Solid Declaration. 2.1-7, "Free Will, or Human Powers"

The Solid Declaration of the Formula of Concord, 2.1-7, "Free Will, or Human Powers." For beginners in theology (ordained Episcopal clergy), make sure you've read Luther's Bondage of the Will. You probably cut your teeth on Schleiermacher and other I-centred theologies. VTS still leads with that in its classes last I investigated their department. (And one has to pay to go there, to boot...save your money.) The Anglo-Papists don't read Reformation literature at all. The continuuing Anglican churches (58 for the last count in last 30 years) is full of cranks or kooks. The institutional Church of England is an ephemeral shadow of other shifting shadows---"weakness" is too kind of a description for their clerks. This Lutheran article should have been embraced, confessionally, on Anglican soil. But we got Archbishop Laud and other (Arminian) divines, like the disputatious, pompous and self-righteous Wesleys. Today, Arminianism dominates the Baptist, Methodist, and their children, the enthusiasts--charismatics. The mainliners and their children are worse--hard to know what the children-leaders of the ACNA hold. Pelagianism is the view of the Episcopal catechism, the 1979 BCP, advocated by most ACNA children. We rejoice with our Confessional Lutheran brethren here. Also, for the Confessional Presbyterian and Reformed Churchmen who are solid on this point.

II. Free Will, or Human Powers

1] Since a division has occurred not only between the Papists and us, but also among some theologians of the Augsburg Confession themselves, concerning free will, we shall, first of all, show exactly the points in controversy.

2] For since man with [respect to] his free will is found and can be considered in four distinct, dissimilar states, the question at present is not what was the condition of the same before the Fall, or what he is able to do since the Fall and before his conversion in external things which pertain to this temporal life; also not what sort of a free will he will have in spiritual things after he has been regenerated and is controlled by God's Spirit, or when he rises from the dead. But the principal question is only and alone, what the intellect and will of the unregenerate man is able to do in his conversion and regeneration from his own powers remaining after the Fall; whether he is able, when the Word of God is preached, and the grace of God is offered us, to prepare himself for grace, accept the same, and assent thereto. This is the question upon which, for quite a number of years now, there has been a controversy among some theologians in the churches of the Augsburg Confession.

3] For the one side has held and taught that, although man cannot from his own powers fulfil God's command, or truly trust in God, fear and love Him, without the grace of the Holy Ghost, nevertheless he still has so much of natural powers left before regeneration as to be able to prepare himself to a certain extent for grace, and to assent, although feebly; however, that he cannot accomplish anything by them, but must succumb in the struggle, if the grace of the Holy Ghost is not added thereto.

4] Moreover [On the other side], both the ancient and modern enthusiasts have taught that God converts men, and leads them to the saving knowledge of Christ through His Spirit, without any created means and instrument, that is, without the external preaching and hearing of God's Word.

5] Against both these parties the pure teachers of the Augsburg Confession have taught and contended that by the fall of our first parents man was so corrupted that in divine things pertaining to our conversion and the salvation of our souls he is by nature blind, that, when the Word of God is preached, he neither does nor can understand it, but regards it as foolishness; also, that he does not of himself draw nigh to God, but is and remains an enemy of God, until he is converted, becomes a believer [is endowed with faith], is regenerated and renewed, by the power of the Holy Ghost through the Word when preached and heard, out of pure grace, without any cooperation of his own.

6] In order to explain this controversy in a Christian manner, according to the guidance of God's Word, and by His grace to decide it, our doctrine, faith, and confession are as follows:

7] Namely, that in spiritual and divine things the intellect, heart, and will of the unregenerate man are utterly unable, by their own natural powers, to understand, believe, accept, think, will, begin, effect, do, work, or concur in working anything, but they are entirely dead to what is good, and corrupt, so that in man's nature since the Fall, before regeneration, there is not the least spark of spiritual power remaining, nor present, by which, of himself, he can prepare himself for God's grace, or accept the offered grace, nor be capable of it for and of himself, or apply or accommodate himself thereto, or by his own powers be able of himself, as of himself, to aid, do, work, or concur in working anything towards his conversion, either wholly, or half, or in any, even the least or most inconsiderable part; but that he is the servant [and slave] of sin, John 8, 34, and a captive of the devil, by whom he is moved, Eph. 2:2; 2 Tim. 2:26. Hence the natural free will according to its perverted disposition and nature is strong and active only with respect to what is displeasing and contrary to God.