Luther made the pivotal statement that either man has free will and God is bound, or else God is free and man has a bound will. He asserted that Erasmus opted for the first proposition, while he himself chose the second way: Let man be bound and God be free! In the following lines, we shall refer to Luther’s Bondage of the Will, noting that its original title, De Servo Arbitrio, can be more accurately rendered as Servitude of Choice. Luther used the Latin word arbitrium or choice, and not voluntas or will. The treatise must not be misinterpreted as a book about predestination or even double predestination. This term, praedestinatio, occurs only several times in a book of several hundred pages. What Luther was talking about was man’s total inability to move himself spiritually, or, in today’s terminology, the impossibility that a man should “make a decision for Christ.” Thereby, he was following the New Testament teaching that man is by nature spiritually dead. Moreover, Luther warned against trying to explain the unfathomable ways of the Hidden God. When John Calvin tried to pursue the hidden ways of God, he ended up with double predestination, a route which Luther avoided following.
In discussing his Bondage of the Will, two aspects must be considered: first, his distinction of law and gospel, including the distinction of God hidden and revealed, and, second, Luther’s concept of the voluntary, particular, or unbound grace of God, in contrast to the concept of the involuntary, universal, or bound grace of God. [1]
Luther’s Distinction Of Human Choice And The Omnipotent Action Of The Divine Will
Luther and Erasmus represented two differing streams that have existed in Christianity from a very early time. Luther taught monergism, i.e., that our salvation is completely in the hands of a merciful God, and Erasmus stood for synergism, i.e., that God does part of what is needful for our salvation, but that man must do the rest in cooperation with God. In Luther, human redemption came from the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ; Erasmus taught “the imitation of Christ,” a position which makes of Jesus a law-giver and ends in moralism and the concept of doing good.
Erasmus had written: “We should strive with all our might, resort to the healing balm of Penitence, and try by all means to compass the mercy of God, without which man’s will and endeavor is ineffective” (WA 18:611). Luther responded:
This is what your words assert: that there is strength within us; there is such a thing as striving with all one’s strength; there is mercy in God; there are ways of compassing that mercy; there is a God who is by nature just, and kindness itself; and so on. But if one does not know what this “strength” is—what men can do, and what is done to them—then what should he do? What will you tell him to do? (WA 18:611) (Quoted from PJ 75).It was this alleged strength of natural man to attain unto the mercy of God which constituted the burden of the systems of both Pelagius and Erasmus, and which appeared to Luther as the most dangerous of heresies, for here the human lust for self-assertion was expressed in a manner which infringed upon the glory and mercy of God Himself.
Luther continues to show that Erasmus is actually robbing God of His glory when he tries to uphold free will over against the doctrine that God necessitate all things. Luther writes:
Where is your conscience, where is your shame, where is, I will not say your famous moderation, but the fear and reverence which you owe to the true God?—For what you are saying is that there is no information more useless than God’s Word. So your Creator must learn from you, His creature, what may usefully be preached and what not? God was so stupid and thoughtless, was He, that He did not know what should be taught till you came along to tell Him how to be wise, and what to command? (WA 18:631; PJ 97).God has revealed the truths concerning His predestination and monergism in order than men may be humbled when they see how much they depend upon God, for there is nothing left that they may do themselves. This all belongs to the paradoxical nature of faith, which deals with unseen things; the things of faith often appear contrary to reality. At this point occur Luther’s famous words:
Thus, when God quickens, He does so by killing; when He justifies, He does so by pronouncing guilty; when He carries up to heaven, He does so by bringing down to hell.... The highest degree of faith is to believe that He is merciful, though He saves so few and damns so many; to believe that He is just, though of His own will He makes us perforce proper subjects for damnation.... If I could by any means understand how this same God, who makes such a show of wrath and unrighteousness, can yet be merciful and just, there would be no need for faith (WA 18:633; PJ 100–101).Luther Vs. Erasmus’ Teaching Of The Obscurity Of The Scriptures And The Need For A Teaching Magisterium
Luther found a tendency toward obscurantism in his opponent. This applied not only to Erasmus criticizing any probing of the doctrine of the will as “irreverent, inquisitive, and unnecessary,” but his general tendency to downgrade the importance of theological investigation. Coupled with this was the assertion of Erasmus that there were certain truths which should be suppressed. This led Luther to exclaim:
