The theological connection between Majorism and synergism is much closer than is generally realized. Both maintain that, in part, or in a certain respect, salvation depends not on grace alone, but also on man and his efforts. The Majorists declared good works to be necessary to salvation, or at least to the preservation of faith and of salvation. Thus salvation would, in a way, depend on the right conduct of a Christian after his conversion. The Synergists asserted: Man, too, must do his bit and cooperate with the Holy Spirit if he desires to be saved. Conversion and salvation, therefore, would depend, at least in part, on man's conduct toward converting grace, and he would be justified and saved, not by grace alone, but by a faith which to a certain extent is a work of his own. The burden of both, Majorism and synergism, was the denial of the sola gratia. Both coordinated man and God as the causes of our salvation. Indeed, consistently carried out, both destroyed the central Christian truth of justification by grace alone and, with it, the assurance of a gracious God and of eternal salvation—the supreme religious concern of Luther and the entire Lutheran theology.
Majorists and Synergists employed also the same line of argument. Both derived their doctrine, not from any clear statements of the Bible, but by a process of anti-Scriptural and fallacious reasoning. The Majorists inferred: Since evil works and sins against conscience destroy faith and justification, good works are required for their preservation. The Synergists argued: Since all who are not converted or finally saved must blame, not God, but themselves for rejecting grace, those, too, who are converted must be credited with at least a small share in the work of their salvation, that is to say, with a better conduct toward grace than the conduct of those who are lost.
However, while Majorism as well as synergism, as stated, represented essentially the same error and argued against the doctrine of grace in the same unscriptural manner, the more subtle, veiled, and hence the more dangerous of the two, no doubt, was synergism, which reduced man's cooperation to a seemingly harmless minimum and, especially in the beginning, endeavored to clothe itself in ambiguous phrases and apparently pious and plausible formulas. Perhaps this accounts also for the fact that, though Melanchthon and the Majorists felt constrained to abandon as described in the preceding chapter, the coarser and more offensive Majoristic propositions, they had at the same time no compunctions about retaining and defending essentially the same error in their doctrine of conversion; and that, on the other hand, their opponents, who by that time fully realized also the viciousness of synergism, were not satisfied with Major's concessions in the controversy on good works, because he and his colleagues in Wittenberg were known to identify themselves with the Synergists. For the same reason the dangerous error lurking in the synergistic phrases does not seem from the first to have been recognized by the Lutherans in the same degree as was the error contained in the Majoristic propositions, which indeed had even during Luther's life to some extent become a subject of dispute. Yet it seems hardly possible that for years they should not have detected the synergistic deviations in Wittenberg from Luther's doctrine of free will. Perhaps the fact that at the time when Melanchthon came out boldly with his synergism, 1548, the Lutherans were engrossed with the Adiaphoristic and Majoristic controversies may help to explain, at least to some extent, why the synergistic error caused small concern, and was given but little consideration in the beginning. As a matter of fact, although a considerable amount of synergistic material had been published by 1548, the controversy did not begin till 1556, while the error that good works are necessary to salvation was publicly opposed soon after its reappearance in the Leipzig Interim. At the Weimar Disputation, 1560, Strigel referred to this silence, saying: "I am astonished that I am pressed so much in this matter [concerning synergism], since three years ago at Worms no mention whatever [?] was made of this controversy, while many severe commands were given regarding others." (Richard, Conf. Prin., 349.) The matter was mentioned at Worms, but Melanchthon is reported to have satisfied Brenz and others by declaring that in the passages of his Loci suspected of synergism he meant "the regenerated will."
152. Luther's Monergism.
According to Lutheran theology, the true opposite of synergism is not Calvinism with its double election, irresistible grace, denial of universal redemption, etc., but the monergism of grace, embracing particularly the tenets that in consequence of Adam's fall man is spiritually dead and utterly unable to contribute in any degree or manner toward his own justification and conversion; moreover, that, being an enemy of God, man, of his own natural powers, is active only in resisting the saving efforts of God, as well as able and prone only to do so; that God alone and in every respect is the Author of man's conversion, perseverance, and final salvation; and that, since the grace of God is universal and earnestly proffered, man alone is responsible for, and the cause of, his own damnation.
"Sola fides iustificat, Faith alone justifies"—that was the great slogan of the Reformation sounded forth by Luther and his followers with ever increasing boldness, force and volume. And the distinct meaning of this proposition, which Luther called "hoc meum dogma, this my dogma," was just this, that we are saved not by any effort or work of our own, but in every respect by God's grace alone. The restoration of this wonderful truth, taught by St. Paul, made Luther the Reformer of the Church. This truth alone, as Luther had experienced, is able to impart solid comfort to a terror-stricken conscience, engender divine assurance of God's pardon and acceptance, and thus translate a poor miserable sinner from the terrors of hell into paradise.
