"God foreknows nothing contingently, but foresees, and purposes, and accomplishes every thing, by an unchangeable, eternal, and infallible will. But, by this thunderbolt, Freewill is struck to the earth and completely ground to powder. Those who would assert Freewill, therefore, must either deny, or disguise, or, by some other means, repel this thunderbolt from them."The point is, according to Luther, that salvation doesn't depend on free will. Free will is merely an appearance to man, an illusion, if anything, and that everything in man's existence and in the existence of the universe he inhabits is controlled by the will of God both from "past eternity" and in the now as it is being executed. "Every thing" that God foreknows, has planned, and is executing means "everything" or there is something that is outside of his knowledge or planning or control. Luther denies that. Therefore, everything includes every act and thought and eternal destiny of every human being as a product of God's will, planning, and execution. It may be that some latter day Lutherans have attempted to soften this. Some who call themselves Calvinists have also done as much.
"Hence it irresistibly follows, that all which we do, and all which happens, although it seem to happen mutably and contingently, does in reality happen necessarily and unalterably, insofar as respects the will of God. For the will of God is efficacious, and such as cannot be thwarted; since the power of God is itself a part of his nature: it is also wise, so that it cannot be misled. And since his will is not thwarted, the work which he wills cannot be prevented ; but must be produced in the very place, time, and measure which he himself both foresees and wills."
"If God does not foreknow all events absolutely, there must be defect either in his will, or in his knowledge; what happens must either be against his will, or beside his knowledge. Either he meant otherwise than the event, or had no meaning at all about the event, or foresaw another event, or did not foresee any event at all. But the truth is, what he willed in past eternity, he wills now; the thing now executed is what he has intended to execute from everlasting; for his will is eternal: just as the thing which has now happened is what he saw in past eternity; because his knowledge is eternal."
The question, though, was whether Luther believed in a type of predestination by which God controlled the destinies of every single human being no matter where they ended up, in heaven or in eternal torment. I think these paragraphs from The Bondage of the Will indicate that at the time he wrote this work he did. Question: is the thing that God executed, according to Luther, the free will of the individual, or predermination to hell? If you could indicate from these verses, I would be grateful.
And yet 'your thinking he did' doesn't make it so. BOW is chiefly about the sovereignity of God. 5 yrs after BOW, not a trace of double predestination within Lutheranism as a doctrine. Because it isn't explicit in Scripture.
13. On the other hand, we reject also the Calvinistic perversion of the doctrine of conversion, that is, the doctrine that God does not desire to convert and save all hearers of the Word, but only a portion of them. Many hearers of the Word indeed remain unconverted and are not saved, not because God does not earnestly desire their conversion and salvation, but solely because they stubbornly resist the gracious operation of the Holy Ghost, as Scripture teaches, Acts 7:51; Matt. 23:37; Acts 13:46.
14. As to the question why not all men are converted and saved, seeing that God's grace is universal and all men are equally and utterly corrupt, we confess that we cannot answer it. From Scripture we know only this: A man owes his conversion and salvation, not to any lesser guilt or better conduct on his part, but solely to the grace of God. But any man's non-conversion is due to himself alone; it is the result of his obstinate resistance against the converting operation of the Holy Ghost. Hos. 13:9.
You'd make a good Calvinist, assuming you come to agree with your appraisal.
There's time. 8~)
"Furthermore, I have the comfortable certainty that I please God, not by reason of the merit of my works, but by reason of His merciful favour promised to me; so that, if I work too little, or badly, He does not impute it to me, but with fatherly compassion pardons me and makes me better. This is the glorying of all the saints in their God." -- Martin Luther, "Bondage of the Will" -- (xviii) Of the comfort of knowing that salvation does not depend on free-will' (783) "I frankly confess that, for myself, even if it could be, I should not want 'free-will' to be given me, nor anything to be left in my own hands to enable me to endeavour after salvation; not merely because in face of so many dangers, and adversities, and assaults of devils, I could not stand my ground and hold fast my 'free-will' (for one devil is stronger than all men, and on these terms no man could be saved) ; but because, even were there no dangers, adversities, or devils, I should still be forced to labour with no guarantee of success, and to beat my fists at the air. If I lived and worked to all eternity, my conscience would never reach comfortable certainty as to how much it must do to satisfy God, Whatever work I had done, there would still be a nagging doubt' as to whether it pleased God, or whether He required something more. The experience of all who seek righteousness by works proves that; and I learned it well enough myself over a period of many years, to my own great hurt. But now that God has taken my salvation out of the control of my own will, and put it under the control of His, and promised to save me, not according to my working or running, but according to His own grace and mercy, I have the comfort¬able certainty that He is faithful and will not lie to me, and that He is also great and powerful, so that no devils or opposition can break Him or pluck me from Him. `No one,´ He says, `shall pluck them out of my hand, because my Father which gave them me is greater than all´ (John 10.28-29). Thus it is that, if not all, yet some, indeed many, are saved; whereas, by the power of ´free-will´ none at all could be saved, but every one of us would perish.
If salvation depended on man's free will agree to be saved, then man would have the last word regarding who becomes an adopted son of God. And Scripture doesn't support this. The unmerited mercy of God who declared the end from the beginning is the sole reason men are saved.
"The reason for compassion is compassion itself." - Calvin