If God foreknows all future things, then everything has to happen in the way that it is foreknown, then those involved have to participate in the way in which they are foreknown to take part. And if those involved have to participate as foreknown, then they are not free to make choices, thus not accountable for their choices.
God's foreknowledge should not be confused with foreordination.
Necessity of a hypothetical inference...
If God foreknew Peter would sin, then Peter cannot refrain from sinning. (
Incorrect)
The interpretation above wrongly interprets God's foreknowledge as impinging upon Peter's moral free agency. The proper understanding is:
The
necessity of the consequent of the hypothetical...
Necessarily, if God foreknew Peter would sin, then Peter does not refrain from sinning. (
Correct)
In other words,
the actions of moral free agents do not take place because they are foreseen, the actions are foreseen because the actions are certain to take place.
God's perfect foreknowledge seems logically to negate true human freedom. The Reformers recognized this by the following quotation from Luther: "For if we believe it to be true that God foreknows and predestines all things, that he can neither be mistaken in his foreknowledge nor hindered in his predestination, and that nothing takes place but as he wills it, then on the testimony of reason itself there cannot be any free choice in man or angel or any creature" [Martin Luther, On the Bondage of the Will, Conclusion].
In BOTW, Luther takes care to deny the notion of "free" will, and hence "free" choices in any libertarian notion. This is not denial of "true human freedom", rather a confirmation of exactly what "true human freedom means" in light of Scripture and not in light of what man would claim, seeking to be wholly autonomous from His Maker.
For those who have yet to actually read the work, the major propositions in Luther's
BOTW are as follows:
1 A fallen sinner is totally unable to cooperate with divine grace.
2 Salvation is exclusively the result of divine monergism.
3 God foreknows what he does and does what he foreknows.
4 To say that a fallen sinner has the power to cooperate with divine grace is a denial of the necessity of Christ’s work.
5 The human will is in bondage to sin because of our union with Adam in his fall.
6 Everything happens according to the divine foreknowledge and will and therefore whatever occurs is, in this sense, ‘necessary’ but not ‘compulsory’.
7 The regenerate and unregenerate act according to their respective wills.
8 Necessity does not destroy moral responsibility.
9 God’s will is immutable.
10 Human free will is a denial of divine freedom.
11 ‘Free will’ an ‘empty term’ which should be discarded.
12 Predestination is the sine qua non of assurance.
13 God has predestined some to eternal life and others to eternal damnation.
14 Predestination is fundamentally paradoxical.
15 Ought does not imply can (Nominalism over realism).
16 ‘God preached’ must be distinguished from ‘God hidden’.
17
Sola gratia,
Sola fide denies free will.
18 Human inability disproves free will.
Hence, the quote from Luther, taken in the full context of what he discusses in BOTW about "free will", make perfect sense.
AMR
