In order to settle the differences, Flacius and his colleagues (Wigand, Judex, Simon Musaeus), as well as Strigel, asked for a public disputation, which John Frederick, too was all the more willing to arrange because dissatisfaction with his drastic procedure against Strigel and Huegel was openly displayed everywhere outside of Ducal Saxony. The disputation was held at Weimar, August 2 to 8, 1560. It was attended by the Saxon Dukes and their entire courts, as well as by a large number of other spectators, not only from Jena, but also from Erfurt, Wittenberg and Leipzig. The subjects of discussion, for which both parties had submitted theses were: Free Will, Gospel, Majorism, Adiaphorism, and Indifferentism (academica epoche, toleration of error). The disputing parties (Flacius and Strigel) agreed that "the only rule should be the Word of God, and that a clear, plain text of the Holy Scriptures was to weigh more than all the inferences and authorities of interpreters" (Planck 4, 606.)
According to the proceedings of the Weimar Disputation, written by Wigand and published by Simon Musaeus 1562 and 1563 under the title: "Disputatio de Originali Peccato et Libero Arbitrio inter M. Flacium Illyr. et Vict. Strigelium Publice Vinariae Anno 1560 Habita," the only questions discussed were free will and, incidentally, original sin. Strigel defended the Melanchthonian doctrine, according to which the causes of conversion are the Holy Spirit, the Word of God, and the will of man feebly assenting to the Gospel and, at the same time, seeking strength from God. He repeated the formula: "Concurrunt in conversione haec tria: Spiritus Sanctus movens corda, vox Dei, voluntas hominis, quae voci divinae assentitur." Flacius, on the other hand, defended the mere passive of Luther, according to which man, before he is converted and endowed with faith, does not in any way cooperate with the Holy Spirit but merely suffers and experiences His operations. At the same time, however, he seriously damaged and discredited himself as well as the sacred cause of divine truth by maintaining that original sin is not a mere accident, such as Strigel maintained, but the very substance of man. The discussions were discontinued after the thirteenth session. The Duke announced that the disputation would be reopened later, charging both parties in the mean time to maintain silence in public,—a compromise to which Flacius and his adherents were loath to consent.
John Wigand and Matthias Judex however continued to enforce the Book of Confutation demanding an unqualified adoption in every point, per omnia. When the jurist Matthew Wesenbecius declined to accept the book in this categorical way, he was not permitted to serve as sponsor at a baptism. John Frederick was dissatisfied with this procedure and action of the ministers; and when they persisted in their demands, the autocratic Duke deprived them of the right to excommunicate, vesting this power in a consistory established at Weimar. Flacius and his adherents protested against this measure as tyranny exercised over the Church and a suppression of the pure doctrine. As a result Musaeus, Judex, Wigand, and Flacius were suspended and expelled from Jena, December, 1561. (Gieseler 3, 2, 244. 247.) Their vacant chairs at the university were filled by Freihub, Salmuth, and Selneccer, who had been recommended by the Wittenberg Philippists at the request of the Duke, who now evidently favored a compromise with the Synergists. Strigel, too, was reinstated at Jena after signing an ambiguous declaration.
Amsdorf, Gallus, Hesshusius, Flacius, and the other exiled theologians denounced Strigel's declaration as insincere and in conflict with Luther's book De Servo Arbitrio, and demanded a public retraction of his synergistic statements. When the ministers of Ducal Saxony also declined to acknowledge Strigel's orthodoxy, a more definite "Superdeclaration," framed by Moerlin and Stoessel (but not signed by Strigel), was added as an interpretation of Strigel's declaration. But even now a minority refused to submit to the demands of the Duke, because they felt that they were being deceived by ambiguous terms, such as "capacity" and "aptitude," which the wily Strigel and the Synergists used in the active or positive, and not in the passive sense. These conscientious Lutherans whom the rationalist Planck brands as "almost insane, beinahe verrueckt," were also deposed and banished, 1562. Strigel's declaration of March, 1562 however, maintaining that "the will is passive in so far as God alone works all good, but active in so far as it must be present in its conversion, must consent, and not resist, but accept," showed that he had not abandoned his synergism. In the same year he applied for, and accepted, a professorship in Leipzig. Later on he occupied a chair at the Reformed university in Heidelberg, where he died 1569, at the age of only forty-five years.
In 1567, when John William became ruler of Ducal Saxony, the Philippists were dismissed, and the banished Lutheran pastors and professors (with the exception of Flacius) were recalled and reinstated. While this rehabilitation of the loyal Lutherans formally ended the synergistic controversy in Ducal Saxony, occasional echoes of it still lingered, due especially to the fact that some ministers had considered Strigel's ambiguous declaration a satisfactory presentation of the Lutheran truth with regard to the questions involved. That the synergistic teaching of Melanchthon was continued in Wittenberg appears, for example, from the Confessio Wittenbergica of 1570.
