# Did Luther teach double predestination?



## JM (Aug 20, 2007)

Did Luther teach double predestination?

Were there any Lutherans after Luther that taught double predestination?

Thanks.

j


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## Civbert (Aug 20, 2007)

JM said:


> Did Luther teach double predestination?
> 
> Were there any Lutherans after Luther that taught double predestination?
> 
> ...



I thought "double-predestination" was a negative term that the Lutherans used to describe what Presbyterians teach. The _accuse _Presbyterians of teaching "double predestination".


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## Mathetes (Aug 20, 2007)

I could've sworn I saw a quote by Luther where he affirmed double predestination, if only by the logic that if God elects some, then by default the rest are reprobate. I'd have too look around for it though.


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## JM (Aug 20, 2007)

Any quotes in particular from Luther?


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## Mathetes (Aug 20, 2007)

"All things whatever arise from, and depend on, the divine appointment; whereby it was foreordained who should receive the word of life, and who should disbelieve it; who should be delivered from their sins, and who should be hardened in them; and who should be justified and who should be condemned."

"It is, therefore, in the power of the wicked to sin; but that in sinning they should do this or that by that wickedness is not in their power, but in God's, who divides the darkness and regulates it; so that hence even what they do contrary to God's will is not fulfilled except it be God's will."

"The wills of men are so much in the power of God, that he can turn them whithersoever it pleases him."

"Who can help trembling at those judgments of God by which He does in the hearts of even wicked men whatsoever He wills, at the same time rendering to them according to their deeds?"

"All things whatever arise from, and depend on, the divine appointment; whereby it was foreordained who should receive the word of life, and who should disbelieve it; who should be delivered from their sins, and who should be hardened in them; and who should be justified and who should be condemned."

http://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/articles/onsite/double_luther.html


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## JM (Aug 20, 2007)

Wonderful! Thank you.


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## Ambrose (Aug 20, 2007)

Some quotations from TBOTW are taken to show that Luther taught double-predestination, but to maintain that you'd have to ignore the clear teachings of the main body of his work. Its possible that he believed this at some early point, but definitely not later. He taught universal atonement, which I don't believe can be reconciled with double predestination. 

The unadulterated Augsberg Confession, which Luther confessed, rejects double-predestination quite clearly. So he did not hold to it, regardless to what some try to make his earlier writings say. No subsequent Lutherans taught it, other than the crypto-Calvinists who were thrust out.


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## JM (Aug 20, 2007)

I read something similar just a few minutes ago in Bavinck's Reformed Dogmatics, he believed Luther did believe and began his theology with absolute predestination but latter changed his view.


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## MW (Aug 20, 2007)

I would be interested to see the context of the first quotation and doubt if it means the same in context as it appears on its own. Luther's commitment to paradox means the student of his thought cannot pin him down to the rational conequences of his statements.


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## Larry Hughes (Aug 20, 2007)

There is a key difference on Luther regarding this or at least that he was more clear on, at least the best I’ve been able to understand it.

The bondage of the will lay in the inability of fallen Adam to accept the free grace of God, not in deciding between “two piles of hay” as Luther put it. Grace and works are in utter opposition here. Herein lay the REAL bondage of the will of fallen man to “be its own god”, thus violating the first commandment from which all other sins against the remaining commandments lay (e.g. we “murder” in heart or reality because fundamentally we are trying to be our own God against the first commandment, any time we so worry over ourselves it is a violation of the first command. This is why Luther could say, rightly, that faith fulfills the first command. Not unto salvation, but rather so trusting in Christ for bearing my sin and receiving His righteousness, I can now love God’s first command to BE my God and thus stop lusting, robbing, murdering, etc…as Paul says be well in much and little for God has already given me all things in Christ and not a hair can fall from my head lest it’s the Father’s will subservient to one’s salvation, good or bad as it is seen in this life. The rest of the commands follow forth from the first that either has or does not have faith in Christ alone…in a nut shell). 

Therefore, the very grace that the elect love and cherish and trust into is the same very grace that the unbeliever, even us before faith despised. Romans 9 for example, election is either seen as the STRONGEST Law to the unbeliever, because it say emphatically, “NO” to our willing or running, OR it is seen as the strongest form of the Gospel in Christ such that it is a JOY that God elects by mercy. The old Adam hates mercy, the new man in Christ loves it! The old Adam, thus, despises Christ this way, and so this is the way Pharaoh for example was hardened because wanting to be one’s own god wars with THE God. Grace, thus, both saves the elect and hardens the unelect, it is grace they reject and are thereby hardened by, desiring their own righteousness. You see this in the parable of the prodigal between the two sons at the end.

It’s interesting to ponder on.

Because, as much as I can understand it, a Lutheran speaks of a general objective grace for all man is issued (John 3), which some erroneously imagine as “universalism”, then they would speak of the specific subjective grace that is for the elect only (herein God electing the elect by the Holy Spirit yet by the exact same message. This is not “universalism”, meaning all saved, but how grace is communicated, without limits, yet the same saves the elect and is the cause for the rejection of the unelect and is thereby their own folly by being hardened by this very same grace. The elect are saved totally by God’s grace, thus, glory is purely to God alone. And the unelect are condemned by their own hardening against this same very grace, thus, “man alone”, gets all the glory for what he (man) does. The later is in opposition to “double predestination” in that the blame lay at fallen man rejecting the grace of God to his own falling and undoing and not laid at the blame of God’s feet. The mystery is left unresolved by Lutherans, rightly so I think, by not going beyond the revelation of Scripture too far off into philosophical speculations. Luther was not dodging rational thought, Luther was setting boundaries as to where Scripture reveals. One may disagree with the bounds per se, but he was not against rational thought. To go off that way too far is as Luther put it, going away from the revealed God in Christ where we can know God savingly. Luther put it this way, to loose the revealed God, Christ, one looses the hidden God, in His majesty and vice versa to have Christ, the revealed God yields the hidden God. Among many places he found this in John 14, “if you have seen Me (Christ), you have seen the Father”, in response to Philips wanting to see “the Father”. That’s what Luther REALLY meant about the danger of reason.

But I admit I’m still studying the difference between the two trying to get “under the words” to honestly understand what different sides “meant” and not caricatures draw of the other by the other.

Have a good evening all,

L


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