2.2.6-2.2.9 Augustine and Others on Free Will

Those of you who follow Coffee With Calvin on Facebook got to read some lively conversation about free will, total depravity, and early church fathers yesterday and today.  I am going to start discussing today's reading from the end because Calvin speaks directly about some of these early church fathers.

2.2.9 starts off reading, "Perhaps I may seem to have brought a great prejudice upon myself when I confess that all ecclesiastical writers, except Augustine, have spoken so ambiguously or variously on this matter [free will] than nothing certain can be gained from their writings."  Calvin does not wholly agree with Augustine or any other earlier theologian on the concept of the will.  Calvin does come around to acknowledge that even though much of these theologians' writings are ambiguous, all of them discount man's virtue and place an emphasis on the grace that comes from God.  No matter what our view is on the details of free will, understanding that all good comes to us through the grace of God is a universal Christian truth that we all can cling to.

Going back to the beginning of today's reading, Calvin says, "...free will is not sufficient to enable man to do good works, unless he be helped by grace, indeed by special grace, which only the elect receive through regeneration.  For I do not tarry over those fanatics who babble that grace is equally and indiscriminately distributed."  He then goes into a discussion about another theologian's idea that there is "operating" and "co-operating" grace which the former gives us the will to do good and the latter gives us aid in doing good.  Calvin dismisses this idea then several other ideas which have arisen about the will and grace since the church fathers.

In the next short section Calvin tells us that man has "free decision, not because he has free choice equally of good and evil, but because he acts wickedly by will, not by compulsion."  But it is wrong in Calvin's mind to call this willingness to sin "free will" because that would expand its meaning. 

Calvin dedicates 2.2.8 to Augustine's doctrine of free will.  Augustine believed that without God's grace, there is no free will.  We are a slave to sin.  Augustine wrote, "...without the Spirit man's will is not free, since it has been laid under by shackling and conquering desires."  Calvin writes, "Likewise, when the will was conquered by the vice into which it had fallen, human nature began to lose its freedom.  Again, man, using free will badly, has lost both himself and his will.  Again, the free will has been so enslaved that it can have no power for righteousness.  Again, what God's grace has not freed will not be free.  Again, the justice of God is not fulfilled when the law so commands, and man acts as if by his own strength; but when the Spirit helps, and man's will, not free, but freed by God, obeys." 

I love those last two lines that Calvin wrote.  "Again, what God's grace has not freed will not be free.  Again, the justice of God is not fulfilled when the law so commands, and man acts as if by his own strength; but when the Spirit helps, and man's will, not free, but freed by God, obeys."  God is sovereign.  God is in control of all things.  If His grace does not free us, we will not be free.  But, if His Spirit helps, then our will, freed by God, shall obey.


Tomorrow's reading: 2.2.10-2.2.12