Bondage of The Will

The second breakout session was on Martin Luther's "Bondage of the Will" by Donovan Riley.

Humanism focuses on our human potential. 

Erasmus writes on the freedom of the will.  The expectation was that Martin Luther would write a response.  Luther did not want to respond. But his colleagues couldn't get him to respond so they asked his wife, Katie to convince him.  Martin Luther wrote it in German and Latin.

People said about Bondage of the Will--You have written on "the hinge" on what everything depends.

It's hard to understand Bondage of the Will without reading what Erasmus wrote.

What does God's wrath feel like according to the Bible? According to Paul, it is free will.

What is the bondage of the will? What our heart wants, our mind always justifies.

Luther--The only thing we contribute to our salvation is our sin and resistance.

Erasmus starts in the Law in the freedom of the will.  He did a word study on "free will". He believed "When God commands something, He must have given us the ability to obey."

Luther said God commands what He commands. He commands the impossible.  To show us we cannot do it. According to Luther, all of the Scriptures used by Erasmus are imperatives.  Luther points out to Erasmus the Holy Spirit saves apart from the work of the law.

Christ is not a new Moses.

God wants to be known as a God for you in Jesus Christ. Christ crucified draws all things to himself.

Free will after the fall exists in name only.  Whether it's good or evil does not matter. It ultimately leads to despair.

Free will can only have a desire or a taste for sin and death.  Christ has to come in the opposite way we might expect. It's about Christ alone not Christ and us.

For Erasmus, it's not our freedom that's the problem, it's God's freedom that is the problem.

The gospel does what it says.

There are two kingdoms at war--the kingdom of Satan and the kingdom of God.

I am pleasing to God not because of my merit but because of Christ's merit for me.

Luther says when you assert free will, you are denying Christ.