by Joshua Shaw
Roots, echoes, shadows, precedents – all good working ways to think about a series of posts which I intend to revisit and extend over the coming months (and years). I want to take a look at direct historical sources or, barring that, more widely representative or influential treatments of the theological themes in (at least) the primary Reformed Confessions (the Westminster Standards and the continental Three Forms of Unity – the Heidelberg Catechism, the Belgic Confession, and the Canons of Dort). Partly its purpose is pedagogical – to provide context and help for understanding these confessions better; partly it has historical purport – to show us what we have in common not just with the larger Christian tradition (viz. Catholicism, Lutheranism, etc.) but even pre-Christian figures (Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, etc.). Like an unmediated reading of the Bible, an unmediated reading of the Reformed confessions can (and often does) give a distorted understanding of the meaning first intended.
These echoes could of course be multiplied ad infinitum and they are seldom meant to show direct influence (though in many cases this will be possible if not likely). In the first few posts we will look at, for example, Calvin’s cautionary exegesis of I Peter 1:1 regarding election, Luther’s Shorter Catechism and its influence on the Heidelberg Catechism, and the Belgic Confession’s treatment of Genesis 1.
In this first post we will look at the caution urged by the Westminster Standards (WS) over against the (in)famous Reformed doctrine of Divine Election and the mentioned passage in Calvin. A. A. Hodge, in his widely used commentary on the WS (The Confession of Faith), puts the point pithily: “This necessity [of caution] arises from the fact that it is often abused, and that its proper use is in the highest degree important” (76 here). This post is not intended therefore to point out something that is in any way obscure or difficult, but to underscore an exhortation which we seldom heed.
Caution from Calvin and the Westminster Standards
CHAP. III – Of God’s Eternal Decree (for the whole text see here)
- God, from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass: yet so as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or continency of second causes taken away, but rather established.
- Although God knows whatsoever may or can come to pass upon supposed conditions, yet hath He not decreed any thing because He foresaw it as future, or as that which would come to pass upon such conditions.
- By the decree of God, for the manifestation of his glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life; and other foreordained to everlasting death…
- Those of mankind that are predestinated unto life, God, before the foundation of the world was laid, according to His eternal and immutable purpose, and the secret counsel and good pleasure of His will, hath chosen, in Christ, unto everlasting glory, out of His mere free grace and love, without any foresight of faith, or good works, or perseverance in either of them….
After expositing and explaining this doctrine further, it continues,
- The doctrine of this high mystery of predestination is to be handled with special prudence and care, that men, attending the will of God revealed in His Word, and yielding obedience thereunto, may, from the certainty of their effectual vocation, be assured of their eternal election. So shall this doctrine afford matter of praise, reverence, and admiration of God, and of humility, diligence, and abundant consolation to all that sincerely obey the Gospel.
Four things should be noted before turning to Calvin: 1) this “high doctrine” is singled out as the only one in the Confession “to be handled with special prudence and care”; 2) it is meant to be a comfort to (individual) men, from which follow at once praise to God and humility before Him. Therefore, if someone handles this doctrine unwisely, without humility, and without the obvious aim of comforting (imparting grace to) the hearers, that person has not understood nor properly appropriated this doctrine.
We will look in future posts at the intersection of divine and human wills here in section 1 as well as the delineation of primary and secondary causes, but today we will focus on some cautionary words of Calvin from his commentary on 1 Peter, which underpin that clause in the WS. Calvin is here commenting on verse 1: Peter an Apostle of Jesus Christ, to the Elect.
It may be asked how [Peter] knew this: for the election of God is hidden, nor is it known in any other way than by a special (singulari) revelation of the Spirit. Yet even as someone may become surer of his own election by the witness of the Spirit, so he considers nothing certain concerning others. I respond that one ought not to ponder anxiously (quaerendum) the election of brothers, but (this) should be assumed (aestimandam) on the basis of their [external] calling: such that whoever have been joined to the Church may be considered elect. For God separates these from the world, which is the sign of election. It is no objection that many fall away, in whomever there is pure dissimulation: this is [simply] the testimony of charity, not faith, since we consider all elect in whom the mark (nota) of divine adoption appears… Immediately, however, he notes whence the election flows by which we are separated unto salvation lest we perish with the world: for he says according to foreknowledge. Here, I say, is the fount and this the first cause (of election)...
