Chapter X: God is not the Cause of Sin
CHAPTER X: GOD IS NOT THE CAUSE OF SIN
§ 107. Although the providence of God concurs in the evil deeds of men in the seven ways we have listed, nevertheless God does not will nor command nor approve nor aid sin itself according as it is such, and much less does He force or drive people to it or impose upon them a necessity to sin by some immutable decree. Ps. 5:4: “You are not a God who wills wickedness.” 1 John 2:16: “What is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and the pride of life—is not from the Father.” Deut. 25:16: “All who do wickedness are an abomination to the Lord.” Zech. 8:17: “All these things I hate, says the Lord.” But now (Wisdom 11:24): “God hates none of those things of which He is the Creator.” 1 John 1:5: “God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.” Rom. 13:12: “Sins are the works of darkness.”
God is essentially and invariably good, and in this sense He is said to be “the only good” (Mark 10:18). However, such a good can by no means be the cause of evil, for a person who sins does not therefore say: “I did this at God’s impulse,” “for wicked men are not necessary to Him” (Ecclus. 15:12). Verse 20: “He has not commanded anyone to act wickedly, and He has not given anyone permission to sin.” Zeph. 3:5: “The Lord is righteous and does no wrong.”
§ 108. When Scripture discusses the cause of sin, it places it in the devil’s seduction and in man’s turning away from God, but never does it lead us to some hidden will of a God who drives us to sin. John 8:44: “When the devil lies, he speaks out of his own character (ἐκ τῶν ἰδίων).” Rom. 5:19: “By the one man’s disobedience (παρακοήν), the many were made sinners.” 2 Cor. 11:3: “The serpent deceived Eve.” 1 John 3:[8]: “Everyone who sins is of the devil.” Wisdom 2:24: “Through the devil’s envy,” (sin and) “death entered into the world.” Quite the contrary, God, the highest and most perfect good, hates and forbids sins, patiently awaits the conversion of sinners, wants the turning back of people, prepares a most precious antidote against sins in the death of His Son, and finally imposes eternal punishment on impenitent sinners. With what boldness, with what gall, then, can one say that God wills sins or drives people to them? Certainly, God is not the author of what He punishes.
§ 109. On the contrary, we must observe this very carefully: although the evil of punishment [malum poenae] (which properly and accurately speaking is not evil) may be from God, its prime and original cause is not in God but in us ourselves. To share His goodness, to be merciful and sparing, are the proper work of God, but the infliction of the evil of punishment is His “alien work” [opus alienum] (Isa. 28:21). Bernard says this beautifully (Sermon 5 in die nat., col. 60): “He is well-named the Father of mercies, whose nature is to be merciful and sparing always. That He shows mercy is His nature, for He takes from Himself the material and ‘seedbed,’ so to speak, of showing mercy. As to the fact that He judges and condemns us, in a sense we force Him so that His compassion proceeds from His heart in a way much different from the way that His punishment seems to proceed. The cause and origin of His mercy He takes from Himself, but that of judgment and revenge more so from us.” Gerson (De remed. pusil.): “According to the very true statement of Chrysostom, God grieves, so to speak, when He, because of His righteousness, must condemn a man because of his unrighteousness.”
As a result, it is correct to claim that the mercy of God shines forth even in the punishment itself: (1) Because He gives rewards beyond what we deserve [ultra condignum] but inflicts punishments less than what we deserve [infra condignum]. He always sharpens the sword of His wrath with the oil of mercy. (2) Lam. 3:31–33: “For the Lord will not cast off forever, but though He cause grief, He will have compassion according to the abundance of His mercies, for He does not willingly afflict or grieve the children of men.” (3) Because He punishes in such a way that people may convert and can become partakers of His goodness. Prosper (Epigr. super sentent. August.): “No work of God is without His mercy. Sometimes He acts in our interest with His forgiveness, and other times with His whip.” Consequently, Augustine (De libr. arbitr., bk. 3, ch. 25) says that the punishments of God are “corrective rather than killing.” In fact, “God reproves in order to correct, and He corrects in order to save” (Cyprian, bk. 4, Letter 4).
