“The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hands of the Lord, he turns it wherever he wants” (Proverbs 21:1). Calvin raises yet another difficult question, that of human freedom. He begins by stressing “God’s dominion” (2.4.7). “If…
How do we make sense of evil? And, more specifically, how do we make sense of the evil that human beings perpetrate on one another? Who’s to blame? If Red Skelton were here, or SNL’s “Churchlady”–for younger members of the…
What makes grace gracious? For Calvin, behind all grace is God’s own decision: “The apostle does not teach that the grace of a good will is bestowed upon us if we accept it, but that He wills to work in…
In this section, Calvin unpacks this statement: “God beings his good work in us, therefore, by arousing love and desire and zeal for righteousness in our hearts; or, to speak more correctly, by bending, forming, and directing, our hearts to…
One key Reformation teaching which both Lutherans and Reformed held in common was the pervasive and inherited corruption of human corruption. In this, Calvin was no different. He notes that the Bible “painted a picture of human nature that showed…
Humans want to carve out some place for their own natural abilities when it comes to doings works that conform to God’s law. Ethicists will sometimes talk about “natural law,” an inbred standard of right and wrong that is common…
Having talked about the knowledge of “earthly matters” which reason can attain by God’s common grace (2.2.13-16), Calvin argues that spiritual insight–knowledge about “heavenly matters”–consists in three things: knowing God; knowing his fatherly favor in our behalf; and knowing how…
Grace restores what it did not take away; the restoration, therefore, of the graces of love to God and neighbour, zeal for holiness and righteousness, implies the loss of them by original sin. These supernatural gifts were lost in the…
Calvin’s debt to Augustine is nowhere seen as in the discussion on free will. Of all the theologians who have gone before him, he finds Augustine’s statements on the will to be biblical and pastorally significant. Augustine’s doctrine of man…
What is free will? Some theologians, according to Calvin, have come too close to philosophers who credit the will with too much. There is a perennial temptation to try to make theology agree with the prevailing philosophy, and Calvin accuses…
