I know this is an old article, but I happened to be thinking of Luther today. There is what bit of his theology that I have never been able to find an explanation of. Apologies if I have asked this before...
Luther denied free will, wrote a book about it which he was immensely proud of. Calvin also denied free will, and if there is no free will, then predestination is the only logical result. Calvin believed in predestination. Luther denied predestination. How did he square no free will with no predestination?
Thanks Seth. May I ask how you came across with this piece?
And to answer your question shortly: Luther didn't square anything, at least not the way you'd expect a systematic thinker to.
Luther absolutely denied free will in the strong sense. In De Servo Arbitrio (On the Bondage of the Will), his 1525 reply to Erasmus, he argued that the human will is bound and can do nothing toward its own salvation. He was proud of that book precisely because he thought it struck at the root of everything Rome taught about human cooperation with grace.
But here's the wrinkle in your premise: Luther didn't actually deny predestination. He affirmed it, and hard. In De Servo Arbitrio he pushes an unconditional election that's every bit as severe as anything Calvin later wrote. He even flirts with the darker implication, that God's hidden will governs who is saved and who isn't, and he tells Erasmus flatly that this is a bitter truth we have to swallow. So on election, the two men are closer than the usual textbook contrast admits.
Where they diverge is what later got called double predestination, the symmetrical idea that God actively decrees the damned to damnation in the same way he decrees the elect to salvation. Calvin was willing to state that openly and defend it as logically necessary. Luther wasn't. Not because he had a counterargument, but because he refused to go there. He drew a line between the hidden God (Deus absconditus) and the revealed God of the cross and the promises, and he insisted you should not go rummaging behind the curtain. Speculating about the hidden decrees of election and reprobation was, for Luther, exactly the kind of prideful reaching that damns you. You cling to Christ and the promise offered to all, and you leave the terrifying hidden business alone.
So the resolution is pastoral rather than logical, and deliberately anti-systematic. Luther held no free will and unconditional election together without blinking. What he declined to do was complete the syllogism into a fixed doctrine of reprobation. Calvin, temperamentally a lawyer and a systematizer, finished the thought and built it into a structure. Luther thought finishing the thought was itself the sin.
I agree. However, if we're not careful, knowledge can become its own kind of religion. Online, you often see crowds talking about science as if it offers certainties, when in reality, only faith can do that. Science fundamentally is against certainties, as they'd imply dogmas.
Absolutely — that’s exactly what fascinates me too. Technologies like the printing press and the internet rewrite the rules about who gets to authorize information. Luther didn’t just challenge the Church’s theology; he challenged its monopoly on distribution. Today’s digital networks do the same to governments, media gatekeepers, and any institution built on controlling the flow of information.
Once the bottleneck disappears, authority has to compete in an open marketplace rather than dictate from above. And as you said, power structures really don’t enjoy that shift.
For example, yesterday I wrote a piece describing what happened in Venezuela as a kidnapping, while Western media insists on calling it capture or detention — though if Russia had done it, they’d likely call it kidnapping. Sure, it didn’t create waves, but at least the idea reached a few hundred people — whether they agreed or not is another story. The thing is, in the past — as recently as less than three decades ago — that never would have been possible.
I know this is an old article, but I happened to be thinking of Luther today. There is what bit of his theology that I have never been able to find an explanation of. Apologies if I have asked this before...
Luther denied free will, wrote a book about it which he was immensely proud of. Calvin also denied free will, and if there is no free will, then predestination is the only logical result. Calvin believed in predestination. Luther denied predestination. How did he square no free will with no predestination?
Thanks Seth. May I ask how you came across with this piece?
And to answer your question shortly: Luther didn't square anything, at least not the way you'd expect a systematic thinker to.
Luther absolutely denied free will in the strong sense. In De Servo Arbitrio (On the Bondage of the Will), his 1525 reply to Erasmus, he argued that the human will is bound and can do nothing toward its own salvation. He was proud of that book precisely because he thought it struck at the root of everything Rome taught about human cooperation with grace.
But here's the wrinkle in your premise: Luther didn't actually deny predestination. He affirmed it, and hard. In De Servo Arbitrio he pushes an unconditional election that's every bit as severe as anything Calvin later wrote. He even flirts with the darker implication, that God's hidden will governs who is saved and who isn't, and he tells Erasmus flatly that this is a bitter truth we have to swallow. So on election, the two men are closer than the usual textbook contrast admits.
Where they diverge is what later got called double predestination, the symmetrical idea that God actively decrees the damned to damnation in the same way he decrees the elect to salvation. Calvin was willing to state that openly and defend it as logically necessary. Luther wasn't. Not because he had a counterargument, but because he refused to go there. He drew a line between the hidden God (Deus absconditus) and the revealed God of the cross and the promises, and he insisted you should not go rummaging behind the curtain. Speculating about the hidden decrees of election and reprobation was, for Luther, exactly the kind of prideful reaching that damns you. You cling to Christ and the promise offered to all, and you leave the terrifying hidden business alone.
So the resolution is pastoral rather than logical, and deliberately anti-systematic. Luther held no free will and unconditional election together without blinking. What he declined to do was complete the syllogism into a fixed doctrine of reprobation. Calvin, temperamentally a lawyer and a systematizer, finished the thought and built it into a structure. Luther thought finishing the thought was itself the sin.
I found it by doing an email search, I have been a subscriber for quite awhile.
Otherwise Medium searches work, but I have not figured out how to do the same on Substack.
Thanks much for this explanation. Sounds like Luther never wanted to complete the logical framework he created. This is very helpful.
Knowledge is deadly to religion. Justly so.
I agree. However, if we're not careful, knowledge can become its own kind of religion. Online, you often see crowds talking about science as if it offers certainties, when in reality, only faith can do that. Science fundamentally is against certainties, as they'd imply dogmas.
I'm not sure I would call it a religion but it can certainly make for some arrogant people.
Absolutely — that’s exactly what fascinates me too. Technologies like the printing press and the internet rewrite the rules about who gets to authorize information. Luther didn’t just challenge the Church’s theology; he challenged its monopoly on distribution. Today’s digital networks do the same to governments, media gatekeepers, and any institution built on controlling the flow of information.
Once the bottleneck disappears, authority has to compete in an open marketplace rather than dictate from above. And as you said, power structures really don’t enjoy that shift.
For example, yesterday I wrote a piece describing what happened in Venezuela as a kidnapping, while Western media insists on calling it capture or detention — though if Russia had done it, they’d likely call it kidnapping. Sure, it didn’t create waves, but at least the idea reached a few hundred people — whether they agreed or not is another story. The thing is, in the past — as recently as less than three decades ago — that never would have been possible.