In this lengthy, badly arranged and rather confused work we see, first, that Luther gives the widest limits to his denial of free-will and declares man to be absolutely devoid of freedom of choice, even in the performance of works not connected with salvation, and moral acts generally. He does, indeed, casually remark that man is free “_in inferioribus_,” and that the question is whether he also possesses free-will in respect of God (“_an erga Deum habeat liberum arbitrium_”).[751] “But it is doubtful whether we are to take Luther at his word.” For “as a matter of fact he shows clearly enough that he does not wish this limitation to be taken literally.”[752] “That his intentions are, on the contrary, of the most radical character, is plain from many other passages where he attacks free-will everywhere, and represents all that we do and everything that occurs (‘_omnia quæ facimus et omnia quæ fiunt_’), as taking place in accordance with inexorable necessity.”[753] He lays it down as a principle that God’s omnipotence excludes all choice on man’s part, and again supports this on an argument from the Divine omniscience; God from all eternity sees all things, even the most insignificant, by virtue of His prescience, hence they must happen. Even where God acts on man apart from the influence of grace (“_citra gratiam spiritus_”), according to Luther, it is He Who works all in all, as the Apostle says, “even in the impious.” “All that He has made, He moves, impels and urges forward (‘_movet, agit, rapit_’) with the force of His omnipotence which none can escape or alter; all must yield compliance and obedience according to the nature of the power conferred on them by God.”[754] In the same way as he here speaks of a certain “power” in the creature, so also, in the same connection, he refers to “our co-operation” in the universal action of God (“_et nos ei cooperaremur_”). By this, however, he does not mean any real free co-operation but, as he says darkly, only an activity of the will corresponding to its nature and governed by law, “whether in submission to the universal omnipotence of God in matters which do not refer to His Kingdom, or under the special impulse of His Spirit [grace] within His Kingdom.” Luther’s main object in the book “_De servo arbitrio_” is undoubtedly the vindication of religious determinism.