Was William Tyndale a Synergist?

By James Edward McGoldrick

Cedarville College, Cedarville, Ohio 45314

Since publication of M. M. Knappen’s article, “William Tindale—First English Puritan,” in 1936,[1] a number of interpreters have magnified the differences which emerged gradually between Martin Luther and William Tyndale, as the latter developed his overall understanding of scripture. Leonard Trinterud, William Clebsch, and John K. Yost have taken up this theme, and their studies have raised some questions about Tyndale’s fidelity to Luther on the principle of justification sola fide. Trinterud seemed to imply, although he did not expressly contend, that there might be elements of synergism in Tyndale’s exposition of the Sermon on the Mount.[2] Clebsch, while recognizing the importance which Tyndale ascribed to sola fide, nevertheless discusses at some length the “Sources of Tyndale’s Legalism,”[3] while Yost cites specific passages in Tyndale’s works as evidence of the reformer’s espousal of synergism.[4]

In a recently published book, Luther’s English Connection,[5] the present writer examined the overall theology of William Tyndale and Robert Barnes and compared their beliefs with Luther’s. He concluded in that work that recent efforts to detach Tyndale from Luther’s influence have been too drastic and that the English reformer maintained his commitment to sola gratia, sola fide throughout his career, making it the cornerstone of his soteriology. It is the purpose of this study to pursue that theme further and to give attention to the particular question about synergism as raised by recent interpreters.

While Knappen, Trinterud, and Clebsch have raised questions about Tyndale’s understanding of salvation sola gratia, Yost, now of the University of Nebraska, has charged categorically that Tyndale was a synergist. The term synergism comes from the Greek sunergein, “to cooperate” (sunergos, “fellow-worker”) and it signifies cooperation of divine grace and the human will in spiritual regeneration.[6] This view, commonly associated with the Semi-Pelagian doctrine of salvation, was abhorrent to the Protestant reformers, and Luther assailed it vigorously in The Bondage of the Will, which he wrote in rebuttal to a defense of synergism by Erasmus.[7]

In contending that Tyndale was a synergist, Yost claims to have found “evidence for the combination of grace and good works in a number of his writings.”[8] Yost contends that the English reformer gave so much emphasis to man’s cooperation with God in salvation that Tyndale was closer to the Erasmian humanists than to the evangelical reformers. “Tyndale agreed with Erasmus concerning the idea of man, which was the core of humanist thought. On the other hand, he disagreed with Luther concerning justification by grace alone, which was the core of Reformation theology.”[9] In support of this conclusion, Yost cites expressions from Tyndale that stress the necessity for Christians to love and obey the laws of God. This concern, according to Yost, shows that Tyndale was “primarily a Protestant advocate of the revival of the moralistic Christianity of antiquity.”[10]

It is not difficult to find passages in Tyndale’s writings which appear to reflect a synergistic perspective, and Professor Yost has cited a number of them. It is the contention of the present writer, however, that the statements in question, when appraised contextually and related to Tyndale’s overall position on soteriology, do not support the belief that he was a synergist.

The dimensions of this article do not allow for extensive quotations of material from Tyndale which have been presented as evidence of his supposed synergism: a few representative selections must suffice.

In A Pathway into the Holy Scripture (1525–32), while expounding on the Christian life, Tyndale wrote:

…true repentance and faith begin at our baptism and [our] first professing of the laws of God; and continue to the end of our lives and grow as we grow in the Spirit. For the more perfect we become, the greater is our repentance, and the stronger our faith. And thus, as the Spirit and doctrine on God’s part, and repentance and faith on our part, beget us anew in Christ, even so they make us grow…until…we are…fashioned after the similitude and likeness of the perfection of our Saviour Jesus Christ, whose gift is all.[11]

In the Parable of the Wicked Mammon (1527), a treatise on justification, Tyndale wrote:

The promises, when they are believed, are they that justify; for they bring the Spirit who looses the heart, gives [us] desire to do the law, and certifies us of the good will of God toward us. If we submit ourselves to God and desire him to heal us, he will do it, and will in the mean time (because of the consent of the heart to the law) count us fully whole and will no more hate us, but pity us, and love us as he does Christ himself.[12]

