Reformed
theologians and apologists often engage in gymnastics when, on one hand, they
argue that God, in the eternal past, decreed all things (including their
secondary causes) that would take place and yet, God is not the author of sin.
In the following from the work of Heinrich Heppe (1820-1879), originally
published in 1861, shows how Calvinists speak from both sides of their mouth on
this issue as well as the related issue of reprobation:
13.—Since therefore all evil takes place contra voluntatem mandntem (counter to
the enjoining will), but absolutely nothing praetor
voluntatem efficientem and efficaciter
permittentem (outwith the efficient and effectually permissive will) of
God, everything that takes place is
necessitated by God, not necessitate
coactionis but necessitate hypothetica
and consequentiae. God, not necessitate coactionis but necessitate hypothetica and consequentiae. Everything ensues as
ordered on the hypothesis decreti divini,
so that the divine decree abolishes neither the freedom of personal creatures
(who always do self-determinedly what God determined should be done), nor, as
regards causa secunda, the
contingency of things (which latter ceases to be contingency solely in relation
to he divine counsel).
WOLLEB 19: “The necessity of God’s decrees does not do away with freedom in
rational creatures”;--reason: “because it is not a necessity of compulsion but one of immutability. As regards the
divine decree Adam’s fall took place of
necessity. Yet meanwhile Adam sinned freely, being neither ordered nor
forced nor impelled by God, having in fact been most severely admonished not to
sin. Nor does it (the necessity of the decrees) do away with contingency in
second causes. Many things are contingent as regards second causes, which occur necessarily as regards God’s counsel.”—BEZA
(Op. I. p. 1-2): “Nothing happens
anyhow or without God’s most righteous decree, although God is not the author
of or sharer in any sin at all. But His
power and His goodness are so great and so incomprehensible, that at a time
when He applies the devil or wicked men in achieving some work, whom He afterwards
justly punishes, He Himself none the less effects His holy work well and justly.—These
things do not hinder but rather establish second and intermediate causes, by
which all things happen. When from eternity God decreed whatever was to happen
at definite moments, He at the same time also decreed the manner and way which
He wished it thus to take place; to such extent, that even if some flaw is
discovered in a second cause, it yet implies no flaw or fault in God’s eternal
counsel.”—BEZA (Op. III, p. 408):
“We must therefore know that as God, as the first and supreme Mover, determined one and all what things were to
happen with that most wise and excellent will of His, He also created of more than one kind the mediate causes, by means of
which He determined the occurrence of the things which He resolved upon. Thus
it is necessary to place the beginning and true efficient cause of human
actions, so far as they are human, in the actual will of men, so far of course
as men act spontaneously and of their own motion. But so far as they execute their work by their own inner strength, so
that God does through them what He has determined, this work is to be regarded
as not human but divine, the beginning of which is the general will of God in
question; so that it is a twofold work that looked like a single one, and
each of them is to be measured by the diverse nature of the principium.”
DANAEUS (Christ.
Isag. 54): “The second condition and quality of God’s providence is, that it imposes inevitable necessity upon things,
but not, however, force or compulsion. For
things which occur by God’s providence are ordained by His will and decree, and
accordingly happen by necessity. For God’s will is unchangeable, nor can it
be hindered in any way. But this necessity differs from force and compulsion,
as we already warned you. (55): Although whatever
happens to us happens necessarily, since it happens by God’s providence,
the things we do are not done by us against our will and consent. So although whatever we do we do it necessarily
according as God’s providence has decreed it to be done, yet we do not
therefore do them under compulsion and against our will and consent, so far as
regards the principles of the action in us. They are also our actions. We eat and drink of necessity but not unwillingly,
because by the inward movement of our minds we choose it so to happen to us.
But though this necessity is inevitable,
so far as it is held to depend on and to have been constituted by God’s
providence; yet so far as this same necessity is in our wills, as viewed in
that principium of action which we have
within us, it is a spontaneous act. Consequently, away with the sophistic
distinction foisted by them between God’s permission and His decree or will.
Since whatever is done by God’s
permission is also done by His will, it is likewise done by His decree also.”
(Heinrich Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics,
ed. Ernst Bizer [trans. G.T. Thomson; London: The Wakeman Trust, 2000], 144-45, emphasis in bold added)
B—REPROBATION
22.—The other side of God’s predestinating
decree is the rejection of those, on whom God will not have mercy. “Reprobation
is the decree of God, by which out of the mere good pleasure of His will He has
resolved to leave fixed men, whom He does not elect, in the mass of corruption
and piling up sins on sins and, when they have been hardened by His just
judgment to visit them with eternal punishments, in order to display the glory
of His righteousness” (HEIDEGGER V, 54). Or: “(Reprobation is) that by which
God has resolved to leave certain men whom He has not elected in the mass of
corruption and to condemn them eternally because of sin” (RUSSEN, VI, 16). That
there really is such an eternal and
unalterable reprobation of individual
men is clear from H. Scripture . . .If
there were no reprobation,
absurdities would have to be inferred, which would contradict essential truths
of faith . . . 23.—Essentially reprobation
includes two elements, praeteritio
or the denial of grace not due, and praedamnatio
or the appointment of punishment due. For
God resolved (1) as absolute Lord of His creation to pass over in His
redeeming grace a part of fallen mankind which really merited damnation because
of its guilt of sin, and (2) as the righteous judge of all His rational
creatures to deal with them according to law and righteousness.—WOLLEB 23: “In
order to the teaching of reprobation two acts are laid down: the denial of
grace not due, called praeteritio and
the appointment of due punishment, called praedamnatio”.—KECKERMANN
308: “Reprobation is God’s decree for
leaving certain men in sin and for damning them eternally on account of sin.
Reprobation comprises a double act. The first act is God’s purpose to abandon
certain men and leave them to themselves; this act is absolute, depending on
the sole and absolute arbitrium of
God.—Act No. 2—is the purpose to damn on account of sins; this act is not
absolute, but involves respect to the state of sin.—310: It is rightly said
that we are saved because of election; but it cannot with equal fitness be said
that certain are damned because of reprobation. Election is the positive principum of salvation, but reprobation
strictly speaking is not a principle but the removal of a principle. Nor can it
be said strictly that men were ordained from eternity to damnation, unless with
this addition: on account of sin” . . . 24.—God is not bound to give His
redeeming grace to any man: all have fallen away from Him and are liable to
eternal death. Hence when God refuses His grace to some men, He does what He
might do to all according to His righteousness; He bestows no mercy on them, he
denies them communion with the Redeemer and effectual calling to him and punishes
them with increasing hardness and blindness. Thus the reason of their damnation is neither the sinfulness of their
condemnation foreseen by God nor their eternal rejection. Otherwise, since
they are all alike sinful, God would have had to damn them all; and whilst of
course for the elect election is the positive ground of their salvation, for the damned rejection is only the withholding
of the ground of salvation, but not the ground of damnation itself. That
consists purely and solely in the sinfulness of the rejected, while rejection itself
has its sole ground in the absolute will of God, who fulfils His decree of
reprobation by means of a completely just damnatio.
(Ibid., 178-79, 180-81, emphasis in bold added)
