Flacius continued his opposition because he could not do otherwise without sacrificing his own principles, compromising the truth, and jeopardizing the doctrine of justification. He did not yield because he was satisfied with nothing less than a complete victory of the divine truth and an unqualified retraction of error. The truly objective manner in which he dealt with this matter appears from his Strictures on the Testament of Dr. Major (Censura de Testamento D. Majoris). Here we read, in substance: In his Testament Major covers his error with the same sophism which he employed in his former writings. For he says that he ascribes the entire efficient cause, merit, and price of our justification and salvation to Christ alone, and therefore excludes and removes all our works and virtues. This he has set forth more fully and more clearly in his previous writings, saying that the proposition, "Good works are necessary to salvation," can be understood in a double sense; viz., that they are necessary to salvation as a certain merit, price, or efficient cause of justification or salvation (as the Papists understand and teach it), or that they are necessary to salvation as a certain debt or an indispensable cause (causa sine qua non), or a cause without which it is impossible for the effect of salvation to follow or for any one to obtain it. He now confesses this same opinion. He does not expressly eliminate "the indispensable cause, or the obligation without the fulfilment of which it is impossible for any one to be preserved, as he asserted repeatedly before this, from which it appears that he adheres to his old error. Et non diserte tollit causam sine qua non seu debitum, sine cuius persolutione sit impossibile quemquam servari, quod toties antea asseruit; facile patet, eum pristinum illum suum errorem retinere." (Schlb. 7, 266; Preger 1, 398.) Flacius demanded an unqualified rejection of the statement, "Good works are necessary to salvation"—a demand with which Major as well as Melanchthon refused to comply. (C. R. 9, 474 f.)
The Formula of Concord, however, sanctioned the attitude of Flacius. It flatly rejected the false and dubious formulas of Melanchthon, Major, and Menius concerning the necessity of good works to salvation, and fully restored Luther's doctrine. Luther's words concerning "good works" are quoted as follows: "We concede indeed that instruction should be given also concerning love and good works, yet in such a way that this be done when and where it is necessary, namely, when otherwise and outside of this matter of justification we have to do with works. But here the chief matter dealt with is the question not whether we should also do good works and exercise love, but by what means we can be justified before God and saved. And here we answer with St. Paul: that we are justified by faith in Christ alone, and not by the deeds of the Law or by love. Not that we hereby entirely reject works and love, as the adversaries falsely slander and accuse us, but that we do not allow ourselves to be led away, as Satan desires, from the chief matter, with which we have to do here, to another and foreign affair, which does not at all belong to this matter. Therefore, whereas and as long as we are occupied with this article of justification, we reject and condemn works, since this article is so constituted that it can admit of no disputation or treatment whatever regard ing works. Therefore in this matter we cut short all Law and works of the Law." (925, 29.)
The Formula of Concord rejects the Majoristic formula, not because it is ambiguous, but because it is false. Concerning ambiguous phrases it declares: "To avoid strife about words, aequivocationes vocabulorum, i.e., words and expressions which are applied and used in various meanings, should be carefully and distinctly explained." (874, 51.) An ambiguous phrase or statement need not be condemned, because it may be made immune from error and misapprehension by a careful explanation. The statement, "Good works are necessary to salvation," however, does not admit of such treatment. It is inherently false and cannot be cured by any amount of explanation or interpretation. Because of this inherent falsity it must be rejected as such. Logically and grammatically the phrase, "Good works are necessary to salvation," reverses the correct theological order, by placing works before faith and sanctification before justification. It turns things topsy-turvy. It makes the effect the cause; the consequent, the antecedent, and vice versa.
Not personal animosity, but this fundamental falsity of the Majoristic formula was, in the last analysis, the reason why the explanations and concessions made by Major and Menius did not and could not satisfy their opponents. They maintained, as explained above, that the words "necessary to" always imply "something that precedes, moves, effects, works," and that, accordingly, the obnoxious propositions of Major "place good works before the remission of sins and before salvation." (Preger 1, 377.) Even Planck admits that only force could make the proposition, "Good works are necessary to salvation," say, "Good works must follow faith and justification." "According to the usage of every language," says he, "a phrase saying that one thing is necessary to another designates a causal connection. Whoever dreamt of asserting that heat is necessary to make it day, because it is a necessary effect of the rays of the sun, by the spreading of which it becomes day." (4, 542. 485.) Without compromising the truth and jeopardizing the doctrine of justification, therefore, the Lutherans were able to regard as satisfactory only a clear and unequivocal rejection of Majorism as it is found in the Formula of Concord.
