Something from ... Luther's "The Bondage of the Will" (Entry #8)

INTRODUCTORY NOTES:  During the life of Martin Luther, Dutch scholar Desiderius Erasmus, was urged by Roman Catholic Church leaders to challenge Luther’s teachings and to condemn him.  Although Erasmus would rather have kept the peace in the Church, Erasmus was finally goaded into attacking Luther.  Erasmus intended to defend the official Roman Catholic teaching that God’s grace was needed to do the works by which man could then merit additional grace.  Luther’s response to Erasmus is known as The Bondage of the Will (De Servo Arbitrio).  Although Luther had published a myriad of writings in his career, he did not consider them worth preserving.  Luther regarded The Bondage of the Will as a rare exception to that rule.  In it, Luther writes at length that “free will” in spiritual matters is a lie, and that, if man actually has free will, then God loses such attributes as grace, omnipotence, and even his right to be God.

            The quotations from Luther in this blog post come from The Bondage of the Will translated by J. I. Packer and O. R. Johnston, Baker Academic: Grand Rapids, MI. © 1957.

            The following are thoughts concerning Luther’s arguments, urging us to LET GOD BE GOD.  Something from Luther’s The Bondage of the Will.

LET GOD BE GOD: Let God be omnipresent.

            God’s omnipresence could be rather unsettling for us.  If God is everywhere, then God sees everything.  There is no dark corner or enclosed room where I am able to get away with my own sinful lusts.  There is no private time which is just for me and not even God is included in it.  There is no escape from God’s watchful eye.

            If, however, God’s watchful eye is watching for my good, if God looks upon me with favor, if God is merciful to me, then there is no place I can go in which God’s mercy, grace, and love are removed from me.

            The attributes of God are either terrifying or comforting.  It just depends upon what kind of God we have.  In Christ, we find a God who loves and saves sinners.  We have a God who has adopted us into his family and makes us heirs of his heavenly kingdom.  We have a God who willingly took on flesh in order to live, to suffer, to bleed, to die, and then to conquer death for us.  That is the God who is with us always and everywhere.

            Something from Martin Luther to comfort us about our omnipresent God: “So the godly mind is not shocked to hear that God is in death or in hell; though either is more frightful and foul than a hole or a sewer.  Indeed, since Scripture testifies that God is everywhere and fills all things, a godly man does not just say that He is in these places; of necessity he learns and knows that He is there—unless we must suppose that, were I ever caught by a tyrant and thrown into a cell or a sewer (as has happened to many saints) I might not there call on God, nor believe that He was with me till I could get into some ornate church?” (page 88)