''On the Bondage of the Will'' ( lat, De Servo Arbitrio, literally, "On Un-free Will", or "Concerning Bound Choice"), by

Martin Luther Martin Luther (; ; 10 November 1483 – 18 February 1546) was a German priest, theologian, author, hymnwriter, and professor, and Order of Saint Augustine, Augustinian friar. He is the seminal figure of the Reformation, Protestant Refo ...

, argued that people can only achieve salvation or redemption through God, and could not choose between good and evil through their own willpower. It was published in December 1525. It was his reply to

Desiderius Erasmus Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (; ; English: Erasmus of Rotterdam or Erasmus;''Erasmus'' was his baptismal name, given after St. Erasmus of Formiae. ''Desiderius'' was an adopted additional name, which he used from 1496. The ''Roterodamus'' wa ...

' ''

De libero arbitrio diatribe sive collatio ' (literally ''Of free will: Discourses or Comparisons'') is the Latin title of a polemical work written by Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam in 1524. It is commonly called ''The Freedom of the Will'' in English. History ' was written expressly to ...

'' or ''On Free Will'', which had appeared in September 1524 as Erasmus' first public attack on Luther. The debate between Luther and Erasmus is one of the earliest of the

Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...

over the issue of

free will Free will is the capacity of agents to choose between different possible courses of action unimpeded. Free will is closely linked to the concepts of moral responsibility, praise, culpability, sin, and other judgements which apply only to actio ...

and

predestination Predestination, in theology, is the doctrine that all events have been willed by God, usually with reference to the eventual fate of the individual soul. Explanations of predestination often seek to address the paradox of free will, whereby G ...

Arguments of Erasmus

Despite his own criticisms of contemporary

Roman Catholicism The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwide . It is am ...

, Erasmus argued that it needed reformation from within and that Luther had gone too far. He held that all humans possessed free will and that the doctrine of predestination conflicted with the teachings of the

Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...

. Erasmus argued against the belief that God's foreknowledge of events caused those events, and he held that the doctrines of repentance, baptism and conversion depended on the existence of free will. He likewise contended that

divine grace Divine grace is a theological term present in many religions. It has been defined as the divine influence which operates in humans to regenerate and sanctify, to inspire virtuous impulses, and to impart strength to endure trial and resist temptati ...

merely assisted humans in coming to the knowledge of God by supporting them as they used their free will to make choices between good and evil, which in turn could lead to salvation through the atonement of Jesus Christ.

Content of Luther's response

Luther's response was to reason that

original sin Original sin is the Christian doctrine that holds that humans, through the fact of birth, inherit a tainted nature in need of regeneration and a proclivity to sinful conduct. The biblical basis for the belief is generally found in Genesis 3 (t ...

incapacitates human beings from working out their own salvation, and that they are completely incapable of bringing themselves to God. As such, there is no free will for humanity because any will they might have is overwhelmed by the influence of sin. Central to his analysis, both of the doctrines under discussion and of Erasmus' specific arguments, are Luther's beliefs concerning the power and complete sovereignty of God. Luther concluded that unredeemed human beings are dominated by obstructions; Satan, as the prince of the mortal world, never lets go of what he considers his own unless he is overpowered by a stronger power, i.e. God. When God redeems a person, he redeems the entire person, including the will, which then is liberated to serve God. No one can achieve salvation or redemption through their own willpower—people do not choose between good or evil, because they are naturally dominated by evil, and salvation is simply the product of God unilaterally changing a person's heart and turning them to good ends. Were it not so, Luther contended, God would not be omnipotent and omniscient and would lack total sovereignty over creation. He also held that arguing otherwise was insulting to the glory of God. As such, Luther concluded that Erasmus was not actually a Christian.

Erasmus' rebuttal

In early 1526, Erasmus replied to this work with the first part of his two-volume ''Hyperaspistes'', but this was a long and complex work which did not gain much popular recognition.

Luther's later views on his writings

Luther was proud of his ''On the Bondage of the Will'', so much so that in a letter to

Wolfgang Capito Wolfgang Fabricius Capito (also Koepfel) ( – November 1541) was a German Protestant reformer in the Calvinist tradition. His life and revolutionary work Capito was born circa 1478 to a smith at Hagenau in Alsace. He attended the famous Latin ...

written on 9 July 1537, he said:

Regarding
he plan He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' in ...
to collect my writings in volumes, I am quite cool and not at all eager about it because, roused by a Saturnian hunger, I would rather see them all devoured. For I acknowledge none of them to be really a book of mine, except perhaps the one ''On the Bound Will'' and the Catechism.''LW'' 50:172-173. Luther compares himself to
Saturn Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second-largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant with an average radius of about nine and a half times that of Earth. It has only one-eighth the average density of Earth; h ...
, a figure from
Ancient Greek mythology A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the origin and nature of the world, the lives and activities of de ...
who devoured most of his children. Luther wanted to get rid of many of his writings except for the two mentioned.

Notes

English translations

* Luther, Martin. ''The Bondage of the Will'': A New Translation of ''De Servo Arbitrio'' (1525), ''Martin Luther's Reply to Erasmus of Rotterdam''. J.I. Packer and O. R. Johnston, trans. Old Tappan, New Jersey: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1957. * Erasmus, Desiderius and

. Luther and Erasmus: Free Will and Salvation. The Library of Christian Classics: Ichthus Edition. Rupp, E. Gordon; Marlow, A.N.; Watson, Philip S.; and Drewery, B. trans. and eds. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1969. (This volume provides an English translation of both Erasmus' ''De Libero Arbitrio'' and Luther's ''De Servo Arbitrio''.) *''Career of the Reformer III''. ''Luther's Works'', Vol. 33 of 55. Watson, Philip S. and Benjamin Drewery, trans. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1972.

External links

*
Bondage of the Will
', by Martin Luther, translated by Henry Cole, London, March, 1823. * {{Authority control Works by Martin Luther Philosophy books 1525 books 1525 in Christianity 16th-century Christian texts