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 CALVINISM

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CALVINISM

them by the instance of St. Paul and other "primitive believers", i. e. after all. by Catholic tradition. It will he obvious, moreover, that where the "Insti- tutes" affirm orthodox tenets they follow the Coun- cils and tlic Fathers, while professing reliance on the Bible alone. Thus we need not rehearse those chap- ters which deal with the Nicene and Chalcedonian formulas.

We shall best apprehend Calvin's master-thought if we liken it to modern systems of the I neon

physical predetermination, wherein all effects lie folded up, as it were, in one First Cause, and their development in time is necessitated. Effects are t bus mere manifestations, not fresh acts, or in any way due to free will choosing its own course. Nature,

!, revelation, Heaven, and Hell do but show us different aspects of the eternal energy which works in all things. There is no free will outside the Su- preme. Zwingli argued that, since God was infinite being, He alone existed; other being there could be none, and secondary or created causes were but instruments moved entirely by Divine power. « lalvin did not go to this length/ But he denies freedom to creatures, fallen or unfallen, except it be libi coactione; in other words, God does not compel man to act by brute force, yet he determines irresistibly all we do, whether good or evil. The Supreme is in- deed self-conscious; not a blind Fate or Stoic destiny; it is by "decree" of the" sovereign Lawgiver that events come to pass. But for such decrees no reason can be rendered. There is not any cause of the Divine will save Itself. If we ask why has the Almighty acted thus and thus, we are told, "Quia ipse voluit " Bis good pleasure. Beyond this, an explana- tion wotdd be impossible, and to demand one is impiety. From the human angle of sight, therefore, ( tod work- as tli. nigh without a reason. And here we come upon the primal mystery to which in his argu- ment Calvin recurs again and again. This Supreme Will fixes an absolute order, physical, ethical, relig- ious, never to be modified by anything we can at- tempt. For we cannot act upon God, else He would cease to be the First Cause. Holding this clue, it is comparatively simple to trace Calvin's foot -teps along the paths of history and revelation.

Luther had written that man's will is enslaved either to God or t«p Satan, hut it is never free. Me- Ianchthon declaimed against the "impious dogma of I tee Will", adding that since all things happen by ity according to Divine predestination, no room was left for it. This was truly the article by which the Reformation should stand or fall. Coil is

igent. Therefore creation, redemption, election,

bation, are in such sense His acts that man be- merely the ir vehicle and himself does nothing. Luther, contending with Erasmus, declares that "God by an unchangeable, eternal, infallible will, foresees. purposes and effects all things. By this thunderbolt . live Will is utterly destroyed." Calvin shared Luther's doctrine of necessity to the full; hut he em- broiled the language by admitting in unfallen Vim, ■i liberty of choice. He was likewise at pains to dis- tinguish between his own teaching and the "nature hound fast in Fate" of the Stoics. He meant by liberty, however, the absence "I constraint; and the

Divine wisdom which he invoked could never he made

intelligible to our understanding. What he rejected

was the Catholic notion of the self-determining sec- ond cause. Neither would he allow the doctrine laid

down by the lather- of Trent Si \ I, Canon 16), that God i ermits evil deeds, but is not their author. The condemnation struck expressly at Melanehthon, who asserted that the betrayal by Judas was not less properly God's act than the vocation of St. Paul. Bill by parity of reasoning it falls upon Calvinism. For the "Institutes" affirm that "man by the right- eous impulsion of God docs that which is unlawful",

and that "man falls, the Providence of God so or- daining" (IV, is. 2; III. 23, 8). Yet elsewhere Calvin denied this impulse as not in accordance with the known will of the Almighty. Both he and Luther found a way of escape from the moral dilemma in- flicted on them by distinguishing two wills in the Divine Nature, one public or apparent, which com- manded good ami forbade evil as the Scripture teaches, the other just, but secret and unsearchable, predetermining that Adam and all the reprobate should fall into sin and perish. At no time did Calvin grant that Adam's transgression was due to his own free will. Beza traces it to a spontaneous, i. e. a natural and necessary, movement of the spirit, in which evil could not fail to spring up. He justifies the means, viz. sin and its consequences, by the holy purpose of the Creator who, if there were no one to punish, would be incapable of showing that he is a righteously vindictive God. As, however, man's in- tent was evil, he becomes a sinner while his Creator remains holy. The Reformed confessions will not allow that God is the author of sin: and Calvin shows deep indignation when charged with "this disgraceful falsehood '". He distinguishes, like Beza, the various intentions concurring to the same act on the part of different agents; but the difficulty cannot well be got over, that, in Ids view, the First Cause alone is a real agent, and the rest mere instruments. It was ob- jected to him that he gave no convincing reasons for the position thus taken up, and that his followers were swayed by their master's authority rather than by the force of his logic. Even an admirer, J. A. Fronde, tells us: "To represent man as sent into the world under a curse, as incurably wicked — wicked by the constitution of his nature and wicked by eternal decree — as doomed, unless exempted by special grace which he cannot merit, or by any effort of his own obtain, to live in sin while he remains on earth, and to be eternally miserable when he leaves it — to represent him as born unable to keep the commandment-, yet as justly liable to everlasting punishment for breaking them, isalike repugnant to reason and conscience, and turns existence into a hideous nightmare." (Short

Studies, 11,3.)

Another way to define the Reformed theology would be to contrast its view of God's eternal decrees with that taken in the Catholic Church, notably by Jesuit authors such as Molina. To Calvin the ordi- nances of Deity seemed absolute, i. e. not in any way regardful of the creature's acts, which they prede- termined either right or wrong; and thus reprobation — the supreme issue between all parties — followed upon God's unconditioned fiat, no account being had in the decree itself of man's merits or demerits. For God chose some to glory and others to shame ever- lasting as He willed, not upon foreknowledge how they would act. The Jesuit school made foreknowledge of "future contingencies" or of what, creatures would do in any possible juncture, the term of Divine vision "scientw media" which was logically antecedent (as a condition not a cause) to the scheme of salvation. Grace, said Catholic dogma, was offered to all men; none were excluded from it. Adam need not have transgressed, neither was his fall pre-ordained. Christ died lor the whole human race: and every one had such help from on high thai the reprobate could

never charge their ruin upon their Maker, sii

he permitted it only, without an absolute decree.

Grace, then, was given freely; but eternal life came

to the saints by merit, founded on correspondence to the Holy Spirit's impulse. All these statements

Calvin rejected as Pelagian, except that he would maintain, though unable to justify, the impu- tation of the sinner's lapse to human nature by itself.

To he consistent. this doctrine requires that no pre- vision of Adam's Fall should affect the eternal choice