[White Mountain]

Thank you for your very well-written #160. I am glad you resisted the impulse to compare John Calvin's writing style with that of the Bible. I read your post as I was finishing up the following, about something that bothers me greatly. I hesitate to post it amid such a cordial conversation, which can be a rarity at FR, but it will be good to get it off my chest.

From the article (Andrew's thesis, emphasis mine):

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.

Now, I am sure you have many disagreements with Andrew's thesis, but it does reflect a line of reasoning that I have often seen in your posts:

1. God is always fair and just.
2. God has predestined some to eternal life, and has likewise predestined others to eternal damnation, in both cases without regard to any merit or demerit on their part -- God withholds from the latter the grace to repent -- etc.
3. The reader's common sense says this is horribly unfair and unjust.
4. "Who are you, O man, to talk back to God?" (Romans 9:20), in which Holy Scripture is used to imply that the reader is questioning #1 (the justice of God) and to demand therefore that the reader must instead question #3 (his/her common sense), when in fact it is #2 (the erroneous logic and conclusions of Mr. Calvin) that must be called into question.

If the reader accedes to the demand that he must doubt his God-given common sense and faculties of reason, the tendency is to let the person presenting this line of reasoning do his thinking for him, something that I would advise against.

Tell me what you think.

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

Tell me what you think. ~~ White Mountain

Okay.

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.

Totally false.

Calvin's position is that God decreed judgment upon the evil to make known the riches of His Glory on the vessels of Mercy prepared beforehand for Mercy.

Here, I'll state Calvin's position on the subject:

What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory, Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?

(Apostle Paul, epistle to the Romans, ch 9 vs 23-25)

That's Calvin's position on the subject.

Now, we analyze your points. I count 2 critical logical fallacies on the first glance...

Now, I am sure you have many disagreements with Andrew's thesis, but it does reflect a line of reasoning that I have often seen in your posts:

• God is always fair and just.
  (True)

• God has predestined some to eternal life, and has likewise predestined others to eternal damnation, in both cases without regard to any merit or demerit on their part -- God withholds from the latter the grace to repent -- etc.
  (Utterly False. Calvin's view is NOT that God predestines the Reprobate to Damnation without regard to their demerits. He specifically states that God predestines the Reprobate to Damnation precisely on the basis of their Moral Demerits. Without a long series of excerpts to prove the point, I'll just quote one of Calvin's own chapter headings on the subject: "Election confirmed by the calling of God. The reprobate bring upon themselves the righteous destruction to which they are doomed." Nuff said.)

• The reader's common sense says this is horribly unfair and unjust.
  (Critical codicil: Holy Scripture specifically declares that the Natural Man's "common sense" is at war with God, and actively hostile against a Right understanding of God's Justice.)
  ***Romans 8: 5 - 8 -- For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
  ***1 Corinthians 2: 14 -- But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.

• "Who are you, O man, to talk back to God?" (Romans 9:20), in which Holy Scripture is used to imply that the reader is questioning #1 (the justice of God) and to demand therefore that the reader must instead question #3 (his/her common sense), when in fact it is #2 (the erroneous logic and conclusions of Mr. Calvin) that must be called into question.
  (Rather, it is White Mountain's false characterization of Calvinism which should be called into question -- and identified as a Bearing of False Witness once he has been alerted to his errors... which, he has).