CALVIN’S DOCTRINE OF ELECTION/PREDESTINATION

AND HIS PREDECESSORS:

A BRIEF OVERVIEW

by

Vladimir Lebedev

Box T-1635

A PAPER

Submitted to Dr. Scott M. Manetsch

in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the course CH 7225 The Reformation Era
at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

Deerfield, Illinois
Fall, 2015
 Introduction

It is claimed and recognized by readers of Calvin and by scholars who study

the Calvinist doctrine of election and predestination that the great reformer, apart, or course,

from his own study of Scripture, drew heavily on Augustine when developing his

understanding of this doctrine.1 This is obvious in his writings, especially later ones.2 But

what did the development of the doctrine look like and what shapes did it take over the

centuries prior to Calvin3 (who, quite fairly, became the epitome of the Reformation revival

of the Augustinian distinctives)? What historical-theological trends within this doctrinal

subdivision conditioned and prompted Calvin’s view on election and predestination? It has

been repeatedly stated by church historians that the Reformers were men of their times,

deeply concerned primarily with intellectual, theological, political, and other issues current in

their societies.4 So what particular issues was Calvin concerned with in the process of the

formulating of his doctrine of election and predestination?

1
John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Vol. 1, edited by John T. McNeil; trans.
Ford Lewis Battles (Louisville, KY: 1960), lvii-lviii; “Calvin’s biblical interpretation is also shaped by
convictions drawn largely from Pauline and Augustinian theology” (John L. Thompson, “Calvin as a Biblical
Interpreter” in Donald K. McKim, The Cambridge Companion to John Calvin (Cambridge University Press,
2004).

2
Inst. 3.21-22; On Predestination, article 2; Sermons on Election and Reprobation, “To the
Earl of Bedford.”

3
The views of Calvin’s contemporaries who were similarly minded and/or positive
conversation partners, such as Martin Luther, Huldrich Zwingli, Martin Bucer, Peter Martyr Vermigli, are
beyond the scope of this review, as well as Calvin’s own chronological and conceptual development of the
doctrine discussed here.

4
See e.g., Alister E. McGrath, The Intellectual Origins of the European Reformation (2nd ed.;
Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004), 1-8; Carter Lindberg aims to present “with broad strokes the Reformations as
both a part and a child of the late medieval crisis” (The European Reformations (2nd ed.; Chichester, U.K.;
Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), 24.

1
 2

This paper will briefly review the main trends and tensions that pertain to the

church discussion of the named theological issue and will reflect on the two following

questions. What did the general interest in the doctrine of election look like in the Middle

Ages? Which and whose theological positions, tendencies, or concerns conditioned and

influenced Calvin’s formulation of the doctrine of election the way he did it (apart from the

fact that it is a biblical theme?) But first, Calvin’s doctrine of election will be presented in a

condensed form.

Summary of Calvin’s doctrine of election/predestination

Calvin’s view of election/predestination has been summarized by experts from

various perspectives5 and in this review only its key points will be listed. The essence of his

view may be presented as follows. To quote Calvin himself: “I define predestination, as the

free counsel of God, by which he regulates the human race, and all the individual parts of the

universe, according to his own immense wisdom, and incomprehensible justice” (Secret

Providence, 13). This includes the so-called “double predestination” (gemina predestinatio),

i.e. the secret election of some to salvation and, dialectically6 and conversely, all the rest to

reprobation. The development was gradual but consistent. Already according to Calvin’s

early statements (the French Catechism of 1537), the word of God is effective unto belief and

5
Carl R. Trueman, “Election: Calvin’s Theology and Its Early Reception,” in J. Todd Billings
and I. John Hesselink, Calvin’s Theology and Its Reception: Disputes, Developments, and New Possibilities
(Louisville, KY: Westminster, 2012), 99-104; Charles Partee, The Theology of John Calvin (Louisville, KY:
Westminster, 2008), 240-252; A. Mitchell Hunter, The Teaching of Calvin: A Modern Interpretation (2nd ed.;
London: James Clarke & Co., 1950), 93-134; I. John Hesselink, “Calvin’s Theology” in The Cambridge
Companion to John Calvin (Cambridge University Press, 2004), 83-84.

