John Calvin
John Calvin states: “They deny that it is ever said in distinct terms, God decreed that Adam should perish by his revolt. As if the same God, who is declared in Scripture to do whatsoever he pleases, could have made the noblest of his creatures without any special purpose. They say that, in accordance with free-will, he was to be the architect of his own fortune, that God had decreed nothing but to treat him according to his desert. If this frigid fiction is received, where will be the omnipotence of God, by which, according to his secret counsel on which every thing depends, he rules over all? But whether they will allow it or not, predestination is manifest in Adam’s posterity. It was not owing to nature that they all lost salvation by the fault of one parent. Why should they refuse to admit with regard to one man that which against their will they admit with regard to the whole human race? Why should they in caviling lose their labour? 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. It is very absurd in these worthy defenders of the justice of God to strain at a gnat and swallow a camel. 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 foreknew what the end of man was to be before he made him, and foreknew, because he had so ordained by his decree.” (Institutes of Christian Religion, Book 3, Chapter 23, Section 7, emphasis mine)
John Calvin adds: “All are not created on equal terms, but some are preordained to eternal life, others to eternal damnation; and, accordingly, as each has been created for one or other of these ends, we say that he has been predestinated to life or to death.” (Institutes of Christian Religion: Book 3, Chapter 21, Section 5, emphasis mine)
John Calvin writes: “Further, Augustine is so much at one with me that, if I wished to write a confession of my faith, it would abundantly satisfy me to quote wholesale from his writings.” (Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God, p.63, emphasis mine)
One should not merely ask where Calvin got his “Calvinism,” but one should also ask, where did Augustine get his “Augustinianism”? If one should propose that his teachings simply sprang from the pages of Scripture, it would be incredibly naïve. One must first took to who Augustine was, and where he had come from. Augustine was a former Manichaean Gnostic.
John Calvin writes: “Hence Augustine, having treated of the elect, and taught that their salvation reposes in the faithful custody of God so that none perishes, continues: The rest of mortal men who are not of this number, but rather taken out of the common mass and made vessels of wrath, are born for the use of the elect.” (Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God, p.107, emphasis mine)
For more on these points, see here: Calvinism Unmasked
For an article on John Calvin, as it relates to the events pertaining to Servetus, see here.
John Calvin writes: “Here Pighius spreads his wings and noisily exults, that in this case I neither understand myself nor remember what I previously said. But it does not seem to me worth while to say many words in my own defence, and I am displeased at having to use even a few. When God prefers some to others, choosing some and passing others by, the difference does not depend on human dignity or indignity. It is therefore wrong to say that the reprobate are worthy of eternal destruction. If in the former case no comparison is made between men themselves, and worthiness has no relation to the reward of life, so in the second case the equal condition of all is not proved. Add to this that Augustine writes in one place the salvation never lacked to anyone worthy of it, but qualifies the statement in the Retractions so as to exclude works and to refer acceptable worthiness to the gratuitous calling of God. But Pighius presses on. If what I teach is true, that those who perish are destined to death by the eternal good please of God though the reason does not appear, then they are not found by made worthy of destruction. I reply that three things must here be considered. First, the eternal predestination of God, by which before the fall of Adam He decreed what should take place concerning the whole human race and every individual, was fixed and determined. Secondly, Adam himself, on account of his defection, is appointed to death. Lastly, in his person now fallen and lost, all his offspring is condemned in such a way that God deems worthy of the honour of adoption those whom He gratuitously elects out of it. I neither dream nor fabricate anything of this.” (Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God, pp.120-121, emphasis mine)
John Calvin writes: “When predestination is discussed, it is from the start to be constantly maintained, as I today teach, that all the reprobate are justly let in death, for in Adam they are dead and condemned. Those justly perish who are by nature children of wrath. Thus, no one has cause to complain of the too great severity of God, seeing that all carry in themselves inclusive liability.” (Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God, p.121, emphasis mine)
John Calvin writes: “One excuse is suggested, that he could not evade what God decreed. But his voluntary transgression is enough and more than enough to establish his guilt. For the proper and genuine cause of sin is not God’s hidden counsel but the evident will of man.” (Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God, p.122, emphasis mine)
John Calvin writes: “So God in ordaining the fall of man had an end most just and right which holds the name of sin in abhorrence. Though I affirm that He ordained it so, I do not allow that He is properly the author of sin.” (Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God, p.123, emphasis mine)
John Calvin writes: “I always affirm that the nature of man is at first created upright, lest the depravity which he contracted should be ascribed to God; and similarly that the death to which, though formerly the heir to life, he rendered himself subject proceeded from his own fault so that God cannot be considered its author.” (Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God, p.123, emphasis mine)
But wait!
Calvin writes: “First, the eternal predestination of God, by which before the fall of Adam He decreed what should take place concerning the whole human race and every individual, was fixed and determined.” (Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God, p.121, emphasis mine)
Calvin writes: “Let him, therefore, who would beware of such unbelief, always bear in mind, that there is no random power, or agency, or motion in the creatures, who are so governed by the secret counsel of God, that nothing happens but what he has knowingly and willingly decreed.” (The Institutes of Christian Religion, Bk. 1, Ch. 16, Sect. 3, emphasis mine)
Calvin writes: “This, however, they erroneously confine to particular acts. The thing to be proved, therefore, is, that single events are so regulated by God, and all events so proceed from his determinate counsel, that nothing happens fortuitously.” (The Institutes of Christian Religion, Book I, Ch. 16, Sect. 4, emphasis mine)
John Calvin writes: “But now, removing from God all proximate causation of the act, I at the same time remove from Him all guilt and leave man alone liable. It is therefore wicked and calumnious to say that I make the fall of man one of the works of God. But how it was ordained by the foreknowledge and decree of God what man’s future was without God being implicated as associate in the fault as the author or approver of transgression, is clearly a secret so much excelling the insight of the human mind, that I am not ashamed to confess ignorance.” (Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God, pp.123-124, emphasis mine)
But I thought that you just said that such was part of the eternal predestination of God?
John Calvin writes: “But now, removing from God all proximate causation of the act, I at the same time remove from Him all guilt and leave man alone liable. It is therefore wicked and calumnious to say that I make the fall of man one of the works of God. But how it was ordained by the foreknowledge and decree of God what man’s future was without God being implicated as associate in the fault as the author or approver of transgression, is clearly a secret so much excelling the insight of the human mind, that I am not ashamed to confess ignorance. Far be it from any of the faithful to be ashamed of ignorance of what the Lord withdraws into the glory of His inaccessible light.” (Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God, pp.123-124, emphasis mine)
John Calvin writes: “Shall we, unawed by reverence for that height and depth, dare to investigate how the whole race was in the person of Adam allowed to Fall?” (Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God, p.125, emphasis mine)
John Calvin writes: “This miserable man feels now, and those like him will one day feel, that the reproaches their profane and sacrilegious mouths hurl at God collapse by their own impetus before reaching heaven, nor do they come to rest except by recoiling on their own heads.” (Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God, p.139, emphasis mine)
So John Calvin says contradictory things, and is admittedly confused in how it could be harmonized, but he is sure of at least one thing: he loathes those who criticize his theology.
