Luther and Calvin both maintained that there is no good in man after the fall. Flacius said that original sin is the substance of human nature, and human nature now bears the image of the devil.
Luther made freedom of the will to consist in doing evil with pleasure, and not by constraint.
Calvin denied that there is any free will. “Why give it such a lofty title?” he said. He seemed to think that all the power left to men is so much taken from God.
When God says, “Do this and live,” it is, says Luther, merely irony on his part, as though he had said, “See if you can do it! Try it.”
Luther actually taught that God's will in revealed Scripture was, that all should be saved, but his real and secret will was, that not all should be saved.
Melancthon said, “Man has no power by himself to do right; but when grace is offered, he can receive it or reject it.”
Calvin went beyond Augustine. He taught that,—
1. The decree of predestination was not merely a decree to punishment, but to sin. He rejects with scorn the distinction between permitting and causing, between foreknowledge and predestination. He says it is improper to have God's decree waiting on men's choice.
2. He taught that Adam's sin was decreed by God. The Infralapsarian taught that God foresaw that Adam would sin, and so decreed some men to life, and others to death. The Supralapsarian taught that God determined to reveal his majesty, and mercy, and justice. He created men, and made them miserable to show his mercy, and made them sinful to show his justice.
3. If men complain that God has so created them, Calvin [pg 276] answers, God has the same right that the potter has over the clay. If they complain that God has chosen some, and not others, to life, he replies, that so oxen, horses, and sheep might complain that they were not men.