Calvin on Predestination

predestination that's john calvin's most controversial most famous most notorious thesis what exactly does it mean calvin himself referred to it as a dreadful hypothesis but he found no way to get around it he thought it followed directly from various things in paul in augustine in a variety of other classical christian thinkers so he thought of himself not as advancing some new and radical doctrine but actually bringing out what was already at least implicit and often really quite explicit in the christian tradition many people have reacted to this with a kind of moral horror thinking that he's describing the actions of a god that would have to be unjust in order to predestine some for salvation and others for damnation and so i want to ask what is this doctrine of predestination and why does calvin think it's true it's not an easy thing to uncover given the text of the institutes as we'll see to understand what the doctrine is isn't all that difficult but to see exactly how he builds the case for it and how it's integrated into an entire system i think that's a subtler question so what i'm going to do in this video is lay out what i think calvin's argument is we're going to look at six basic principles that i think he adopts and from which predestination follows from which for that matter all five of the main five points of calvinism follow i think if we understand the structure of his thought we'll understand both why he felt compelled to advance this doctrine but also if you want to reject it just what in the system you have to reject it's as complicated system and it's easy to overlook the logical connections among the various parts the way i'm going to rebuild this is not the only possible way there are various ways of uncovering axioms from which one can derive a certain set of hypotheses and so this isn't the only way and perhaps it's not really what calvin had in mind but i think there's a lot of textual evidence that it is and understanding the structure of the thinking will help us to understand both the doctrine and what reasons one might have either for accepting it or for rejecting it the first question is what is predestination calvin describes it this way predestination is the eternal decree of god by which he has decided within himself what he wills to happen to each individual human being let's take a look at each part of that in turn first of all the eternal decree of god he is imagining god before the universe even begins before the creation of the world specifying for each one of us whether we will be saved or we will be condemned so all of that is predetermined all of that is established from the very beginning of the universe before in a sense the beginning of time by which he has decided so god deliberates and god decides before even creating the world the fate of each in every individual human being within himself he does this within himself it's not as if he waits to find anything out this doesn't depend on actions of yours he's not saying let's create danny and see what happens to him see what he does see whether he adopts the faith or not no it doesn't depend not any of that of course god foreknows what will happen to each of us but calvin says it doesn't depend on that for knowledge it is something god determines within himself independently of us and anything we will do or might do or have done it is something that is completely independent completely eternal to god what he wills to happen god decides what his will is for this universe he's about to create and that decision is final that's what is going to happen and it's involved with each and every individual human being does this commit kelvin to determinism sometimes he seems to talk that way and certainly some other calvinists talk that way i don't actually think that follows from the basic principles of the theory and so on my reconstruction at least your fate ultimately will be predetermined that will be something you can't affect but on the other hand everything else about you you can affect so the extent to which one can have freedom at the will is i think an open question given the bare bones of the theory that i will lay out here's how the westminster confession of 1647 puts the matter this is its expression of predestination and the westminster confession is something that is fundamental to the reformed faith it is an expression of calvinist doctrine so here's how it's expressed there god from all eternity did by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will freely and unchangeably ordain whatever comes to pass now that indeed makes it sound as if there is no choice full commitment to determinism yet so as thereby neither is god the author of sin nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures nor is the liberty and contingency of second causes taken away but rather established so there's an odd combination of theses here in one sense this takes away any sort of freedom it looks like it commits us to determinism but on the other hand the confession hastens to add this doesn't take away liberty it doesn't take away free choice it doesn't take away contingency it doesn't violate the will of the creatures and so all of that is something we have to understand in order to really grasp what predestination is and what calvin is and is not claiming now what really is very clear is that this sort of determination does apply to our eternal fates calvin puts it this way in the institutes god by his eternal and unchanging will determined once and for all those whom he would one day admit to salvation and those whom he would consign to destruction well in the words of the confession by the decree of god for the manifestation of his glory some men and angels are predestined unto everlasting life and others foreordained to everlasting death what is the argument for this thesis why should we think this is true it is a remarkable claim god doesn't wait until at the end of your life or until judgment day to decide your fate to decide whether you are among the saved no that's determined before the universe is even created why would someone think that's true well let's take a look at some of the passages that inspire calvin indeed many of calvin's arguments are based on scripture and in particular on paul in romans and ephesians so here is a quotation from paul romans 8 for those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and those whom he predestined he also called and those whom he called he also justified and those whom he justified he also glorified here in romans 9 is there injustice on god's part by no means for he says to moses i will have mercy on whom i have mercy and i will have compassion on whom i have compassion so that it depends not on human will or exertion but on god who has mercy this is paul in ephesians defending much the same view in greater detail blessed be the god and father of our lord jesus christ who has blessed us in christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him in love he predestined us for adoption through jesus christ according to the purpose of his will to the praise of his glorious grace with which he has blessed us the beloved in him we have redemption through his blood