Predestination
For a substantial part of the Christendom history, there have been wide divisions regarding the determining agent of human temporal fate and his eventual destiny. While some Christians hold on to the assertion that Scriptures testify of man’s possession of free will, a significant number assert that man has no claim to free will. The latter group stands for predestination. Among this group are John Calvin and Martin Luther. These two protestant reformers developed constituted two different theories of predestination. While Calvin composed the “Double Predestination Theory.,” Luther composed the “Single Predestination Theory.” Looking at the two theories, Luther’s theory seems to be more consistent with itself and the scriptures than Calvin’s theory.
To John Calvin, predestination is the only means through which human beings, his temporal activities, his institutions, and his eternal fate, are determined. However, Calvin’s illustration of predestination mainly dealt with man’s eventual salvation from evil. To Calvin, on the Creator has the mandate to determine the eventualities of a man, by automatically generating the future dictations of a man. Therefore, man is viewed as one born independent from the power of choosing his own end. This way, either God decided to save a man or to leave him unsaved, awaiting his destruction. Calvin asserted that God finalized his decision regarding all individuals before creation commenced. Relating predestination to
Luther the Reformer: The Story of the Man and His Career by James M. Kittelson is a biography of the famous German monk turned theologian and reformer, Martin Luther. This is one of the most influential men in history, and as a matter of fact, “In most big libraries, books by and about Martin Luther occupy more shelf room than those concerned with any other human being except Jesus of Nazareth” (Kittelson 9). This fame of Luther’s isn’t only postmortem, “This extraordinary interest in an extraordinary man reaches back almost half a millennium. Even in his own time Luther was a ‘media personality’ the first of such in three thousand years of human history” (Kittelson 9). Luther was a subject of great controversy in his own time, as well as in our, and it has only driven his name and message into the spotlight. No matter or what one aligns himself with, “People still find themselves taking sides on the question of Luther” (Kittelson 9). It is for this reason that James M. Kittelson wrote this survey. He tells us that “The primary purpose of this book is to tell the story of Martin Luther to readers who are not specialists in the field of Luther studies” (Kittelson 10). This book is a general overview of all aspects of Luther, not just a precise dissection of one aspect, which allows for “as faithful a picture as possible of the whole man” (Kittelson 11).
What does it mean for God to be “sovereign?” This is the question that has perhaps caused more controversy than any other. For John Calvin, God was completely sovereign. Nothing outside the will of God could take place, because everything that has taken place, is taking place, or will take place has been divinely ordained before time began. God is the source of all good, and evil cannot take place without His permission. According to Calvin, all of humankind are lost in their sins, and so depraved that they are incapable of finding salvation without God performing an inner-miracle within them. This being said, God has elected to Himself a chosen people from the beginning of time, not off of merit, but sola gratia.
Calvin answered these objections in two ways. First, he conserved that God’s will was the “highest rule of righteousness,” and therefore anything that God wills—such as predestination—“must be considered righteous,” or just, irrespective of how it appeared to us. For Calvin, God’s will had “its own equity. Here Calvin upheld the justice of God but asserted that it was simply “unknown” to us on some level. Thus, God’s justice was eventually hidden and mysterious. With Paul (Rom. 9.20), Calvin affirmed that it was simply not our place to question God. He rejected that God was lawless, and also rejected that God had must given us an account of his justice, or that we were fit to “pronounce judgment [on God]…according to our own understanding. It was absurd to accuse God because of our own lack of understanding. Since predestination yields the glory of God, it must be just: “whatever deserves praise must be just. Calvin’s second response was that since all people, including the sinner, are “vitiated by sin,” and so
Predestination: A main concept in Calvinism that stated that everyone’s life was predestined, for better or for worse
The idea of predestination is not one that is so easily grasped. Many people have different ideas and understandings of what predestination is and what it looks like. Predestination is merely the concept that God already knows every decision a person makes before they make it, and that they are following a path laid before them. This is hard for people to accept, especially those who do not believe in any supreme ruler or being. John Boykin, Baylor graduate with his masters in Divinity and professor at all six Southern Baptist Seminary Extension Centers, puts the view
Stace, Frankfurt, and Wolf are all compatibilists. They hold that free will and determinism are compatible. In this paper, first I will define and explain key terms determinism, free will, and compatibilism. Next, I will discuss the individual views of each compatibilist and how they object to parts of determinism; then compare and contrast their views. They all believe in parts of determinism and parts of free will, even though determinism holds we are not morally responsible and free will holds we are morally responsible; thus, they are technically incompatible. This concept will be explained in this paper.
