Calvin. History and Reception of a Reformation Week 2. Calvin's Thought Sequence 7. Divine Election and Divine Reprobation: Good News or Bad News? As a theologian, Calvin is associated by many with the notions of predestination and double predestination. When speaking of Calvin, the first thing that comes to mind, for many, is predestination. Is this legitimate? I don't think it is. Several 19th century theologians, most notably germanophones Alexander Schweitzer and Ferdinand
Christian Baur, have contributed to the idea that Calvin is above all the theologian of predestination. They defined predestination as the central theme of Calvin's thought. Others, however, have seen predestination as a minor detail of Calvin's theology, something without major importance. I cannot agree with this position, either. The doctrine of predestination, indeed, is presented in book 3 of the "Institutes" -- and not even at the beginning of book III, but rather in chapters 21 to 24 (almost at the very end). From this, it would seem that predestination is not Calvin's central doctrine -- and I agree that it is not. At the same time, predestination is such a pervasive theme, not only throughout the "Institutes," but throughout Calvin's other works (biblical commentaries, etc.), that it would be misguided to
characterize it as a marginal aspect of his thought. Predestination is a necessary logical consequence of the proposition that faith is a gift from God, rather than a meritorious human decision. If faith depends on God, on the Holy Spirit that gives birth to it, then why do some have faith while others do not? Answering this question leads to the doctrine of election and predestination. Calvin's starting point, then, is pragmatic, practical: we see that some people believe (have faith) while others don't -- even though we are unable,
as humans, to tell these two groups apart. What is meant by "double predestination"? It's the notion according to which God elects some (the "elect") while rejecting others (the "reprobate"). Here is the title of section 21 of book III of the "Institutes": "Of eternal election, by which God has predestinated some to salvation, and others to destruction" This doctrine's potential for controversy is immediately apparent, especially to anyone who believes that God is love. In the 16th century already, many wondered whether it does not make God into a tyrant. In 1551, Jérôme Bolsec was arrested and expelled from Geneva for denying the doctrine of double predestination. Many contemporary Calvinist theologians have been ill-at-ease with this particular aspect of his theology, preferring to focus on the theory of election and generally staying away
from the other, darker side of double predestination, namely, the theory of
reprobation (or condemnation). This notion, indeed, can seem rather chilling. It may make you want to click on the "pause" button or perhaps even close this window on your screen entirely. But before coming to that, let's first seek to understand what Calvin was trying to say. Calvin is basing himself on his interpretation of Scripture, and in particular on Romans 9 to 11. In Romans 9, Paul quotes the words of God in the Old Testament: "Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated." Paul then asks: "What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God"? Already, we see, Paul was asking himself the same question. Paul's answer: "Certainly not! [...] He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens." Verses such as this (Romans 9:18) are the basis upon which Calvin builds his doctrine of predestination, which is hardly an invention of his, since it is found in the writings of many earlier theologians, including Augustine and Thomas Aquinas --
with various individual nuances and differences, of course. In early versions of the "Institutes," Calvin says a lot about divine election but relatively little about divine reprobation. Election is presented in connection with the notion of divine providence; the two concepts are paired together by Calvin. It is only in the very last edition of the "Institutes," the 1559 version, that Calvin places divine providence in book 1 and predestination towards the end of Book 3. Beforehand, divine election and divine providence were covered together, in book 1. In terms of content, however, the 1559 version differs little from the 1539 version, as demonstrated by Peter Barth and others. Lutherans, such as Melanchthon, Luther's closest collaborator, tend to reject the doctrine of predestination on the grounds that it is speculative. There is a sharp difference between Lutherans and Calvinists on this point. Calvin addressed such criticism as early as 1541: "Scripture is the school of the Holy Spirit, in which [...] nothing beneficial and useful to know has been omitted [...]. We must therefore take care not to deprive the faithful from
learning what Scripture discloses regarding predestination, lest we seem either to wickedly
defraud them of God's blessing, or to accuse and contradict
the Holy Spirit for having published what would be better to suppress." "Predestination we call the eternal counsel of God, by which he has determined in Himself what He would have to become of every individual of mankind. For they are not all
created with a similar destiny; but eternal life is fore-ordained for some, and eternal damnation
for others. Every man, therefore, being created for one or the other of
these ends, we say, he is predestinated either to life or to death." Calvin was perfectly aware of how troubling such a message could be. In 1541, he wrote: "Many ask why God is angry with His creatures who did not provoke Him by any offense, for to
destroy whomever He pleases is something more befitting the cruelty of a tyrant
