Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church

The second of the Propositions prepared by Simon Musaeus and Flacius for the Disputation at Weimar, 1560, reads: "Corrupt man cannot operate or cooperate toward anything good by true motions, and such as proceed from the heart; for his heart is altogether dead spiritually, and has utterly lost the image of God, or all powers and inclinations toward that which is good. Homo corruptus nihil boni potest veris ac ex corde proficiscentibus motibus operari aut cooperari, nom plane est spiritualiter mortuus et Dei imaginem seu omnes bonas vires et inclinationes prorsus amisit." The third: Not only "has he lost entirely all good powers, but, in addition, he has also acquired contrary and most evil powers, … so that, of necessity or inevitably, he constantly and vehemently opposes God and true piety (ita [tr. note: sic on punctuation] ut necessario seu inevitabiliter Deo ac verae pietati semper et vehementer adversetur." The fourth thesis states that God alone, through His Word and the Holy Spirit, converts, draws, and illumines man, kindles faith, justifies, renews, and creates him unto good works, while natural or Adamic free will is of itself not only inactive, but resists (non solum non cooperante ex se naturali aut Adamico libero arbitrio, sed etiam contra furente ac fremente). (Planck 4, 692; Gieseler 3, 2, 245.)

The same position was occupied by the Mansfeld ministers in a statement of August 20, 1562, and by Hesshusius in his Confutation of the Arguments by which the Synergists Endeavor to Defend Their Error Concerning the Powers of the Dead Free Will. They held that in his conversion man is purely passive and has no mode of action whatever; that he is but the passive subject who is to be converted (subiectam patiens, subiectum convertendum); that he contributes no more to his conversion than an infant to its own formation in the womb of its mother; that he is passive, like a block, inasmuch as he does not in any way cooperate, but at the same time differs from, and is worse than, a block, because he is active in resisting the Holy Spirit until he has been converted. The Confession presented by the theologians of Ducal Saxony (Wigand, Coelestinus, Irenaeus, Rosinus, Kirchner, etc.) at the Altenburg Colloquy March, 1569, occupies the same doctrinal position. As stated before, these theologians made it a special point also to declare their agreement with Luther's book De Servo Arbitrio. (Schluesselburg 5, 316. 133.)