Such statements lead Yost to conclude that Tyndale viewed justification as a synergistic process, even while he was under Luther’s personal influence.[13] According to Yost, Tyndale held “that works such as almsgiving, prayer, and fasts were necessary to faith. These three good works Tyndale regarded as the whole life of the Christian, who would not be spiritually alive without them.”[14]

Despite the synergistic implications which some of Tyndale’s remarks seem to contain, the present writer’s study has led him to conclude that the reformer never held a truly synergistic view of salvation. Tyndale was a vigorous champion of grammatical-historical exegesis in the interpretation of scripture, so it seems quite fitting that the same method be employed in our study of the reformer’s own writings. Fidelity to the grammatical-historical method requires that a writer’s view on a particular doctrine be ascertained mainly from those portions of his works that deal with that doctrine systematically. Other occasional allusions to the matter should be regarded as incidental remarks. The incidental references must then be understood in light of those which expound the question systematically. The present author’s application of this approach has led to the conclusion that Tyndale was a monergist, i.e., one who viewed salvation as the work of God totally—sola gratia. This becomes especially clear when we trace Tyndale’s soteriology in terms of the ordo salutis, the sequence of events in salvation. In this way we can see his entire doctrine of salvation, and when that doctrine is viewed as a whole, it becomes evident that its character precludes synergism completely.

As were all major Protestant reformers of the sixteenth century, William Tyndale was a predestinarian. He wrote in The Parable of the Wicked Mammon, composed to expound the doctrine of justification, “Now is the true believer heir of God by Christ’s merits; yes, and in Christ was predestinate and ordained to eternal life before the world began.”[15] Salvation then proceeds from God’s gracious and sovereign election of undeserving sinners. Man can contribute nothing to God’s choice, for man’s sinful condition renders him both unable and unwilling to love God. “We affirm that we have no free will to precede God and his grace, …neither can we consent to God before grace has come.”[16] Tyndale declared this in his Answer to Sir Thomas More (1530), the friend and disciple of Erasmus, who previously attacked Martin Luther. Erasmus directed his attack on Luther to their disagreement over the will of man in salvation. Erasmus held to the freedom of the will and a synergistic conception of salvation. Tyndale called man’s spiritual state since the fall a “deep blindness” and concluded that man inevitably misunderstands the ways of God and will continue to do so until divine grace removes the blindness through spiritual regeneration. Until man is “born again,” “his wit, reason, and will are…glued, yes, nailed and chained to the will of the devil. Neither can any creature loose the bonds, except the blood of Christ only.”[17]

In Eph 2:1 St. Paul told his readers that they “were dead in trespasses and sins” prior to receiving the grace of Christ. Tyndale understood this to mean that fallen man is spiritually dead and therefore insensitive to God and his will.

The text is plain: we were stone dead and without life or power to do or consent to do good. Our whole nature was captive under the devil and led at his will, …and we consented to sin with body and soul and hated the law of God. But God, for his grace only, made us alive in Christ, …and we are, in this our second birth, God’s workmanship in Christ, which God poured into our hearts before we knew it.[18]

Tyndale’s argument and the language he used to present it bear obvious similarity to Luther’s Bondage of the Will, and, like Luther, Tyndale denied any human contribution to regeneration.

Since, according to Tyndale, man makes no contribution to election and regeneration, there appears to be no place for synergism in his soteriology. We might ask, however, just what is the role of man’s faith in Tyndale’s view of salvation? Tyndale defined faith as “the believing of God’s promises and a sure trust in the goodness and truth of God: which faith justified Abraham and was the mother of all his good works which he did afterwards.”[19] Since it is man who exercises faith by believing, is not faith man’s contribution to salvation? Tyndale would answer emphatically “No,” for faith “is altogether the pure gift of God poured into us freely…without deserts and merits, yes, and without our seeking for [it] and is…even God’s gift and grace purchased through Christ.”[20] “True faith is…the gift of God and is given to sinners after the law has passed over them and has brought their consciences to the brim of desperation and sorrows of hell.”[21] While Tyndale posited belief in Christ as indispensable for salvation, he insisted that the faith which enables one to believe is bestowed by God and therefore cannot be regarded as a human contribution.

