THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
version is possible only as an inner divine act. Dead through the law, man is " resuscitated by the word of grace." Faith is originated by " the Spirit of God renewing and illuminating " the human heart. To say that the beginning of repentance is in man, would be inverting the order; man turns to God on the ground that God first turns to man. Melanchthon later modified this view, first, by relinquishing the deterministic conception of the doctrine of predestination (Scholia on Colossians, 1527). The special properties of the nature with which God endowed man in distinction from the other creatures r,re " reason " and " choice." The natural man is capable of a " carnal and civil righteousness." The thought of God as the author of sin formerly not avoided is now repudiated. In the Commentary on Romans (Wittenberg, 15312) he teaches the universality of divine grace, and shuns all closer investigation of the mystery of divine election. Melanchthon now regards the pity of God as the cause of election, but recognizes in non-rejection a negative cause of acceptance. The development of his doctrine of free will and conversion gains momentum with his growing desire to understand the act of divine grace at the same time as a psychological process in the human consciousness and will, consistently with his explanations of the mental powers presented in his commentary on the Ethics of Aristotle (1529) and in De anima (1540). Besides, there was his practical motive to make man responsible for his own salvation. With respect to the former, the will is the formal power which responds, either by willing, not willing, or neutrality, to the subjects manifested by the intellect; it may follow the beckoning of the desires or the admonitions of the reason. The will produces nothing original, but assumes an attitude toward what approaches it. This power was not lost through original sin. Likewise, when the grace of God contained in his Word draws nigh, and, through the hearing of it, the Holy Spirit enters man and produces the spiritual effects of repentance and faith, there yet remains to the will the alternative attitude of acceptance or rejection. In this sense Melanchthon mentions the " three concurrent causes of good actions " in regeneration: " the Word, the Holy Spirit, and the will, not absolutely inert, but struggling against its own infirmity." In this sense he lets the definition of Erasmus hold: " Free will is the power of applying oneself to grace."
This synergism was taught in the Leipsic Interim, which affirmed among other things that God does not deal with man as with a block, but The Leipsic so regenerates him that his will coop- Interim, erates. Matthias Flacius (q.v.) professed to divine in those words a papistical meritum de congruo and a fragment of free will. Johann Pfeffinger published Melanchthons doctrine in two disputations: De libertate voluntatis humaucB (Leipsic, 15.55); and De libero arbitrio (1555). The concurrent active causes are "the Holy Spirit moving through the Word of God, the mind in the act of thinking, and the will not resisting, but complying whenever moved by the Holy Spirit." If the attitude of man were ut statua when the Holy Spirit has kindled reason, will, and feel- |
ing, then there would be no inner struggle to secure faith; if man was idle or " purely passive," then the distinction between pious and impious, elect and non-elect, as well as the impartiality and justice of God, would disappear. " Therefore, there was in us some cause why some assent and others do not assent." Pfeffinger's doctrine was renounced by V Strigel and by Nikolaus von Amsdorf (q.v.), who opened the attack (1558) with a rude misrepresentation as if Pfeffinger had asserted that " man could adapt and prepare himself by free will from his natural powers for the reception of grace without the gift of the Holy Spirit."
To the defense of Pfeffinger, Flacius replied in
Refutatio, published in Disputatio de originali per-
cato et libero arbitrio, pp. 367 sqq. (Weimar 1500).
He appealed to the words of Luther and further
asserted that in regeneration, when the
Conflict old man " is made into a new creature," with he is worse than a block or stone inas-
Flacius. much as he is not only passive but " contrary, resisting, or hostile toward the work of God," like a knotty piece of wood wholly unfit for the hewer. The despised adiaphorists here received the additional denunciatory appellative of " synergists." Another polemic followed, De originali peccato et libero arbitrio (ut sup., pp. 398 sqq.) and a disputation at Jena Nov. 10—11, 1559. Flacius succeeded in pressing the denunciation into the second part of the " Weimar Book of Confutations," Illustrissimi principis Jo. Friderici secundi solida et ex verba Dei sumpta confutatio et condemnatio prmcipuarum corruptelarum, sectarum et errorum hoc tempore grassantium (Jena, 1559). It denounces those who teach that by the fall man's natural powers were " not so totally perverted and corrupted that he, animated by the help and support of grace, is capable of anything in conversion by his own free will; that they ascribe to free will such grace in its arbitrary power that it can accept and follow or reject it"; and that they describe human reason and will as synergos, or co-agent with the Word and the Spirit of God. Against these alleged errors was affirmed that man is by nature wholly dead and his heart is petrified ; that all knowledge of Christ springs from the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit; and all that pertains to will to become obedient to God must first be given and wrought by God. Melanchthon, at whom the attack was aimed, vindicated his views before the Elector August, emphasizing his ethical practical motive in turning against the deterministic delirium and investigating the problem of free will. Sinful nature retained some freedom to maintain outward discipline. In conversion the Word of God has the initiative, to condemn sin and extend pardon and grace and thereby produce fear and comfort; but God does not coerce any one to be different regardless of heeding the Word. " He who rejects God does so by his own will and God is not the cause of the will's rejecting him." Conversely, there is no regeneration, " so long as the will wholly resists." " God draws; but he draws him who is willing," was his favorite sentence. He protests against the form of speech used by Flacius referring to " compulsion of faith," as also in the disputation of Nov. 28, 1559,