Calvin on The Paradox of Faith

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

(Hebrews 11.1)

‘Grace has always the appearance of contradiction. The foundation is faith. For faith is the pillar and possession upon which we are able to plant our feet. But what, in fact, do we possess? Not things that are present, but what is set far distant under our feet – nay more, what is beyond the comprehension of our spirit. Faith is therefore named the evidence of things not seen. But evidence means that things emerge into appearance, and is applicable only to what concerns our senses. In the realm of faith the two apparent opposites – evidence and things not seen – struggle with one another and are united. It is precisely the hidden things, inaccessible to sensible perception, that are displayed by the Spirit of God. He promises eternal life – to those who are dead. He speaks of the blessedness of resurrection – to those who are compassed about with corruption. He pronounces those in whom sin dwells – to be righteous. He calls those oppressed with ceaseless tribulation – blessed. He promises abundance of riches – to those abounding only in hunger and thirst. God cries out to us that He is coming quickly to our aid – and yet He seems deaf to every human cry for help. What, then, would be our fate, were we not powerful in hope, were we not hurrying through the darkness of the world along the road which is enlightened by the Spirit and by the Word of God?’

- John Calvin, as quoted in Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, pp. 19-20

My 2009 Reading Plan

Now that I've reviewed my favorite books of 2008 (here and here), I guess the next thing to do is preview my plans for 2009.

In the coming year, I want to be intentional about balancing out the kinds of books I read. These are the "food groups" I want to include in my literary diet:

• Literature. Fiction by serious writers, such as Camus, Solzhenitsyn, Flannery O'Connor, and the like.
• New Non-Fiction. Defined more or less as something published in my lifetime by authors who are still alive. Can be either "Christian" or "secular."
• Old Non-Fiction. Also known as non-fiction that isn't new. This category is important to me, because of a thought C.S. Lewis brought out in one of his essays about why we should read "old" books: "Not, of course, that there is any magic about the past. People were no cleverer then than they are now; they made as many mistakes as we. But not the same mistakes. They will not flatter us in the errors we are already committing; and their own errors, being now open and palpable, will not endanger us. Two heads are better than one, not because either is infallible, but because they are unlikely to go wrong in the same direction. To be sure, the books of the future would be just as good a corrective as the books of the past, but unfortunately we cannot get at them."
• C.S. Lewis and Friends. I want to keep working through the Lewis canon and get to some books by his brother Warnie, his wife Joy, and his friend Charles Williams.
• John Wesley. I bought his complete works in 14 volumes several years ago but am only about 10% of the way through it.
• Novels. Defined, I suppose, as modern fiction written for a mass audience. This category isn't necessarily a priority, but it does make long airplane flights pass more quickly.

My idea is to rotate through the first 5 categories until the year is over, sprinking in the novels when appropriate. Between each book I'll catch up on the periodicals I receive. I'll also read the Bible most days, but I won't read through the Bible this year (I do that in even-numbered years).

So there you have it. I'm now accountable.

After 2009, I want to start into Calvin and Luther, but there's plenty of time yet to figure that out.

Calvin Stirs Things Up

In case you missed it, my posts on "Calvin's 'P'" stirred up quite a flurry of discussion. Perseverance of the saints ("once saved, always saved"), Catholicism, transubstantiation, . . . the comments and interaction covered quite a bit of ground, and may not be over yet. Thanks to the contributors for their thoughtful replies and their courteousness to each other. You can learn a lot by reading what they wrote.


The orginal post is here (with 4 comments following). The second post - which engendered 27 comments so far - is here.

(The caption of the picture here isn't too ecumenical - sorry about that, Boethius! According to my loose translation, it says something like, "Johan Hus converted the Bohemians, and Luther taught the Germans. In like manner has this Calvin brought the faith to France; by doing so, he murdered the Antichrist, who, like the devil, won't be heard from again." If only.)

