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John Calvin's Views On Predestination

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Calvin responds that God indeed predestines some to salvation and others to reprobation. God does this according to His good pleasure and without the council of human beings. This predestination is just and its justice is hidden in the secret council of God and to question this is arrogant and foolishness. There are those who believe that God should not or rather does not condemn individuals prior to having offended against God to reprobation or damnation. Against this thinking Calvin says that it is foolish people who make this claim and that a person who is in the right frame of spirit would understand that it is sinful to pretend that an individual can know the divine will and to cast judgement upon it. Calvin insists that the divine will is “the supreme rule of righteousness” and to question it is impiety and sin. This is because the will of God is a “Law unto itself” and that God’s law is the “Supreme standard of perfection:” because of this God in no way needs to hold Himself accountable to human beings. Calvin argues …show more content…

And he acts not according to the gratitude of each, but according to his election. Of this you have a striking example in Luke, when the Jews and Gentiles in common heard the discourse of Paul and Barnabas. Though they were all instructed in the same word, it is said, that “as many as were ordained to eternal life believed,” (Acts 13: 48). How can we deny that calling is gratuitous, when election alone reigns in it even to its

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