Synergistic Question

SINERGISTICA, QUESTIONE — “Synergism” is the doctrine of the cooperation of human freedom with Grace in the work of justification. Luther had taught that man had fallen so completely through original sin that he was incapable of performing any good work; hence, in justification, he remains wholly passive, “like the stone in the sculptor’s hands.” In De servo arbitrio (1525), written against Erasmus, he went so far as to say: “I declare, for my part, that, if it were possible, I would wish that free will were not granted to me, or that anything at all were left in my hands with which to cooperate in my salvation” (Luthers Werke, ed. Weimar, XVIII, p. 783 ff.).

Melanchthon, who had initially adhered to this doctrine, moved by Erasmus’s arguments, dared from 1532 onward to defend the existence of free will and its cooperation with Grace. He never again abandoned this position, and in the Augsburg Confession (1530) affirmed that free will and reason can do nothing by themselves in the spiritual realm. Now, the words “by themselves” had been added to the earlier text and constituted an affirmation of synergism. Luther, who had violently attacked Erasmus concerning free will, said nothing against his friend Melanchthon. As long as the latter lived, no one dared to raise an objection; but immediately after his death, the controversy broke out. In 1555 the theologian J. Pfeffinger of Leipzig (1493–1593) defended 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 grew 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 immediately replied to Amsdorf, and from 10 to 11 Nov.

In 1559 a public disputation took place at Jena, in which Flaccio managed to prevail; Melantone rejected the opinions of Flaccio and Amsdorf, calling them 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 Flaccio’s doctrine lost their positions (1562). In 1567 there was a new change: the Flaccians regained the upper hand, but a second opposition to them arose in 1573. Every change in political power brought about a change in theological opinion. Finally, the Formula concordiae of 1577 restored Luther’s original position.

Melantone’s thought found definitive expression in the 1535 and 1545 editions of the Loci communes theologici. In the chapter De humanis viribus seu de libero arbitrio (of the 1545 edition), the author sought to keep between two extremes by defending the doctrine that at the Council of Trent was called that of double justification, according to which human freedom can cooperate with divine Grace, but cannot attain justification, even by cooperating with Grace; justification is imputed to it freely. According to Melantone, there is only an inchoata oboedientia; and since the imputation of Christ’s righteousness is not rejected, one is considered righteous, as though one had fulfilled the entire law (ibid., p. 93).