In the Seven Penitential Psalms, written 1517, Luther says: "If God's mercy is to be praised, then all [human] merits and worthiness must come to naught." (Weimar 1, 161.) "Not such are blessed as have no sins or extricate themselves by their own labors, but only those whose sins are graciously forgiven by God." (167.) "It is characteristic of God (es ist Gottes Natur) to make something out of nothing. Hence God cannot make anything out of him who is not as yet nothing…. Therefore God receives none but the forsaken, heals none but the ill, gives sight to none but the blind, quickens none but the dead, makes pious none but the sinners, makes wise none but the ignorant,—in short, He has mercy on none but the miserable, and gives grace to none but those who are in disgrace. Whoever therefore, is a proud saint, wise or just, cannot become God's material and receive God's work within himself, but remains in his own work and makes an imaginary, seeming, false, and painted saint of himself, i.e., a hypocrite." (183.) "For he whom Thou [God] dost justify will never become righteous by his works; hence it is called Thy righteousness, since Thou givest it to us by grace, and we do not obtain it by works." (192.) "Israel the true [new] man, does not take refuge in himself, nor in his strength, nor in his righteousness and wisdom…. For help and grace is not with themselves. They are sinners and damned in themselves, as He also says through Hosea: O Israel, with thee there is nothing but damnation, but with Me is thine help." (210.) "He, He, God Himself, not they themselves, will deliver the true Israel…. Mark well, Israel has sin and cannot help itself." (211.)
In his explanation of Ps. 109 (110), 1518, Luther says: "He calls these children [conceived from spiritual seed, the Word of God] dew, since no soul is converted and transformed from Adam's sinful childhood to the gracious childhood of Christ by human work, but only by God, who works from heaven like the dew, as Micah writes: 'The children of Israel will be like the dew given by God which does not wait for the hands of men.'" (701.) Again: "In every single man God precedes with grace and works before we pray for grace or cooperate. The Doctors call this gratiam primam et praevenientem, that is, the first and prevenient grace. Augustine: Gratia Dei praevenit, ut velimus, ne frustra velimus. God's grace prevenes that we will, lest we will in vain." (710.)
In his 40 theses for the Heidelberg disputation, also of 1518, Luther says of man's powers in spiritual matters: "13. Free will after sin [the Fall] is a mere titular affair [an empty title only], and sins mortally when it does what it is able to do. Liberum arbitrium post peccatum res est de solo titulo et dum facit, quod in se est, peccat mortaliter." "16. A man desirous of obtaining grace by doing what he is able to do adds sin to sin, becoming doubly guilty. Homo putans, se ad gratiam velle pervenire faciendo, quod est in se, peccatum addit peccato, ut duplo reus fiat." "18. It is certain that a man must utterly despair of himself in order to become apt to acquire the grace of Christ. Certum est, hominem de se penitus oportere desperare, ut aptus fiat ad consequendam gratiam Christi." (W. 1, 354.) By way of explanation Luther added to thesis 13: "The first part [of this thesis, that free will is a mere empty title] is apparent, because the will is a captive and a servant to sin, not that it is nothing, but that it is free only to [do] evil—non quod sit nihil, sed quod non sit liberum nisi ad malum. John 8, 34. 36: 'Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin. If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.' Hence, St. Augustine says in his book De Spiritu et Litera: Free will without grace can only sin—non nisi ad peccandum valet. And in his second book against Julianus: You call that a free will which in truth is captive, etc." To thesis 16 Luther added: "When man does what he is able to do (dum facit, quod est in se), he sins, seeking altogether his own. And if he is minded to become worthy of, and apt for, grace by a sin, he adds proud presumption."
In his sermon of 1519 on Genesis 4, Luther remarked: "This passage ['The Lord had respect unto Abel'] subverts the entire liberty of our human will. Hic locus semel invertit universam libertatem voluntatis nostrae." (Weimar 9, 337.) In a sermon of September 8, 1520, we read: "By nature we are born accursed;… through Christ we are born again children of life. Thus we are born not by free will, not by works, not by our efforts. As a child in the womb is not born by its own works, but suffers itself to be carried and to be given birth, so we are justified by suffering, not by doing." (474.) "Where, then," Luther exclaimed about the same time in his Operationes in Psalmos, "will free will remain? where the doing what one can? Ubi ergo manebit liberum arbitrium, ubi facere quod in se?" (5, 544. 74.) In a sermon of February 2, 1521, he said: "Whatever grace is in us comes from God alone. Here free will is entirely dead. All that we attempt to establish with our powers is lost unless He prevenes and makes us alive through His grace. Grace is His own work, which we receive in our hearts by faith. This grace the soul did not possess before, for it is the new man…. The great proud saints will not do this [ascribe everything to God and His mercy]. They, too, would have a share in it, saying to our Lord: 'This I have done by my free will, this I have deserved.'" (9, 573; 5, 544.)