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Erasmus and Post-Conservativism
I recently read Luther’s Bondage of the Will. For those that don’t know, Luther’s Bondage of the Will was written against Erasmus’ Freedom of the Will. In the historical/theological introduction, editors Packer and Johnston do a fine job of establishing the context for Luther’s work. Erasmus, arguably the finest scholar of his day, was a humanist who had his own grievances against the church. Early on, as the Reformation was just getting started, it was supposed that Erasmus and Luther would join forces. Such was not to be. Erasmus, though a Greek scholar of unquestionable renown, was not a theologian. In fact, he found the scholastic theology of his day to be distracting and largely irrelevant to the life of the average Christian. He was a pragmatist and a moralist and largely uninterested in questions of theology. Erasmus was after reform, but he had no ability to see the connection between ecclesial reform and theological reform. For Erasmus, one of the main problems with the church was that it gave too much attention to theology in the first place. Far better was the simple life of faith, of love and good deeds toward God and neighbor. And if he was annoyed with the theology of the scholastic theologians, he was horrified by Luther’s theology.
For Erasmus, Luther’s appropriation of Augustine’s doctrine of sin and grace seemed to render moral reform and good works an impossibility. Far better, Erasmus argues in his Freedom to simply not ask questions about such matters. Luther responds with a resounding chastisement, chiding Erasmus for being unwilling to deal with theological issues and for too quickly claiming “mystery!” about what God had clearly revealed in his word.
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