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John
Calvin on the Eternal Predestination of God |
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Snyder
Bible Home I promised Alan I would read his essay on Calvinism in January, 1988. I finally did so in 2001. It is a fine essay and, though I am not a Calvinist, did find it to be very enlightening on the subject; even evangelical. |
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Being a Calvinist, I have greatly enjoyed doing this paper. I have worked hard to deal as simply as possible with this immense and difficult subject. I hope that I have been successful in communicating Calvin's thoughts to the render. I drew from two principle texts, both of which are primary sources authored by Calvin. They are: Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God, which will be cited in this paper as 'CEPG' and The Institutes of the Christian Religion which will be cited as 'Inst.' This paper is divided into three parts: Introduction; The Doctrine of Man; and The Doctrine of Predestination. In writing, it has not been my goal to convert anyone to Calvinism, but rather, it is my hope that the reader will give Calvin's theology a fair hearing. I pray that this will bring honor to my Lord, the Sovereign Triune God, and be pleasing to Him. Introduction "In all His works, the Lord has the reason of His own glory. This precisely is the universal end" (CEPG viii.4, p.119). Calvin (1509-1564) was a man who was consumed with God’s glory. Again and again he comes back to this one focus as the purpose of all things. He was a man who had an intense reverence for the Holy Scriptures and whose attitude toward the truth of God revealed therein was chiefly characterized by humble submission, being well aware of his estate before God.
Calvin was always keenly aware of the transcendence of God. There is, in Calvin's view, an insurmountable gap between God and man to the effect that we can understand of God only that which He communicates to us. Beyond that, we are barren of true knowledge of God. Since it is what Calvin is best known for, one might assume that the doctrine of Predestination was the doctrine most important to him. This is not altogether true, however. Calvin was a systematic theologian, probably the first in the modern sense, whereby he sought to "systematize" into an orderly form the truth that the Scriptures reveal. Predestination, then, was merely a part of the whole of his system - an important part, but not the central focus. Rather, if there is one thing that was central to all of Calvin's thought, it was surely the sovereignty of God. The importance of this will be seen later on. The reason, as I see it, that predestination has come to be so readily associated with Calvin is because it is the doctrine for which he received the greatest opposition. Calvin himself was well-aware of the difficulty of this doctrine and the controversy connected with it, yet he was not a person to shy away from the difficult questions. He confesses: "I know that hardly anything can be said about the eternal predestination of God without many perverse and absurd suppositions immediately creeping into the mind" (CEPG vi. p. 98). Calvin therefore strongly cautions any who might investigate this doctrine without the proper attitude of humility. He says:
Calvin is a realist in that he faces up to the fact that there are limits to what we can know of God. God has revealed Himself, but not everything.., only as much as He foresaw that we would need to know for His purposes. Calvin cautions those who inquire beyond these limits. He reasons that we have to stop somewhere, and he concludes that we must stop where Scripture stops. This is not, however, a grand cop-out on his part. This man who said that our ability to know God's reasons and purposes has a limit is the same man who wrote volumes upon volumes about these very deep and difficult questions of faith. Again, he is not one to shy away from difficulties. Thus, when Calvin acknowledges that there are levels of understanding which, in the wisdom of God, our minds cannot penetrate, he does so only after having already exhausted all other possible explanations which the Scriptures afford and having thoroughly treated that which can be understood. Misconceptions and prejudices abound when it comes to understanding the doctrine of Predestination. Therefore I would urge us to clear our minds of preconceptions about predestination and allow Calvin (as best as I can mediate) to teach us his carefully researched understanding of it.
The Doctrine of Man Inseparably linked with the correct understanding of predestination is the biblical understanding of Man. Calvin's doctrine of Predestination must be understood end is only intelligible in light of his doctrine of Man. Calvin began from the precept that we must "rightly recognize [ourselves] in the faithful mirror of scripture" (Inst. II.ii.l1, p. 270). There is a problem with this approach for us, however, which is that the picture we are given of ourselves in the Scriptures is not altogether pretty, and by nature we, as human beings, hate to hear about our own sin and would prefer to hear good things about ourselves.
