Bound Choice, Election, and Wittenberg Theological Method: From Martin Luther to the Formula of Concord

Galvanized by Erasmus’ teaching on free will, Martin Luther wrote De servo arbitrio , or The Bondage of the Will , insisting that the sinful human will could not turn itself to God. In this first study to investigate the sixteenth-century reception of De servo , Robert Kolb unpacks Luther’s theology and recounts his followers’ ensuing disputes until their resolution in the Lutheran churches’ 1577 Formula of Concord .