The Secret Providence of God by John Calvin

Author:John Calvin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook
Publisher: Crossway
Published: 2017-01-12T00:00:00+00:00

Article 2: God not only predestined Adam to damnation but also predestined the causes of his damnation, whose fall he not only foresaw, but by his secret and eternal decree he ordained that he would perish. In order that this would come about in due time, God provided the apple for the purpose of the fall.

You are exactly the same man in the second article as you were before. Provide, if you can, the passage from my writings where I teach that the fruit was placed before Adam by God in order to cause his fall. Here is certainly the source of your popularity—you confuse the minds of the simple with lies, in case they might rise to the truth that is far from the com­mon understanding of the carnal. But for fear that I appear to quarrel over words, I do confess to writing as follows: the fall of Adam was not by accident but was ordained by the secret decree of God. In so far as you abruptly call this the doctrine of the Devil, you certainly regard yourself as a judge of great authority. You hope to be able to destroy with one insult what I have demonstrated by many arguments of sound reasoning. You require us to produce a testimony from Scripture proving that Adam was not able to fall without the secret decree of God. But if you had read just a few pages of my works with attention, what occurs everywhere would not have escaped you, which is that everything is governed by God’s secret counsel.

You add foreknowledge to God so that he is idle, watching the life of men from heaven. However, God’s own hand is at the helm of the entire world, so that he never allows a separa­tion between his power and his prescience. This is certainly not my reasoning alone, but Augustine’s: if God foresaw what he did not will to be, then he does not have the highest authority. Therefore, he established what will come about in the future, because nothing happens unless he wills that it happens.15If you judge that this is absurd, you will fall back on your own fiction—that in every event of evil he has an obligation to provide the remedy because it is in his hand. This is despite the fact that it is clear he did not do as you demand. God foresaw the fall of Adam. He had the resources in his own hands to prevent the fall, but he was not willing. Why did he not will it? It is not possible to produce any other reason except that he directed his will another way. If you allow yourself to quarrel with God, then accuse him as well, because he prepared man, being born with frailty for ruin.

You say that Adam fell by his free will. I reply, he would not have fallen if he had possessed the needed fortitude and perseverance that God provides for his elect when he wills to keep their integrity.

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