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Text preparation and translation by BackToLuther using DeepL, Google Translate, Microsoft Translate, Yandex Translate. All bold text is Pieper's emphasis. All highlighting, red text, and most text in square brackets [ ] is mine.
The Foundation of the Christian Faith.
When Erasmus, for the protection of synergism, pointed out that such people, whom Luther also regarded as “saints”, had taught human “free will” in matters of salvation in their speeches and writings, Luther explained these thoughts in his writing De Servo Arbitrio [The Bondage of the Will or “Bound Choice”]: The saints are completely different people “inter disputandum”, that is, when they speak or write in front of an audience, than when they step in a small room before their God, pray to God and deal with God. In front of an audience, they attribute to man a fortune to behave correctly towards grace (vim, quae ad gratiam sese applicat); But as soon as they step before God, they completely forget (penitus obliti) their own assets, despair of themselves, count themselves among the damnable sinners with all other men and cry out only for mercy (desperantes do scmet ipsis ac nihil nisi solam et puram gratiam longe alia meritis invocantes) and speak like Saint Bernard on his deathbed: “I have lived godlessly,” “Perdite vixi.” And how does Luther explain this contradiction between theory and practice in the saints as well? This way: In the public debate, they would please people (verbis et disputationibus intenti sunt); for example, when it is necessary to assert an earlier position.
But as soon as they step before God, they completely forget (penitus obliti) their own assets, despair of themselves, count themselves among the damnable sinners with all other men and cry out only for mercy (desperantes do scmet ipsis ac nihil nisi solam et puram gratiam longe alia meritis invocantes) and speak like Saint Bernard on his deathbed: “I have lived godlessly,” “Perdite vixi.” And how does Luther explain this contradiction between theory and practice in the saints as well? This way: In the public debate, they would [page 105] please people (verbis et disputationibus intenti sunt); for example, when it is necessary to assert an earlier position. But as soon as they step before God, their actual Christian attitude (affectus), which is still in them, asserts itself, according to which they not only do not praise their own good behavior, but even accuse their whole natural being of being hostile to God. 51)
[Martin] Chemnitz has in his examination Concilii Tridentini the section “Veterum Testimonia de Justificatione”, 52) in which he proves that also such church fathers, who falsify the Christian doctrine of justification before the greater public and from the safe lectern (in declamatoriis rhetoricationibus and in otiosis disputationibus) by mixing it with one’s own works, forget all their own works and praise the sola gratia when they stand in front of God’s judgment seat in temptation and distress of death (quando in tentationibus et meditationibus quasi ad Dei tribunal sistunt).
Chrysostom and Basil speak synergistically in writings on the human will in conversion. The Formula of Concord 53) therefore warns against this talk: “As to the expressions of Chrysostom and Basil: Trahit Deus, sed volentem trahit; tantum velis, et Deus praeoccurrit, [‘We need only to will, and God has already come to us.’] likewise, the saying of the Scholastics (and Papists), Hominis voluntas in conversione non est otiosa, sed agit aliquid, that is, God draws, but He draws the willing; likewise: Only be willing, and God will anticipate you” and judges of these expressions, “they are not in harmony with the form of sound doctrine, but contrary to it, and therefore ought to be avoided when we speak of conversion to God.” But Chrysostomus is another man in his communion prayer. Gerhard 54) communicates this prayer, in which Chrysostom not only stands beside but also under a whore. Chrysostom prays: “As you did not push back a whore and sinner like me (similem mihi) when she came to you and touched you, so you wanted to be moved by the same affect of heartfelt mercy against me a sinner, when I came to you and touched you. And as thou hast not abhorred the unclean and despicable mouth of that with which she kissed thee, abhor not my mouth, which is even more unclean and shameful than the mouth of that sinner”. Likewise Basil is another man in his communion prayer, which Gerhard also communicates 55) and in which he says, among other things: “Accept me, Most Gracious Lord, as the whore, as the thief, as the tax collector, and as the prodigal son, and take from me the heavy burden of my sins, which thou bearest the sins of the world”. [page 106]
On this point, in the past and in our time, a more lenient
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55) Ibid.
assessment of synergism has been pleaded. It was said and is said: “We admit, however, that no synergist, as long as Christian faith is still in his heart, asserts before God his different behavior or his lesser guilt or his omission of wanton reluctance, etc.”. But because there is the possibility of double-entry bookkeeping, that is, because it is possible that someone who teaches synergistically in public actually means the sola gratia in his heart and sits on the same bench of sins with others, synergism should be given a lenient treatment. On the other hand, it must be stated that the Formula of Concord requires that the recognition of the same guilt and the same evil behavior in comparison with other people is the teaching of Holy Scripture.
Scripture teaches: “There is no difference: for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus”. (Rom. 3:22-24)
Then the “happy inconsistency” of such synergists, who believe better before God than they teach before men, can also easily turn into an “unhappy consequence”. It is very obvious that they seduce their own hearts, that is, begin to believe for themselves what they teach others, especially since self-righteousness and elevation above others are also in the flesh of Christians. That is, as we heard from Luther, the “sorrowful secret deceit” through which also “the greatest saints” have fallen, “that is why Christ himself holds it before the apostles”. And what confusion such people have caused in the Christian church by teaching the different behavior and the lesser guilt, even without believing these things themselves! We see this in Melanchthon, who through his synergistic speeches plunged the Lutheran Church into a thirty-year struggle. For this reason the Lutheran Church truly had cause enough, in its Formula of Concord, to sweep out so thoroughly in Melanchthon and his followers the doctrine of a different behavior and lesser guilt, and so enormously put the doctrine of Scripture back on the lampstand: “There is no difference”: those who become saved, when they compare themselves with those who are lost, must in their turn recognize the same guilt and the same evil behavior. Also in the American Lutheran Church there was a tremendous onslaught, which restored the different behavior and the lesser guilt in the doctrine of conversion and election of grace again. If the entire American Lutheran Church had yielded to this onslaught, which was also generously supported from abroad, there would be no faithful Lutheran Church in the United States at that time.
The Church still calling itself Lutheran would have abandoned the sola gratia and thus the foundation of the Christian faith against the protest of Holy Scripture and against the protest of its confession. For only this is Christian faith, “which relies on grace alone”. 57) F.P.
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Synergism rules in much of American "Protestantism". Pastor Rick Warren's The Purpose Driven Life has flooded the Christian book stores in recent years, selling many millions. This book clearly bases its thrust on Billy Graham's "decision theology" – in other words, the poison of Synergism. Below is a set of quotes that drives home the point:
p. 84: “When you decide to live a totally surrendered life…” — 137: “You become a Christian by committing yourself to Christ” — 177: “You must make a counter-culture decision to focus on becoming more like Jesus.” — 179: “The process of becoming like Christ always begins with a decision” — 177: “When the first disciples chose to follow Jesus,…”
This last quote of Pastor Warren is so striking, for it explicitly refutes what Christ said to His disciples:Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you. — John 15:16
According to the Wikipedia article on him, Pastor Warren is Southern Baptist and "considers Billy Graham, Peter Drucker and his own father to be among his mentors". The name of Peter Drucker is significant and he will come up again in the next sub-section of my series on Pieper's Das Fundament book, on the Means of Grace, beginning in the next Part 10…
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