Human Freedom, Christian Righteousness

In the 1520s a battle raged between Luther and Erasmus over the freedom of the will. This book demonstrates that Philip Melanchthon - hardly a silent observer in the fray - was actively involved, especially in his 1528 commentary on Colossians. He rejected Erasmus's position while developing an independent, but compatible stance to Luther's own. Though seemingly focused on a narrow exegetical dispute, the book deals with a variety of large and important questions - the complicated and elusive relationships between humanism and the Reformation, Erasmus and Luther, Erasmus and Melanchthon, and Melanchthon and Luther; and all the issues of proper biblical interpretation of free will, of divine and human righteousness, and of political order.