than the uprightness of a judge." "Thus it seems to them that people have good reason to complain about God if by His pure will, without their own deserving, they are predestined to eternal death." Such accusations were voiced, according to Calvin, by "carnal men" (or "men of the flesh"), although they could at times, admittedly, "enter the minds of the faithful." Calvin answered them as follows: no one can question what God has willed and no one can explain what God wills by appealing to something greater, or higher, than the will of God. Here again, Calvin comes back to the notion of God's absolute power -- there is nothing above, nothing that can supersede the will of God. To quote Calvin directly: "For the will of God is the supreme and sovereign standard of justice, so that
all that He wills, by virtue of being what He wills, must be taken as just." The will of God causes things, but is not itself caused by anything prior, or greater, to it. "Such that when we ask: Why has God done as He has done? we must answer: Because He so willed. If, going beyond that, we ask: Why has He so willed? we shall be asking for
something greater and more sublime than God's will, and no such thing can be found." Throughout his work, Calvin evokes the "secret counsel of God" (Latin: consilium), which is wholly inaccessible to us and transcends us completely. Yet where does the notion of God's "secret counsel" come from? Isn't its relationship to Scripture -- as noted Calvin scholar Wilhelm H. Neuser has argued -- tenuous at best? The positive aspect of this notion is that God alone knows who is elected and who is a reprobate, i.e., there is no way humans can try to determine or debate who, among them, belongs to
which camp, so to speak. Human beings cannot ultimately know whether they are elected by God or rejected, even though the believer may possess unshakeable faith in God's mercy and his or her personal election. "God alone has the privilege of knowing His church," writes Calvin. The notion of "secret counsel," however, also has negative aspects. Today, while some Reformed Protestants still cling to Calvin's unadulterated doctrine, many others -- including myself -- have opted to distance themselves from it, to varying degrees. For members of the latter group, the proposition that God predestines certain humans to eternal suffering directly contradicts the idea that God is love. Is Calvin's doctrine of double predestination, then, good news or bad news? In Calvin's mind, in the 16th century, it represented good news, even though he recognized, in his own words, that divine reprobation is something "horrifying" (Latin: "decretum horribile"). Yet, horrifying as the doctrine of divine reprobation may be, it is also, for Calvin, "not only useful, but also sweet and delicious in the fruits that it bears." God did not have to elect anyone whatsoever; all humans deserve divine reprobation -- it is in this way, if we can accept it, that the doctrine constitutes good news. Yet God, in God's benevolence, has decided to elect a people: Israel, at first, but also the community of believers who confess Jesus Christ. In the great universal mass of perdition, God has elected some. This is the good news, for Calvin -- something he particularly insisted upon in his sermons, in which he would typically focus on election rather than on reprobation. There is a pastoral dimension to Calvin's sermons, in which he typically presented his teaching, in this particular respect, quite differently than in the "Institutes of the Christian Religion." When Calvin mentioned reprobation during his sermons, it was to remind the elect to be grateful to God for their election. Nonetheless, this does not settle the issue of the original decision made before creation, that is, the condemnation of most humans to eternal death before they've even begun to live. For Calvin, the elect "are a small and despised number, concealed in an immense crowd, like a few grains of wheat buried among a heap of chaff." Calvin thus goes further than St Augustine, for whom God's election consists in removing, or selecting, some from the great masses of perdition. For Calvin, the divine decree pertains not only to the elect, but also to the reprobate. In opposition to Calvin, many Roman Catholic theologians (in the 16th century and beyond) adamantly quoted a passage from 1 Timothy 2:4, "God desires all human beings to be saved." To which Calvin answered by quoting 2 Timothy 2:19, "The Lord knows those who are His" (itself a reference to the Old Testament's book of Numbers). In other words, God has decided, in his eternal counsel, who will be His and who will be condemned. How, then, is this doctrine "useful," "sweet," and "delicious" from Calvin's point of view? In that it is a reminder that no one is the author of their own salvation, that salvation depends entirely on the mercy and goodness of God. "We obtain salvation only through the pure liberality of God." The Christian's prayer, according to Calvin, must include not only other Christians but "all other people who live on earth, for whom we do not know what the Lord has determined, but on whose
behalf we can only wish and hope for the best." Are humans, then, capable of more generosity than God Himself? This is the question Brian Gerrish asks in his magnificent book, "Grace and Gratitude." We will come back to this question during the last week of our course, when we discuss the ideas of Friedrich Schleiermacher and Karl Barth, two of the greatest Reformed
theologians since Calvin. Both of these theologians recognized the need to profoundly alter and amend Calvin's teachings on this point. In fact, this question is probably the single theological issue that has required the most radical revision of Calvin's theology -- a revision that must continue even today if we are to interpret
the Gospel as good news for all of humanity, and not just a select few.
