“Free-will,” he says here, “is purely passive in every one of its acts (‘_in omni actu suo_’) which can come under the term of will.... A good act comes wholly and entirely (‘_totus et totaliter_’) from God, because the whole activity of the will consists in the Divine action which extends to the members and powers of both body and soul, no other activity existing.”[637] In another passage of the “Resolutions” he says: “At whatever hour of our life we may find ourselves we are the slaves either of concupiscence or of charity, for both govern free-will (‘_utraque enim dominabitur libero arbitrio_’).”[638] Julius Köstlin is right when he sees in such words the complete renunciation of free-will. “Of man’s free-will in the ordinary sense of the term, or of any independent choice for good or for evil which should include the possibility of a different decision, there is, according to Luther, no question.” Köstlin points out that Luther does not here go into the question as to whether the sinfulness and corruption of the lost are to be attributed to God, Who did not cause His saving grace to be sufficiently efficacious in them.[639] Luther certainly contrived to avoid this dangerous objection, not only here, but also for long after when speaking on the subject of the will. In the “Resolutions” Luther had merely represented his opposition to free-will as the consequence of his doctrine of the corruption of human nature due to original sin, but subsequent to the appearance of the Bull of Excommunication he goes further and declares the denial of the “_liberum arbitrium_” to be nothing less than the fundamental article of his teaching (“_articulus omnium optimus et rerum nostrarum summa_”).[640] Among the propositions condemned by the Papal Bull was Luther’s thesis directed against free-will at the Heidelberg Disputation. It was given in Luther’s own words, viz. that free-will is a mere empty name, etc. In defence of the condemned propositions Luther wrote, in 1520, the “_Assertio omnium articulorum_,” which was published in 1521. To prove his denial of free-will it is usual to quote his “_De servo arbitrio_,” but the “_Assertio_” already contains in substance all the strictures embodied in his later attacks. After dealing with other subjects, he there declares that, as for the question of free-will, he had expressed himself far too feebly when speaking of the semblance of freedom; the term “_liberum arbitrium_” was a device of the devil; hence he withdraws his previous statement which erred on the side of weakness; he ought to have said that free-will was a lie, an invention (“_figmentum in rebus_”). “No one has the power even to think anything evil or good, but everything takes place agreeably with stern necessity (‘_omnia de necessitate absolute eveniunt_’), as Wiclif rightly taught, though his proposition was condemned by the Council of Constance.”[641]