149. Absurd Proposition of Amsdorf.
Nicholas Amsdorf, the intimate and trusted friend of Luther, was among the most zealous of the opponents of Majorism. He was born December 3, 1483; professor in Wittenberg; 1521 in Worms with Luther; superintendent in Magdeburg; 1542 bishop at Naumburg; banished by Maurice in 1547, he removed to Magdeburg; soon after professor and superintendent in Jena; opposed the Interimists, Adiaphorists, Osiandrists, Majorists, Synergists, Sacramentarians, Anabaptists, and Schwenckfeldians; died at Eisenach May 14, 1565. Regarding the bold statements of Major as a blow at the very heart of true Lutheranism, Amsdorf antagonized his teaching as a "most pernicious error," and denounced Major as a Pelagian and a double Papist. But, alas, the momentum of his uncontrolled zeal carried him a step too far—over the precipice. He declared that good works are detrimental and injurious to salvation, bona opera perniciosa (noxia) esse ad salutem. He defended his paradoxical statement in a publication of 1559 against Menius, with whose subscription to the Eisenach propositions, referred to above, he was not satisfied; chiefly because Menius said there that he had taught and defended them also in the past. The flagrant blunder of Amsdorf was all the more offensive because it appeared on the title of his tract, reading as follows: "Dass diese Propositio: 'Gute Werke sind zur Seligkeit schaedlich,' eine rechte, wahre christliche Propositio sei, durch die heiligen Paulum und Lutherum gelehrt und gepredigt. Niclas von Amsdorf, 1559. That this proposition, 'Good works are injurious to salvation,' is a correct, true, Christian proposition taught and preached by Sts. Paul and Luther." (Frank 2, 228.)
Luther, to whose writings Amsdorf appealed, had spoken very guardedly and correctly in this matter. He had declared: Good works are detrimental to the righteousness of faith, "if one presumes to be justified by them, si quis per ea praesumat iustificari." Wherever Luther speaks of the injuriousness of good works, it is always sub specie iustificationis, that is to say, viewing good works as entering the article of justification, or the forgiveness of sins. (Weimar 7, 59; 10, 3, 373. 374. 387; E. 16, 465. 484; Tschackert, 516.) What vitiated the proposition as found in Amsdorf's tract was the fact that he had omitted the modification added by Luther. Amsdorf made a flat statement of what Luther had asserted, not flatly, nude et simpliciter, but with a limitation, secundum quid.
Self-evidently the venerable Amsdorf, too, who from the very beginning of the Reformation had set an example in preaching as well as in living a truly Christian life, did not in the least intend to minimize, or discourage the doing of, good works by his offensive phrase, but merely to eliminate good works from the article of justification. As a matter of fact, his extravagant statement, when taken as it reads, flatly contradicted his own clear teaching. In 1552 he had declared against Major, as recorded above: "Who has ever taught or said that one should or need not do good works?" "For we all say and confess that after his renewal and new birth a Christian should love and fear God and do all manner of good works," etc. What Amsdorf wished to emphasize was not that good works are dangerous in themselves and as such, but in the article of salvation. For this reason he added: "ad salutem, to salvation." By this appendix he meant to emphasize that good works are dangerous when introduced as a factor in justification and trusted in for one's salvation.
Melanchthon refers to the proposition of Amsdorf as "filthy speech, unflaetige Rede." In 1557, at Worms, he wrote: "Now Amsdorf writes: Good works are detrimental to salvation…. The Antinomians and their like must avoid the filthy speech, 'Good works are detrimental to salvation.'" (C. R. 9, 405 ff.) Though unanimously rejecting his blundering proposition, Amsdorf's colleagues treated the venerable veteran of Lutheranism with consideration and moderation. No one, says Frank, disputed the statement in the sense in which Amsdorf took it, and its form was so apparently false that it could but be generally disapproved. (2, 176.) The result was that the paradox assertion remained without any special historical consequences.
True, Major endeavored to foist Amsdorf's teaching also on Flacius. He wrote: Flacius "endeavors with all his powers to subvert this proposition, that good works are necessary to those who are to be saved; and tries to establish the opposite blasphemy, that good works are dangerous to those who are to be saved, and that they area hindrance to eternal salvation—evertere summis viribus hanc propositionem conatur: bona opera salvandis esse necessaria. Ac contra stabilire oppositam blasphemiam studet: Bona opera salvandis periculosa sunt et aeternae saluti officiunt." Major continues: "Let pious minds permit Flacius and his compeers, at their own risk, to prostitute their eternal salvation to the devils, and by their execrations and anathemas to sacrifice themselves to the devil and his angels." (Frank 2, 221.) This, however, was slander pure and simple, for Flacius was among the first publicly to disown Amsdorf when he made his extravagant statement against Menius. (Preger 1, 392. 384.)