Calvin

One of my buddies at school is studying Calvin. It's interesting stuff, here's an email he just sent me. Note: I'm trying to seperate Calvin from the Calvinism that came after him, if there is a difference.


Thought you might find this interesting. I was reading in the institutes were it spoke of God's attributes pre-existing before creation. So parts of the Institute seem to point for election coming out of God's foreknowledge. BUT I found where Calvin says the exact oposite out of his commentary on Malachi.
"As we have said, there is no real difference among men, except in their hidden election. Some theologians would make foreknowledge the mother of election, and that very foolishly and childishly. They say that some men are chosen and others rejected by God, because God, from whom nothing is hidden, foresees of what sort each man will be. But I ask, Whence comes virtue to one and vice to the other? If they say, " From free will," surely creation was before free will. This is one point. Besides, we know that all men were created alike in the person of Adam. . . . And what does this mean except that the condition of all who come from the one root is the same?"
Anyhow obviously this seems to be counter to what I said last night. I don't know man. Calvin is confusing. He says one thing then goes right around and says the exact opposite. Then again he did change alot. Each edition of the institutes is vastly different from the previous. Heck he was branded twice with 2 version of the institutes got him the label as an Arian. Go figure. But hey he does take the subordination view of the trinity. I am going to keep working this thing out. But honestly man Calvin is so flip floppy it is so hard to tell where he stands. Especially since his theologies changes in almost everything he writes.
What seems to be the jist so far is that in Calvin, God may or may not have known whom he would elect but apparently he foreknew that he would preordain individuals at creation (the issue here is then is it at the moment of their birth or is it at the moment of actual creation).
Here are some quotes from Calvin that are interesting:
"We say, then, that Scripture clearly proves this much, that God by his eternal and immutable counsel determined once for all those whom it was his pleasure one day to admit to salvation, and those whom, on the other hand, it was his pleasure to doom to destruction. We maintain that this counsel, as regards the elect, is founded on his free mercy, without any respect to human worth, while those whom he dooms to destruction are excluded from access to life by a just and blameless, but at the same time incomprehensible judgment." (Institutes of Christian Religion, Book 3, Chapter 21, Section 7)
"distinguishes among men according as he foresees what the merits of each will be"(Inst. III, 22, 1)
"by thus covering election with a veil of foreknowledge, they not only obscure it but feign that it has its origin elsewhere"(Inst. III, 22, 1).