On God Causing Sin

By Richard A. Shaward

CALVIN : GOD DOES NOT JUST PERMIT SIN BUT WILLS/CAUSES/ORDAINS SIN

“From this it is easy to conclude how foolish and frail is the support of divine justice afforded by the suggestion that evils come to be not by [God’s] will, but merely by his permission. Of course, so far as they are evils, which men perpetrate with their evil mind, as I shall show in greater detail shortly, I admit that they are not pleasing to God. But it is a quite frivolous refuge to say that God permits them, when Scripture shows Him not only willing but the author of them.”(John Calvin, The Eternal Predestination of God, 176).

Yikes, seems clear and unambiguous to me what Calvin teaches here.

As a former Calvinist of 20 years I taught that God in His will ordained all things, including every sin. But I, and other Calvinists, never pushed this to its obvious logical conclusion; or I submit, really believed the above statement in personal struggles with sin. But for God to be Sovereign, according to Calvinists to be consistent in their system, God has to ordain all things including sin. Furthermore, Calvinists believe that God ordains all sin before He even created the world (and therefore before anyone even sins) in His “secret eternal counsel.” And, God’s decree is unchangeable. And I may add, “foreknowledge” to Calvin is the same as “foreordained” and not to simply see ahead of time (or he/they would agree with those pesky armninians).

Today, I believe that Calvinism as a system of interpreting the holy scriptures is incorrect.

Modern Calvinists, including myself when I was one, when confronted with the implications of what Calvin teaches about sin appeal to “divine permission” “or PASSIVE decree;” but Calvin denies that sin is because of “mere permission.” Sproul, for example, defines “permission” as God’s “passive will” or decree but Calvin, as it will be seen, states that God’s will isnever passive but always “active.” Furthermore, other modern Calvinists further attempt to avoid the clear implications by saying Calvin “really means” “that God authors the evil happenings without authoring their evil character.” (for example, John Frame).

I find it humorous that modern Calvinists attempt to theologize, theorize, and philosophize what Calvin “really means” as opposed to just accepting what Calvin clearly teaches[same with the scriptures in context.] Why do this? Be consistent ! Calvin called the essence of his system as “the horrid decree” so teach it that way !!! Calvinists call themselves “Calvinists” and are never known as “Piperites” or “Sproulites” so stick to what Calvin teaches as he is the inventor of the Calvinistic system in the 16^th century !

So, I choose to quote only primary sources of Calvin and let the reader decide. Let us therefore soak in Calvin and how he teaches that God causes/wills/ordains Sin and not by “mere permission” :

“From the first chapter of Job we learn that Satan appears in the presence of God to receive his orders, just as do the angels who obey spontaneously. The manner and the end are different, but still the fact is,that he cannot attempt anything without the will of God. But though afterwards his power to afflict the saint seems to be only a bare permission, yet as the sentiment is true, “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; as it pleased the Lord, so it has been done,” we infer that God was the author of that trial of which Satan and wicked robbers were merely the instruments. Satan’s aim is to drive the saint to madness by despair. The Sabeans cruelly and wickedly make a sudden incursion to rob another of his goods. Job acknowledges that he was deprived of all his property, and brought to poverty, because such was the pleasure of God. Therefore, whatever men or Satan himself devise, God holds the helm, and makes all their efforts contribute to the execution of his Judgments. God wills that the perfidious Ahab should be deceived; the devil offers his agency for that purpose, and is sent with a definite command to be a lying spirit in the mouth of all the prophets (2 Kings 22:20). If the blinding and infatuation of Ahab is a Judgment from God, the fiction of bare permission is at an end; for it would be ridiculous for a judge only to permit, and not also to decree, what he wishes to be done at the very time that he commits the execution of it to his ministers.”  [1]

“And Augustine himself, in his book against Julian, contends at length that sins are manifestations notmerely of divine permission or patience, but also of divine power, that thus former sins may be punished. In like manner, what is said of permission is too weak to stand. God is very often said to blind and harden the reprobate, to turn their hearts, to incline and impel them, as I have elsewhere fully explained (Book 1 c. 18). The extent of this agency can never be explained by having recourse to prescience or permission [2]

“For which reason, he (Augustine) also excludes the contingency which depends on human will, maintaining a little further on, in clearer terms, that no cause must be sought for but the will of God. When he uses the term permission, the meaning which he attaches to it will best appear from a single passage (De Trinity. lib. 3 cap. 4), where he proves that the will of God is the supreme and primary cause of all things, because nothing happens without his order or permission (As Augustine defines it). He certainly does not figure God sitting idly in a watch-tower, when he chooses to permit anything. The will which he represents as interposing is, if I may so express it, active.” [3]

