Calvin's Refutations from His Own Published Work: A Critical Review

Eli Kittim

Excerpted from John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian religion, Book 3, ch 23, biblestudytools.com.

Calvin's god Chooses Whatever He Pleases and We Have No Right to Question his Choices

In Institutes, Book 3, ch 23, Calvin says that god chooses whatever he pleases, and we have no right to question his choices. But isn't that tantamount to saying that "he does as he pleases" as opposed to acting according to the principles of truth and wisdom? Calvin writes:

"Therefore, when it is asked why the Lord did
so, we must answer, Because he pleased.
But if you proceed farther to ask why he
pleased, you ask for something greater and
more sublime than the will of God, and
nothing such can be found. ... This, I say,
will be sufficient to restrain any one who
would reverently contemplate the secret
things of God."

Yet isn't that precisely what Calvin is doing? Inquiring into the "the secret things of God"? Calvin's argument can be summarized as follows: men are, by nature, wicked, so if god has predestined some to eternal hellfire, why do they complain? They deserve it. He exclaims:

"Accordingly, when we are accosted in such
terms as these, Why did God from the first
predestine some to death, when, as they
were not yet in existence, they could not
have merited sentence of death? let us by
way of reply ask in our turn, What do you
imagine that God owes to man, if he is
pleased to estimate him by his own nature?
As we are all vitiated by sin, we cannot but
be hateful to God, and that not from
tyrannical cruelty, but the strictest justice.
But if all whom the Lord predestines to
death are naturally liable to sentence of
death, of what injustice, pray, do they
complain?"

He continues his thought that even though god condemned them to hellfire long before they were even born, or had done anything to warrant such an outcome, they nevertheless deserve it and should not complain. Calvin says:

"Should all the sons of Adam come to
dispute and contend with their Creator,
because by his eternal providence they
were before their birth doomed to perpetual
destruction, when God comes to reckon
with them, what will they be able to mutter
against this defense? If all are taken from a
corrupt mass, it is not strange that all are
subject to condemnation. Let them not,
therefore, charge God with injustice, if by
his eternal judgment they are doomed to a
death to which they themselves feel that
whether they will or not they are drawn
spontaneously by their own nature."

But if this decree was foreordained by an absolutely sovereign god even before people were born and prior to having committed any transgressions, why are they held accountable for their sins? It appears to be a contradiction. Curiously enough, John Calvin,

"admit[s] that by the will of God all the sons
of Adam fell into that state of wretchedness
in which they are now involved; and this is
just what I said at the first, that we must
always return to the mere pleasure of the
divine will, the cause of which is hidden in
himself."

So he admits that we all sinned "by the will of God" and that god does as he pleases, yet he concludes: who are we to question god's decisions? But is this a proper explanation of predestination that fully justifies god's justice, or is it rather an incoherent and unsatisfactory answer? Calvin asserts:

"They again object, Were not men
predestinated by the ordination of God to
that corruption which is now held forth as
the cause of condemnation? If so, when
they perish in their corruptions they do
nothing else than suffer punishment for that
calamity, into which, by the predestination
of God, Adam fell, and dragged all his
posterity headlong with him. Is not he,
therefore, unjust in thus cruelly mocking his
creatures? ... For what more
seems to be said here than just that the
power of God is such as cannot be
hindered, so that he can do whatsoever he
pleases?"