166. Attitude of Formula of Concord

The second article of the Formula of Concord, which decided the questions involved in the Synergistic Controversy, takes a clear, determined, and consistent stand against all forms and formulas of synergism. At the same time it avoids all extravagant, improper, offensive, and inadequate terms and phrases, as well as the numerous pitfalls lurking everywhere in the questions concerning free will, against which also some of the opponents of the Synergists had not always sufficiently been on their guard. Article II teaches "that original sin is an unspeakable evil and such an entire corruption of human nature that in it and all its internal and external powers nothing pure or good remains, but everything is entirely corrupt, so that on account of original sin man is in God's sight truly spiritually dead, with all his powers dead to that which is good (dass der Mensch durch die Erbsuende wahrhaftig vor Gott geistlich tot und zum Guten mit allen seinen Kraeften erstorben sei)" (CONC. TRIGL. 879, 60); "that in spiritual and divine things the intellect, heart, and will of the unregenerate man are utterly unable, by their own natural powers, to understand, believe, accept, think, will, begin, effect, work, or concur in working, anything, but they are entirely dead to what is good, and corrupt, so that in man's nature since the Fall, before regeneration, there is not the least spark of spiritual power remaining, nor present, by which, of himself, he can prepare himself for God's grace, or accept the offered grace, nor be capable of it for and of himself, or apply or accommodate himself thereto, or by his own powers be able of himself, as of himself, to aid, do, work, or concur in working anything towards his conversion either wholly, or half, or in any, even the least or most inconsiderable part; but that he is the servant [and slave] of sin, John 8, 34, and a captive of the devil, by whom he is moved, Eph. 2, 2; 2 Tim. 2, 26. Hence natural free will according to its perverted disposition and nature is strong and active only with respect to what is displeasing and contrary to God" (883, 7; 887, 17); that "before man is enlightened, converted, regenerated, renewed and drawn by the Holy Spirit he can of himself and of his own natural powers begin work, or concur in working in spiritual things and in his own conversion or regeneration just as little as a stone or a block or clay." (891, 24); that, moreover, "in this respect" [inasmuch as man resists the Holy Spirit] "it may well be said that man is not a stone or block, for a stone or block does not resist the person who moves it, nor does it understand and is sensible of what is being done with it, as man with his will so long resists God the Lord until he is converted (donec ad Deum conversus fuerit)" (905, 59); that "the Holy Scriptures ascribe conversion, faith in Christ, regeneration, renewal, and all that belongs to their efficacious beginning and completion, not to the human powers of the natural free will, neither entirely, nor half nor in any, even the least or most inconsiderable part, but in solidum, that is, entirely and solely, to the divine working and the Holy Spirit" (891, 25); that "the preaching and hearing of God's Word are instruments of the Holy Ghost, by, with, and through which He desires to work efficaciously, and to convert men to God, and to work in them both to will and to do" (901, 52); that "as soon as the Holy Ghost … has begun in us this His work of regeneration and renewal, it is certain that through the power of the Holy Ghost we can and should cooperate (mitwirken), although still in great weakness" (907, 65); that this cooperation, however, "does not occur from our carnal natural powers, but from the new powers and gifts which the Holy Ghost has begun in us in conversion," and "is to be understood in no other way than that the converted man does good to such an extent and so long as God by His Holy Spirit rules, guides, and leads him, and that as soon as God would withdraw His gracious hand from him, he could not for a moment persevere in obedience to God," and that hence it is not a power independent from, and coordinated with, the Holy Spirit, as though "the converted man cooperated with the Holy Ghost in the manner as when two horses together draw a wagon" (907, 66); and finally, that as to the three-concurring-causes doctrine it is "manifest, from the explanations presented that conversion to God is a work of God the Holy Ghost alone, who is the true Master that alone works this in us, for which He uses the preaching and hearing of His holy Word as His ordinary means and instrument. But the intellect and will of the unregenerate man are nothing else than subiectum convertendum, that is, that which is to be converted, it being the intellect and will of a spiritually dead man, in whom the Holy Ghost works conversion and renewal, towards which work man's will that is to be converted does nothing, but suffers God alone to work in him until he is regenerated and then he [cooperates] works also with the Holy Ghost that which is pleasing to God in other good works that follow in the way and to the extent fully set forth above" (915, 90).

It has been said that originally also the Formula of Concord in its Torgau draft (Das Torgausche Buch, i.e., the draft preceding the Bergic Book=Formula of Concord) contained the three-concurring-causes doctrine of Melanchthon and the Synergists. As a matter of fact, however, the Torgau Book does not speak of three causes of conversion, but of three causes in those who are already converted, – a doctrine entirely in agreement with the Formula of Concord, which, as shown, plainly teaches that after conversion the will of man also cooperates with the Holy Spirit. In the Torgau Book the passage in question reads: "Thus also three causes concur to effect this internal new obedience in the converted. The first and chief cause is God Father, Son, and Holy Ghost… The second is God's Word… The third is man's intellect, enlightened by the Holy Spirit, which ponders and understands God's command [threat and promise], and our new and regenerate will, which is governed by the Holy Spirit, and now desires with a glad and willing heart (herzlich gern und willig), though in great weakness, to submit to, and obey, the Word and will of God." In the same sense, at the colloquy in AItenburg, 1568 to 1569, the Jena theologians also mentioned as a "third cause" "the mind of man, which is regenerated and renewed, and yields to, and obeys, the Holy Spirit and the Word of God (des Menschen Gemuet, so wiedergeboren und erneuert ist und dem Heiligen Geiste und Gottes Wort Folge tut und gehorsam ist)." (Frank 1, 214f.)

