Christ and the Decree

Christology and Predestination in Reformed Theology from Calvin to Perkins

Muller, Richard A.

• Publisher: Baker Academic
• Year: 2008
• ISBN:
  9781441239075
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Denominations

In Christ and the Decree, one of the foremost scholars of Calvinism today expounds the doctrines of Christ and predestination as they were developed by Calvin, Bullinger, Musculus, Vermigli, Beza, Ursinus, Zanchi, Polanus, and Perkins. Muller analyzes the relationship of these two doctrines to each other and to the soteriological structure of the system. Back by demand, this seminal work on the relationship between Calvin and the Calvinists is once again available with a new contextualizing preface by the author. It offers a succinct introduction to the early development of Calvinism/Reformation thought.

PART I
REFORMED THEOLOGY IN ITS FIRST CODIFICATION

The Systems of Calvin, Bullinger, Musculus, and Vermigli

II

PREDESTINATION AND CHRISTOLOGY IN THE THOUGHT OF CALVIN

1. FUNDAMENTAL DISTINCTIONS IN CALVIN’S THEOLOGY

Underlying much of the scholarship in which an attempt is made to distinguish between the theology of Calvin and that of his successors is the assumption that Calvin’s own thinking, if it rests upon any principle, rests on a scriptural principle, whereas that of his successors, in its search for consistency, rests upon certain specific doctrinal principles as, for example, the so-called “central dogma” of predestination. Several observations must be made. In the first place, the fully developed scholastic systems of the early orthodox period—e.g., Polanus’ Syntagma theologiae christianae—elaborate at great length upon Scripture as the principium cognoscendi, the cognitive ground, of theology. Calvin’s successors may have formalized the sola scriptura of the Reformation into a locus de scriptura, but they maintained the scriptural principle as the basis of their theological enterprise. In the second place, if Calvin did attempt to draw his theology directly from Scripture as the sole norm and authority for Christian doctrine, he also most certainly found in Scripture certain doctrines and certain perspectives on doctrine which provided his theology with its basic motifs: scholars have variously denoted the sovereignty of God, predestination, and Christology as the center of Calvin’s thought.

Beyond this, the demands of order and coherence which led Calvin to move from the simple catechetical structure of the early editions of the Institutes to the more formal, more systematic presentation of doctrines found in the 1559 edition cannot ultimately be separated from the development of system in the sixteenth century. The question that needs to be asked is not whether Calvin is a scriptural theologian and the Reformed scholastics unscriptural rationalists, but whether the doctrinal motifs drawn by Calvin from scripture are echoed, elaborated, developed, or neglected and set aside by the systems of the “orthodox” or “scholastic” thinkers of subsequent generations.

In delineating fundamental principles and distinctions in Calvin’s theology we do not, therefore, refer to the underlying recognition of the self-revelation of God as the sole source of the doctrines relating to man’s salvation but to a series of subsidiary motifs or principles derived from the scriptural revelation, which govern the shape and interests of Calvin’s doctrinal system. As Paul Jacobs has cogently argued, a trinitarian ground of doctrine serves to unite the predestinarian and christological motifs and to manifest the ultimately soteriological rather than metaphysical or speculative interest of Calvin’s predestinarian formulations.[1] Indeed, once the trinitarian ground is recognized, the seemingly variant views of Calvin’s thought as focused on the sovereignty of God, on predestination, on Christology, or on the work of salvation performed by Christ and the Spirit, all begin to impinge upon a common interest and appear as related epicenters in the trinitarian structure of the Institutes.

In turning to the specific problem of the interrelation of predestination and Christology we observe that the trinitarian principle functions as a regulator of doctrines, while the christological principle, itself focused on the fact that Christ is God manifest in the flesh, Deus manifestatus in carne, serves as the center in the light of which all aspects of the ordo salutis must be understood. The predestinarian principle establishes causally the center of the system as the work of God in Christ.[2] This means that there can be no Deus nudus absconditus, no God abstractly considered apart from his work, in Calvin’s system: we remember that all references to God “without particularization” refer to the entire Trinity. Faith itself must be defined in relation to the entire Trinity and all saving knowledge of God recognized as mediated by Christ.[3] In short, Calvin will not allow reference to a God who decrees salvation eternally apart from a sense of the trinitarian economy and the effecting of the salvation in the work of the Son of God incarnate. Built into Calvin’s system is an interrelation and interpenetration of predestination and Christology: in Emmen’s words, “even as there is a christological element in Calvin’s doctrine of predestination, so is there a predestinarian element in his Christology.”[4]

