Book II Chapter 5

For this section, I decided to just dialog with Mr. Calvin directly. An odious task, for sure.

ME: Mr. Calvin, if our actions do not emanate from our own will, then what right does God have to punish those actions?

CALVIN: The source is irrelevant. The act is what is justly punished. You sinned, you get punished.

ME: If we have no free will, then how could people ever reject God?

CALVIN: Hasn't it ever occurred to you that God was the one who made that choice for you?

ME: You mean, like, God caused me to reject his grace?

CALVIN: He is supremely sovereign, even over the hearts of men. But, to be clear, we would all have rejected him had he not chosen some of us. We are all too depraved to ever choose him.

ME: If we have no liberty of the will, then why does God spend so much effort trying to convince people to change?

CALVIN: Those corrections in behavior are only for the elect, whom God has given the ability to change their lives. For the damned, the law of God serves as evidence of their depravity.

ME: It doesn't seem fair that God holds people responsible for things that people aren't even capable of doing.

CALVIN: None of us are capable of doing anything good. God never tailored the law to our ability. Rather it is a display of his righteousness.

ME: I don't think that is an answer. 

CALVIN: Oh, but it is!

ME: Ok, whatever. God seems to say in several passages that we can control our own wills and that we should. Hasn't God transferred some responsibility to us?

CALVIN: No. If we do any good, it is done according to the Spirit

ME: Doesn't scripture that if we turn to God then he will turn to us?

CALVIN: That is perversion of the passage. That passage was not describing salvation, but the repentance of Israel.

ME: There are times in scripture where God removes his presence from people to see what they will do without him. If, they were capable of making a choice in that setting without him, doesn't that imply a free will. 

CALVIN: That is an erroneous interpretation. God did not leave, he actually hid and maintained control. (Institutes II.5.13)

ME: Wow. Um... okay.