6
Philip Walker Butin, Revelation, Redemption, and Response: Calvin’s Trinitarian
Understanding of the Divine-Human Relationship (NY/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 22-23.
 3

salvation only in those whom God by his council and by his election predestined to be his

children; the same council determines others to be reprobate and in them the word causes no

change.7 The idea is repeatedly introduced with various levels of emphasis8 and further

extensively elaborated in Calvin’s writings.9

Now to some of the key points; first, predestination/election is such a

significant part of Calvin’s theology that it has competed in the minds of many scholars to be

his theology’s central dogma.10 Although other scholars ascribe to it no more than a

secondary or complimentary role, the obvious fact is that Calvin’s presentation of it has

magnetized so much attention – incomparably more than from any other thinker heretofore11

– that it has been the associative and distinctive mark of many theological works and

traditions in the centuries to come. Following this is another and related key point.

7
John Calvin, Tracts and Treatises in Defense of the Reformed Faith. Vol. 3 (trans. Henry
Beveridge; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1958), 155.

8
Epitre a tous amateurs de Jésus Christ. Préface a la traduction française du Nouveau
Testament par Robert Olivétan (1535): limited mentions of election and the elect in reference to “certain
people” (Israel) through whom God revealed himself and to the elect within the church to whom the Spirit of
Christ is promised; God’s good will and his free grace are integral to each other; no mention of predestination
(see Inst. (1536), 373-377; W. H. Neuser, “The first outline of Calvin’s theology – the preface to the New
Testament in the Olivétan Bible of 1535,” Koers 66 (2001): 1-22).

9
Congregation sur l’Election éternelle (1551, pub. 1562 ; against Bolsec), On the Eternal
Predestination of God (1552, against Pighius) and The Bondage and Liberation of the Will: A Defense of the
Orthodox Doctrine of Human Choice against Pighius (ed. by A. N. S. Lane, G. I. Davies; Carlisle, UK:
Paternoster, 1996), 159-160); Sermons on election a reprobation (published 1579); Commentary on John 6.

10
See François Wendel, Calvin: The Origin and Development of His Religious Thought
(trans. by Philip Mairet; London: Collins, 1963), 263-264; Partee, Theology, 244-247, Charles Partee, “Calvin’s
Central Dogma,” SCJ 18:2 (1987); Ian Hazlett, “Some History and Histories of Calvin in the Context of the
Reformation.” Theology in Scotland 16:2 (2009): 36.

11
One certainly has to consider the “trade winds of the time” – the historical, intellectual,
social, and political factors – that advantaged Calvin’s system in particular.
 4

Wendel, in the unison with other scholars, comments that Calvin “accorded a

growing importance” to the doctrine of election “under the sway of ecclesiological and

pastoral preoccupations rather than in order to make it a foundation of his theology.”12

Indeed it was a practical approach: Calvin the pastor observed and stressed that some receive

the preaching of the gospel while others do not, and hence sought to propose the theological

demarcation between the true and the nominal members within the church.13 Two distinct

categories of men, the elect and the reprobate, were now said to co-exist in the church.14

Directly related to the above is the tie between God’s eternal election and his

calling, justification, and glorification (in terms of the interpretation of Rom. 8:28-30)15; the

prior both is declared by the latter and destines God’s own to the latter. In other words, the

newness of life is both evidence and a necessary result of election. Apart from “this manner

… no one will even enter into the glory of the Heavenly Kingdom” (Inst. (1536), 59).

Election and predestination is a ground and a principle part of the theology of

God’s free grace and unmerited salvation. Calvin cared greatly about guarding election from

being anything other than totally gracious (or gratuitous) and caused by our love in terms of

12
Wendel, 264.

13
Inst. (1536), 58-59; under the rubric of the church Calvin says that not everyone in the
crowd of God’s people are elect though God has worked his powers in them; also, “the whole catholic [i.e.
universal] church” is “whole number of the elect, . . . one people of God”; Eph. 1:3-4 is explained thus: “as
many as have been chosen by God’s eternal providence to be adopted as members of the church”; see Wendel,
265-266; Hesselink, 83. Election thus was taken as constitutive factor (Wendel, 263).

14
Inst. 3.21.1; Calvin “had asked himself who were the true members of the church and had
identified them with the elect alone, with those whose salvation is definitive and unlosable” (Wendel, 140; 269).

