J.I. Packer and O.R. Johnston say in the intro to The Bondage of the Will by Martin Luther that,
“The idea of a meritorious act is an idea of an independent act which is in no way necessitated by God for man or performed by God in man, but is carried out by man acting in some sense apart from God. And there is no such action as this in God’s universe. The Creator directly energizes and controls all the acts of His creatures. All events are necessitated by His immutable, sovereign will. Human actions are genuinely spontaneous, and authentically express each man’s nature, for God works in all things according to their nature; but the fact that it is God who works all man’s works in him means that human action can never be independent of God in the sense required for it to acquire merit in the manner which the Pelagian envisage. Man cannot put God in his debt, because man does not stand apart from God free and independent agent. Luther thus undercuts the whole conception of merit by affirming the direct sovereignty of God over His world . . . God, he [Luther] says, works every human deed, whether good or evil. He works in the evil man according to that man’s nature, as He finds it . . . Behind the revealed dualism of cosmic conflict between the devil and God lies the hidden mystery of absolute Divine sovereignty; evil is brought to expression only by the omnipotent working of the good God. ‘Since God moves and works all in all, He moves and works of necessity even Satan and the ungodly. But He works according to what they themselves are, and what He finds them to be; which means since they are evil and perverted themselves, that when they are impelled to action by this movement of Divine omnipotence they do only that which is perverted and evil. . . ‘ [Luther p.204]”
“The idea of a meritorious act is an idea of an independent act which is in no way necessitated by God for man or performed by God in man, but is carried out by man acting in some sense apart from God. And there is no such action as this in God’s universe. The Creator directly energizes and controls all the acts of His creatures. All events are necessitated by His immutable, sovereign will. Human actions are genuinely spontaneous, and authentically express each man’s nature, for God works in all things according to their nature; but the fact that it is God who works all man’s works in him means that human action can never be independent of God in the sense required for it to acquire merit in the manner which the Pelagian envisage. Man cannot put God in his debt, because man does not stand apart from God free and independent agent. Luther thus undercuts the whole conception of merit by affirming the direct sovereignty of God over His world . . . God, he [Luther] says, works every human deed, whether good or evil. He works in the evil man according to that man’s nature, as He finds it . . . Behind the revealed dualism of cosmic conflict between the devil and God lies the hidden mystery of absolute Divine sovereignty; evil is brought to expression only by the omnipotent working of the good God. ‘Since God moves and works all in all, He moves and works of necessity even Satan and the ungodly. But He works according to what they themselves are, and what He finds them to be; which means since they are evil and perverted themselves, that when they are impelled to action by this movement of Divine omnipotence they do only that which is perverted and evil. . . ‘ [Luther p.204]”
John Calvin deals with this issue in the Institutes of the Christian Religion and asks:
"How may we attribute this same work to God, to Satan, and to man as author, without either excusing Satan as associated with God, or making God the author of evil? Easily, if we consider first the end, and then the manner of acting…So great is the diversity of purpose that already strongly marks the deed. There is no less difference in the manner…Therefore we see no inconsistency in assigning the same deed to God, Satan, and man; but the distinction in purpose and manner causes God’s righteousness to shine forth blameless there, while the wickedness of Satan and of man betrays itself by its own disgrace,” Institutes 2.4.2.
Turretin in his book Institutes 1:517 says, “Since his [God’s] will can have for its object nothing but good, it cannot will evil as evil, but as terminated on the permission of that which is good. God, therefore, properly does not will sin to be done, but only wills to permit it. And if at any time sin is called the means of illustrating God’s glory, it does not follow that God (who wills the end) ought also to will sin as such (which is the means to it). For it is called the means not so much causally and effectively (as if concurring finally to effect that end) as materially and objectively (because it is the occasion from which God illustrates his own glory). Again, it is not the means of itself because this rather obscures than illustrates the glory of God, but by accident from the wisdom of God (who elicits good from evil, as light from darkness). He who wills the end wills also the means, but not always by the same volition. If the means are of a diverse nature, he can will the end by an effective volition because the end is of itself good; but he wills the means only by a permissive e volition (if it is evil) not so much willing the means itself as the use of the means (to wit, the permission and ordination of sin itself,”
Jonathan Edwards puts it perfectly in his Works 1:76,78,79.saying, “They who object, that this doctrine makes God the author of sin, ought distinctly to explain what they mean by that phrase, ‘the author of sin.’ I know the phrase, as it is commonly used, signifies something very ill. If by ‘the author of sin,’ be meant ‘the sinner, the agent,’ or ‘actor of sin,’ or ‘the doer of a wicked thing’; so it would be a reproach and blasphemy, to suppose God to be the author of sin. In this sense, I utterly deny God to be the author of sin. But if, by ‘the author of sin,’ is mean the permitter, or not a hinderer of sin; and, at the same time, a disposer of the state of events, in such a manner, for wise, holy, and most excellent ends and purposes, that sin, if it be permitted or not hindered, will most certainly and infallibly follow: I say, if this be all that is meant, by being the author of sin, I do not deny that God is the author of sin (though I dislike and reject the phrase, as that which by use and custom is apt to carry another sense).And, I do not deny, that God being thus the author of sin, follows from what I have laid down; and, I assert, that it equally follows from the doctrine which is maintained by most of the Arminian divines. There is no inconsistence in supposing, that God may hate a thing as it is in itself, and considered simply as evil, and yet that it may be his will it should come to pass, considering all the consequences. Men do will sin as sin, and so are the authors and actors of it: they love it as sin, and for evil ends and purposes. God does not will sin as sin, or for the sake of anything evil; though it be his pleasure so to order things, that, he permitting, sin will come to pass, for the sake of the great good that by his disposal shall be the consequence. His willing to order things so that evil should come to pass, for the sake of the contrary good, is no argument that he does not hate evil, as evil,”
