Identifying Denck’s polemical style can often be obscured by the fact that he did not mention the names of his opponents in his writings. Also obscuring a view of Denck’s polemic is the general view that Denck, because of his high view of religious tolerance, was less-involved in proving others wrong than in seeking the freedom of conscience for all. Packull felt comfortable enough with this conception to label Denck an “Ecumenical Anabaptist.”[1] On the other hand, Fellman noted that, though Denck was indeed a strong proponent of religious liberty, Denck was not without “kräftige und heftige [strong and violent]” words in dispute with other religious positions.[2]
The strongest statement in Denck on the matter is in Concerning the Law of God, but his criticism is evident elsewhere, demonstrating how pervasive the critique was in formulating many of his doctrinal positions. For instance, like Hübmaier, Denck also fit his criticism of Protestant morality within the context of the polemic regarding free will. In The Order of God, Denck raised the question about the extent of predestination, charging, “Nevertheless, you can gorge and drink and practice every debauchery–who taught you that? You say, We must do it, we are foreordained. Oh, brethren, brethren, what injustice you do the Most High… Your own will drives you (John 8), but you wish to blame God.”[3]
Denck further pointed out the link between doctrine and practice, saying, “They say that they believe; as they believe, so they speak. They have never left the old life and not accepted the new…”[4] That link between doctrine and conduct, where conduct is in accordance to doctrine comes again in Denck’s Recantation. Denck wrote, “For there can be no truthful heart where neither speech nor deed is found.”[5] This is consistent with Denck’s conception of faith, which is both obedience to and confidence in God.[6] It would seem then that Denck’s critique could be summed up by saying that the Protestants may have demonstrated confidence in God’s promises but did not have obedience to him. Thus, the Protestants, by Denck’s definitions, would not truly have a complete faith.
Denck’s work, On the Law of God is his fullest treatment on the subject and seems to have been written specifically as a response to Protestant antinomianism.[7] Denck viewed his time as having been that than which no greater time of depravity reigned.[8] Denck outlined that some claimed to be able to follow God’s law, and they were in his assessment right on this point, but they were unwilling to do so lest they give airs that the Law in some way brought about their salvation.[9] Others, however, claimed to be unable to follow God’s law for they saw themselves as not having been empowered to do so. These, Denck claimed, cast the blame for their own sin on God.[10]
Denck continued, saying to both parties, “Woe to him who looks elsewhere than to this goal;[11] for whoever supposes he belongs to Christ must walk the way Christ walked.”[12] This critique of the way that Protestants had treated God’s law was the impetus to the rest of the discussion in the booklet. In stating that reason, Denck pointed out that this abuse of the law was not merely a distortion among the people of the teaching of the Protestants as though the general populace had misunderstood Protestant teaching. Rather, even the pastors had erred and thus the error must have been a part of the entire Protestant system.[13] [1]Werner O. Packull. Mysticism and the Early South German-Austrian Anabaptist Movement, 1525-1531, Studies in Anabaptist and Mennonite History, no. 19 (Scottdale, Pennsylvania: Herald, 1977). His use of this classification for Denck seems to spring from his agreement with the assumption that Denck was a universalist (44), an assumption that is not without its detractors. cf. William Klassen, “Was Hans Denck a Universalist?” MQR 39, no. 2 (Apr. 1965): 152-154.
[3]In The Spiritual Legacy of Hans Denck: Interpretation and Translation of Key Texts [SL], ed. and trans. Clarence Bauman, Studies in Medieval and Reformation Traditions, no. 47 (Leiden, Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1991), 213. Also, demonstrating a polemical technique of speaking the opponents position that was also used by Hübmaier in Dialogue with Zwingli’s Baptism Book, Denck voiced similar concerns about placing God as the author in Whether God is the Cause of Evil, saying, “You say: Since God is in all creatures and performs all things in them, then it must follow that he also commits sin,” in SL, 81.
[6]Ibid.
[9]Ibid.
[10]Ibid.
[11]Apparently the goal is subjecting one’s self to admonition.
[13]Ibid., 129.
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