15
Inst. (1536), 58-59; Inst., 3.21.7.
 5

human works or merits.16 Even human faith is but a special work of the Holy Spirit felt by

those who are ordained to life.17 Directly connected to this is God’s exclusive right to claim

glory and his all-encompassing and all-overpowering will; so the reason for election is not in

man.18 Calvin distinguished between predestination and foreknowledge and denied any

causal relation between them (Inst. 3.21.5). Election is integral to the vision of God’s overall

providential rule where every person is destined to reach a goal that God chooses that person

to reach.19 These elements were developed to ground God’s pre-temporal and sovereign

decision concerning the election or reprobation of each individual. One particular difficulty

in this regard – namely, how to account for the obvious corporate election in connection with

the election and reprobation of individuals – Calvin wished to solve by inventing the idea of

the general and particular (secret) election. Such convictions, Calvin believed, should

activate genuine humility in the believer.

One more key element elaborated by Calvin is the secrecy of the predestining

and electing council and decrees of God in the sense that God’s mind is incomprehensible to

man.20 The plans are God’s own and it is not man’s to inquire beyond what is revealed.

16
See John C. Olin, A Reformation Debate: Sadoleto’s Letter to the Genevans and Calvin’s
Reply (New York: Fordham University Press, 2000), 63.

17
Tracts 3:250.

18
Inst. 3.21.1; David C. Steinmetz, Calvin in Context (2nd ed.; Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2010), 47-48.

19
Wulfert De Greef, The Writings of John Calvin: An Introductory Guide (trans. by Lyle D.
Bierma; Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 35. However, the converse idea is also evident:
first God’s decree is concerned with our eternal salvation and then with the details of life accordingly; Wendel
(268) offers a characteristic quote from a sermon on Job; predestination then, in some respects, a particular
application of providence (Wendel, 178).

20
Tracts 3:135; Bondage, 159-10, 179, 199.
 6

Calvin wishes to secure salvation entirely as God’s doing and for this purpose promotes these

ideas of God’s hidden and secret election;21 God is neither arbitrary nor unjust since he is the

reason and the law to and in himself, and these things of higher order remain mysterious to

the human beings.22 This too, in Calvin’s mind, should produce humility in the Christians.

But his secrecy quality is colored with ambivalence and incompleteness. Calvin insisted on

the usefulness of “this doctrine” and that it bears “very sweet fruit” (Inst., 3.21.1), so it is

knowable and should be (contra some less daring Reformers, like Melanchthon) a matter of

apprehension for God’s people as preached truthfully, as Calvin defined the latter.23 At the

same time the reformer warned against the attempts – which he himself seems to have

provoked – to scrutinize the mind of God in such a way as to arrive to some complete

unambiguous explanation of the uncomfortable or controversial points within the doctrine.24

Charles Partee noted fairly that the appeal to hiddenness and secrecy actually bares the

incomprehensibility of Calvin’s position on “double predestination.”25

The reason for the proper inquiry into this truth is that it gives the believer the

necessary assurance for God’s election has the unchanging power and is irreversible. But the

assurance of salvation derives not from God’s secret decree per se but as we gaze upon Christ

21
Concerning Eternal Predestination, 7; Partee, 76.

22
Concern Eternal Predestination, 13-14, and Inst. III.24.13.

23
Inst. (1536), 59-60; Calvin’s Tracts and Treatises, 3:135-136, 155.

24
“We should not foolishly meddle in the secret decisions of God” (Inst. (1536), 59-60);
Tracts, 3:135, 155.

25
Charles Partee, Calvin and Classical Philosophy (Leiden: Brill, 1977), 76-77.
 7

in whom eternal life is offered to us and through faith in him we have access to God’s

Kingdom.

It is an uneasy task to present Calvin’s doctrine of election/predestination

briefly and comprehensively. The above summary lists several principal and distinctive

facets of Calvin’s view that draw one’s attention as they are compared against the concerns

and views of the previous times.

Brief overview of medieval views on election/predestination before Calvin (and other

Reformers)

One could wish that Calvin had more often and clear identified sources and

directions from which impetuses and challenges came to him in the area of the doctrine of

election.26 Certainly Augustine, the most prominent shaper of the views on providence,

predestination, and election among the church fathers, is one and is often identified by

Calvin. But what happened in this regard between the anti-Pelagian controversy in the late 4th

and early 5th centuries, and the evangelical and protestant Reformations of the 16th centuries?

