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| David Hollaz, aka Hollatz, a Lutheran theologian |
Among the great dogmaticians of the Lutheran Church, there is great unanimity in maintaining that predestination takes place in view of foreseen faith. It seemed necessary to teach this to guard the doctrine against Calvinistic error. Though all our writers did not use the same terms in designating faith as necessary to predestination, as Baier punts out, yet they agreed in the substance of the doctrine, that God predestinated whom He foresaw in Christ by faith. Hollaz, whose celebrated work was published in 1685, says: Our theologians in explaining the eternal decree of predestination, agree entirely as to the matter, teaching with one consent that God, to whom also the future is objectively present, by the infinite light of His intellect from eternity foresaw the faith of certain men, who had fallen into sin, and in view of their faith thus foreseen elected them to eternal life. They differ only in the mode of speaking and in the use of some technical terms.” Exam. P. III. Sec. 1, cap. 2, qu. 9.
From “Election in Foresight of Faith” in The Columbus Theological Magazine, Vol 1, 1881, Matthias Loy, editor. LutheranLibrary.org
