Posted on 12/29/2001 1:02:06 PM PST by AndrewSshi
A planet of playthings, You can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice. --Rush, “Freewill,” ©1980.
A host of holy horrors to direct our aimless dance.
We dance on the strings
Of powers we cannot perceive
“The stars aren’t aligned-
Or the gods are malign”
Blame is better to give than receive.
…
All preordained-
A prisoner in chains-
A victim of venomous fate.
Kicked in the face,
You can't pray for a place
In Heaven's unearthly estate.
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.
You can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill;
I will choose a path that's clear-
I will choose Free Will.
When Martin Luther defied a Pope and proclaimed salvation only through the ineffable grace of God, he had no idea that he was rending the body of the ancient church that had for so long known only unity. As his revolution spread, though, all Christendom watched as the Church began to fracture like one of the rose windows smashed by a maddened Swiss mob. Northern Germany, Scandinavia, and a large portion of the Swiss cantons turned away from the faith they had known for centuries, causing no small consternation in a civilization that valued timeless truths above novelty, and which viewed the past as the repository of truth and the present and future as decay. When the reformers were accused by men like Cardinal Sadoleto of pulling away from their faith for the sake of unprecedented novelties, both Luther and Calvin responded that it was their medieval forbears who had introduced devilish novelties into the Church, and that they were merely restoring Christianity to its ancient form (“Reply,” 56).
Such claims and counter claims were absolutely vital in the spirit of those times. For if Christ had indeed left His authority with a body of believers upon his ascension, then any faction claiming to possess the true meaning of His scriptures would logically have to be in agreement with that original body that carried on Christ’s truth after His return to His Father. It is outside of the purview of the discipline of history to ask questions about the existence and nature of God or the supernatural claims of any institution. We can, however, examine the claims of historical continuity by the various parties involved: Were Doctors Luther and Calvin reclaiming an ancient theology obscured by centuries of scholastic decadence, or were they, as their opponents claimed, introducing novelties never before seen under the sun? I intend, through an examination of patristic sources in comparison to Luther and Calvin, to demonstrate that the reformers reclaimed certain Augustinian principles, but in carrying them to their logical extremes, went to lengths that were utterly without precedent.
In examining the Reformation and its dogmas, we must first understand the key fulcrum upon which the reformation turned. This point, though, is often obscured when navigating through a list of secondary issues like use of images, liturgical style, church property, etc. We would do well to note that all of these issues pale besides that which drove the reformers to the lengths they went—“Therefore it is clear that, as the soul needs only the Word of God for its life and righteousness, so it is justified by faith alone and not any works; for if it could be justified by anything else, it would not need the Word, and consequently it would not need faith.” The reformation stands or falls on the basis of the assertion that man is justified before God only through His ineffable grace, by faith alone.
At the outset, this should not seem like too much of a problem. Even the most adamant pre-Vatican II Catholic will acknowledge the corrupt nature of man and inability to approach the righteousness of Christ without divine grace. Why then, did the reformers’ preaching of grace cause such a stir? If we delve below the surface, the problem with sola fide soon becomes apparent. If salvation comes by grace through faith alone, then no works of man can have anything do to with his salvation. If that is the case, then, as Luther tells us, this discounts any act of the will, for if one were to be able to will oneself to believe, faith would simply be a meritorious work (Luther, 135). Calvin reaches a similar conclusion in his Institutes (XXI, 1), and such thinking leaves us with the uncomfortable notion that, if one is to be saved by faith alone, then man, shorn of his free will, is reduced to the role of a puppet dancing on God’s strings. This of course opens up a host of other difficulties, and the perplexed believer is left asking if God in His love also responsible for evil. In the end, the Roman Catholic Church rejected reformed dogma in order to defend the doctrine of man’s freedom (Tracy, 101).
