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| Open Theism Discussion Board > Public Forums > The raging debate continues here... > John Calvin on the ‘Open View’ or rather contingen | Forum Quick Jump
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Matthew Timothy Short
Huh?
Date Joined Apr 2002
Total Posts : 635
| Posted 4/19/2003 7:45 AM (GMT -6) |   | …the "open" view of God…teaches that God's knowledge is limited..."
I do not believe the above statement to be accurate nor complete, that is, I have a difficult time disagreeing with the following presentation, as I best understand it thus far. I purposed to leave out any understanding of Calvin’s on the subject of the ‘elect’, best I could, however, I hope you find the rest of what he has to say, as interesting as I do!
The following are the words of John Calvin, which I excepted from "THE SECRET PROVIDENCE OF GOD":
That Providence, therefore, which we ascribe to God, pertains as much to His operating hands as to His observing eyes. When, therefore, God is said to rule the world by His Providence, we do not merely mean that He maintains and preserves that order of nature which He had originally purposed in Himself, but that He holds and continues a peculiar care of every single creature that He has created. And true and certain is the fact, that as it was the wonderful wisdom of God that originally made the world, and disposed it in its present beautiful order, so, unless the omnipotent power of God, ever present, sustained it thus created and disposed it, it could not continue in its designed order and form one hour.
In this respect, as the course of the Divine Providence lies in the dealings of God with men as beings endowed with reason, its conduct assumes a surer light and a brighter glory. For marvelous are the judgments of God; at one time, in punishing the wicked; at another, in teaching the faithful patience and crucifying their flesh; at another, in purging out the wickedness of the world; at another, in awakening the sleep and sloth of many; at another, in breaking down the arrogance of the proud; at another, in making the wisdom of the wise a laughing-stock; at another, in destroying the machinations of the malicious.
For these ends it will be desirable to consider, in the first place, that the will of God is the great cause of all things that are done in the whole world and yet, that God is not the author of the evils that are done therein. But I will not say, with Augustine -- which, however, I readily acknowledge to have been truly said by him -- "In sin or in evil, there is nothing positive." For this is an acuteness of argument which, to many, may not be satisfactory. I would rather assume another principle of argument, and say, "Those things, which are vainly or unrighteously done by man, are, rightly and righteously, the works of God!"
What the vain imagination of the Stoics was is well known. They wove their doctrine of fate out of Gordias' web of complex causes, in which, when they had entangled God Himself, they fabricated certain golden chains (as the fables have it) to bind the very God of heaven, and to make Him subject to inferior and secondary causes! The Stoics are imitated by the astrologers of the present day, who make their doctrine of fated necessity out of certain positions of the stars. We leave the Stoics, then, to their doctrine of fate, while we acknowledge the will of God to be the ruling cause of all things. But to take contingency out of the world altogether would be absurd.
In this case, therefore, when we are required to look into the law and order of nature as appointed of God, I by no means reject the contingency involved, in my sense and meaning of such contingency.
We must here also carefully bear in mind that principle which I have before laid down, that when God displays His power through means (media) and secondary causes, that power of His is never to be separated from those means or inferior causes. It is the excess of a drunkard to say, "God has decreed all that is to come to pass, and that must come to pass; therefore, to interpose any care or study, or endeavor of ours, is superfluous and vain."
Wherefore, with reference to the time future, since the events of things are, as yet, hidden and unknown, everyone ought to be as intent upon the performance of his duty as if nothing whatever had been decreed concerning the issue in each particular case. Or (to speak more properly) every man ought so to hope for success in all things, which he undertakes at the command of God, as to be freely prepared to reconcile every contingency with the sure and certain Providence of God.
Where, however, the counsels, the wills, the purposes, and the attempts of men intervene, a greater difficulty of argument and judgment presents itself to our thoughts, especially when we desire to show how the Providence of God reigns and rules in all such cases also; not only to prevent anything from being done otherwise than according to His will, but also that men may not even agitate anything in their deliberations but what He inspires. God gives indeed daily and marvelous proofs of His Providence where He gives full rein to the foolish counsels of men, and, seeming not to notice their great preparations, frustrates by the issue all their hopes. The Scripture also reveals another field, wherein God manifests His dominion and the mighty working of His hand -- when He makes the wicked mad; when He strikes them with a bewildered giddiness, or deprives them of their senses, or stuns them with stupefaction; and when also He "takes away their spirit," strips them of their courage, and so fills them with fear, that they are death-struck by the fall of a leaf! Pighius, therefore, wants common consideration, when he would confine God within the narrow limits of His material creation; when he would make of God nothing more than a kind of wise manager, or a skilful general, who, well versed in military tactics, foresees the plans of his enemies, and forms his counterplots, as remedies, according to circumstances.
