A Passive Capacity
Via On Being a Theologian of the Cross pp. 54-56
Thesis 14. Free will, after the fall, has power to do good only in a passive capacity, but it can always do evil in an active capacity.
Peter Paul Rubens, "Raising of the Cross" (Antwerp Cathedral, 1610)
What does this mean? In its passive capacity the will can do good when it is acted upon from without but not on its own, not in an active capacity. A commonly used physical analogy is water. Water has a passive capacity to be heated, but it can’t heat itself. It has no active capacity to do that.
The example Luther uses in his proof is even more to the point because it deals with death and life. On the one hand, corpses could be said to have a passive capacity for life because they can be raised from the dead. But not, of course, on their own power, not in an active capacity, not even in the slightest. Not even by doing their best! The capacity they have is strictly passive. They can b e raised, but only by divine power. On the other hand, it is of course true that while a people live they have the active capacity to do something about life and death. They can take life, either their own or some other, but they can’t create or give life. Yet that only demonstrates that, after the fall, will in its active capacity can only do evil. Since will after the fall is dead and bound to do deadly sin, it can be rescued only from without, as is indicated by the fact that it could not bring life out of death but could only be commanded from without by our Lord.
Thus, the fact that even after the fall the will is not nothing means that there is something there. What is it? It is a strictly passive capacity, not an active one. That it can be changed but it will not change itself. To be changed, it will have to be accessed “from without.” But that will take radical action. It will take death and resurrection. So we are again pointed toward the cross.