Further evidence that Tyndale did not hold a synergistic view of salvation may be gleaned from his teaching that the elect are saved by Christ, not by faith. That is, Christ is the effectual means of salvation, while faith is the instrumental means. As Tyndale put it:

When I say faith justifies, the understanding is, that faith receives the justifying. God promises to forgive us our sins and to impute us as fully righteous. And God justifies us actively: that is to say, forgives us and reckons us fully righteous. And Christ’s blood deserves [merits] it, and faith in the promise receives it and certifies the conscience thereof.[22]

Tyndale then believed in justification through faith in the sacrifice of Christ, which sacrifice he viewed as the effectual means of salvation. Since faith is imparted by God to his elect, justification is not a synergistic process.[23] In fact, it is not a process at all; it is the forgiveness of sin and the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to penitent sinners who embrace Christ through that faith imparted to them by sovereign grace. “All our justifying then comes through faith, and faith…comes from God and not from us.”[24]

It appears that the attribution of synergism to Tyndale is related to a failure to understand the vital distinction that the reformer made between justification and sanctification. He viewed the former as a judicial act of God, the benefit of which man received through faith. The latter, however, Tyndale regarded as a progressive growth in personal holiness. Real saving faith produces good works. “Out of faith springs love; and out of love, works.”[25]Election, regeneration, and justification are sovereign acts of God in which man is a mere recipient of the divine favor. Sanctification, on the other hand, is a process in which the Christian is an eager participant. To Tyndale good works are the fruits of a justifying faith. In reply to More’s charge that Protestants disparaged good works, Tyndale wrote:

We make good works fruits whereby our neighbor is the better and whereby God is honored and our flesh tamed. And we make of them sure tokens by which we know that our faith is no feigned imagination and dead opinion,… but a living thing wrought by the Holy Spirit.[26]

Justification, then, arouses a desire for the practice of righteoustiess in the Christian life. After realizing the favor of God and deliverance from eternal death through Christ, the believer is “athirst after more righteousness that he might fulfill the law, and [he] mourns continually, commending his weakness to God in the blood of our Savior, Christ Jesus.”[27]

In the ordo salutes sanctification follows regeneration and justification. The believer has been transformed from spiritual death into spiritual life, and good works are the evidences that this transformation has occurred. As Tyndale put it, “The Spirit enters the heart and…gives it life and justifies it. The Spirit also makes the law a living thing in the heart; so that a man brings forth good works…without compulsion of the law.”[28]

In taking the position that true faith, a gift from God, produces love for God’s law and expresses itself in service to one’s neighbor, Tyndale was actually reflecting his essential agreement with Luther, who wrote, “True faith is not idle. We can, therefore, ascertain and recognize those who have true faith from the effect or from what follows.”[29] “…If good works do not follow, it is certain that faith in Christ does not dwell in our heart, but [a] dead faith.”[30] Tyndale’s identity of thought with Luther becomes even more evident when we compare the sentiments of the two reformers on the matter of performing good works for the benefit of one’s neighbor. As Luther phrased it,

We conclude…that a Christian lives not in himself, but in Christ and in his neighbor. Otherwise he is not a Christian. He lives in Christ through faith, in his neighbor through love. By faith he is caught up beyond himself into God. By love he descends beneath himself into his neighbor.[31]

In the words of Tyndale,

Bond-servants work for hire, children for love: for their father, with all he has, is theirs already. So does a Christian man do freely all that he does and considers nothing but the will of God and his neighbor’s welfare only.[32]

Both Luther and Tyndale stressed the Christian’s obligation to relate to his neighbor as though he were standing in the place of Christ to minister to that neighbor. Luther admonished his readers that as Christians “we…ought freely to help our neighbor,…. and each one should become as it were a Christ to the other….”[33] Tyndale declared, “every Christian man to another is Christ himself; …what you owe to Christ, that you owe to your neighbor’s need.”[34] As understood by these reformers, faith has a horizontal dimension which requires that love for God be demonstrated through service lovingly rendered to one’s fellow man.

