Sunday, August 22, 2021

John of Damascus (675/76-749) was not a “Proto-Calvinist”

The following comes from “Disputation between a Christian and a Saracen” by John of Damascus:

 

Section 1a: The omnipotence of God and the cause of evil

 

When the Christian was asked by the Saracen, “Who do you say is the cause of good as well as of evil?”

 

The Christian: We say that God alone is the author of all that is good, but not of evil.

 

The Saracen asked in response: “Who do you say is the cause of evil?”

 

The Christian: Obviously the devil who has perverted the truth by choice, and we humans.

 

Saracen: Because of what?

 

Christian: Because of our own free will.

 

Section 1b: Man’s Power

 

Saracen: What then? Do you have free will to do anything you wish?

 

Christian: God has created me free in regard to only two things.

 

Saracen: What are they?

 

Christian: Doing what is evil and doing what is good. Accordingly, if I do wrong, the law of God punishes me, but if I do what is good. I do not fear the law. Instead, I am rewarded by God and by his mercy. In the same way, before the first man, the devil has been created with his own free will by God, but he sinned, and God expelled him from his proper state.

 

Section 1c: Justice of God

 

Christian: If, as you say, good and evil come from God, then God is unfair; but he is not. Indeed, if God had commanded the adulterer to fornicate, the thief to steal and the murderer to kill, as you say, then these men deserve honor for their obedience to his will.

 

Section 1d: “Creation” and/or “generation

 

And the Saracen: “Who,” he says, “forms the infants in the wombs of the women?” (The Saracens present this difficult objection because they want to prove that God is the cause of evil. For if I reply by saying, “God forms the infants in the wombs of women,” the Saracen will say, “Behold, God is cooperating with the fornicator and the adulterer.”)

 

The Christian responds to this: “We find nowhere in Scripture where it says that God formed or crated anything after the first week of the creation of the world. . . . For God created the heavens and the earth and the universe in six days, and the seventh day he rested from all the work he had started doing, as the Scriptures witness to me.”

 

. . . .

 

Section 1g: God’s providential and permissive will

 

The Saracen: “In your opinion, is the one who does the will of his God good or evil?”

 

The Christian, however, sending a trip said: “I know what you are getting at.”

 

The Saracen: “Explain it to me.”

 

The Christian: You want to ask me: “Did Christ suffer willingly or unwillingly?”

 

So that if I say to you, “He suffered willingly,” then you will say to me, “go and bow down before the Jews, for they have done the will of your God.”

 

The Saracen admits: “That is what I wanted to tell you. If you can answer me, do it.”

 

The Christian: What you call “will,” I call “tolerance” and “patience.” (Daniel J. Janoski, John of Damascus First Apologist to the Muslims: The Trinity and Christian Apologetics in the Early Islamic Period [Eugene, Oreg.: Pickwick Publications, 2016], 269-71, 272)

 

Further Reading


An Examination and Critique of the Theological Presuppositions Underlying Reformed Theology