This rejection then left the reformers in the position of standing against the ancient Catholic Church and demanding that they, rather than the ancient church, possessed apostolic truth. Erasmus of Rotterdam had this to say about Luther’s claim to have re-discovered the truth:
Even though Christ’s spirit might permit His people to be in error in an unimportant question on which man’s salvation does not depend, no one would believe that this Spirit has deliberately overlooked error in His church for 1300 years, and that He did not deem one of all the pious and saintly Church Fathers worthy to be inspired, with what, they contend, is the very essence of all evangelical teaching (Erasmus, 19).Erasmus lays a fairly serious charge at Luther’s feet. The answer, then to the question of whether or not the reformers held views in concord with the ancient church lies in ascertaining Erasmus’s assertion that the denial of free will is completely alien to the historical record of the Church’s teachings.
Since Erasmus felt it meet to bring the Church Fathers into the discussion, I shall begin my examination with patristic sources. I intend first to examine the works of Justin Martyr, a second century convert and one of the first Christian apologists. I intend to examine Justin’s work as a case study for several reasons, chief of which are that his first and second apologies were written both to answer objections to the Christian faith and outline its basic principles, and, if we are looking for a picture of early Christianity as handed down to the apostles, we could do no better than to examine the product of a Church removed from the death of the last apostle by less than a century.
To properly comprehend the early Church’s positions on the freedom of the will, we must first examine the philosophical background of the classical world from which Christianity emerged. We quickly find that, as a general rule, the classical world was hostile to the notion of humanity possessing the free ability to choose. Democritus with his mechanistic view of the cosmos and the Eleatics with their monism both held that all events and choices were under the sway of a deterministic necessity (“Free Will”). Aristotle was a bit more optimistic, allowing for contingency, but then, with his cosmos brought into being by a primum mobile, it is hard to escape the notion that all subsequent causes must be dependent of the first cause (ibid). Nor did the stoics allow for free choice, which was precluded by their pantheistic picture of the universe (ibid). It was against such background that Christianity addressed the issue of man’s freedom.
In Chapters XLIII and XLIV of his Second Apology, Justin examines the question as to whether or not men are free. His conclusion is an unambiguous rejection of the classical world’s determinism. Martyr makes several arguments, one based on a usage of the term “devour” in Isaiah, and another on the dubious notion that Plato learned what he knew from the Hebrew prophets (Martyr, XLIV). We shall pass over these, though, in favor of the much more powerful argument of responsibility. He tells his reader “unless the human race have the power of avoiding evil and choosing good by free choice, they are not accountable for their actions” (Martyr, XLIII). Justin hammers this point home further in stating that God made man, “not like other things, as trees and quadrupeds, which cannot act by choice” (ibid). For Martyr, the sinner would not be worthy of punishment if his action were not of his own volition, but a result of the condition in which he was made (ibid). He then quotes Deuteronomy 30:15, 19: “Behold before thy face are good and evil: choose the good” (1.2.5).
Augustine in his answer affirmed that man does evil through the use of his free choice (Free Choice, 1.16.35), and that evil comes not from God, but rather from a negation of His goodness, that is, in a man turning from the good that which is God to follow his own desires (ibid, 2.20.54). In agreement with Justin Martyr, he asks rhetorically, “How could a man be punished justly, if he used his will for the very purpose for which it was given” (ibid, 2.1.3)? He goes on to state that to be justly punished, sin must be committed by a free act of the will (ibid).
In this context, when Augustine speaks of the decrees of God, he speaks of God’s predestination as coming through the foreknowledge of His omniscience. Indeed, he goes out of his way to state that foreknowledge is not the same as compulsion (Free Choice, 3.4.10), and states that, simply because God has foreseen an evil does not mean that He is responsible (ibid, 3.4.11). He draws the notion of foreknowledge to its logical conclusion, stating that because God foreknows everything, then events must happen as He has foreseen (ibid, 3.3.8). This appears to satisfactorily wrap up the issue of God’s decrees.
All of the above would seem to create the impression that God’s only action in working out His will is in foreseeing that which will occur and thus working out His will through man’s will. But we must carefully bear in mind that Augustine is speaking of the origins of evil. We have not yet examined what Augustine taught from scripture concerning, not man’s reprobation, but his salvation. When we look to this issue, the picture of Augustine becomes much murkier.
