Author: Loraine Boettner

Loraine Boettner (March 7, 1901 – January 3, 1990) was an American theologian, teacher, and author in the Reformed tradition. He is best known for his works on predestination, Roman Catholicism, and Postmillennial eschatology.Boettner was born in Linden, Missouri. His father, William Boettner, was a Christian school superintendent and had been born in Schwartzenhazel, Germany. He attended his father”s church until he was eighteen, when he then joined his mother”s church, the Centennial Methodist Church. Boettner attended the Lone Cedar and Fairview elementary schools, before going to Tarkio High School. In 1917, he studied agriculture at the University of Missouri in Columbia. A year later, he transferred to Tarkio Presbyterian College, where in 1925 he graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree.In the fall of 1925, Boettner entered Princeton Theological Seminary, graduating in 1928 with a Th.B.. The following year he obtained a Th.M. His master”s thesis formed the basis of The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination, first published in 1932. His other books include Studies in Theology (1947), Immortality (1956) and Roman Catholicism (1962).From 1929-1937 Boettner taught at the Pikeville College (University of Pikeville) in eastern Kentucky, where he met his wife, also a teacher. In 1933, Professor Boettner was awarded an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from Tarkio College. In 1937, the Boettners left Pikeville for Washington D.C., where he worked for the Library of Congress. From 1942-1947 he was employed by the Department of Internal Revenue.In 1957 Tarkio College awarded him an honorary Doctor of Letters degree. Upon his wife”s death, in 1958, Boettner returned to his home state, settling in Rock Port, Missouri, where he remained the rest of his life.He died in 1990 at the age of 88.