Man is ultimately dependent upon God for his saving grace. However, according to John Calvin: “It is not a case of the believer’s ‘cooperation’ with grace; the will is first actuated through grace” [Conversion of the Will Is the Effect of Divine Grace Inwardly Bestowed, .7]. With respect to our human nature, Calvin was convinced that man is completely corrupted from the surface to the core. Man can never hope to be good unless God determines he is good. We can never be good by our own free will. Says Calvin: “The wicked themselves have been created for this very end - that they may perish.” [Calvin on Scripture and Divine Sovereignty, John Murray, p.61: Michigan: Baker Book House, 1960]. He ignored Augustine’s belief that there still was a residue of goodness or the original grace in Adam left in man that would be enough for him to freely decide whether he would like to return to that perfect state of grace, by accepting the helping graces God offers him and cooperating with them upon his baptism. Yet Calvin was convinced that man’s will is in complete moral bondage: “The will, therefore, is bound by the slavery of sin, that it cannot excite itself, much less devote itself to anything good.” [Inst. 2.iii.2]. And this something good would include the gift of grace and faith, without which the elect could not hope to even possibly be saved unless this grace of faith were imputed beyond any power of human resistance. :nope:
It is God who wills the corruption of man. God has decreed our fall and subsequent evil inclinations for the sole purpose of demonstrating the power of his grace by bestowing it on an elected passive few. What logically follows is that the fall of Adam was not brought about by his own free will. In the ‘Institutes’ we read “man by the righteous impulsion of God does that which is unlawful,” and that “man falls, the providence of God so ordaining.” 4.xviii.2; 3.xxviii.8] Both the fallen and the saved have no choice in the matter in Calvin’s scheme of salvation. The Elect are imputed the grace that was stripped from Adam by Divine ordinance for the glory and honour of God. Calvin’s theology makes us out to be nothing but preprogrammed robots or puppets on a string. If this is not so, then why did Calvin contend that there is no human merit in the act of faith which justifies us? Because, according to him, faith is not a ‘free’ act of human co-operation no more than the fall of man was a free act of disobedience on Adam’s part. Unlike Luther, Calvin believed that God did not simply foresee the fall, but actually decreed it. “The fall of the first man or in him the ruin of his posterity was arranged all by the determination of his own will.” [Inst. lll.21.7.] Calvin was a supralapsarian in asserting that God gave the decree of election and damnation before the fall of man. Adam had no choice, but to disobey God; so he had no free will and was not responsible for his own disobedience. Man can only assume his responsibilty in restoring himself to God’s friendship, by co-operating with God’s grace, if he has a free will. To undo his own disobedience, which presupposes a free will, man must freely be obedient to God out of love and trust. This is the act of faith which Calvin denied.
Calvin was criticized by other reformers for having conjured the existence of an unjust and alien God. His harsh retort to them was “I confess that all descendants of Adam fell by the divine will (Sandusky, you wrote: “Adam was responsible for the fall” by his own will: my emphasis)” and that “we must return to God’s sovereign determination, the cause of which is hidden” (by God’s second hidden will - a moral loophole - since man never had a will of his own from the beginning). [Inst. lll.23.4.] “Therefore, some men are born devoted from the womb for certain death, that His name may be glorified in their destruction…Because life and death are acts of God’s will rather than of his foreknowledge (God does not foresee what we freely do.),” and “He foresees further events only ‘in consequence of his decree’ that they ‘shall happen’.” [Quotes taken from ‘Calvinism’, The Catholic Encyclopedia]
The fall of man was necessary, so Adam and Eve had to sin so that the elect could be saved for the glory of God, not out of love by God’s divine intervention after we freely rebelled against Him. Likewise, the elect cannot avoid being saved. Hence, there is no merit in what they do and no genuine Christian virtues. Our good works are meaningless in the economy of salvation and amount to nothing, although Jesus has warned us that we ‘shall’ be judged by our deeds. :yup:
Both Calvin and Luther were convinced salvation or damnation is predetermined by God for each individual regardless of his choices or actions. Both of them rejected the traditional teaching of the Catholic Church, supported by Scripture, that God gives ‘every’ person the grace to choose salvation, but he has the freedom to reject God’s offer and so bring damnation upon himself. Indeed, not only Calvin, but also Luther erroneously taught that justification by faith does not bring about any genuine conversion in a person and that the righteousness of Christ is imputed to him without any real change in the kind of person he is. Luther draws a picture of man as “dung covered by snow”. Thus neither Calvin nor Luther had any place for good works in salvation. Christian behaviour amounted to nothing more than a window dressing ornamenting man’s justification. There is no true merit in human Christian virtue pleasing to God. In the dismal words of Calvin: “Man, being subject to the curse of the law, has no means left of attaining salvation but through faith alone.” ( Paul regarded love the greatest of virtues, even above faith and hope.) However, “we never dream of a faith destitute of good works, or of a justification unattended by them; this is the sole difference, while we recognize a necessary connection between faith and good works, we attribute justification not to works, but to faith.” As the wicked have been created for the strict purpose of their damnation, so too the justified by faith alone, through grace alone, by Christ alone, and for the sovereignty of God alone shall be saved. It doesn’t matter what we do. Both good and bad works are not taken into account by God.
Our sins are reckoned or imputed in Christ’s account, and our Lord’s righteousness is credited or imputed to the sinner’s account all by faith alone. For Jesus has been punished in our stead. ( I take it that the Jews ‘punished’ the unblemished lambs on the Day of Atonement.
) Calvin: “Thus we simply interpret justification as the acceptance with which God receives us into his favour ‘as if we were righteous’ (being covered in snow); and we say that this justification consists in the forgiveness of sins and the imputation of the righteousness of Christ…To declare that we are deemed righteous, solely because the obedience of Christ is imputed to us as if it were our own, is just to place our righteousness in Christ.” ‘Our Righteousness Is Not in Ourselves’, Dr. John Calvin] It is not our obedience to the will of God, but Christ’s, that makes us righteous before God. Without our obedience, then, there is no further need for any commandments; nor is there any need to be punished, for Christ has been punished for us. Thus the moment we merely have faith in Christ, our Lord’s spotless virtue and meritorious ‘execution’ is passed on to us as if it were our own. We are sinful in state but righteous in standing, sinful in condition (no Sacrament of Penance and no works of mercy) but righteous in position. The great Calvinistic cover up!
Then one of the elders spoke up and said to me, “Who are these wearing white robes, and where did they come from?” I said to him, “My lord, you are the one who knows.” He said to me, “These are the ones who have survived the time of great distress; THEY HAVE WASHED THEIR ROBES AND MADE THEM WHITE IN THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB.” For this reason THEY STAND BEFORE GOD’S THRONE AND WORSHIP HIM NIGHT AND DAY IN HIS TEMPLE. The one who sits on the throne will shelter them." {Revelation 7, 13-15}
" This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no man than to lay his life down for a friend." { John 15, 12-13 }
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”
{John 14, 15}
“For what reason was our father ABRAHAM blessed? Was it not because HE WROUGHT RIGHTEOUSNESS AND TRUTH THROUGH FAITH?”
Bishop Clement of Rome (our third Pope) ‘Epistle to the Corinthians, 31’ (A.D. 98)
“Our righteousness is not in ourselves.”
Dr. John Calvin (16th Century)
Pax vobiscum
Good Fella
hil 3:8 "More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which {comes} from God on the basis of faith,
Way to funny, you of all people stating this beauty. Watch out while your wrestling with that plank, you’ll put your eye out.