160. Strigel's Rationalistic Principle.
Although at the opening of the disputation the debaters had agreed to decide all questions by clear Scripture-passages alone, Strigel's guiding principle was in reality not the Bible but philosophy and reason. His real concern was not, What does Scripture teach concerning the causes of conversion? but, How may we harmonize the universal grace of God with the fact that only some are converted and saved? Self-evidently Strigel, too, quoted Bible-passages. Among others, he appealed to such texts as John 6, 29; Rom. 1, 16; 10, 17; Luke 8, 18; Heb. 4, 2; Rev. 3, 20; Luke 11, 13; Mark 9, 24; 1 Thess. 2, 13; Jas. 1, 18. But as we shall show later, his deductions were philosophical and sophistical rather than exegetical and Scriptural. Preger remarks: In his disputation Strigel was not able to advance a single decisive passage of Scripture for the presence and cooperation of a good will at the moment when it is approached and influenced (ergriffen) by grace. (2, 211.) And the clear, irrefutable Bible-texts on which Flacius founded his doctrine of the inability of natural will to cooperate in conversion, Strigel endeavored to invalidate by philosophical reasoning, indirect arguing, and alleged necessary logical consequences.
At Weimar and in his Confession of December 5 1560, delivered to the Duke soon after the disputation, Strigel argued: Whoever denies that man, in a way and measure, is able to cooperate in his own conversion is logically compelled also to deny that the rejection of grace may be imputed to man, compelled to make God responsible for man's damnation; to surrender the universality of God's grace and call; to admit contradictory wills in God, and to take recourse to an absolute decree of election and reprobation in order to account for the fact that some reject the grace of God and are lost while others are converted and saved. At Weimar Strigel declared: "I do not say that the will is able to assent to the Word without the Holy Spirit, but that, being moved and assisted by the Spirit, it assents with trepidation. If we were unable to do this, we would not be responsible for not having received the Word. Si hoc [utcumque assentiri inter trepidationes] non possemus, non essemus rei propter Verbum non receptum." Again, also at Weimar: "If the will is not able to assent in some way, even when assisted, then we cannot be responsible for rejecting the Word, but the blame must be transferred to another, and others may judge how religious that is. Si voluntas ne quidem adiuta potest aliquo modo annuere, non possumus esse rei propter Verbum reiectum, sed culpa est in alium transferenda quod quam sit religio sum, alii iudicent." (Planck 4, 689. 719; Luthardt, Lehre vom freien Willen, 222.)
Over against this rationalistic method of Strigel and the Synergists generally, the Lutherans adhered to the principle that nothing but a clear passage of the Bible can decide a theological question. They rejected as false philosophy and rationalism every argument directed against the clear sense of a clear Word of God. They emphatically objected to the employment of reason for establishing a Christian doctrine or subverting a statement of the Bible. At Weimar, Flacius protested again and again that human reason is not an authority in theological matters. "Let us hear the Scriptures! Audiamus Scripturam!" "Let the woman be silent in the Church! Mulier taceat in ecclesia!" With such slogans he brushed aside the alleged necessary logical inferences and deductions of Strigel. "You take your arguments from philosophy," he said in the second session, "which ought not to be given a place in matters of religion. Disputas ex philosophia, cui locus in rebus religionis esse non debet." Again, at Weimar: "It is against the nature of inquiring truth to insist on arguing from blind philosophy. What else corrupted such ancient theologians as Clement, Origen, Chrysostom, and afterwards also the Sophists [scholastic theologians] but that they endeavored to decide spiritual things by philosophy, which does not understand the secret and hidden mysteries of God. Est contra naturam inquirendae veritatis, si velimus ex caeca philosophia loqui. Quid aliud corrupit theologos veteres, ut Clementem, Originem, Chrysosthomum et postea etiam Sophistas, nisi quod de rebus divinis ex philosophia voluerunt statuere, quae non intelligit abstrusissima et occultissima mysteria Dei." "May we therefore observe the rule of Luther: Let the woman be silent in the Church! For what a miserable thing would it be if we had to judge ecclesiastical matters from logic! Itaque observemus legem Lutheri: Taceat mulier in ecclesia! Quae enim miseria, si ex dialectica diiudicandae nobis essent res ecclesiae!" (Planck 4, 709.)
In an antisynergistic confession published by Schluesselburg, we read: "This doctrine [of conversion by God's grace alone] is simple, clear, certain, and irrefutable if one looks to God's Word alone and derives the Nosce teipsum, Know thyself, from the wisdom of God. But since poor men are blind, they love their darkness more than the light, as Christ says John 3, and insist on criticizing and falsifying God's truth by means of blind philosophy, which, forsooth, is a shame and a palpable sin, if we but had eyes to see and know…. Whatsoever blind reason produces in such articles of faith against the Word of God is false and wrong. For it is said: Mulier in ecclesia taceat! Let philosophy and human wisdom be silent in the Church." (Catalogus 5, 665f.) Here, too, the sophistical objections of the Synergists are disposed of with such remarks as: "In the first place, this is but spun from reason, which thus acts wise in these matters. Denn fuers erste ist solches nur aus der Vernunft gesponnen, die weiss also hierin zu kluegeln." (668.) "This is all spun from reason; but God's Word teaches us better. Dies ist alles aus der Vernunft spintisiert; Gottes Wort aber lehrt es besser." (670.)