De libero arbitrio diatribe sive collatio

De libero arbitrio diatribe sive collatio (literally Of free will: Discourses or Comparisons) is the Latin title of a polemical work written by Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam in 1524.[1] It is commonly called The Freedom of the Will or On Free Will in English.

For other uses, see Free Will (disambiguation).
On the Freedom of the Will
AuthorErasmus
Original titleDe Libero Arbitrio
LanguageLatin
GenrePhilosophy, Theology
PublisherJohann Froben
Publication date
September 1524
Preceded byAssertio omnium articulorum M. Lutheri per bullam Leonis X 
Followed byOn the Bondage of the Will 

Background

De libero arbitrio diatribe sive collatio was written expressly to refute a specific teaching of Martin Luther, on the question of free will. Luther had become increasingly aggressive in his attacks on the Roman Catholic Church to well beyond irenical Erasmus' reformist agenda.[2]

Luther published in 1520 his Assertio omnium articulorum (itself a response to Pope Leo X's bull Exsurge domine that threatened Luther with excommunication) which included the statement God effects the evil deeds of the impious[3] as part of the Wycliffian claim that everything happens by pure necessity, so denying free will. Erasmus decided this was a subject of core disagreement, and strategized for several years with friends and correspondents[4] on how respond with proper moderation[5] without making the situation worse for all.

Portrait of Erasmus by Hans Holbein the Younger

Erasmus' eventual strategy had three prongs:

  • first, a dialogue Inquisitio de fide to turn down the general heat and danger, which asked the question of whether Lutherans were heretics and, because they accepted the Creed, proposed that Lutherans were not;[6]
  • second, a small book On Free Will addressed as much to issues of limits of authority, discourse, biblical interpretation, as to free will;
  • third, a small book De immensa misericordia dei (On the Immense Mercy of God), written ostensibly as a model sermon, published the same day as On Free Will and not mentioning Luther; it set up that God was not arbitrary, against the claims of predestination.

Terminology
  • Synergism is the idea that adult salvation or justification involves some sort of co-operation (noting that the co- does not connote equality of the parties, God's grace always being in some way prior.) This is the view that Erasmus promotes in On Free Will.
  • Monergism is the idea that God brings about an individual's salvation or justification regardless of their co-operation. This is the view associated with the early leaders of the Reformation such as Luther.
  • Semi-Pelagianism is the idea that the beginning of faith is a free choice, with grace supervening only later.
  • Pelagianism is the idea that humans have free will to achieve perfection

Content

Preface

Erasmus' thesis was not simply in favour of undogmatic synergism, but that Luther's assertive theology was not grounded and bounded adequately, as can be seen from the headings of the Preface:[7]

  1. Luther's supposed infallibility
  2. Objectivity and scepticism
  3. Having an open mind
  4. Difficulties in the scripture
  5. Essence of Christian piety
  6. Man's limited capacity to know
  7. Unsuitability of Luther's teachings

Luther's response to these (ignoring the first point) had the headings: Assertions in Christianity; No liberty to be a sceptic; Clarity of scriptures; Crucial issue: Knowing free will; Foreknowledge of God; Tyrannny of Laws; the Christian's peace; Christian liberty; Spontenaity of necessitated acts; Grace and free will.[8]

Synergy and Causation

Erasmus explains prevenient grace by the analogy of a pre-toddler, too weak to walk on his own yet. His parent shows the child an apple as an incentive, and supports the child as the child takes steps towards the apple. But the child could not have raised himself without the parent's lifting, nor seen the apple without the parent's showing, nor have stepped without the parent's support, nor grasped the apple unless the parent put it into his small hands. So the child owes everything to the parent, yet the child has not done nothing. (s57)

Foreknowledge and predestination

In part, the disputation between Erasmus and Luther came down to differences of opinion regarding the doctrines of divine justice and divine omniscience and omnipotence. While Luther and many of his fellow reformers prioritized the control and power which God held over creation, Erasmus prioritized the justice and liberality of God toward humankind.

