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Few questions have spilled more ink—or stirred more hearts—than this: Does man have free will? The discussion began in ancient Athens, where Stoics preached necessity and Epicureans promoted chance. Yet Christians have never been content to treat free will as a philosophical abstraction. We want to know how the will relates to salvation. Does man choose God? Does God choose man? Or is it a combination of both?
In the sixteenth century, these questions had not yet been answered with precision. The Roman Catholic Church taught that man’s will and God’s grace cooperate in salvation. That doctrine deeply discouraged Martin Luther, who knew the depths of his own sin. How could he possibly do enough to be saved? How could he cooperate sufficiently with God to attain eternal life? After a long struggle—especially while studying Romans—he saw that heaven is gained not by his works but by Christ’s. The discovery changed his life and sparked the Protestant Reformation. If salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, then man’s will cannot take credit for choosing God. In other words, “Salvation belongs to the Lord” (Ps. 3:8).
The Dutch humanist Erasmus pushed back in On the Freedom of the Will, fearing that Luther’s view flirted with fatalism and might detract from moral effort. Some matters, he said, are mysterious: Divine sovereignty and human will must both have their place in salvation, even if how they work together remains obscure.
Luther answered with what he considered his greatest work: The Bondage of the Will. Humanity, he argued, has fallen so far that people cannot will their own spiritual good, for the will is in bondage to sin. Scripture is plain: we are “dead in [our] trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1). Only God’s grace can regenerate the heart, make us willing to trust in Christ, and set us free (John 3:1–15). Thus Erasmus and Luther both affirmed the will’s reality, but they sharply differed on how far man had fallen and how far God’s grace must go to save him. Erasmus said “some way”; Luther said “all the way.”
This year marks the five-hundredth anniversary of The Bondage of the Will. Though the book is old, the questions endure. Is the will captive or free? Can sinners contribute anything to their rescue? Does God share the credit, or claim it all? How we answer shapes our hearts, prayers, and churches. We declare with the psalmist, “Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory” (Ps. 115:1).