From One Humanist to Another

As we were asked to write this week’s blog post on our response to Erasmus’ and Luther’s Discourse of Free Will, to be honest, my first initial response was, “I don’t get it.” I had a hard time following the two men’s points of view. But I did do some research and looked at some outsides commentary on the book that hopefully helped me understand the reading better.

Even if I didn’t fully understand what the two debaters were saying, I did try to pay attention to their rhetorical devices. Both seemed to have an excellent awareness of their audience and their opponent, and a good sense of decorum. Erasmus starts out his very first 

section by acknowledging that he is looked at as much more        

insignificant in comparison to Luther. He understands that his 

audience could be the general public and he recognizes their 

thoughts and feelings. Throughout his writing, Erasmus, also 

seems to write a lot of comparisons and analogies so that more 

people will understand what he is trying to say.

While they are both of the same day and age, Erasmus and Luther have different opinions of free will and different ways of examining the will of man. Erasmus is rejecting the Reformation’s version of man and explains that man is capable of doing good and this good can lead to his salvation. He talks a lot about grace and how man can receive different types of grace to be saved. He offers a lot of examples from history and the Bible, but as a humanist, he puts a lot of human reason and philosophy on his interpretation of the Bible. He also tries to acknowledge many different sides to his theories. But his human reasoning seems to weaken and muddle his position as he tries to argue this Christian doctrine, but doesn’t exactly take a strong enough stance.

Luther, on the other hand, becomes more sure of his position as he responds to Erasmus. And while he debates against Erasmus, he wants to bring him to an understanding of the truth, as well. Luther’s main source to his argument is solely the scriptures. He comes much more strictly from the Reformation philosophy and mindset, to where he believes the Spirit is what is necessary to interpret the scriptures and not as much human reasoning. Based on his interpretation and methods of arguing, Luther believes man is not capable of doing good, but that he is evil in nature and is brought down by sin, but is unaware of his own corruption. Man is not free to choose grace.

Both men do a good job of acknowledging who their audience and opponent is, but differ in their opinions of man’s sin and free will. They also have different ways of arguing this as Erasmus gives a more humanist thinking approach to scripture, and Luther sticks to a Protestant Reformation approach and goes off of scripture alone.