On the Enslaved Will

According to Martin Luther the will is enslaved to the old sin nature and not free. Augustine of Hippo said that the will is free, but not freed. He wasn't playing mind games, but saying that we are responsible agents to God for our choices, but don't have liberty. He doesn't force us to do evil, because we do it on our own initiative. The freedom of the will is a curse, because we can only do evil according to Luther. Where did free will help Esau? There are many Bible verses that show that man doesn't have free will as far as the ability to choose and come to Christ apart from grace and the wooing of the Spirit. "For who can resist His will?" (Rom. 9:19). "It is not of him that willeth ..." "Who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God" (Rom. 9:16). "For the way of man is not in himself, it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps" (Jer. 10:23). We are biased or prone to evil, not good. Martin Luther said we have not ceased to be man, but have ceased to be good. The whole matter can be summed up in the phrase: "We don't need free will--we need wills made free!" We are inclined to evil, not good--the ability lost at the fall.

This is one of the oldest debates in Christendom. Pelagius and Augustine debated it and so did Luther and Erasmus of Rotterdam. The prevalence of the doctrine of freedom of the will in today's church is due to the influence of the Wesleyan Arminians. Don't let anyone make you think that the enslavement of the will is a new doctrine or that it is not orthodox, because it is the original doctrine defended by the church fathers and the reformers.