CALVINISM
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CALVINISM
is made possible when Catholics demand where the
Reformed Church was prior to the Reformation.
Calvin replies that in every age the elect constituted
the flock of Christ, and all besides were strangers,
though invested with dignity and offices in the visible
communion. The reprobate have only apparent
faith. Yet they may feel as do the elect, experience
similar fervours, and to the best of their judgment be
accounted saints. All that is mere delusion; they
are hypocrites "into whose minds God insinuates
Himself, so that, not having the adoption of sons,
they may yet taste the goodness of the Spirit ". Thus
Calvin explained how in the Gospel many are called
believers who did not persevere; and so the visible
Church is made up of saints that can never lose their
crown, and sinners that by no effort could attain to
salvation.
Faith, which means assurance of election, grace, and glory, is then the heritage of none but the pre- destined. But, since no real secondary cause exists, man remains passive throughout the temporal series of events by w r hich he is shown to be an adopted son of God. He neither acts nor, in the Catholic sense, co-operates with his Redeemer. A difference in the method of conversion between Luther and Calvin may here be noted. The German mystic begins, as his own experience taught him, with the terrors of the law. The French divine who had never gone through that stage, gives the first place to the Gospel; and repentance, instead of preceding faith, comes after it. He argued that by so disposing of the process, faith appeared manifestly alone, unaccompanied by repentance, which, otherwise, might claim some share of merit. The Lutherans, moreover, did not allow absolute predestination. And their confidence in being themselves justified, i. e. saved, was unequal to Calvin's requirements. For he made assurance in- evitable as was its object to the chosen soul. Never- theless, he fancied that between himself and the sounder medieval scholastics no quarrel need arise touching the principle of justification, viz. that "the sinner being delivered gratuitously from his doom becomes righteous". Calvin overlooked in these statements the vital difference which accounts for his aberration from the ancient system. Catholics held that fallen man kept in some degree his moral and religious faculties, though much impaired, and did not lose his free will. But the newer doctrine affirmed man's total incompetence; he could neither freely consent nor ever resist, when grace was given, if he happened to be predestinate. If not, justification lay beyond his grasp. However, the language of the "Institutes" is not so uncompromising as Luther's had been. God first heals the corrupt will, and the will follows His guidance; or, we may say, co- operate.--.
The one final position of Calvin is that omnipotent grace of itself substitutes a good for an evil will in the elect, who do nothing towards their own conversion, but when converted are accounted just. In all the original theology of the Reformation righteousness is something imputed, not indwelling in the soul. It is a legal fiction when compared with what the Catholic Church believes, namely, that justice or sanctification involves a real gift, a quality bestowed on the spirit and inherent, whereby it becomes the thing it is called. Hence the Council of Trent declares (Sess. XI) that Christ died for all men; it condemns (Canon XVII i the main propositions of Geneva, that "the grace of justification comes only to the predestinate", and that "the others who are called receive an invita- tion but no grace, being doomed by the Divine power to evil." So Innocent X proscribed in Jansenius the statement: "It is Semipelagian to affirm that Christ died for all men, or shed His blood in their behalf." In like manner Trent rejected the definition of faith as "confidence in being justified without merit";
grace was not "the feeling of love", nor was justifica-
tion the "forgiveness of sin"; and apart from a
special revelation no man could be infallibly sure that
he was saved. According to Calvin the saint was
made such by his faith, and the sinner by want of it
stood condemned; but the Fathers of Trent distin-
guished a dead faith, which could never justify, from
faith animated by charity; and they attributed
merit to all good works done through Divine inspira-
tion. But in the Genevese doctrine faith itself is not
holy. This appears very singular; and no explana-
tion has ever been vouchsafed of the power ascribed
to an act or mean, itself destitute of intrinsic quali-
ties, neither morally good nor in any way meritorious,
the presence or absence of which nevertheless fixes
our eternal destiny.
But since Christ alone is our righteousness, Luther concluded that the just man is never just in himself; that concupiscence, though resisted, makes him sin damnably in all he does, and that he remains a sinner until his last breath. Thus even the "Solid Declara- tion" teaches, though in many respects toning down the Reformer's truculence. Such guilt, however, God overlooks where faith is found ; the one unpardonable sin is want of faith. "Pecca fortiter sed crede for- tius" — this Lutheran epigram, "Sin as you like pro- vided you believe", expresses in a paradox the con- trast between corrupt human nature, filthy still in the very highest saints, and the shadow of Christ, as, falling upon them, it hides their shame before God. Here again the Catholic refuses to consider man re- sponsible except where his will consents; the Protes- tant regards impulse and enticement as constituting all the will that we have. These observations apply to Calvin; but he avoids extravagant speech while not differing from Luther in fact. He grants that St. Augustine would not term involuntary desires sin; then he adds, "We, on the contrary, deem it to be sin whenever a man feels any desires forbidden by Divine law; and we assert the depravity to be sin which pro- duces them" (Institutes. Ill, 2, 10). (hi the hy- pothesis of determinism, held by every school of the Reformers, this logic is unimpeachable. But it leads to strange consequences. The sinner commits actions which the saint may also indulge in; but one is saved, l In' 'it her is lost; and so the entire moral contents of Christianity are emptied out. Luther denominated the saint's liberty freedom from the law. Ami Cal- vin, "The question is not how we can be righteous, but. how, though unworthy and unrighteous, we may be considered righteous." The law may instruct and exhort, but "it has no place in the conscience before God's tribunal". And if Christians advert to the law, "they see that every work they attempt or medi- tate is accursed" (Institutes, III, 19, 2, 4). Leo X had condemned Luther's thesis, "In every good work the just man sins." Baius fell under censure for as- serting (Props. 74, 75) that "concupiscence in the baptized is a sin, though not imputed". And. view- ing the whole theory. Catholics have asked whether :i sinfulness which exists quite independent of the will is not something substantial, like the darkness of the Manichaeans, or essential to us who are finite beings. At all events Calvin seems entangled in perplexities on the subject, for he declares expressly that the re- generate are "liable every moment at God's judg- ment-seat to sentence of death" (Instit., III. 2. 11); yet elsewhere he tempers his language with a "so to speak", and explains it as meaning that all human virtue is imperfect. He would certainly have sub- scribed to the "Solid Declaration", that the good works of the pious are not necessary to salvation. With Luther, he affirms the least transgression to be a mortal sin, even involuntary concupiscence; and as this abides in every man while he lives, all that we do is worthy of punishment (Instit., II, 8, 58, 59). And again, ' ' There never yet was any work of a relig-
