- Jan 16, 2014
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I am currently reading through Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion for my class on Calvin. I came across this paragraph and was very pleased by it:
"Now, when I say that the will bereft of freedom is of necessity either drawn or led into evil, it is a wonder if this seems a hard saying to anyone, since it has nothing incongruous or alien to the usage of holy men. But it offends those who know not how to distinguish between necessity and compulsion. Suppose someone asks them: Is not God of necessity good? Is not the devil of necessity evil? What will they reply? God’s goodness is so connected with his divinity that it is no more necessary for him to be God than for him to be good. But the devil by his fall was so cut off from participation in good that he can do nothing but evil. But suppose some blasphemer sneers that God deserves little praise for His own goodness, constrained as He is to preserve it. Will this not be a ready answer to him: not from violent impulsion, but from His boundless goodness comes God’s inability to do evil? Therefore, if the fact that he must do good does not hinder God’s free will in doing good; if the devil, who can do only evil, yet sins with his will—who shall say that man therefore sins less willingly because he is subject to the necessity of sinning? Augustine everywhere speaks of this necessity; and even though Cadestius caviled against him invidiously, he did not hesitate to affirm it in these words: 'Through freedom man came to be in sin, but the corruption which followed as punishment turned freedom into necessity.' And whenever he makes mention of the matter, he does not hesitate to speak in this manner of the necessary bondage of sin."
—John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (Battles-McNeill), II.iii.5.
"Now, when I say that the will bereft of freedom is of necessity either drawn or led into evil, it is a wonder if this seems a hard saying to anyone, since it has nothing incongruous or alien to the usage of holy men. But it offends those who know not how to distinguish between necessity and compulsion. Suppose someone asks them: Is not God of necessity good? Is not the devil of necessity evil? What will they reply? God’s goodness is so connected with his divinity that it is no more necessary for him to be God than for him to be good. But the devil by his fall was so cut off from participation in good that he can do nothing but evil. But suppose some blasphemer sneers that God deserves little praise for His own goodness, constrained as He is to preserve it. Will this not be a ready answer to him: not from violent impulsion, but from His boundless goodness comes God’s inability to do evil? Therefore, if the fact that he must do good does not hinder God’s free will in doing good; if the devil, who can do only evil, yet sins with his will—who shall say that man therefore sins less willingly because he is subject to the necessity of sinning? Augustine everywhere speaks of this necessity; and even though Cadestius caviled against him invidiously, he did not hesitate to affirm it in these words: 'Through freedom man came to be in sin, but the corruption which followed as punishment turned freedom into necessity.' And whenever he makes mention of the matter, he does not hesitate to speak in this manner of the necessary bondage of sin."
—John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (Battles-McNeill), II.iii.5.
