Calvin's Institutes

Section: 1.18.1-2

CHAPTER XVIII

GOD SO USES THE WORKS OF THE UNGODLY, AND SO BENDS THEIR MINDS TO CARRY OUT HIS JUDGMENTS, THAT HE REMAINS PURE FROM EVERY STAIN

1. No mere “permission”!

From other passages, where God is said to bend or draw Satan himself and all the wicked to his will, there emerges a more difficult question. For carnal sense can hardly comprehend how in acting through them he does not contract some defilement from their transgression, and even in a common undertaking can be free of all blame, and indeed can justly condemn his ministers. Hence the distinction was devised between doing and permitting because to many this difficulty seemed inexplicable, that Satan and all the impious are so under God’s hand and power that he directs their malice to whatever end seems good to him, and uses their wicked deeds to carry out his judgments. And perhaps the moderation of those whom the appearance of absurdity alarms would be excusable, except that they wrongly try to clear God’s justice of every sinister mark by upholding a falsehood. It seems absurd to them for man, who will soon be punished for his blindness, to be blinded by God’s will and command. Therefore they escape by the shift that this is done only with God’s permission, not also by his will; but he, openly declaring that he is the doer, repudiates that evasion. However, that men can accomplish nothing except by God’s secret command, that they cannot by deliberating accomplish anything except what he has already decreed with himself and determines by his secret direction, is proved by innumerable and clear testimonies. What we have cited before from the psalm, that God does whatever he wills [Ps. 115:3], certainly pertains to all the actions of men. If, as is here said, God is the true Arbiter of wars and of peace, and this without any exception, who, then, will dare say that men are borne headlong by blind motion unbeknown to God or with his acquiescence?

But particular examples will shed more light. From the first chapter of Job we know that Satan, no less than the angels who willingly obey, presents himself before God [Job 1:6; 2:1] to receive his commands. He does so, indeed, in a different way and with a different end; but he still cannot undertake anything unless God so wills. However, even though a bare permission to afflict the holy man seems then to be added, yet we gather that God was the author of that trial of which Satan and his wicked thieves were the ministers, because this statement is true: “The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away; as it has pleased God, so is it done” [Job 1:21, Vg. (p.)]. Satan desperately tries to drive the holy man insane; the Sabaeans cruelly and impiously pillage and make off with another’s possessions. Job recognizes that he was divinely stripped of all his property, and made a poor man, because it so pleased God. Therefore, whatever men or Satan himself may instigate, God nevertheless holds the key, so that he turns their efforts to carry out his judgments. God wills that the false King Ahab be deceived; the devil offers his services to this end; he is sent, with a definite command, to be a lying spirit in the mouth of all the prophets [I Kings 22:20, 22]. If the blinding and insanity of Ahab be God’s judgment, the figment of bare permission vanishes: because it would be ridiculous for the Judge only to permit what he wills to be done, and not also to decree it and to command its execution by his ministers.

The Jews intended to destroy Christ; Pilate and his soldiers complied with their mad desire; yet in solemn prayer the disciples confess that all the impious ones had done nothing except what “the hand and plan” of God had decreed [Acts 4:28, cf. Vg.]. So Peter had already preached that “by the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, Christ had been given over” to be killed [Acts 2:23, cf. Vg.]. It is as if he were to say that God, to whom from the beginning nothing was hidden, wittingly and willingly determined what the Jews carried out. As he elsewhere states: “God, who has foretold through all his prophets that Christ is going to suffer, has thus fulfilled it” [Acts 3:18, cf. Vg.]. Absalom, polluting his father’s bed by an incestuous union, commits a detestable crime [II Sam. 16:22]; yet God declares this work to be his own; for the words are: “You did it secretly; but I will do this thing openly, and in broad daylight” [II Sam. 12:12 p.]. Jeremiah declared that every cruelty the Chaldeans exercised against Judah was God’s work [Jer. 1:15; 7:14; 50:25, and passim]. For this reason Nebuchadnezzar is called God’s servant [Jer. 25:9; cf. ch. 27:6]. God proclaims in many places that by his hissing [Isa. 7:18 or 5:26], by the sound of his trumpet [Hos. 8:1], by his authority and command, the impious are aroused to war [cf. Zeph. 2:1]. The Assyrian he calls the rod of his anger [Isa. 10:5 p.], and the ax that he wields with his hand [cf. Matt. 3:10]. The destruction of the Holy City and the ruin of the Temple he calls his own work [Isa. 28:21]. David, not murmuring against God, but recognizing him as the just judge, yet confesses that the curses of Shimei proceeded from His command [II Sam. 16:10]. “The Lord,” he says, “commanded him to curse.” [II Sam. 16:11.] We very often find in the Sacred History that whatever happens proceeds from the Lord, as for instance the defection of the ten tribes [I Kings 11:31], the death of Eli’s sons [I Sam. 2:34], and very many examples of this sort. Those who are moderately versed in the Scriptures see that for the sake of brevity I have put forward only a few of many testimonies. Yet from these it is more than evident that they babble and talk absurdly who, in place of God’s providence, substitute bare permission-as if God sat in a watchtower awaiting chance events, and his judgments thus depended upon human will.

