Calvin Pot Shots: Duck Duck Goose

It is always hilarious watching Calvinists squirm when the subject of double predestination comes up. But, Calvin had no qualms with barreling into it headlong.

 I say with Augustine, that the Lord has created those who, as he certainly foreknow, were to go to destruction, and he did so because he so willed (III.23.5)

Double Predestination is the tag that people have placed upon the belief that God not only chose the elect for salvation, but he also chose the reprobate for damnation. Obviously such a belief would give most people pause. We don't like to think of God playing duck duck goose with human lives and immortal souls. It didn't bother Calvin a bit. He even mocks the timidity in some not to embrace the obvious.

Another spot that makes Calvinists squirm is limited atonement. Limited Atonement is, in short, a view when Jesus died for sinners, he only died to pay for the sins of the chosen (elect). You see, the people that Jesus died for are all off the hook - Jesus took their punishment. If Jesus died for everybody, then everybody is off the hook and God wouldn't have anybody to torture for eternity. Well, we can't have that!

Some web theologians (mostly first semester seminarians), claim Calvin didn't even teach limited atonement. Institutes III.22 ought to cure that notion. Calvin certainly taught it, though he was not as explicit as with other controversial things that he wrote about. But, it is important to remember that you cannot have the Reformed view of election, unless you also maintain limited atonement.

So, I don't have as much of a problem with limiting the atonement as I do with the Calvin's view of predestined election. I understand there are serious issues with alternative theologies. Arminianism has problems, Lutheranism has problems, and  even the fancy new Open Theism has problems. I just don't want a God who chooses based on eeny, meeny, miny, moe.

All this comes down to a basic problem with Reformed theology (most theologies, in fact): the mechanism takes over. They start at a good spot - God's sovereignty. Then, they use God's sovereignty as a mechanism to read scripture. Well, that takes you to some inevitably weird places, like double predestination and limited atonement.

Notes on squirming: Not all Calvinists squirm. Some embrace double predestination. Most have the decency to squirm (see infralapsarianism).

End of Book II

God has predestined us to be finished with the second volume of Institutes on this very day.

There is no way that I am going to finish the two other volumes before Sunday. So, I think from now on, I will simply skim through the rest of this monstrosity and take pot shots at some of the more hilarious portions.

Book II Chapter 17

"Wow, I am so glad that you rescued me," you sat to your rescuer as your car sits in the background still ablaze. "It is a good thing that you happened to be driving by."

"There was no coincidence involved in my pulling you from that car," said the rescuer.

"What do you mean?"

"I followed you, waiting for you to drive off the road," the rescuer responds, smiling. "I saw the fence post you hit. I knew it would puncture your gas tank."

"Wow," you say in amazement. "I feel so honored. What did I ever do to deserve your attention?"

The rescuer's smile disappears. "You did nothing. You are completely undeserving. It was you who was texting. This accident was your fault. I did not rescue you because you deserved it."

"Then," you scratch your head, thinking. "Why did you rescue me? I don't get it."

"I rescued you because it was my plan all along." The rescuer is smiling once again. "You have now seen my mercy and grace! Look at my hands, my wounds!"

The rescuer lifts up his hands so that you can see them. They are burnt and still smoking. You have to look away in disgust. The rescuer, however, has no such qualms. He stares at his smoldering hands with a look of wonder and says, "Now you see it is me that has the superior merit and not you."

The rescuer gets up and walks away, and you are somehow glad to see him go.

Book II Chapter 16

So, God is in charge of everything. Salvation was initiated by God based on his mercy and for his own glory. Or whatever. But, while we were still in sin, God hated us. Which is it? Did God hate us or love us?

Calvin comes up with a weird answer to this: both. God hated us while we were sinners, but he loved us enough to initiate a redemptive work. Calvin echoes his main man Augustine: 'he both hated us and loved us at the same time' (II.16.4). To me, this is clear proof that God is a teenage girl.

But, it is most important, says Calvin, to understand God's actions through the lens if Jesus Christ, whose redemptive work defines the whole of the issue.