“From other passages, in which God is said to draw or bend Satan himself, and all the reprobate, to his will, a more difficult question arises. For the carnal mind can scarcely comprehend how, when acting by their means, he contracts no taint from their impurity, nay, how, in a common operation, he is exempt from all guilt, and can justly condemn his own ministers. Hence a distinction has been invented between doing and permitting because to many it seemed altogether inexplicable how Satan and all the wicked are so under the hand and authority of God, that he directs their malice to whatever end he pleases, and employs their iniquities to execute his Judgments. The modesty of those who are thus alarmed at the appearance of absurdity might perhaps be excused, did they not endeavour to vindicate the justice of God from every semblance of stigma by defending an untruth. It seems absurd that man should be blinded by the will and command of God, and yet be forthwith punished for his blindness. Hence, recourse is had to the evasion that this is done only by the permission, and not also by the will (foreordination) of God. . . . Those who have a tolerable acquaintance with the Scriptures see that, with a view to brevity, I am only producing a few out of many passages, from which it is perfectly clear that it is the merest trifling to substitute a bare permission for the providence of God, as if he sat in a watch-tower waiting for fortuitous events, his Judgments meanwhile depending on the will of man. . . . With regard to secret movements, what Solomon says of the heart of a king, that it is turned hither and thither, as God sees meet, certainly applies to the whole human race, and has the same force as if he had said, that whatever we conceive in our minds is directed to its end by the secret inspiration of God. And certainly, did he not work internally in the minds of men, it could not have been properly said, that he takes away the lip from the true, and prudence from the aged—takes away the heart from the princes of the earth, that they wander through devious paths. . . . But since the Holy Spirit distinctly says, that the blindness and infatuation are inflicted by the just Judgment of God, the solution is altogether inadmissible. He is said to have hardened the heart of Pharaoh, to have hardened it yet more, and confirmed it. Some evade these forms of expression by a silly cavil, because Pharaoh is elsewhere said to have hardened his own heart, thus making his will the cause of hardening it; as if the two things did not perfectly agree with each other, though in different senses—viz. that man, though acted upon by God, at the same time also acts. But I retort the objection on those who make it. If to harden means only bare permission, the contumacy will not properly belong to Pharaoh. Now, could any thing be more feeble and insipid than to interpret as if Pharaoh had only allowed himself to be hardened? ”  [4]

“First, all must admit what Solomon says, “The Lord has made all things for himself; yea, even the wicked for the day of evil,” (Prov. 16:4). Now, since the arrangement of all things is in the hand of God, since to him belongs the disposal of life and death, he arranges all things by his sovereign counsel, in such a way that individuals are born, who are doomed from the womb to certain death, and are to glorify him by their destruction. If any one alleges that no necessity is laid upon them by the providence of God, but rather that they are created by him in that condition, because he foresaw their future depravity, he says something, but does not say enough. Ancient writers, indeed, occasionally employ this solution, though with some degree of hesitation. The Schoolmen, again, rest in it as if it could not be gainsaid. I, for my part, am willing to admit, that mere prescience lays no necessity on the creatures; though some do not assent to this, but hold that it is itself the cause of things. But Valla, though otherwise not greatly skilled in sacred matters, seems to me to have taken a shrewder and more acute view, when he shows that the dispute is superfluous since life and death are acts of the divine will rather than of prescience. If God merely foresaw human events, and did not also arrange and dispose of them at his pleasure, there might be room for agitating the question, how far his foreknowledge amounts to necessity; but since he foresees the things which are to happen, simply because he has decreed that they are so to happen, it is vain to debate about prescience, while it is clear that all events take place by his sovereign appointment. . . . They deny that it is ever said in distinct terms, God decreed that Adam should perish by his revolt. As if the same God, who is declared in Scripture to do whatsoever he pleases, could have made the noblest of his creatures without any special purpose. They say that, in accordance with free-will, he was to be the architect of his own fortune, that God had decreed nothing but to treat him according to his desert. If this frigid fiction is received, where will be the omnipotence of God, by which, according to his secret counsel on which every thing depends, he rules over all? But whether they will allow it or not, predestination is manifest in Adam’s posterity. It was not owing to nature that they all lost salvation by the fault of one parent. Why should they refuse to admit with regard to one man that which against their will they admit with regard to the whole human race? Why should they in caviling lose their labour? Scripture proclaims that all were, in the person of one, made liable to eternal death. As this cannot be ascribed to nature, it is plain that it is owing to the wonderful counsel of God. It is very absurd in these worthy defenders of the justice of God to strain at a gnat and swallow a camel. I again ask how it is that the fall of Adam involves so many nations with their infant children in eternal death without remedy unless that it so seemed meet to God? Here the most loquacious tongues must be dumb. The decree, I admit, is, dreadful; and yet it is impossible to deny that God foreknow what the end of man was to be before he made him, and foreknew, because he had so ordained by his decree. Should any one here inveigh against the prescience of God, he does it rashly and unadvisedly. For why, pray, should it be made a charge against the heavenly Judge, that he was not ignorant of what was to happen? Thus, if there is any just or plausible complaint, it must be directed against predestination. Nor ought it to seem absurd when I say, that God not only foresaw (preordained) the fall of the first man, and in him the ruin of his posterity; but also at his own pleasure arranged it. . . . 8. Here they recur to the distinction between will and permission, the object being to prove that the wicked perish only by the permission, but not by the will of God. But why do we say that he permits, but just because he wills? Nor, indeed, is there any probability in the thing itself—viz. that man brought death upon himself merely by the permission, and not by the ordination of God; as if God had not determined what he wished the condition of the chief of his creatures to be. I will not hesitate, therefore, simply to confess with Augustine that the will of God is necessity, and that every thing is necessary which he has willed; just as those things will certainly happen which he has foreseen (foreordained) ”  [5]

