work of Duns Scotus, a strong emphasis on the absolute freedom of God’s gracious initiative characterizes this approach, one designed to make it abundantly clear that no human moral achievement of any sort ever obligates God to any particular response. In regard to justification, this emphasis on God’s absolute, nonobligatory freedom in the salvation process eventually manifested itself in the concept of God’s “two powers”—that is, his “absolute power” to do whatever he pleases, on the one hand,
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