Calvin then tackles a few issues that have always bothered me. Remember, he is following the Apostle's Creed as a structure for Institutes. He takes a few moments to comment on some specific portions of the Creed.

1. Why does the Creed skip from the virgin birth of Jesus to his suffering under Pontius Pilate? What happened to everything in the middle? Calvin defends the Creed by saying that the Creed emphasized Christ's obedience and redemptive work. Which, should be a model for us.

That's dumb. The Creed makes no mention of the ethical teachings of Jesus - the great majority of the Gospels. Can you imagine telling Mark, Matthew, John or Luke that the parables, sermons and teachings of Jesus are of secondary importance to his redemptive work?

2. Christ descended into Hell. I have to confess, when I am in Church, I go mum at this point in the Creed. I have no idea why it is in there. Apparently, in Calvin's day, there was an effort made to nix it from the Creed. So, obviously, I am not the only one that finds it to be baseless.

Calvin, defends it, however, on the basis that it is both a way of confirming our belief in his death and his suffering. It is important that we remember that he actually did die a real death, and he really suffered, so that we do not have to suffer and so that we might be delivered from death. So, Calvin says leave it in.

OK. Fine. But, I still have the same issue. Why is this more important than Matthew 22:38-39? The Creed is supposed to represent the foundational elements of our faith. Why is Christ going to Hell (an extra-Biblical assumption, btw) more important than loving your neighbor?

3. Ascension. Calvin defends the fact that the Creed lists Christ's Ascension into Heaven  as a foundational portion of our faith using the same basic method as he did with the previous issues. I'll, then ask the same question. How is this more important than the actual important stuff?

Book II Chapters 13-15

Chapters 13-17 deal generally with Christology. I am not going to make it through the Institutes, so I have to speed up. The things Calvin discusses are very important, but I am speeding up for two reasons:

• I can't find much to make fun of in this section
• I can't find a whole lot to disagree with in this section

And what fun is that? But, it seems wrong to read a Christian theology book and skip all the Jesus stuff, doesn't it? 

First, a general observation. Some theological works are almost beautiful in the way they puzzle out some of the tricky questions of belief and orthodoxy. I think of Karl Barth, especially. Others, however, are more inclined to skip all the crap and say it like it is. Calvin is definitely among the latter. Calvin does not even attempt to use the intricate, nuanced craftmanship of his predecessors or those who came after him. Some theologians just prefer to see their pen as a sledgehammer, I guess. 

Calvin the Ghostbuster

As usual, Calvin rails against heretics and heresies throughout this section. He starts by blasting the Manichaens and Marcionites. I'll refer to them generally as Gnostics, even though the Marcionites were not technically Gnostic. 

Gnosticism had big problems with Christ's humanity. They tended to glorify the 'spirit' as the ultimate reality. The spirit is where God dwells and acts. The spirit is where we should direct our lives and goals. We should all be trying to get rid of this nasty flesh stuff that just gets in the way. So, portraying Jesus as fully spirit and fully human (with all the nasty fleshy stuff) was reprehensible to Christian Gnostics. Some of them saw Christ as some sort of fairy that only appeared human. Others, thought of Jesus as a ghost - someone that seemed corporeal but was actually a spirit. 

Calvin couldn't stand any of that crap. He pounds away at the gnostic notions with the weight of scripture and logic in an effective refutation. Amidst his logic is his old refrain that Jesus had to be human, to be a redeemer, which was his primary purpose. 

Jesus: Blood donor

But, Calvin reminds us, don't get the timeline mixed up. God the Son's existence was eternal in time past. He did not suddenly start existing when he emerged from the womb. He did not begin to exist when he was conceived by the Holy Ghost. 

It is vital to distinguish that the one Christ has two natures. The divine and the human remained distinct from one another. He was one person with two natures. Calvin plays amateur anthropologist again and obsesses for a bit on a subject where he is clearly in error: the constitution of humans. Not only did Christ have two natures, we all do. However, his natures interacted differently than ours. 

Things got weird here. Calvin writes about how different aspects of each of the natures are offered to one another so that he might act as mediator. So, when it was time for the human to do extraordinary things, the human part borrowed power from the divine. When it was time for God to die, the divine part borrowed some blood. Because, how could you die with out bleeding all over the place?

