This is a detailed study of the teachings of Luther and Calvin on the theological issue of the bondage of the human will. Heckel probes the relationship between the two reformers and what it involved, since Calvin claimed he agreed fully with Luther, whose expressions and teachings appear in Calvin’s work.
The book’s title comes from the fact that Albertus Pighius questioned Calvin’s claim to be in agreement with Luther on this point. Calvin wrote that Pighius ‘indeed frankly declares that he is doing this with the specific intention of […] driving his spear through my side into Luther, and the rest of our party’ (p. 79). Pighius charged that Calvin (and other reformers) had backed away from Luther’s position on ‘absolute necessity’ while acknowledging their basic agreement on the bondage of the human will itself. Luther had written that ‘all things happen according to absolute necessity’ (p. 80).
Calvin argued he agreed completely with Luther on this point, only suggesting that Luther should soften his rhetoric on the issue. Calvin defended Luther’s position that ‘free choice apart from grace is a myth due to human corruption that infects even good works’ (p. 81). Calvin went on to add that ‘there has never been a good work which was entirely pure and perfect, which lacked any blemish at all since for works to be perfect they must flow from “perfect love for God”—a condition that is unattainable in this life, even for the saints’ (p. 82). This meant that ‘Luther and Calvin both conceived of the difference between righteousness before God (coram Dei) that justifies in Christ and good works before humans (coram hominibus) that are outwardly moral but are not righteous before God because they are done for self-glory as with the Greeks and Romans and Jews’ (p. 82).
Heckel engages contemporary scholars along the way, such as Kiven Choy, Harry McSorley, Paul Helm and Anthony N.S. Lane. Lane indicated there is evidence for ‘Calvin’s departure from Luther’s extreme statements’, but Heckel reads Calvin as fully embracing Luther’s position ‘in all its force’ (p. 83). Heckel quotes Herman Selderhuis saying that ‘Calvin defended Luther’s position on the issue without qualification. […] both in his views and in the way he presented them’ (p. 84).
Additionally, Calvin ‘unlike Pighius, knew that Luther allowed for a kind of free choice in the realm of creation’ (p. 86). While Luther ‘went for dramatic effect in order to startle people awake, Calvin sought to explain more carefully, but the substance of what was said, Calvin claimed, was the same’ meaning, as Calvin maintained that ‘his softening did not change the substance of what Luther had said’ (86). Both Luther and Calvin ‘insisted on a comprehensive necessity with regard to the spiritual matters above humans. They defined this necessity as produced by the divine will and in terms of the immutability imposed by that will even on those events which appear contingent from the human standpoint’ (p. 87).
In a fine summary, Heckel says Luther and Calvin also agree that everyone acted freely in the sense of voluntarily and in accord with their natures, but given that their natures were sinful, their will and choices could better be described as bound. They also affirmed that divine necessity was the sovereign determination of all things, but they were not determinists in the sense of passive fatalists who are indifferent to their spiritual destiny. Their determinism was one of divine superintendence of all occurrences that stirred them to devotion to the practical means of actualizing God’s will and let them to spur others into full participation with that will that works all to the glory of God and causes good for his people. (p. 145)
Other related questions are discussed in Heckel’s detailed work. These relate to what Calvin claimed was ‘our common cause’, meaning, says Heckel, ‘an essential agreement and solidarity with Luther and among his fellow Reformers on the doctrine of the will, though with some softening and qualification’ (p. 107). These chapters include, ‘Were Luther and Calvin Necessarily Necessitarians?’, and ‘Did Luther Influence Calvin on Necessity and Predestination?’ Further chapters include ‘Luther and Calvin on the Fall’, ‘Predestination and its Companions’ and ‘Is Augustine Totally Theirs?’ On the question of Augustine’s views, Heckel notes that scholars who stress a difference between Luther and Calvin argue from ‘Augustine’s early position’ whereas the Reformers themselves ‘relied on Augustine’s later position as his mature thought which redefined the earlier use of the terms, seeing free choice merely as voluntary, self-determination’ (p. 254).
Two final chapters are entitled, ‘The Seven Spears of Pighius’ (in two parts), referring to the ‘seven arguments against Luther and Calvin that were aimed against their various writings’ (p. 257). Heckel then offers a conclusion identifying twenty-one points where Calvin followed Luther. For him, Luther had a ‘formative influence’ on Calvin’s doctrine of the will (p. 302).
