The Secret Providence of God

John Calvin, Paul Helm

• Publisher: Crossway
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN:
  9781433507052
• eBook ISBN:
  9781433523243
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

In 1558 John Calvin held a prominent position of leadership in the Reform movement. He had written prolifically and his works had been widely circulated-and critiqued. It was at this time that he penned an answer to a critique of his position on divine providence, as articulated in the 1546 edition of the Institutes. His polemical defense of his beliefs, The Secret Providence of God, reflects the boisterous, argumentative tone of the Reformation era and is Calvin's fullest treatment on this most important doctrine. Unfortunately, in recent decades this work has been largely forgotten.

With this new English translation of Calvin's work, editor Paul Helm reintroduces The Secret Providence of God to students, pastors, and lay readers of Reformed theology. Translator Keith Goad has modernized the English while preserving a Latinized translation style as far as possible. Helm has provided a full introduction, discussing the work's background, content, style, and relation to Calvin's other writings on providence.

JOHN CALVIN’S
RESPONSE

JOHN CALVIN’S
RESPONSE

I am neither ignorant of the fact that there are many adver­saries against my doctrine, nor am I surprised by it. There is nothing new to Christ, under whose authority I fight. Many babblers have always made a noise against him. I grieve over this only on account of the fact that through my side the Holy One—the immortal, and truth of God—is being pierced, he who ought to be admired and adored reverently by the whole world. Yet, since I see that this doctrine has, from the begin­ning, been subject to many accusations from the wicked, and Christ himself, because the heavenly Father decreed so, must be the mark of contradiction, those who are to uphold this doctrine are likewise to be patient. Nevertheless, no poi­sonous bites of the wicked will cause me to regret the doctrine at any time. I certainly stand firm in the conviction that its authority and source are from God. I have accomplished so much in so many contests that God has brought me into that I am not in the least frightened by your futile clamoring.

Indeed, concerning you, a teacher who has been bewitched, he restrains you in private. This provides some comfort for me—you are not to be ungrateful toward the kindness of a man who has assisted you more than you deserve without at the same time revealing your grievous impiety toward God. Indeed, for you academics, there is not a more pleasing sport than overthrowing whatever the souls of men are assured of by asking questions of this kind. These doubts that you hurl against the secret providence of God are delightful to you. This is only too clear from your pen, however you might attempt to disguise yourself. But I now summon you and all your cronies to the tribunal from which, in the future, the only judge of heaven is to breathe from his mouth his crushing sen­tence. He will effectively and powerfully strike you down—the impudent one. I am confident in the fact that your ridicule will soon become offensive to our honorable and wise readers, even though you are secretly pleased with yourself.

You force out of me a refutation to your treatise that you secretly sent from Paris to the city in Switzerland. If I had remained ignorant of what you have written, your venom might be spread far and wide without remedy. While you imi­tate some zeal for acquiring knowledge, I cannot understand the reason why I am unaware of your name; that is, unless you knew that I have something on hand that would immediately abolish you and your followers’ credit. Nevertheless, with careful study you can be identified. I can judge who you are from your writings.

Whether you wrote by your own hand or you dictated your madness to a Scottish preacher¹ so that it could be carried to Paris, it does not matter to me—but it was certainly unlaw­ful to publish it here. If only this book had another author or you yourself were another man. But you will never be that other man until you taste genuine virtue and love. Although you have always spoken to me with respect, it is not difficult to recognize that your nature is still given to cavilling. You even promote this vice with childish frivolities. I have striven to correct you, but it has been in vain because these perverse affections are a part of your nature. By telling tasteless jokes you long to be praised for sharpness by those without life. Nor is it right that you hide behind the example of Socrates, who you say was accustomed to attacking things said against him with jesting.²For that man excelled in many noble virtues, but this one vice stained him, the same vice which you emulate and is no less dangerous than greed.

You ask me to write a refutation for you that can be under­stood by the people. Indeed, I do what I can to accommodate myself by bringing forth simple and pure teaching to suit the capacity of the most elementary. But if you allow no other form of reasoning except what an earthly man recognizes, then by such arrogance and disdain you deny yourself access to the very doctrine the knowledge of which is only possible to someone with a reverential spirit. I am not ignorant of the mockery that comes from you and those like you, with which you harass the mysteries of God. Everything loses its authority and grace if it does not satisfy your reason.

