Luther distinguished between the hidden and the revealed or "proclaimed"
God, the secret and revealed will of God; the majestic God in whom we
live and move and have our being, and God manifest in Christ; God's
unsearchable judgments and ways past finding out, and His merciful
promises in the Gospel. Being truly God and not an idol, God, according
to Luther, is both actually omnipotent and omniscient. Nothing can exist
or occur without His power, and everything surely will occur as He has
foreseen it. This is true of the thoughts, volitions, and acts of all
His creatures. He would not be God if there were any power not derived
from, or supplied by Him, or if the actual course of events could annul
His decrees and stultify His knowledge. Also the devils and the wicked
are not beyond His control.
As for evil, though God does not will or cause it,--for, on the
contrary, He prohibits sin and truly deplores the death of a sinner--yet
sin and death could never have entered the world without His permission.
Also the will of fallen man receives its power to will from God, and its
every resolve and consequent act proceeds just as God has foreseen,
ordained, or permitted it. The evil quality of all such acts, however,
does not emanate from God, but from the corrupt will of man. Hence free
will, when defined as the power of man to nullify and subvert what God's
majesty has foreseen and decreed, is a nonent, a mere empty title. This,
however, does not involve that the human will is coerced or compelled to
do evil, nor does it exclude in fallen man the ability to choose in
matters temporal and subject to reason.
But while holding that we must not deny the majesty and the mysteries of
God, Luther did not regard these, but Christ crucified and justification
by faith in the promises of the Gospel, as the true objects of our
concern. Nor does he, as did Calvin, employ predestination as a
corrective and regulative norm for interpreting, limiting, invalidating,
annulling, or casting doubt upon, any of the blessed truths of the
Gospel. Luther does not modify the revealed will of God in order to
harmonize it with God's sovereignty. He does not place the hidden God in
opposition to the revealed God, nor does he reject the one in order to
maintain the other. He denies neither the revealed universality of God's
grace, of Christ's redemption, and of the efficaciousness of the Holy
Spirit in the means of grace, nor the unsearchable judgments and ways of
God's majesty. Even the Reformed theologian A. Schweizer admits as much
when he says in his _Zentraldogmen_ (1, 445): "In the Zwinglio-Calvinian
type of doctrine, predestination is a dogma important as such and
regulating the other doctrines, yea, as Martyr, Beza, and others say,
the chief part of Christian doctrine; while in the Lutheran type of
doctrine it is merely a dogma supporting other, more important central
doctrines." (Frank 4, 264.)
Moreover, Luther most earnestly warns against all speculations
concerning the hidden God as futile, foolish, presumptuous, and wicked.
The secret counsels, judgments, and ways of God cannot and must not be
investigated. God's majesty is unfathomable, His judgments are
unsearchable, His ways past finding out. Hence, there is not, and there
cannot be, any human knowledge, understanding, or faith whatever
concerning God in so far as He has not revealed Himself. For while the
fact that there are indeed such things as mysteries, unsearchable
judgments, and incomprehensible ways in God is plainly taught in the
Bible, their nature, their how, why, and wherefore, has not been
revealed to us and no amount of human ingenuity is able to supply the
deficiency. Hence, in as far as God is still hidden and veiled, He
cannot serve as a norm by which we are able to regulate our faith and
life. Particularly when considering the question how God is disposed
toward us individually, we must not take refuge in the secret counsels
of God, which reason cannot spy and pry into. According to Luther, all
human speculations concerning the hidden God are mere diabolical
inspirations, bound to lead away from the saving truth of the Gospel
into despair and destruction.
What God, therefore, would have men believe about His attitude toward
them, must according to Luther, be learned from the Gospel alone. The
Bible tells us how God is disposed toward poor sinners, and how He wants
to deal with them. Not His hidden majesty, but His only-begotten Son,
born in Bethlehem, is the divinely appointed object of human
investigation. Christ crucified is God manifest and visible to men.
Whoever has seen Christ has seen God. The Gospel is God's only
revelation to sinful human beings. The Bible, the ministry of the Word,
Baptism, the Lord's Supper, and absolution are the only means of knowing
how God is disposed toward us. To these alone God has directed us. With
these alone men should occupy and concern themselves.
