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Table of Contents: Statement of The DoctrineThe Foreknowledge of God Outline of Systems The Scriptures are The Final Authority By Which Systems are to be Judged A Warning Against Undue Speculation The Five Points of Calvinism Chart: "Calvinism v Arminianism" Total Inability Unconditional Election Limited Atonement Efficacious Grace The Perseverance Of The Saints That It Is Fatalism That It Is Inconsistent With the Free Agency And Moral Responsibility of Man That It Makes God the Author of Sin That It Discourages All Motives To Exertion That It Represents God As A Respecter of Persons, Or As Unjustly Partial That It Is Unfavorable To Good Morality That It Precludes A Sincere Offer of The Gospel To The Non-Elect That It Contradicts The Universalistic Scripture Passages Salvation By Grace Personal Assurance That One Is Among The Elect Predestination In The Physical World A Comparison With The Mohammedan Doctrine of Predestination The Practical Importance of The Doctrine Calvinism in History |
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Reformed Doctrine of Predestination
Chapter XX - That It Is Unfavorable To Good Morality 1. The Means
as Well as the Ends are Foreordained. 2. Love and Gratitude
to God for 1. THE MEANS AS WELL AS THE ENDS ARE FOREORDAINED The objection is
sometimes made that this system encourages men to be careless and indifferent
about their moral conduct and their growth in grace, on the ground that their
eternal welfare has already been secured. This objection is primarily directed
against the doctrines of Election, and the Perseverance of the Saints. This objection,
however, like the one to the effect that this system discourages all motives to
exertion, is completely answered by the great principle which we hold and teach,
namely, that the means as well as the ends are foreordained. God's decree that
the earth should be fruitful did not exclude, but included, the sunlight, the
showers, the tillage of the husbandman, etc. If God has foreordained a man to
have a crop of corn, He has also foreordained him to plow and plant and
cultivate and to do all other necessary things to secure the crop. Just as a
purpose to build includes the hewing of stone, the squaring of timbers, and the
preparation of all other materials which enter into the structure; and as a
declaration of war implies arms, ammunition, ships, and all other necessary
equipment; so the election of some to the eternal enjoyment of heaven includes
their election to holiness here. It is not the individual as
such, but the individual as holy and virtuous, that is
predestinated to eternal life. In the plainest
of language Paul taught that the very purpose of election is, "That we should be
holy and without blemish before Him in love," Ephesians 1:4; that we are
"foreordained to be conformed to the image of His Son," Romans 8:29; and that "God chose you
from the beginning unto salvation in sanctification of the Spirit and belief of
the truth," 2 Thessalonians 2:13. "As many as were ordained to eternal life believed," Acts 13:48. The
predestinated, called, justified, glorified ones are the same, Romans 8:29, 30. Therefore the purpose
of God according to election must stand, Romans
9:11. The belief of
Calvinists concerning this subject is well expressed in the Westminster
Confession, where we read: "As God hath appointed the elect unto glory, so hath
He, by the eternal and most free purpose of His will, foreordained all the means
thereunto. Wherefore they who are elected being fallen in Adam, are redeemed by
Christ, are effectually called unto faith in Christ by His Spirit working in due
season; are justified, adopted, sanctified, and kept by His power through faith
unto salvation." (III: 6). "God decreed
that fifteen years should be added to Hezekiah's life; this made him neither
careless of his health, nor negligent of his food; he said not, 'Though I run
into the fire, or into the water, or drink poison, I shall nevertheless live so
long'; but natural providence, in the due use of means co-wrought so as to bring
him on to that period of time pre-ordained by him."1 Since
all events are more or less intimately connected, and since God works by means,
if He did not determine the means as well as the events, the
certainty
as to the events themselves would be destroyed. In the redemption of man He
determined not only the work of Christ and of the Holy Spirit, but also the
faith, repentance and perseverance of all His people. When this same
doctrine was preached by Paul on another occasion and this same objection was
brought against it —
namely, that he "made the law of none effect through faith," or in other
words, that since we are saved through faith we do not need to keep the moral
law —
his emphatic reply was, "God forbid; nay, we establish the
law," Romans 3 :31. There
is, then, an invariable connection established between eternal salvation as an
end, and faith and holiness as a means leading to that end. The ideal
Christian, of course, would commit no sin at all. Though certainly saved, he is
saved for good works, and is commanded to "give no occasion of stumbling in
anything, that our ministration be not blamed," 2
Corinthians 6:3. The Scriptures know of no perseverance which is not a perseverance in
holiness, and they give no encouragement to any sense of security which is not
connected with a present and ever increasing holiness. Virtue and piety,
therefore, are the effect and not the cause of election, for which no cause is
to be assigned except God's sovereign good pleasure. It is true that some become
much more advanced in holiness here and continue in that state over a much
longer period of time than do others; yet it is vain for any who do not partake
in some degree of holiness in this world to hope to enjoy happiness in the next.