If, then, the evil of punishment has its first and original cause in us ourselves (since God is not an avenger unless a human being is first a sinner—Lam. 3:39: “Why should a living man complain? Why does he not rather complain because of his sins?”), how much less can the evil of fault [malum culpae] be ascribed to God, that highest and most perfect good, from whom only good can come?
Statements of the fathers on the cause of sin.
§ 110. The fathers teach with wonderful statements and even with entire treatises that God is by no means the cause of sin. Basil wrote a complete oration [entitled] “God Is Not the Author of Sin” [Quod Deus non sit auctor peccati]. Chrysostom says (on Acts, homily 23): “It is better that we be buried six hundred times than that God should hear from us such things as that He is the instigator of our evils.” Augustine (Ad art. sibi falso impos., art. 10) says: “We must hate and abominate the notion that God is the originator of any evil act or will.” Article 13: “Whenever someone falls away from righteousness and godliness, he is carried headlong by his own will; he is dragged by his own lust and deceived by his own persuasion. The Father has nothing to do with this nor does the Son nor does the Holy Spirit. God’s will plays no part in such business, for we know that by His power many are kept from falling, but none are driven to fall away.” Article 14: “It is impossible for someone to fall into such” (sin) “on account of Him through whom he rises from sin,” etc. Many more statements of this type occur in the writings of the fathers.
The statements of the Calvinists.
§ 111. Therefore may these burdensome words be far from the minds of the devout: “God drives the robber to kill an innocent person even if he is not ready for death” (Zwingli, De provid., vol. 1, f. 366, ch. 6). “By divine providence He created Esau for this purpose: that he should live and live wickedly” (Zwingli again, Elench. contra Catabapt., part 2, f. 36). “God foreknew what destruction a man would have before He created him, and He foreknew this because He ordered it that way with His own decree” (Calvin, Instit., bk. 3, ch. 23, sect. 7). “Because good as well as bad happens, these three things, then, have to be connected in both cases, namely, the eternal foreknowledge of God with His immutable will and decree” (Beza, Resp. ad colloq., part 2, p. 152).
Adam fell into sin by the ordinance of God. Why try to get around it? If God had simply not willed him to sin, he would not have sinned. Did something happen contrary to the will of God? He gave him the opportunity to sin when He gave the Law, which He knew he would not keep. He created the serpent and the devil to tempt him. He gave him a wife to entice him, and finally He permitted him to misuse his will. How, then, can one say that Adam fell contrary to the ordinance and predestination of God? Therefore we confess that Adam fell by the plan and will of God, etc. (Zanchi, De nat. Dei, bk. 5, ch. 2, p. 690.)
“God inclines and drives the will of the ungodly to serious sins” (Martyr, commen tary on Romans, f. 38).
Imagine that someone sees a blind man stumbling, unable not to fall, and can keep him from falling if he reaches out a hand to him and guides him, but he is unwilling to offer his hand to the blind man and thus allows him to fall. Tell me, please, who will not say that he wanted this accident for the blind man and caused the blind man to fall? Now, God is even more the cause of my sin than the man who refused to lead the blind man is the cause of the blind man’s fall; for God created and formed me in my mother’s womb with this corruption of my nature and with this necessity to sin. (Martin Bucer, on Romans 1.)
We could cite here more of the writings in favor of this position from those who follow Calvin, but we refer the reader back to the authors themselves.
§ 112. Later [§§ 117–35] we shall explain what one must respond to these foul and vulgar arguments by which they try to deceive. Here we must first examine the objections which they set against the statements of Scripture and against the arguments cited to confirm our position.
The objections against our arguments: First, the distinction between the hidden and the revealed will.
