Predestination in Calvinism
Part of a series on |
Reformed Christianity |
---|
Reformed Christianity portal |
Predestination is a doctrine in
Calvinism places more emphasis on election compared to other branches of Christianity.[4]
Origins
Predestination of the elect and non-elect was taught by the Jewish
Double predestination
Double predestination is the idea that not only does God choose some to be saved, he also creates some people who will be damned.[10]
Some modern Calvinists respond to the ethical dilemma of double predestination by explaining that God's active predestination is only for the elect. God provides grace to the elect causing salvation, but for the damned God withholds salvific grace. Calvinists teach that God remains just and fair in creating persons he predestines to damnation because although God unilaterally works in the elect producing regeneration, God does not actively force the damned to sin.
Scholars have disagreed over whether
Calvin's writings
Calvin's doctrine of providence is straightforward. "All events whatsoever are governed by the secret counsel of God." Therefore, "nothing happens but what [God] has knowingly and willingly decreed." This excludes "fortune and chance."[17] Calvin applied his doctrine of providence concerning "all events" to individuals and their salvation in his doctrine of predestination.
Calvin opened his exposition of predestination with an "actual fact". The "actual fact" that Calvin observed was that even among those to whom "the covenant of life" is preached, it does not gain the same acceptance.[18] Although, "all are called to repentance and faith", in fact, "the spirit of repentance and faith is not given to all".[19]
Calvin turned to the teachings of Jesus for a theological interpretation of the diversity that some people accept the "covenant of life" and some do not. Pointing to the Parable of the Sower, Calvin observed, "it is no new thing for the seed to fall among thorns or in stony places".[19] In Jesus' teaching in John 6:65 that "no one can come to me unless it has been granted him by my Father", Calvin found the key to his theological interpretation of the diversity.[20]
For Calvin's biblically-based theology, this diversity reveals the "unsearchable depth of the divine judgment", a judgment "subordinate to God's purpose of eternal election". God offers salvation to some, but not to all. To many this seems a perplexing subject, because they deem it "incongruous that ... some should be predestinated to salvation, and others to destruction". However, Calvin asserted that the incongruity can be resolved by proper views concerning "election and predestination".[18]
Thus, Calvin based his theological description of people as "predestinated to life or to death" on biblical authority and "actual fact".[21] Calvin noted that Scripture requires that we "consider this great mystery" of predestination, but he also warned against unrestrained "human curiosity" regarding it.[22] For believers, knowing that "the cause of our salvation did not proceed from us, but from God alone" evokes gratitude.[23]
Reprobation: active decree, passive foreordination
Calvinists emphasise the active nature of God's decree to choose those foreordained to eternal wrath, yet at the same time the passive nature of that foreordination.
This is possible because most Calvinists hold to an
Equal ultimacy
The WCF uses different words for the act of God's election and reprobation: "predestinated" and "foreordained" respectively. This suggests that the two do not operate in the same way. The term "equal ultimacy" is sometimes used of the view that the two decrees are symmetrical: God works equally to keep the elect in heaven and the reprobate out of heaven. This view is sometimes erroneously referred to as "double predestination", on which see above. R. C. Sproul argues against this position on the basis that it implies God "actively intervenes to work sin" in the lives of the reprobate.[25] Robert L. Reymond, however, insists on equal ultimacy of election and reprobation in the divine decree, though he suggests that "we must not speak of an exact identity of divine causality behind both."[26]
Calvinists hold that even if their scheme is characterized as a form of determinism, it is one which insists upon the free agency and moral responsibility of the individual. Additionally, they hold that the will is in bondage to sin and therefore unable to actualize its true freedom. Hence, an individual whose will is enslaved to sin cannot choose to serve God. Since Calvinists further hold that salvation is by grace apart from good works (sola gratia) and since they view making a choice to trust God as an action or work, they maintain that the act of choosing cannot be the difference between salvation and damnation, as in the Arminian scheme. Rather, God must first free the individual from his enslavement to sin to a greater degree than in Arminianism, and then the regenerated heart naturally chooses the good. This work by God is sometimes called irresistible, in the sense that grace enables a person to freely cooperate, being set free from the desire to do the opposite, so that cooperation is not the cause of salvation but the other way around.