So, we must try to hear clearly what the Scriptures say regardless of what we hold as personal opinion. In Calvin's doctrine of Man, as with everything, his underlying principle is the complete sovereignty of God. He holds that the existence of all things in the universe is under God's complete control. Nothing exists by accident, not even sin, though it is outside of His will. Calvin quotes Augustine:
Sin is in the world and in humans by the will of God. Adam did not sin by accident, but because God so decreed it according to His good pleasure. Calvin says, however, that since God punishes Adam's sin so severely, it must have been no light sin, and "we must consider what kind of sin there was in Adam's desertion that enkindled God's fearful vengeance against the whole of mankind" (Inst. II.i.4, pp. 244-24). Adam's sin consisted primarily in unfaithfulness and rebellion against God's authority whereby Adam raised himself above the Almighty God in pride, arid being contemptuous of the truth, he turned aside to falsehood. Adam spurned God's great bounty which had been lavished upon him and became ambitious in his disobedience and cast off the fear of God (Inst. II.i.4). As a result, such rebellion brought punishment upon Adam, and because of Adam, the whole creation was cursed. Therefore, Calvin reasons that since the whole of creation vas penetrated by the congtagion of sin, "it is not unreasonable if it spread to all his offspring" (Inst. Il.ii.5). The offspring of Adam are therefore corrupted because he is. A bad root cannot produce good fruit. Adam thus is the root of humanity and therefore, in his corruption, all his posterity is justly corrupted. In this way, Adam was the representative of the whole human race just as Christ is the representative in punishment of the many who are saved. "For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous" (Rom. 5:19). Individual human beings, then, are not innocent. God holds each accountable because each person willfully sins of his or her own volition. The best proof of this which Calvin gives is one's own conscience. He raises the question: "By what right can God transfer to me the penalty of another's fault?" (CEPG vii, p. 100). But when all is said and done, Calvin holds that the internal testimony of our own consciences will not allow us to absolve ourselves of guilt, because we know that, however it came to happen, even so we are individually as guilty as Adam of sinning. Even as our own judge, we know that we are not absolvod before the Almighty and Holy God (CEPG vii). Finally, Calvin supplies a definition of Original sin for us:
How is the will affected by sin? In what consists the sim of man? Calvin agrees with Augustine with regard to the fact that Adam had free, unfettered, and unbiased will, but that "man, when he was created, received great powers of free will, but lost them by sinning" (Inst. II.ii.8, p. 265). After the Fall, man had free will, but in a different sense than before:
In his fallen state, man, even when he does his best work (as we would consider good works of love and service to others), is still "an abomination to God because of the vice latent in it" (CEPG viii.9, p. 134). In fact, Calvin confesses with Paul that "we are all by nature children of wrath" (Eph. 2:3). Calvin then asks:
The question then arises (or maybe it already has): is not God accountable for our sin? Since God ordains sin to happen, by what right does he become angry at His creatures who have not provoked Him by any previous offense? Calvin does not avoid such a question, but answers it in two parts. Firstly, he qualifies the decress of God, pulling them in their proper context: "For God's will is so much the highest rule of righteousness that whatever He wills, by the very fact that He wills it, must be considered righteousness" (Inst. III.xxiii.2, p. 949). Calvin reminds us of God's transcendence. God may have willed sin to have mastery over his creations, but by virtue that He so willed it, therefore it is a just decree. There is no capriciousness in the decrees of God. The charge of sinning cannot Be brought against Him. Though the the full reasons might be hidden from us, we can be sure, because of what Scripture tells us of the holy and pure nature of God, that this decree is equally as pure and holy as all His other ones. But:
Secondly, in anser to the question of whether or not God can be accountable for our sin, Calvin points out that Adam's will was not violated or overruled by God in his sinning. Adam willed it of his own accord. As to the first man, we must hold he wes created perfectly righteous and fell by his own will; and hence it comes about by his ovn fault he brought destruction on himself and on all his own race. Adam fell, though not without God's know'ledge and ordination, and destroyed himself end his own posterity; ye~ ~hts neither mitigates his guilt nor involves God in any blame, for must aiway~ remember that he voluntarily deprived himself of the rectitude he had received from God. xaJluntarily gave himgelf to the service of sin and Satan, and voluntarily precipitated himgelf into destruction. CF. P0 viii.J, pp. 121-22 Understanding these things of Man, chiefly, that he stands before 0od Without excuse and is worthy of God's just punishment, we can now move on to the Doctrine of Predestination and be able to comprehend it fully. The Doctrine of Predestination As we begin to consider this doctrine, Calvin would remind us of the central principle that pervades all of his thought, that is, the sovereignly of God. "By his providence, God rules not only the whole fabric of the Forld and its several ports, but alga the hearts and even the actions of men" (CF..PO x.l, p. 162). Calvin always has the glory of God before him as the reason for God's decrees.
