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M cGoldrick, Jam es Edward. “Luther’s Doctrine o f Predestina­
tion.” R eform ation a n d R evival vol. 8, no. 1 (winter 1999): 81-
103.
T
he most vigorous assertion of predestination in the era of
the Protestant Reformation came from Luther, who stud­
ied the works of early church fathers such as Augustine and
medieval authors such as Thomas Aquinas in whose treatises he found
extensive expositions of that doctrine, and Luther’s own experience
o f the grace of God confirmed his belief in the sovereignty of God
over salvation. In affirming his belief in predestination, that is, elec­
tion to eternal life, Luther introduced no novelty but rather main­
tained a traditional but neglected teaching of the Bible.
i. P r e d e s t in a t io n in Lectures on Romans
Luther’s exposition of Paul’s masterpiece expresses the Reformer’s
view of sin and salvation clearly, especially as it relates to the condi­
tion of human nature since the Fall and the exercise of divine sover­
eignty on behalf of unworthy sinners. In these lectures Professor Luther
exalted God’s grace and denied that there could be any human con­
tribution to salvation as Pelagius had taught.
Opposition to Pelagius’s teaching came from Augustine, who
maintained that sinners cannot merit salvation or contribute any­
thing toward obtaining it. The faith by which the elect believe in
Christ and receive forgiveness is entirely a gift from God. After much
debate and vacillation, the church adopted Augustine’s position offi­
cially and declared Pelagianism a heresy. Augustine’s teaching did
not, however, win universal acceptance in Christendom.
Soon a semi-Pelagian school of thought accused Augustine of
having advocated fatalism. Semi-Pelagians maintained that God has
imputed Adam’s sin to his posterity, and grace is essential for salva­
tion, but original sin did not deprive humans of free will. In the
semi-Pelagian view there is cooperation between grace and free will
in salvation.
Although in 529 the Synod o f Orange condemned semi-
Pelagianism, it continued to gain adherents, so the controversy did
not cease. Through the Middle Ages the concept of human merit as
a factor in salvation gained acceptance and gradually eclipsed Augus-
tinian theology.
192
L u t h e r ’s D o c t r i n e o f P r e d e s t i n a t i o n 193
As a friar, Luther studied the semi-Pelagian writings of medieval
theologians such as Gabriel Biel (d. 1495) and William o f Occam (d.
1349). Early in his academic career, however, Luther found errors in
their teaching about grace. By 1515 he had broken with the semi-
Pelagians, as his expositions of Psalms and Romans attest. In his lec­
tures on Romans Dr. Luther assumed the posture of a defender of
the Catholic faith against semi-Pelagian deviants.
As he progressed through the book, Luther concluded that Rom.
8:28 is a pivotal passage concerning predestination. There Paul wrote:
“We know that God causes all things to work together for good to
those who love God, to those who are called according to His pur­
pose.” In this verse and its context the Reformer found a clear un­
equivocal affirmation of election-predestination to salvation.
The idea of ch a n ce or fo r tu n e was, in Luther’s opinion, a pagan
belief, and he resolutely denied it could have anything to do with
salvation, for “with God there ... is no contingency, ... because not
even a leaf or a tree falls to the ground without the will of the Father.”
A frequent objection against the doctrine of predestination is
that it is unfair to those God rejects. Luther replied by calling atten­
tion to the condition of the sinner’s will, and he cited the case of
Pharaoh, of whom Rom. 9:17-18 says that God hardened his heart
so that he would not concur with the Hebrew’s request for freedom
from Egypt. In commenting about this text, Luther explained “those
whom God hardens are the very ones to whom he gives the will vol­
untarily to be and to stay in sin and to love wickedness.” This shows
no one sins by compulsion, and the nonelect never maintain any
genuine desire for God. They sin because it is the natural inclination
o f their sinful souls to do so. It might be said that, in withholding
His grace from them, God permits them to do as they please.
2. P r e d e s t i n a t i o n in The Bondage o f the Will
Although reluctant to engage Erasmus, when the challenge came,
Luther rose to the occasion. He had long desired an informed oppo­
nent with whom to discuss the real issues. To Luther, Erasmus repre­
sented the errors that lay at the heart of the papal church, since the
famed humanist espoused a semi-Pelagian understanding of God,
man, sin, and salvation.
