Huldrych Zwingli

Divine providence goes all the way down: even the fall of Adam and Eve, as Olson reports him, was predestined, and was brought about by God's providential power. ⭐ He firmly rejected the medieval Catholic teaching that God predestines on the basis of foreseeing human free decisions, and held instead that God's election and predestination are the cause of his foreknowledge — God knows because he predestines. And he admitted double predestination without hesitation: in Olson's account, election belongs to those predestined to blessedness, while those who are finally damned are people for whom God decided this fate in eternity.

⚠ The order of his argument is worth seeing clearly. For him, as Olson puts it, predestination was at once a doctrine of Scripture and the only view of God's role in salvation that fits the doctrine of divine providence worked out by reason — that is, he reasoned down from the principle that God's providence embraces everything, not up from the experience of salvation. ⭐ This is the exact opposite of Luther: Luther said predestination can be known only through the cross, and that rational theological and philosophical arguments are powerless here. The two men reached the same conclusion by different roads.

On election and damnation, as Olson gives his view: election belongs to those predestined to blessedness, but those who are to be damned cannot be said to be elected, although God's will also disposes of them; but they reject, resist and refuse it, and so become examples of God's justice.

⚠ He also faced the hardest question head-on — if God directs a person to kill or commit adultery, is God responsible? He answered flatly that God is not. As Olson gives his words: an act done at God's prompting and direction can glorify him, though the same act is for a human being a sin and a crime. We record this answer as it stands, without softening it for him — this is exactly the point on which later opponents kept pursuing Calvin's side.