognize the author. Certain facts occur in the interior of the human soul which it does not refer to itself, which it does not recognize as the work of its own will. There are certain days, certain moments in which it finds itself in a different moral state from that which it was last conscious of under the operations of its own will. In other words, the moral man does not wholly create himself; he is conscious that causes, that powers external to himself act upon and modify him imperceptibly[[20]]—this fact has been called the grace of God which helps the will of man, while others see in it the evidences of predestination.
3. The Pelagian View.—From these facts men arrive at different conclusions. Some regarding only the power of man to deliberate on any proposed course of conduct, and his ability to decide for himself what course he will pursue, ignoring the spiritual influences which operate on him, and taking no account of the aid which comes to man through prayer—believe that man's conduct depends entirely upon his will. "Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus," say they; and hence reject the fact of the grace of God and the influence it exerts on human conduct.
Such was the conclusion arrived at by Pelagius who flourished early in the fifth century. He asserted that human nature is not fallen—that there is no hereditary corruption, and that man having the power to do good has only to will in order to perform. His doctrine has been revised several times, and has drawn to it not a few believers.
4. Catholic View.—Others regarding all the facts elsewhere enumerated—man's power to deliberate, his ability to decide upon his course, his failure to do all that his reason teaches him it is his duty to do, his need of help from a source external to himself, the assistance he can and does obtain through prayer and, lastly, the influence of spiritual forces upon man—leads them to the conclusion that it is through a union of the grace of God and the free will of man that men arrive at last at righteousness. Such was the teaching of the Roman Catholic church.
5. Protestant View.—Others still, looking only upon the influence of the spiritual world on man, and noting how very far short he comes of doing all his reason teaches him it is his duty to do, conclude that man has no power whatsoever to do good of himself, that he can exercise no will to work righteousness until after the grace of God makes him righteous, and that it is that grace altogether which causes him both to will and to do good works.
6. Luther's Fundamental Doctrine.—Luther belonged to this last-named class. Long before he came to an open rupture with the pope, he taught the doctrine of predestination, and of salvation through faith alone:—"The excellent, infallible, and sole preparation for grace is the eternal election and predestination of God." "On the side of man there is nothing that goes before grace, unless it be impotency and even rebellion." "We do not become righteous by doing what is righteous; but having become righteous we do what is righteous."[[21]] "Since the fall of man, free will is but an idle word; and if man does all he can he still sins mortally." "A man who imagines to arrive at grace by doing all that he is able to do adds sin to sin and is doubly guilty." "That man is not justified who performs many works; but he who, without works, has much faith in Christ."[[22]] "What gives peace to our consciences is this—by faith our sins are no longer ours, but Christ's on whom God has laid them all; and, on the other hand, all Christ's righteousness belongs to us, to whom God has given it."[[23]] Thus taught Luther, and this became the first, the main theological question of the reformation. "The point which the Reformer had most at heart in all his labors, contests and dangers," says a respectable authority, "was the doctrine of justification by faith alone."[[24]] [Note 3, end of section.]
7. It is but just to the Reformer however, that it should be known that he did not himself reject good works, but on the contrary exhorted men to practice them; but he condemns those who did them with an idea that by them they would be justified, or that they were necessary to salvation. He held also that in order to do good works men must first be justified, and that good works done before justification were even sinful.[[25]]
8. The Mischief of Luther's Doctrine.—Though Luther did not reject good works, and though he held that justifying faith would produce them, yet his doctrine has been the source of much mischief in the world. When it was charged by his vicar general, Staupitius, that his doctrines were the delight of debauches, and that many scandalous practices were the consequences of some of his publications, he could not deny the charge, but contented himself by saying, "I am neither afraid of such censorious representations, nor surprised to hear them."[[26]] Luther's doctrine of salvation by faith alone, as stated by Melanchthon, with his approval, stands thus: "Man's justification before God proceeds from faith alone. This faith enters man's heart by the grace of God alone."[[27]] This leaves man a passive creature in relation to his salvation. He is helpless to procure it; he can do nothing to hasten it; he is helpless; he must wait the divine workings of the grace of God. "As all things which happen," says Melanchthon, "happen necessarily, according to the divine predestination, there is no such thing as liberty in our wills."[[28]] [Note 4, end of section.] Other followers of Luther, among them one Nicholas Amsdorf, went so far as to maintain that good works were a hindrance to salvation.[[29]]