II. Free Will
Status of the Controversy
The Chief Questions in This Controversy
[1] The will of mankind is found in four different states: (1) before the fall; (2) since the fall; (3) after regeneration; and (4) after the resurrection of the body. The chief question in this article is only about the will and ability of mankind in the second state. That is, what powers in spiritual matters does a person have after the fall of our first parents and before regeneration? Can a person by his own powers—prior to and before his regeneration by God’s Spirit—get ready and prepare himself for God’s grace? Can a person accept ‹and apprehend› or reject the grace offered through the Holy Spirit in the Word and holy ‹divinely instituted› Sacraments?
Affirmative Statements
THE PURE TEACHING ABOUT THIS ARTICLE,
ACCORDING TO GOD’S WORD
[2] 1. This is our teaching, faith, and confession on this subject: in spiritual matters the understanding and reason of mankind are ‹completely› blind and by their own powers understand nothing, as it is written in 1 Corinthians 2:14, “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.”
[3] 2. Likewise, we believe, teach, and confess that the unregenerate will of mankind is not only turned away from God, but also has become God’s enemy. So it only has an inclination and desire for that which is evil and contrary to God, as it is written in Genesis 8:21, “the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth.” Romans 8:7 says, “The mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot.” Just as a dead body cannot raise itself to bodily, earthly life, so a person who by sin is spiritually dead cannot raise himself to spiritual life. For it is written in Ephesians 2:5, “even when we were dead in our trespasses, [He] made us alive together with Christ.” And 2 Corinthians 3:5 says, “Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God.”
[4] 3. God the Holy Spirit, however, does not bring about conversion without means. For this purpose He uses the preaching and hearing of God’s Word, as it is written in Romans 1:16, the Gospel “is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.” [5] Also Romans 10:17 says, “Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” It is God’s will that His Word should be heard and that a person’s ears should not be closed (Psalm 95:8). With this Word the Holy Spirit is present and opens hearts, so that people (like Lydia in Acts 16:14) pay attention to it and are converted only through the Holy Spirit’s grace and power, who alone does the work of converting a person. [6] For without His grace, and if He does not grant the increase, our willing and running, our planting, sowing, and watering (1 Corinthians 3:5–7)—are all nothing. As Christ says ‹in John 15:5›, “apart from Me you can do nothing.” With these brief words the Spirit denies free will its powers and ascribes everything to God’s grace, in order that no one may boast before God (1 Corinthians 1:29; [2 Corinthians 12:5; Jeremiah 9:23]).
Negative Statements
Contrary False Teaching
[7] So we reject and condemn all the following errors as contrary to the standard of God’s Word:
[8] 1. The insane ideas of the philosophers who are called Stoics. We reject also the ideas of the Manichaeans, who taught that everything that happens must so happen and cannot happen otherwise; everything that a person does, even in outward things, he does by compulsion; he is forced to do evil works and deeds, such as inchastity, robbery, murder, theft, and the like.
[9] 2. We also reject the error of the Pelagians. They taught that a person by his own powers, without the Holy Spirit’s grace, can turn himself to God, believe the Gospel, be obedient from the heart to God’s Law, and so merit the forgiveness of sins and eternal life.
[10] 3. We also reject the error of the Semi-Pelagians. They teach that a person by his own powers can begin his conversion, but cannot complete it without the Holy Spirit’s grace.
[11] 4. Some have acknowledged that a person is too weak to begin his conversion by his free will before regeneration, and that he cannot turn himself to God by his own powers and be obedient to God from the heart. Yet, they still assert that if the Holy Spirit has made a beginning by the preaching of the Word and has offered His grace in the Word, then a person’s will, from its own natural powers, can add something. A person’s will, though little and feebly, can help and cooperate, qualify and prepare itself for grace, and so embrace and accept the Word, and believe the Gospel.
[12] 5. Some have taught that a person—after he has been born again—can perfectly observe and completely fulfill God’s Law, and that this fulfilling is our righteousness before God, by which we merit eternal life.
[13] 6. We also reject and condemn the error of the Enthusiasts. They imagine that God without means, without the hearing of God’s Word, and also without the use of the holy Sacraments, draws people to Himself and enlightens, justifies, and saves them. (We call people enthusiasts who expect the heavenly illumination of the Spirit without the preaching of God’s Word.)
[14] 7. Some teach that in conversion and regeneration God entirely exterminates the substance and essence of the old Adam, and especially the rational soul. They say that in conversion and regeneration He creates a new essence of the soul out of nothing.
[15] 8. We reject cases where the following expressions are used without explanation: a person’s will before, in, and after conversion resists the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is given to those who resist Him intentionally and persistently. For, as Augustine says, in conversion “God makes willing persons out of the unwilling and dwells in the willing.”
[16] We reject cases where the expressions of ancient and modern teachers of the Church are used without explanation, when it is said, “God draws, but He draws the willing.” Likewise, some say, “In conversion a person’s will is not idle, but also does something.” We maintain that, because these expressions have been introduced for confirming ‹the false opinion about› the powers of the natural free will in a person’s conversion, against the doctrine of God’s grace, they do not conform to sound doctrine. Therefore, when we speak of conversion to God, these sayings should be avoided.
[17] On the other hand, it is correctly said that in conversion God—through the drawing of the Holy Spirit—makes willing people out of stubborn and unwilling ones. And after such conversion, in the daily exercise of repentance, the regenerate will of a person is not idle, but cooperates in all the works of the Holy Spirit, which He performs through us.
[18] 9. Dr. Luther has written that a person’s will in his conversion is purely passive, that is, that it does nothing at all. This is to be understood with respect to divine grace in the kindling of the new movements, that is, when God’s Spirit, through the heard Word or the use of the holy Sacraments, lays hold of a person’s will and works in him the new birth and conversion. When ‹after› the Holy Spirit has worked and accomplished this, and a person’s will has been changed and renewed by His divine power and working alone, then the new will of that person is an instrument and organ of God the Holy Spirit. So that person not only accepts grace, but he also cooperates with the Holy Spirit in the works that follow.
[19] There are only two efficient causes for a person’s conversion: (1) the Holy Spirit and (2) God’s Word, as the instrument of the Holy Spirit, by which He works conversion. A person must hear this Word. However, it is not by that person’s own powers, but only through the grace and working of the Holy Spirit that he trusts the Word and receives it.