Note 744 — Chapter XIV · (continued 3)

A. Taube, “Luthers Lehre über die Freiheit ... bis zum Jahre 1525,” Göttingen, 1901, p. 46. It is true that the author declares on the same page: “Because and in so far as Luther was moved to his denial by his refusal to admit of merit and by his doctrine of the assurance of salvation, every evangelical theologian will agree with him; the admission of a system of salary between God and man is the death of evangelical piety; but belief in free-will does not necessarily lead to this.” Free-will, he declares, is, on the contrary, quite compatible with the “sola fides.” On p. 45 he had said: “Luther’s theology ends in contradictions which can only be obviated by the assumption of free-will and by a positive recognition of the powers of the natural man.”