Hi Edward,
last night I was working on a reply to you and now that I was going to post it the thread was locked. So I am posting it here. I typed it in WORD and copy it onto here, so it something looks weird that's why.
Originally Posted by cerette
First, a preliminary clarification: in #193 you quoted Luther as saying: everything takes place by necessity in us, according as he either loves or does not love us from all eternity" Luther's Works, Vol. 33, page 199. This is different from your present claim in #203 (which you purport to deduce from Luthers words) that since God wills and fore-ordains from eternity according to whether He loves or hates us from eternity, people are predestined to be damned. You have altered Luthers loves or does not love to loves or hates.
Second: When Luther uses the term predestination in The Bondage of the Will, he does not in general mean eternal election (as has subsequently become common usage). On this point many Luther-scholars seem to be agreed. From this it follows that when Luther says that all things take place according to Gods predestination (including the damnation of some people to hell), this is not equivalent to saying that all things (including the damnation of some people to hell) is effected by Gods eternal election. You seem to be blurring this distinction. In one sense orthodox Lutherans (i.e. followers of the Book of Concord) could agree to the statement the damnation of some to hell takes place according to Gods predestination (namely, in the sense where predestination refers to the fact that everything takes place by Gods eternal and immutable and unfathomable will); but in another sense they would disagree with this statement (namely where predestination is used as eternal election, as you also are using it). To prove your point that Luther taught double predestination, you would have to produce a passage from The Bondage of the Will where Luther claims that the damnation of some people to hell is effected by Gods eternal election.
Third: You should exercise much more care than you have been doing so far when saying that Luther says this or that about free will and predestination in The Bondage of the Will. Luther is careful to define what he means by free will, and I see that you have nowhere cited his definition. You also fail to note that Luther himself agrees that according to some definitions of free will, man does have free will. Nor do you mention that Luther is careful to explain what he means by necessity (namely necessity of immutability) and what he says he does not mean (e.g. necessity of coercion). These points are crucial to any serious attempt to understand Luthers position.
Fourth: There is one central message in The Bondage of the Will that doesnt make sense on your reading of this book. I am referring to the fact that Luther takes great pains to point out that when God hardens certain people (Pharo, Judas, etc), this hardening takes place against the background of their own sin for which they themselves (not God) is responsible: He works according to what they are, and what He finds them to be: which means, since they are evil and perverted themselves, that when they are impelled to action by this movement of Divine omnipotence they do only that which is perverted and evil. It is like a man riding a horse with only three, or two, good feet; his riding corresponds with what the horse is, which means that the horse goes badly. But what can the rider do? The fault which accounts for evil being done when God moves to action lies in these instruments (WA 709-710).
(1) If you read the full quote in #193 you can see that by saying "does not love" he means "hate", because Luther talks of the love and hate of God.
Response: I read the passage, and what I found noteworthy is that Luther doesnt use the expression loves and hates, even though this would be natural since he is discussing the Bible verse Jacob I loved and Esau I hated. Instead he uses the term not loved instead of hated. Clearly I was right to point this out; was I not?
(2) There is one such passage:
"And if God be thus robbed of His power and wisdom to elect, what will there be remaining but that idol Fortune, under the name of which, all things take place at random! Nay, we shall at length come to this: that men may be saved and damned without God's knowing anything at all about it; as not having determined by certain election who should be saved and who should be damned; but having set before all men in general His hardening goodness and long-suffering, and His mercy showing correction and punishment, and left them to choose for themselves whether they would be saved or damned; while He, in the mean time, should be gone, as Homer says, to an Ethiopian feast!" (This quote is from Cole's translation and the passage occurs on page 171 of Luther's Works, Vol. 33)
Luther's meaning that if Erasmus's arguments were true then God wouldn't have elected who should be saved or who should be damned, obviously meaning that Erasmus is wrong and that God does elect people to be saved and damned.
Response: The passage you quote doesnt provide what I asked for. I asked for a passage from The Bondage of the Will where Luther claims that the damnation of some people to hell is effected by Gods eternal election. What this passage says is that God DISCERNS (discreverit) through his CERTAIN ELECTION (certa electione) which people ARE TO BE SAVED (salvandos) and which people ARE TO BE DAMNED (damnados). This is clear in the original Latin: qui non discreverit certa electione salvandos et damnandos (WA 706), but is less clear in your English translation. (Is your translator a Calvinist?) To say that God discerns (i.e. knows; Coles determined is somewhat misleading; Packer-Johnstons marked out is much better) through his certain election which people will be saved and which people will be damned, is NOT to say that God has eternally elected some people to go to hell (irrespective of the sins that they were to commit in time).