the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace in him we have obtained an inheritance having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the council of his will so that we who were the first to hope in christ might be to the praise of his glory what paul seems to be saying in all of these passages is that god has from the foundation of the world predestined some to hear the call to accept jesus christ and to be saved others were not so predestined so partly calvin takes himself to be explicating the doctrine that is already there in paul in romans and ephesians but calvin also has a number of philosophical arguments in favor of the doctrine of predestination and understanding them i think will help us to understand the structure of calvin's thinking calvin takes the doctrine of predestination to rest on a philosophical foundation and in particular to follow from the sovereignty of god now what does he mean by the sovereignty of god and how does it follow we've looked at arguments based on god's foreknowledge in writers like augustine anselm a variety of others we've seen their reaction and we've seen that there's a kind of parallel stress by anselm between arguments about foreknowledge and arguments about predestination calvin's argument however rests on a very different foundation it isn't based on the kinds of theses concerning historical necessity and so on but those arguments rest on it has quite a different structure so here's how it goes first premise divine command theory whatever god wills is by that very fact just if god wills that p it is just that p so god's will is enough to determine justice that is a version of divine command theory justice is not something independent of god's will to which god has to conform it is something created by god's will if god wills something it is just now we could take this and i think calvin does mean this that god's will determines this but you could also think look god wills only what is just suppose you reject divine command theory and like euthyphro you say ah does god will it because it's just or is it just because god god wills it i think god wills it because it's just that's fine in a sense for this premise to function in the argument the way it's going to because all we need is that if god wills it then it is just whether it's the case that justice is a necessary condition for god willing something or whether it's that god's will establishes it as just that's something that we don't have to decide right now second premise is god's justice god permits only what's compatible with justice now you might think that this premise is obviously false if it's just that p and q is incompatible with p then god doesn't permit it to be the case that q really looks like there's lots of injustice in the world and so we could choose to limit this premise and again for the purposes of the argument that'll be fine we could simply say god permits in terms of ultimate fates of human beings only what's compatible with justice so suppose we want to say look i see lots of injustice in the world still it would be really disturbing if in the end when people are saved or not saved at the end of time we find that god is allowing injustice there limit this premise to simply saying that god permits with respect to the ultimate fates of human beings only what's compatible with justice third premise god's sovereignty something is possible only if god permits it if god won't allow it it's not even possible god's will you might say god's permission is something that determines the space of possible outcomes if god won't allow something to happen it can't happen period fourth premise god's discernment god grants grace only to those he wills to be saved so god is granting grace to some forgiving the sins of some saving some and how does that come about well god does this on the basis of his will that they be saved so god grants grace only to those he wills to be saved fifth salvation by grace god permits a person's salvation only if god grants that person grace the way god does permit salvation is to grant grace that's what salvation is all about the idea here really is that in a sense salvation is something that is a gift from god nobody deserves intrinsically to be saved to live eternally that sort of eternal life would have to be a gift from god it's not something that comes from us it's com something that can only come from god as a gift and the sixth premise salvation by faith god wills the salvation only of those who have faith faith is a necessary condition for self to salvation it is a necessary condition for god's willing you to be saved well those six premises are really all it takes i think in calvin to establish the doctrine of predestination and in fact to establish all five points of calvinism so let's quickly review them again whatever god wills is by that very fact just god permits at least with respect to the ultimate outcomes of human beings only what's compatible with justice something's possible only if god permits it god grants grace only to those god wills to be saved god permits a person's salvation only if god grants that person grace and finally god wills the salvation only of those who have faith now let's see what follows to understand the consequences of those six premises i want to establish a couple of lemmas these are things that are not directly predestination they aren't directly one of the five points of calvinism but i think they are things that help us to understand why those things follow so the first lemma is this as calvin himself puts it the will of god is the necessity of things that is if god wills that p then necessarily p if god wills something it is going to be a necessary truth here's the proof on the basis of our premises say that god wills that p well by premise one p is just since whatever god wills is just by two god permits only what's compatible with justice so god doesn't in particular permit not p by three not p is impossible so necessarily p so the will of god is the necessity of things if god wills it it is a necessary truth second lemma if it's possible for a person to be saved it's necessary that they be saved other things might be contingent in the world but salvation that's not contingent here's the argument say it's possible for adam for example to be saved by premise 3 god then permits adam's salvation by 5 god grants adam grace by 4 god wills adam to be saved by lama 1 therefore adam's salvation is necessary now those are pretty short arguments these are things that follow directly but somewhat surprisingly i think from those premises the will of god is the necessity of things and salvation isn't a contingent matter your salvation is either impossible or it's necessary it's not contingent and it's not contingent therefore on anything already we can see how crucial that is in deriving the doctrine of predestination if it's not contingent on anything you do or might do or will do in the future or have done then it's something that is predestined it is impossible or it is necessary it's something established from the foundation of the world

Channel: Daniel Bonevac

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Length: 16min 37sec (997 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 01 2020