Is Calvinism a heresy?

[hedrick]

So you do not believe that Calvin was a supralapsarian?

To continue where I left off, the problem with the view that Calvin sees reprobation as merely a passing over is the fact that for Calvin God is the author of sin, and this is precisely the point at which many Calvinists distance themselves from Calvin. For example:

"…how foolish and frail is the support of divine justice afforded by the suggestion that evils come to be, not by His will but by His permission…It is a quite frivolous refuge to say that God otiosely permits them, when Scripture shows Him not only willing, but the author of them..." (John Calvin, “The Eternal Predestination of God,” 10:11)​

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And from earlier in the thread:

Sure. Calvin thought that the Fall and sin was part of God's plan. I don't see any way to avoid that, given classical assumptions about God. Was it a surprise? Was he unable to create Adam and Eve such that they would avoid sin? I don't see any way to avoid this kind of thing without simply obsuring the argument or moving to some kind of open theism. I'm inclined towards open theism myself.

The supralapsarian / infralapsarian distinction is on the logical order of decrees. Both assume that God decreed everthing. I know the intent of infralaparian thought is to avoid making God the "author of sin", whatever that means, but i'm not convinced that it actually does that. And that argument was after Calvin. You can try to fit him into it, but that may not be accurate.

Anyway, as far as I'm concerned the combination of omnipotence and omniscience (which assumes that the future is knowable by God) makes God the author of sin, no matter what spin you try to put on it. I might note that author does not mean source. Nobody believes that. I mean author in the sense of the author of a book, that he put it in his plan.

 

[zippy2006]

Sure. Calvin thought that the Fall and sin was part of God's plan. I don't see any way to avoid that, given classical assumptions about God. Was it a surprise? Was he unable to create Adam and Eve such that they would avoid sin? I don't see any way to avoid this kind of thing without simply obsuring the argument or moving to some kind of open theism. I'm inclined towards open theism myself.

I'm not following your argument or the way it is supposed to interact with the post you were responding to. You may have to clarify. Apparently you are motioning towards some sort of disjunctive syllogism to argue for open theism?

 

[Chaleb]

God said that He has chosen His elect before He created the

The "elect" are chosen "In Christ".

For this to happen, The Cross has to be raised and Jesus has to die on it.
THEN, those who hear the gospel and believe, are born again "in Christ".

So, God KNOWS before you are born if you are going to believe in Jesus.
This does not mean He causes it, it means that before God created the earth, His foreknowledge KNEW who is going to become born again, "in Christ" as the "elect".

Calvin never understood any of this, and decided that God chooses you or doesn't choose you.

Jesus however said..."If i be lifted UP (on the Cross) i will Draw ALL"..

John 3:16 says...>"for God so love the WORLD that He gave Jesus".

Jesus says, that He "came into the world to save SINNERS"..

So, what Calvin did was just replace "all"... "sinners", and "world" with "elect" which denies the Cross.

 

[FireDragon76]

So you think that anyone who believes in predestination and election therefore believes in double predestination? It seems fairly clear at this point that you have no idea what you are talking about, and that you are not going to provide anything resembling argumentation.

"Predestination" is the idea that God determines one's final state in a temporally or logically prior way. Theologically we speak about God 'destining' prior to foreseen merits. So (complete) predestination to glory is ante praevisa merita (prior to foreseen merits). This is the thing that Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, and pretty much every other significant theologian agrees to, and it involves predestination and election.

"Double predestination" is the idea that, in addition to the complete predestination to glory, there is also complete predestination to reprobation ante praevisa demerita (prior to foreseen demerits). This is precisely where Calvin and Calvinism depart from Thomas, for Thomas holds to (incomplete) predestination to reprobation post et propter praevisa demerita (posterior to and because of foreseen demerits).

Of course much of it comes down to the different ideas of free will. The reason Calvin cannot accept Aquinas' position is because Calvin rejects libertarian freedom and the notion that a human act could exist which God does not author. Aquinas cannot accept Calvin's position because he holds that necessitated acts are not free* and that God is not the author of evil. To conflate these two views is to be ignorant.

* Cf. De Malo, Question VI, Article 1

Merit has no place in justification, in any classical Protestant theology (Calvinist, Arminian, Lutheran), so it also can't have a place in predestination. If God predestines, he does so for reasons other than merit.

 

[FireDragon76]

So you do not believe that Calvin was a supralapsarian?