God ordains all things so that nothing that happens in all of creation is outside of His Will. Indeed, God does have a purpose for the presence of evil.
God, says Calvin, is glorifying Himself in all of His creation, and this is being accomplished through His predestining the lives of men. In seeking to find out about predestination, Calvin says that the only place one should look is in Scripture. God reveals His truth in His Word, so we must go there to be taught, and we must pray for "teachable" hearts. Calvin gives forth a basic definition of predestination:
We must rescall, as we learned above, that God is just in judging all men as worthy of death. Every person, regardless of whether they are elected to life or not, is deserving of eternal punishment for having spurned the authority and truth of God as a result of the Fall. The Fall is an experience common to all people, and predestination must be viewed with reference to this fact. Given man's condition of helplessness before a holy God, it is evident that salvation does not depend upon man's choosing or rejecting God based upon his own reasoning. Calvin was continually attacked on this issue of free will. His opponents said that whereas God is Lord of all, even so, He gives us the final choice, and whereas God does work in people's hearts so that they are called and drawn, even so, in the final analysis, salvation depends on the individual's choice. Calvin, however, sees some real difficulties with these arguments. In the first place, we learned above that, as a result of the Fall, man is unable to choose to do that which is good, and is certainly not capable of choosing the highest good, which is God. Not only that, but Calvin echos Paul in Romans 5:10, which says that man is the enemy of God and hates Him. How can someone who hates God all of a sudden change and begin to love Him?
Secondly, if, in the final analysis,
salvation depends on the choice of man, if it is the individual who takes
that final necessary stepof faith on his or her own, then the only real
conclusion that can be taken from this is that, ultimately salvation is a
work. In this scenario, salvation is contingent upon our work of
believing. But this flies in the face of Scripture, which says, "For
you are saved by grace through faith, and this not of yourselves, it is
the gift of God, not by works lest anyone should boast" (Eph. 2:8-9). The only conclusion that is completely consistent is to acknowledge that people are saved only by the grace of God. Only the work of the Spirit of God in a person's heart enables him or her to be able to see the truth in the Gospel and to put his faith in Christ. All deserve death, and it is therefore only by the gratuitous will of God that any at ail are saved. Here we learn from Scripture that these are saved because of God’s eternal and sovereign election of them to be His own sons and daughters. Salvation is God's, contingent upon God's good pleasure alone and not on any merit in the one elected.
Indeed Christ communicates the same thing, i.e. that God gratuitously has chosen, from among all people, a peculiar people for Himself.
Finally, Calvin concludes that: God knew His own, not estimating them by merit, but in distinguishing more from others by casting merciful and propitious eyes on them, as to number them undeservedly, whom He will, among His children (CEPO v.J, p. 115). One of the reasons that Calvin emphasizes the fact that God's election is not based on any merits in the elect that would evoke His good pleasure, but merely on God's gratuitous choice is that he wanted to avoid confusion as to an alternative view. These same people who argued for man's free will were unable to deny that predestination was a biblcal concept, but they got around this by interpreting Romans 8:29 as meaning that God elected those whom He foresaw would choose Him by their own will. Again, though, this gets into the difficulty of God's sovereignty and salvation being a work as detailed above. In reference to this, Calvin got fairly sarcastic at times. In Acts 13:48, Luke reports that "As many as we. re ordained for eternal life believed." Calvin comments on this verse saying:
Calvin clearly shows that an individual is fully incapable of choosing Christ. It is only God working in a person's heart that draws him or her to jesus and thus to salvation. Having established that it is God's choice and not our own that determines salvation and thus election, let us move to the next immediate question: Why some and not others?