For what reason am I compelled to provide a refutation against anyone who chooses to roar against me? Not even Socrates, whose name you falsely hide behind, would suffer himself to be imposed upon by such a demand. I have little desire for thoughtless imitation, but if there was someone in this age, or any other, who constantly opposed wickedness by refuting his calumniators, even those who are malevolent and unjust to me would honor me for this kind of work. Your barking is less tolerable so long as you trample on my labors in your blind and shameless attacks. For you ask me to carry out a task that has been accomplished three or four times already.

You say that those who fight against me have one article that is so powerful that no arguments from my books thus far published have been able to refute it. This article, you say, is the subject of predestination or fate. If only you might display your wisdom by inquiring modestly or at least by disputing generously. Instead, you disregard decency and extinguish the light by confusing things that are opposite. Fate, named by the Stoics, is that which is necessary from the various and complicated labyrinth of causes that in some manner restricts God himself.³

By contrast with this, I define predestination, in line with what Holy Scripture teaches, as the free counsel of God by which he governs the human race and every single part of the universe according to his immense wisdom and incomprehen­sible justice. Now you are prevented from seeing anything in perfect light by your depravity of mind, your appetite for being quarrelsome, and the diabolical pride that has blinded you. Yet readers with eyes to see the distinction between fate and predestination perceive the fairness of your judgments. You may have concluded, if you had not been so disinclined to examine my books, how much that word fate displeases me. You would have been able to know, indeed you would have read, that the same disagreeable and spiteful objections were formerly used against Augustine by impure and worthless men like yourself. Also, by that same pious and holy doctor there is a brief response set forth, which would suffice as a defense for my cause today.⁴

In this article, which you say may be extracted from my books, my method is the same as with the author of happy memory.⁵The malevolent know that this is not a popular doctrine. Those with the purpose of increasing hatred boast of articles that are partly false and partly true so that the unin­formed are not able to make a well-balanced judgment. Even though, at first sight, many supposed these to be extracts from his writings, yet he complains that these are falsely attributed to him.⁶They either with great diligence combined broken sentences or by their trickery they corrupted his pious and righteous declarations by changing a few words so that they might cause offense to the simpleminded.

You boast that you are deploying these articles from my books, but they are absolutely of the same kind as Augustine’s. Even were I to remain silent, honest and sincere readers would discover this. It would not be troublesome to compare your impure calumnies with my doctrine. And indeed I maintain this to be of the utmost importance: you neither behave straightforwardly nor act generously so long as you do not refer to the relevant passage, so that intelligent readers could read what you have alleged to be my doctrine for themselves.

What could be more unjust, when I have published so many books, to vaguely recite a collection of fourteen articles from the fifty books I have written? It would certainly have been better, if there was a drop of honesty in you, either to record my sentences verbatim or, if you saw something dangerous, to warn your readers of which parts they should beware. By blackening all my known works as improper, you would destroy their reputation. Whatever is in my books that is without any offense you spitefully distort and so ren­5Augustine. der yourself offensive. I do not condemn the prudence of Augustine when he opposed the cleverness and wickedness of his enemies by tempering his response so that he might avoid being hated. But I believe it to be more useful, frankly to refute your abuse than to give the slightest hint that I am turning my back on your accusations.

Article 1: By his bare and pure will God creates the greater part of the world for destruction.

You take hold of the first article, “By his bare and pure will God creates the greater part of the world for destruction.” All this about “the greater part of the world” and the “bare and pure will” is fictitious and the product of your malicious imagination. Though it is true that from the beginning God determined the future of the entire human race, this way of talking about the end of creation being eternal destruction occurs nowhere in my writings. Like a pig you dig up doc­trine that smells sweet so that you might discover something offensive instead. Though the will of God is to me the great­est cause, I still everywhere teach that where his counsel and work are not apparent, it is hidden in him. Nothing is decreed that is not just and wise. Therefore, I not only repudiate but detest the schoolmen talking nonsense about absolute power, because they separate his justice from his supreme authority.