To continue where I left off, the problem with the view that Calvin sees reprobation as merely a passing over is the fact that for Calvin God is the author of sin, and this is precisely the point at which many Calvinists distance themselves from Calvin. For example:

"…how foolish and frail is the support of divine justice afforded by the suggestion that evils come to be, not by His will but by His permission…It is a quite frivolous refuge to say that God otiosely permits them, when Scripture shows Him not only willing, but the author of them..." (John Calvin, “The Eternal Predestination of God,” 10:11)​

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And from earlier in the thread:

In classical Reformed theology, God's will can be spoken of in different senses, including a strictly permissive will.

 

[zippy2006]

Merit has no place in justification, in any classical Protestant theology (Calvinist, Arminian, Lutheran), so it also can't have a place in predestination. If God predestines, he does so for reasons other than merit.

Yes, this is what "ante praevisa merita" means.

In classical Reformed theology, God's will can be spoken of in different senses, including a strictly permissive will.

Yes, but I have been talking specifically about Calvin.

 

[zippy2006]

I see you edited your post:

Anyway, as far as I'm concerned the combination of omnipotence and omniscience (which assumes that the future is knowable by God) makes God the author of sin, no matter what spin you try to put on it. I might note that author does not mean source. Nobody believes that. I mean author in the sense of the author of a book, that he put it in his plan.

So you think it makes God the author but not the source of sin, and yet you still see this as problematic, and therefore depart to open theism. Correct? And why do you see this 'authorship' as problematic?

 

[QvQ]

Aquinas cannot accept Calvin's position because he holds that necessitated acts are not free* and that God is not the author of evil.

St Thomas Aquinas Wrote:

1. God loves all men and all creatures, inasmuch as He wishes them all some good ; but He does not wish every good to them all. So far, therefore, as He does not wish this particular good—namely, eternal life—He is said to hate or reprobated them.

There is a very fine line:

St Thomas Aquinas Wrote:

“Therefore, as predestination includes the will to confer grace and glory; so also reprobation includes the will to permit a person to fall into sin, and to impose the punishment of damnation on account of that sin.”

 

[FireDragon76]

St Thomas Aquinas Wrote:

1. God loves all men and all creatures, inasmuch as He wishes them all some good; but He does not wish every good to them all. So far, therefore, as He does not wish this particular good—namely, eternal life—He is said to hate or reprobated them.

There is a very fine line:
“Therefore, as predestination includes the will to confer grace and glory; so also reprobation includes the will to permit a person to fall into sin, and to impose the punishment of damnation on account of that sin.”

In fairness, Aquinas probably didn't understand that "Jakob I loved, but Esau I hated" is a semitic idiom that doesn't mean God was angry with Esau and wished to punish him, but that God prefered Jakob.

I think this just shows the limits of traditional theology- it's not based on good critical scholarship of the biblical texts.

 

[zippy2006]

St Thomas Aquinas Wrote:

1. God loves all men and all creatures, inasmuch as He wishes them all some good ; but He does not wish every good to them all. So far, therefore, as He does not wish this particular good—namely, eternal life—He is said to hate or reprobated them.

There is a very fine line:
St Thomas Aquinas Wrote:
“Therefore, as predestination includes the will to confer grace and glory; so also reprobation includes the will to permit a person to fall into sin, and to impose the punishment of damnation on account of that sin.”

Are you going to give citations for the supposed quotes you provide?

 

[QvQ]

Are you going to give citations for the supposed quotes you provide?

The quotes are from Summa Theologica
I enjoy reading Aquinas.
This thread is interesting because Summa Theologica is readily available online. It is well worth the read

 

[zippy2006]

The quotes are from Summa Theologica
I enjoy reading Aquinas.
This thread is interesting because Summa Theologica is readily available online. It is well worth the read

Where in the Summa? If you are going to give quotations you must give citations. If you don't understand citation protocol for the Summa feel free to give a hyperlink.

 

[QvQ]

Where in the Summa? If you are going to give quotations you must give citations. If you don't understand citation protocol for the Summa feel free to give a hyperlink.

I will post citations or links.
The book is online in English.

 

[zippy2006]

I will post citations or links.

That would be great. Since you are having some trouble I will give you a hand this time. Your quotes come from ST Ia, Q. 23, A. 3. There Thomas does something that Calvin would never do. Let's take the quote you already gave in post #568:

"Therefore, as predestination includes the will to confer grace and glory; so also reprobation includes the will to permit a person to fall into sin, and to impose the punishment of damnation on account of that sin."​

Contrariwise, what does Calvin say? I already provided it in #559:

"…how foolish and frail is the support of divine justice afforded by the suggestion that evils come to be, not by His will but by His permission…It is a quite frivolous refuge to say that God otiosely permits them, when Scripture shows Him not only willing, but the author of them..." (John Calvin, “The Eternal Predestination of God,” 10:11)​

​

You have been erroneously claiming that Aquinas and Calvin agree on predestination and election, and yet we here see Calvin call Aquinas' opinion "foolish and frail." Clearly Aquinas and Calvin do not agree on predestination and election.