Definition o f terms is of paramount importance, and Erasmus
was careful at the outset to explain what he meant by fr e e will. “By
free choice ... we mean a power of human will by which a man can
apply himself to the things which lead to eternal salvation or turn
194 J a m e s E d w a r d M c G o l d r ic k
away from them.” This shows that the Prince of Humanists was at
odds with the Doctor of Grace, Augustine.
In their debate about predestination and free will Luther and
Erasmus approached the subject with mutually exclusive presupposi­
tions. While Erasmus would require God to act reasonably, Luther
insisted that reason be subject to God’s will. Luther made his posi­
tion crystal clear when he dealt with Erasmus’s appeal to Bible pas­
sages which appear to teach that God wills the salvation o f all people.
The Reformer proposed a dichotomy between God’s secret will and
His revealed will.
G o d does m any things w hich H e does not, in his W ord, show us,
and H e wills m any things which H e does not, in his W ord, show
us that H e wills. T h u s, H e does n ot will the death o f a sinner—
that is, in H is W ord; bu t H e wills it by H is inscrutable will. A t
present, however, we m ust keep in view H is W ord an d leave alone
H is inscrutable will; for it is by H is W ord and n ot by H is inscru­
table will that we m u st be guided.
3. P r e d e s t i n a t i o n i n Table Talk
Following his marriage to Katherine von Bora in 1525, Luther
lived in the Black Cloister. The homestead soon became a boarding­
house. At mealtimes guests often questioned their revered host, and
some of them took notes about Luther’s remarks, including some
about predestination. A few excerpts will illustrate this.
G o d gave m an kin d a free will, b u t the question is whether this
sam e freedom be in our own pow er and strength or not. W e m ay
very fitly call it a subverted, perverse, fickle, and w avering will, for
it is only G o d that w orks in us, an d we m ust be subject to H is
pleasure.
H e that will m aintain [that] m an’s free will is able to do or
w ork anything in spiritual cases ... denies C hrist.
Luther died in 1546, and soon thereafter some of his professed
disciples claimed that, toward the end of his life, their mentor had
modified his view of predestination. This led Johann Aurifaber, an
early compiler of Table Talk, to state categorically: “It is a lie ... that
the dear man [Luther] of God modified in any way his opinion on
free will, which they term hard because it is directly opposed to their
heresy, and yet they boast of being Luther’s disciples.”
The doctrine of predestination was not an obsession with
Luther, but he defended it vigorously whenever anyone promoted a
L u t h e r ’s D o c t r i n e o f P r e d e s t i n a t i o n 195
synergistic view of salvation, for he realized that such beliefs defame
God by taking salvation out of His hands.
4. P r e d e s t in a t io n in L u t h e r ’s P a s t o r a l W r it in g s
Despite his language and severe disdain for his adversaries, Luther
was capable of compassion and tenderness, for he was a pastor with a
deep concern for souls.
When he was a young friar, Luther experienced soul-wrenching
distresses over the prospect that he might not be among the elect.
Johann Staupitz, his monastic superior, advised him to focus upon
the crucified Christ and to believe that God’s Son had died for him
personally. After his discovery of justification sola fid e — through faith
alone— Luther realized the wisdom of Staupitz’s advice, and as pas­
tor, he offered the same counsel to others. In 1531 he wrote to Bar­
bara Lisskirchen, who had expressed fears about this matter. After
telling her “the Devil and not God is the instigator of such perplex­
ity,” Luther pronounced this benediction upon her: “May our dear
Lord Jesus Christ show you His hands and His side and gladden your
heart with His love, and may you behold and hear Him only until
you find your joy in Him. Amen.”
It is evident that Luther did not confine his teaching about pre­
destination to academic circles. He, on the contrary, believed it to be
a blessed doctrine full of “sweet Comfort” for the people of God.