Now see, you dog, what you accomplish by your violent barking. I subject the human race to God’s decision, and I boldly affirm that nothing is decreed by him without the best reason. If today we are unaware of that reason it will be made known in the last day. When you force on me this “bare and pure will,” you shamelessly reproach me with what I pub­licly reject in a hundred or more places. At the same time, I acknowledge that this is my doctrine—that Adam fell not only by the permission of God but by his secret counsel and that all his descendents are fallen, being dragged into eternal destruction.

I see that both these doctrines are displeasing because to you they are repugnant both to nature and to Scripture. You prove that it is contrary to nature by arguing that all creatures naturally love their offspring. Likewise God, who inspired the same kind of affections in brute animals, must not love men less because they are his offspring. Truly, this reasoning is too crass. Whatever you discern in the cow and the donkey you find the same in God, who is the Creator of nature, as if he were confined by the same laws that he proclaimed for his creatures. He inspired each with a desire to procreate so that all animals might give birth to their kind. Now, demand of him why he was content with himself from all eternity to keep his power as if it were sterile and not procreate like the creatures he inspired. He must always be like himself. If you therefore are the judge, it must follow that he violated the order of nature as long as he preferred to be without offspring rather than to reveal his fruitfulness. If wild beasts fight to the death for their offspring, how is it that God allows young infants to be mangled and devoured by tigers, bears, lions, or wolves? Is it because his arm is too short to stretch forth so that he might protect his children?

You see how broad my field could be if it suited me to go into every detail about how you play the fool. But this alone is sufficient for me, that there are enough testimonies point­ing toward God’s love for the entire human race to prove that all who will die in a state of ingratitude are guilty. Nor is this any different from his special love with which he draws out a few whom he esteems enough to be chosen from the many. Certainly when he formerly adopted the race of Abraham, by that act he gave a public testimony that he does not love every member of the human race equally. So when he rejected Esau and preferred his younger brother Jacob, he provided a clear demonstration of his free love. Whom he chooses, he pursues with this love. Moses declared that one nation is loved by God and the others are rejected. The prophets everywhere affirm that the only reason Judah was preeminent was that God loved them freely. Will you deny that he is God because you do not find any similarity between him and a tiger or a bear? And Christ addressing a little flock, not the entire human race or even the entire Jewish race, did not in vain declare, “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32). Truly, only those whom he restores to himself in his only-begotten Son will experience the Father’s love in hope of eternal life.

If it is your practice to subject God to the laws of nature, you condemn him for injustice because on account of one man’s sin we are all implicated into his guilt and eternal death. One man sinned; therefore, all men are dragged to punish­ment. Not only this, but from one contact with sin, all men commit sin, so that all are born being infected with a corrupt and fatal fault. Noble critic, what do you have to say to this? Will you condemn God for cruelty because for one man’s sin he casts all his offspring into destruction? Though Adam destroyed himself and his offspring, it is necessary to ascribe the corruption and guilt to God’s secret judgment. For one man’s sin is nothing to us unless the Celestial Judge sentences us to eternal destruction for it.

See how, to conceal your error, you cite passages of Isaiah and adopt a strained interpretation. It is incredible that the church of God, while in Babylonian captivity, was not deprived of one child. Rather, having become barren, she should have recovered fresh vigor in order to be more fruit­ful than before. Thus God speaks, “Am I, by whose strength women give birth, not also able to produce offspring?”⁷Under this pretext you force God to dress himself with the affections of creatures. You audaciously reason that because God fash­ions his creatures to love their offspring, he too must love his own offspring. Even if this were conceded, it does not follow that he must love them all in the same way. Besides, this does not hinder him as the just judge from rejecting those whom, like the perfect Father, he pursues with love and grace.

Again you argue that to create is a work of love and not of hatred, and therefore God creates out of love and not out of hatred. You do not recognize that in Adam all men are hateful toward God; nevertheless, his love shines in creation. Therefore, anyone with mediocre judgment and gifted with impartiality will recognize a...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Editor’s Introduction
• Calumniator’s Preface to Certain Articles
• Articles on Predestination Extracted from John Calvin’s Latin and French Writings
• These Are the Articles against Which You Must Consider How to State Your Case
• John Calvin’s Response