Certain aspects of Augustin’s doctrine27 found its homage, to a varied extent,

in the minds of a chain of thinkers up to the time of the Reformation. Luther, Zwingli, and

Calvin, generally speaking, embraced Augustine’s doctrine, although not without

considerable disagreements among each other. What brought Calvin (not to neglect the other

26
“Anyone who has ever tried to trace Calvin’s relationship to his sources knows how
difficult it is and how few clues Calvin himself provides” (Steinmetz, Calvin in Context, 40); “If there is a
problem about the sources of Luther’s thought, still more is there a problem about those of Calvin’s, were it
only that of determining what rightly belongs to him” (Wendel, 122).

27
As presented in A Treatise on the Predestination of the Saints, the stress in the doctrine
falls on massa damnata, God’s self-initiated (sovereign) and free (gracious, undeserved) bestowal of the initial
faith, all consequent blessings, and holiness as a gift for the elect, not the cause of election. His main concern
seems to be that sinful human beings must not arrogantly assume that they can be hope for themselves.
 8

two of the triad of the great reformers but to recognize his role in the factual subsequent

development of the Protestant soteriology) to crystallize the doctrine of the divine election

and predestination the way he did? What were the deviations from Augustine’s view, and

what aspects, on the other hand, were promoted in the centuries before Calvin to which he

responded based on his study of the Bible?

Augustine

Augustine confesses that he once believed that the faith by which we believe

and so obtain the gifts of God “is in us from ourselves” and that God chooses those whom he

foreknows to have faith.28 Pelagius, the opponent of Augustine, took this approach to an

extreme teaching that salvation depended upon human works and obedience to the

commands done out of one’s free will. Ideas of this kind – that some human will or efforts

have some part to play in obtaining salvation and grace – seem to have made its way into the

theological systems of the medieval thinkers, particularly nominalism, in their time

confronted by the reformers.

In brief, Augustine impacted Calvin in elevating God’s role in redemption and

in such aspects as double predestination,29 Christological outlook,30 the corrupting power of

28
On the Predestination, 7.

29
Though this is debated based on whether Calvin interpreted Augustin correctly. See e.g.,
On the Gift of Perseverance, 35; see also R. M. Kingdon, “Augustine and Calvin” in F. LeMoine and C.
Kleinhenz, eds., Saint Augustine the Bishop: A Book of Essays (New York/London: Garland, 1994), 177-178.

30
On the Gift of Perseverance, 24.67, and Inst. 3.22.1.
 9

original sin and the corresponding limitation of the human will,31 secrecy/hiddenness of

what’s outside of Scripture.32 Calvin believed that his teaching on God’s election was

traditional, that is Augustinian.33 However, there is a notable difference: while Augustine

(who did hold double predestination in the later writings) remained infralapsarian, as many

typically after him, Calvin went further and developed a supralapsarian double

predestination.

Early Middle Ages and the Gottschalk Controversy in the Ninth Century

While in the Dark Ages the Augustinian view of predestination could be

detected only occasionally and partially,34 at the dawn of the Middle Ages with the revival of

philosophy there was a more observable interest in it. The better known proponent of the

Augustinian view at that time was Gottschalk who proposed predestination which seemed

characterized by a deterministic tone, intermingled with the divine providence in the sense of

total determination of all things in the world, and disregarding the human will.35 Gottschalk

radically applied the theology of Augustine, producing a two-fold predestination, and

31
See Timothy George, Theology of the Reformers (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1988),
222. Still, Calvin departed in a more radical direction qualifying the fallen human nature; see e.g., discussion in
Hunter, 105.

32
Inst. 3.21.2.

33
Partee, Theology, 7.

34
Francis X. Gumerlock, “Predestination in the century before Gottschalk (Part 1),” EQ 81:3
(2009), 196. Fabius Claudius Gordianus Fulgentius (d. 533) wrote against Pelagian views; Gregory the Great (d.
604) modified Augustinian in favor of cooperation with grace; Isidore of Seville (d.636) expressed
predestination in a quite deterministic mode. A characteristic quote by Gottschalk from Isidore’s Sentences
(2.6.1-6) is given in Genke and Gumerlock, Gottschalk, 103.