All those whom God has designed to render perfectly happy in eternity, He has
designed to make in part happy in this world; and as holiness is essential to
the happiness of an intelligent creature, so there is begun in them in this
world that holiness without which no one shall see the Lord. 2. LOVE AND GRATITUDE TO GOD FOR WHAT HE HAS DONE Those who make the objection that we are now considering assume that believers — those who through the almighty power of God have been brought from death to life, from sin to holiness; who have partially beheld the love and glory of God as it is revealed in Christ — are still incapable of being influenced by any motives except those which arise from a selfish and exclusive regard to their own safety and happiness. And, as Cunningham says, they do virtually make a confession, "first, that any outward decency which their conduct may at present exhibit, is to be traced solely to the fear of punishment; and, secondly, that if they were only secured against punishment, they would find much greater satisfaction in serving the Devil than in serving God; and that they would never think of showing any gratitude to Him who had conferred the safety and deliverance on which they place so much reliance." 2 The contrast
between the Calvinistic and the Arminian basis for morality is clearly stated in
the following section from McFetridge: "The two great springs by which men are
moved are, on the one hand, conviction and idea, on the other, emotion and
sentiment; as these
control, so the moral character will be shaped. The man who is ruled by
convictions and ideas is the man of stability; he cannot be changed until his
conscience is changed; the man who is ruled by emotion and sentiment is the man
of instability. Now, the appeal of Arminianism is chiefly to the sentiments.
Regarding man as having the absolute free moral control of himself, and as able
at any moment to determine his own eternal state, it naturally applies itself to
the arousing of his emotions. Whatever can lawfully awaken the feelings it
considers expedient. Accordingly, the senses, above all things, must be
addressed and affected. Hence the Arminian is, religiously, a man of feeling, of
sentiment, and consequently disposed to all those things which interest the eye
and please the ear. His morality, therefore, as depending chiefly upon the
emotions, is, in the nature of the case, liable to frequent fluctuation, rising
or falling with the wave of sensation upon which it rides. Calvinism, on the
other hand, is a system which appeals to idea rather than sentiment, to
conscience rather than emotion. In its views all things are under a great and
perfect system of divine laws, which operate in defiance of feeling, and which
must be obeyed at the peril of the soul . . . . Its thought is not
sentiment, but
conviction . . . .
It makes the voice of God, speaking in the soul, a guide in all conduct. It
seeks rather to convince men than to fill them with a transient sensation. Thus a
deep sense of duty
is the greatest thing in the moral life of the Calvinist. His first and last
question is, Is it right? Of that he must first be convinced. Hence with him
conscience has the
first place in all practical questions . . . . In the Calvinistic conception God
has marked out the way in which man is to walk —
a way which He will not change; and man is required to walk in it,
joyously or sorrowfully, with as much or as little sentiment as he pleases.
