The Freedom of the Will Background

“The Freedom of the Will” is an essay by Desiderius Erasmus, otherwise known as Erasmus of Rotterdam or just simply Erasmus. Erasmus was a Dutch Christian Humanist considered one of the greatest scholarly minds of the Renaissance. In 1520 Martin Luther nailed an extended critique of Catholicism which came to be known as the Ninety-Five Theses. Article 36 of that quite longer treatise has come to be translated into English as An Assertion of All the Articles of Martin Luther Which Were Quite Recently Condemned by a Bull of Leo X.

At the urging of newly elected Pope Adrian VI, in 1524 Erasmus responded with a critique of article 36,which appeared to reject the existence of the Vatican doctrine of free will. As fellow travelers within the Humanist sphere of Christian theology, Erasmus and Luther were widely assumed to be rather strongly allied on the issue of speaking out against systemic abuses within the Church. For this reason, it has been routinely understood that Erasmus was chosen to focus on just the one article out of the many other included in Luther extended critique as a means of repairing rifts within the Church which had been growing in the wake of Luther’s arguments. By focusing primarily on just the issue of free will, Erasmus appeared to specifically to be trying to avoid becoming embroiled in a much more complex and potential disastrous debate between Luther and the Vatican.

Just one year later, Luther responded with "On the Bondage of the Will. In this treatise, Luther directly addressed each point that Erasmus had made in his reply to article 36 and in the process systematically refuting the argument support of free will made Erasmus also delineated an ideological divide rupturing the church in such stark terms that not only did Erasmus fail in his attempt to bring the issue to a quiet resolution, it would actually become a theological debate that would rage continuously over the course of the next four centuries.

Ultimately, of course, Erasmus won the debate and in the battle over the two defining Renaissance documents on the issue, it has been “The Freedom of the Will” which serves as the basis for the fundamental tenet expressing belief in the doctrine which has since become an essential aspect of nearly every Christian denomination, Catholic or Protestant.