35
Victor Genke and Francis X. Gumerlock, eds., Gottschalk and a Mediaeval Predestination
Controversy (MPTT 47; Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 2010), 103-104, 107-155, 159-168.
 10

claimed that his view was representative of Christian orthodoxy; he supported his views by

referring, apart from Augustine, to thinkers of the six and seven centuries.36 Francis

Gumerlock has shown that, contrary to a conventional assessment, Gottschalk was not a

theological maverick in his adherence to the views established by Augustine; in fact a

significant number of church leaders in various historical-theological contexts propounded

views of that sort although the majority of the church by the 9th century had gone semi-

Pelagian.37 Gottschalk’s critics were primarily concerned with the role of the free will in

salvation. 38 His main opponent was John Scotus Eriugena with his speculative treatise On

Divine Predestination which in the one hand united Gottschalk’s persecutors, but on the

other hand was itself condemned later by two councils (Valence, 855, and Langres, 859).39

Gottschalk’s advocate Bishop Prudentius of Troyes responded to Eriugena with his De

Praedestinatione.

More details about the views on election/predestination in these times could

be listed here if they had significance for Calvin. However, it is unlikely that Calvin (as well

as other Reformers) were familiar with Gottschalk and his endorsing of predestination as his

36
Gumerlock, “Predestination (Part 1),” EQ 81:3 (2009), 196.

37
Gumerlock, “Predestination (Part 1),” acquaints the reader with proponents of the
preeminence of grace in salvation as Ambrose Autpert (d. 781), Alquin of York (d. 804), and Agobard of
Lyons; they should rather be taken as semi-Augustinian “because they do not reiterate the concepts of
irresistible grace or the limiting of God’s salvific will to the predestined, as Augustine did” (209) and Francis X.
More instances of predestinarian interests are listed in F. Gumerlock, “Predestination in the century before
Gottschalk (Part 2),” EQ 81:4 (2009): 319-337.

38
See summary of their opposition and relevant writings of Rabanus Maurus, Hincmar of
Reims, and others in Genke and Gumerlock, Gottschalk, 29-31, 38-41, Part II; Gumerlock, “Predestination,”
196-197.

39
See Wayne Hankey, review of Mary Brennan, ed. and trans., John Scottus Eriugena:
Treatise on Divine Predestination (NDTMl Culture, Vol 5. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press,
1998), viewed http://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/tmr/article/view/14996/21114
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scottus-eriugena/#1.2
 11

arguments are not characterized by similitude with those of the Reformers and his writings

did not see light until 1631 when they were published by James Ussher.40 Whether Calvin

was aware and made use of any aspect of the ninth century controversy cannot be answered

in this brief review. Among similarities with the later scholars one could mention the issue of

grace and nature later addressed by both Aquinas and Calvin, and the distinction between the

elect and the reprobate within the church (including limited redemption).41

Late Middle Ages: Aquinas, Duns Scotus, and others

Thomas Aquinas adhered to the Augustinian tradition and was consulted by

Calvin in many instances. His view (also a common scholastic opinion) has been called

“single particular election” thesis. But he was concerned whether election is the sole origin of

grace or in some cooperation with human merit,42 and so “modified Augustine’s denial of

free will by allowing a place for co-operation with the grace of God.”43 While Aquinas

rejects the ideas of predestination based on foreseen merits (seemingly a popular idea) he

resolves that “God pre-ordained to give glory on account of merit, and that He pre-ordained

to give grace to merit glory” (Summa, I. Q. 23, a. 5). The “whole of predestination,” which

envisages and sanctions a role of human merit in the interaction between the first and

40
Francis X. Gumerlock, “Gottschalk of Orbais: A Medieval Predestinarian,” Kerux 22:3
(2007), n.p., online http://www.kerux.com/kerux/doc/2203A4.asp ; Genke and Gumerlock, Gottschalk, 7-8.

41
See Gumerlock and Genke, 107-116, where Gottschalk discusses grace and nature, and
several chapters against the redemption (of anyone) through baptism, on the redemption of only the elect (120-
135); “…the Lord God by no means suffered for the reprobate world, for which he did not deign to pray” (121).

