Intro: The following quote is from Dr. Martin Luther’s, The Bondage of the Will. Luther’s magnum opus is a direct response to the great humanist scholar, Erasmus of Rotterdam and his book, On the Freedom of the Will. Luther sees in a particular quote by Erasmus a criterion of the Faith that is hardly Scriptural. Luther’s response is a pointed one to all sorts of Christianity, liberal, progressive or conservative, in our day which is “sinking sand”:
“Here, I see you are taking the view that the truth and usefulness of Scripture should be measured and decided according to the feeling of men-to be precise, of the ungodliest of men; so that nothing henceforth will be true, Divine and wholesome but what these persons find pleasing and acceptable; and what is not so will at once become useless, untrue and harmful. What else do you here plead for, but that the words of God may thus depend on, and stand or fall by, the will and authority of men? But Scripture says the opposite, that all things stand or fall by the will and authority of God, and that all the earth keeps silence before the face of the Lord (cf. Habakkuk 2: 20).”
Concordia and Koinonia 