free will, predestination
So i’m reading through my Presbyterian Heritage and Polity notes in preparation for my ordination exams next week and figured I’d throw all the theology that confuses me most into one text post.
Providence and Free Will
According to Calvin, God is a micro-manager:
There is no moment in your life when God is not with you, actively loving you in that moment
At its best, providence means that God is active in all parts of the world
And then this is where it gets bizarre and confusing and i just gotta be like Calvin. honey. no.
Because Calvin’s idea of free will is the compatibilist idea – free will is compatible with divine determinism
Shannon’s example: Today I put on a green shirt; God determined that I would put that green shirt on. I had the agency, I had to go through the process of choosing the shirt and putting it on, but it would not have happened if God had not determined it.
So like, I did use free will to pick my shirt – but God also made it happen. Somehow…both…are true
Everything has two layers: human agency & intention, and divine agency & intention.
Meanwhile, other theologians have another take on free will – the incompatibilist idea (Gustavo Guierrez is on this team and so am i)
God limits Hir power, gives us room to do things that are against the will of God
SO YEAH, Calvin alludes to Amos being like, “There is no evil in the city but God has done it” – like, if something bad happened it’s because God determined it will.
I just. Nope. Sorry guess it’s just the Catholic in me jumpin out but No Evil Thing Comes From God thank you very much
Shannon spent so much time and energy trying to make this make sense for us and trying to explain how the heck Calvin could believe this stuff, I love you Shannon you work so hard. has the seminary given you a raise lately? they should
Calvin’s context is key to understanding why he thinks what he does about free will
he was writing in a time of communal danger – his community had been kicked out of the Church and exiled from their country, and feared violence from several sides
what he was saying is that no matter how messed up everything seems, we are actually safe as kittens in the hands of God
There is no part of what is happening that is beyond God’s control and loving care
see like. I agree with that wholeheartedly. God deeply cares about what’s going on – but I can only imagine Xe has limited Hir control over what’s going on or bad shit wouldn’t happen
But yeah Shannon was like “when it’s communal endangerment like what Calvin’s little community of excommunicated refugees were going through, this theology is comforting. When it’s individual pain like a rape or abuse, it’s less comforting. When it’s suffering viewed on a global scale, that’s also less comforting”
Shannon admits she doesn’t believe that even Calvin himself would believe this stuff today – his view of suffering was so local; we now see suffering across the centuries and across the world and how race and gender and all play into that
“I don’t think it really works to say let’s take this theology and apply it to individual cases where it would be harmful, or this massive case of race across the last six hundred years”
Which is basically her way of saying we shouldn’t go with his view of free will these days i’m pretty sure. Whew. Thank you, Shannon
Okay, you know, I do kinda get it…like. If you are in a community like Calvin’s (or like ancient Judah when people wouldn’t stop conquering them and their sister nation just got frickin. wiped out.) and you are Completely Powerless, your survival depending on the Whims of rulers who don’t give a damn about you….it makes sense that thinking that everything, even the Bad, is being pre-ordained by God.
Like, “my life is not just determined by the shitty choices made by people in the past or present, but also by a God who intends good for me.”
…But then Calvin loses me again because when it comes to wondering why God decided to make the world like this – why God not only allows but apparently determines suffering –
Calvin is like, “uh that curiosity is a sin.” Calvin says you’re not supposed to ask those questions – that asking questions is good but there’s a limit
Uh, dude, ya ever read Habakkuk?? we’re allowed to ask God why
Anyway, as if that weren’t all baffling enough it’s time for the really hard part –
Predestination!!
So. One of the core beliefs of Reformed theology is that no part of us is not tainted by sin – if we were pools of water and sin were ink, we’d see that the ink has permeated the whole pool, not just parts of it.
Therefore, as Shannon says, “it would be really bad news if our salvation were based on getting it right” – our wills are so bound up by sin, we would not be able to save ourselves.