(3) This just hasn't come up in the discussion. Yes there's a distinction to be made between not having any freedom to chose salvation and damnation, and having the apparent ability to choose between different courses of action in everyday affairs, but since as Luther says this is overruled by God, only what He has determined will happen according go His will and foreknowledge can occur. So we have no freedom to determine events and can only chose what God allows us to chose.
Response: Are you saying that Luther is denying that human beings can be the causes of their own actions, that their actions can originate in their own volitions? If so, I believe you have misinterpreted Luther. (I agree that Luther denies that people have the ability to do otherwise than they do, however, this is clearly implied in The Bondage of the Will.)
With regards to necessity again this just hasn't come up. All I've been referring to is the necessity of events occurring and no one has asked does that mean therefore that we are coerced and don't act willingly. If they had of done I'd have explained that we act willingly in the choices we make and not under any coercion or compulsion.
(4) The point is however although God moves people to act according to how He finds them in that if they're evil it results in them doing evil things for which God isn't responsible, God doesn't harden and damn people in response to anything they have done. He hardens people purely because He wills to from eternity. As Luther says: "This, therefore, is also essentially necessary and wholesome for Christians to know: That God foreknows nothing by contingency, but that He foresees, purposes, and does all things according to His immutable, eternal, and infallible will." ( Cole. page 37 in Luther's Works, Vol. 33)
Response: You say one thing right here and another thing that is ambiguous. This is right: that Luther teaches that That God foreknows nothing by contingency, but that He foresees, purposes, and does all things according to His immutable, eternal, and infallible will. (The Latin is: Deus nihil praescit contingenter, sed quod omnia incommutabili et aeterna infallibili que voluntate et praevidet et proponit et facit.) This is the ambiguous thing: God doesn't harden and damn people in response to anything they have done. He hardens people purely because He wills to from eternity. Yes, all that God does he has chosen to do from eternity (including what he will do on the Last Day); but No, this doesnt mean that those whom God has chosen to damn he choses to damn without regard to their sin. Your idea that God hardens and damns purely because He wills to from eternity is obviously intended to deny that God has chosen to damn people on account of their sin. That Luther didnt deny this, but clearly taught this, is plain as daylight from the passage I quoted: The fault which accounts for evil being done when God moves to action lies in these instruments, as well as from the great bulk of Luthers corpus. Never does Luther preach in his sermons (of which we have thousands of pages) that God damns not on account of our sins but purely because he wills to; always does he say that God damns on account of our sins.
last night I was working on a reply to you and now that I was going to post it the thread was locked. So I am posting it here. I typed it in WORD and copy it onto here, so it something looks weird that's why.
Originally Posted by cerette
First, a preliminary clarification: in #193 you quoted Luther as saying: everything takes place by necessity in us, according as he either loves or does not love us from all eternity" Luther's Works, Vol. 33, page 199. This is different from your present claim in #203 (which you purport to deduce from Luthers words) that since God wills and fore-ordains from eternity according to whether He loves or hates us from eternity, people are predestined to be damned. You have altered Luthers loves or does not love to loves or hates.
Second: When Luther uses the term predestination in The Bondage of the Will, he does not in general mean eternal election (as has subsequently become common usage). On this point many Luther-scholars seem to be agreed. From this it follows that when Luther says that all things take place according to Gods predestination (including the damnation of some people to hell), this is not equivalent to saying that all things (including the damnation of some people to hell) is effected by Gods eternal election. You seem to be blurring this distinction. In one sense orthodox Lutherans (i.e. followers of the Book of Concord) could agree to the statement the damnation of some to hell takes place according to Gods predestination (namely, in the sense where predestination refers to the fact that everything takes place by Gods eternal and immutable and unfathomable will); but in another sense they would disagree with this statement (namely where predestination is used as eternal election, as you also are using it). To prove your point that Luther taught double predestination, you would have to produce a passage from The Bondage of the Will where Luther claims that the damnation of some people to hell is effected by Gods eternal election.
Third: You should exercise much more care than you have been doing so far when saying that Luther says this or that about free will and predestination in The Bondage of the Will. Luther is careful to define what he means by free will, and I see that you have nowhere cited his definition. You also fail to note that Luther himself agrees that according to some definitions of free will, man does have free will. Nor do you mention that Luther is careful to explain what he means by necessity (namely necessity of immutability) and what he says he does not mean (e.g. necessity of coercion). These points are crucial to any serious attempt to understand Luthers position.
Fourth: There is one central message in The Bondage of the Will that doesnt make sense on your reading of this book. I am referring to the fact that Luther takes great pains to point out that when God hardens certain people (Pharo, Judas, etc), this hardening takes place against the background of their own sin for which they themselves (not God) is responsible: He works according to what they are, and what He finds them to be: which means, since they are evil and perverted themselves, that when they are impelled to action by this movement of Divine omnipotence they do only that which is perverted and evil. It is like a man riding a horse with only three, or two, good feet; his riding corresponds with what the horse is, which means that the horse goes badly. But what can the rider do? The fault which accounts for evil being done when God moves to action lies in these instruments (WA 709-710).
