The Promise of Predestination

The doctrine of divine predestination must be understood in relation to the preaching office. The evangelical teaching is not conveyed properly as epistemological limit (Holl), nominalist carryover from scholasticism (Ritschl), psychological extension of Luther’s anguished conscience (Dillenberger), ontological (Seeberg), dualistic (Barth), existential (Elert) or logical (Althaus) inference. Luther’s distinction between God preached and not preached in The Bondage of the Will broke with previous theology. Melanchthon and Pfeffinger divided universal promise and particular response which was rejected by Amsdorf and Spangenberg. Chemnitz mediated in the Formula of Concord XI. Lutheran Orthodoxy (Hunnius, Leyser, Hutter, Gerhard, and Quenstedt) distinguished praescientia and predestinatio straying from proclamation. Struggles flared in American with Walther vs. Schmidt’s intuitu fide and among Norwegians between the Formula and Pontoppidan. Lauri Haikola recovered the arguments of Poach and Neander against eternal rule and subjective response. Forde restored the proclamation’s “I absolve you” as God’s “I choose you.”