The Logical Calvinism?

[dchernik]

Calvinism strikes me as relentlessly logical. Let’s consider its first article of faith: 1) total depravity. Aquinas produces for us a litany of things that are not possible without (either habitual or actual, depending on the context) grace:

• Loving God as a friend. As usual, this is for two reasons: partly wounded nature and lack of charity, the latter preventing successful operation even in the state of perfect nature.
• Fulfilling the commandments of the Law.
• Meriting everlasting life.
• Preparing oneself for habitual (sanctifying) grace.
• Restoring oneself to grace after sin.
• Avoiding sin and persevering without repeated infusions of grace. (Summa Theologica, II-I, 109)

If total depravity refers to any of that, then on this matter Aquinas is a Calvinist. It cannot, however, refer to the claim that humans in a state of nature cannot do any good. Every human being seeks happiness necessarily and for the sake of that wills different goods for himself and for those he loves. Nor need a natural man be in any sense be a “bad person.”

1. Unconditional election. This follows directly from (1). If one cannot merit beatitude without grace, and God is He who bestows grace, then God decides who will and who will not be saved. Perhaps everyone is actually saved (which is my opinion, for what it’s worth); perhaps not, in which case the fault may lie not with God but with the Craigian transcircumstantial depravity of the damned (which God foreknows through scientia media), or with this being the best possible world despite the need for utilitarian tinkering, or some such thing.

We must draw here a crucial distinction between positive and negative reprobation. To make sense of Calvinism it is not necessary to suppose that God positively reprobates from eternity some people to hell and therefore wills (rather than merely permits) sin to occur, only that He negatively excludes some people from the beatific vision, which admits the possibility of some middle state such as natural happiness. The ultimate fate of these folks is anybody’s guess, but if universal salvation is true, then even the negatively reprobated will eventually make it to heaven. Calvinism may not deserve its reputation as harsh.

1. Limited atonement, again a self-evident implication. Why bother forgiving the sins of those predestined to be damned? The damned will be confirmed in evil, and there is no escape from hell. Even if some of their sins in this life are forgiven, it will be in vain, as they forever, though hatred, accumulate new sins as they burn in hellfire.
2. Irresistible grace. E.g., Aquinas argues that grace “may be considered, secondly, as it is from God the Mover, and thus it has a necessity — not indeed of coercion, but of infallibility — as regards what it is ordained to by God, since God’s intention cannot fail… Hence if God intends, while moving, that the one whose heart He moves should attain to grace, he will infallibly attain to it…” (ST, II-I, 112, 3).

If God is acting for the sake of the person on whom He bestows grace (rather than in some utilitarian fashion using him for the sake of another without taking his interests into account), then if that person will resist this grace, and further if God is omniscient and knows it, then for what possible reason can He give him this grace? In order to damn him more readily? That’s insane! I might say: Give more grace! Or: Give a different kind of grace! Or even: Don’t give grace at all! For goodness’ sake, Spirit, You know everything about that person. Tailor your actions to his unique situation so as to have the desired positive effect!

Actually bestowed grace is irresistible, unless it is a part of a series of soul-designing events, such that even if some grace in that series is resisted, nevertheless, the entire series accomplishes God’s end which moreover could not be achieved with less unpleasantness or greater efficiency than by allowing that grace to be resisted. The only conceivable reason to bestow a grace that is resisted is in order to have a better “legal” reason to condemn a person, which is nuts. God is a maker of gods not devils. As the Catholic Encyclopedia relates, Jansen “did not shrink from reviling sufficient grace, understood in the Catholic sense, as a monstrous conception and a means of filling hell with reprobates, while later Jansenists discovered in it such a pernicious character as to infer the appropriateness of the prayer: … ‘From sufficient grace, O Lord deliver us’.” I agree with his opinion, even though in Catholicism they do distinguish sufficient and efficatious grace.

1. Perseverance of the saints. Another straightforward deduction. If God has actually bestowed on you even a single instance of grace for your own sake, then if you are to be eventually condemned, then this gift was useless. It may even have worsened your situation, like “sufficient” grace (sufficient for what?) which is not efficacious. But God’s actions are never in vain. Of course, it’s not that you can’t fall away; it’s that you won’t, of which happy fact the first grace is a sign.