Luther’s The Bondage of the Will Versus Erasmus’ On the Freedom of the Will
McGeown analyzes the famous theological debate between Luther and Erasmus on human free will versus divine sovereignty, highlighting Luther's conviction that human bondage of the will is essential to understanding the gospel of grace. The article demonstrates how Luther viewed the doctrine of free will as fundamentally opposed to the teaching of justification by grace alone, while Erasmus approached the topic with hesitancy and non-committal reasoning.
Martyn McGeown Erasmus’ On the Freedom of the Will (FW), otherwise known as the Diatribe, does not make a strong case for his thesis that man’s will has a power whereby he can choose good.1 Erasmus proceeds with caution, approaching the subject with hesitancy. There is evidence that he did not relish writing the book. That it was not his idea to write this work is clearly implied in the first section, where he writes, “although he [i.e., Luther] has already been answered by more than one...