Replies

DR. E: Since the excerpts showing Luther’s belief in double predestination were posted by aruanan, ask him for them.
MARK BSNR: Since the accuracy of your posts is very well known and understand, I shall. Aruanan, is that what you posted?

Aruanan posted the following post, for which I thanked him...

I don't recall asking you. I asked aruanan. I'm sure that (s)he can speak reasonably well and does not need the equivalent of Robert Gibbs to be a mouthpiece.

I asked if aruanan posted this and was hoping to start an exchange which would lead to the posting of reasons for these statements, since I could not arrive at those conclusions from the posted words.

Three little posts
All in a row
Hopefully teach
What Mark doesn't know.

All three are not in a row. However, I will appreciate aruanan telling us where these passages tell us that men are predestined to hell, if you can possibly stop skipping around in a little circle and singing nursery rhymes.

I asked if aruanan posted this and was hoping to start an exchange which would lead to the posting of reasons for these statements, since I could not arrive at those conclusions from the posted words.

The question was whether Luther believed in double predestination. I posted an excerpt from Luther's diatribe against Erasmus called The Bondage of the Will. Note the parts in bold. There is a much shorter distance from these to the concept of double predestination than there is from any scripture anywhere in the Bible to either single predestination to salvation or double predestination to salvation and to damnation:

"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."

"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 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.

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.