In this source, Luther and Calvin on Predestination: A Comparison, author Ignatius W.C. Van Wyk discusses the differences between Martin Luther and John Calvin's views on predestination. Although these are not the two opposing views I am researching, both views are very closely related and involve predestination as a doctrine. Van Wyk notes that until recently many scholars did not notice any specific views on predestination from Martin Luther, but new research has lead to a reconsideration of his beliefs. Martin Luther was originally frustrated with the idea due to its overall lack of graceful nature. However, Luther conceded that predestination is an important fact of a believer's faith that cannot be ignored. Despite this, he also advocated that one not question who God has called and who God has not called, as this is questioning the sovereignty and holiness of God. Thus, Luther’s view is that we should acknowledge predestination, but not question it. Calvin's view, on the other hand, acknowledges predestination and erases all ambiguity surrounding it. In the Calvinist perspective, God elects (selects/chooses who gets grace) humans before they actually have to acquire faith in him. In Calvin’s eyes it is the act of God’s election that spurs our faith, not vice versa.
The source is written by Ignatius W.C. Van Wyk, a professor at the Department of Church History and Polity at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. It was written for scholarly theologians and religious historians to better understand newly emerging perspectives on Luther and Calvin.
Some parts of this source that I found most interesting were Luther’s beliefs that “... [B]elievers will not have a problem with God’s election, because God is just and… harms no one” (Van Wyk 3). Essentially, if we are to have true faith in God, predestination does not matter. Another of Luther’s remarks that I found profound was “There is nothing to be inquired about the predestination of God in His obscurity” (Van Wyk 3). While the philosophical God may need mankind’s rational behind Him to prove his intricacies, the real God does not (Van Wyk 3). On the Calvinist side, I found the route Calvin took into his belief with predestination very interesting. Calvin first embraced it only to give certainty to believers that they were saved (Van Wyk 3). However his intentions, Calvin’s views eventually got darker and less full of grace: “[God] sometimes deprives them of the capacity to hear his word; at other times he, rather, blinds and stuns them…” (Van Wyk 5). Ultimately, the most compelling and intriguing fact brought up by Calvin is the idea that election precedes faith (Van Wyk 6).
These sections do a really good job of showing me the historical, original viewpoint of predestination. Van Wyk points to the amount of inconsistency in Luther’s statements, but likewise shows the general lack of grace doctrine in Calvin’s teachings respectively. Is it possible that Calvins lack of grace doctrine came out of the over-assure provided by his use of predestination to encourage believers of their salvation? This type of doctrine comes off as an awfully exclusive version of the Christian gospel. Luther’s belief that the intricacies of God cannot ever be fully known increases the complexity of the issue… if God’s will cannot be truly known, then what is the purpose of predestination? The idea that Calvin puts forth in which election precedes faith is a revolutionary idea. How do we actually know that is the way God intends it? While this article was a very good introductory piece, it left me open to a lot of questions still-- is there any kind of combination of free will when it comes to God? Is predestination only reserved for our salvation (as Calvin suggests) or are our steps truly numbered as The Old Testament states? Are we as humans too incapable and too corrupt to make the right decisions anyway?
Wyk, Ignatius W.c. Van. “Luther and Calvin on Predestination: A Comparison.” In Die Skriflig/In Luce Verbi, vol. 52, no. 3, 2018, doi:10.4102/ids.v52i2.2342.