In his Institutes of the Christian Religion 1:15:8, Calvin attributes to
Adam a genuine "free will" before his sin, a free will Calvin states that man no longer possesses after the fall. Further, Calvin maintains that God
willed, not merely permitted, Adam's sin. This flies in the face of many
Calvinists who argue that to be sovereign, man cannot have a genuine free
will:
8. Therefore, God has
provided the soul of man with intellect, by which he might discern good from
evil, just from unjust, and might know what to follow or to shun, reason going
before with her lamp; whence philosophers, in reference to her directing power,
have called her τὸ ἑγεμονικὸν. To this he has joined will, to which choice
belongs. Man excelled in these noble endowments in his primitive condition,
when reason, intelligence, prudence, and Judgment, not only sufficed for the
government of his earthly life, but also enabled him to rise up to God and eternal
happiness. Thereafter choice was added to direct the appetites, and temper all
the organic motions; the will being thus perfectly submissive to the authority
of reason. In this upright state, man possessed freedom of will, by which, if
he chose, he was able to obtain eternal life. It were here unseasonable to
introduce the question concerning the secret predestination of God, because we
are not considering what might or might not happen, but what the nature of man
truly was. Adam, therefore, might have stood if he chose, since it was only by
his own will that he fell; but it was because his will was pliable in either
directions and he had not received constancy to persevere, that he so easily
fell. Still he had a free choice of good and evil; and not only so, but in the
mind and will there was the highest rectitude, and all the organic parts were
duly framed to obedience, until man corrupted its good properties, and
destroyed himself. Hence the great darkness of philosophers who have looked for
a complete building in a ruin, and fit arrangement in disorder. The principle
they set out with was, that man could not be a rational animal unless he had a
free choice of good and evil. They also imagined that the distinction between
virtue and vice was destroyed, if man did not of his own counsel arrange his
life. So far well, had there been no change in man. This being unknown to them,
it is not surprising that they throw every thing into confusion. But those who,
while they profess to be the disciples of Christ, still seek for free-will in
man, notwithstanding of his being lost and drowned in spiritual destruction,
labour under manifold delusion, making a heterogeneous mixture of inspired
doctrine and philosophical opinions, and so erring as to both. But it will be
better to leave these things to their own place (see Book 2 chap. 2) At present
it is necessary only to remember, that man, at his first creation, was very
different from all his posterity; who, deriving their origin from him after he
was corrupted, received a hereditary taint. At first every part of the soul was
formed to rectitude. There was soundness of mind and freedom of will to choose
the good. If any one objects that it was placed, as it were, in a slippery
position, because its power was weak, I answer, that the degree conferred was
sufficient to take away every excuse. For surely the Deity could not be tied
down to this condition,—to make man such, that he either could not or would not
sin. Such a nature might have been more excellent; but to expostulate with God
as if he had been bound to confer this nature on man, is more than unjust,
seeing he had full right to determine how much or how little He would give. Why
He did not sustain him by the virtue of perseverance is hidden in his counsel;
it is ours to keep within the bounds of soberness. Man had received the power,
if he had the will, but he had not the will which would have given the power;
for this will would have been followed by perseverance. Still, after he had
received so much, there is no excuse for his having spontaneously brought death
upon himself. No necessity was laid upon God to give him more than that
intermediate and even transient will, that out of man’s fall he might extract
materials for his own glory.
