I have to admit I read this book probably 30 plus years ago now and I still refer back to it occasionally. What prompted me to read it was because I had heard some quotes and his name was dropped into sermons and conversations often enough to know this guy was important in the history of the church- and I should read some source material. I certainly was not prepared for this book- it was both very difficult to read and I struggled with his concepts, no doubt due to a lack of ability in me to think critically as well as the fact that I was coming existentially and theologically from Erasmus's perspective. Erasmus wrote the book "De libero arbitrio diatribe sive collatio" commonly known as the "Diatribe" to which Luther responded with his book "The Bondage of the Will".
But I have to say that this book apart from the Bible and my own conversion is the most important thing that (from a Christian perspective) has happened to me since my conversion. I chose this title from among others quite randomly, not realizing it was in fact his magnum opus. The fact that it is written in response to Erasmus and not having his book in front of you makes it difficult quite apart from long sentences and some convoluted thought. He certainly was fiery and scathing.
"If with dung I am embattled, win or lose I am bespattered"is one of the more colorful expressions I can still recall.
The proposition in question is whether or not humankind have "free will".
It was the view of humanist- Erasmus -that God has indeed endowed mankind with this freedom and -in contemporary terms -to Erasmus, this was an inalienable right. To the contrary, Luther argues in this book that this original endowment was forsaken and lost at the fall of Adam, thus comes the doctrine of original sin. Thus total depravity reigns supremely over humanity and enslaves him while he yet boasts of his innate freedom. Properly understood, total depravity does not mean one is totally evil or leads a life as evil as possible (as even personal experience can vouch for), but it means every facet of mankind, including his will -has been adversely affected by this event. So that Luther -like St Paul- speaks of the bondage and slavery of sin and its effect on the will as if it were a law at work just like the unavoidable law of gravity:
For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin. For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin. (Romans 7:14-25, emphasis mine)
I remember one momentous night struggling with trying to understand him, and the penny dropped and I got it, I also got very excited. ( I was determined not to let the book gather dust because I had to import it from the USA and it was expensive)
It was at this point I finally was able to say "I understand" (This- even from memory- I can say is not from the Henry Cole translation I read, but it will suffice):
'I could wish, indeed, that a better term was available for our discussion than the accepted one, necessity, which cannot accurately be used of either man's will or God's. Its meaning is too harsh, and foreign to the subject; for it suggests some sort of compulsion, and something that is against one's will, which is no part of the view under debate. This will, whether it be God's or man's does what it does, good or bad, under no compulsion, but just as it wants or pleases, as if totally free. Yet the will of God, which rules over our mutable will, is changeless and sure - as Boetius sings, "Immovable Thyself, Thou movement giv'st to all;" and our will, principally because of its corruption, can do no good of itself. The reader's understanding, therefore, must supply what the word itself fails to convey, from his knowledge of the intended signification - the immutable will of God on the one hand, and the impotence of our corrupt will on the other. Some have called it necessity of immutability, but the phrase is both grammatically and theologically defective.'This is typical of his forceful expression, this time from the Henry Cole translation:
'This, therefore, is also essentially necessary and wholesome for Christians to know: that God foreknows nothing by contingency, but that He foresees, purposes, and does all things according to His immutable eternal, and infallible will. By this thunderbolt, "Free-will" is thrown prostrate, and utterly dashed to pieces. Those, therefore, who would assert "free-will", must either deny this thunderbolt, or pretend not to see it, or push it from them. But, however, before I establish this point by any arguments of my own, and by the authority of Scripture, I will first set it forth in your words.
Are you not then the person, friend Erasmus, who just now asserted, that God is by nature just and by nature most merciful? If this be true, does it not follow that He is immutably just and merciful? That, as His nature is not changed to all eternity, and neither His justice nor His mercy? And what is said concerning His justice and His mercy, must be said also concerning His knowledge, His wisdom, His goodness, His will, and His other Attributes. If therefore these things are asserted religiously, piously, and wholesomely concerning God, as you say yourself, what has come to you, that, contrary to your own self, you now assert, that it is irreligious, curious, and vain, to say, that God foreknows of necessity? You openly declare that the immutable will of God is to be known, but you forbid the knowledge of His immutable prescience. Do you believe that He foreknows against His will, or that He wills in ignorance? If then, He foreknows, willing, His will is eternal and immovable, because His nature is so: and, if He wills, foreknowing, His knowledge is eternal and immovable, because His nature is so.
From which it follows unalterably, that all things which we do, although they may appear to us to be done mutably and contingently, and even may be done thus contingently by us, are yet, in reality, done necessarily and immutably, with respect to the will of God. For the will of God is effective and cannot be hindered; because the very power of God is natural to Him, and His wisdom is such that He cannot be deceived. And as His will cannot be hindered, the work itself cannot be hindered from being done in the place, at the time, in the measure, and by whom He foresees and wills...'For one more taste, again from the Henry Cole translation:
'The Diatribe is perpetually setting before us such a man, who either can do what is commanded, or at least knows that he cannot do it. Whereas, no such man is to be found. If there were such an one, then indeed, either impossibilities would be ridiculously commanded, or the Spirit of Christ would be in vain.
The Scripture, however, sets forth such a man, who is not only bound, miserable, captive, sick, and dead, but who , by the operation of his lord, Satan, to his other miseries , adds that of blindness: so that he believes he is free, happy, at liberty, powerful, whole, and alive. For Satan well knows that if men knew their own misery he could retain no one of them in his kingdom: because, it could not be, but that God would immediately pity and succour their known misery and calamity: seeing that, He is with so much praise set forth, throughout the whole Scripture as, being near unto the contrite in heart, that Isaiah lxi. 1-3, testifies, that Christ was sent "to preach the Gospel to the poor, and to heal the broken hearted."
Wherefore, the work of Satan is, so to hold men, that they come not to know their misery, but that they presume that they can do all things which are enjoined. But the work of Moses the legislator is the contrary, even that by the law he might discover to man his misery, in order that he might prepare him, thus bruised and confounded with the knowledge of himself, for grace, and might send him to Christ to be saved. Wherefore, the office of the law is not ridiculous, but above all things serious and necessary.
Those therefore who thus far understand these things, understand clearly at the same time, that the Diatribe, by the whole string of its arguments effects nothing whatever; that it collects nothing from the Scriptures but imperative passages, when it understands, neither what they mean nor wherefore they are spoken; and that, moreover, by the appendages of its conclusions and carnal similitudes it mixes up such a mighty mass of flesh, that it asserts and proves more than it ever intended and, argues against itself.'Shades of "The Matrix" anybody?
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