Chapter III: The True State of the Controversy, § 32.
CHAPTER III: ON THE TRUE STATE OF THE CONTROVERSY
§ 32. But the genuine state of the question must be noted accurately. This admonition was indeed put forth earlier, because we see it being studiously entangled in the writings of many men, and we see various questions being confused.
(I) The question here does not concern the state of man as he was established in his original integrity and innocence. We confess that he was equipped with such great and perfect powers of free choice that he could easily obey or not obey God. That is, with the concreated light of his understanding he could know God correctly, and with a spontaneous movement of the will he could give Him sincere, whole, and perfect obedience in every detail. He could also turn away from God and depart from the path of holy obedience—which, alas, is what he did.
(II) Neither does the question concern the state of the reborn and renewed person, as to how the powers of free choice are constituted in him. For we confess that the man who has been reborn and renewed through the Holy Spirit has free will toward spiritual good—in fact, a will freed from slavery toward sin by the power of the Holy Spirit. Yet in this life, this freedom is far from the perfect freedom of the life to come, as shall be explained in greater detail a little later [§§ 142–46].
(III) Nor does the question concern the state of glorified man, for we confess that after his transferral into eternal glory man will again be equipped with perfect powers of free choice and will be confirmed in good, with the result that he not only will be able not to sin but also will be unable to sin. But the whole question concerns the state of man corrupted through the fall, that is, what he is capable of either before or in conversion with his own natural powers of free choice.
(IV) Nor does the question concern the very essence of the will, as to whether it has remained after the fall, for this we confess loudly as we assert with Ambrose (or Prosper, De vocat. gent., bk. 1, ch. 3) that man has not been deprived of his will but of the soundness of his will.
(V) Nor is the question about freedom from compulsion, for we confess that in this sense and respect the will is free in acting even after the fall, that is, to do evil freely and not by coercion. But the whole question concerns freedom in regard to the object about which the will is occupied; that is, it concerns freedom of uprightness, whether after the fall man is still equipped with a power which functions equally toward good and evil.
(VI) Nor is the question about an object that is good in a civil sense, that is, whether by the natural powers of his free choice man can choose [a civil good]; for we confess that some freedom has remained in regard to works that are just in regard to moral, political, and household justice, which pertain to the “lower hemisphere,” as Dr. Luther says. Certainly a person not as yet reborn can in one way or another control his external movements. He can command his external members by the command of right reason. He can in some way show civil righteousness and avoid the more serious external sins which conflict with external discipline. Indeed, he can even listen to and meditate on the Word of God externally! Yet even still, that freedom is quite often weakened with external hindrances, as will be explained later [§§ 116–17]. For this reason we have been careful to say that some freedom has remained in this type of actions. Thus the whole question is about a spiritually good object, about works which are righteous according to spiritual righteousness and which pertain to the superior hemisphere, about spiritual good impulses, as to whether of himself and his own spiritual powers man can begin those spiritual movements, receive offered grace, and perform some works that are pleasing to God. This we explicitly deny.
(VII) Nor is the question whether in conversion there occur any movements of the mind and will, for we confess that no conversion takes place without the knowledge of the intellect and the assent of the will. But the entire question is from what source such movements spring and whether they are the effects of divine grace or human will.
(VIII) Nor is the question about the natural actions of the soul, such as hearing, reading, or meditating. In their own way these can be called “spiritual” analogically, because they proceed from the soul, which is spiritual in essence. For we acknowledge in these a sort of freedom of choice: a person can read or he cannot read; he can listen or he can turn away his ears. But the whole question is about spiritual movements properly so called, such as knowing God rightly and hearing and reading the Word of God fruitfully.
(IX) Nor is the question about the means leading to a spiritual object, such as hearing and reading the Word of God, for we confess that the external use of these means are accessible to the powers of a person not yet reborn. But the whole question concerns the salutary use of these means, the spiritual understanding of Law and Gospel, inner conversion. Here we say that not even the smallest freedom of choice or sufficiency of powers for such spiritual impulses have survived in man after the fall. That this may become obvious, we proceed as follows.
§ 33. In the work of conversion, God who converts and man who is to be converted concur. Therefore it must be asked what Scripture attributes to God and what it attributes to man in this work. In this way it will become clear what must be said in regard to the powers of free choice in man before conversion and in the very act of conversion. Because free choice is a faculty of the mind and will, it must be asked what Scripture declares about the mind and will of the person not yet converted, for the integrity of both is required for the integrity of free choice.