Von der Freiheit eines Christenmenschen — On the Freedom of a Christian (1520)
Martin Luther — written for the pope, and meant it
A tract addressed to the pope by a man Rome had already condemned, with no polemics in it at all.
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.
A short tract, and the one thing of his that has never gone out of use in any tradition. Catholics quote it too.
Moderate. It avoids polemics on purpose. That costs it force, and it has gained readers in every tradition.
Almost nothing to attack. It grants everything an opponent could want granted and then says the same thing anyway.
Widely read, in German and then in Latin, and it is short enough to finish in an evening.
Luther wrote this in October 1520, between the pope’s threat to excommunicate him and the day he burned that threat. Its central idea is two sentences that seem to contradict each other. By faith a Christian is free lord of all. By love a Christian is servant of all.
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 | Random Verse | Bible | Argument | 10 | 100% | 30 |
| 18 | Affirm | — | Status | — | — | 1 |
| 35 | Chapter… | Bible | Scripture | — | — | 12 |
| 36 | The Joyful Exchange | Faith | Argument | 85 | 100% | 10 |
| 37 | No Iron Can Hew It Down | Ethics | Argument | 82 | 100% | 10 |
| 38 | An Alien Righteousness | Soteriology | Argument | 90 | 100% | 10 |
| 39 | The Whole Life of Believers | Soteriology | Argument | 76 | 100% | 15 |
| 40 | Lord of All, Servant of All | Faith | Argument | 86 | 100% | 10 |
| 42 | The Secret Testimony | Presupposition | Argument | 88 | 100% | 10 |
| 44 | My Poor Monk | Faith | Argument | 74 | 100% | 15 |
| 50 | Speak German | 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.
“For in him we live, and move, and have our being. As some of your own poets have said.”
Acts 17:28 (WEB) — Paul at the Areopagus, quoting the Athenians’ own poets back to them.
In the gamePick the part of the opponent’s case that is true and affirm it. That point can no longer be used against you, and the opponent’s Defend falls sharply. It deals no damage. Affirm something false and you have only agreed with an error.
“Luther himself cast his position in terms of conjugal language, with Christ’s righteousness and the believer’s sins being joyfully exchanged in the union of faith as a groom and his bride’s property are exchanged in the bond of marriage.”
Carl Trueman, “Justification and the Protestant Reformation”, TGC Concise Theology, CC BY-SA 4.0.
In the gameLuther did not only argue this in a courtroom. He argued it as a marriage: what is hers becomes his, what is his becomes hers, and the debt is paid because the two are one. Melanchthon supplied the legal language later; Luther saw no quarrel between them.
“heresy is a spiritual thing which no iron can hew down, no fire burn, no water drown”
Luther, as collected in Schaff, History of the Christian Church VII, on toleration (1888), public domain. Schaff: Luther “was the most advanced among the Reformers in the ideas of toleration and liberty.”public domain
In the gameWritten by a man under sentence of death, about people he disagreed with. He did not always live up to it, but he wrote it, and it comes close to the modern idea of religious freedom three hundred years early.
Written by the man it is about to outlaw, about people he disagreed with, and it is nearly the modern doctrine three hundred years early.
“Christ has fulfilled the law and undergone its penalty; those who believe in him have this vicarious – or, to use Luther’s terminology, alien – obedience credited to them.”
Carl Trueman, “Justification and the Protestant Reformation”, TGC Concise Theology, CC BY-SA 4.0.
In the gameLuther’s own word for it. The righteousness that saves is somebody else’s — fulfilled by Christ, credited to people who did not do it. Foreign, and therefore secure: what was never yours to earn is never yours to lose.
Not poured in. Credited — and the council has just told you that is the error.
Whose righteousness, and is it credited or infused? The article was written so that nobody had to say.
“Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ in saying: ‘Repent ye’ … intended that the whole life of believers should be penitence.”
Ninety-Five Theses 1, in Schaff, History of the Christian Church VII §32 (1888), public domain. (trimmed quote)public domain
In the gameThesis 1, and it is a translation argument. The Vulgate said DO PENANCE; the Greek says REPENT. One word, and either repentance is a sacrament you complete or it is a life you live.
One word in the Latin, and the whole trade is standing on it.
“The Christian is the lord of all, and subject to none, by virtue of faith; he is the servant of all, and subject to every one, by virtue of love.”
Schaff, History of the Christian Church VII §46 (1888), public domain, stating the leading idea of Luther’s Von der Freiheit eines Christenmenschen (1520).public domain
In the gameTwo sentences that contradict each other and are both true, which is what the tract is for. Faith makes you free of every man; love makes you the servant of every one. Neither half survives without the other.
Faith alone justifies, and the faith that justifies is never alone. Canon IX condemns a doctrine in which nothing else follows — and nothing else following was never the claim.
Luther’s two sentences: by faith a Christian is free lord of all, and by love the servant of all. Faith alone justifies, and love follows from it. Regensburg blurred the two.
“…our conviction of the truth of Scripture must be derived from a higher source than human conjectures, Judgments, or reasons; namely, the secret testimony of the Spirit.”
Calvin, Institutes I.7.4 (trans. Beveridge, 1845), public domain. (trimmed quote)public domain
In the gameGrants that the evidences are good and refuses to rest on them. If your certainty that God has spoken is only as strong as your best argument, then it is exactly as unstable as your worst afternoon.
He is asking you to rest your certainty on a list. There is a older place to rest it.
Calvin asks the same question and answers it the same way.
Certainty was the real quarrel. Trent condemns assurance because it thinks assurance is presumption.
“My poor monk, my poor monk, thou art going to make such a stand as neither I nor any of my companions in arms have ever done in our hottest battles. If thou art sure of the justice of thy cause, then forward in God’s name…”
Georg von Frundsberg to Luther at Worms, in Schaff, History of the Christian Church VII §54 (1888), public domain. (trimmed quote)public domain
In the gameAn old soldier stops him on the steps and tells him the truth: this is harder than anything I have done, and I have done it in armour. Then tells him to go in anyway.
An old soldier said this on the steps and it is worth more than the whole afternoon of Latin.
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.
Wesley’s heart was warmed while someone read Luther’s preface to Romans. It was Luther’s teaching on faith that he felt.
The passages the Scriptorium holds on screen, word for word from a public-domain translation. Written in Latin.
“The Christian is the lord of all, and subject to none, by virtue of faith; he is the servant of all, and subject to every one, by virtue of love.”
Schaff, History of the Christian Church VII §46 (1888), public domain, stating the leading idea of Luther’s Von der Freiheit eines Christenmenschen (1520).
“heresy is a spiritual thing which no iron can hew down, no fire burn, no water drown”
Luther, as collected in Schaff, History of the Christian Church VII, on toleration (1888), public domain. Schaff: Luther “was the most advanced among the Reformers in the ideas of toleration and liberty.”
“My poor monk, my poor monk, thou art going to make such a stand as neither I nor any of my companions in arms have ever done in our hottest battles. If thou art sure of the justice of thy cause, then forward in God’s name…”
Georg von Frundsberg to Luther at Worms, in Schaff, History of the Christian Church VII §54 (1888), public domain. (trimmed quote)
Written in October 1520, four months after the bull that threatened him with excommunication and two months before he burned it — and sent to Leo X with a courteous covering letter.
The leading idea is two sentences that contradict each other and are both true. This is the last thing Luther wrote while he still thought a letter to Rome might help.
The old soldier’s blessing on the way into the hall — “my poor monk” — is not in the treatise. It is what a man who fought for a living said to him at the door.