The Bondage of the Will

This article is based on the translation made in 1823 by Edward Thomas Vaughan. The language has been modernized with the assistance of CoPilot AI, with further alterations and final approval by Thirdmill’s editorial staff.

Section 5: Free Will is Not Optional

It’s even more troubling that you treat the question of free will as trivial or unnecessary, replacing it with a list of doctrines you claim are sufficient to define a faithful Christian. Honestly, any Jew or pagan unfamiliar with Christ could easily come up with a belief system like yours. You don’t mention Christ at all—as if Christian devotion could exist without Him, so long as we worship a merciful God with all our strength. What am I to say, Erasmus? Your tone sounds more like Lucian, and your reasoning reeks of Epicurean excess. If you truly believe this question is irrelevant to Christians, then I urge you to step aside—because we believe it’s essential.

If it’s irreverent, overly speculative, or pointless—as you claim—to ask whether God foreknows things contingently, whether our will plays an active role in salvation or is merely passive while grace does the work, or whether we do good or evil by necessity (which is more like suffering than choosing), then what is religious? What is worth knowing? This is nonsense, Erasmus. It’s too much. And it’s hard to chalk this up to ignorance. You’re no novice—you’ve lived among Christians for years and studied Scripture deeply. There’s no excuse.

Still, the Roman Church tolerates these oddities from you, simply because you’re writing against Luther. The same people who would tear you apart if Luther weren’t in the picture now applaud you. Plato may be my friend, and Socrates too—but truth must come first. Even if you knew only a little about Scripture and Christianity, even an opponent of the faith should know what Christians consider essential. But you’re not just any writer—you’re a theologian, a teacher of Christians. When you set out to define Christianity, the least you could have done was to express some uncertainty, in keeping with your usual skeptical tone. Instead, you swing to the opposite extreme, boldly declaring as unnecessary those very doctrines which—if they’re not essential and not clearly understood—leave us with nothing: no God, no Christ, no Gospel, no faith, not even Judaism, let alone Christianity.

Good heavens! What a door—no, what a wide-open field—you’ve created for undermining yourself. How could you possibly write anything worthwhile on free will when your own words reveal such a lack of understanding about Scripture and true piety? But I’ll pause here. For now, I’ll respond not with my own words (though I may later), but with yours.

Section 6: Erasmus’ Christianity

The version of Christianity you present includes, among other points, the idea that we must exert ourselves fully—that we must pursue repentance and seek God’s mercy by every possible means. Without that mercy, human will and effort are ineffective. You also affirm that no one should despair of receiving forgiveness from God, whose nature is supremely merciful.

Yet in these statements, you make no mention of Christ, nor of the Holy Spirit. They are strikingly cold—lacking even your usual eloquence. Perhaps pressure from priests and kings forced these words from you, lest you be accused of atheism. Still, you do make certain claims: that we possess inner strength; that we can strive with all our might; that God’s mercy exists and can be sought; and that God is both just and merciful by nature.

But if someone doesn’t understand what these powers are—what they do, what they permit, what it means to strive, or what is effective or ineffective—what guidance do you offer? What should he do? You’ve previously said it’s irreverent, overly curious, and unnecessary to ask whether our will plays an active role in salvation or is merely passive under grace. Yet here, you say it is Christian devotion to strive with all our strength, and that the will is ineffective without God’s mercy.

So, you clearly suggest that the will does something in matters of eternal salvation, since you speak of striving. At the same time, you claim it is passive, since it cannot succeed without divine mercy. But you never clarify how far this activity or passivity extends.

In this way, you obscure the very thing you claim to explain: the relationship between human will and divine mercy. Your cautious strategy—trying to avoid taking sides and hoping to pass safely between Scylla and Charybdis—ends up spinning you in circles. Caught in the storm, overwhelmed and confused, you end up affirming what you deny and denying what you affirm.