Luther, Calvin and Predestination

Internet Monk questions a Lutheran, Josh Strodtbeck, about God's sovereignty and the differences between the Calvinist and Lutheran approaches to the doctrine. In his answer to what appears to be the beginning of a series of questions and responses, Strodtbeck notes that:

...for Lutherans, divine sovereignty isn’t a significant driving force in theology. As we see it, God’s attributes are in some sense inscrutable. Theology begins and lives where God is known, which is in Christ given to us in the Word and the Sacraments, not in abstract formulations of attributes or rigorous, logically consistent assertions about the nature of divine decrees.

The Internet Monk also links to a description of Luther's position on predestination compared to Calvin's. In that comparison, after a description of the Calvinist position and responses to it, Don Matzat quotes Luther:

A dispute about predestination should be avoided entirely... I forget everything about Christ and God when I come upon these thoughts and actually get to the point to imagining that God is a rogue. We must stay in the word, in which God is revealed to us and salvation is offered, if we believe him. But in thinking about predestination, we forget God . . However, in Christ are hid all the treasures (Col. 2:3); outside him all are locked up. Therefore, we should simply refuse to argue about election.

Such a disputation is so very displeasing to God that he has instituted Baptism, the spoken Word, and the Lord’s Supper to counteract the temptation to engage in it. In these, let us persist and constantly say, I am baptized I believe in Jesus. I care nothing about the disputation concerning predestination.

Martin Luther did not know of the confusion and contentions that would later exist among Christians and the major heresies such as Universalism and the rebirth of Pelagianism that would arise as the result of the debates over the doctrine of predestination. If he had known, he most certainly would have reminded us of his words: "For this you should know: All such suggestions and disputes about predestination are surely of the devil."

Internet Monk: God's Sovereignty in Lutheranism, Martin Luther and the Doctrine of Predestination by Don Matzat