Reflection 5

Reflection 5 covers 2.2.1 to 2.4.8.

2.2 begins with Calvin’s discussion of the loss of man's free will through the Fall and our enslavement to sin.  Interestingly, Calvin notes that the earliest church fathers seemed to grant more power to the will than they should have.  His reasons for this are, truthfully, not terribly convincing to me:  “First, a frank confession of a man’s powerlessness would have brought upon them the jeers of the philosophers with whom they were in conflict.  Second, they wished to avoid giving fresh occasion for slothfulness to a flesh already indifferent toward good” (259).

I do have trouble thinking that the early fathers were tailoring their message to avoid the jeers of the philosophers…these same early fathers who were risking life and limb to speak the gospel at all. 

Calvin argues that the fathers went from bad to worse on this issue, “until it came to the point that man was commonly thought to be corrupted only in his sensual part and to have a perfectly unblemished reason and a will also largely unimpaired” (260).  I think I could make the case that this is the default position of most of American Evangelicalism today.

Augustine, of course, is the great exception, argues Calvin, and in 2.2.9 he points to others as well who had a more biblical understanding:  Cyprian, Eucherius, Chrysostom, et al.

Calvin’s position is that man is utterly dead in his sins, that he is enslaved to sin, and that salvation is wholly of God.  To say otherwise, he argues, is to rob God of His glory and to fall into pride.  Here, for many, is the crux of the main objection to Calvinism.  Does man have free will or not?  Calvin would say that man does have free will, and that he freely chooses only to sin and rebel against God because he is under a curse.

Calvin does argue that the “natural gifts,” reason, have survived to some extent, but only to differentiate man from the beasts.  But the “supernatural gifts” are obliterated (2.2.12).  Man is spiritually blind, and any turning to God is itself a gift from God.  Thus, the work of the Holy Spirit is essential in a person’s life if they are to strive for and please God.

He continues in 2.3 with the argument for man’s corruption and sinfulness, and offers biblical proofs to this effect.  Even here, though, we can see God’s grace in a restraining manner:  “But here it ought to occur to us that amid this corruption of nature there is some place for God’s grace; not such grace as to cleanse it, but to restrain it inwardly.  For if the Lord gave loose rein to the mind of each man to run riot in his lusts, there would doubtless be no one who would not show that, in fact, every evil thing for which Paul condemns all nature is most truly to be met in himself” (292).

Restraining grace is distinct from the grace that purifies God’s elect.  Restraining grace is like a “bridle” thrown over a horse (292).  Such is our corruption that perceived virtue has no weight before God:  “As for the virtues that deceive us with their vain show, they shall have their praise in the political assembly and in common renown among men; but before the heavenly judgment seat they shall be of no value to acquire righteousness” (294).

Calvin presents his case for monergism (2.3.7).  Man does not “cooperate” in his salvation.  It is all of God and for His glory.  “For it always follow that nothing good can arise out of our will until it has been reformed; and after its reformation, in so far as it is good, it is so from God, not from ourselves” (300-301).

We kick against this idea, but “strange and monstrous indeed is the license of our pride!” (301).

We protest:  “I have come, you say, of my own free choice; I have come of my own will.  Why are you puffed up?  Do you wish to know that this also has been given you?  Hear Him calling, ‘No one comes to me unless my Father draws him’” (304).

Calvin argues that we sin by necessity but not by compulsion.  He says we are under Satan’s power, but willingly so.  He quotes Augustine’s illustration of man’s will being like a horse that is led by whatever rider is upon it:  God or Satan.