Augustine notes that the first man fell through his own completely free choice. Adam, in Augustine’s thinking, was completely free to choose either good or evil, and opted for evil (Free Choice, 3.24.73). From this point, humanity was enslaved to original sin. The original sin came through free will, but subsequently, though still free, the will was subject to corruption, and thus, unable to rise to salvation. This can be summed up in the statement, “But, though man fell through his own will, he cannot rise through his own will” (ibid, 2.20.54).
At this point in his career, Augustine might have been willing to acknowledge that man can freely look for the grace of God in order to assist him in doing good, stating that man, though subject to concupiscence, nonetheless has the knowledge of God, by whose grace he might rise to a higher state (ibid, 3.19.53). If we were to cease our examination of Augustine here, we would find a ready partisan of Rome, affirming man’s free choice, predestination through foreknowledge, and the ability of man to choose God. Alas, the picture is not that simple.
For at the turn of the fifth century, the notorious heretic Pelagius preached that man in and of himself had the ability to be perfect, and that the fall of Adam, rather than plunging the whole of the human race into sin, served merely as a bad example (Nature and Grace, 9.10). To the dismay of the good Doctor, Pelagius and his followers sought to bolster support for their beliefs with Augustine’s very own writings on free will (Retractions, 1.9.3). Augustine’s response to this heretic’s teachings generated his later writings on the will, predestination, and divine grace.
It must be noted that Augustine’s later writings on original sin and predestination seems to show a markedly different posture from his earlier work on free will. While it has been argued that this hardened stance was due either to his reaction to the fall of Rome or the Pelagian heresy, it is more likely that his own views were gradually evolving under the influence of St. Paul, independent of external circumstances. I base my judgment on Augustine’s quotation of his Retractions in On the Predestination of the Saints:
I indeed labored in defense of the free choice of the human will, but the grace of God conquered, and only thus was I able to arrive at the point where I understood that the Apostle spoke with the clearest truth, “For who singles you out? Or what do you have that you have not received? And if you have received it, why do you glory as if you had not received it” (1 Corinthians 4:7, qtd. in Predestination, 4.8)?The above taken into account, the later Augustine still believes that those who choose faith in Christ do so of their own free will, but with the important caveat that God has prepared the will of the elect to choose Him (Predestination, 6.11). Under these teachings of Augustine, free will alone is insufficient to believe in Christ, and indeed, if free will is enough for the believer to be saved, then “Christ has died in vain” (Nature and Grace, 40.47). The will of man is both corrupt and inadequate to seek salvation. The elect are not called because they believe, but so that they may believe (Predestination, 17.34). We see Augustine at his most Protestant when he further recounts his own changing views in stating “I said most truly: ‘For just as in those “whom God has chosen,” not works initiate merit, but faith…’ [Emphasis added.] But that merit of faith is also a gift of God…” (Predestination, 3.7) Here, then, the Catholic, to his dismay, sees what seems to be protestant doctrine issuing from the pen of the arch-Catholic.
We will be going too far, though, if we make Augustine a five point Calvinist. We must note that, for starters, when he issued a retraction concerning his first writings on the nature of evil, he stated that free will was inadequate for man to rise to God. He never, though, changed his statement that evil comes only from the free exercise of the will, and never denies that in choosing to do evil, Adam was under no compulsion. When he mentions predestination, he is quite clear that only by God’s predestination can man come to an efficacious and saving faith, but what is striking is that predestination is only mentioned regarding salvation. Those that are condemned do so merely because they follow their own corrupt will, and God justly punishes their evil deeds. Augustine takes his stand for grace and salvation through election, while at the same time avoiding the horror of double predestination.
For the next several centuries, the Church would follow this Augustinian path. The Church rejected the teachings of Pelagius, and a hundred years later at the Council of Orange, issued a series of canons affirming the Augustinian position on grace and predestination. Canon 4 states that if anyone contends that God’s cleansing of man from sin is contingent upon the will then he is in error; Canon 5 states that the beginning of faith itself comes from the grace of God rather than the will of man; Canon 6 states that grace does not depend on the cooperation of man (“Canons of Orange”). As the Church moved on through the centuries, she attempted to carry on in the steps of the African Doctor in straddling the fence between grace and free will. By the beginning of the High Middle Ages, though, the Church was pulling back towards a system that acknowledged the primacy of the human will. By the turn of the twelfth century, St. Anselm of Canterbury wrote in his De Concordia that free choice co-exists with divine grace and cooperates with it (Anselm, 453). With such pronouncements, The Church had arrived at a position specifically condemned by St. Augustine (cf. Letter 225). We shall now examine how well Luther and Calvin succeeded in their attempts to return to his teachings.