What is the bearing of your statement that some things should not be made public? Do you include the subject of “free will” among them? If so, all I said above about the necessity of understanding free will will round upon you. And why, in that case, have you not followed your own principles and left your Diatribe unwritten? (WA 18:622; PJ 87).Erasmus and Luther differed strongly over how the Bible should be interpreted. Erasmus took a position which sounds like many people today who argue that, since the Scriptures have been given conflicting interpretations, one cannot know their true meaning. In some Lutheran churches today, liberal exegetes have reinterpreted the Bible by “demythologization,” or by finding that certain teachings of the Scriptures (such as the place of women in the home or the church) were conditioned by passing notions of their writers which we no longer need to follow. This has, in effect, replaced the authority of the Bible by the authority of liberal theologians. Members of these churches are deeply confused by the difference between the plain teachings of the Bible and the reinterpretations given by ecclesial officialdom. This has led some confused Lutherans during this last decade of the twentieth century to call for the return to the mediaeval concept of a teaching magisterium which might dictate an official interpretation, and even the defection of late of some Lutherans to the Roman Catholic or the Eastern Orthodox churches. Luther rejected the notion that the Sacred Scriptures were unclear and should be subjected to the official explanations of “Mother Church.” He spoke plainly on this point:
I fought last year, and am still fighting, a pretty fierce campaign against those fanatics who subject the Scriptures to the interpretation of their own spirit. On the same account I have thus far hounded the Pope, in whose kingdom nothing is more commonly said or more widely accepted than this dictum: “The Scriptures are obscure and equivocal; we must seek the interpreting Spirit from the Apostolic See of Rome!” No more disastrous words could be spoken; for by this means, ungodly men have exalted themselves above the Scriptures and done what they liked, till the Scriptures were completely trodden down and we could believe and teach nothing but the dreams of maniacs (WA 18:652; PJ 124).Luther holds that teachers are to be judged by a two-fold criterion: the internal and the external. The internal judgment consists in faith as it is kindled and enlightened by the Holy Spirit, enabling the Christian to decide these questions as he sees how they affect his own personal salvation. The external judgment is that which belongs to the public ministry of the Word, and is the concern of the preachers and teachers. Luther then goes on to cite one Bible passage after another to refute Erasmus’ charge that the teachings of the Scriptures are unclear or that one needs papal interpretation. In an earlier part, Luther wrote rather bluntly: “I know that to many people a great deal remains obscure; but that is due, not to any lack of clarity in Scripture, but to their own blindness and dullness, in that they make no effort to see truth which, in itself, could not be plainer” (PJ 72).
Let us consider one more remark of Luther, leveled against the skepticism of Erasmus:
I certainly grant that many passages in the Scriptures are obscure and hard to elucidate, but that is due, not to the exalted nature of their subject, but to our own linguistic and grammatical ignorance; and it does not in any way prevent our knowing all the contents of the Scriptures. For what solemn truth can the Scriptures still be concealing, now that the seals are broken, the stone rolled away from the door of the tomb, and that greatest of all mysteries brought to light—that Christ, God’s Son, became man, that God is Three in One, that Christ suffered for us, and will reign forever?... You see, then, that the entire content of the Scriptures has now been brought to light, even though some passages which contain unknown words remain obscure. Thus it is unintelligent, and ungodly too, when you know that the contents of the Scriptures are as clear as can be, to pronounce them obscure on account of those few obscure words.... But when something stands in broad daylight, and a mass of evidence for it is in broad daylight also, it does not matter whether there is any evidence for it in the dark. Who will maintain that the town fountain does not stand in the light because the people down some alley cannot see it, while everyone in the square can see it? (Wa 18:606; PJ 71–72).We ask: why did Luther go so far into the doctrine of the Scriptures at this point? He had a twofold reason. First of all, Erasmus had alleged that the doctrine of man and the extent of freedom of his will is not clearly revealed in the Bible. This meant, in the second place, that one must refer to the authority of the Roman Church, and particularly of the pope, to settle such questions. Now this was clearly a serious charge against the Scriptures, and at the same time a sweeping endorsement of the powers of man, whether of the pope, a priest, or of laymen. Hence it belonged to the center of Luther’s overall argument.