§ 113. Therefore some of them say: “The statements of Scripture which assert that God does not will sin must be understood as referring to His revealed will or the will of the sign,1 but not to His hidden will or the will of good-pleasure2” (thus Zanchi, De nat. Dei, bk. 3, ch. 4; Szegedinus, Loci, p. 232; and most recently Bucanus, Locus 14, p. 135).
We respond. In this way they set up contradictory wills in God, which conflicts with His utterly simple nature. Second, this distinction is not theological, since the source [principium] of theology is the Word of God. So let them prove that hidden will from the Word of God. Finally, we continue in this way: If there is one will of the sign and another of good-pleasure, what, I ask, does that will of the sign signify? Surely it is called the will of the sign because it signifies something and is a sign of the will in God. Therefore that which it signifies either will agree with the will of the sign or it will disagree. If the former is the case, it will follow that God wills with the will of good-pleasure. If the latter is true, it will signify falsely and thus the sign will be false. We know that the Scholastics employed this distinction, but they did so in a far different sense, for they add that it is “a distinction not of things but of vocabulary” (Thomas, [ST,] part 1, q. 19, art. 11; Biel, Sent., bk. 1, dist. 45, q. 1).
That God is not bound by the Law.
§ 114. Second, others say, “God is not bound by the Law, and thus evil acts are not sin with respect to Him” (thus Zwingli, De provid., ch. 6; Rennecher, Cat., p. 132).
We respond. Although God does not receive the Law from a superior, yet by His own nature He is good and righteous and has revealed this righteousness of His in the Law as in a mirror. For this reason Philipp says: “The Law is the rule of the eternal righteousness in God.” What to us is the Law is to God His nature. Therefore God does not act contrary to His nature; otherwise He would “deny Himself” (2 Tim. 2:[13]) and would “change” (Mal. 3:6). Therefore, because some evil acts are evil of themselves, those cannot become good by the addition of any circumstance (as even Aristotle proves in his Ethics). Such things cannot be attributed to God, who is αὐταγαθόν, goodness and righteousness themselves. Zwingli says: “The Law has not been imposed on God, because the Law is not imposed on a righteous person [1 Tim. 1:9].” We invert this. Insofar as a righteous person is righteous, he does not act contrary to the Law. Therefore God must not act contrary to the norm of righteousness revealed in the Law.
Furthermore, if evil acts are sins only by reason of a prohibitory command, it will follow that nothing is sin of itself and by its own nature. This can be understood by way of comparison. If a provincial magistrate publishes a purely civil law, having given consideration to circumstances, then if the supreme magistrate acts contrary to it, he commits no sin on his part because that was a crime only by reason of the command. But no one writes an unchangeable law for himself. Finally, in this way all sins will be equal, because there is the same kind of prohibition in both the least and the greatest of them.
That the cause of sin should be sought in the instrument.
§ 115. Third, others object: “Evil acts are sins according as they proceed from the evil will of wicked people, and thus the cause of the defect lies in the instrument” (Beza, Resp. ad colloq., part 2, pp. 184–85).
We respond. This does not proceed in the first sin of Adam because his will was not yet corrupt. So, then, I ask, was that evil will of man the first cause of sin? This they will not concede because they say that God drives people to these acts or those acts, even evil ones, by the necessity of His effective decree. Some say that people sin of their own accord because they sin willingly. Yet they add (note this carefully) that the will can turn itself only toward that direction to which God effectively turns it, even if it may have the aptitude to turn in any direction. Thus they make the determination of one’s willful impulse depend on the decree of God and not on man’s will. Beza writes this (Resp. ad colloq., part 2, p. 207): “Although they have this freedom, which is flexible toward either side, [and] servile and bound to sin on both sides, likewise they always voluntarily incline toward the side that God has determined from eternity, just as it seemed best to God to do, in order that they may be referred voluntarily to Him who grants efficacy to the spirit of error [cf. 2 Thess. 2:11] and to their lusts.” Zanchi (De nat. Dei, bk. 5, ch. 2, p. 744): “When the wicked sin, they sin knowingly, willingly, and with pleasure, so that if you want to restrain them from committing sin, they will soon become angry. Therefore, though you may not rightly say that they are forced to sin, nevertheless they still cannot do anything else and are bound to this by necessity because of the ordinance of God.”
