De libero arbitrio diatribe sive collatio
De libero arbitrio diatribe sive collatio (literally Of free will: Discourses or Comparisons) is the Latin title of a polemical work written by Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam in 1524.
[2]: 86 In his view, a gently-held synergism mediates the scriptural passages best, and moderates the exaggerations of both Pelagius (humans meriting or not requiring grace for salvation) and Manichaeus (two Gods: one good, one bad).
De libero arbitrio diatribe sive collatio was nominally written to refute a specific teaching of Martin Luther, on the question of free will.
"[5] Luther responded, publishing his Latin Assertio omnium articulorum which included the statement "God effects the evil deeds of the impious"[6] as part of the Wycliffian claim that "everything happens by pure necessity,"[note 3] so denying free will.
"[7]: 485 ) Erasmus' mentor Bishop John Fisher published a detailed response to the Latin version's arguments as Confutation of the Lutheran Assertion in 1523.
Erasmus decided necessity/free will was a subject of core disagreement deserving a public airing, and strategized for several years with friends and correspondents[8] on how to respond with proper moderation[9] without making the situation worse for all, especially for the humanist reform agenda.
He sent the draft to English King Henry VIII for comments, and received a note from Pope Clement VII encouraging publication, and a letter came from Martin Luther recommending he kept silent.
[10] Erasmus' eventual irenical strategy had three prongs:[note 4] A scholar has commented: "De Libero Arbitrio is clear in what it opposes, less so in what it affirms"[15] about free will.
However, another has commented that "The most important and lasting legacy of Erasmus' theology was its nuance":[16] what is being strongly affirmed is not free choice per se but a hermeneutic.
He also engaged with recent thought on the state of the question, including the perspectives of the via moderna school and of Lorenzo Valla, whose ideas he rejected.
[20]: 154 Erasmus' extremely tentative affirmation (of synergism) comes from these reflections: not only is any nasty disputation un-Christian, but the assertion of extra doctrines promotes, in effect, evil.
Luther and other reformers proposed that humanity was stripped of free will by sin and that divine predestination ruled all activity within the mortal realm.
[1] "What the Church reads with profit when written by Augustine, Luther ruins with atrocious words and hyperboles,...(like)...the absolute necessity of all things.
"[24]: 7 American/German Reformed encyclopaedist Philip Schaff summarized it: "Melanchthon, no doubt in part under the influence of this controversy, abandoned his early predestinarianism as a Stoic error (1535), and adopted the synergistic theory.
In like manner the Roman Catholic Church, while retaining the greatest reverence for St. Augustin and endorsing his anthropology, never sanctioned his views on total depravity and unconditional predestination, but condemned them, indirectly, in the Jansenists."
A 2017 survey of U.S. Protestants found that fewer than half accepted a view similar to Luther's sola fide, including in "white mainline churches" [28]