The Soteriological Synergism Of Erasmus
After Erasmus had thus attempted to limit the authority of the Scriptures, Luther found it strange that the humanist then appealed to several Bible passages to establish his case for the freedom of the will. Erasmus had offered this definition of free will: “Moreover, I conceive of free will in this context as a power of the human will by which a man may apply himself to those things that lead to eternal salvation, or turn away from the same” (WA 18:661; PJ 137).
Here was no mere synergism, no mere semi-Pelagianism, nor even mere Pelagianism; as Luther was quick to point out, Erasmus was out-pelagianizing Pelagius! For Pelagius had never gone so far; he had at least partially limited the human will, while Erasmus said without any limitations at all that “a man may apply himself to those things that lead to eternal salvation,” or else turn away from them, merely by a free action of his will. And, curiously enough, Erasmus buttressed this position with several Scripture passages. He quoted Genesis 4:7: “If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door.” And he claimed: “Here it is shown that the motions of the mind to evil can be overcome, and that they do not bring with them a necessity of sinning.”
Luther tore apart this interpretation of the passage from Genesis as he asked several searching questions. What need is there for the Holy Spirit, or Christ, or God, if free will can overcome “the motions of the mind to evil”? He continued: “Here is the matter in a nutshell: As I said, by statements of this sort, man is shown, not what he can do, but what he ought to do” (WA 18:676; PJ 157). Luther pointed out correctly that the text in the original Hebrew used imperfect verbs (teeythib and timeshal), and asserted that these verbs must be understood as imperatives: “Thou shalt rule over it.” Now, he continues, had these words been indicative, they would have constituted a promise of God, and, since God cannot lie, no man would or could sin; but then commandments would be needless as well (!). Therefore, he concludes, Erasmus’ exegesis is faulty. “That the words were not spoken to Cain in an indicative sense is proved by the fact that then they would have been a divine promise; but they were not a promise, for the opposite of them ensued in Cain’s conduct” (ibid). In a similar way, Luther demolished the other attempts of Erasmus to ground his teaching on the free will of man in the Holy Scriptures.
Erasmus had made a strong case of the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart, presenting Pharaoh as a free agent. This argument Luther now turned against Erasmus. Actually, God had hardened the heart of Pharaoh, so that he was driven deeper and deeper into sin. This is true because God is the omnipotent ruler over all; therefore, nothing is done without God’s acting.
God’s hardening of Pharaoh is wrought thus: God presents from without to his villainous heart that which by nature He hates; at the same time, He continues by omnipotent action to move within him the evil will which He finds there. Pharaoh, by reason of the villainy of his will, cannot but hate what opposes him, and trust to his own strength; and he grows so obstinate that he will not listen nor reflect, but is swept along in the grip of Satan like a raging madman (WA 18:711; PJ 207).
One might ask: Does this not then make God evil, if he brings about evil in Pharaoh? Luther has a ready answer:
Since God moves and works all in all, He moves and works of necessity even in Satan and the ungodly. But 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....
Here you see that when God works in and by evil men, evil deeds result; yet God, though He does evil by means of evil man, cannot act evilly Himself, for He is good, and cannot do evil; but He uses evil instruments, which cannot escape the impulse and movement of His power.... Hence it is that the ungodly man cannot but err and sin always, because under the impulse of divine power he is not allowed to be idle, but wills, desires and acts according to his nature....
God cannot suspend His omnipotence on account of man’s perversion, and the ungodly man cannot alter his perversion....
This very galling of the ungodly, as God says and does to them the reverse of what they wanted, is the hardening and embittering of them. As of themselves they are turned away from God by the very corruption of their nature, so their antipathy greatly increases and they grow far worse as their course away from God meets with opposition or reversal (WA 18:709–710; PJ 204–205).Thus, in the case of Pharaoh, it is clear that the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart was the result of God’s continued but unwanted activity in his life. It was not that God willed for him to be lost, but rather that Pharaoh, through the evilness of his heart, became increasingly wicked as God continued to deal with him.
Did Luther Teach Double Predestination?