(1) If you read the full quote in #193 you can see that by saying "does not love" he means "hate", because Luther talks of the love and hate of God.
Response: I read the passage, and what I found noteworthy is that Luther doesnt use the expression loves and hates, even though this would be natural since he is discussing the Bible verse Jacob I loved and Esau I hated. Instead he uses the term not loved instead of hated. Clearly I was right to point this out; was I not?
(2) There is one such passage:
"And if God be thus robbed of His power and wisdom to elect, what will there be remaining but that idol Fortune, under the name of which, all things take place at random! Nay, we shall at length come to this: that men may be saved and damned without God's knowing anything at all about it; as not having determined by certain election who should be saved and who should be damned; but having set before all men in general His hardening goodness and long-suffering, and His mercy showing correction and punishment, and left them to choose for themselves whether they would be saved or damned; while He, in the mean time, should be gone, as Homer says, to an Ethiopian feast!" (This quote is from Cole's translation and the passage occurs on page 171 of Luther's Works, Vol. 33)
Luther's meaning that if Erasmus's arguments were true then God wouldn't have elected who should be saved or who should be damned, obviously meaning that Erasmus is wrong and that God does elect people to be saved and damned.
Response: The passage you quote doesnt provide what I asked for. I asked for a passage from The Bondage of the Will where Luther claims that the damnation of some people to hell is effected by Gods eternal election. What this passage says is that God DISCERNS (discreverit) through his CERTAIN ELECTION (certa electione) which people ARE TO BE SAVED (salvandos) and which people ARE TO BE DAMNED (damnados). This is clear in the original Latin: qui non discreverit certa electione salvandos et damnandos (WA 706), but is less clear in your English translation. (Is your translator a Calvinist?) To say that God discerns (i.e. knows; Coles determined is somewhat misleading; Packer-Johnstons marked out is much better) through his certain election which people will be saved and which people will be damned, is NOT to say that God has eternally elected some people to go to hell (irrespective of the sins that they were to commit in time).
(3) This just hasn't come up in the discussion. Yes there's a distinction to be made between not having any freedom to chose salvation and damnation, and having the apparent ability to choose between different courses of action in everyday affairs, but since as Luther says this is overruled by God, only what He has determined will happen according go His will and foreknowledge can occur. So we have no freedom to determine events and can only chose what God allows us to chose.
Response: Are you saying that Luther is denying that human beings can be the causes of their own actions, that their actions can originate in their own volitions? If so, I believe you have misinterpreted Luther. (I agree that Luther denies that people have the ability to do otherwise than they do, however, this is clearly implied in The Bondage of the Will.)
With regards to necessity again this just hasn't come up. All I've been referring to is the necessity of events occurring and no one has asked does that mean therefore that we are coerced and don't act willingly. If they had of done I'd have explained that we act willingly in the choices we make and not under any coercion or compulsion.
(4) The point is however although God moves people to act according to how He finds them in that if they're evil it results in them doing evil things for which God isn't responsible, God doesn't harden and damn people in response to anything they have done. He hardens people purely because He wills to from eternity. As Luther says: "This, therefore, is also essentially necessary and wholesome for Christians to know: That God foreknows nothing by contingency, but that He foresees, purposes, and does all things according to His immutable, eternal, and infallible will." ( Cole. page 37 in Luther's Works, Vol. 33)
Response: You say one thing right here and another thing that is ambiguous. This is right: that Luther teaches that That God foreknows nothing by contingency, but that He foresees, purposes, and does all things according to His immutable, eternal, and infallible will. (The Latin is: Deus nihil praescit contingenter, sed quod omnia incommutabili et aeterna infallibili que voluntate et praevidet et proponit et facit.) This is the ambiguous thing: God doesn't harden and damn people in response to anything they have done. He hardens people purely because He wills to from eternity. Yes, all that God does he has chosen to do from eternity (including what he will do on the Last Day); but No, this doesnt mean that those whom God has chosen to damn he choses to damn without regard to their sin. Your idea that God hardens and damns purely because He wills to from eternity is obviously intended to deny that God has chosen to damn people on account of their sin. That Luther didnt deny this, but clearly taught this, is plain as daylight from the passage I quoted: The fault which accounts for evil being done when God moves to action lies in these instruments, as well as from the great bulk of Luthers corpus. Never does Luther preach in his sermons (of which we have thousands of pages) that God damns not on account of our sins but purely because he wills to; always does he say that God damns on account of our sins.