42
Summa I. Q. 23; Inst. 3.21.9, where Calvin criticizes the “sophistry of Thomas.”

43
Cornelius P. Venema, “Predestination” in Ian A. McFarland, et all, eds., The Cambridge
Dictionary of Christian Theology (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 406.
 12

secondary causes, proceeds from “the goodness of God” as “its reason” and “its first moving

principle” (ibid). Aquinas does not accept reprobation (and hence double predestination),

“for nobody reprobates what he loves” (Summa I. Q23, a. 3).44

Calvin was impacted by Martin Bucer, and historians asked the question

whether Bucer, as a former Dominican, retained insights shaped by Aquinas, and whether

Calvin shared a common school tradition which was incepted in Augustine.45 It can be

affirmed, that these three thinkers were adherents of Augustine, but except for the issue of

reprobation.46 Indeed, Calvin refutes Thomas’s position (“this quibble of Thomas”) by

insisting that election is from the goodness of God alone, apart from any involvement of

human merit, and that predestination to glory precedes predestination to grace (Inst. 3.22.9).

Although on a number of important points Calvin is in agreement with Aquinas,47 it is more

adequate to conclude that they share independently a common Augustinian heritage rather

than a common theological tradition.48

44
Aquinas allows the use of the term “reprobation” but only to mean the man’s turning aside
from the positive end of predestination which (the apostasy) Providence permits; this way both salvation and
destruction proceed from God’s goodness and love (I. Q23, a. 3).

45
Steinmetz, Calvin in Context, 139-140.

46
Steinmetz observes: “If the question of reprobation is set aside, it would be difficult to find
three more vigorous exponents of an Augustinian reading of Romans 9 than Thomas Aquinas, Martin Bucer,
and John Calvin” (Calvin in Context, 150).

47
Charles Partee, “Predestination in Aquinas and Calvin,” RR 32:1 (1978), 14; Steinmetz,
150.

48
Steinmetz, 150. Partee notes that some scholars see a “substantial dichotomy” and others
“no real difference between Thomas and Calvin” (“Predestination,” 14); he also concludes: “…there are critical
differences between Thomas and Calvin in the general intellectual frame-work from which they approach the
doctrine of predestination and in the form and content of their discussion of it” (21).
 13

John Duns Scotus taught that predestination cannot be conditioned by God’s

foreknowledge of good human actions simply because God knows all future actions in the

sense that he determined them. So God in fact predestined some people to salvation prior to

his knowing of their actions. Scotus, like Aquinas, rejects the idea that God wills anyone’s

damnation except when it is based on the person’s actions in which case it can be said to be

just.49 Here we recall one important difference from Calvin who says that God is justice, or

law, within himself and the reason for damnation is not in man’s actions. Thus Scotus

avoided double predestination. However he did admit that God wills man’s actions on the

basis of which the man is damned; God first refrains from willing salvation and then wills the

actions which become the basis for damnation.50 Where Calvin sided with Scotus is on the

question of predestination first to glory and only then to grace rather than vise-versa as held

by Aquinas. Calvin also shared the basic premise that the divine election does not depend on

the foreknowledge of good works or even good use of grace.51

Petrus Aureoli and William of Ockham represent a non-Augustinian reasoning

on election that competed with Aquinas and Scotus. Aureoli proposed the thesis of general

election (vs. single particular election) whereby the cause of predestination lies in the elect

themselves; it is up to man to respond to and not place obstacles to the activity of God’s

grace. And since all are encompassed within God general will of salvation the predestination

of the elect is conditional on God’s foreseeing of their merits; the reprobate are denied

49
This summary is based on Richard Cross’s analysis of Scotus’s teaching on predestination
in Duns Scotus (NY/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 101-103.