Predestination, in the dictionary, is said to be "the doctrine that God in consequence of his foreknowledge of all events infallibly guides those who are destined for salvation." Scripture has 2 very good passages for defining what predestination is: Jeremiah 1:5 which says "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations." God is talking about Jeremiah in this passage and how God chose him before time; he was predestined for his job. Romans 8:28-30 "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed
The juxtaposition of predestination with the exercise of free will is an age-old question. In the pagan world, prior to the upsurge of Western development and Christianity, predestination was deemed a truth; pagan gods were superlative and dictated the lives and fates of subordinate humans. Around 524 A.D., a Roman writer, Boethius, published a tract entitled The Consolation of Philosophy. Changes in medieval times were formulated around this document. By delving deeper into the possibility of chance, Boethius proclaims that, should one identify philosophically that chance is random, there is no such thing. Because “… nothing comes out of nothing” (p. 116), it is an impossibility that, with God maintaining security, there are acts of arbitrariness. Given that humans are rational creatures and cannot exist without reason, the presence of free will is a plausible assumption because philosophy acknowledges that there is freedom for cogent beings.
“A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.” This paradox is the basis of Luther’s concept on Christian freedom. For Luther, his reform freed Christians two fold. Christians were free from false assumptions about salvation and from the commandments of the Old Testament. To Luther, God alone could grant salvation. Despite this freedom, Christians still had to obey earthly laws. The differences of spiritual and temporal freedom seemed contradictory but for Luther it was clear that faith would free the Christian soul. Luther defined freedom for a Christian as freedom through faith. Salvation was granted by God alone. However their flesh was still bound
Not everyone in Geneva was quick to adapt to Protestantism and “the condition of the church in Geneva was very unstable and disorganized when Calvin arrived.” Under Calvin’s leadership, “Geneva became a Christian republic on the model set out in his Institutes of the Christian Religion.” He took Luther’s doctrine of salvation to its logical end, he believed that salvation could not be obtained through good works and that salvation was not certain for anybody. He developed the doctrine of predestination, arguing “that God had ordained every man, woman, and child to salvation or damnation – even before the creation of the world.” He believed that God only saved a small group of people, called the “elect.” Some were completely terrified by the idea of predestination, but others were inspired. An exemplary life could be a sign that a person had been chosen for salvation, whether they participated in good works or
The Reformed understanding of faith starting from Luther and Lutheran tradition is not a work by human beings but rather a response to the divine work, an accepting mental attitude. In Calvin, the emphasis is that faith is a gift which is a work by the Holy Spirit in human side. For Calvin, God’s work in us is mediated through the work of the Holy Spirit. The understanding of the role of the Holy Spirit in the saving event is one of the most significant
In this essay I will explain why I think the strongest position of the free will debate is that of the hard determinists and clarify the objection that moral responsibility goes out the door if we don’t have free will by addressing the two big misconceptions that are associated with determinists: first that determinism is an ethical system, and secondly that contrary to common belief determinists do believe in the concept of cause and effect. I will also begin by explaining my position and why I believe that the position of the indeterminist does not hold water as an argument and the third
Although the Bible is ambiguous on the topic of predestination versus free will, one will find a case for the Doctrine of Predestination in the scriptures. In the Bible, God uses individuals and people groups to fulfill plans for the world. Noah, for example, was chosen to survive the flood and continue humanity. God called Abraham from Ur to father the Nation of Israel, God’s chosen people in His plan to redeem creation. In Jeremiah 1:5, the case for predestination is particularly strong when God spoke to Jeremiah, telling him, “before I
Although Martin Luther impacts history greatly, people must remember what role John Calvin has to offer as well. Born in France in 1509, John Calvin is raised as a Roman Catholic by his family. His family is so devoted to the Roman Catholic Church that his dad aspires for his son to become a priest (John Calvin- Calvin College 1). John Calvin later reads Luther’s works and converts to the ‘faith of the Reformation.’ He strongly believes that salvation is achieved through faith and predestination (Cowie 44). In 1537, John Calvin publishes, Institutes of the Christian Religion. In this book, John Calvin states his beliefs on Christianity. He proposes that God has been veiled by the devotion of the people to the Virgin Mary and the saints. He also insists in his book that predestination is how God determines who goes to hell and who goes to heaven. John Calvin writes, “We call predestination, God’s eternal degree, by which He determined that He willed to become of each man.
John Calvin’s doctrine of predestination is arguably one of the most important results of the Protestant reformation. Predestination is the belief that “salvation[entrance into heaven] is given to only those whom god has chosen”. The chosen people were called the elect. John Calvin wrote this important belief during the era of the Protestant Reformation. People often formed negative opinions on predestination or let it rule their lives. Some people who did not think like Calvin loathed predestination because they believed that