Erasmus' moderation

After finishing the main chunk of this book, I took a break to read the historical introduction, and was fascinated to find Desiderius Erasmus speaking so favorably of Luther early on (1515-1522). There is a great anecdote told of the German prince, Elector Frederick, who protected Luther from Rome, being summoned by Rome to hand Luther over. Before answering and while traveling, Frederick had a personal meeting with Erasmus to get the latter's take on Luther. Erasmus defended him! Frederick asked for a written summary of his opinion. Erasmus gave him one, but asked for it back before they would part ways for good. He wrote that the pope was out of line excommunicating Luther; that Luther had good intentions and the pope had evil intentions; etc. Erasmus turned down repeated requests/bribes from Rome to write against Luther publicly.

But as the conflict wore on, Erasmus was increasingly marginalized for not repudiating Luther. Lines were drawn, and people had to find the line and move to where they wanted to be.

Of course, this says nothing of his theological arguments, where Luther soundly refutes Erasmus in the area of free will. The book is actually a little confusing: like starting in on an online discussion halfway through, with the original and then a response, back to the original, which original is itself Erasmus' response to Luther's writings!

Here is a sampling at the end of chapter 4, where Luther wraps up his refutation of Erasmus' objections to Luther's exposition of the bondage of the will, based on various scripture texts (John 15:5; Proverbs 16:1; 21:1; Jer 10:23; Gen 8:21; 6:5; hardening of Pharoah; potter and clay; Mal 1:2-3; Rom 9:15):

"But listen to your conclusions! 'The Scripture commends God's grace; therefore, it proves 'free-will.' By what logic did you learn these inferences?... To what end is grace given? Is it that grace may be, as it were, the fancy dress in which 'free-will', proud and self-sufficient in its strength, blithely disports itself on May-days?.... grace is needed, and the help of grace is given, because 'free-will' of itself can do nothing... it cannot will any good. Therefore when grace is commended... the impotence of 'free-will' is thereby declared.

"Erasmus repeats... that 'if my view stands, all the precepts, threats and promises [of Scripture] are in vain.... Erasmus recommends to me... to allow a very little to 'free-will', so that the contradictions of Scripture and the aforementioned inconveniences may be more easily removed.' [end Erasmus quote; back to Luther] Unless you attribute all and everything to 'free-will', in the way that the Pelagians do, the contradictions in the Scripture still remain.... we have to go to extremes, deny 'free-will' altogether, and ascribe everything to God!" (pages 270-271).