Luther would be in perfect concord with Augustine in his affirmation of salvation by grace through faith. In The Bondage of the Will, though, he arrives at Augustine, but then passes him completely, arriving in territory where none have trodden before. Augustine stated that man’s fall came through his choice, and the resulting corruption of human nature resulted in a will that commits sin of its own volition. Luther does the good doctor one better, though, and asserts that the wicked man sins “under the impulse of divine power” (Luther, 130). Luther even challenges Augustine in his definition of free will, stating that, if in a fallen state the will is unable to seek God, then it is not in fact free (ibid, 113), and that Augustine and others who have called such a will free are degrading the very word (ibid, 120). Luther goes to the extreme end of the spectrum, and then beyond the pale, but recognizes and embraces this: “Therefore, we must go to extremes, deny free will altogether, and ascribe everything to God” (ibid, 133)!
Indeed, his statement that a will unable to do good is in fact under compulsion makes fine logical sense, but the end result is a man with no freedom, and one whose evil must be the responsibility of divine omnipotence. Luther here returns to the Augustinian notion that in His omnipotence God allows but does not cause the workings of evil in order to further His divine plan (ibid, 130). It almost seems here that Luther is pulling back from the brink of a precipice to which he has been running headlong, staring into an abyss to which he dare not attempt to apply his own feeble reason. And indeed, though throughout this debate on free will with Erasmus Luther employs the techniques of reason and dialectic, in the end he felt that any attempt to use reason to fathom the mind of God was a fairly silly exercise (ibid, 129). As the reformation continued, though, another figure would arrive who would see no problem in attempting to apply human reason to the workings of the Eternal God, taking every statement on grace, sin, and God’s decrees to their horrifying ends, leaping joyfully into the abyss from which Luther held back. That man was Jean Calvin.
Even the extreme bombast of Luther’s Bondage of the Will does not take the horrific final step in the picture it paints of God’s omnipotence. Like Augustine, Luther admits that since the fall, man has been a slave to sin, but Calvin finally dares to examine from whence came the fall. His conclusion, unlike Augustine’s, is that God actively caused the fall of Adam and the whole human race into sin and damnation as part of His “wonderful plan” (Institutes, XXIII, 7). The ruthless Frenchman then goes on to state that God is nonetheless just in punishing the reprobate (ibid, XXIII, 4). Though this horribly contradicts both Augustine and Justin Martyr’s writings of responsibility, Calvin barely hesitates when he states that he is leaving behind the bulk of the Church’s traditions in favor of his alleged ruthless adherence to scripture (ibid, XXII, 1). Calvin has no problem in that asserting that, since salvation is not by works, then neither is damnation (ibid, XXII, 11), and that the reason for the eternal torment of the vast majority of the human race lies, not in their guilt, but in the arbitrary choice of God.
This horror, then, is the end result of the reformation: God has arbitrarily predestined some to eternal life, and has likewise predestined others to eternal damnation. Calvin then states that certain people might object to this, stating that it makes God a cruel tyrant, to which he responds that since God is both omnipotent and the creator of everything, then all that He decrees, ipso facto, is righteous, good, and just (Institutes, XXIII, 2). He then has the chutzpah to go on and tell the reader that his dogma is not one of absolute might, since God is “free from fault,” and the quintessence of Law and Right (ibid).
Jean Calvin then, has started from Augustine, who among the Church Fathers was most friendly to predestination, and taken the teachings of predestination to their logical extreme, crafting a dogma that would have caused St. Augustine to blanch in horror. Did St. Augustine believe in divine election and predestination of believers? Most assuredly. It was up to Jean Calvin, though, to add double predestination and eliminate Augustine’s free will theodicy in favor of a God who has decreed evil and suffering for his own amusement.