Corpus Reformatorum 55, 207.
And further on,
Because therefore Peter calls [them] elect according to the foreknowledge of God, he indicates that its cause depends on nothing else but is to be sought in God alone: for he himself in himself freely has proved (fuerit) responsible for our being chosen. God’s foreknowledge anticipates (submovet) therefore all regard for human dignity. … Nothing in fact is more dangerous and more absurd, than – the [external] calling passed over – to seek the certainty of our election in the hidden foreknowledge (praescientia) of God. Here indeed is an excessively deep labyrinth.
Corpus Reformatorum 55, 208.
A full comparison of this passage of commentary with the Westminster would reveal many such echoes. Indeed Calvin treats the topic at greater length in Ephesians, as well of course in his Institutes (Book III, Sect. 21f.), which are places more likely to have exercised direct influence on the divines at Westminster. But the notable element here is his urge to caution and reservation of judgement and instead to accept the ”testimony of charity,” to acknowledge the “[external] call,” and the “sign of election” which is the singling out of individuals through bodily membership in the church.
Two Truths Equally Sure – A Further Cause for Caution
“Calvinists believe, as all men must, that all events in the system of things depend on their causes, and are suspended on conditions” (Hodge 65-66 ibid.) This statement is worth pausing over.
I hope you paused.
Put differently, Calvinists (or Reformed) do not believe something less or different from all men regarding human freedom, but something more. Hodge goes on,
But the all-comprehensive purpose of God embraces and determines the cause and the conditions, as well as the event suspended upon them. The decree, instead of altering, determines the nature of events, and their mutual relations…The Socinians and Rationalists maintain that God cannot certainly foresee free actions, because from their very nature they are uncertain until they are performed. Arminians admit that he certainly foresees them, but deny that he determines them.
The Confession of Faith, 66.
But the Reformed, he replies, argue that His eternal will determines and establishes all secondary causes – that is, free-will is predicated upon this immutable counsel of God and could not exist apart from it.
When Hodge comes to comment on our passage of the WS, he says that this “principle” of God’s eternal decree is “certainly revealed in Scripture, [and] is not difficult of comprehension, and is of great practical use to convince men of the greatness and independence of God… and of their own sin and absolute dependency.” (76) He then goes on to say that the relationship between this truth and the other (revealed with equal clarity in Scripture) of the “free agency of the creature” and the “permission of moral evil” is simply “not revealed in the Scriptures, and cannot be discovered by human reason, and therefore ought not to be rashly meddled with.” Hodge rightly acknowledges, moreover, the real danger of the one great truth (of predestination) “obtrud[ing]” the other (of free will) “out of its due place in its system” (77).
Yet if we observe this danger seriously, I think it is fair to read the words of the WS even more liberally than Hodge does. That is, precisely because the one truth is so obvious and the other not, it makes it hard for our mind and then will to give them residence in our heart. Indeed, this ought to be so; no good Reformed theologian encouraged the willy-nilly avowal of propositions which seem to all appearances plainly contradictory. It is only because these two are clearly witnessed in Scripture that they must be simultaneously professed.
To round off this post, we might summarize the WS’s plea for caution thus : “walk circumspectly” around the whole of the topic, not reducing it to acronyms or trivializing it in public debate, but prudently proffering it as comfort to certain hearers, after a careful manner, under specific circumstances. The foreknowledge of God is a profound labyrinth. He gave outward signs on which we may hope and believe. Be aware of human weakness and the difficulty of the thing.
A pastor I knew once shared one (of many) possible concrete applications: in certain company he would use the word “choose” (OE ceosan) instead of “elect” (Latin eligere). My reading : the Germanic word often has all the real meaning of the Latin with more “juice and joy.” It sounds less sterile and technical – more, that is, like the language of a loving Father.
[i] Petrus apostolus Iesu Chrisi, electis is Calvin’s Latin translation (which follows word for word the Greek Πέτρος ἀποστολὸς Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ ἐκλεκτοῖς… All of Calvin’s texts here are my translations from the Corpus Reformatorum Series v. 55 (Calvini Opera 23), repr. 1964, orig. 1896, 207-8.