The will is a beast of burden: God or Satan rides it

Luther's bondage of the will

Martin Luther 1483 · 1546Before God, the human will is not free: without grace it wills evil; with grace it wills the good; but it never chooses its master. It is "bound".

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What it claims

There is no free will: we do all things by necessity and nothing by free will. "Free will" is an empty word, a name that fits only God.

Why

God foresees and wills everything unchangeably, so everything happens necessarily: the will does not choose its master.

In short

"The will is a beast of burden: God or Satan rides it" is an argument by Martin Luther (On the Bondage of the Will, 1525 (WA 18, 615-618, 635-637)) on the question "Are we free?" (answer: no free will). Its claim: There is no free will: we do all things by necessity and nothing by free will. "Free will" is an empty word, a name that fits only God. According to AskPhilosophy's logic check (Z3 solver), the conclusion does follow from its 5 premises. AskPhilosophy presents 4 objections, 4 of them with a documented reply, and the original text behind each premise, checked word for word.

On the Bondage of the Will, 1525 (WA 18, 615-618, 635-637)

Valid

In 1524 Erasmus defends free will: without it, he says, God's commands and punishments would make no sense. Luther answers in 1525 with a book he counted among the few worth keeping. His thesis: God foresees nothing by chance, he wills and does everything by an unchanging will, so everything we do happens necessarily. He adds an image: the human will is like a beast of burden that God or Satan rides, and it does not choose its rider. Note that for Luther this necessity is not compulsion. The person wills, and wills gladly; but cannot will otherwise. The debate is about what "free" should mean.

click a premise to reject it

If you accept every premise, logic forces you to accept the conclusion. So the debate is about the premises.

Checked by a logic solver: the premises cannot all be true while the conclusion is false.

Analogy.

Objections

Each objection is a conversation: click to see who replies and where the debate stands.

Boethius (The Consolation of Philosophy) 524 · attacks premise 2

Seeing something does not make it necessary. When you watch someone walk, your gaze does not force him to walk. God sees everything in an eternal present: he knows what we will do without compelling us. Foreknowledge therefore does not abolish free will.

a defender replies

Luther (against the scholastics' distinction, derived from Boethius) defender of the argument · 1525

Luther knows this move: theologians say everything happens "by necessity of the consequence" (if God wills it, it will happen) but not "of the consequent" (the thing is not necessary in itself). For him this word game says only that things made are not God. It remains true that everything happens according to God's unchangeable will, and that is all he claims.

Leibniz (Theodicy) 1710

Leibniz takes up the distinction and sharpens it. What is foreseen cannot fail to exist, and that is true; but this does not make it necessary in the strong sense: a necessary truth is one whose opposite is impossible or contradictory. "I will write tomorrow" is not of that kind. Only absolute necessity would threaten freedom.

Where the debate stands (our summary)Our summary: everything turns on P2. For Boethius and Leibniz, being foreseen is not being necessary in the sense that destroys freedom. For Luther, whether the necessity is "of the consequence" or "of the consequent", nothing changes: the event cannot fail to happen. The debate is still open.

David Hume (Enquiry concerning Human Understanding) 1748 · attacks the conclusion

If by "liberty" we mean a power of acting or not acting according to the determinations of the will, then everyone has it, even though acts are caused. Freedom is not the absence of cause, it is the absence of constraint. Applied to Luther (our reading): the bondage of the will refutes a free will that Hume sees no need to defend.

a defender replies

Luther (on the will and necessity) defender of the argument · 1525

An anticipated reply (Luther writes two centuries before Hume). Luther grants half of this: he says himself that a person without the Spirit does not do evil under compulsion, like a thief dragged to execution, but willingly. Yet he refuses to call that "free will": the name makes people think of a power able to turn freely either way, depending on no one. Calling a beggar rich because a king might give him his kingdom would be an abuse of language of the same kind.

Where the debate stands (our summary)Our summary: Luther and Hume agree on the facts (we act as we will, and the will is determined) and part over the word: Hume calls this liberty, Luther refuses the name.

Erasmus (On Free Will) 1524 · attacks the conclusion

If the will is not free, what use are the commands, threats and promises of Scripture? How can contempt of a precept be blamed on someone who cannot do otherwise? A judge who forces to wrongdoing cannot justly condemn.

a defender replies

Luther defender of the argument · 1525

Luther answers that the Law was not given because we can fulfil it, but to make us know our impotence. A command does not prove a power: "you ought" does not say "you can".

Where the debate stands (our summary)Our summary: this is the great moral objection. For Erasmus, "ought" implies "can". Luther denies it: the Law serves to show our impotence. This disagreement remains at the heart of the debate on responsibility.

Erasmus (On Free Will) 1524 · attacks premise 1

If God wills and does everything, including the loss of the damned, he is made almost cruel. Erasmus says he does not see how to reconcile an immense mercy toward some with leaving others without help.

a defender replies

Luther (the hidden God) defender of the argument · 1525

Luther distinguishes the preached God, who offers salvation through his word, from the hidden God, whose will escapes us. Of the hidden God, "it is nothing to us": we must neither question nor judge him, but fear and worship him. This is his answer on evil and damnation.

Where the debate stands (our summary)Our summary: Luther does not say God is just by our standards, he says the question is not ours to ask. For a critic that is evasion; for a defender it is accepting the limits of reason.