The Reformation Debate On Free Will And God’s Grace

The Protestant Reformation, which changed Europe’s church and Christian beliefs forever, started with a debate about free will and God’s grace. Martin Luther, who became the lightning rod of this movement, wasn’t only bothered by indulgences (paying money to be forgiven of sins or be released from purgatory). The issue went much deeper for Luther, questioning how human choices and actions connect to God’s power and grace.

The prescribed church belief in Luther’s time, articulated by Thomas Aquinas, was influenced by a classical thinker named Aristotle, who believed that people could do “good things” that push them up the metaphysical ladder toward Aristotle’s “unmoved-mover” god.

Luther, inspired by another early Christian theologian, Augustine, disagreed vehemently. He thought this belief was wicked biblically because it rested on what humans could do instead of what God has done and is doing.

Luther’s View on Free Will and Salvation (Being Saved by God)

Luther believed in a personal God, not an unmoved-mover impersonal god, and that people couldn’t get right with God by doing good things or climbing Aristotle’s imaginary ladder. Instead, he said that once God changes the heart and makes someone righteous (or good in God’s eyes), they want to start doing good things. Imagine a tree: a bad tree can’t grow good fruit. Similarly, Luther thought people couldn’t do good on their own; they needed God to change their hearts first.

Further, Luther believed that humans are naturally selfish and focused on themselves, which Augustine called concupiscence (meaning “self-love”). This self-love is a barrier that keeps people from being saved by their own efforts and actions. So, for Luther, salvation isn’t something we can work out; it’s something God gives freely and changes in us from the inside out.

Can We Change Our Hearts By Ourselves?

Luther and his buddy Philip Melanchthon thought that much of human choice is driven by autonomous emotions and feelings. Aristotle thought we could make unaided choices and become good by simply repeating good actions, like practicing a sport to get better and better at it. Good for Aristotle, by the way, was whatever the Polis or state said good was.

Luther disagreed. He said it’s more like God planting a seed on good soil. If God plants a seed, He also provides healthy soil in His good Providence.

Luther thought the life of faith was more about responding to God’s grace than repeating good works and earning credit toward salvation. Rather, when God first changes a heart, good works naturally flow from that changed heart.

Luther and Melanchthon didn’t see salvation as something humans can initiate on their own; instead, they believed God initiates the first move by reaching out with His gracious love.

Salvation: A One-Way Gift from God

Luther strongly believed salvation isn’t a synergistic or “joint effort” between people and God. He saw it as a one-sided act of God’s love and power. People, he argued, are so caught up in sin and selfishness that they can’t even begin to move toward God on their own. Luther and other early Reformers, like John Calvin and Ulrich Zwingli, agreed that salvation depends entirely on God’s action, not on anything people can do.

Imagine it like a flashlight: a flashlight with dead batteries can’t light up on its own. God replaces dead batteries (a dead heart) with His new batteries (a new heart) powered by His Spirit. This then allows us to respond to Him. In other words, God must change our hearts first. This would profoundly affect our motivation for doing good.

How Luther and Erasmus Argued About Free Will

One of Luther’s famous debates was with Erasmus, a well-known church thinker during that period. Erasmus said people had free will, meaning they could choose good on their own… with a bad heart. Luther disagreed strongly, calling free will an “empty word” and saying that God in His Providence has ordered the universe with no surprises. To Luther, this meant people couldn’t have free will the way Erasmus thought they did.

Luther argued that God’s plans are always providentially ordered and don’t rely on human free will or human choices to become reality. (There’s nothing random about God’s Providence). Erasmus also thought autonomous human choice determined salvation. To Erasmus, God was only watching on the sidelines. But Luther said this view made autonomous human choice the final determiner of salvation and a life of faith.

Luther saw free will (the ability to choose autonomously) as a slave in bondage to sin. If God’s grace changes us, we can please Him. If sin reigns and sinful self-love dominates, we remain slaves to sin. So, when God’s love genuinely touches someone’s heart, they naturally want to follow Him, just as someone without God’s saving grace continues to make selfish choices and wants his own will to be the final say.

Luther’s War Against Aristotle And Aquinas

Luther’s ideas about free will and grace were groundbreaking and set the foundation for the Reformation. He believed that Aristotle’s ideas (as taken up by thinkers like Aquinas) were extremely dangerous to Christianity because they made it seem like humans could work their way to God. Instead, Luther held to Augustine’s belief that God does all the work in salvation by first changing hearts.

This belief that salvation is a one-way gift from God was also shared by a growing number of Protestant reformers, who, together with Luther, set the groundwork for the Reformation, changing how the church saw faith and grace.

Luther On Aristotle And Classical Thought

Luther’s lectures on justification by faith were enthusiastically attended at the University in Wittenberg. Interestingly, he wrote to a friend during this time:

“My theology, which is Saint Augustine’s, is getting on and is dominant in the university. God has done it. Aristotle is going downhill, and perhaps he will go all the way down to hell. It amazes me that so few people want lectures on the sentences of Peter Lombard. In fact, nobody will go to hear a lecture unless the lecturer is teaching my theology, which is the theology of the Bible, of Saint Augustine, and of all true theologians of the church.
I am quite sure that the church will never be reformed unless we get rid of Canon law, Scholastic theology, philosophy, and logic, as they are studied today, and put something else in their place.”

Bottom Line

And so Luther gave up on trusting in his own prayers, his careful following of monkish rules, his confessionals, his penances, and all the rest. For Luther, faith alone will bring salvation, teaching us to trust in a righteousness beyond our own abilities.

His reference was to the righteousness of Christ Jesus, the Lord. Forgiveness cannot be won. Forgiveness cannot be earned. Forgiveness cannot be bought. Forgiveness must be seen as a gracious gift from a gracious God.

Salvation, then, isn’t a synergistic or “joint venture” between God and men…it’s God’s gift alone. This perspective was Luther’s world-changing trumpet blast. It’s not about what humans can do for themselves but what God has done for us that lays down the pathway for justification as well as sanctification.

And so Luther gave up on trusting in his own prayers, his careful following of monkish rules, his confessionals, his penances, and all the rest. For Luther, faith alone will brings salvation, teaching us to trust in a righteousness beyond our own abilities. This was Luther’s legacy.

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