50
Cross, 102.

51
Steinmetz, Calvin in Context, 256.
 14

salvation based on God’s foreseeing of their resistance to grace.52 He seemed to revive basic

Pelagian views and influenced Willian of Ockham and, in turn, a most prominent

representative of the latter’s (nominalist) school, Gabriel Biel.53

Gregory of Rimini reacted to Aureoli by advocating not only the scholastic

thesis of single particular election but double predestination whereby God positively,

antecedently, and unconditionally will both the salvation of the elect and the damnation of

the reprobate.54 Likewise Thomas Bradwardine attacked Aureoli and defended Augustinian

predestination as “the preparation of grace” and theological determinism.55

John Wycliffe sought to utilize the Augustinian and Scholastic formulations of

predestination for the purpose of church reform. “This he did most explicitly by defining the

church as the congregation of the predestined rather than the institution governed by the

pope.”56 This definition was advocated later by Calvin as well as Wycliffe’s propositions on

the limited scope of redemption (Christ came only for and addressed his message only to the

predestined) and double predestination where God is the cause of both salvation and

damnation, and man plays only a passive role in both.57 Again, in spite of similarities in the

52
See James L. Halverson, Peter Aureol on Predestination: A Challenge to Late Medieval
Thought (SHCT 83; Leiden: Brill, 1998).

53
Denis R. Janz, “Late Medieval Theology” in The Cambridge companion to John Calvin
(Cambridge University Press, 2004), 11-12.

54
Halverson, 172-174; a helpful summary is offered in Alexander S. Rosenthal, Crown
Under Law: Richard Hooker, John Locke, and the Ascent of Modern Constitutionalism (Lanham, MD:
Lexington Books, 2008), 26-28.

55
Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine.
Reformation of Church and Dogma, vol. 4 (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1984), 31-32.

56
Pelikan, 32.

57
Pelikan, 32.
 15

viewpoints of Calvin and his Augustinian predecessors, any influence of these men on the

16th century reformer is hard to demonstrate. At the same time it is clear what opposite trends

were Calvin to confront when his time came.

The Mystics of the late Medieval Ages

Bernard of Clairvaux held a strongly Augustinian predestinationist view and

professed such Augustinian elements as the need for grace on the part of the sinful human

being to be saved and live rightly. But “he never follows this line of argument through to the

point of saying that good works are things indifferent to God or man”; in fact, “to do good

works, benefits one’s chance of heaven, pleases God, earns merit in his eyes.”58 That betrays

the Scholastic influence. Calvin used Bernard with relative frequency (15 times in Inst.

[1559]), including one identified quote on the doctrine of predestination, but does so

selectively, where the mystic is useful to prove a point.59

There were other thinkers who were influence by Augustine’s doctrine of

election, such as English mystics of the 14-15th centuries as Richard Rolle and Julian of

Norwich. Rolle incorporated Paul’s teaching as understood in the Augustinian way in his

system of achieving supreme holiness through a contemplative life; he believed himself and

others who follow his model to be the elect and thus holy, Christ-like, and thus authoritative,

58
C. R. Evans, Bernard of Clairvaux (NY/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 132.

59
Evans quotes Bernard, “to be ‘in the net’ of the Church is not to be sure of heaven” (from
On Conversion X.20), cf. Inst. 3.21.1: “How is it that the church becomes manifest to us from this, when, as
Bernard rightly teaches, “it could not otherwise be found or recognized among creatures, since it lies
marvelously hidden... both within the bosom of a blessed predestination and within the mass of a miserable
condemnation?” See A. N. S. Lane, John Calvin: Student of the Church Fathers (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker,
1999) 97, 100-101.
 16

and subjects to judgment only from God.60 His view included that human faith is included in

God’s plan of salvation and that the number of the saved (to be Christ like) is determined by

God’s election.61 Still there is a subtly prescribed role for the disposition of man’s heart with

which God’s ordination of thing is in cooperation.62

Calvin and voices from the past

All interest in and emphasis on the divine sovereign, unconditional, and secret

election/predestination as Calvin defended it is demonstrably rooted in St. Augustine. It is

debated whether such a doctrine was held by the church in any form before Augustine; it is

only fair to say that it is not attested sufficiently in the early patristic writings.63 It has been

asserted that Calvin drew his doctrine from Paul and Jesus but one must admit that the

scriptural data does not explicitly provide necessary information for a doctrine of

election/predestination like Calvin’s and he couldn’t produce it without the philosophical

engagement, which was initially certainly started by Augustine. It seems that Calvin’s

60
Frank Shon, “Richard Rolle and the Medieval Doctrine of Election,” DR 122:429 (2004):
235-258. This seeming arrogance may have been a “response of a radical conservative reasserting the
theological outlook of an earlier era in the face of present uncertainty and confusion” (254).