Tyndale stressed the horizontal dimension of Christian faith in order to show that the doctrine of salvation sola gratia does not lead to indifference toward sanctification and good works, as the Romanists had been charging. He vigorously argued that faith always manifests itself through works. His manner of presenting this matter once again illustrates his oneness of thought with Luther. In The Parable of the Wicked Mammon, Tyndale wrote: “Faith justifies in the heart and before God, and the deeds justify outwardly before the world, that is, testify only before men what we are inwardly before God.”[35] The justification before men, achieved by good works, nevertheless, does not win salvation. Faith always precedes good works, and apart from saving faith no works are good in God’s sight.[36]

It is evident that Thomas More did not understand Tyndale’s definition of faith, so the reformer took pains to explain himself carefully. Tyndale warned against a false belief—”a story faith”—that believes “the whole story of the Bible” but does not take its truth to heart. He concluded that even Satan possesses such a faith.[37] Tyndale held that good works are essential fruits of faith, for “whosoever does not do good works is an unbelieving person…,” or, put in other words, “it is impossible to separate good works from faith, even as it is impossible to separate heat from burning.”[38] This inseparability notwithstanding, Tyndale categorically and repeatedly denied that works merit salvation. As he saw it, neither faith nor works merits salvation; it is entirely a gift from God.

Tyndale’s monergistic view of salvation is also evident in the manner in which he dealt with the Christian’s motive in obeying the divine law through serving one’s neighbor. In medieval thought, the Christian life was depicted as a pilgrimage toward eternity, and the pilgrim was expected to accumulate merit along the way by performing good deeds. In other words, life on earth was to be spent in a quest for reward in heaven. Tyndale wrote about the rewards of the Christian life, but he did not include salvation among them. He rather taught that good deeds aid one’s assurance of salvation, help to subdue one’s sinful inclinations, and attract others to honor God.[39] On the specific matter of the proper motive for doing good works. Tyndale stated in his Answer to More:

If I work for a worldly purpose I get no reward in heaven even so if I work for heaven, or [for] a higher place in heaven, I get there no reward. But I must do my work for the love of my neighbor, because he is my brother and the price of Christ’s blood, and because Christ has deserved it from me; and then my reward is great in heaven.[40]

A true Christian, in Tyndale’s view, is motivated by love for God and love for man. He therefore performs good deeds to express his love, and the rewards follow as a matter of course. The Christian, however, will not pursue rewards per se, because he is not motivated by the desire for reward but instead by a loving gratitude to God for salvation sola gratia. Tyndale asserted this in a prologue to the Sermon on the Mount, which he published in 1532.

True believers behold the law in its own likeness and see the impossibility of fulfilling its demands with natural power and therefore flee to Christ for mercy, grace, and power; and then in true thankfulness for the mercy received, love the law in its own likeness and submit themselves to learn it and to profit therein….[41]

Tyndale attached so much importance to love as the only correct motive for good works that he concluded that works performed apart from love are worthless in God’s sight, even though they may fulfill the letter of the law. The reformer was especially concerned that Christians understand this as they relate to religious duties which the church had prescribed for the implementation of biblical mandates. For example, as a fulfillment of the biblical injunction to observe the Sabbath, the church required attendance at Sunday services. Tyndale, of course, acknowledged the propriety of Sabbath observance, but he indicated that a situation could arise when love would require a believer to miss Sunday church services. Tyndale mentioned this in his Exposition of the First Epistle of St. John (1531).

…If my father, mother, or any other that requires my help be sick, I break that good commandment [to attend church], to do my duty to my elders or my neighbor. And thus all laws are under love and give room [place] to love, and love interprets them, yes and breaks them at a time, though God himself commanded them. For love is lord over all laws, and the thing that Christ commanded above all others.[42]

By means of this argument Tyndale upheld the sanctity of God’s law while maintaining his commitment to salvation by grace alone. In fact, the point he was making and the language that he used to state it are almost identical to Luther’s remarks on the same subject. The German reformer put it this way:

Faith and love should be masters over all laws and have all of them under their authority. Since all laws impel us to faith and love, none should be valid, or even be a law, if it turns out to be contrary to faith and love.[43]

Tyndale’s emphasis on the role of the law in the Christian life did not spring from a synergistic view of salvation, and the degree of his estrangement from Luther on this issue seems to have been exaggerated by some recent interpreters. Luther wrote: “Our faith in Christ does not free us from works but from false opinions concerning works, that is, from the foolish presumption that our justification is acquired by works.”[44] This was a conviction with which Tyndale concurred completely.

