Death. There has to be more to life; death just can’t be the end of it all! Hope. We all keep within our souls, our hearts, and our minds a vision of a future of some kind, a resurrection, a continuation, or an opportunity to see and talk to the loved ones who preceded us. Oh how we hope! God, how we hope and pray that there is more to life than death. The ultimate symbol of hope for many on earth is the Bible. The words within its covers were used so far back in time that they just can’t be without meaning. The words convey so much for our minds, our spirit, and our understanding of an everlasting future. And the understandings and consequences are forever being reviewed and taught through the works of Reformation-era biblical thinkers such as John Calvin and Martin Luther. And one of the central questions of that time was: Does predestination provide us any answers?

This book has its origins in the 1960s, while the author majored in both religion and history at Ohio Wesleyan University. At the time, there was no work in the literature solely devoted to comparing and contrasting the words of John Calvin and Martin Luther in regard to their thoughts about the doctrine of predestination, nor was there an extensive bibliography devoted to this subject.

The search and the passion to understand whether we live or die (from an eternal perspective) is an ongoing mental and spiritual effort for all of us.We have the Bible and we have the Koran. We have many religions and many authors have written on the subject of human existence and human destiny. The writings from hundreds and thousands of years in our past cannot be insignificant, and those writers deserve our full attention as we seek the truth of our very being.

God bless.