Even as Calvin’s fundamental theological principles are the doctrines of the trinity, of Christ as deus manifestatus in carne, and of the causality of salvation focused on Christ, so are his primary doctrinal distinctions the means by which he overcomes the infinite separation of the divine nature from the flesh it seeks to redeem. Calvin’s primary doctrinal distinctions deal with the problems of temporality and eternality, finitude and infinitude, humanity and divinity. The separation is overcome in Christ, the mediator, in whose person the temporal, the finite, the human is reconciled with the eternal, the infinite, the divine.

Both the revelation of God and the work of salvation are accommodated to the forms of human perception or reception. Theology must focus on Christ since, “In this ruin of mankind no one now experiences God as Author of salvation in any way, until Christ the mediator comes forward to reconcile him to us.”[5] Faith takes Christ as its proper foundation and is grounded in his weakness and humiliation.[6] Even so, the “order of faith,” unlike the order of loci which normally obtains in theological systems, begins with the incarnate one.[7] There must, therefore, always be a tension between those doctrines concerning God in himself and those doctrines concerning God as he comes into relation with man, just as there will be a tension between natural knowledge of God and saving knowledge revealed in Christ.

Herein we detect the reason for Calvin’s ultimate separation of the doctrines of predestination and providence. In the order of loci of the scholastic systems, both of these doctrines were conceived as decrees of God similar in form but distinct in purpose, the former special, the latter general. The decree of providential care does not have a primarily soteriological function, while the decree of predestination has as its intention the salvation of the elect. Under the impact of his reassessment of the problem of saving knowledge, Calvin altered the structure of doctrine in the last edition of his Institutes leaving predestination in substantially the same place it had occupied in 1539 and 1541 but returning providence to a more traditional placement in the doctrine of God.[8]

Barth comments on this placement of predestination as indicative of the fact that for Calvin this doctrine was the “consummation” of the doctrine of reconciliation and then remarks, significantly, on the arrangement of book III,

In the third book, De modo percipiendae Christi gratiae, we are led from the work of the Holy Ghost actualized in faith to repentance and the Christian life, the latter being seen from the standpoint both of its outlook on eternity and also of its conditioning in time.[9]

Indeed, the concept of predestination or of divine decrees can only be properly understood as it is seen to represent one aspect, the causal aspect, of an eternal solution to the temporal predicament: it is the vertical line of the saving will that intersects, at a particular temporal moment, the history of salvation and the life of the individual in that history.

The mediated character of saving knowledge provides the foundation for a series of crucial distinctions in Calvin’s thought. Calvin makes a primary distinction between the truth known to God and the accommodated nature of revealed truth. The form of saving knowledge, like our salvation itself, conforms to man’s need.[10] The person of Christ, the Deus manifestatus in carne, God manifest in flesh, provides the middle term, both medius and mediator, the midpoint and the go-between in which and by which this primary distinction is resolved.[11]

He is the way because he leads us to the Father. He is the truth and the life because in Him we apprehend the Father. Therefore all theology separated from Christ is not only empty but also mad, deceiving, and counterfeit.[12]

Parallel distinctions, resolved in Christ, must be made between the eternal, infinite, omnipresent Word of God and the Word incarnate in Jesus Christ, and between God’s eternal decree and its execution in time. Both in the thought of Calvin and in the thought of later Reformed theologians these distinctions underline the profound interpenetration of Christology and predestination.

The christological distinction maintains that the divine nature of the Son cannot be enclosed by or imprisoned within a human nature. In its union with the flesh the Word does not become finite even though it is wholly given for the sake of man.[13] Because of its prominence in Calvin’s thought, this doctrine has been called the extra calvinisticum. It appears frequently, however, in the works of the church fathers and was a prominent motif in the Augustinian Christology.[14]

Calvin states the principle at a crucial point in his Christology, as he moves from his doctrine of the birth of Christ to the doctrine of the two natures:

For even if the Word in his immeasurable essence united with the nature of man into one person, we do not imagine that he was confined therein. Here is something marvellous: the Son of God descended from heaven in such a way that, without leaving heaven, he willed to be borne in the virgin’s womb, to go about earth, and to hang upon the cross; yet he continuously filled the world even as he had done from the beginning.[15]

The transcendence of the divine nature provides Calvin with the conceptual background for his doctrine of the union of the divine with human nature in Christ. The absolute transcendence of Christ’s divinity represents on one hand Calvin’s ever present concern for maintaining the sovereignty of God while on the other it demonstrates his effort to underscore the reality of Christ’s human nature and its identity with the nature of all men.[16] The extra calvinisticum preserves the integrity of both natures and the mystery of the union.