More About Calvin's "P"

My previous entry, "Calvin's 'P'," raised questions from a reader about eternal security, also known as assurance of salvation. Several of you commented on his thoughts (thank you), and Gene actually made me laugh with his word pictures of Jesus holding an eraser. All comments contained excellent points. My good friend Boethius seemed to try to shift the focus to the question of private judgment vs. the authority of the (Roman Catholic) Church - a little odd, since he was the asker of the original question in the post! I'm sure he only did this, however, since he sees the questions as being linked.

Since this whole thing started out with him asking what I believe, I guess I should answer the question. What follows is hardly a Summa of my beliefs, but I intend for it to be a fair representation thereof.

Unless I've missed something, all of the commenters, including Boethius, would agree on the inspiration of the Bible and that our doctrines must not contradict the Word.

The difference is in epistemology. How do we know what we know? From the Church, from our hermeneutic, or from the Spirit leading us? In reality, I think it's some combination of the three - though I tend to think of "Church" as being somewhat synonymous with "historically orthodox beliefs." I'm always skeptical of anyone who shows up with novel doctrines that he believes he's just discovered after 2000 years of false Christianity. True divergence must always be suspect.

Admittedly, evangelical independence coupled with American individualism has led to some Protestants - leaders and otherwise - having some pretty wacky ideas. I won't attempt to defend Pat Robertson, Creflo Dollar, or Jim Jones. But in practice, it's not really happening that mainstream evangelicalism is coming up with novel theology all the time. In fact, our core beliefs are remarkably static.

That barely begins to address the question of "whose authority," but it's a start.

As for eternal security, I don't think this issue would be debated as hotly as it sometimes is if there were no ambiguity in the Scriptures. I don't believe that God is ambivalent on the subject, but His Word to us does not provide the indisputably clear answers that we would wish for.

I think you can make a case for salvation being "loseable," but I don't think that's the best answer. Here's why:

• John 10.28, 29. Jesus says he gives eternal life to his sheep, and no one can snatch them out of his hand. If a shepherd is going to protect the sheep from all foes, even to the point of endangering his own life, I can't imagine that he will let them wander off on their own, no matter how badly they want to go.
• 1 Cor. 11.27-32 talks about being judged by the Lord so as not to be condemned with the world. I suppose this passage could be taken to support or disprove eternal security, depending on the efficacy of God's judgment. But why would it be inefficacious?
• Eph. 2.13, 14 has a sense of permanence when it talks about how we've been brought to God through the blood of Christ.
• Heb. 10.14 says that Jesus, by his one ultimate sacrifice, has "made perfect forever" those who are being made holy. I don't see how I can be made perfect forever today, and lose that being made perfect forever tomorrow when I sin in a particular way. Rather, it sounds to me like the fact of salvation is settled, even as the outworking (aka sanctification) of that salvation is progressive.
• In several passages, the NT uses the picture of adoption to describe what happens to us as those who belong to Christ. To my knowledge, in the Greek and Jewish cultures of the NT time, adoption was a one-way street, as it is in our society today. Once you get adopted into the family, you can't get "de-adopted" - not by the initiative of the parents, nor by the initiative of the child. Adoption is never conditional upon the child's assent or compliance.

So that's a basic outline of what I think about these matters. Others have expressed these thoughts much better than I, and certainly more comprehensively. For example, John Owen, in 1654, took about 500 pages to examine Perseverance. Even his book's title(!) displays the multifariousness of the subject:

THE DOCTRINE OF THE SAINTS PERSEVERANCE, Explained and Confirmed.
OR, The certain Permanency of their 1. Acceptation with GOD, &
2. Sanctification from GOD. MANIFESTED & PROVED FROM The 1. ETERNALL PRINCIPLES 2. EFFECTUALL CAUSES 3. EXTERNALL MEANES Thereof. IN, 1. THE IMMUTABILITY of the 1. Nature 2. Decrees 3. Covenant and 4. Promises Of GOD. 2. The OBLATION and INTERCESSION Of JESUS CHRIST. 3. The 1. Promises 2. Exhortations 3. Threats Of The GOSPELL. Improved in its Genuine Tendency to Obedience and Consolation. AND VINDICATED In a Full Answer to the Discourse of Mr JOHN GOODWIN against it, in his Book Entituled Redemption Redeemed. With some DIGRESSIONS Concerning 1. The Immediate effects of the Death of Christ. 2. Personall Indwelling of the Spirit. 3. Union with Christ. 4. Nature of Gospell promises, &c. ALSO A PREFACE Manifesting the Judgement of the Antients concerning the Truth contended for: with a Discourse touching the Epistles of IGNATIUS; The EPISCOPACY in them Asserted; and some Animadversions on Dr H:H: his Dissertations on that Subject.
_________________________________________________________________ By
JOHN OWEN Servant of Jesus Christ in the Worke of the Gospell.