That in sins God acts with a good purpose.
§ 116. Fourth, others object, such as Calvin (Instit. adv. Libert., ch. 14, p. 89): “Evil acts cannot be sins with respect to God because they are done with a good purpose: that He may exercise His own righteousness. On the other hand, men are incited to them by greed, ambition, and cruelty.”
We respond. This explanation is out of place in the first sin, which is especially the point in question. Second, I ask about the inordinate intent of man itself: Does it come from God or from the evil will of man? They are compelled to say the former, if they wish to defend the thesis. For Beza writes as follows (Resp. ad Castell., aphor. 2): “God acts through those instruments in such a way that He not only permits one to act through them and does not merely control the outcome, but even stirs up, impels, moves, controls, and, what is most important, even creates in order that through them He may do what He has decided.” Furthermore, not everything that is done with good intent is a good work, as is clear from the example of Saul (1 Samuel 15). Finally, not all sins of man proceed from an evil intent; many sins are committed in the guise and appearance of some good. “No one acts aiming toward evil,” Dionysius used to say.
The statements of Scripture which they quote to defend their case.
§ 117. Let us examine the statements of Scripture with which they try to cover up not just their error but also their insanity, in order that we may reach the true sense of those statements. You see, as concerns those ways in which they try to prove that our first parents were compelled to sin by the necessity of an effectual decree of God, we shall refute them in our commonplace on the fall of our first parents [On Original Sin (Commonplace XII), §§ 15–25]. Here, now, we shall free the testimonies of Scripture, which they cite in great number, from their corruptions.
The command concerning the sacrifice of Isaac, Genesis 22.
(I) “God commands Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac (Gen. 22:2). Surely the sacrifice of an innocent human being was a sin.”
We respond. (1) Moses clearly adds that this was a trial by which God wanted to test the faith and obedience of Abraham [cf. Gen. 22:1]. Therefore He did not permit Abraham actually to sacrifice his son. Rather, the same One who had commanded him to strike cried out that he should spare him [cf. Gen. 22:11–12]. The Scholastics say that there is a command of obedience, the doing of which God wants (as Exod. 20:3ff.); [there is also] a command of proving, where God does not will the very act but only a display of obedience, as in this passage; and, finally, there is a command of caution, where God does not forbid the act itself but only the empty glory which mixes with those acts.
(2) However, because God accepted the will of Abraham in place of the very deed, one must add that even if Isaac had been sacrificed because of the command of God, neither God nor Abraham is a murderer since the definition of homicide would not fit that act. An illustration can make this clear: If someone kills another person because of the just decree of a magistrate, one should by no means consider him a murderer. In the same way, Abraham would not have been considered a murderer, because he would not have handed his son over to death by his own authority or out of the impulse of wicked inclinations but by the command of the Most High King “before whom no one is innocent” (Exod. 34:7).
Joseph was sold by the will of God, Genesis 45.
§ 118. (II) In Gen. 45:8, Joseph says to his brothers: “I was not sent here by your planning but by the will of God”; and in Gen. 50:19: “Fear not. We cannot resist the will of God, can we?” Therefore it was the will and plan of God that the brothers sold Joseph. “By His impulse God directed their minds to do this, and He saw to it that they did not do otherwise,” as writes Musculus in his commentary on this passage.