The apostle Paul, says Calvin, lays down the only cause of election to be the good pleasure of God which He has in Himself (Rom. 8:28). His eternal purpose is hidden to us but no "immoderation may be attributed to God as if surged in Him as in men. Rather such honor is rightly ascribed to His will that it be constituted a sufficient reason, since it is the origin and rule of all righteousness" (CEPC, viii .4, p. 117). God's eternal purpose for His election is His glory as is stressed by Calvin from the beginning. For the person who is still dissatisfied with that answerr, however, the Scriptures forbid them to go any further in their inquiry. God has not seen fit, says Calvin, to reveal to us any more than that concerning His reasons for electing and rebrobating people from the foundation of the earth. Reprobation is a reality just as much as election is. Calvin rebukes the people who, "as if they wished to avert a reproach from God, accept election in such terms as to deny that any are condemned. But this they do very ignorantly and childishly since election itself could not stand except as set over against reprobation" (Inst. III.xxiii.l, p. 947). Thus Reprobation is the flip-side of election. God claims the right to harden whom He will and to have mercy on whom He will according to His good pleasure. "No law can be imposed upon Him as rule, becatkee no law or rule better or more just than His will can be conceived" (CEPO v.3, p. 85). Having now dealt with some of the principle aspects of Predestination, that is, its pivotal concepts, let us now turn to examine the context in which God's eternal predestination has been and is being worked out in human history. Before anything was even created, God had predestined the lives of each person. God elected a people for Himself, to be His joy and His crown, and history is the process by which His elect from every generation are drawn to Himself and by which the rest are passed by and receive justice. A pattern in salvation emerges in Calvin's writings: election always precedes the calling/drawing of the Spirit of God. Illumination by the Spirit of the spiritually blind person always precedes faith. These people are elected in Christ Jesus before the foundation of the world. Thus God's elect are destined to come through Christ, that is, through faith in Him. There is no election without Christ, for it is through Him that the Father foreordained that sin would be atoned for and that His justice would be satisfied toward the elect. It is important to note that, in having mercy upon the elect, God does not forfeit His own justice, but their sin is punished in Christ. Thus, Paul says, "God is both the just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus Christ" (Rom. 3:26). It was ordained by God before the foundation of the world that Christ would be crucified for the elect. Calvin affirms (with Peter) that "Christ is not driven to death by chance or by the violent assault of men, but because God, the most good and wise knower of all things, had deliberately so decreed it." (CEPO v.1, p.71 ) There are two principle ends toward which election is meant to lead. The first is that it will result in a godly life of service to God. The doctrine of Election says Calvin, "builds up faith soundly, trains us to humility, elevates us to admiration of the immense goodness of God towards us, and excites us to praise this goodness" (CEPG ii, p.56). The second, and ultimate, end of election, however, is the coming into glory of the chosen (Inst. III.ii.7, p. 931 ). This is the end designed by God, that for all eternity He and His elect might love and enjoy one another to the praise end glory of God. There is also great assurance for the believer in the doctrine of Election because one's salvation does not depend on one's works but rather God has accomplished it from beginning to end.
God has worked out His salvation from the beginning of creation until the present. He is not without a goal toward which He is bringing all of history. God established a covenant with Abraham and chose the nation Israel out or all the other nations of the earth. Israel did not deserve God's grace any more then another nation, rather they all deserved God's wrath. But God, in the pure council of His will, chose a particuler people and rejected the rest justly by passing them by (Inst. III.xxi.5, p. 927).
Having established this covenant with a people, God then apportions His grace as He wills. Indeed, it is unequal and the "inequality of this grace proves that it is free" (Inst. III. xxi.6, p. 929). This can be clearly seen in the example of' Jacob and Esau about which God declared before they were born: "The older will serve the younger" (Gen. 25:23), so thai His "purpose in election might stand" (Rom. 9:11).
Throughout the history of Israel God continues His distinguishing work among the elect and reprobate. The law was given and the Kingdom was established, and the promise of the Messiah and the coming Kingdom all in turn were added. Finally, in Christ, the seed of Abraham, salvation for all God's elect was accomplished and then applied to individuals. Indeed, Calvin holds that the explanation of God's free election is only half explained until we come to individual persons whom God elects. It is in the coming of Christ, that God, in His wisdom, has begun to draw to Himself; not just Jews, but individual people from every tribe and every tongue on the earth. Christ's appeal is this: He who has ears to hear, let him hear (Mt. Ii:9; Lk. 8:8). "With these words He not only distinguishes the attentive from the inattentive; He implies that all are deaf except those whose ears are pierced by the Lord (Ps. 40:7)" (CEPG v.6, p. 95). Thus God is now saving and sustaining individuals all over the world through Christ until the day that Christ returns and the full number of the elect will have obtained their salvation. |
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