Why Lutheran Predestination isn’t Calvinist

Predestination
by Mathew Block 10 . 2 . 13

https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2013/10/why-lutheran-predestination-isnt-
calvinist-predestination

James R. Rogers’ recent essay “Credit the Calvinists”  asks why Calvinists and not
Lutherans have become the public faces of the doctrine of predestination. “For whatever
reason,” he writes, “Lutherans are not widely identified with predestinarian doctrine.”
And this, he notes, is “despite Luther counting his book-length rejection of free will, On
the Bondage of the Will , as the only thing he wrote that he would rank with his Small
Catechism.” As a Lutheran, I feel I should make a brief attempt—however imperfect its
execution may be—at answering this question, for the benefit of the readers of FIRST
THINGS .

First off, it must be noted that Luther’s opinions are not necessarily the opinions of his
spiritual descendants. The fact that Luther called The Bondage of the Will his favourite
book would by no means mean any other Lutherans were required to agree. 1  Nor
should the 1932 doctrinal statement of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod,
however good and proper it is (and it is good, I hasten to add), be considered the voice
of all worldwide confessional Lutherans. Instead, the text confessional Lutherans for
centuries have acknowledged as the standard of their faith is The Book of Concord (an
authoritative explanation of Christian doctrine based on the Scriptures, supported by
reference to the church fathers). Other works may act as supplemental explanations of
the Confessions, but these supplements aren’t necessarily binding for all confessional
Lutherans around the world.

That all said, Rogers certainly isn’t wrong to say that Lutherans teach predestination. As
he notes, it’s in our confessions (see Article XI of the Formula of Concord ). The
trouble instead with Rogers’ essay is that it implies the Lutheran doctrine is more-or-
less the same as the Calvinist one. To be sure, Rogers lists some of the differences
between the Lutheran doctrine and the Calvinist; he notes rightly that Lutherans affirm
neither “double predestination” nor “limited atonement,” while Calvinists do. But while
he recognizes these differences, Rogers doesn’t seem to think they alone explain why
Calvinists and not Lutherans are associated in the public mind with “predestination.”

I disagree: the doctrinal differences between the two are the key to the whole thing.
Indeed, the disparity between the identification of Calvinists with predestinarian
doctrine vis à vis Lutherans is precisely because the concept of predestination that exists
in the public mind is Calvinist, not Lutheran. People hear the word “predestination” and
think of the Calvinist doctrine of double-predestination—the idea that God has chosen
some to be saved and chosen others to be damned (or, put in less inflammatory
language, that God has chosen some to be saved and others he has not so chosen). Either
way it amounts to the same thing: those who are damned are damned because of God’s
(lack of) choice. Calvin himself writes, “We assert that by an eternal and immutable
counsel, God has once for all determined both whom he would admit to salvation and
whom he would condemn to destruction” ( Institutes 3.21.7).

Such a doctrine is abhorrent to Lutherans. And, indeed, contemplation of such a

doctrine was abhorrent also to Luther. In his Lectures on Genesis , given in the last
decade of his life, Luther speaks at length on the subject of predestination once more (I
will quote only bits of it in what follows, but you can read the whole thing in LW 5:43-
50): “I hear that here and there among the nobles and persons of importance vicious
statements are being spread abroad concerning predestination or God’s foreknowledge.
For this is what they say: ‘If I am predestined, I shall be saved, whether I do good or
evil. If I am not predestined, I shall be condemned regardless of my works.’ . . . If the
statements are true, as they, of course, think, then the incarnation of the Son of God, His
suffering and resurrection, and all that He did for the salvation of the world are done
away with completely. What will the prophets and all Holy Scripture help? What will
the sacraments help?”

A fair point, indeed. If salvation is dependent solely upon God’s predestining us—His
sovereign will—then what is the point of the Sacraments or the Word, or even the
Sacrifice of Christ? Luther defines for us here the problem which arises when Christians
fixate on predestination—namely, that we begin to consider the subject apart from the
actual salvific act of Christ at the cross. We move away from Scripture’s teachings and
substitute our own reason and logic (resulting in thoughts like those listed above, eg, “If
I am already predestined one way or the other, then nothing I do or believe can change
that.”)