We respond. (1) Joseph himself declares His intent correctly in Gen. 50:20: “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God turned it into good, just as you now see that by my work He keeps you alive in the time of famine.” Gen. 45:5 and 7: “God sent me before you into Egypt for your well-being. And God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to keep alive for you many survivors.” Therefore Joseph is not excusing the sin of his brothers, as if they perpetrated it on account of the will and counsel of God, but rather he is speaking about the miraculously governed outcome of his sending, through which the utterly wise and almighty God took what was wicked and despicable of itself and what He Himself hated very much and turned it into the salvation of many people. Consequently, we must not mix together a good work of God with the wicked work of men. Ambrose (De Joseph, ch. 12): “What a devout fraternity, what a sweet kinship, that even a parricidal crime is excused, saying that it had come from divine providence and not from human wickedness, because he was not offered into death by men but was sent to life by God!”
(2) The latter passage [Gen. 50:19] has not been translated correctly, for it reads as follows in Hebrew: 
,“for I am under God.” The Chaldean reads: “I am afraid from the face of God”; the Septuagint: τοῦ γὰρ θεοῦ εἰμι ἐγώ “I belong to God.” Calvin admits that this is the correct translation. Therefore the sense is: “I fear God and am subject to Him; therefore I shall not abuse my power to harm you nor to render you evil for evil.” Pagninus and Tremellius translated it: “Am I in the place of God?” Aquila: “For I am not God, am I?” Symmachus: “For I am not in the stead of God, am I?” The scholion: “For I am fearful of God.” The sense will be: “Because God has forgiven you your sins, I certainly shall not avenge the injustice you perpetrated.”
The hard-heartedness of Pharaoh is attributed to God.
§ 119. (III) “In Exod. 4:21, God is said to have hardened Pharaoh. He worked an inner hardness of heart in him.”
We respond. The outstanding theologian Rungius (commentary on Exodus) treats this hardness in detail and with vigor. We shall report some things from him here. There is a certain natural hardness (Ezek. 36:26) which still remains in part even in the reborn (Luke 24:25; Mark 16:14). There is another hardness that is acquired, by which people finally cannot perceive nor understand those things which they otherwise could understand naturally or perceive through the grace of the Holy Spirit. They cannot because they do not want to, and God justly punishes their wickedness. This hardness is attributed, primarily, to those to whom the will of God has been revealed in His Word. Some of these, initially reborn through the working of the Holy Spirit, later backslide (Heb. 6:5–6), but some never were in the assembly of the called but furiously resisted the Word of God when it was declared to them. Secondarily, and by analogy, it is attributed to the heathen who, contrary to God’s general revelation in nature and in their knowledge, furiously and willingly do what they know to be evil. To be sure, this hardness is attributed, first, to those people who obstinately and with willing malice oppose the truth which they know. Exod. 9:34: “Pharaoh kept hardening his heart.” Deut. 10:16: “Stiffen your necks no longer.” Jer. 5:3: “They have made their faces hard,” etc. Second, it is attributed to Satan, who causes the wicked to do more forcefully and to urge more strongly that which they were going to do willingly. 2 Cor. 4:4: “The god of this world has blinded the heart of unbelievers.” Third, it is attributed to God. Exod. 4:21: “I shall harden the heart of Pharaoh,” etc. Fourth, it is attributed to the prophets and apostles (Isa. 6:10, etc.).
Now, how God does this hardening must be explained carefully. The Manichaeans understood this to mean the evil god who effectually works the habit of badness in the hearts of people. Today there are some who argue that the good God effectually works that hardness in hearts; however, this is fundamentally opposed to the nature of God. Therefore the topic must be considered in this way. Hardening can be considered in three ways: First, as it is the greatest sin. Second, according as it is the cause of other sins. (In these respects it is not attributed to God.) Third, according as it is the punishment for earlier sins, and in this respect it is attributed to God.
But how does God punish hardness? Not only does He sustain the hard heart of man, foreknow its hardness, take away His grace from a person who obstinately and furiously opposes Him, and permit him to be carried along by his lusts, but He also surrenders such a person to Satan, by whom he is being effectually hardened. To this person who has been surrendered into the power of the devil He offers the Word and repeatedly presses it upon him. However, this causes nothing else but that the sinner becomes worse. In addition He postpones the punishments so that the person badly misuses the patience of God, leading to greater hardness. Finally, He shows even His justice in the punishment of the hardened. Therefore God does harden, not as the instigator of sin nor as an idle onlooker but as a truly just judge.