The claim has been made that Luther taught double predestination, i.e., that God has predestined some people to be saved eternally, and He has predestined others to be lost forever. The English Luther scholar, Gordon Rupp, once wrote: “We have to recognize, as Bishop Normann of Oslo says, ‘that Luther teaches a double predestination.’“ [2] To see whether this is correct, let us review double predestination as taught by its classic defender, John Calvin. He taught that God had not only elected some people to eternal salvation, but had chosen others for eternal damnation. “Not all were created under the same condition,” Calvin taught. “Some were predestined to eternal life, and others to eternal damnation.” He held that this eternal decree went back before creation, so that God had created the lost for the purpose of consigning them to damnation. This led Calvin to say that even the fall of Adam had been a part of God’s predestination. It also led him to deny the universality of the gospel, that is, that God offers His peace and pardon to everyone; instead, God meant only those who had been predestined to salvation (the praedestinati). [3]
Did Luther follow that line? By no means! Like the Lutheran Confessions, he knew only of an election coming from the gospel. Thus he states: “For we teach nothing save Jesus crucified” (WA 18:638–639). Only in connection with the doctrine of redemption is an evangelical doctrine of predestination possible. When Normann and Rupp claim that Luther taught double predestination, they base their claim on these words of Luther:
This is the highest degree of faith: to believe him merciful who saves so few, and who damns so many: to believe him just who according to his own will makes us necessarily damnable so that he seems, as Erasmus says, rather to delight in the torments of the miserable and to be an object of hatred rather than love (Ibid.; PJ 281).These words must be understood within the total context of Luther’s thought. The God he is here picturing is the Hidden God, Deus absconditus, the God of our faith struggles and of our doubt and our unbelief; over against this Deus absconditus, whom we shall never comprehend in this life, there stands the Revealed God, Deus revelatus, God revealed in Christ. Predestination cannot be understood over against the abscondite God, Luther holds, but only over against God as revealed in Christ. In other words, predestination cannot be understood under the law but only under the gospel. Furthermore, the following considerations are essential for understanding Luther’s position. (1) God created man in His own image. When man turned against God, God was not responsible for man’s evil will. (2) As noted above, God is omnipotent, so that He acts in both good and evil. But He does not violate the individual’s independence; while He creates in man the possibility to believe, the ability to reject remains. (3) Luther holds that it is impious for one to seek to penetrate God’s hidden purposes. The question “why?” is wrong. In a letter to the Lutherans at Antwerp in 1529, he wrote: “A servant must not pry into his master’s secrets, but rather know that which his master offers to tell him. Much less should a poor creature want to probe into and understand the secret of God’s majesty” (WA 18:549).
Luther warned:
As reason herself snores over and makes light of the things of God, so she thinks of God as snoring over them too, not using His wisdom, will and presence to elect, separate, and inspire, but entrusting to men the tiresome business of heeding or defying His long-suffering and anger! This is what we come to when we seek to measure God and make excuses for Him by human reason, not reverencing the secrets of His majesty, but peering and probing into them; with the result that we are overwhelmed by the glory of them and instead of a single excuse we vomit out a thousand blasphemies! (WA 18:706; PJ 200).Before we leave Luther’s warning about probing into Deus absonditus, we might ponder how American Protestant hymnody often dwells upon God hidden in majesty rather than revealed in the humility of Christ. Scores of hymns come to mind which speak of Him as judge, as an oriental despot, as a fearful God before whom even the angels fall prostrate, as a God who dwells in impenetrable darkness, as a king who must be crowned with many crowns, and so forth. Of course, much of this is scriptural, but it represents the law rather than the gospel. The task of the church is to proclaim how God’s love has overcome His wrath, and to announce forgiveness, peace, and reconciliation. It appears that the great Lutheran chorales surpass other hymnody in this respect.