And the Gospel being the Word of God, the knowledge furnished therein is
most reliable. Alarmed sinners may trust in its comforting promises with
firm assurance and unwavering confidence. In _De Servo Arbitrio_ Luther
earnestly warns men not to investigate the hidden God, but to look to
revelation for an answer to the question how God is minded toward them,
and how He intends to deal with them. In his _Commentary on Genesis_ he
refers to this admonition and repeats it, protesting that he is innocent
if any one is misled to take a different course. "I have added" [to the
statements in _De Servo Arbitrio_ concerning necessity and the hidden
God] Luther here declares, "that we must look upon the revealed God.
_Addidi, quod aspiciendus sit Deus revelatus_." (CONC. TRIGL. 898.)
This Bible-revelation, however, by which alone Luther would have men
guided in judging God, plainly teaches both, that grace is universal,
and that salvation is by grace alone. Luther always taught the
universality of God's love and mercy, as well as of Christ's redemption,
and the operation of the Holy Spirit in the means of grace. Also
according to _De Servo Arbitrio_, God wants all men to be saved, and
does not wish the death of sinners, but deplores and endeavors to remove
it. Luther fairly revels in such texts as Ezek. 18, 23 and 31, 11: "As I
live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked,
but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn ye from your evil
ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?" He calls the above a
"glorious passage" and "that sweetest Gospel voice--_illam vocem
dulcissimi Evangelii_." (E. v. a. 7, 218.)
Thus Luther rejoiced in universal grace, because it alone was able to
convince him that the Gospel promises embraced and included also him. In
like manner he considered the doctrine that salvation is by grace alone
to be most necessary and most comforting. Without this truth divine
assurance of salvation is impossible, with it, all doubts about the
final victory of faith are removed. Luther was convinced that, if he
were required to contribute anything to his own conversion,
preservation, and salvation, he could never attain these blessings.
Nothing can save but the grace which is grace alone. In _De Servo
Arbitrio_ everything is pressed into service to disprove and explode the
assertion of Erasmus that the human will is able to and does "work
something in matters pertaining to salvation," and to establish the
monergism or sole activity of grace in man's conversion. (St. L. 18,
1686, 1688.)
At the same time Luther maintained that man alone is at fault when he is
lost. In _De Servo Arbitrio_ he argues: Since it is God's will that all
men should be saved, it must be attributed to man's will if any one
perishes. The cause of damnation is unbelief, which thwarts the gracious
will of God so clearly revealed in the Gospel. The question, however,
why some are lost while others are saved, though their guilt is equal,
or why God does not save all men, since it is grace alone that saves,
and since grace is universal, Luther declines to answer. Moreover, he
demands that we both acknowledge and adore the unsearchable judgments of
God, and at the same time firmly adhere to the Gospel as revealed in the
Bible. All efforts to solve this mystery or to harmonize the hidden and
the revealed God, Luther denounces as folly and presumption.
Yet Luther maintains that the conflict is seeming rather than real.
Whatever may be true of the majestic God, it certainly cannot annul or
invalidate what He has made known of Himself in the Gospel. There are
and can be no contradictory wills in God. Despite appearances to the
contrary, therefore, Christians are firmly to believe that, in His
dealings with men, God, who saves so few and damns so many, is
nevertheless both truly merciful and just. And what we now believe we
shall see hereafter. When the veil will have been lifted and we shall
know God even as we are known by Him, then we shall see with our eyes no
other face of God than the most lovable one which our faith beheld in
Jesus. The light of glory will not correct but confirm, the truths of
the Bible, and reveal the fact that in all His ways God was always in
perfect harmony with Himself.
Indeed, according to Luther, the truth concerning the majestic God, in
whom we live and move and have our being, and without whom nothing can
be or occur, in a way serves both repentance and faith. It serves
repentance and the Law inasmuch as it humbles man, causing him to
despair of himself and of the powers of his own unregenerate will. It
serves faith inasmuch as it guarantees God's merciful promises in the
Gospel. For if God is supreme, as He truly is, then there can be nothing
more reliable than the covenant of grace to which He has pledged Himself
by an oath. And if God, as He truly does, controls all contingencies,
then there remains no room for any fear whether He will be able to
fulfil His glorious promises, also the promise that nothing shall pluck
us out of the hands of Christ.--Such, essentially was the teaching set
forth by Luther in _De Servo Arbitrio_ and in his other publications.