“Most certainly, when Solomon declares that ” the heart of the king is in the hand of God, and that, as the rivers of water, He turneth it whithersoever He will” (Prov. xxi. 1), his intention is to shew, generally, that not only the wills of kings, but all their external actions are overruled by the will and disposal of God. Moses saith that the heart of Pharaoh was hardened by the Lord Himself. It is in vain here to flee to the common refuge of God’s permission, as if God could be said to have done that which He only permitted to be done !” [6]

“It is in this same momentous sense that Paul speaks when he testifies that effectual error and ” strong delusions ” are sent on men, ” that they might believe a lie; because they would not obey the truth.” Hence you see that Satan is not only ” a lying spirit in the mouth of all the prophets,” at the express command of God, but also that his impostures so ensnare the reprobate, that, being utterly deprived of their reason,they are, of necessity, dragged headlong into error. In this same manner also must we understand the apostle, when he says that those who were ungrateful to God were ” delivered over to a reprobate mind,” and ” given up to vile and foul affections,” that they should work ” that which is unseemly, and defile their own natural bodies one among another.” Upon which Scripture Augustine remarks that these reprobate characters were not given up to the corrupt affections of their hearts by the mere permission of Godas an unconcerned spectator, but by His righteous decree . . . Whence that which I have just stated is perfectly plain: that the internal affections of men are not less ruled by the hand of God than their external actions are preceded by His eternal decree; and, moreover, that God performs not by the hands of men the things which He has decreed, without first working in their hearts the very will which precedes the acts they are to perform. Wherefore, the sentiments of Augustine on these momentous points are to be fully received and maintained. ” When God (says he) willeth that to be done which cannot be effected, in the course of the things of this world, without the wills of men, He at the same time inclines their hearts to will” [7]

“Meantime, I freely acknowledge my doctrine to be this: that Adam fell, not by only the permission of God, but by His very secret counsel and decree; and that Adam drew all his posterity with himself, by his Fall, into eternal destruction.” [8]

In the vast cause now before us, I affirm that to make a difference between the permission and the will of God is, indeed, ” frivolous.” [9]

“You would have us to rest content with the permission of God only. But God, by His prophet, asserts that His will and His hand are in the whole matter as the moving cause. Now just consider, then, which of the two is the more worthy to be believed, God, who by His Spirit, the only fountain of truth, thus speaks concerning Himself; or you, prating about His hidden and unsearchable mysteries out of the worthless knowledge of your own carnal brain?” [10]

Conclusion : One scripture suffices, one scripture is enough to dispel this Calvinistic view :

Jeremiah 32:31-35  ‘For this city has been to Me a provocation of My anger and My fury from the day that they built it, even to this day; so I will remove it from before My face. 32  ‘because of all the evil of the children of Israel and the children of Judah, which they have done to provoke Me to anger; they, their kings, their princes, their priests, their prophets, the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. 33  ‘And they have turned to Me the back, and not the face; though I taught them, rising up early and teaching them, yet they have not listened to receive instruction. 34  ‘But they set their abominations in the house which is called by My name, to defile it. 35  ‘And they built the high places of Baal which are in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire to Molech, which I did not command them, nor did it come into My mind that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin.’

[1] Calvin. Institutes of the Christian Religion. (I, xviii, 1).

[2] Calvin. Institutes of the Christian Religion. (II, iv, 3).

[3] Calvin. Institutes of the Christian Religion. (I, xvi, 8).

[4] Calvin. Institutes of the Christian religion. (I, xviii, 1).

[5] Calvin. Institutes of the Christian Religion. (III, xxiii, 6).

[6] Calvin. Defense of the Secret Providence of God, 241

[7] Calvin, Defense of the Secret Providence of God, 243

[8] Calvin, Defense of the Secret Providence of God, 267

[9] Calvin. Defense of the Secret Providence of God, 287

[10] Calvin. Defense of the Secret Providence of God, 288