The Problem Of Election And The Will In Luther, Melanchthon, And Subsequent Lutheran Theology
We have seen that Luther taught in Bondage of the Will that the concepts, freedom of God and the bondage of man, imply that God remains in charge and that divine grace is not appropriated by all men. For subsequent Lutheran theologians, the problem lay in this question: If God means every one with His offer of salvation, how does it happen that many people are lost? Calvin was understood to have taught that the gospel was intended only for the predestined, but Luther had rejected such a distinction and had insisted that the gospel was meant for all. Luther had shown that the perdition of Pharaoh and Judas was due to their desire not to be saved, and not to an alleged lack of sincerity on the part of God in His gospel proclamation. But if God is really in earnest in proclaiming a gospel for all men, and if God works by creating a saving faith, why did He work a saving faith in some but not in others? Luther had insisted that we are not permitted to ask such a question and had left the problem of the damnation of the wicked before the Hidden God, whose counsels we dare not attempt to penetrate. Calvin, after agreeing we are not to seek after what God has hidden, nevertheless had dared to penetrate the hidden counsels of God, had said that God wills the damnation of the lost, and had explained this by his teaching of double predestination. Subsequent Lutheranism sought a way that was different from that of both Luther and Calvin.
Already his colleague, Philipp Melanchthon, had difficulty appropriating Luther’s position. There is little evidence that either he or Luther’s other followers fully comprehended his distinction between God Hidden and Revealed. Although much homage was paid to Bondage of the Will, subsequent Lutheran scholarship paid little attention to it or to the closely related arguments in Luther’s Lectures on Genesis.
Over against Luther’s concept of particular grace, a grace which God extends only to whomsoever He will, Melanchthon spoke of a grace extended to everyone, a grace which wills all people to be saved, a universal grace. This was a concept which was to predominate in Lutheran theology up to the present day. Luther and Melanchthon agreed that natural man has no ability to move himself to God; he is “dead” in spiritual matters and can come to God and to faith only by the power of the Holy Spirit. However, although the natural man lacks power in spiritual matters, both Reformers affirmed his free will in external matters. Out of free will in regard to natural things came important aspects of their theology of creation and of human vocation.
Subsequently, severe blame has been brought against Melanchthon for his allegedly having taught “free will” in spiritual matters. Critics have cited statements of Melanchthon from the Loci communes of 1543, such as the statement that three things are necessary for a good action, namely, “the Word of God, the Holy Spirit, and the willing consent of the believer,” unaware that such a formulation was specifically applied to the renati (regenerate believer) and not to the nondum renati (the unregenerate). In other words, Melanchthon was teaching that, in what has recently been called sanctification, the believer must consent with the promptings of the Holy Spirit, or else there will be no good actions. This is self understood! Further confusion has been generated by imputing to Melanchthon’s usage of “conversion” the baggage which was added during the period of Pietism. For both Luther and Melanchthon, “conversion” is often used in what later became a common meaning for the term “sanctification.” (In the Third Article of Luther’s Small Catechism, “sanctification” had a different meaning, viz., the creation of saving faith and the application of redemption to the individual.) What Melanchthon means to say is that the regenerate Christian believer cannot continue in evil works, but a true believer will have good intentions and will therefore produce good actions, the works of faith. [4]
But not only did the critics wrongly characterize Melanchthon’s doctrine of free will, but the same critics failed to probe the real point where Melanchthon got dangerously close to a God who is bound and man who makes a choice. This dubious teaching was Melanchthon’s concept of universal grace, a doctrine of grace which God is said to offer to all people, a concept which binds God and obligates Him to offer salvation to everyone. Here was where future trouble lay in store for theology. To illustrate the unseen problem, we turn to the important divergence between Luther and Melanchthon in their varying interpretations of 1 Timothy 2:4. The Authorized Version had translated this as follows: “God will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.” Melanchthon understood the passage this way: “God will have all men to be saved eternally and to come unto the knowledge of saving Truth.” But Luther could not agree with such an interpretation. If God wanted everyone to go to heaven, His will would simply be done, and all people would be saved. But obviously not all people were bound for heaven. Luther translated the words as follows: “God will have all men to be helped and to come unto the knowledge of truth.” Luther thereby went back to the root meaning of the Greek word, sozein, to render help, and he understood “truth” in the general sense of knowledge. Luther connected this passage with the First Article, which deals with how God cares for His creation. Quoting the Psalm, Luther pointed out that God “helps” beast as well as man. The truth means knowledge about God’s creation. Luther said that the highest form of such help is eternal salvation, and the highest form of the truth is the gospel of redemption, but that God does not give eternal salvation to every man and beast. Therefore, where Melanchthon taught a universal saving will, Luther taught a particular saving will. Subsequent Lutheran theology, uncomfortable with Luther’s emphasis upon the monergism of grace, has overlooked the position of Luther and has followed that of Melanchthon. [5]
A famous exception was the case of Samuel Huber (1547–1624), who, due to his strong aversion to double predestination in Calvinism, taught that God has predestined all men to be saved. The position of Huber was rejected by Lutheran and Calvinist theologians alike.