As if the Scripture did not plainly represent God as He "Who taketh the wise in their own craftiness," cutteth off the spirit of princes, and maketh their "knowledge foolishness"! It is, therefore, the grossest ignorance in Pighius, when he denies that when a man is killed designedly by his fellow man, he dies by the will and decree of God! He entertains this idea, I suppose, imagining that where the will of man is engaged, the will of God is not concerned! What is to become, then, of all those testimonies of the Scripture, which declare that the swords of men are wielded by the hand of God?
The sum and substance, however, of the whole Divine matter is this: Although men, like brute beasts confined by no chains, rush at random here and there, yet God by His secret bridle so holds and governs them, that they cannot move even one of their fingers without accomplishing the work of God much more than their own! But the faithful, who render unto Him their willing service, as do the angels, are to be considered, in a peculiar manner, the hands of God! I am now, however, speaking more immediately of those men, whose purposes are anything but a desire to do the will of God, or to adopt any counsel consistent or in harmony with His counsel, or in accordance with His will. The wicked do indeed frequently glory in themselves at any accomplishment of their wishes. But the event at length proves that they were only fulfilling all the while that which had been ordained of God, and that, too, against their own will, while they knew nothing about it! Moreover, God Himself very frequently makes use of the wicked to punish the sins of men, especially of His own people. And sometimes He drags them by the neck, as it were, to make them the instruments of His goodness to men and saints.
Now if the Scripture did not clearly express God's secondary or instrumental mode of operation, this knot would not, even then, be very difficult to untie. The other and more difficult question is, whether it is God that works in the hearts of men, directs all their counsels, and turns their wills this way and that, and prevents them from doing anything but that which He hath decreed they should do. We are not here inquiring whether or not God works all the godly and holy affections which are found in the hearts of His people, because that is, beyond all dispute, certain. The great question is, whether He holds also in the hand of His power all the depraved and impious affections of the wicked, and turns them hither and thither, that they might desire to do that which He hath decreed to accomplish by their means?
That Sardonic dogma, therefore, in the promulgation of which the Papal theologians so much pride themselves, "that the power of God is absolute and tyrannical," I utterly abhor. For it would be easier to force away the light of the sun from his heat, or his heat from his fire, than to separate the power of God from His justice. Away, then, with all such monstrous speculations from godly minds, as that God can possibly do more, or otherwise, than He has done, or that He can do anything without the highest order and reason. For I do not receive that other dogma, "that God, as being free from all law Himself, may do anything without being subject to any blame for so doing."
We have not yet, however, met the great objection of our adversaries:
"If all things are done (say they) according to the will of God, and men can do or design nothing, but as He wills or ordains, God must be the author of all evils." That distinction which formerly prevailed in the schools, and is now everywhere current, is perfectly true, provided it be rightly understood -- "that the evil of the punishment, but not the evil of the fault, proceeds from God."
But some inexperienced ones, imagining that the matter in question can be settled in one short word, pass by in security the very point at issue, namely, "How God can be free from blame in that very deed which He Himself condemns in Satan and in the reprobate, and which He declares that men condemn in their fellow-men." For both evils are often seen in the same work, not in different works, namely, that the praise of the punishment must, of necessity, be ascribed to God, and the fault of the act to man. For instance, robbers carry off the cattle of the holy Job. The deed is cruel and disgraceful. Satan by this means drives the patriarch to desperation, a machination still more detestable. But Job declares another to be the author of it all! "The Lord gave (saith he), and the Lord hath taken away." Nor is Job wrong in attributing that to God which, in another sense, could be imputed to the robbers only. For the patriarch, as if beholding with uplift eyes the things that are decreed on the throne of God in heaven, confesses that the Lord took away by the hands of the robbers those things which they could not have touched but by His authority and command. All this Job explains in the words that follow:
"The Lord hath done whatsoever pleased Him."
We hear that, in this instance, the work of Satan was in common with that of God. We hear that nothing was done but by God's good pleasure. It may here be said, "How shall God be exempted from that fault of which Satan and his instruments are guilty?" Why, if a distinction be made between the works of men, derived from a consideration of their purpose and end in each particular case; and if the cruelty of that man is condemned who pierces the eyes of a crow or kills a crane, while the virtue of the judge is praised who cleanses his hands by the execution of the wicked person; shall the condition of God Himself be worse than that of man?
Shall not His justice keep Him separate from the wicked actions of human or satanic offenders?
Wherefore, when the wickedness of men proceeds thus from the Lord, and from a just cause, but from a cause unknown to us, although the first cause of all things be His will, that He is therefore the author of sin I most solemnly deny.
Wherefore, far is it from any man to drag God into a participation of sin, or guilt, or blame, whenever any apparent similitude between the plainly depraved passions of men and His secret counsel may present itself. Let that sentiment of Augustine be ever present to our minds:
"Wherefore, by the mighty and marvelous working of God (which is so exquisitely perfect in the accomplishment of every purpose and bent of His will), that, in a wonderful and ineffable way, is not done without His will which is even done contrary to His will, because it could not have been done had He not permitted it to be done; and yet, He did not permit it without His will, but according to His will."
God is Love,
Tim
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