I submit, though, that such questions concerning free will and predestination would inevitably have come to the fore and been the cause of controversy even without Luther and Calvin. The reason for this is that Augustine loomed large over the western Church down through the centuries, and at times there seem to be two Augustines. Why is this the case? The reason that there seem to be two St. Augustines lies in the Bible itself, since there seem to be two St. Pauls*. We have the Paul who tells the believer in Romans Chapter 9 that God prepares some men for eternal life and some for damnation, answering the obvious objection to this with a “Who are you, O man, to talk back to God” (Romans 9:20)? On the other hand, we are also told that there is a loving God who “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of truth” (1 Timothy 2:4). Such contradictions in the Christian faith, then, were present at its inception.
Indeed, such difficulties are inevitable in any faith that attempts to posit a God who is all-powerful, all knowing, and all good. Paul, who likely never intended to be considered a basis for systematic theology, is all over the map when it comes to how to resolve such questions. As such, there is no pat resolution to these seeming contradictions. Perhaps the error of the church was to seek one; Luther is at his best not when he is glorying in the slavery of man, but when he is proclaiming the mercy of Christ.
---. The Problem of Free Choice. Trans. Dom Mark Pontifex. New York: Newman Press, 1955.
The Problem of Free Choice. Appendix. Excerpt from Retractions.
Calvin, Jean. Excerpts from Institutes of the Christian Religion. The Protestant Reformation. Ed. Hans J. Hillerbrand. New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1968. 178-221.
---. “Reply to Sadoleto.” A Reformation Debate. Ed. John C. Olin. New York, Fordham University Press, 2000. 43-88.
"The Canons of the Council of Orange.” 529 A.D. Center for Reformed Theology and Apologetics.
“Free Will.” The Catholic Encyclopedia. Michael Maher. 1909. Transcribed 1999.
Martyr, Justin, Saint. “The Second Apology.” The Ante-Nicene Fathers. Eds. Alexander Roberts, D.D., and James Donaldson, LL.D. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1899. 188-194.
Erasmus of Rotterdam. Excerpts from The Free Will. Winter 3-94.
Luther, Martin. Excerpts from The Bondage of the Will. Winter 98-138.
Perhaps we should accept the very johnny come lately mormon perversion. BTW, OP=Uriel!!!!
That compulsive need to understand served me well in college...If you understand HOW a system should work you recognize it when it is out of homeostasis. An important thing for nurses...but foolish with computers I have decided..and possibly with theology *grin*
(A concept that is demonstrated with regularity on these threads!)
Are you sure? Don't make the mistake that Andrew is making attributing to Calvin positions which are not his. Let's continue...
It seems to me that in such discussion, it's very easy to move beyond the statements of scripture to particulars of logic based on the use of literal readings of particular passages. It is no doubt very tempting to any theologian given the nature of the work and the type of individual who is drawn to it. Yet, their work involves reading the Word and producing more words, relying upon the flawed reasoning of man to thereby describe the most intimate nature of God's character and motives. And yet, Augustine's understanding is not that of the full nature of God. Nor is Luther's or Calvin's. These matters are not fully given to the understanding of man from the scripture. The conclusions are not plainly spoken in scripture. And they are not the central message of Christian belief, a fact overlooked by their most devoted supporters and opponents.
I would humbly suggest that you refresh your reading of Institutes Book III, particularly chapter 23. Far from willfully exceeding the express written Word, I would have you note particularly how often Calvin repeatedly enjoins the reader, in the most serious and grave tones, NOT to go beyond what the Scriptures have said in consideration of these matters.
Some excerpts...
...We do not imagine God to be lawless. He is a law to himself; because, as Plato says, men laboring under the influence of concupiscence need law; but the will of God is not only free from all vice, but is the supreme standard of perfection, the law of all laws. But we deny that he is bound to give an account of his procedure; and we moreover deny that we are fit of our own ability to give judgment in such a case. Wherefore, when we are tempted to go farther than we ought, let this consideration deter us, Thou shalt be "justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judges," (Ps. 51:4).
...The Apostle, indeed, confesses that in the divine judgments there is a depth in which all the minds of men must be engulfed if they attempt to penetrate into it. But he also shows how unbecoming it is to reduce the works of God to such a law as that we can presume to condemn them the moment they accord not with our reason.
