est, quae sic est condita, ut possit non assentiri, si velit, et
excutere sessorem. Est igitur hic assensus opus Dei et Spiritus Sancti,
sed quatenus est liber assensus, non coactus, expressus vi, EST ETIAM
VOLUNTATIS._" (491.) Strigel evidently means: The fact that man is able
not to assent to grace of necessity involves that somehow (_aliquo
modo_) he is able also to assent, according to man's peculiar mode of
action (freedom) he must himself actualize his conversion by previously
(in the logical order) willing it, deciding for it, and assenting to it;
he would be converted by coercion if his assent to grace were an act of
the will engendered and created solely by God, rather than an act
effected and produced by the powers of the will when incited and
assisted by the Spirit. Man is converted by persuasion only, because God
does not create assent and faith in him but merely elicits these acts
from man by liberating and appealing to the powers of his will to effect
and produce them.

In defending this freedom of the will, Strigel appealed also to the
statement of Luther: "The will cannot be coerced;... if the will could
be coerced, it would not be volition, but rather nolition. _Voluntas non
potest cogi;... si posset cogi voluntas, non esset voluntas sed potius
voluntas._" However, what Luther said of the form or nature of the will,
according to which it always really wills what it wills, and is
therefore never coerced, was by Strigel transferred to the spiritual
matters and objects of the will. According to Strigel's theory, says
Seeberg, "the will must be free even in the first moment of conversion,
free not only in the psychological, but also in the moral sense." (4,
492.) Tschackert, quoting Seeberg remarks that Strigel transformed the
natural formal liberty into an ethical material liberty--_"indem die
natuerliche formale Freiheit sich ihm unter der Hand [?] verwandelte in
die ethische materiale Freiheit._" (524.)

162. Strigel's Semi-Pelagianism.

Strigel's entire position is based on the error that a remnant of
spiritual ability still remains in natural man. True, he taught that in
consequence of original sin the powers of man and the proper use and
exercise of these powers are greatly impeded, weakened, checked, and
insulated, as it were, and that this impediment can be removed solely by
the operation of the Holy Spirit. "Through the Word the Holy Spirit
restores to the will the power and faculty of believing,