Deprived of any power of choice or self-determination, man is at the mercy of external agents, diabolical or Divine, to such an extent that he is unable to will except what they will. Whoever has and keeps the Spirit of God and the faith cannot do otherwise than fulfil the Will of God; but whoever is under the domination of the devil is his spiritual captive. To sum up what was said previously: man retains at most the right to dispose of things inferior to him, not, however, any actual, moral freedom of choice, still less any liberty for doing what is good such as would exclude all interior compulsion. He is created for eternal death or for everlasting life; his destiny he cannot escape; his lot is already pre-ordained. Luther’s doctrine brings him into line, even as regards the “harshest consequences of the predestinarian dogma, with Zwingli, Calvin, and Melanchthon in his earliest evangelical Theology.”[556] According to one of the most esteemed of Lutheran theologians, “what finds full and comprehensive expression in the work ‘De servo arbitrio’ is simply the conviction which had inspired Luther throughout his struggle for his pet doctrine of salvation, viz. the doctrine of the pure grace of God as against the prevailing doctrine of free will and man’s own works.”[557] According to this theory, in spite of the lack of free will, God requires of man that he should keep the moral law, and, to encourage him, sets up a system of rewards and punishments. Man is constrained to this as it were in mockery, that, as Luther says, God may make him to realise his utter powerlessness.[558] God indeed deplores the spiritual ruin of His people—this much the author is willing to allow to his opponent Erasmus—but, the God Who does so is the God of revelation, not the Hidden God. “The God Who conceals Himself beneath His Majesty grieves not at man’s undoing, He takes no step to remedy it, but works all things, both life and death.” God, “by that unsearchable knowledge of His, wills the death of the sinner.”[559]
“Even though Judas acted of his own will and without compulsion, still his willing was the work of God, Who moved him by His Omnipotence as He moves all things.”[560] In the same way, according to Luther, the hardening of Pharao’s heart was in the fullest sense God’s work.[561] Adam’s sin likewise is to be traced back to the Will of God.[562] We must not ask, however, how all this can be reconciled with the goodness and justice of God. We must not expect God to act according to human law.[563]
It was necessary to recall the above in order to show how such a doctrine robs the moral law of every inward relation to its last end, and degrades it till it becomes a mere outward, arbitrary barrier. Luther may well thank his want of logic that this system failed to be carried to its extremest consequences; the ways of the world are not those of the logician.
Who but God can be held responsible in the last instance for the world being, as Luther complains, the “dwelling-place” of the devil, and his very kingdom? According to him the devil is its “Prince and God”;[564] every place is packed with devils.[565] Indeed, “the whole world is Satanic and to a certain extent identified with Satan.”[566] “In such a kingdom all the children of Adam are subject to their lord and king, i.e. the devil.”[567] Such descriptions given by Luther are often so vivid that one might fancy the devil was making war upon God almost like some independent power. Luther, however, admits that the devil has “only a semblance of the Godhead, and that God has reserved to Himself the true Godhead.”[568] Ethically the consequence of such a view of the world is a pessimism calculated to lame both the powers and the desires of anyone striving after higher aims.
Luther’s pessimism goes so far, that too often he is ready to believe that, unlike the devil, Christ loves “to show Himself weak” in man. He writes, for instance, that Satan desired to drag him in his toils down into the abyss, but that the “weak Christ” was ever victorious, or at least “fighting bravely.”[569] That it was possible for Christ to be overcome he would not have allowed, yet, surely, an excuse might have been sought for man’s failings in Christ’s own “weakness,” particularly if man is really devoid of free will for doing what is good.
Luther was always fond of imputing weaknesses and sins to the Saints. Their works he regarded as detracting from the Redemption and the Grace of Christ, which can be appropriated only by faith. Certain virtues manifested by the Saints and their heroic sacrifices Luther denounced as illusions, as morally impossible and as mere idolatry.
“The Apostles themselves were sinners, yea, regular scoundrels.... I believe that the prophets also frequently sinned grievously, for they were men like us.”[570] He quotes examples from the history of the Apostles previous to the descent of the Holy Ghost. Elsewhere he alludes to the failings they betrayed even in later life. “To hear” that the Apostles, even after they had received the Holy Ghost, were “sometimes weak in the faith,” is, he says, “very consoling to me and to all Christians.” Peter “not only erred” in his treatment of the Gentile Christians (Gal. ii. 11 ff.), “but sinned grossly and grievously.” The separation of Paul and Barnabas (Acts xv. 39) was very blameworthy. “Such instances,” he says, “are placed before us for our comfort; for it is very consoling to hear that such great Saints have also sinned.” “Samson, David and many other fine and mighty characters, filled as they were with the Holy Ghost, fell into great sins,” which is a “splendid consolation to faint-hearted and troubled consciences.” Paul himself did not believe as firmly as he spoke; he was, in point of fact, better able to speak and write than to believe. “It would scarcely be right for us to do all that God has commanded, for then what need would there be for the forgiveness of sins?”[571]
“Unless God had told us how foolishly the Saints themselves acted, we should not have been able to arrive at the knowledge of His Kingdom, which is nothing else but the forgiveness of sins.”[572] Here He is referring to the stumbling and falls of the Patriarchs; he adds: “What wonder that we stumble? And yet this is no cloak or excuse for committing sin.” Nevertheless, he speaks of Abraham, whom he credits with having fallen into idolatry and sin, as though holiness of life were of no great importance: “Believe as he did and you are just as holy as he.”[573] “We must interpret all these stories and examples as told of men like ourselves; it is a delusion to make such a fuss about the Saints. We ought to say: If they were holy, why, so are we; if we are sinners, why, so were they; for we are all born of the same flesh and blood and God created us as much as He did them; one man is as good as another, and the only difference between us is faith. If you have faith and the Word of God, you are just as great; you need not trouble yourself about being of less importance than he, unless your faith is less strong.”[574]
By his “articulus remissionis,” the constantly reiterated Evangel of the forgiveness of sins by faith, Luther certainly succeeded in putting down the mighty from their seats, but whether he inspired the lowly to qualify for their possession is quite another question.
On the unsafe ground of the assurance of salvation by faith alone even the fanatics were unwilling to stand; their preference was for a certain interior satisfaction to be secured by means of works. Hence they and their teaching—to tell the truth a very unsatisfactory one—became a target for Luther’s sarcasm. By a pretence of strict morals they would fain give the lie to the words of the Our Father, “Forgive us our trespasses”; “but we are determined not to make the Our Father untrue, nor to reject this article (the ‘remissio peccatorum’), but to retain it as our most precious treasure, in which lies our safety and salvation.”[575] An over-zealous pursuit of sanctity and the works of the Spirit might end by detracting from a trusting reliance upon Christ. In Catholic times, for instance, the two things, works and faith, had, so he complains, been “hopelessly mixed.” “This, from the beginning until this very day, has been a stumbling-block and hindrance to the new doctrine of faith. If we preach works, then an end is made of faith; hence, if we teach faith, works must go to the wall.”[576]