Luther here warns us that the subject of predestination cannot be properly (or safely)
considered except in the context of the means of grace: God’s Word and His
Sacraments. These are the things by which faith is given. These are the things by which
Christians are kept in that faith and prevented from falling away. These are the things by
which God’s predestination is made manifest in the world. As such, predestination
cannot be rightly considered apart from them. Here Luther is urging us to thrust aside
contemplation of predestination in favour of contemplation of Christ. 2

Lutherans eschew in particular the doctrine of double-predestination—the conclusion

that God’s predestinary grace (which Lutherans affirm) should logically necessitate His
also having chosen others to be damned (which Lutherans deny). It certainly sounds
reasonable: if God has predestined His people to salvation from before the beginning of
time, than surely He must also have “unselected” the rest. It’s perfectly logical.

But this is precisely the sort of reliance on reason Luther so often lambasts . Such
attempts to, through our own reason and strength, peer into things God has not revealed
in Scripture are sins. He says the same in his Lectures on Genesis : “This is how I have
taught in my book On the Bondage of the Will and elsewhere, namely, that a distinction
must be made when one deals with the knowledge, or rather with the subject, of the
divinity. For one must debate either about the hidden God or about the revealed God [ie,
God as we know Him through Christ, a God of mercy]. With regard to God, insofar as
He has not been revealed, there is no faith, no knowledge, and no understanding. And
here one must hold to the statement that what is above us is none of our concern. For
thoughts of this kind, which investigate something more sublime above or outside the
revelation of God, are altogether hellish. With them nothing more is achieved than that
we plunge ourselves into destruction.”

Doctrines such as double-predestination, built on reason but not Scripture, do nothing

except increase doubt among faithful Christians. They lead us away from contemplation
of Christ’s mercy at the cross (where God has demonstrated visibly and powerfully that
He desires all sinners to be saved) towards the contemplation of things not revealed in
Scripture. “These are delusions of the devil,” Luther says in his Lectures on Genesis ,
“with which he tries to cause us to doubt and disbelieve, although Christ came into this
world to make us completely certain. For eventually either despair must follow or
contempt for God, for the Holy Bible, for Baptism, and for all the blessings of God
through which He wanted us to be strengthened over against uncertainty and doubt . . . .
After the manner of the Turks, they will rush rashly into the sword and fire, since the
hour in which you either die or escape has been predetermined.”

Lutherans look to God as revealed in Christ; they do not speculate about unrevealed
aspects of God’s will. Consequently, Lutherans affirm only that which they see affirmed
in Scripture. Scripture tells us that Christ died for the whole world (John 3:16-17). So
we believe it. Scripture also tells us that God desires all people to be saved (2 Peter 3:9).
So we believe it. It further tells us that God has predestined those who will be saved
(Ephesians 1:3-6). We believe this too. And yet, Scripture tells us that not all people
will be saved (Matthew 25:41). This we also believe. We are willing to accept the
seeming paradox, that an almighty God who predestines believers to be saved and who
earnestly desires the salvation of all nevertheless will see some not saved.

The Scriptures do not teach that God has predestined to be damned those who will be
damned. Indeed, as the Formula of Concord  warns, “this would be to ascribe to God
contradictory wills” (SD 11:35). God tells us in His Word that He wills the salvation of
all; He cannot simultaneously have willed that some not be saved. It is clear then that,
insofar as Lutherans teach predestination, we do not teach it in the way which the world
understands the word. It should not be surprising, therefore, that since Lutherans teach a
doctrine different than that which the world calls “predestination,” we have not been
associated with the term. The reason why is as simple as answering why Lutherans
aren’t associated with the term “Calvinist” in public discourse: it’s because the word
doesn’t describe who we are.

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1   I also feel the need to note that The Bondage is often misread as if it’s teachings were
identical to Calvinist teachings on predestination; I am hardly the first to suggest it is
not. At any event, we must not read this one book as if it were the only or last thing
Luther wrote on the subject of predestination.

2   Luther recalls: “Staupitz used to comfort me with these words: ‘Why do you torture
yourself with these speculations? Look at the wounds of Christ and at the blood that was
shed for you. From these predestination will shine.’”