XV. The Flacian Controversy

167. Flacius Entrapped by Strigel

Matthias Flacius Illyricus, one of the most learned and capable theologians of his day and the most faithful, devoted, staunch, zealous, and able exponent and defender of genuine Lutheranism, was the author of the malignant controversy which bears his name. Flacius was born March 3, 1520, in Illyria hence called Illyricus. He studied in Basel, Tuebingen, and Wittenberg. At Wittenberg he was convinced that the doctrine of the Lutheran Church is in complete agreement with the Word of God. Here, too, he was appointed Professor of Hebrew in 1544. In April, 1549, he left the city on account of the Interim. He removed to Magdeburg where he became the energetic and successful leader of the opponents of the Interimists and Adiaphorists. He was appointed professor at the University of Jena, founded 1547, partly in opposition to Philippism. In December 1561, he and his adherents were banished from Jena. When the latter returned in 1567, he was not recalled. Persecuted by his enemies (especially Elector August of Saxony) and forsaken by his friends, he now moved from one place to another: from Jena to Regensburg, thence to Antwerp, to Frankfort-on-the-Main, to Strassburg (from where he was expelled in the spring of 1573), and again to Frankfort-on-the-Main, where he found a last asylum for himself and his family (wife and eight children), and where he also died in a hospital, March 11, 1575.

In the Adiaphoristic Controversy Flacius had time and again urged the Lutherans to die rather than deny and surrender the truth. And when in the controversy about original sin all shunned him and turned against him he gave ample proof of the fact that he himself was imbued with the spirit he had endeavored to kindle in others, being willing to suffer and to be banished and persecuted rather than sacrifice what he believed to be the truth. – The most important of his numerous books are: Catalogus Testium Veritatis, qui ante nostram aetatem reclamarunt Papae, 1556; Ecclesiastica Historia, or the so-called Magdeburg Centuries (Centuriones), comprising the history of the first thirteen centuries, and published 1559-1574; Clavis Scripturae, of 1567; and Glossa Novi Testamenti. Walther remarks: "It was a great pity that Flacius, who had hitherto been such a faithful champion of the pure doctrine, exposed himself to the enemies in such a manner. Henceforth the errorists were accustomed to brand all those as Flacianists who were zealous in defending the pure doctrine of Luther." (Kern und Stern, 34.)

The Flacian Controversy sprang from, and must be regarded as an episode of, the Synergistic Controversy, in which also some champions of Luther's theology (Amsdorf, Wigand, Hesshusius, and others) had occasionally employed unguarded, extreme, and inadequate expressions. Following are some of the immoderate and extravagant statements made by Flacius: God alone converts man, the Adamic free will not only not cooperating, "but also raging and roaring against it (sed etiam contra furente ac fremente)." (Preger 2, 212.) The malice of our free will is a "diabolical malice (nostra diabolica malitia carnis aut liberi arbitrii)." By original sin man is "transformed into the image of Satan (ad imaginem Satanae transformatus, eiusque charactere [foeda Satanae imagine] signatus)." (Gieseler 3, 2, 245.) By original sin "the substance of man is destroyed (substantiam hominis ablatam esse);" after the Fall original sin is the substance of man; man's nature is identical with sin; in conversion a new substance is created by God. In particular, the assertions concerning the substantiality of original sin gave rise to the so-called Flacian Controversy. After Strigel, at the second session of the disputation in Weimar, had dilated on the philosophical definitions of the terms "substance" and "accident" ("accidens, quod adest vel abest praeter subiecti corruptionem"), and had declared that original sin was an accident which merely impeded free will in its activity, Flacius, in the heat of the controversy, exclaimed: "Originale peccatum non est accidens. Original sin is not an accident, for the Scriptures call it flesh, the evil heart," etc. Thus he fell into the pitfall which the wily Strigel had adroitly laid for him. Though Flacius seemed to be loath to enter upon the matter any further, and protested against the use of philosophical definitions in theology, Strigel now was eager to entangle him still further, plying him with the question: "An negas peccatum originis esse accidens? Do you deny that original sin is an accident?" Flacius answered: "Lutherus diserte negat esse accidens. Luther expressly denies that it is an accident." Strigel: "Visne negare peccatum esse accidens? Do you mean to deny that sin is an accident?" Flacius: "Quod sit substantia, dixi Scripturam et Lutherum affirmare. I have said that Scripture and Luther affirm that it is a substance." (Luthardt, 213. 216.)

