' (literally ''Of free will: Discourses or Comparisons'') is the

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

title of a

polemical Polemic () is contentious rhetoric intended to support a specific position by forthright claims and to undermine the opposing position. The practice of such argumentation is called ''polemics'', which are seen in arguments on controversial topics ...

work written by

Desiderius Erasmus Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (; ; English: Erasmus of Rotterdam or Erasmus;''Erasmus'' was his baptismal name, given after St. Erasmus of Formiae. ''Desiderius'' was an adopted additional name, which he used from 1496. The ''Roterodamus'' wa ...

of Rotterdam in 1524. It is commonly called ''The Freedom of the Will'' in English.

History

' was written expressly to refute

Martin Luther Martin Luther (; ; 10 November 1483 – 18 February 1546) was a German priest, theologian, author, hymnwriter, and professor, and Augustinian friar. He is the seminal figure of the Protestant Reformation and the namesake of Lutherani ...

and his teachings, specifically on the question of

free will Free will is the capacity of agents to choose between different possible courses of action unimpeded. Free will is closely linked to the concepts of moral responsibility, praise, culpability, sin, and other judgements which apply only to ac ...

. Erasmus had generally avoided involving himself in theological disputes until then; however, he was urged by many of his contemporaries, particularly by his good friend

Thomas More Sir Thomas More (7 February 1478 – 6 July 1535), venerated in the Catholic Church as Saint Thomas More, was an English lawyer, judge, social philosopher, author, statesman, and noted Renaissance humanist. He also served Henry VIII as Lord ...

, as well as by

Pope Clement VII Pope Clement VII ( la, Clemens VII; it, Clemente VII; born Giulio de' Medici; 26 May 1478 – 25 September 1534) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 19 November 1523 to his death on 25 September 1534. Deemed "the ...

, to apply his skill and learning to answer Luther, who had become increasingly aggressive in his attacks on the

Roman Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

Content

The disputation between Erasmus and Luther essentially came down to differences of opinion regarding the doctrines of divine justice and divine

omniscience Omniscience () is the capacity to know everything. In Hinduism, Sikhism and the Abrahamic religions, this is an attribute of God. In Jainism, omniscience is an attribute that any individual can eventually attain. In Buddhism, there are diffe ...

and

omnipotence Omnipotence is the quality of having unlimited power. Monotheistic religions generally attribute omnipotence only to the deity of their faith. In the monotheistic religious philosophy of Abrahamic religions, omnipotence is often listed as one ...

. 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 In a religious context, sin is a transgression against divine law. Each culture has its own interpretation of what it means to commit a sin. While sins are generally considered actions, any thought, word, or act considered immoral, selfish, s ...

and that divine

predestination Predestination, in theology, is the doctrine that all events have been willed by God, usually with reference to the eventual fate of the individual soul. Explanations of predestination often seek to address the paradox of free will, whereby G ...

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.

Foreknowledge and predestination

Erasmus however argued that foreknowledge did not equal predestination. Instead, Erasmus compared God to an

astronomer An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses their studies on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. They observe astronomical objects such as stars, planets, moons, comets and galaxies – in either ...

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 Jonah or Jonas, ''Yōnā'', "dove"; gr, Ἰωνᾶς ''Iōnâs''; ar, يونس ' or '; Latin: ''Ionas'' Ben (Hebrew), son of Amittai, is a prophet in the Hebrew Bible and the Quran, from Gath-hepher of the northern Kingdom of Israel (Samaria ...

and the people of Nineveh.

Free will and the 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.

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

{{Authority control 1524 books 16th-century Christian texts 16th-century Latin books Books by Desiderius Erasmus Philosophy essays