John Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion

Explanation and Analysis of the Document

Calvin's task in this passage of Institutes of the Christian Religion is defining the doctrine of predestination, defending it, and asserting its central importance to Christianity. Like other theologians of the time, Calvin does not present his ideas as new but as firmly rooted in the Bible above all and also in the church fathers. Saint Augustine, revered as the father of the Western Church by Catholics and Protestants alike, was particularly influential in shaping Calvin's ideas and is referred to frequently in the passage, one of the few named nonbiblical sources. Calvin specifically parallels his treatment of predestination in particular and theology generally by appealing to the precedent of Augustine. In the Bible, Calvin's main sources appear to be the Old Testament and the letters of Paul in the New Testament.

Calvin strongly emphasizes that predestination is a matter of God's choice, not mere foreknowledge of who will be saved and who damned. It is not primarily an aspect of God's knowledge but rather of God's will. Calvin draws a lengthy analogy between God's “choosing” of the Jews as his people and the “choosing” of the elect, frequently referring to the history of God's dealings with the Jewish people in the Old Testament. In both cases the choice was arbitrary, not a reward for any kind of desirable quality of the chosen. (Calvin's treatment of human morality emphasizes the corruption of every human nature, elect and reprobate alike.) He is concerned to avoid identifying the two different varieties of “chosenness”—whereas the whole Jewish people was chosen, only a “remnant” of them was actually saved. Election is not a reward for virtue or faith but only a result of God's freely given mercy. Just as the reprobates have no power to reject God's decree and thus save themselves, so the elect have no ability to reject salvation—God's will, not human desire, remains paramount. Some feared that preaching predestination would make God appear unjust, by emphasizing the arbitrary nature of his choice. On the contrary, says Calvin, the damnation of the reprobate is an instance of God's justice and the salvation of the elect an instance of God's mercy.

One problem Calvin faced was that many people believed that the doctrine of predestination should remain a “mystery,” discussed, if at all, only by professional theologians and not presented to the ordinary Christian. Many feared that open discussion of the doctrine would be treading on a mystery reserved to God or that by making God seem arbitrary, it might weaken the faith of hearers. Although Calvin was aware of the dangers of too close an inquiry into the divine mystery, he points out that by making persons aware of the greatness of God's mercy, the doctrine of predestination becomes an aid to faith rather than a challenge to it. To avoid the dangers of excessive speculation, Calvin, like other Protestants, emphasizes the biblical basis of his theology—by implication a criticism of such Catholic scholastic philosophers as Thomas Aquinas, who supplemented the Bible with ancient Greek philosophy and logic.