Calvin on Luther’s “Trumpet Blast” (Gerrish)

 Albert Pighius, a student of Pope Adrian VI,  lived during the Reformation and opposed both Luther and Calvin on their views of the bondage of the will.  Pighius wrote ten books against the slavery of the unregenerate will and strongly defended the freedom of the will in a semi-Pelagian manner.  Of course, this is one …

The Liberty of the Will (Muller)

  I appreciate how Richard Muller summarizes the Reformed understanding of the human will under his entry "libertas naturae" in Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms: "The freedom or liberty of nature; viz., the liberty that is proper to a being given its particular nature.  No being, not even omnipotent God, can act contrary …

Luther on the Term “Free Will”

If you know a few things about Martin Luther, you probably know that he wrote Bondage of the Will in response to Erasmus' book about the freedom of the will (Discussion Concerning Free Will).  Luther argued from Scripture that man, since Adam's fall, is born in sin, dead in sin, and in bondage to sin.  …

Freedom of the Will? (Horton)

The Bible teaches that the human heart is deceitful above all things and that everyone who sins is a slave to sin (Jer. 17:9; John 8:34).  It teaches that apart from grace, a person is dead in sin (Eph. 2:1).  These texts and others like them are where Reformed theology gets the doctrines of total …

Something Left For Us To Do?

  If I had to choose one book (aside from Scripture of course) that helped me understand the gospel the most it would be Martin Luther’s The Bondage of the Will.  I read it back in September 2001 (in Wyoming, Michigan), and I can still remember parts of it quite clearly.  Here’s one of those …