The following resource is from desiring God.org.

At the heart of Martin Luther's theology is the conviction that human beings are totally dependent on God's omnipotent grace to rescue us from the bondage of the will by creating and decisively fulfilling every inclination to believe and obey. The debates of the 16th and 17th century about the freedom of the will and the

bondage of the will were not peripheral to the reformation. They were at least in Martin Luther's estimation

foundational. He wrote a book, as you know, called The Bondage of the Wheel.

It was an answer to Erasmus' book, The Freedom of the Wheel,

and in 1537, nine years before he died, he wrote to Vovkangapito his opinion about his writings and took stock of how he estimated

them and this is what he said.

Regarding the plan to collect my writings in volumes, I am quite cool, not

at all eager about it because I would rather see them all devoured, for I acknowledge none of them to be really

a book of mine, except perhaps the one on the bondage of the will and the catacism. Now that is

absolutely astonishing.

That's 40 volumes, maybe.

I don't know how much he wrote after this,

but his estimate of all that he had written was that it

could go away, don't let the bondage of the will go away.

Why would he rank among all his labors this defense of the absolute enslavement of the human soul in sin and the demolition of

Erasmus's view of free will. Why would he rank that book highest alongside the

cataclysm? Well here's what he said to Erasmus.

It is in the highest degree wholesome and necessary for a Christian to know whether or not his will has anything to do in matters pertaining

to salvation.

Indeed, let me tell you, that is the hinge on which our discussion turns.

For if I am ignorant of the nature, extent, and limits of what I can and must do with reference to God, I shall be equally

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