If your mind is troubled, decline not to embrace the counsel of Augustine, "You a man expect an answer from me: I also am a man. Wherefore, let us both listen to him who says, O man, who art thou?' Believing ignorance is better than presumptuous knowledge. Seek merits; you will find nought but punishment. O the height! Peter denies, a thief believes. O the height! Do you ask the reason? I will tremble at the height. Reason you, I will wonder; dispute you, I will believe. I see the height; I cannot sound the depth. Paul found rest, because he found wonder. He calls the judgments of God unsearchable; and have you come to search them? He says that his ways are past finding out, and do you seek to find them out?" (August. de Verb. Apost. Serm. 20). We shall gain nothing by proceeding farther.
I think on re-reading Calvin you will understand my counter-argument against those who impugn his exposition, when I say that the whole of Calvin's writing on the matter can essentially be summed in these two Scriptures. Calvin does ask -- yea, insists -- that the reader should affirm with Scripture that "The Lord has made the wicked for the day of evil" and "they stumble because they are disobedient to the Word, and to this doom they were also appointed". But, upon the reader's affirmation of these Scripture truths, Calvin does not seek to lead him beyond these guideposts which the Holy Writ has established. Rather, he quite pointedly enjoins his reader not to attempt such folly.
The real practical impact of these human ideas of predestination is that they go so far as to cause people to believe that God is the author of all evil, that God desired from the very beginning to damn the vast majority of all mankind. The rejection of this general predestinarian conclusion is that which causes Pelagianism and Arminianism whose theologians then are forced to elevate the will of man and his ability to "choose" faith and salvation as the central point of God's interest in man. To fully believe these theories and apply them to our fellow-men is to change the Good News of the Gospel we are to present to all men into the Bad News of the New Covenant that the vast majority of mankind are damned because it pleased God to do so from the very beginning and was part of His central purpose.
You and I, being Pre-Millenarians, might think it the "logical" extension of the doctrine of Reprobation that "the vast majority of mankind" is consigned to Reprobation (although, if one believes as I do, with Spurgeon and Boettner and others, that God has graciously deigned to apply the Atonement of Christ to the Original Sin of those whom He foreknew dying in infancy and so redeemed them, it might not be the "majority" of the whole Race after all!!). But let us step back, and remember that the Pre-Millenarian view is not the only available room at the eschatological inn. The Post-Millenarian believes (warning: fast-and-loose summary on my part here) that the Church will completely fulfill the Great Commission, and that Salvation will grow by the Gospel to cover the whole earth, ushering in a Millenium of universal (or nearly-universal) Salvation, the salvation of all men everywhere, generation after generation, for a thousand years -- and, if population trends hold, the earth's most populous millenium at that. As such, the Post-Millenarian does not believe that Reprobation is the destiny of the "majority" at all.
So where does that leave us? The Pre-Millenarian might worry that Reprobation includes the "vast majority" of mankind, while the Post-Millenarian believes that Reprobation extends to relatively few -- a few billion in history past compared to the many tens of billions who will be Saved to the uttermost during the glorious Millenium. Which is right? Who is to say?? Let us simply admit that the Bible does teach the reality of Reprobation, and in our preaching, adhere to the Biblical method of presentation:
Predestination is true. God is sovereign in all things. But we are not given to know these things quite so precisely as Augustine, Luther, and Calvin have written. The actions and motives of God as described in scripture do not fully inform us as to His motives and ultimate purpose with men in general or with the eternal fate of any particular man. Clearly, there are matters which He does not wish us to know or which He knew we would misuse if He explained them fully to us. He gives us assurance of His sovereignty in all things in scripture but He does not grant us full knowledge of His purpose, His methods, or His criterian in predestining men toward Him.
I agree, but you honestly aren't "taking a step back" from Augustine, Luther, and Calvin here. They are standing on the doctrine of Reprobation (as the above excerpts may remind you) right where you are standing -- pointing to the Old Landmark and saying, "This guidepost the Scripture has established; acknowledge firstly that it is there, but then resolve secondly not to go beyond it".
