John Calvin speaks about free will in the following six ways:
1. Adam had free will and freely chose to sin.
2. Adam lost free will because free will requires the mind to deliberate and to discern good from evil before choosing one of these ends. In this sense, free will no longer exists in humans because our natures have become corrupted.
3. Yet all people by nature have an impulse toward the good. This impulse, however, is an animal impulse which does not follow from reason deliberating between good and evil and choosing one or the other (a requirement for free will; Inst. 2.2.26).
4. The regenerate have free will restored to them in part now, and then in full in heaven.
5. As a consequence, fallen people lack the ability to do good (since that requires free will). Fallen people then only do moral evil (since the impulse towards good seems, for Calvin, to be vice since not rational).
6. When fallen people sin then, they do so by necessity but not by compulsion (Inst. 2.3.5). In this way, Calvin seeks to affirm that humans sin willingly without compulsion, even if they necessarily sin.
As a side note, he follows the logic of Bernard of Clairvaux and Augustine as he distinguishes how people willingly sin apart from compulsion yet do so by a necessity of nature (remember: free will requires reason to distinguish good from evil before the will chooses it; Adam lost us this creaturely capacity, and so our nature is totally corrupt in all its faculties. Now, we do good by animal impulse not reasonable choice).
Thanks Wyatt.
Can’t let this one go unchallenged.
If Adam could choose to sin without a sinful nature then why couldn’t God give the rest of us the ability to repent with a sinful nature?
If fallen people lack the ability to do good, why would Jesus indiscriminately say:
“If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him.”
Why would Jesus speak of the faith of children if they were born dead in sin, by typical Calvinistic definition?
Why would Paul teach that fallen sinners can see the invisible attributes of God in creation and insist that Gentiles, who do not have the law, *by nature* do the things in the law…” ?
Why would the Jews need to be blinded and given a spirit of stupor to ensure they reject Jesus? Does this not necessarily infer they had the (common grace) ability to receive Him?
Were Plato, Cicero, Darius, Nebuchadnezzar, Nicodemas, G Washington, Abe Lincoln, W Churchill, and A Kuyper (before his first pastorate) utterly disabled and made opposite to all good?
Were they wholly inclined to all evil? WCF
I think Augustine’s view was an over correction of his buddy Pelagius, and the Reformers have carried on the mistake.
Without the power of contrary moral choice the final judgment is rendered perfunctory; and hell gets robbed of its glory as a just punishment for suppressing the Truth in righteousness. Repentance is robbed of its meaning, as a self imposed turning, if it’s utterly irresistible.
What glory is there for God in punishing a natural born sinner for being a natural born sinner?
What is it they like to say? Semper Reformanda? Reformandum? (only had one year of Latin… a long time ago!) It’s time to re-think the power and scope of God’s common grace and the definition of dead in sin.
I agree. I also can’t help but notice that the author of this article took the time to reply to everyone else’s comments….but yours
Hey, found this very helpful. Thanks Wyatt.
glad to hear it
I hope this view is a true representation of Calvinism, so I also want to challenge this view, specially on point no 6, where you talk about necessity and compulsion.
Let’s read the institute book III, 21.5…”This prescience extends to the whole circuit of the world, and to all creatures. By predestination we mean the eternal decree of God, by which he determined with himself whatever he wished to happen with regard to every man. All are not created on equal terms, but some are preordained to eternal life, others to eternal damnation; and, accordingly, as each has been created for one or other of these ends, we say that he has been predestinated to life or to death.
If God preordained some to eternal life and some to hell, then necessity is simply caused by God…we can do linguistic gymnastics but how many people can we fool ?
Hi Anthony,
This represents Calvin. Calvinists (reformed) after him had other words, and they tended more carefully preserve free will. For example:
1. To answer your Q, how God causes things: https://wyattgraham.com/what-are-first-and-secondary-causes/
2. To expand, how the reformed affirm human freedom: https://wyattgraham.com/calvinists-are-uncommonly-good-at-affirming-free-will/
If these are truly John Calvin’s thoughts/words could you please cite where you got them?