Caio Rodrigues

"Daddy, what are Calvinists?" "They are people who believe that God does not want to save everyone."

Good News! Dale Partridge is using his own material for once. Bad News! He completely botches what the Scriptures actually say. John uses the term "Jew" positively or neutrally plenty of times.

Yes, I’ve ready that before and read it again just now. You (or the gentleman who wrote this article) are mishandling Calvin’s writings. Calvin builds his case over the course of three chapters of his Institutes (in Book 1, Ch. 16-18) and in his work on Predestination explaining what he means by God’s eternal decree and Providence. Your article first assumes that the Reformed view has no room for what is called the “normative definition,” if “permission,” as if the confessions don’t speak of God allowing things to fall out (or to occur) in various ways (see 1689 5.2). Then it claims that Calvin rejecting the idea that God would permit something to occur as “mere/bare” permission is proof that he is using a non-normative definition of “permission.” And yet, as he states in the Institutes in clear language, what he means by a “mere/bare” permission is a view of God where He stands idle, as if on a watchtower, just observing things occur (Institutes, 1.16.9). The article begins with a false understanding of his Calvin uses the term and builds an argument based on that. It is entirely unconvincing and does not square with what either Calvin or the Reformed confessions/traditions teach.

“God’s decree for preachers to be liberal is useless.” There I fixed it. 🤦‍♂️

Calvin, quoting Augustine on divine permission: "In his 'Manual' to Laurentinus, he [Augustine] more freely and fully explains whatever of doubt might yet remain. 'When Christ shall appear (says he) to judge the world, at the last day, that shall be seen, in the clearest light of knowledge, which the faith of the godly now holds fast, though not yet made manifest to their comprehension;—how sure, how immutable, how all-efficacious is the will of God;—how many things He could do, or has power to do, which He wills not to do; (but that He wills nothing which He has not power to do;) and how true that is which the Psalmist sings, ‘The Lord hath done in heaven whatsoever pleased Him.’ This however is not true, if he willed some things, and did them not. Nothing, therefore, is done, but that which the Omnipotent willed to be done, either by permitting it to be done, or by doing it himself. Nor is a doubt to be entertained, that God does righteously in permitting all those things to be done, which are done evilly. For He permits not this but by righteous judgment. Although, therefore, those things which are evil, in so far as they are evil, are not good; yet, it is good, that there should not only be good things, but evil things also. For, unless there were this good,—that evil things also existed; those evil things would not be permitted, by the Great and Good Omnipotent, to exist at all. For He, without doubt, can as easily refuse to permit to be done what He does not will to be done, as He can do that which He wills to be done. Unless we fully believe this, the very beginning of our faith is perilled: by which, we profess to believe in God Almighty!' Augustine then adds this short sentence. 'These are the mighty works of the Lord! shining with perfection in every instance of his will; and so perfect in wisdom, that when the angelic and human nature had sinned; that is, had done, not what God willed, but what each nature itself willed; it came to pass, that, by this same will of the creature, God, though in one sense unwilling, yet accomplished what He willed, righteously, and with the height of all wisdom: overruling the evils done, to the damnation of those whom He had justly predestinated to punishment, and to the salvation of those whom he had mercifully predestinated to grace. Wherefore, as far as these natures themselves were concerned, they did what they did, contrary to the will of God: but, as far as the omnipotence of God is concerned, they acted according to his will: nor could they have acted contrary to it. Hence, by their very acting contrary to the will of God, the will of God concerning them was done. So mighty, therefore, are the works of God, so gloriously and exquisitely perfect, in every instance of his will, that, by a marvellous and ineffable plan of operation, peculiar to himself, as the ‘allwise God,’ that cannot be done, without his will, which is even contrary to his will. Because, it could not be done without his permitting it to be done: which permission is evidently not contrary to his will, but according to his will.'" John Calvin and Hendry H. Cole, Calvin’s Calvinism: A Treatise on the Eternal Predestination of God (London: Wertheim and Macintosh, 1856), 25–26.