After the session in which the fatal phrase had fallen from his lips, Wigand and Musaeus expostulated with Flacius, designating (according to later reports of theirs) his statement as "this new, perilous, and blasphemous proposition of the ancient Manicheans (haec nova, periculosa et blasphema veterum Manichaeorum propositio)." (Planck 4, 611.) Flacius declared that, "in the sudden and pressing exigency, in the interest of truth, and against Pelagian enthusiasm, he had taken this expression [concerning the substantiality of original sin] from Luther's doctrine and books." (Preger 2, 324.) In the following (third) session, however, he repeated his error, declaring: I must stand by my statement that original sin is not an accident, but a substance, "because the testimonies of the Holy Scriptures which employ terms denoting substance (quae verbis substantialibus utuntur) are so numerous." (Planck 4, 610; Luthardt, 216.) Also later on Flacius always maintained that his doctrine was nothing but the teaching of the Bible and of Luther. As to Scripture-proofs, he referred to passages in which the Scriptures designate sin as "flesh," "stony heart," etc. Regarding the teaching of Luther, he quoted statements in which he describes original sin as "man's nature," "essence," "substantial sin," "all that is born of father and mother," etc. (Preger 2, 318.)

However, the palpable mistake of Flacius was that he took the substantial terms on which he based his theory in their original and proper sense, while the Bible and Luther employ them in a figurative meaning, as the Formula of Concord carefully explains in its first article, which decided and settled this controversy. (874, 50.) Here we read: "Also to avoid strife about words, aequivocationes vocabulorum, that is, words and expressions which are applied and used in various meanings, should be carefully and distinctly explained, as when it is said: God creates the nature of men, there by the term nature the essence, body, and soul of men are understood. But often the disposition or vicious quality of a thing is called its nature, as when it is said: It is the nature of the serpent to bite and poison. Thus Luther says that sin and sinning are the disposition and nature of corrupt man. Therefore original sin properly signifies the deep corruption of our nature as it is described in the Smalcald Articles. But sometimes the concrete person or the subject that is, man himself with body and soul in which sin is and inheres, is also comprised under this term, for the reason that man is corrupted by sin, poisoned and sinful, as when Luther says: 'Thy birth, thy nature, and thy entire essence is sin,' that is, sinful and unclean. Luther himself explains that by nature-sin, person-sin, essential sin he means that not only the words, thoughts, and works are sin, but that the entire nature, person and essence of man are altogether corrupted from the root by original sin." (875, 51f.)

168. Context in which Statement was Made

In making his statement concerning the substantiality of original sin, the purpose of Flacius was to wipe out the last vestige of spiritual powers ascribed to natural man by Strigel, and to emphasize the doctrine of total corruption, which Strigel denied. His fatal blunder was that he did so in terms which were universally regarded as savoring of Manicheism. As was fully explained in the chapter of the Synergistic Controversy Strigel taught that free will, which belongs to the substance and essence of man, and hence cannot be lost without the annihilation of man himself, always includes the capacity to choose in both directions, that also with respect to divine grace and the operations of the Holy Spirit man is and always remains a liberum agens in the sense that he is able to decide in utramque partem; that this ability, constituting the very essence of free will, may be weakened and impeded in its activity, but never lost entirely. If it were lost, Strigel argued, the very substance of man and free will as such would have to be regarded as annihilated. But now man, also after the Fall, is still a real man, possessed of intellect and will. Hence original sin cannot have despoiled him of this liberty of choosing pro or con also in matters spiritual. The loss of original righteousness does not, according to Strigel, involve the total spiritual disability of the will and its sole tendency and activity toward what is spiritually evil. Moreover, despite original corruption, it is and remains an indestructible property of man to be able, at least in a measure, to assent to and to admit, the operations of the Holy Spirit, and therefore and in this sense to be converted "aliquo modo volens." (Planck 4, 667. 675. 681.)

It was in opposition to this Semi-Pelagian teaching that Flacius declared original sin to be not a mere accident, but the substance of man. Entering upon the train of thought and the phraseology suggested by his opponent, he called substance what in reality was an accident, though not an accident such as Strigel contended. From his own standpoint it was therefore a shrewd move to hide his own synergism and to entrap his opponent, when Strigel plied Flacius with the question whether he denied that original sin was an accident. For in the context and the sense in which it was proposed the question involved a vicious dilemma. Answering with yes or no, Flacius was compelled either to affirm Strigel's synergism or to expose himself to the charge of Manicheism. Instead of replying as he did, Flacius should have cleared the sophistical atmosphere by explaining: "If I say, 'Original sin is an accident,' you [Strigel] will infer what I reject, viz., that the corrupt will of man retains the power to decide also in favor of the operations of the Holy Spirit. And if I answer that original sin is not an accident (such as you have in mind), you will again infer what I disavow, viz., that man, who by the Fall has lost the ability to will in the spiritual direction, has eo ipso lost the will and its freedom entirely and as such." As it was, however, Flacius instead of adhering strictly to the real issue – the question concerning man's cooperation in conversion – and exposing the sophistry implied in the question put by Strigel, most unfortunately suffered himself to be caught on the horns of the dilemma. He blindly walked into the trap set for him by Strigel, from which also later on he never succeeded in fully extricating himself.