Luther and other reformers proposed that humanity was stripped of free will by sin and that divine predestination ruled all activity within the mortal realm. They held that God was completely omniscient and omnipotent; that anything which happened had to be the result of God's explicit will, and that God's foreknowledge of events in fact brought the events into being.

Erasmus however argued that foreknowledge did not equal predestination. Instead, Erasmus compared God to an astronomer who knows that a solar eclipse is going to occur. The astronomer's foreknowledge does nothing to cause the eclipse—rather his knowledge of what is to come proceeds from an intimate familiarity with the workings of the cosmos. Erasmus held that, as the creator of both the cosmos and mankind, God was so intimately familiar with his creations that he was capable of perfectly predicting events which were to come, even if they were contrary to God's explicit will. He cited biblical examples of God offering prophetic warnings of impending disasters which were contingent on human repentance, as in the case of the prophet Jonah and the people of Nineveh.

Free will and the problem of evil
See also: Problem of evil

If humans had no free will, Erasmus argued, then God's commandments and warnings would be vain; and if sinful acts (and the calamities which followed them) were in fact the result of God's predestination, then that would make God a cruel tyrant who punished his creations for sins he had forced them to commit. Rather, Erasmus insisted, God had endowed humanity with free will, valued that trait in humans, and rewarded or punished them according to their own choices between good and evil. He argued that the vast majority of the biblical texts either implicitly or explicitly supported this view, and that divine grace was the means by which humans became aware of God, as well as the force which sustained and motivated humans as they sought of their own free will to follow God's laws.

Erasmus's conclusion

Erasmus ultimately concluded that God was capable of interfering in many things (human nature included) but chose not to do so; thus God could be said to be responsible for many things because he allowed them to occur (or not occur), without having been actively involved in them.

Aftermath

Luther's response to Erasmus came a year later in 1525's On the Bondage of the Will, which Luther himself later considered one of his best pieces of theological writing. In early 1526, Erasmus replied with the first part of his two-volume Hyperaspistes, but that was a longer and more complex work which received comparatively little popular recognition.

The Sixth Session (1549), Chapter V of the Council of Trent defined a form of synergism similar to Erasmus'.[9] In 1999 the Catholic Church and the Lutheran World Federation (later joined by many other Protestant denominations) made a Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification on a common understanding of justification, concluding that the theological positions mutually anathematized at the time of the Reformation were not, in fact, held by the churches.

Translations
  • Luther and Erasmus: Free Will and Salvation, translated and edited by E. Gordon Rupp, Philip S. Watson (Philadelphia, The Westminster Press, 1969)
  • The Battle over Free Will. Edited, with notes, by Clarence H. Miller. Translated by Clarence H. Miller and Peter Macardle. (Hackett Publishing, 2012)
  • Discourse on Free Will by Ernst F. Winter (Continuum International Publishing, 2005)

References
  1. Desiderius Erasmus (1524). De Libero Arbitrio Diatribe, Sive Collatio, Desiderij Erasmi Roterodami. Apvd Ioannem Beb.
  2. Rummel, Erika. "Desiderius Erasmus".
  3. Ruokanen, Miikka. Trinitarian Grace in Martin Luther's the Bondage of the Will (2021 ed.). Oxford University Press. p. 10.
  4. Emerton, Ephraim. "Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam". Project Guttenberg. Retrieved 30 April 2023.
  5. Alfsvåg, Knut (October 1995). The Identity of Theology (Dissertation) (PDF). pp. 6, 7.
  6. Kleinhans, Robert (December 1970). "Luther and Erasmus, Another Perspective". Church History. 39 (4): 460.
  7. Rupp and Watson. Luther and Erasmus: Freewill and Salvation. ISBN 0-664-24158-1. Retrieved 7 May 2023.
  8. Winter, Ernst (1961). Erasmus - Luther: Discourse on Free Will (PDF). New York: Continuum. Retrieved 7 May 2023.
  9. "General Council of Trent: Sixth Session". Papal Encylicals Online. Holy See. Retrieved 30 April 2023.
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