...it may be asked, Why does He not then change, in His motion, those evil
wills which He moves? This belongs to those secrets of Majesty, where "His judgments
are past finding out." Nor is it ours to search into, but to adore these mysteries.
If "flesh and blood" here take offence and murmur, let it murmur, but it will be
just where it was before. God is not, on that account, changed! And if numbers of the
wicked be offended and "go away," yet, the elect shall remain!
The same answer will be given to those who ask, Why did He permit Adam to fall? And
why did He make all of us to be infected with the same sin, when He might have kept him,
and might have created us from some other seed, or might first have cleansed that, before
He created us from it?
God is that Being, for whose will no cause or reason is to be assigned, as a rule or
standard by which it acts; seeing that, nothing is superior or equal to it, but it is
itself the rule of all things. For if it acted by any rule or standard, or from any cause
or reason, it would be no longer the will of God. Wherefore,
what God wills, is not therefore right, because He ought or ever was bound so to will; but
on the contrary, what takes place is therefore right, because He so wills. A cause and
reason are assigned for the will of the creature, but not for the will of the Creator;
unless you set up, over Him, another Creator.
- Martin Luther (The Bondage of the Will, Section 88)
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