I admit that some claim Augustine and Calvin are standing beyond the Landmark, but... well, (puckish grin), they're just lying. ;-)
This is not so much a matter of the intricacies of God's Will (which goes to His inscrutable and ineffable purposes), but rather the extent of His mental awareness (which goes to His expressly declared Omniscience!!).
Man, though his mental awareness is finite and imperfect, nonetheless comprehends the fact that in choosing to wear black shoes, he is choosing not to wear brown shoes. It will come as no surprise to the man that he has chosen not to wear brown shoes; this is a simple concept, and he understands it.
Likewise, when God has Elected the Saints, he is not surprised by the continued depravities of the Reprobate. Knowing that He has chosen to give Grace unto the Saints, He is aware of the fact that He has chosen not to so Grace the Reprobate.
He is not thoughtless; The implications of His own choices are not unknown to Him (and Matthew 11 pointedly establishes that He foreknows also the different implications of different Elections which He could have freely Decreed); He is a self-aware Being, cognizant of His own actions, and He knows what He is doing.
For instance, the Bible tells us that God cannot lie. This is presented as intrinsic to His nature and His pure holiness. And yet, man easily lies. Therefore, God is in this matter considerably lesser than His own creation.
God cannot lie because His speech creates reality. It is not that He is less than his creation, but that His creation is so much less than Him that its very existence trembles upon the whim of his voice.
If God told you that the moon was made of green cheese... it would be. Instantly. The moment He said so.
"God cannot lie"... not because His voice is weak, but rather because the moment He speaks, whatever He says is Fact. Immediately.
Does this mean He is not God? Of course not. God's nature is an utter holiness of which we are incapable to fully perceive or imagine. I think God is not capable of the sort of ambiguousness which He created in man. I think God deliberately created in angels and in man a particular nature that He desired. And He is does not share their limitations. Perhaps they are capable of things He is not and that pleases Him and is their purpose in His creation. Again, I don't pretend to know this. But it does seem that these classes of being must have a particular purpose which pleases God. And I don't need to go further than that.
Well, we can go as far as Paul goes...
And I'll agree that we don't need to go further than that. (and so do Augustine and Calvin)
This really surprises me GW. I know the high regard you have for Calvin and his work..this sounds like you are dismissing it out of hand????
I do not think that Augustine, Calvin,or Luther expected or wanted to be place on the same level as inherent Scripture. What they do offer is what the best minds and years of scholarship . We agree their work,like that of all church fathers is always a personal insight into the word of God.(like all commentaries or study bibles.) The difference with Calvin and Luther is the extent of their work and the impact they had on the religious world, and how men saw their relationship to God throught their work! .That, as I know you would agree ,came out of the level of their prayer, scholarship and dedication. Both men had a willingness to stand on their work in the face of an angry Rome.
Predestination may not be the central theme of scripture but,it was one of the central themes in the reformation, so not easily dismissed out of hand. Without the work and study and willingness to suffer persecution in HIS name we would all be going to mass on Sunday!
This is the important point of the discussion in the preceding posts, IMHO; being agreed on that point, I am content to leave the rest as adiaphora (relatively indifferent matters).
Such as?
(Not a challenge, just a query. Being agreed that Calvin is not infallible, I am curious as to which of his specific points on Reprobation you take issue. Thanks.)
Ahh. Yeah, see, that's what I had figured.
I find, in reading Calvin, that he often seems too strident in the extent, and the establishment, of his argumentative points... until I re-read the chapter before whence he establishes the necessary Biblical premises from which He writes (without which you won't really understand his logic), or maybe the chapter thereafter where he discusses the considerations which inform and/or qualify the extent of his point.
Basically, I'm saying that Calvin writes in a holistic manner (he expects to be read as a whole), so if you are going to excise a particular doctrinal point of Calvin's for study, you have to do so in a synthetic manner -- taking note of his underlying and pre-conditioning Biblical premises, and allowing for his informative and definitive Biblical reservations... which may not be (indeed, often isn't) in the same chapter as the formal Argument itself!!
