I still hope to find a discussion somewhere that addresses what Calvin said.
I'm happy to oblige. Let's hear from Calvin. He takes it that God is so sovereign over everything, and human events in particular, that nothing can happen without, not only his permission or his foreknowledge, but his active and positive will:
* If God merely foresaw human events, and did not also arrange and dispose of them at his pleasure, there might be room for agitating the question, how far his foreknowledge amounts to necessity; but since he foresees the things which are to happen, simply because he has decreed that they are so to happen, it is vain to debate about prescience, while it is clear that all events take place by his sovereign appointment.
Calvin is not afraid to draw the immediate corollaries from this thesis. So he insists that God arranged (and did not merely foresee) the fall of Adam:
* I say, that God not only foresaw the fall of the first man, and in him the ruin of his posterity; but also at his own pleasure arranged it.
* Nor, indeed, is there any probability in the thing itselfviz. that man brought death upon himself merely by the permission, and not by the ordination of God; as if God had not determined what he wished the condition of the chief of his creatures to be.
And it is by the will of God that Adam's descendants inherited their sinful nature, since such a thing couldn't happen by natural causes, but only by an express miracle:
* Predestination is manifest in Adam’s posterity. It was not owing to nature that they all lost salvation by the fault of one parent. [...] Scripture proclaims that all were, in the person of one, made liable to eternal death. As this cannot be ascribed to nature, it is plain that it is owing to the wonderful counsel of God.
* I again ask how it is that the fall of Adam involves so many nations with their infant children in eternal death without remedy unless that it so seemed meet to God? Here the most loquacious tongues must be dumb. The decree, I admit, is, dreadful; and yet it is impossible to deny that God foreknow what the end of man was to be before he made him, and foreknew, because he had so ordained by his decree.
But God is not content merely to miraculously give us a sinful nature and see how that plays out. That would derogate from his sovereignty. Instead, he determines which sinful actions and even sinful thoughts we should have, so that we couldn't so much as
think of doing something wrong without God expressly commanding it:
* The devil, and the whole train of the ungodly, are, in all directions, held in by the hand of God as with a bridle, so that they can neither conceive any mischief, nor plan what they have conceived, nor how much soever they may have planned, move a single finger to perpetrate, unless in so far as he permits, nay, unless in so far as he commands.
* By his providence, not heaven and earth and inanimate creatures only, but also the counsels and wills of men are so governed as to move exactly in the course which he has destined.
* That men do nothing save at the secret instigation of God, and do not discuss and deliberate on any thing but what he has previously decreed with himself and brings to pass by his secret direction, is proved by numberless clear passages of Scripture.
* Satan and all the wicked are so under the hand and authority of God, that he directs their malice to whatever end he pleases, and employs their iniquities to execute his Judgments.
* God not only uses the agency of the wicked, but also governs their counsels and affections.
* Whatever we conceive in our minds is directed to its end by the secret inspiration of God.
* These things, which men do perversely, are of God, and are ruled by his secret providence.
* God both directs men’s counsels, and excites their wills, and regulates their efforts as he pleases.
* The sum of the whole is this,since the will of God is said to be the cause of all things, all the counsels and actions of men must be held to be governed by his providence.
Now, to those who wonder why God should damn men for being just as sinful as he made them, for committing just those sins which he decided they should commit, and for going against God's will when in fact we never do, and never
can do, anything but obey it, Calvin has a great answer: shut up asking questions and stop thinking about it. This is indeed one of the most consistent themes of his theology. Let's have some quotations.
* Nay, when we cannot comprehend how God can will that to be done which he forbids us to do, let us call to mind our imbecility, and remember that the light in which he dwells is not without cause termed inaccessible (1 Tim. 6:16), because shrouded in darkness.
* The procedure of divine justice is too high to be scanned by human measure, or comprehended by the feebleness of human intellect.
* I say with Augustine, that the Lord has created those who, as he certainly foreknow, were to go to destruction, and he did so because he so willed. Why he willed it is not ours to ask, as we cannot comprehend, nor can it become us even to raise a controversy as to the justice of the divine will.
* From the feebleness of our intellect, we cannot comprehend how, though after a different manner, he wills and wills not the very same thing.
* The reprobate suffer nothing which is not accordant with the most perfect justice. When unable clearly to ascertain the reason, let us not decline to be somewhat in ignorance in regard to the depths of the divine wisdom.
* If at any time thoughts of this kind come into the minds of the pious, they will be sufficiently armed to repress them, by considering how sinful it is to insist on knowing the causes of the divine will.
* Wherefore, let us not decline to say with Augustine, God could change the will of the wicked into good, because he is omnipotent. Clearly he could. Why, then, does he not do it? Because he is unwilling. Why he is unwilling remains with himself, (August. de Genes. ad Lit. Lib. 2). We should not attempt to be wise above what is meet.
* Now, look at the narrowness of your own minds and say whether it can comprehend the decrees of God. Why then should you, by infatuated inquisitiveness, plunge yourselves into an abyss which reason itself tells you will prove your destruction?
If I may now editorialize a bit, this is a copout. Inquiring into the nature of God is pretty much a theologian's job description. Calvin certainly doesn't shy away from it, nor in particular from explaining God's motives --- see for example bk. 1 ch. 5 par. 1, ch. 6 par. 1, ch. 8 par. 4, ch. 12 par. 1, bk. 2 ch. 1 par 1, bk. 2 ch. 7 par 1 --- well, I needn't go on digging up examples. But when Calvin finds himself painted into a corner, when any man, woman or child would want to cry: "But why --- how --- can a good and just God be as you depict him?"
then Calvin stops doing theology just long enough to tell us that theological inquiries are impious and sinful and we're too dumb to understand the answers anyway. Then he gets back to telling us what God thinks.
One has the feeling one would get if, having sawed a lady in half, the conjurer declined to put her back together, explaining that it's too hard and we shouldn't expect it of him, so would we kindly stop staring at the mess on the stage and watch while he pulls a silk handkerchief out of his ear. Likewise, here stands Calvin in the spotlight, he's cut God off at the knees, he hasn't left him with a leg to stand on, and then he blandly announces: "And now, for my
next trick ..."
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
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