The fathers speak to this. Augustine (Letter 105): “God does not harden by imparting badness but by not imparting mercy.” Augustine again (83 QQ., q. 68): “Pharaoh, who deserved to be punished with the same punishments which he afflicted on the foreigners in his kingdom, was visited with a hardened heart so that he did not believe the obvious signs of God, who was commanding him.” And later: “Did Pharaoh not know how much good his lands received because of Joseph’s arrival? Therefore the awareness of that history was his calling to treat the people of Israel mercifully and not to be ungrateful. But because he was unwilling to heed this calling, but exercised cruelty against those to whom he owed mercy and kindness, he thus deserved the punishment that his heart be hardened and that he suffer such blindness of his mind,” etc. Chrysostom (on John 12, homily 68): “When He abandons a man, God surrenders him to the devil. After being brought into the devil’s power, he is afflicted with countless evils.” In short, God hardens some people not because of some absolute hatred but because of His most just judgment, which avenges their obstinacy. He does not harden through Himself by causing hardness in men’s hearts, but by abandoning them and surrendering them to Satan. This desertion of God is not excluded by [Hebrew] verbs in the Piel and Hiphil, which quite often must be explained permissively because of the subject matter, as Weigenmeier (Tab. gram.) shows from Deut. 20:16; Exod. 1:17; Job 39:19; and a great number of other passages.
The command regarding the theft from the Egyptians, Exodus 11.
§ 120. (IV) “In Exod. 11:3 [cf. Exod. 12:36], God commands the Israelites to take the jewelry loaned them by the Egyptians and to carry it off with them in their flight. Therefore He commanded what was sin with respect to the Israelites.”
We respond. Theft is defined ([Corpus Iuris Civilis], l. Furtum, ff. De furtis) as “the fraudulent appropriation of a thing for the sake of making a profit or for the sake of the thing itself, either to use it or to own it. This is forbidden by natural law.” Or, as they say elsewhere: “It is the appropriation of someone else’s property against the will of its owner.” However, this definition does not fit what the Israelites did: (1) Because they did not carry off the gold and silver of the Egyptians out of personal covetousness. Rather, the authority of the greatest magistrate, God Himself, was at work. Indeed, a person who takes another’s property by the authority of a judge is not a thief. (2) They took back the due compensation for their slave labors by which they had been unjustly subdued. However, it is not theft when the magistrate takes away from a debtor who refuses payment of his debt as many goods as are able to satisfy the creditor. (3) In fact, they did not take away that gold and silver jewelry against the will of the Egyptians, but “God gave the Israelites favor in the eyes of the Egyptians” [Exod. 12:36]. For this reason the word 
which means “theft” literally, is not used in the Hebrew, but 
“asked.” God, the true owner of all possessions and as victor over the Egyptians by right of war, distributed the spoils taken from the enemy to His servants. Augustine (Quaest. super Exod., bk. 2, q. 39): “The Israelites did not commit theft but offered their service to God when He commanded them.” Enarr. Psalm 104: “Through the Word of God, who saw their heart and examined their desires, the Israelites were permitted rather than ordered to do these things, but not without some profit to their carnal being; for they did it to those who suffered justly. And though they took from the unjust [Egyptians] by deceit, they were taking only what was owed them. For just as God divinely used the iniquity of the Egyptians, so also He used [the Israelites’] weakness to shape and foretell what was necessary in these events.” Vincentius (Spec. hist., bk. 3, ch. 6): “They despoiled the Egyptians by the permission of God as if for compensation for their wages, because they worked for so long without pay, and from these spoils were made the vestments and the tabernacle.”
The sons of Eli did not listen to their father because God wanted to kill them, 1 Samuel 2.
§ 121. (V) “In 1 Sam. 2:[25], