136. Synergistic Predestination.--Synergism in the doctrine of conversion naturally leads to synergistic teaching on predestination. Moreover, the doctrine of predestination is, as it were, the bacteriological test whether one's Lutheran blood is really and absolutely free from synergistic infection also in the doctrines of conversion and justification. However, also in these tests as to the doctrinal purity of the General Council the results, as a rule, were negative. In his _Summary of Christian Faith_, 1905, Dr. H.E. Jacobs gives the following presentation of the doctrine of predestination: "Since God has not predestinated all that He has foreknown ('for all that the perverse, wicked will of the devil and of men purposes and desires to do and will do, God sees and knows before,' _ib._), but, in His inexplicable will, has allowed a certain measure of freedom and contingency in His creatures, and afforded them a degree of moral responsibility, knowing from all eternity what will be the result of their use of this trust, He also has determined how in every case their decision and activity will be treated." "When, therefore, God has willed that He will be determined in a certain decision by the free decision of a creature, that freedom of the creature will certainly be guaranteed in the result; but what in the exercise of this freedom the decision of the creature will be, as well as the determination of His will concerning it, He knows from all eternity, and makes His plans accordingly." "The fulfilment or non-fulfilment of the proviso or condition is contained in the foreknowledge which determined the free destination." (556 f.) According to Jacobs, then, Predestination depends on the divine foreknowledge of the use that man will make of the freedom with which God has entrusted him. Plainly synergistic doctrine! LIBERALISTIC TRENDS.