On the Bondage of the Will (, literally, "On Un-free Will", or "Concerning Bound Choice"), by Martin Luther, argued that people can only achieve salvation or redemption through God, and could not choose between good and evil through their own willpower. It was published in December 1525. It was his reply to Desiderius Erasmus' De libero arbitrio diatribe sive collatio or On Free Will, which had appeared in September 1524 as Erasmus' first public attack on Luther. The debate between Luther and Erasmus is one of the earliest of the Reformation over the issue of free will and predestination. Arguments of Erasmus Despite his own criticisms of contemporary Roman Catholicism, Erasmus argued that it needed reformation from within and that Luther had gone too far. He held that all humans possessed free will and that the doctrine of predestination conflicted with the teachings of the Bible. Erasmus argued against the belief that God's foreknowledge of events caused those events, and he held that the doctrines of repentance, baptism and conversion depended on the existence of free will. He likewise contended that divine grace merely assisted humans in coming to the knowledge of God by supporting them as they used their free will to make choices between good and evil, which in turn could lead to salvation through the atonement of Jesus Christ. Content of Luther's response Luther's response was to reason that original sin incapacitates human beings from working out their own salvation, and that they are completely incapable of bringing themselves to God. As such, there is no free will for humanity because any will they might have is overwhelmed by the influence of sin. Central to his analysis, both of the doctrines under discussion and of Erasmus' specific arguments, are Luther's beliefs concerning the power and complete sovereignty of God. Luther concluded that unredeemed human beings are dominated by obstructions; Satan, as the prince of the mortal world, never lets go of what he considers his own unless he is overpowered by a stronger power, i.e. God. When God redeems a person, he redeems the entire person, including the will, which then is liberated to serve God. No one can achieve salvation or redemption through their own willpower—people do not choose between good or evil, because they are naturally dominated by evil, and salvation is simply the product of God unilaterally changing a person's heart and turning them