Obviously, Calvin was trying to counter the Gnostic argument that God could not be sullied by human nastiness (like blood), but come on. This gets a little ridiculous. 

Calvin blasts away for a while at Servetus, but I won't even bother going over that. 

Prophetic, Regal and Sacerdotal

I actually really enjoyed chapter 15. The Mediator maintains a  threefold office: prophet, priest, and king. 

As a prophet, he has not only fulfilled all past prophecy, but he has also ended all future prophecy. For Calvin, prophecy was always Christocentric, so now that he is the anointed messiah, why do we need prophecy anymore? Calvin doesn't explicitly say it, but the end of prophecy now creates a dynamic where the logos is the one source of special revelation. Very cool. 

As a priest, Christ cares for the church and is a living sacrifice for their continual struggles with their own depravity. 

As a King, Jesus acts as head of the church. His role is a preserver and equipper of the Church. Calvin says that eternity is not here yet, but King Jesus gives us everything we need to enjoy the blessings of eternity. There is no reason to wait for the Kingdom (future sense), when the King sits upon the throne right now. Yes! Exactly.

So, props to Calvin. He nailed the threefold office and showed the wacko Gnostics how to do real theology.  

Book II Chapter 12

Why did Jesus become a human being?

There was this German dude named Osiander. Osiander thought that God's eternal plan was to be united with humanity. For Osiander, salvation comes from unity with God, not necessarily from Christ's redemption. Christ's redemptive work was intended to clear a path for dwelling with (or indwelling) humanity. So, Jesus would have taken on flesh and blood whether Adam sinned or not.

At this point, Calvin spits out his beer in a frothy fury. NO! The only reason Jesus became a human was the work of redemption. Of course, at this point, Calvin has to deal with the awkward subject of predestination, which he does not get into fully, nor shall we.

I do want to deal with one thing, here. Calvin drops this little gem:

the only end that the Scripture uniformly assigns for the Son of God voluntarily assuming our nature, and even receiving it as a command from the Father, is that He might propitiate the Father to us by becoming a victim (II.12.4)

So, the only reason Jesus came was to die and thus rescue sinners? It is fairly obvious that such a perspective represents only a part of the Gospel. Is it an important part? Of course. Is it the most important part? Perhaps. But, I don't know how Calvin can say that the 'only end' of assuming our nature is propitiation.

Calvin also rejects Osiander's theology of the image of God. Osiander took the imago dei in man very seriously. The imago dei is Jesus Christ, to Osiander, and God is trying to reinfuse that image into humanity by uniting with humanity (Incarnation). Calvin thinks this is bogus. He says the imago dei only refers to certain ethical and moral abilities.

All I learned from this chapter is that I need to look into this Osiander guy some more. He sounds cool.

Book II Chapter 11

So, Calvin goes to great pains to show that both the Old and New Testaments are actually part of one overarching Gospel. To Calvin, the Bible is flat. I doubt Calvinists would appreciate the characterization, but I think it is accurate. The Old Testament is just as authoritative as the New. It is all inspired revelation.

He wrote the previous chapter primarily to combat the rival perspectives of Servetus, and a cartoonized version of Anabaptist theology. He moves from the unity of Scripture to a consideration of the differences between the Old and the New. There are obviously differences or what he calls 'contrasts.' So, do we go with the Anabaptists and just see the NT as trump?

Calvin points out areas of contrast, but explains that the differences are only differences in 'administration,' not a difference of substance. In other words, scripture is still flat, we just have to go through a few intellectual/theological tricks to see it as such.

I readily object to this flat Bible concept, and have to echo the Anabaptists. For a good explanation of this, see Greg Boyd's post. To get to the meat of the issue: Jesus himself claimed that Scripture was not flat. Some teachings are interpretive of others, and thus authoritative. Whenever two passages conflict, then we must go with the authoritative text. So, when Jesus says eye for an eye is no longer applicable, reading Deuteronomy 25 must be revised thus. Simple. It makes sense. Calvin hated it.