Epitome of the Formula of Concord.II.1-15: Free Will

Luther's House to the left. Luther's living room is in the the lower picture. These were the places where the recovery of God's Word began.

This Epitome deals with humans in the second of four conditions: pre-fall, unregenerate post-fall, regenerate post-fall, and the resurrected status. This deals with the unregenerate post-fall. This is benchmark Augustianism and there is not the slightest whiff of Arminianism here. Any Calvinist or (confessionally conscious) Anglican shares the same faith. The Calvinist has been--rightly--more careful and confessional here, like the Lutherans. The Anglicans in the first three tiers of the Reformation concurred with this below, but Archbishop Laud introduces darkness back into Anglicanism. This excludes Epitome, on this question of free will, rejects Orthodoxy, Romanism, and vast tracts of modern evangelicalism (defined as non-confessionalists). We think of the evangelism-efforts that design worship to appeal to dead men without believing, knowing themselves, or telling their target audience that they are dead in their sins and trespasses. The question is "what powers" does the unregenerate man have? Mentally? Emotionally? Affectively? Volitionally? Does he, in a fallen condition, exercise free will? Can this unregenate man, like Romanists, John Wesley, Archbishop Laud, and some Purtians believed, "dispose and prepare himself for God's grace"? Here's the sense of the Epitome. The unconverted are "not only turned away from God" but have become enemies of God. Their only "inclination and desire" is "for that which is evil and contrary to God." This begins "from his youth" (Gen.6.5). His mind is hostile to God (Rom.8.7) and he is dead in his sins (Eph.4.25). Conversion comes through the reading, preaching, and hearing of God's Word, like Lydia of Acts 16.14--where the LORD opened her heart to Paul's preaching. This stands firmly against Pelagians, Manicheeism, semi-Pelagianism, Arminianism, Romanism, and the Enthusiasts. The Enthusiasts existed in Luther's days and he, like Cranmer, had no use for them. Here they are confessionally shown the exit. Enthusiasts--whom I call yappaphiles--are like the modern Joel Osteens, other bucolic exhorters and revivalists who dispense with the means of grace, such as the Word and Sacraments. This Epitome is vintage Lutheranism. It is brother Martin Luther.

The Epitome of the Formula of Concord, II.1-15.

II. Free Will.

STATUS CONTROVERSIAE. The Principal Question in This Controversy.

1] Since the will of man is found in four unlike states, namely: 1. before the Fall; 2. since the Fall; 3. after regeneration; 4. after the resurrection of the body, the chief question is only concerning the will and ability of man in the second state, namely, what powers in spiritual things he has of himself after the fall of our first parents and before regeneration, and whether he is able by his own powers, prior to and before his regeneration by God's Spirit, to dispose and prepare himself for God's grace, and to accept [and apprehend], or not, the grace offered through the Holy Ghost in the Word and holy [divinely instituted] Sacraments.

Affirmative Theses. The Pure Doctrine concerning This Article, according to God's Word.

2] 1. Concerning this subject, our doctrine, faith, and confession is, that in spiritual things the understanding and reason of man are [altogether] blind, and by their own powers understand nothing, as it is written 1 Cor. 2:14: The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; neither can he know them when he is examined concerning spiritual things.

3] 2. Likewise we believe, teach, and confess that the unregenerate will of man is not only turned away from God, but also has become an enemy of God, so that it only has an inclination and desire for that which is evil and contrary to God, as it is written Gen. 8:21: The imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth. Also Rom. 8:7: The carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the Law of God, neither, indeed, can be. Yea, as little as a dead body can quicken itself to bodily, earthly life, so little can man, who by sin is spiritually dead, raise himself to spiritual life, as it is written Eph. 2:5: Even when we were dead in sins, He hath quickened us together with Christ; 2 Cor. 3:5: Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything good as of ourselves, but that we are sufficient is of God.

4] 3. God the Holy Ghost, however, does not effect conversion without means, but uses for this purpose the preaching and hearing of God's Word, as it is written Rom. 1:16: The Gospel is the power of God 5] unto salvation to every one that believeth. Also Rom. 10:17: Faith cometh by hearing of the Word of God. And it is God's will that His Word should be heard, and that man's ears should not be closed. Ps. 95:8. With this Word the Holy Ghost is present, and opens hearts, so that they, as Lydia in Acts 16:14, are attentive to it, and are thus converted alone through the grace and power of the Holy Ghost, whose 6] work alone the conversion of man is. For without His grace, and if He do not grant the increase, our willing and running, our planting, sowing, and watering, all are nothing, as Christ says John 15:5: Without Me ye can do nothing. With these brief words He denies to the free will its powers, and ascribes everything to God's grace, in order that no one may boast before God. 1 Cor. 1:29; 2 Cor. 12:5; Jer. 9:23.

Negative Theses. Contrary False Doctrine.

7] Accordingly, we reject and condemn all the following errors as contrary to the standard of God's Word:

8] 1. The delirium [insane dogma] of philosophers who are called Stoics, as also of the Manicheans, who taught that everything that happens must so happen, and cannot happen otherwise, and that everything that man does, even in outward things, he does by compulsion, and that he is coerced to evil works and deeds, as inchastity, robbery, murder, theft, and the like.

9] 2. We reject also the error of the gross Pelagians, who taught that man by his own powers, without the grace of the Holy Ghost, can turn himself to God, believe the Gospel, be obedient from the heart to God's Law, and thus merit the forgiveness of sins and eternal life.

10] 3. We reject also the error of the Semi-Pelagians, who teach that man by his own powers can make a beginning of his conversion, but without the grace of the Holy Ghost cannot complete it.

11] 4. Also, when it is taught that, although man by his free will before regeneration is too weak

to make a beginning, and by his own powers to turn himself to God, and from the heart to be obedient to God, yet, if the Holy Ghost by the preaching of the Word has made a beginning, and therein offered His grace, then the will of man from its own natural powers can add something, though little and feebly, to this end, can help and cooperate, qualify and prepare itself for grace, and embrace and accept it, and believe the Gospel.

12] 5. Also, that man, after he has been born again, can perfectly observe and completely fulfil God's Law, and that this fulfilling is our righteousness before God, by which we merit eternal life.

13] 6. Also, we reject and condemn the error of the Enthusiasts, who imagine that God without means, without the hearing of God's Word, also without the use of the holy Sacraments, draws

men to Himself, and enlightens, justifies, and saves them. (Enthusiasts we call those who expect the heavenly illumination of the Spirit [celestial revelations] without the preaching of God's Word.)

14] 7. Also, that in conversion and regeneration God entirely exterminates the substance and essence of the old Adam, and especially the rational soul, and in conversion and regeneration creates a new essence of the soul out of nothing.

15] 8. Also, when the following expressions are employed without explanation, namely, that the will of man before, in, and after conversion resists the Holy Ghost, and that the Holy Ghost 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.