“Help, we’ve fallen and we can’t get up”
Luckily, no part of our salvation is up to us – it’s all up to God
“it would be logical, Calvin says (i personally disagree bc dude wtf), for God to just throw us all away – but God decides to save all of us. What this means is that our eternal state, whether we are in heaven or hell, has no causal relation with our works on the planet. How we behave does not determine whether we go to heaven or hell. It’s God decision, made before we are born, not based on how we’re gonna be – God just decides.”
That being said…
“If God decides we are among the elect, we get some goodies – and that can help us screw up a little less in the world. But God’s grace comes first; we still cannot save ourselves on our own”
The “goodies” Shannon’s talking about are like, virtues or something; a desire to do good – so like, we can have a pretty good idea of who is “elect” based on their actions (i’m not a fan of this and Shannon admits it’s been used to judge and stuff)
“So God saves us, and we respond to that with gratitude.”
Why this idea was a big deal back in the day, whether you agree or not:
Calvin’s idea of predestination was the ultimate stripping of power from the Roman Catholic Church – God decides, not the pope or bishops or priests; it’s not based on how good I am or how much money I have for indulgences
Some context:
Calvin is teaching all this to people who are studying to be pastors. They’re going to be going back to places where they can be killed for these beliefs – they are scared they will be murdered, and most of all they are scared they will recant under torture.
Calvin tells them: God has already saved you. You would not be in this room if God had not. If you recant, it does not undo that fact. – incredibly comforting for them
So don’t be scared – instead, you can respond to God’s grace
The idea of being “elect” should not cause one to be proud but act with humility
It is radically against Calvin’s predestination to imagine you are superior for your elect status; you have nothing to do with it
You should never be proud and judging other people for not being “good Christians.” You were not saved because you were a good Christian. You are learning how to be a good Christian because God saved you while you were a screw-up.
There is no illusion of meritocracy in Calvin’s grace theology – grace is free. No one earns it.
Okay. So. there are actually two “kinds” of predestination you can believe in:
Double Predestination:
God picked some people for heaven and picked some for hell
“I think that the number of PCUSA Presbyterians who believe in double predestination can be counted on two hands”
Single Predestination:
everyone is originally headed to hell, but God picks some for heaven (God didn’t elect anyone to hell as in double predestination; i.e. God does not actively damn anyone, God just doesn’t actively save them)
And another option based on that:
You can argue that grace is free for absolutely everybody – everyone has been elected, predestined for heaven
Barth is one who says that every human being is predestined to heaven
What about atheists and/or non-Christians?
faith is a requirement but also a gift
broaden the idea of what the response to being elected is
did Calvin assume everyone elect was in the church? yes. But his theology does not actually require it.
maybe a faithful response can mean more than blatant assent to Christ
___
The monster under the bed of all this predestination stuff is the Protestant Work Ethic that developed from it after Calvin’s death
everyone trying to demonstrate that they are among the elect by being better
that’s the exact opposite of Calvin’s point!
this attempt to prove we’re elect evinces our sinful nature:
oh, we don’t work to earn our salvation? okay, we’ll work to prove it instead
and a pit of guilt:
some of us feel like we have to work nonstop for the betterment of the world as we live out our salvation
the theological definition of pride is the attempt to justify your own life
“I know that my life is worthwhile because I have these friends, I’ve accomplished these things, I help these people”
Calvinist theology says No, your life has already been justified and you didn’t have anything to do with it. And now you live that out in gratitude and grace of others.
To sum all this up,
There’s a lot of Calvin’s thoughts here that I don’t think I agree with. I absolutely do not believe that evil things are determined or willed in any way by God – but I do understand a little better the context that led Calvin to believing that.
I also only like a Predestination that argues that all humanity has been elected – because “God shows no partiality” – how or why would God only have chosen some of us sinners and not others? Is God arbitrary?
Still, I like how this theology of Predestination was part of Calvin’s attempts to do away with meritocracy. That’s something so many of us, especially people like me who are white and act like we are successful because of our own merit (we “pulled ourselves up by our own bootstraps” without regard for all the unearned privileges that support our economic well-being) could stand to learn. We don’t earn salvation – it’s a gift. If we truly grasped that, we would be liberated from our sense of guilt and shame and from our pride.
But even though I get it a little better, I really hope that predestination does not show up on the exams next week.
