Yes, and this is why I'm tolerant to my reformed brethren. :-)
Let me briefly expand my remarks about the Mattson piece. I'm not sure I agree that Luther adopted all of Augustine's views so reflexively (and other scholars, as Mattson notes, don't either); I don't want to get into an "Augustine says, Luther says" discussion. Spitz was correct in noting that Luther leaves open the question of the lost since Luther avoids the subject throughout his writing, urging the Christian to look to Christ and the cross for a sign of their eternal security. As Matzat notes in his article, the doctrine of predestination was not central to Luther and he wrote about the mystery between divine election and universal grace, "We are not allowed to investigate, and even though you were to investigate much, yet you would never find out."
I'll consider your posts fully over the next couple days. I also want time to run over to the seminary library and check over a few things before responding more fully. Thanks for replying.
I wanted fuller explanation of how you think Mattson "makes the case against himself".
To quote you one more time:
I've already read one analysis by a Brian Mattson, and his analysis of Lewis Spitz (Spitz wrote, "[Luther] left the question of why some were lost open," to which Mattson calls "unfortunate") makes the case against himself.
First, you have incorrectly identified what Matsson "calls 'unfortunate'". Mattson does not question Spitz statement "[Luther] left the question of why some were lost open".
What Mattson calls "unfortunate" is "That Spitz makes this claim apart from any analysis of Luther". That is a different thing all-together.
Furthermore, you didn't post the quote in its entirety:
St. Augustine was a high double predestinarian. . . .Luther found assurance in the belief that the faith of the elect was determined by God's eternal counsel and did not depend upon man's own weak will, but, except for some polemical passages in his treatise On the Bondage of the Will in which he overstated his own case, he left the question of why some were lost open. . . ."[30]
Mattson then goes on to comment on Spitz's comment that "[Luther] overstated his own case":
That Spitz makes this claim apart from any analysis of Luther is unfortunate, considering his good reputation as an historian. He here seems embarrassed for Luther by claiming he "overstated his own case." While this is quite an admission regarding the contents of Luther's work, Spitz's editorialism is simply untrue. Did the great author himself believe he had "overstated" his case? On the contrary, in 1537, writing to Wolfgang Capito concerning a plan to publish his complete works, he states, "I would rather see them [his books] devoured. For I acknowledge none of them to be really a book of mine, except for perhaps the one On the Bound Will, and the Catechism."[29] It is clear that twelve years following its publication, Luther claimed the book as his most important, hardly as an overstatement of his case for predestination. Furthermore, it would seem as though Luther held his "overstated" double predestinarian views not simply at the time of, or after, the publication of The Bondage of the Will, but years prior as well. In his Commentary on Romans, written around 1515, he wrote,Rather than Mattson "mak[ing] the case against himself", I see that it is Spitz who makes the case against himself with the admission that Luther "overstated his own case" on Predestination in Luther's On the Bondage of the Will.
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.[30]
All this is really mute, afterall, because either Luther held to the "Single Predestination" view with Concord or he held to the "Double Predestination" view with Calvin.
My original point in response to your Post #3 was to comment on the point that I thought you were making regarding your (Lutheran's) disagreement with Calvinists on "Unconditional Election".
In reality, whether of the "Single Predestination" position or of the "Double Predestination", the Lutherans agree with the Calvinists on "Unconditional Election". "Unconditional Election" is not a statement on Reprobation (that the unregerate were predestined to condemnation), but is a statement on how the Elect come to Salvation. (Remember, Mattson is discussing whether Luther was a Single Predestinarian or a Double Predestinarian, not whether or not Luther believed in "Unconditional Election" -that Luther believed in Unconditional Election seems to be a given by both Mattson and Spitz)
Your statements left that unclear and they could have been interpreted that Lutherans deny that by the fall of our first parents man was so corrupted that in divine things pertaining to our conversion and the salvation of our souls he is by nature blind, that, when the Word of God is preached, he neither does nor can understand it, but regards it as foolishness; also, that he does not of himself draw nigh to God, but is and remains an enemy of God, until he is converted, becomes a believer [is endowed with faith], is regenerated and renewed, by the power of the Holy Ghost through the Word when preached and heard, out of pure grace, without any cooperation of his own.
Jean