De Servo Arbitrio, to the venerable Erasmus of Rotterdam (1525)
Martin Luther, answering Erasmus a year late and at four times the length
Four hundred pages arguing that the tasteful thing to do with a hard question is not to shrug at it.
Every stat is a checkable fact about the actual book, not a designer's mood. Bars are drawn against the highest value any book reaches.
The game's own explanation, as a reader sees it in the backpack.
Luther called it one of the two of his books worth keeping. It is long, and none of the length is padding.
Very high. Luther attacks Erasmus’ method before any single argument, because the method was where the fight was.
Hard to get at because it has already conceded the ground worth conceding: Erasmus is learned, the question is difficult, and none of that licenses suspending judgement.
A treatise answering a treatise, in Latin, about the freedom of the will. It arrives when it arrives.
In 1524 Erasmus wrote a book on free will. It opened by saying he disliked firm assertions. Luther replied in 1525 that a Christianity that asserts nothing is not humble. It is not Christianity at all. The two men never spoke again. Luther later said only this book and his catechism were worth keeping.
By levelling up. A book that develops keeps what it knew and learns the rest on its new schedule.
| Lv | Move | Type | Cat. | Pwr | Acc | PP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | A Constant Adhering | Faith | Argument | 80 | 100% | 15 |
| 1 | Random Verse | Bible | Argument | 10 | 100% | 30 |
| 38 | Chapter… | Bible | Scripture | — | — | 12 |
| 38 | The Spirit Is No Sceptic | Presupposition | Argument | 92 | 100% | 5 |
| 39 | Law and Gospel | Exegesis | Argument | 82 | 100% | 15 |
| 41 | Assertions Contemned | Presupposition | Argument | 86 | 100% | 10 |
| 43 | Take Away Assertions | Presupposition | Argument | 95 | 100% | 5 |
| 50 | Speak Latin | History | Status | — | 100% | 5 |
How to read these. In Scholar’s Dream, books argue with each other. Each thing a book can do in a debate is a move, and most moves carry a real quotation — the words the book puts on the table when it uses that move.
Strong against lists the opposing books and arguments a move was written to answer. Used against one of them, it hits much harder than usual: ×2 means twice the normal force, ×4 four times. It is the game’s way of saying: this is the sentence that answers that argument. Open an entry to read why.
“…by assertion, I mean a constant adhering, affirming, confessing, defending, and invincibly persevering.”
Luther, The Bondage of the Will (1525), trans. Henry Cole (London, 1823), public domain. (trimmed quote)public domain
In the gameDefines the word before using it, which is not Luther’s usual habit and is the reason this argument works. Assertion here is not shouting. It is holding on, and going on holding on.
“The Holy Spirit is not a Sceptic, nor are what he has written on our hearts doubts or opinions, but assertions more certain, and more firm, than life itself and all human experience.”
Luther, The Bondage of the Will (1525), trans. Henry Cole (London, 1823), public domain.public domain
In the gameNames where the certainty comes from, which is the question Erasmus had stepped around. Not the strength of the arguer and not the weight of the evidence — what has been written on the heart, and by whom.
Where the certainty comes from — which is the question he stepped around.
Luther refusing the pose before the argument — the tasteful shrug is not a modest faith, it is a different subject.
Nietzsche asks what a conviction is FOR. Luther answers where it comes from, which is the question Nietzsche does not ask.
“the law serves only to point human beings towards their duty to God and their fellows, while providing no power for its fulfillment. It therefore serves only to condemn them before God. By contrast, the gospel is a promise of salvation which needs only to be believed.”
Carl Trueman, “Justification and the Protestant Reformation”, TGC Concise Theology, CC BY-SA 4.0. The distinction emerges at the Heidelberg Disputation of 1518.
In the gameA way of reading, not a doctrine to recite: ask of any passage whether it is telling you what to do or telling you what has been done. Get the two the wrong way round and Scripture either crushes a reader or flatters one. Ursinus called the distinction basic to correct exegesis.
“What Christian would bear that assertions should be contemned? This would be at once to deny all piety and religion together…”
Luther, The Bondage of the Will (1525), trans. Henry Cole (London, 1823), public domain. (trimmed quote)public domain
In the game“Contemned” is old English for scorned, held in contempt. Erasmus said he found firm assertions distasteful and preferred to stay uncertain. Luther answers that no Christian can afford that taste. A religion that will not assert anything as true has already stopped being a religion.
Follow his position to where it goes and let him look at it.
“…nothing is more known and more general among Christians than assertions. Take away assertions, and you take away Christianity.”
Luther, The Bondage of the Will (1525), trans. Henry Cole (London, 1823), public domain. (trimmed quote)public domain
In the gameRefuses the offer of a tasteful suspension of judgement. A faith that will not assert anything is not a modest faith — it is not the thing under discussion at all.
The whole answer. A faith that will not assert is not a humbler faith; it is not the thing you were discussing.
Every raft asserts something in order to say that nothing can be asserted. Luther’s reply to Erasmus is the one that holds all of them at once: without assertions there is no Christianity, and no argument against it either.
Luther wrote this against Erasmus three centuries earlier and it answers Nietzsche exactly: a faith that asserts nothing is not a humbler faith. It is not the thing being discussed.
Sartre says a person must choose and be responsible. Luther answers Erasmus that a faith with no assertions in it is not a faith. A freedom with no truth to be free for is the same thing said backwards.
A man who says “all truth is power” is asserting something as true. Luther pressed the same question on Erasmus. Take away assertions, and Foucault’s books have no reason to exist.
Luther told Erasmus that a Christian who takes away assertions has taken away Christianity. Rorty’s advice to the churches is Erasmus’s. Luther’s answer still holds: a faith that asserts nothing hard has nothing to offer anyone.
He is not a sceptic. He is very certain indeed, and about this.
The specific move or chapter of Scripture that cuts through this one, and why. The number is how much harder it hits than usual — ×4 is four times the normal force.
Luther says in the Bondage that Augustine agrees with him: free will can do nothing but fall. He names Augustine’s Spirit and the Letter.
The passages the Scriptorium holds on screen, word for word from a public-domain translation. Written in Latin.
“…by assertion, I mean a constant adhering, affirming, confessing, defending, and invincibly persevering.”
Luther, The Bondage of the Will (1525), trans. Henry Cole (London, 1823), public domain. (trimmed quote)
“The Holy Spirit is not a Sceptic, nor are what he has written on our hearts doubts or opinions, but assertions more certain, and more firm, than life itself and all human experience.”
Luther, The Bondage of the Will (1525), trans. Henry Cole (London, 1823), public domain.
“What Christian would bear that assertions should be contemned? This would be at once to deny all piety and religion together…”
Luther, The Bondage of the Will (1525), trans. Henry Cole (London, 1823), public domain. (trimmed quote)
“…nothing is more known and more general among Christians than assertions. Take away assertions, and you take away Christianity.”
Luther, The Bondage of the Will (1525), trans. Henry Cole (London, 1823), public domain. (trimmed quote)
Erasmus had opened in 1524 by saying he took no pleasure in assertions and would sooner join the sceptics if the church allowed it. Luther answered a year late and at four times the length.
He refuses the posture before he touches the argument. A Christianity that will not assert anything is not a modest Christianity; it is a different subject.
The two men never spoke again. Luther said later that of everything he had written, only this and the catechism were worth keeping.