Hence the Calvinist is not, religiously, a man of demonstrations, but rather a
man of thoughtfulness; so that his morality, whatever it may be otherwise, is
characterized by stability and strength, which may sometimes lapse into
stubbornness and harshness." 3 Our love to God
would at best be only lukewarm if we believed that His love and favor toward us
depended only on our good behavior. His love toward us is as an immense sun,
which shone without beginning and which will shine without end, while ours
toward Him is, at its best, as only a little flame. Hence the assurance that the
objects of God's love shall never be permitted to fall away. Love which is
founded on self-interest is commonly recognized as not being moral in the
highest sense; yet Calvinism is the only system of faith which presents a purely
unselfish motive, namely the consciousness that it is alone the free grace and
unmerited love of God, to the exclusion of all human merit, that saves men. When
the Christian remembers that he was saved only through the suffering and death
of Christ his substitute, love and gratitude overflow his heart; and, like Paul,
he feels that the least he can offer Christ in return is his whole life in
loving service. Seeing himself saved by grace alone, he learns to love God for
His own sake and finds it the joy of his life to serve Him with the whole heart.
Obedience becomes not only the obligatory but the preferable good. The motive which
actuates the saints on earth is the same in principle, though not so intense, as
that which actuates the saints in glory, whose constant delight is to perform
the noblest actions and service, namely, that of praising God, and punctually
performing His will without interruptions or defeats. "As they have always a
ravishing sense of His goodness to them, so they exercise their perfectly pure
minds in ascriptions of praise and glory to him for delivering them from
deserved ruin, and placing them in the blissful mansions where they find
themselves possessed of ease, delight, complacency, and glory wholly unmerited."
4 Pure love and
gratitude to God, and not selfish fear, is the very fuel of acceptable
obedience, and these are the elements from which alone anything like high and
pure morality will ever proceed. Jesus had no fear that a sense of eternal
security would lead to licentiousness in His disciples, for He said to them,
"Rejoice that your names are written in heaven." The elect, therefore, have the
utmost reason to 3. THE
PRACTICAL FRUITS OF CALVINISM IN HISTORY ARE Calvinism
answers the charge that it is unfavorable to good morality, not merely by
opposing reason against reason, but by putting facts of world-wide reputation
over against these fictitious claims. It simply asks, What rival fruits can
other systems oppose if we point to the achievements of the Protestant leaders
of the Reformation period, and to the high moral earnestness of the Puritans?
Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, and their immediate helpers were all thorough-going
"Calvinists," and the greatest spiritual revival of all time was brought about
under their influence. Those in England who held this system of faith were so
very strict regarding purity of doctrine, purity of worship, and purity of daily
life, that by their very enemies, who thus were their best witnesses, they were
called "Puritans." The Puritans in England, the Covenanters in Scotland, and the
Huguenots in France, were men of the same religious faith and of like moral
qualities. That the system of Calvin should have developed precisely the same
kind of men in each of these different countries is a proof of its power in the
formation of character. Concerning the
Puritans in this country McFetridge says It is further to
be remembered as a diadem upon the brow of Calvinistic morality, that in all the
history of the Puritans there is said to have been not one case of divorce. What a
crying need there is for some such influence today! Lawlessness in general was
scarcely, if ever, more unknown than among the Puritans. If, then, Calvinism was
actually unfavorable to morality, as charged, it would indeed be a strange
coincidence that where there has been the most of Calvinism there has been the
least of crime. "This is the problem," says Froude, "Grapes do not grow on
bramble bushes. Illustrious natures do not form themselves upon narrow and cruel
theories. Spiritual life is full of apparent paradoxes . . . . The practical
effect of a belief is the real test of its soundness. Where we find heroic life
appearing as the uniform fruit of a particular opinion, it is childish to argue
in the face of fact that the result ought to have been different." 6 "There is no system," says Henry Ward Beecher, "which equals Calvinism in intensifying, to the last degree, ideas of moral excellence and purity of character. There never was a system since the world stood which puts upon man such motives to holiness, or which builds batteries which sweep the whole ground of sin with such horrible artillery. They tell us that Calvinism plies men with hammer and with chisel. It does; and the result is monumental marble. Other systems leave men soft and dirty; Calvinism makes them of white marble, to endure forever." 7 Instead of being
a system which leads to immorality and despair, it has worked out exactly the
opposite way in every-day life. No other system has so fired people with ideals
of religious and civil freedom, nor led to such high ideals of morality and
endeavor in all phases of human life. Wherever the Reformed Faith has gone it
has made the country to blossom like the rose, even though it was a poor country
like Holland, or Scotland, or New England. This has been admitted by Macaulay
and many others, and is a very comforting thought. |
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