Why does God’s Spirit grant the gift of faith to some but not to others? Erasmus solved the dilemma by admitting minimal freedom to the human side, a wrong use of free choice is to be blamed. This is the way of maintaining credibility in the justice of God. Luther’s solution to the dilemma was a distinction between the concepts of “the revealed God,” Deus revelatus, and of “the hidden God,” Deus absconditus. On the notitia level, i.e. in regard to knowing who is elected, we are in total darkness; it is a secret of the hidden majesty. We are restricted to the usus level of election, i.e. to revelation which says that God wills everyone to be saved. God’s will does not follow any human logic of justice, God’s will itself is the norm for itself and cannot be subjected to any rule outside itself. Asking why God does what he does is a concern arising from religious pride; the sovereignty of the divine will utterly annihilates speculation about any grounds for bargaining with God. Luther follows the paradigm of “the theology of the cross”: Anyone who has become “desperate about him/herself” is, paradoxically, already in the state of grace. This paradox brings about certainty of salvation: God has taken the question of salvation completely “outside ourselves” into his hands, this results in peace in the scruples of salvation, the believer is liberated from “the pestilence of uncertainty.” Luther prefers the Biblical term “election” to the philosophical concept “predestination.”