No "free-will"

Reading Luther, it has surprised me (shouldn't have) how thoroughly like Augustine and Calvin Luther was in his thinking on this free will business. You read the short, simplified histories of the Reformation and you get the sense that Luther didn't have time for theological nitpicking or systematizing. Not quite true! And all those Protestants who cling to man's free will in salvation, AND who claim Luther as their Reformational forefather, had better read his words below closely.

"When God is not present to work in us, all is evil, and of necessity we act in a way that contributes nothing towards our salvation.... On the other hand: when God works in us, the will is changed under the sweet influence of the Spirit of God.... there is no freedom, no 'free-will', to turn elsewhere, or to desire anything else, as long as the Spirit and grace of God remain in a man...." (102-3).

"So man's will is like a beast standing between two riders. If God rides, it wills and goes where God will: as the Psalm says, 'I am become as a beast before thee, and I am ever with thee' (Ps 73:22-23). If Satan rides, it will and goes where Satan wills. Nor may it choose to which rider it will run, or which it will seek; but the riders themselves fight to decide who shall have and hold it" (103-104).

"So it befits theologians to refrain from using the term [free-will] when they want to speak of human ability, and to leave it to be applied to God only.... People think it means what the natural force of the phrase would require, namely, a power of freely turning in any direction, yelding to none and subject to none.... However, with regard to God, and in all that bears on salvation or damnation, [man] has no 'free-will', but is a captive, prisoner and bondslave, either to the will of God, or to the will of Satan" (105, 107).

"Free-will belongs to none but God only. You are no doubt right in assigning to man a will of some sort, but to credit him with a will that is free in the things of God is too much" (137).