Abstract:
The present study aimed to investigate the concept propagated by Martin Luther in some of his works in relation to the biblical doctrine of predestination and to carry out a comparative analysis between them, in order to know whether or not there were significant changes in his thinking over the years in this regard. Then, it sought to find out what the concept was of predestination found in the Lutheran confessional document called the Formula of Concord, in order to compare it to Luther’s concept of predestination found in his works analyzed here. As it is a bibliographic research, in addition to works by Luther himself and the text of the Formula of Concord, some works by important scholars of Luther and the Protestant Reformation were included, such as Alister E. McGrath, Jaroslav Pelikan, Paul Althaus and Walther von Loewenich. The structure of the Dissertation is divided into six parts. In the introductory part, the first one of the Dissertation, a brief conceptualization of the biblical- etymological meaning of the term “predestine” was presented. Still in this part, commentaries referring to the way the dissertation was structured were woven in and some methodological caveats were mentioned. The second part concerned itself with verifying the possible influences of the predestinationist concepts of Augustine of Hippo and some representatives of Nominalism on the formulation of Luther’s concept of predestination, since the theology taught by these exponents, in some way, was part of his basic theological formation. In the third part, this research examined the concept of Luther’s predestination espoused in his work called De Servo Arbitrio. This work was used in this study as the reformer’s “magnus opus” about predestination because it is in this that this biblical doctrine plays a fundamental role in his argument about the eternal salvation of human beings. In the fourth part, the research investigated the concept of predestination found in some excerpts from six of Luther’s works published prior to and after De Servo Arbitrio, in order to carry out a comparative analysis with the concept encountered in the “magnum opus”. For this, the following writings were used: Epistola beati Pauli apostoli ad Romanos incipit (1515-1516), Lecture on the First Epistle of John (1527), Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (1531), The Smalcald Articles (1537), Lecture on Genesis (1535-1545) and Preface to the Romans (1546). In the fifth part, the research presented which doctrinal assumptions made up the concept of predestination found in article number XI of the Formula of Concord, called “Of eternal foreknowledge and election of God”, comparing them specifically with Luther’s predestinationist concept taught in De Servo Arbitrio and in the other works mentioned above. Finally, in the concluding part of this dissertation (the sixth and last one), the research found, in addition to a paradox or tension in the concept of predestination taught by Luther in his works, convergences and disagreements between this concept and some pertinent assertions regarding the concept of predestination taught by Lutheran confessionality in the Formula of Concord.