Although the author of this article has selected his documentation from various stages in Tyndale’s career, it might still be argued that the reformer had modified his soteriology and had become a synergist by the end of his life. There is, however, no evidence to warrant such a conclusion. On the contrary, those documents which come from the closing months of Tyndale’s life confirm the view that he went to a martyr’s death believing in salvation by grace alone.

Soon after Catholic authorities arrested Tyndale in May 1535, and remanded him to Vilvorde Castle for imprisonment, a document was found among his possessions that shows clearly he had not abandoned his monergism. The writing in question is The Testament of Master William Tracey, Esquire, Expounded by William Tyndale. William Tracey was an old friend from Gloucestershire and had served there as justice of the peace. When Tracey died in 1530, he left a last will and testament in which he affirmed his belief in justification sola fide and the sole mediatorship of Christ. He left no funds for an endowment to purchase prayers for his departed soul. Soon after Tracey’s demise, his testament was copied and circulated, thereby causing Archbishop William Warham and the Convocation of the Clergy to declare it heretical. The body of William Tracey was eventually exhumed and burned.

Exactly when Tyndale composed his Exposition of Tracey’s Testament is not known, but it was in his possession when he was arrested. This defense of Tracey contains a ringing affirmation of justification through faith alone, and the argument employed by the author is essentially the same as he had used in earlier writings. Tyndale affirmed that faith alone justifies the sinner; “Faith justifies you; that is, brings a remission of all sins and sets you in the state of grace before all works, and gets you power to work before you could work.”[45] He likewise argued that saving faith produces an ardent desire to obey God’s law through the performance of good works, for “true faith in Christ gives power to love the law of God….”[46]

A final evidence that William Tyndale went to his death maintaining a monergistic view of salvation comes from James Latomus, one of the theologians appointed to a commission to try the English reformer. In defense of scholastic theology, Latomus, a zealous enemy of the Reformation, had earlier attacked Luther. While Tyndale was in prison, he corresponded with Latomus. The latter’s books have been preserved, and from them we learn that Tyndale wrote a treatise entitled Faith Alone Justifies before God while a prisoner. In that work Tyndale cited the principle espoused in the title as “his key to the healthy understanding of sacred scripture.”[47] The three books Latomus sent to the English prisoner make it clear that Tyndale never ceased to argue in favor of salvation sola gratia. Unfortunately, the reformer’s writings while at Vilvorde Castle have not survived, except for a letter appealing for warmer clothing and his Hebrew Bible, dictionary and grammar.

This examination of Tyndale’s soteriology as a whole convinces the author that the great English reformer was never a synergist. Clearly, Tyndale magnified the role of the law in the Christian life and underscored the believer’s duty to obey the divine commandments. He, like Luther, however, never deviated from the belief that salvation comes by grace alone. Both reformers made possession of saving faith a prerequisite for the proper observance of the law and the performance of good works. Tyndale summarized the whole matter in The Payable of the Wicked Mammon:

Faith in Christ gives desire and power to do the law. Now it is true that he who does the law is righteous, but no man does that except he that believes and puts his trust in Christ.[48]

