Scotth1960
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- Jan 4, 2011
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Dear Hitch, In the ICR (Institutes of the Christian Religion), John Calvin indeed teaches the error of double predestination, and he makes the error also of confusing foreknowledge and fore-ordination. God truly foreknows all things. He does not predestine all things. He only predestines all good things. All good things come from the Father of lights (James), and good things only. Calvin failed to understand this, as far as we can tell from his words in ICR.
Calvin writes: "The predestination by which God adopts some to the hope of life, and adjudges others to eternal death, no man would be thought pious ventures simply to deny; but it is greatly caviled at, especially by those who make prescience its cause. We, indeed, ascribe both prescience and predestination to God; but we say, that it is absurd to make the latter subordinate to the former. (see Ch. 22 s. 1). pages 609-610. ICR Book Third Chapter 21, 5.
This passage is difficult to understand. He seems to say that it is absurd to make predestination subordinate to prescience (foreknowledge). Okay. Whatever that means. Does not God predestine to salvation those who He foreknows will believe in Him? But against the reasoning of Calvin, God fore-ordains no persons to "eternal death". People do what they will according to free will, but God's prevenient grace saves all those who believe in Him. All who the Father draws will believe in Him; and God wills to draw all men (2 Peter 3:9). Those who do not believe resist the drawing of the Father, it is not that the Father is not drawing them to believe; they are not responding to the drawing of the Father. In Erie PA Scott R. Harrington
ICR Institutes of the Christian Religion. Translated by Henry Beveridge. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, Copyright 2008 Hendrickson Publishers. q.v.
Calvin writes: "The predestination by which God adopts some to the hope of life, and adjudges others to eternal death, no man would be thought pious ventures simply to deny; but it is greatly caviled at, especially by those who make prescience its cause. We, indeed, ascribe both prescience and predestination to God; but we say, that it is absurd to make the latter subordinate to the former. (see Ch. 22 s. 1). pages 609-610. ICR Book Third Chapter 21, 5.
This passage is difficult to understand. He seems to say that it is absurd to make predestination subordinate to prescience (foreknowledge). Okay. Whatever that means. Does not God predestine to salvation those who He foreknows will believe in Him? But against the reasoning of Calvin, God fore-ordains no persons to "eternal death". People do what they will according to free will, but God's prevenient grace saves all those who believe in Him. All who the Father draws will believe in Him; and God wills to draw all men (2 Peter 3:9). Those who do not believe resist the drawing of the Father, it is not that the Father is not drawing them to believe; they are not responding to the drawing of the Father. In Erie PA Scott R. Harrington
ICR Institutes of the Christian Religion. Translated by Henry Beveridge. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, Copyright 2008 Hendrickson Publishers. q.v.