Interpreters of Luther sometimes construe his assertions about
divine sovereignty as expressions of a fatalist world view. The
Wittenberg scholar encountered that criticism from Erasmus and
others, but evidence shows conclusively that it is not a valid objec­
tion to his teaching. Luther was a theologian, not a philosopher, so
constructing a philosophical system was never his goal. He was an
expositor of the Bible and a writer who addressed doctrinal issues as
they arose and became matters o f contention. He was concerned
to be biblical in all his beliefs, and if he did not address some of
the implications o f predestination that philosophers cited, that
did not matter to him. He was not a fatalist, and he regarded
fatalism as anti-Christian.
Perhaps the most convincing rebuttal to the charge of fatalism is
Luther’s biography. It is the account of an energetic activist deeply
conscious of his obligation to obey God’s revealed will. Although
continually afflicted with illnesses, he demonstrated an amazing ca­
pacity to work for Christ’s kingdom, and he never tired of exhorting
others to do the same. Fatalism had no place in Luther’s world view.
196 J a m e s E d w a rd M c G o l d r ic k
5. C o n c l u s io n
Although Luther was firm and resolute in his belief in God’s
sovereignty over salvation, leaders of the church which came to bear
his name sometimes departed from his teaching, and today relatively
few Lutherans espouse their founder’s doctrine of predestination.
While he lived, Luther was the preeminent voice of the evangelical
movement in Europe, but he was not the author of the formal con­
fessions of faith which the Lutheran Church gradually adopted. Luther
left the work of organizing systematic statements of belief to others,
and perhaps that is why his doctrine of predestination did not re­
ceive the prominence in the confessions which it has in the Reformer’s
own writings. The first systematic theologian of the evangelical church
was Philipp Melanchthon, author o f the Augsburg Confession, who
did not agree exactly with some of Luther’s beliefs. This became evi­
dent only gradually. After Luther died, Melanchthon assumed lead­
ership of the Lutheran movement, and it became clear that he did
not endorse Luther’s position with regard to predestination and the
bondage of the will in matters pertaining to salvation.
In 1580 most Lutheran churches subscribed to the Book o f Con­
cord, a compilation o f ancient creedal statements together with Ref­
ormation documents, none of which expresses Luther’s doctrine of
predestination in its fullness. The rich theocentricity of Luther’s the­
ology did not remain the faith of the churches that were to bear his
name, and today few of the most orthodox Lutherans give The Bond­
age o f the Will much attention. It exerts far more influence among
Reformed believers than among those who bear the name o f its
author.
JG K
Rosales, José M aria. “La Crisis del Paradigma Politico M edi­
eval. U na Reflexion sobre el Debate de la Teologia Política”
[The Crisis of the Medieval Political Paradigm. A Reflection about
the Debate over the Political Theology]. Revista Espanola de Filosofia
M edieval 5 (1998): 121-34.
V BSTRACT: The paper deals with the crisis of the medieval
political paradigm as broken up in two different moments.
7 _ 1 L The first, exemplified by the inner critique of William of
Ockham, namely a theological revision o f the Christian political the­
ology in the fourteenth century, attempting to recover a secular basis
for the theological doctrine. The second, advanced by Martin Luther
and the Reformation movement two centuries later, that opposed
the very legitimacy of a Christian politics and justified no concilia­
tion at all between the canonical theology and secular politics.
Key words: medieval political philosophy, history of political
thought, Ockham, Luther.
i. T h e I n t e r n a l F r a g m e n t a t io n of th e O rder
During the almost ten centuries of its existence, the theocratic
paradigm preserves its dominance more through the absence of an
alternate paradigm than through the strength of its theological legiti­
macy, which gradually found itself incapable to justify the interfer­
ence of theology in the sphere of the secular life. The evolution of
political events in Europe in the 14th century now permits [us] to
analyze in perspective the decline of the political Christian world
view (cosmovision) primarily by its connection with the “monarchy
of the world,” that is to say, with the model of imperial institutions.
The birth of independent countries marked the beginning of a model
of alternate institutions where a special place for international poli­
tics became available, the politics between sovereign, heterogeneous
countries.
But it was most surprising that this did not abolish the aspira­
tions of the Church of Rome to become an empire in one of the two
ways it had tried before. In both cases its success was short-lived, but
the results showed the transformation of the Church, a spiritual com­
munity o f believers, into an empire or, more exactly, into a
religious-secular state. However, the climax of intervention by the
Church, now as a state, coincided with the profound crisis of author-
197