Synergistic Question

SYNERGISM, QUESTION OF - "Synergism" is the doctrine of the cooperation of human freedom with Grace in the work of justification. Luther had taught that man is so fallen through original sin as to be incapable of performing any good work; for which reason he remains entirely passive in justification, "like the stone in the hands of the sculptor." In De servo arbitrio (1525), written against Erasmus, he went so far as to say: "I declare, as far as I am concerned, that, if it were possible, I would wish that free will were not granted to me or anything left in my hands to cooperate in my salvation" (Luthers Werke, ed. Weimar, XVIII, pp. 783 ff.).

Melanchthon, who had at first adhered to this doctrine, struck by the arguments of Erasmus, beginning in 1532 dared to defend the existence of free will and its cooperation with Grace. He never abandoned this position, and in the Augsburg Confession (1530) he affirmed that the free will and reason can do nothing by themselves in the spiritual realm. Now, the term "by themselves" was added to the preceding text and constituted the affirmation of synergism. Luther, who had violently attacked Erasmus on the subject of free will, said nothing against his friend Melanchthon. As long as the latter lived, no one dared to raise an objection; but as soon as he died, the controversy flared up. In 1555 the theologian J. Pfeffinger of Leipzig (1493-1593) upheld free will in two works: De libertate voluntatis humanae and De libero arbitrio, but the Universities of Weimar and Jena opposed him in 1556. The conflict became more acute in 1558 with the intervention of Amsdorf (1483-1565) and above all with that of Flacius Illyricus (1520-1575), an extremist Lutheran. Pfeffinger responded immediately to Amsdorf, and from the 10th to the 11th of November 1559 a public disputation took place at Jena where Flacius managed to prevail; Melanchthon rejected the opinions of Flacius and Amsdorf, characterizing them as stoica et manichaea deliria. His supporters at Jena, however, Stringer and Hugel, ended up in prison (1561). There was nevertheless a reaction: Stringel was rehabilitated and forty professors who followed the doctrine of Flacius lost their positions (1562). In 1567 a new change: the Flacians regained the upper hand, but a second opposition against them arose in 1573. Every change of political power brought a change of theological opinion. Finally, the Formula concordiae of 1577 restored the original opinion of Luther.

Melanchthon's thought had found definitive expression in the edition of the Loci communes theologici of 1535 and 1545. In the chapter De humanis viribus seu de libero arbitrio (of the 1545 edition) the author sought to steer between two extremes by defending that doctrine which was called at the Council of Trent that of double justification, according to which human freedom can cooperate with divine Grace, but cannot attain, even by cooperating with Grace, justification, which is imputed to it gratuitously. According to Melanchthon, there is only an inchoata oboedientia; and by not rejecting the imputation of the justice of Christ, one is held to be just, as if one had fulfilled the entire law (ibid., p. 93).

Leone Cristiani