We have seen that Luther did not teach a double predestination but what is called a “broken predestination”; he held that the election of God is the cause of the salvation of those who are saved, but that their own willful rejection and not any cause in God brings the damnation of those who are lost. In this respect, later Lutheran theology has followed him. This intention was expressed in the Formula of Concord (1577): “The eternal election by God should be considered in Christ and not outside of or without Christ” (Solid Declaration 11:65). However, those who built upon Melanchthon’s concept of a universal saving will of God were faced with a difficult dilemma. If God wills all to be saved, but some are lost, how does one explain the disparity in outcome, when some are saved and others are lost? Nikolaus Hunnius (1585–1643) supplied this answer: those who are lost are lost because of a lack of faith, while those who are saved are saved in consideration of their faith (=intuitu fidei). His opponents objected that if faith were a consideration in justification on the part of God, then faith became a virtue or good work supplied by the individual, and then one had landed into the false doctrine of synergism (=a person contributing some good action or work toward his salvation). Supporters of Hunnius sprang to the rescue, insisting that “faith” was not the accomplishment of the individual but was the gift of God. But then the problem had only been pushed back by one degree. Then the question should not be stated, “Why are not all men saved?” but “Why does God not give saving faith alike to all men?” The intuitu fidei was not an adequate answer. [6]
In the succeeding four centuries, no real solution has been found. Perhaps, with Franz Pieper, who taught the universal saving will of God but rejected synergism on the part of the believer, we should leave it to the inscrutable mystery of the divine will. [7] But then we have moved back into the territory of Bondage of the Will. And perhaps, without the detour through the territory of Hunnius and his legion of followers, Lutherans today should leave behind them the accretions of four centuries and return to Luther.
About the Author
Dr. Lowell C. Green is adjunct professor of history at State University of New York at Buffalo. He is author of several books, including How Melanchthon Helped Luther Discover the Gospel and Adventures in Law and Gospel: Lectures in Lutheran Dogmatics, and is a frequent contributor to various periodicals. This is his first contribution to Reformation & Revival Journal.
Notes
- The following abbreviations will be used throughout. WA plus volume number = “Weimar Edition,” D. Martin Luthers Werke, Kritische Gesamtausgabe (Weimar Hermann Böhlau and Nachfolger, 1883ff.). PJ = Martin Luther on the Bondage of the Will: A New Translation of De servo arbitrio (1525). Martin Luther’s Reply to Erasmus of Rotterdam, ed. J. I. Packer and O. R. Johnston (Westwood, New Jersey: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1957). Many citations of Luther here are taken from the translation of Packer and Johnston.
- Cordon Rupp, The Righteousness of God (New York: Philosophical Library, 1953), 282. As a Methodist, Rupp might have found it difficult to distinguish between the broken view of predestination in Luther and the double predestination of Calvin.
- See Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book III:11:5.
- For a more extended treatment of this problem, I refer to my article, “The Three Causes of Conversion in Philipp Melanchthon, Martin Chemnitz, David Chytraeus, and the Formula of Concord,” in Luther Jahrbuch 47 (1980): 89-114.
- Little has been written about the difficulty of interpreting 1 Timothy 2:4, but see my article, “Universal Salvation (1 Timothy 2:4) according to the Lutheran Reformers,” Lutheran Quarterly (1995):281-300. In my essay, “Luther’s Understanding of the Freedom of God and the Salvation of Man: His Interpretation of 1 Timothy 2:4, ” Archive for Reformation History 87 (1996):57-73, I treated Luther himself more extensively.
- On the problem of intuitu fidei, see Rune Söderlund, Ex praevisa fide: Zum Verständnis der Prädestinationslehre in der lutherischen Orthodoxie (Hannover: Lutherisches Verlagshaus, 1983). Söderlund writes very even-handedly, but it seems to me that he really ends up supporting the position of Hunnius.
- Franz Pieper, Christian Dogmatics (St. Louis: Concordia, 1953), III:494–501.
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