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Melancthon's “Synergism.”
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 September 2009
Extract
The problems of anthropology depend for their solution in an unusually large degree upon psychology. While the evangelical church looks to the Bible for the materials of its theology, it still depends upon the use of human reason in the interpretation and adjustment of the materials there presented. Especially is this true in the matter of conversion and related doctrines. The language of the Bible is general, rhetorical, theological, practical, or popular, as you may choose to call it, but not strict, philosophical, theoretical, or scientific. The ultimate facts of the doctrine may be perfectly clear to the biblical student, but the adjustment of those facts in a dogmatic system will depend largely upon his ability as a thinker to see in the facts what the biblical writers have not thought fit to utter in express terms, and this upon his mental equipment for his task, or, in other words, upon his knowledge of the constitution and operations of the human mind, within which the process of conversion goes on. The history of Melancthon's “synergism” brings this peculiarity of the subject before us in a very interesting way, for clearer ideas as to the nature of the soul went, in his case, hand in hand with the alterations of the theological system; and thus his efforts to arrive at a statement of the process of conversion which should be at once true to the Scriptures and to the consciousness and the moral necessities of man, are not only interesting as the mental history of a great mind, but throw light upon the interrelations of anthropology and psychology, give us many suggestions as to the interpretation to be put upon the Reformation theology at the present day, and may serve to reveal the lines upon which all progress in respect to these questions is to be sought.
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- Copyright © American Society for Church History 1889
References
page 187 note 1 He refers to it in the De Servo Arbitrio, e. g., ch. 84.
page 187 note 2 “Liberum arbitrium non evacuatur per gratiam, sed statuitur, quia gratia sanat voluntatem, qua justitia libere diligatur.” Ch. xxx., § 52; comp. ch. xxxiii., § 58.
page 187 note 3 De Spir. et Lit., § 58. De Perf. Justit. Hom., ch. iv., rat. 9.
page 188 note 1 “Omne bonum aut Deus, aut ex Deo.” References in Thomasius, Dogmengeschichte, I., 496.Google Scholar
page 188 note 2 De Servo Arbitrio, ch. 148.
page 188 note 3 Ibid., ch. 149.
page 188 note 4 “Deus nihil prœscit contingenter, sed omnia incommutabili et œterna infallibilique voluntate et prœvidit el proponit et facit.” Ch. 17. “Pugnat itaque ex diametro prœcientia el omnipotentia Dei cum nostro libero arbitrio.” Ch. 159. “Si Deus prœscit, ipsum necessario fit. Hoc est, liberum arbitrium nihil est.” Ch. 163.
page 188 note 5 Ibid., ch. 21.
page 189 note 1 Ibid., ch. 143.
page 189 note 2 Ibid., ch. 174.
page 189 note 3 Ibid., ch. 99.
page 190 note 1 Ibid., ch. 45.
page 190 note 2 Ibid., ch. 160.
page 190 note 3 Ibid., ch. 82.
page 190 note 4 Ibid., ch. 160.
page 190 note 5 Corpus Reformatorum, ed. Bretschneider, and Bindseil, , Vol. XXI., col. 86.Google Scholar
page 190 note 6 “Est autem libertas, posse agere aut non agere, posse sic aut aliter agere.” Ibid., col. 87.
page 191 note 1 Ibid., col. 89.
page 191 note 2 Ibid., coll. 13, 14.
page 192 note 1 Ibid., coll. 15, 16. “Voluntas humana simpliciter comparata cum affectibus nan est libera, sed captiva regitur tum bonis tum malis affectibus.”
page 192 note 2 Ibid., col. 92. “Internos affectus nego in potestate nostra esse, nec permitto aliquam esse voluntatem quœ affectibus adversari serio possit.
page 192 note 3 Ibid., col. 90.
page 193 note 1 Ibid., col. 93.
page 193 note 2 Corp. Ref., vol. i. col. 674.Google Scholar
page 193 note 3 So states Herrlinger, , Theologie Melancthon's, Gotha, 1879, p. 72.Google Scholar
page 193 note 4 Herrlinger, (pp. 73ff.)Google Scholar has shown that the movement we are about to trace began much earlier than its results appeared in the Loci. The Visitation Articles of 1528, the “Scholien” to the Epistle to the Galations, 1527, the edition of the Commentary upon Romans of the year 1532, exhibit various, stages of the progress.
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page 194 note 3 Ibid., col. 373.
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page 196 note 1 Ibid., coll. 271, 272.
page 196 note 2 Ibid., col. 659.
page 196 note 3 Ibid., col. 650.
page 196 note 4 Ibid., col. 372.
page 196 note 5 Ibid., coll. 372, 650.
page 196 note 6 Ibid., col. 649.
page 196 note 7 Ibid., col. 271.
page 196 note 8 “Est autem libertas voluntatis causa contingently actionum.”
page 196 note 9 So I am compelled to understand the expression: “Hœc ratio [i. e. reasoning] de causa peccati satis illustris est.” Ibid., col. 273.
page 197 note 1 Ibid., col. 274.
page 197 note 2 Ibid., col. 372.
page 198 note 1 Ibid., col. 452.
page 198 note 2 Ibid., col. 647.
page 198 note 3 Ibid., col. 648.
page 199 note 1 Ibid., col. 274.
page 199 note 2 Note particularly the paragaph “Primum igitur” col. 277.
page 199 note 3 Ibid., col. 278 f.
page 200 note 1 This is a near approach to the principle that responsibility involves ability, but not exactly the principle itself. The position is rather that Scripture testifies to both facts, the responsibility and the ability. There is, strictly, no logical reasoning from one point to the other.
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page 200 note 3 Ibid., col. 375.
page 200 note 4 See Herrlinger, , p. 92Google Scholar. The reference is here especially to the passage at the bottom of col. 659, in respect to which Melancthon said that he meant by the “promise” which men hear, the promise as impressed by the Holy Spirit. But for our present purpose, the remark holds equally true of the earlier discussion.
page 201 note 1 Corp. Ref., xxi., col. 376.Google Scholar
page 201 note 2 Ibid., col. 376.
page 201 note 3 Ibid., col. 377.
page 202 note 1 Ibidem.
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