A final element in our description of the extra calvinisticum is the dictum finitum non capax infiniti used by later exponents of Reformed doctrine. It does not appear to have been used by Calvin himself.[17] Several modern scholars have argued that the phrase is not even a proper description of Calvin’s doctrine.[18] Nevertheless finitum non capax infiniti provides a key to our understanding of the extra calvinisticum and of Calvin’s views on kenosis and communicatio idiomatum as well. The word capax can be translated as “bear” or “contain.” In this sense of the word the old dictum might well indicate a philosophical argument, which as Willis comments, “reflects crudely naive spatial categories” and a “quantitative” conception of God and man.[19] Yet we should be wary against leveling such a criticism when capax also indicates “ability to grasp” or “fitness” for a given purpose. The phrase finitum non capax infiniti is better rendered “the finite is unable to grasp the infinite.” As Oberman argued of Calvin, the inverse, infinitum capax finiti reveals the positive implication of the doctrine.[20] The infinite God grasps finite human nature sola gratia.[21]

Calvin never tires of arguing that man is incapable of reaching, grasping, comprehending the divine.[22] He disallows speculation concerning the nature of God or of God’s decree. Christians must look at Christ and know God in him rather than “wander through . . . speculation and seek above the clouds.”[23] We do not comprehend the divinity of the Son but only its revelation in the flesh. We do not see the full glory of God, but rather acknowledge its presence, hidden and lowly, in the incarnation by the grace of the Holy Spirit.[24] Like the other distinctions we have noted, the distinction between the eternal decree of predestination and its execution in time plays an important part in Calvin’s soteriology. We must take issue with Bray who has argued that this distinction was first stated by Theodore Beza and was one of the characteristics by which later Calvinism may be distinguished from the thought of Calvin.[25] Calvin refers to the concept frequently in his commentaries:

The decree (decretum) was eternal and ever-fixed, but it must be enacted in Christ, because in him it was purposed.[26]

We must bear in mind the distinction between the secret will of God and his will revealed in Scripture.[27]

The secret purpose of God . . . is manifested in His own time by the calling.[28]

And if God’s will is that those whom He has elected shall be saved by faith, and He confirms and executes (exsequitur) His eternal decree (aeternum suum decretum) in this way, whosoever is not satisfied with Christ but enquires curiously about eternal predestination desires, as far as lies in him, to be saved contrary to God’s purpose. The election of God in itself is hidden and secret. The Lord manifests it by the calling with which he honors us.[29]

The distinction serves to designate the part of predestination that remains hidden and manifests the part of predestination that may be explained.[30] In a famous passage of the Institutes Calvin notes that man’s curiosity seeks “forbidden bypaths” when it attempts to penetrate to the secret will of God:

For it is not right for men unrestrainedly to search out things that the Lord has willed to be hid in himself, and to unfold from eternity itself the sublimest wisdom, which he would have us revere but not understand, that through this also he should fill us with wonder. He has set forth by his Word the secrets of his will that he decided to reveal to us. These he decided to reveal insofar as he foresaw that they would concern us and benefit us.[31]

Calvin avoids undue speculation but also discusses predestination in terms of his distinction between God’s truth and the accommodated nature of revealed truth and the distinction between the eternal decree and its execution in time. We know of election in Christ, since he provides, as the incarnate mediator, the middle term, the resolution of the distinction, by which the decree is effected in the elect. Christology and predestination can no longer be viewed in isolation one from the other.

The presence of these distinctions in Calvin’s theology manifests an element of continuity between Calvin’s theology and the fundamental motifs of Scotist and late medieval Augustinian theology.[32] Beyond this, as Reuter saw, the discovery of continuity between Calvin’s theology an...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface to the 2008 Printing
• Preface to the 1988 Printing
• Preface to the 1986 Printing
• Abbreviations
• I. INTRODUCTION
• PART I - REFORMED THEOLOGY IN ITS FIRST CODIFICATION
• PART II - THE FORMULATION OF ORTHODOX SYSTEM
• Notes
• Select Bibliography
• Index of Authors
• Back Cover