The Freedom of the Will - Balthasar Hubmaier

Balthasar Hubmaier (1480–1528) was an influential German Anabaptist leader and one of the most well-known and respected Anabaptist theologians of the Reformation.

In the closing of his work entitled "Freedom of the Will" he laid out a very strong argument against theistic determinism and fatalism which are the driving force of Augustinian philosophy and Calvinist "Sovereignty". Both he and his wife were seized by the Austrian authorities and taken to Vienna.

"I may err – I am a man," he wrote, "but a heretic I cannot be, because I ask constantly for instruction in the word of God."

He suffered torture on the rack, and was tried for heresy and convicted. On 10 March 1528, he was taken to the public square and executed by burning. His wife exhorted him to remain steadfast. Three days after his execution, his wife, with a stone tied around her neck, was drowned in the River Danube. Imagine being martyred because you refuse to blame God for your sin and unrepentance, preferring instead to confess your blameworthiness.

Or consider why the Reformers and Roman Catholics would be so enraged to the point of putting people to death for such a thing. Roman Catholics and Augustinian Reformed Protestants despised and persecuted the Anabaptists, all the while remarking about how resentful and frustrated they were with the fruit of the Spirit and transformed lives these Anabaptists demonstrated.