So usually I find that Calvin has already avoided "exigetical overstretch" by specifying the scope of his argument in the preceding premises, or he proceeds to avoid it by qualifying the extent in subsequent reservations... but you wouldn't know that if you just jumped immediately into his formal Argument by itself - which is what I think many of his detractors do. Usually, when Calvin seems to overstretch, it is just that -- he only seems to overstretch. Read a bit further, or re-read preceding points; you'll likely find your concerns quieted, or so I have found.
But a lot of this goes to personal preference, how we would say something differently, or structure an argument differently, etc. So we end up saying something like, "I more-or-less agree with what Calvin has said, it's just not the way I would have said it". Well, that's just fine; to each his own.
Basically, I'm saying that Calvin writes in a holistic manner (he expects to be read as a whole), so if you are going to excise a particular doctrinal point of Calvin's for study, you have to do so in a synthetic manner -- taking note of his underlying and pre-conditioning Biblical premises, and allowing for his informative and definitive Biblical reservations... which may not be (indeed, often isn't) in the same chapter as the formal Argument itself!!Does a good (and reasonably brief) example of this readily come to mind? I am a fan of plainness and clarity, and from your description, reading Calvin can be like putting a jigsaw puzzle together. (One could argue that is what we are doing all the time with Bible verses.) But there is the potential for him to backtrack when he gets to his Biblical reservations, or undermine his argument with his underlying and preconditioning Biblical premises, by spreading them out so much.
I am sure, in your high regard for Calvin's work, you have satisfied yourself that Calvin has managed to avoid that.
As it happens, exactly the same comparison sprung to my own mind. I deliberately refrained from offering the comparison, however; since I supposed that, as a Calvinist, I might be accused of claiming for Calvin's stylistically Biblical construction of writing the same infallibity enjoyed by the Holy Writ. Such an accusation would be absurd; but that wouldn't stop an opponent from attributing it to me.
However, since the very same observation has now been offered by an opponent of Calvin's, I don't mind admitting the stylistic comparison: Yes. The Institutes, written holistically, does expect the reader to apply the same sort of synthetic hermeneutic required when reading the perfectly-holistic Bible. (Though, to afford the Bible one more compliment before I move on, Calvin had by far the easier job, weaving together a holistic work mainly of Systematic Doctrine alone, whereas the Bible is a perfectly-woven holistic construction of Doctrine AND Ethics AND Law AND History AND Worship AND Prophecy).
But there is the potential for him to backtrack when he gets to his Biblical reservations, or undermine his argument with his underlying and preconditioning Biblical premises, by spreading them out so much. I am sure, in your high regard for Calvin's work, you have satisfied yourself that Calvin has managed to avoid that.
Of course.
I proof-read my own writing. Don't you?
And John Calvin, it should be remembered, was not some punk amateur theological hack. It is no "veneration of saints", but simply an observation of fact, to remember that this man was no Publik-Skooled imbecile like myself, but a man trained Classically in the arts of Logic and Rhetoric, his mind refined by the precise consideration of the arcana of Canon Law, who had essentially memorized the greater portion of the Scriptures and the Patristics by the age of 27 (as an exercise in appreciating the Gifts of mental prowess which God deigned to bestow upon Calvin, read the Institutes sometime, taking note of the voluminous mass of Scripture and Patristic commentary by which he endeavors to support his every point. Now, with that in mind, consider that this 27-year old did not conceive and formulate the Institutes while enjoying the quiet solemnity of the libraries of Paris, but while on the run for his life from the French Catholic army!!).
In preparing a debate Case, it is necessary for the professional debater to spend uncounted hours mentally tearing his own Case apart, conceptualizing any possible attack he can imagine against his Case, examining his Case with a razor-fine attention to detail to ferret out any hint of inconsistency or logical vulnerability which might be exploited, before subjecting his Case to the crucible of antagonistic debate. This is the only way the debater is going to get past the first round of College-level professional Debate -- I know this much.
And I'm no John Calvin.
So the reason why, when a point of Calvin's bothers me, I have learned not to quickly take exception but rather to read ahead a little, or read back a little, is not because I imagine Calvin is necessarily "predestined" as some kind of "extra-special saint" to always be perfectly correct in all things. It's just because I think I have some modest appreciation of, and understanding of, the kind of thinking which must go into the preparation of a Case.
It can't be sloppy thinking. That would be, well.... dumb.
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