[745] “Briefwechsel,” 5, p. 46.
[746] E. Kroker, “Katherina Bora,” Leipzig, 1906, p. 280 f. “Ipsa supplicante scripsi.” Mathesius, “Tischreden,” p. 146.
[747] See present work, vol. i., p. 204.
[748] The Latin text in “Opp. Lat. var.,” 7, p. 113-368, and (with only unimportant differences) in the Weim. ed., 18, p. 600-787. A new German translation with introduction and explanations by O. Scheel, in “Luthers Werke,” ed. Buchwald, etc., sup. vol. ii., Berlin, 1905, p. 203 ff.
[749] Köstlin-Kawerau, 1, p. 663 f. This work of Luther’s “was a stumbling-block to his followers, and attempts were made to explain it away by all the arts of violent exegesis; cp. Walch (in his edition of Luther’s works), 18, Introduction, p. 140 ff.” Kawerau in W. Möller, “Lehrbuch der Kirchengesch.,” 3³, 1907, p. 63.
[750] F. Kattenbusch, “Luthers Lehre vom unfreien Willen und von der Prädestination,” Göttingen, 1875 (Anastatischer Neudruck, Göttingen, 1905). Many Protestant theologians have recently defended, with renewed enthusiasm, Luther’s standpoint in the book “De servo arbitrio,” under the impression that it places man in the true state of subserviency to God and thus forms the basis of true religion. See below.
[751] “De servo arbitrio,” “Werke,” Weim. ed., 18, p. 781; “Opp. Lat. var.,” 7, p. 359. Cp. ibid., p. 638=160: at most “in inferioribus sciat [homo], sese in suis facultatibus et possessionibus habere ius utendi, faciendi, omittendi pro libero arbitrio, licet et idipsum regatur solius Dei libero arbitrio, quocunque illi placuerit.” Taube (see p. 228, n. 2), p. 21, remarks, like Kattenbusch (above p. 264, n. 5), p. 48, that such degradation of free-will, even “in inferioribus,” is to be found in Luther’s earlier writings.
[752] Kattenbusch, p. 7 f.
[753] “De servo arbitrio,” p. 615 = 134: “Ex quo sequitur irrefragabiliter: Omnia quæ facimus, omnia quæ fiunt, etsi nobis videntur mutabiliter et contingenter fieri, revera tamen fiunt necessario, si Dei voluntatem species. Voluntas enim Dei efficax est,” etc. In the Jena Latin edition of Luther, 3 (1567), this passage has been watered down. Cp. also p. 615 = 133: “Deus nihil præscit contingenter, sed omnia incommutabili et æterna infallibilique voluntate et prævidet et proponit et facit,” p. 670 = 200: “Omnia quæ fiunt (sunt) meræ necessitatis.”
[754] “De servo arbitrio,” p. 753 = 317: “Deus omnia, quæ condidit solus, solus quoque movet, agit et rapit, omnipotentiæ suæ motu, quem illa non possunt vitare nec mutare, sed necessario sequuntur et parent.” Cp. p. 747 = 308: God works upon the will with His “actuosissima operatio, quam vitare vel mutare non possumus, sed qua (homo) tale velle habet necessario, quale illi Deus dedit, et quale rapit suo motu.... Rapitur omnium voluntas, ut velit et faciat, sive sit bona sive mala.”