2. How does God’s impulse come to pass in men?

As far as pertains to those secret promptings we are discussing, Solomon’s statement that the heart of a king is turned about hither and thither at God’s pleasure [Prov. 21:1] certainly extends to all the human race, and carries as much weight as if he had said: “Whatever we conceive of in our minds is directed to his own end by God’s secret inspiration.” And surely unless he worked inwardly in men’s minds, it would not rightly have been said that he removes speech from the truthful, and prudence from the old men [Ezek. 7:26]; that he takes away the heart of the princes of the earth so they may wander in trackless wastes [Job 12:24; cf. Ps. 107:40; 106:40, Vg.]. To this pertains what one often reads: that men are fearful according as dread of him takes possession of their minds [Lev. 26:36]. So David went forth from Saul’s camp without anyone’s knowing it, because the sleep of God had overtaken them all. [I Sam. 26:12.] But one can desire nothing clearer than where he so often declares that he blinds men’s minds [Isa. 29:14], smites them with dizziness [cf. Deut. 28:28; Zech. 12:4], makes them drunk with the spirit of drowsiness [Isa. 29:10], casts madness upon them [Rom. 1:28], hardens their hearts [Ex. 14:17 and passim]. These instances may refer, also, to divine permission, as if by forsaking the wicked he allowed them to be blinded by Satan. But since the Spirit clearly expresses the fact that blindness and insanity are inflicted by God’s just judgment [Rom. 1:20-24], such a solution is too absurd. It is said that he hardened Pharaoh’s heart [Ex. 9:12], also that he made it heavy [ch. 10:1] and stiffened it [chs. 10:20, 27; 11:10; 14:8]. By this foolish cavil certain ones get around these expressions, for while it is said elsewhere that Pharaoh himself made heavy his own heart [Ex. 8:15, 32; 9:34], God’s will is posited as the cause of hardening. As if these two statements did not perfectly agree, although in divers ways, that man, while he is acted upon by God, yet at the same time himself acts! Moreover, I throw their objection back upon them: for if “to harden” denotes bare permission, the very prompting to obstinacy will not properly exist in Pharaoh. Indeed, how weak and foolish would it be to interpret this as if Pharaoh only suffered himself to be hardened! Besides, Scripture cuts off any occasion for such cavils. “I will restrain,” says God, “his heart.” [Ex. 4:21.] Thus, also, concerning the dwellers in the Land of Canaan, Moses said they had come forth to battle because God stiffened their hearts [Josh. 11:20; cf. Deut. 2:30]. The same thing is repeated by another prophet, “He turns their hearts to hate his people” [Ps. 105:25]. Likewise in Isaiah, He declares that he will send the Assyrians against the deceitful nation and will command them “to take spoil and seize plunder” [Isa. 10:6]-not because he would teach impious and obstinate men to obey him willingly, but because he will bend them to execute his judgments, as if they bore his commandments graven upon their hearts; from this it appears that they had been impelled by God’s sure determination.

I confess, indeed, that it is often by means of Satan’s intervention that God acts in the wicked, but in such a way that Satan performs his part by God’s impulsion and advances as far as he is allowed. An evil spirit troubles Saul; but it is said to have come from God [I Sam. 16:14], that we may know that Saul’s madness proceeds from God’s just vengeance. Also, it is said that the same Satan “blinds the minds of unbelievers” [II Cor. 4:4]; but whence does this come, unless the working of error flows from God himself [II Thess. 2:11], to make those believe lies who refuse to obey the truth? According to the former reason it is said, “If any prophet should speak in lies, I, God, have deceived him” [Ezek. 14:9]. According to the second reason, he himself is indeed said to “give men up to an evil mind” [Rom. 1:28, cf. Vg.] and cast them into base desires [cf. Rom. 1:29]; because he is the chief author of his own just vengeance, while Satan is but the minister of it. But because we must discuss this matter again when we discourse in the Second Book concerning man’s free or unfree choice, it seems to me that I have now briefly said as much as the occasion calls for. To sum up, since God’s will is said to be the cause of all things, I have made his providence the determinative principle for all human plans and works, not only in order to display its force in the elect, who are ruled by the Holy Spirit, but also to compel the reprobate to obedience.