A Defense of Free Will Against Luther

Lord Acton said that of all the works written against Martin Luther in the beginning of the Reformation, Bishop John Fisher of Rochester's Assertionis Lutheranae Confutatio of 1523 was the most important. Oddly enough this massive work of Catholic apologetics, composed in Latin, has never been rendered into the English language. It contains Fisher's detailed responses to all forty-one articles defended by Martin Luther against the censures of Pope Leo X found in the bull Exsurge Domine (1520).

In this volume Thomas Scheck presents for the first time in English translation, introduced, and annotated, Fisher's Preface to the Reader, Ten Truths, and the most important single article found in Fisher's Confutation, namely his Confutation of Luther's Assertion of Article 36, in which Fisher defends the existence of free will against Luther's claim that free will is a fiction with no reality. Fisher's reply is thoroughly grounded in Scripture and in the interpretation of Scripture found in the ancient Fathers of the Church. Interestingly to defend free will he makes abundant use of Augustine, Origen, Jerome, Tertullian and John Chrysostom.

Luther's controversy with the Catholic Church over free will is well known today from his debate with Erasmus of Rotterdam, which is easily accessible in English. Less well known is the fact that Bishop John Fisher's reply to Luther preceded Erasmus's by one year and was used extensively by Erasmus himself in arguing against Luther's positions. Also noteworthy is that Bishop John Fisher's particular response to Luther was well known to the bishops and theologians at the Council of Trent (1545-1563) and appears to have influenced the formulation of Catholic dogma in the Decree on Justification, where free will is affirmed and the power of human resistance recognized.

Bishop John Fisher was canonized along with St. Thomas More in 1935, 400 years after their bloody martyrdoms under King Henry VIII. Their mutual feast day is on June 22.