Question: I really find it odd that such a critic of Roman Catholicism as you would fall into their ...

March 1, 2001

TBC Staff

Question: In his classic The Bondage of the Will Martin Luther responds (pp. 153, 158, 160) to Erasmus’s charge that if God commands us to do something (like believe the gospel) that we cannot do, He is mocking us. This was your exact charge in your August “Berean Call.” I really find it odd that such a critic of Roman Catholicism as you would fall into their very errors on free will! How can you deny that Luther’s arguments are logical and biblical?

Response: I don’t find Luther either logical or biblical on this point. He argues that God is “trying us, that by His law He may bring us to a knowledge of our impotence...” (p. 153). He says that Erasmus is implying that “man is able to keep the commandments” (p. 154).

In fact, all men keep at least some of the law most of the time. It is of no value that I am shown my impotence to keep the law fully, unless there is a remedy for sin. That remedy is the gospel, which requires belief in Christ as the One who paid the penalty for my sins. The fact that I cannot perfectly keep the law does not prove that I cannot believe the gospel.

Luther argues, “For if it is not we, but God alone, who works salvation in us... nothing we do has any saving significance prior to His working in us.” Of course, we can’t earn our salvation, but that doesn’t prove we cannot receive salvation as a gift of God’s love. Throughout his entire treatise Luther confuses the ability to will with the ability to perform and mistakenly imagines he has disproved the former by disproving the latter. Every procrastinator proves the vast difference between willing to do something and doing it. For salvation we need only to be willing — Christ does all the saving.

Erasmus argues that for God to command man to do what he cannot is like asking a man whose arms are bound to use them. Luther responds that the man is “commanded to stretch forth his hand...to disprove his false assumption of freedom...” (p. 161).

God did not merely command. He earnestly pleaded and sought to persuade man through His prophets, promising and giving blessing for obedience and bringing destruction for disobedience. Furthermore, we have numerous examples throughout Scripture of prophets and kings and ordinary persons, from Enoch to Noah to Abraham to David and onward, whose obedience was commended by God.

In Proverbs, Solomon urges his son to “know wisdom and instruction; to perceive the words of understanding; to receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, and judgment, and equity ...” (Prv 1:2-3). He declares that “A wise man will hear, and will increase learning” (v. 5) and he exhorts, “...whom the LORD loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth” (3:11-12). Is Solomon giving this wise counsel just to show that man’s “will is bound”? I think not.

Solomon’s repeated exhortations could well be read daily by Christian parents to their children. Are these proverbs not all appeals to the will? How else could one heed the voice of wisdom except by willing to do so? That the Lord corrects and that an earthly father corrects is not, as Luther disparagingly insists, simply to show that no correction is possible, but because the wise son will heed instruction by an act of his will.

We search Bondage in vain to find where it deals with the literally hundreds of biblical passages, from Genesis:24:58 to 1 Samuel:1:11 to 2 Samuel:6:21-22 to Psalms:4:8; 5:2-3; 9:1-2; 18:1; 30:1 and on through the entire Bible, which clearly indicate that man can indeed will to do God’s will. When Jesus says, “If any man will do his [God’s] will, he shall know...” (Jn:7:17), is He not appealing to “any man” to willingly desire God’s will? Is it not the ultimate cynicism to suggest that Christ is simply showing us that we can’t will to do God’s will?

The clear biblical passages where men express their willingness to obey and please God and prove it in their performance are conspicuous by their absence from the entire text of Bondage. Nor does Luther acknowledge, much less deal with, the fact that of the dozens of times the words “bondage” and “bound” occur in Scripture, not once are they used in reference to the human will.

Luther’s Bondage proves neither that the will is bound nor by what. Nor does it show how the will is supposedly unbound so that man may believe the gospel. Even the drunkard at times determines with his will to be sober. It is not the will that is in bondage but that the man’s bodily desires overcome his will. Yet many have willed to be free of alcohol or tobacco and have been successful even without becoming Christians.

Far from proving the bondage of the will, Paul’s declaration, “for to will is present with me; but how to perform...I find not...the good that I would I do not...O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” (Rom:7:18-24), proves that it is not the will that is bound but the man because of the sin in his body. Paul doesn’t say, “Who shall deliver my will from its bondage?” He says, “Who shall deliver me from this body of death?”

Once it is admitted that man has a will, it is impossible to maintain either that it is in bondage or to explain how it was delivered except by its own choice. No one is made willing against his will but must have been willing to be made willing.

I am only trying to be true to God’s Word. Luther gives some excellent arguments against salvation by works, but faith is not a work. In fact, the Bible continually contrasts faith and works. Nothing could be clearer than “to him that worketh not, but believeth” (Rom:4:5).

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