61
Shon, 237; also Ray C. Petry, ed., Late Medieval Mysticism (LCC; Louisville, KY:
Westminster, 1957), 41.

62
“The higher path is given to him that is ordained from eternity to love Christ more, not
because he works more than others, or gives more or suffers more, but because he loves more. Which love is
heat and sweetness, and it seeks rest in all men” (from Rolle’s Mending of Life, chapter VIII “Of Mediation,” in
Petry, 232).

63
While defenders of Calvinism tend to see indications of certain Augustinian ideas in
………, the critique of Vincent of Lérins (who saw himself so: “I should put down in writing the things which I
have truthfully received from the holy Fathers,” A Commonitory 1.1) may testify against claims that
Augustine’s views were orthodox. Vincent perceived the truth as that which rests on “the authority of the
Divine Law” and “then … the tradition of the Catholic church” (1.4, 5) and he seems to find nothing like
Augustine’s views (though probably misinterpreted at some points) in the latter. Vincent’s criticism is also
interesting in view of the fact that he listed Pelagius, Augustin’s foe, among the heretics as well.
 17

contemporaries – Luther, Zwingli, Bucer, Vermigli – did not teach the Genevan reformer any

principal things in regards to election/predestination but they themselves drew upon the

heritage left by the bishop of Hippo.

As this humble survey has attempted to show, Calvin had to solidify one of

the two primary theological positions, both stemming from the Augustinian-Pelagian

controversy. Through the centuries one line of though concentrated on God’s determining

will, his absolute predestining and electing initiative in saving a limited number of sinners

regardless of their merits or demerits. However there were differing opinions among the

representatives of this position concerning the reprobation of those not elected for salvation.

Calvin, so it seems, did not know or made no explicit use of the advocates of the hard version

of predestination (which both to salvation and damnation) from the early and later Middle

Ages like Gottschalk and Gregory of Rimini; neither was formative his use of the pro-

Augustinian-minded mystics. For hard predestination Calvin went straight to Augustine and

by the authority of the latter insisted on the orthodoxy of his own developing view.

At the same time he interacted to some extent with the great scholastic minds

of later Middle Ages, like Aquinas and John Duns Scotus, who integrated into their versions

of predestination the idea of cooperation of God’s grace with human will and who avoided

double predestination thus risking, in Calvin’s mind, to deprive God of his exclusive

sovereign rights to decide and to save. In this case Calvin sought to harden this semi-

Augustinian elaboration and rescue predestination from any shadow of nominalism, like that

of Aureoli, Ockham, and Biel, which gives men even a slightest chance to claim merit. This

latter logic belongs to the other, alternative position, which since Pelagius, through his

followers (Celestius, Julian of Eclanum) and later likewise-minded thinkers (John Cassian,
 18

Vincent of Lérins, Eriugena, named above scholastics), made its way into the 16th century to

occupy the minds of Calvin’s opponents such as Pighius, Sadoleto, and others.

Calvin’s great mind preoccupied with the philosophical framework while

studying Scripture and with the agenda to refute the nominalist human-centeredness, even at

the cost of his own system becoming ultimately incomprehensible, produced a doctrine that

at certain points could not tolerate more mild position of Bucer and Melanchthon, otherwise

his respected partners in the conversation. Wendel characterizes the great reformer: “…the

peculiar bent of Calvin’s mind” as observed by the historians, “a mind more constructive

than imaginative, interested in the humanist erudition rather than in making original

discoveries.”64 He has been characterized as a careful biblical exegete; yet at the same time

he studied and interpreted Scripture not “as a disinterested scientist” but as “a reader of St.

Augustine and of Luther, ever preoccupied to find confirmation of his own dogmatic

positions.”65 To conclude on a positive note, one thing is certain: Calvin, by his own

hardening of already existing ideas, succeeded in refuting any human role and in elevating

God’s prerogative in salvation so that the church may now approach God in a truly more

worshipful way. Such was his task urgent for the time and he accomplished it. Still the search

for formulations of the doctrine of election that is better qualified as biblical should continue.

64
Wendel, 122.

65
Wendell, 123.
 19

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