Richard Muller on Luther and the Will of God

Luther thus juxtaposes almost paradoxically the assumptions that all things come to pass necessarily by the decree of God’s eternal will, that all human beings are foreordained to salvation or damnation, that God nonetheless genuinely wills (as Scripture states) the salvation of all people, and that those who are rejected by God are rejected for their unbelief.

Richard A. Muller, “Predestination,” in The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation, 4 vols., ed. Hans J. Hillerbrand (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 3:333. Also in Richard A. Muller, Predestination in Early Modern Reformed Theology (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2024), 11.