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Luther's necessitarian argument in De servo arbitrio

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 January 2015

ANDERS KRAAL
ANDERS KRAAL*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive NW, Calgary, AB T2N 1N4, Canada e-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

In De servo arbitrio (1525) Luther famously argues that the divine attributes of will, power, foreknowledge, and immutability are incompatible with (human) free will, and hence that free will is a ‘name with no reality’. I survey some earlier explications of Luther's argument in the literature, and reject them as exegetically unsound. I then go on to propose a new explication. On the proposed explication, Luther's argument turns out to be theologically cogent, provided that we follow Luther in understanding the relevant divine attributes in accordance with Augustinian theology.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 52 , Issue 1 , March 2016 , pp. 81 - 95
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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