Barthian views
20th century Reformed theologian Karl Barth reinterpreted the Reformed doctrine of predestination. For Barth, God elects Christ as rejected and chosen man. Individual people are not the subjects of election, but are elected or rejected by virtue of their being in Christ.[27] Interpreters of Barth such as Shirley Guthrie have called this a "Trinitarian" as opposed to a "speculative" view of predestination. According to Guthrie, God freely loves all people, and his just condemnation of sinners is motivated by love and a desire for reconciliation.[28]
See also
- Five points of Calvinism
- Predestination
- Reprobation
- Theological determinism
- Theological fatalism
- Two-Seed-in-the-Spirit Predestinarian Baptists
- Unconditional election
- John Calvin
References
- ISBN 0-8028-3860-X.
- .
- OCLC 707096039.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-107-02722-0.
- ^ Epstein, Isidore (1966). Judaism. Baltimore, Maryland: Penguin Books. p. 103.
- ^ Edwards, Mark (2006). Culture and Philosophy in the Age of Plotinus. London: Duckworth.
- ^ Widengren, Geo (1977). Der Manichäismus. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. pp. 63–65.
- ^ of Hippo, Augustine. De pecc. merit. p. 2:28–32.
- ^ of Hippo, Augustine. Enchir. p. 100.
- ISBN 978-0-8028-2799-9.
- ^ Phillips, Richard. What Are Election and Predestination?. Phillipsburg, New Jersey: P & R Pub.
- ^ Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 3.23.1.
- James, Frank A. III (1998). Peter Martyr Vermigli and Predestination: The Augustinian Inheritance of An Italian Reformer. New York: Clarendon Press. pp. 30, 33. Archived from the originalon 2018-02-18. Retrieved 2017-09-08.
- ^ Venema, Cornelis (2002). Heinrich Bullinger and the Doctrine of Predestination. p. 104.
- ^ Nimmo, Fergusson, p. 45
- ^ Susan E. Schreiner, "Predestination and Providence" in Ad Fontes. To the Sources: A Primer in Reformed Theology (Erdman Center of Continuing Education at Princeton Theological Seminary). Archived 2015-09-18 at the Wayback Machine. Accessed April 27, 2014.
- ^ Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1.16.2–3, 8.
- ^ a b Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 3.21.1.
- ^ a b Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 3.22.10.
- ^ Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 3.22.7.
- ^ Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 3.21.5.
- ^ Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 3.21.1 and 3.23.12.
- ^ "John Calvin: Calvin's Commentaries—Complete – Christian Classics Ethereal Library". www.ccel.org. Retrieved 2023-04-27.
- ^ Robert L. Reymond, A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1998), p. 345.
- ^ ""Double" Predestination by R.C. Sproul". www.the-highway.com. Retrieved 2023-04-27.
- ^ Robert L. Reymond, A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith (2nd ed., Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1998), p. 360.
- Westminster John Knox. pp. 229–230.
- Westminster John Knox. pp. 47–49.
External links
- Predestination in Calvinism at Curlie
Pro
- A Brief Declaration on Predestination by Theodore Beza
- Reformed Doctrine of Predestination by Loraine Boettner
- Some Thoughts on Predestination by B. B. Warfield
- Divine and Human Freedom – by Andrew Sandlin. Good explanation of free will under a Calvinist system (i.e., the difference between Calvinist predestination and fatalism).
Con
- The Antecedent and Consequent Will of God: Is this a Valid and Useful Distinction? by A. Hussman (a Confessional Lutheranperspective)
- Sermon #58: "On Predestination" by John Wesley
- Sermon #128: "Free Grace" by John Wesley
- [1] A criticism of predestination by Tim Staples