Notes

1. M. M. Knappen, “William Tindale—First English Puritan,” CH, 5 (1936) 201–15.
2. Leonard Trinterud, “A Reappraisal of William Tyndale’s Debt to Luther,” CH, 31 (1962) 24–45.
3. William Clebsch, England’s Earliest Protestants (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1964) 168–174.
4. John K. Yost, “The Christian Humanism of the English Reformers” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Duke University, 1965).
5. James Edward McGoldrick, Luther’s English Connection (Milwaukee: Northwestern Publishing House, 1979).
6. Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics (ed. James Hastings; New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1908–28) 11.158.
7. The opposing treatises have been published together in Luther and Erasmus: Free Will and Salvation (LCC 17; Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1969).
8. Yost, “Christian Humanism,” 106.
9. Ibid., 149.
10. John K. Yost, “William Tyndale and the Renaissance Humanist Origins of the English Via Media,” Nederlands archief voor Kerkgeschiedenis 54 (1970) 186; cf. Yost, “Tyndale’s Use of the Fathers: a Note on His Connection to Northern Humanism,” Moreana 6 (1969) 5–13; Yost, “A Reappraisal of How Protestantism Spread during the Early English Reformation,” ATR 60 (1978) 437–46.
11. William Tyndale, Doctrinal Treatises and Introductions to Different Portions of the Holy Scriptures (ed. Henry Walter; Cambridge: The University Press, 1848) 27.
12. Ibid., 52.
13. Yost, “Christian Humanism,” 105–6.
14. Yost, “Protestant Reformers and the Humanist Via Media,” 196 (emphasis mine).
15. Tyndale, Doctrinal Treatises, 65.
16. William Tyndale, An Answer to Sir Thomas More’s Dialogue, The Supper of the Lord (ed. Henry Walter; Cambridge: The University Press, 1850) 174.
17. Tyndale, Doctrinal Treatises, 18.
18. William Tyndale, Expositions and Notes on Sundry Portions of the Holy Scriptures, together with the Practice of Prelates (ed. Henry Walter; Cambridge: The University Press, 1849) 199–200; cf. Tyndale, Doctrinal Treatises, 277.
19. Tyndale, Doctrinal Treatises, 407.
20. Ibid., 53.
21. Tyndale, Doctrinal Treatises, 12-13; cf. Tyndale, Answer to More, 139.
22. Tyndale, Exposition and Notes, 89 (emphasis mine).
23. Cf. Yost, “Christian Humanism,” 84, 103, and 112.
24. Tyndale, Doctrinal Treatises, 488; cf. ibid., 46–49. A helpful discussion of this aspect of Tyndale’s theology may be found in D. B. Knox, The Doctrine of Faith in the Reign of Henry VIII (London: James Clarke & Company, 1961), 2–15.
25. Tyndale, Expositions and Notes, 194; cf. Tyndale, Doctrinal Treatises, 118.
26. Tyndale, Answer to More, 197.
27. Tyndale, Doctrinal Treatises, 17.
28. Ibid., 417; cf. ibid., 501, and Martin Luther, Commentaries on I Corinthians 7, I Corinthians 15, Lectures on I Timothy (ed. Hilton C. Oswald; Luther’s Works 28; St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1973) 114, 380.
29. Martin Luther, Career of the Reformer IV (ed. Lewis W. Spitz; Luther’s Works v. 34; Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1960) 183.
30. Ibid., p. 111.
31. Martin Luther, The Freedom of a Christian (ed. Harold J. Grimm; Luther’s Works 31; Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1957) 371.
32. Tyndale, Doctrinal Treatises, 21.
33. Luther, Freedom of a Christian, 367-68.
34. Tyndale, Doctrinal Treatises, 98.
35. Ibid., p. 119; cf. Luther, Career of the Reformer IV, 161f., 165.
36. Tyndale, Doctrinal Treatises, 15.
37. Tyndale, Answer to More, 197.
38. Tyndale, Doctrinal Treatises, 493.
39. Ibid., pp. 23-24; cf. Luther, Freedom of a Christian, 359.
40. Tyndale, Answer to More, 200; cf. Luther, Freedom of a Christian, 365.
41. Tyndale, Expositions and Notes, 11 (emphasis mine).
42. Ibid., p. 188; cf. Yost, “Protestant Reformers and the English Via Media,” 172–73.
43. Dr. Martin Luther’s Sämmtliche Schriften (ed. Joh. Georg Walch; St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1881–1910) 14.8 (translation mine).
44. Luther, Freedom of a Christian, 372-73.
45. William Tyndale, The Testament of Master William Tracey, Esquire, Expounded by William Tyndale (ed. Henry Walter; Cambridge: The University Press, 1850) 276.
46. Ibid.
47. Portions of Latomus’ writings, translated into English appear in J. F. Mozley, William Tyndale (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1971) 328–32.
48. Tyndale, Doctrinal Treatises, 115; cf. McGoldrick, Luther’s English Connection, 122-35.