With all his soul Flacius rejected the synergism involved in Strigel's question. His blunder was, as stated, that he did so in terms universally regarded as Manichean. He was right when he maintained that original sin is the inherited tendency and motion of the human mind, will, and heart, not toward, but against God, – a direction, too, which man is utterly unable to change. But he erred fatally by identifying this inborn evil tendency with the substance of fallen man and the essence of his will as such. It will always be regarded as a redeeming feature that it was in antagonizing synergism and championing the Lutheran sola gratia that Flacius coined his unhappy proposition. And in properly estimating his error, it must not be overlooked that he, as will be shown in the following, employed the terms "substance" and "accident" not in their generally accepted meaning but in a sense, and according to a philosophical terminology, of his own.

169. Formal and Material Substance

The terms "substance" and "accident" are defined in Melanchthon's Erotemata Dialectices as follows: "Substantia est ens, quod revera proprium esse habet, nec est in alio, ut habens esse a subiecto. Substance is something which in reality has a being of its own and is not in another as having its being from the subject." (C. R. 13, 528.) "Accidens est quod non per sese subsistit, nec est pars substantiae, sed in alio est mutabiliter. Accident is something which does not exist as such nor is a part of the substance, but is changeable in something else." (522.) Melanchthon continues: "Accidentium alia sunt separabilia ut frigus ab aqua, notitia a mente, laetitia, tristitia a corde. Alia accidentia sunt inseparabilia, ut quantitas seu magnitudo a substantia corporea, calor ab igni, humiditas ab aqua, non separantur… Et quia separabilia accidentia magis conspicua sunt, ideo inde sumpta est puerilis descriptio: Accidens est, quod adest et abest praeter subiecti corruptionem. Whatever is present or absent without the corruption of the subject is an accident." (C. R. 13, 523; Preger 2, 396. 407; Seeberg 4, 494.)

Evidently this last definition, which was employed also by Strigel, is ambiguous, inasmuch as the word "corruption" may signify an annihilation, or merely a perversion, or a corruption in the ordinary meaning of the word. In the latter sense the term applied to original sin would be tantamount to a denial of the Lutheran doctrine of total corruption. When Jacob Andreae, in his disputation with Flacius, 1571, at Strassburg, declared that accident is something which is present or absent without corruption of the subject, he employed the term in the sense of destruction or annihilation. In the same year Hesshusius stated that by original sin "the whole nature body and soul, substance as well as accidents, are defiled, corrupted, and dead," of course, spiritually. And what he understood by substance appears from his assertion: "The being itself, the substance and nature itself, in as far as it is nature, is not an evil conflicting with the Law of God… Not even in the devil the substance itself, in as far as it is substance, is a bad thing, i. e., a thing conflicting with the Law." (Preger 2, 397.)

The Formula of Concord carefully and correctly defines: "Everything that is must be either substantia, that is, a self-existent essence, or accidens, that is, an accidental matter, which does not exist by itself essentially but is in another self-existent essence and can be distinguished from it." "Now, then, since it is the indisputable truth that everything that is, is either a substance or an accidens that is, either a self-existing essence or something accidental in it (as has just been shown and proved by testimonies of the church-teachers, and no truly intelligent man has ever had any doubts concerning this), necessity here constrains, and no one can evade it if the question be asked whether original sin is a substance, that is, such a thing as exists by itself, and is not in another, or whether it is an accidens, that is, such a thing as does not exist by itself, but is in another, and cannot exist or be by itself, he must confess straight and pat that original sin is no substance, but an accident." (877, 54; 57.)