The Bondage of the Will is Martin Luther's answer to Erasmus's Diatribe on free will, and Luther regarded it as the one work of his worth preserving. Against the view that the human will retains some power to turn itself toward God, Luther argues from Scripture that the will is in bondage until God frees it, that salvation is therefore God's work from first to last, and that the doctrine of grace stands or falls with this question.

This accurate translation by J. I. Packer and O. R. Johnston made the work available to English readers in a form that preserves Luther's force of argument, and their historical and theological introduction sets the debate in its sixteenth-century context. The book remains the sharpest statement of the Reformation's doctrine of the will and an indispensable text for anyone studying Luther, the Reformation, or the doctrines of grace. 328 pages, paperback.