 

[zippy2006]

In fairness, Aquinas probably didn't understand that "Jakob I loved, but Esau I hated" is a semitic idiom that doesn't mean God was angry with Esau and wished to punish him, but that God prefered Jakob.

I think this just shows the limits of traditional theology- it's not based on good critical scholarship of the biblical texts.

For Aquinas the hatred and punishment of of Esau is not inherent, but is rather a consequence of Esau's sin, and this accords perfectly with the Biblical verse in Malachi 1. Paul's allusion in Romans 9 was an allusion to the Old Testament, after all, and the verse in Malachi actually makes more sense than Paul's words do. Aquinas says:

Chapter 96: That God hates nothing, nor can the hatred of anything be ascribed to him​

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. . . And yet God is said metaphorically to hate certain things, and this in two ways.​

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. . . The [second] way is due to God willing some greater good that cannot be without the privation of a lesser good. And thus he is said to hate, since to do more than this were to love. For in this way insofar as he wills the good of justice or of the order of the universe (which good is impossible without the punishment or destruction of some) he is said to hate those whose punishment or destruction he wills: I have hated Esau (Mal 1:3);. . .​

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(Summa Contra Gentiles, Book 1, Chapter XCVI)​

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We see here that Aquinas does not see some sort of inherent hatred (ante praevisa demerita). The hatred is consequent upon Esau's sin. Aquinas explicitly calls this "hatred" metaphorical. Similarly, Aquinas would say that if a parent gives a popsicle to one child but not to another then we could accurately say that the parent loved the first child but hated the second. This second sense of metaphorical hatred is "hatred" qua privation or comparison with some positively willed good, as also occurs in preference or predilection.

 

[QvQ]

“Therefore, as predestination includes the will to confer grace and glory; so also reprobation includes the will to permit a person to fall into sin, and to impose the punishment of damnation on account of that sin.”

Act and Omissions

It is a very fine line between commission and omission.

"Permitting" is a deliberate act.

Aquinas stated above that it was God's will to confer and God's will to permit

 

[zippy2006]

Act and Omissions

It is a very fine line between commission and omission.

No, it's really not a fine line. Committing an act is doing something. Omitting an act is refraining from doing something. The line here is perfectly obvious, easy to understand, and clearly differentiated.

Further, Calvin rejects the omission account and Aquinas accepts it. There is nothing confusing about this, and it proves that Aquinas and Calvin differ with respect to God's relation to evil.

 

[QvQ]

No, it's really not a fine line. Committing an act is doing something. Omitting an act is refraining from doing something. The line here is perfectly obvious, easy to understand, and clearly differentiated.

Further, Calvin rejects the omission account and Aquinas accepts it. There is nothing confusing about this, and it proves that Aquinas and Calvin differ with respect to God's relation to evil.

Here is the question:
If it is the will of God to confer grace and He does not, if He passively permits a person to choose either sin or not to sin, then the innocent and the guilty reprobates will be condemned?

It is not possible, but here is an example
Say a person is passivily allowed to fall into sin. What if that person who is reprobate does not sin (granted, an impossibility) but what if?
Does that person go to hell or heaven?

If heaven, then it is the doctrine of works, aye?

 

[zippy2006]

It is not possible, but here is an example
Say a person is passivily allowed to fall into sin. What if that person does not sin (granted, an impossibility) but what if?
Does that person go to hell or heaven?

For Aquinas they would not be condemned if they have not sinned. Whether they would go to heaven is a different question altogether.

But this is important because now we are talking about limbo, and this is another thing that Aquinas accepted but Calvin could not. Indeed, I think limbo is more important than Catholics tend to realize.

 

[QvQ]

But this is important because now we are talking about limbo,

Limbo
The fate of innocent children who die, specifically unbaptised.

Now, exactly how does a person who is elect and predestined have the free will to choose to be saved"
I know Aquinas' argument for that but it is convoluted. There has to be "free will" or God created and willed evil.
Except, Aquinas believed in predestination, salvation being by the grace of God so not a free will choice.
Actually, there isn't much difference between Calvin and Aquinas on predestination except Calvin redefined "free will."
If a person does not have free will, then it is the will of God.
I believe in limited free will, but that is within the scope of Providence.