Calvin's "P"

My April 16 blog about Islam and Donald Trump elicited a thoughtful reaction from a reader. He asks whether, on the issue of eternal security, there's a via media between Calvinism and Arminianism - whether, perhaps, those two views miss what Scripture is really saying.

Calvin, of course, is believed to have taught the doctrine of "Perseverance of the Saints." I say "believed to have taught," because no one on earth has actually read his complete works (smile). Some 50 years after his death, the Synod of Dordt formulated a response to an Arminian document. The five points they offered as contradictory to Arminianism have become known as the Five Points of Calvinism. In English, the five spell the acrostic TULIP, and the "P" stands for Perseverance of the Saints.

So let's take a look at Calvin's "P". Anyone care to comment on my reader's question?

Good morning Arnold,

I just read your post on Islam/Trump and it raised a question for me.

As I understand it, your theological convictions constitute an elegant hybrid: a practice-driven compilation of various strands of Protestantism. From the title of your blog it is clear that you are not trying to resolve all of the tensions within scripture into a neat systematic package. Though not the main point of your entry, your statements at the end of the entry about "security" prompted a few reflections (and a question). There seems to be two positions at play behind your words: eternal insecurity (Islam) and eternal security ('once saved always saved'- Baptist). Of course the latter could also be derived from a Calvinist view (we did not choose to become Xians and therefore cannot "unchoose"). I looked up the verses you cited and while they certainly overthrow the "insecurity" position, they do not seem to support (necessarily) the Baptist/Calvinist position. I wonder if you have considered a third position (which the verses also support): we respond to God's initiative/grace in becoming a Xian, and continue to respond to such grace throughout our lives, i.e., we (mysteriously) live in three temporal orientations at once: we have been saved, we are being saved, and we will be saved. But, since freewill is an essential part of our created human nature, we can reject God's grace through an extreme act of the will, thereby making "shipwreck" of our faith. Yet such a shipwreck is not easily achieved. (He is, after all, the hound of heaven!) While we live in the state of grace (i.e., we continue to respond to and cooperate with Christ's gracious initiative) we have "security."

Applying this at the personal level, I know that I am in a state of grace and that all of the verses that you cited apply to me. I do not need to prove my worthiness of X's love or hold on to the hope that somehow, just maybe, I may squeak into heaven. But at the same time (since I do not hold to the Baptist/Calvinist view of eternal security) I cannot know that I will not, at some point in the future, turn away from God and reject him. In that sense I do not have "eternal security." This was, of course, the main psychological (and perhaps pathological) issue for Luther. He could not believe that he was in a state of grace. He needed assurance not only for the present, but for the future as well. I spent the first 18 years of my life in the hell of eternal insecurity. I am very sympathetic to Luther's problem. These fears are what made Calvinism so very attractive to me (in addition to its rigor and coherence). Furthermore, given modern, Protestant Xianity's rejection of the sacraments as "means of grace," it is not surprising that most Evangelicals would cling to an "eternal security" position. I would very much like to hear more of your current thinking on this matter.

Of course, this is an extremely important question for anyone engaged in evangelism and discipleship. Al Kimmel (a.ka., the Pontificator) wrote extensively on the various ways of understanding "security" in light of seeking to share (and live) the gospel. If your head isn't already hurting, you might find these entries to be of interest.
http://catholica.pontifications.net/?p=1697
http://catholica.pontifications.net/?p=1700
http://catholica.pontifications.net/?p=1713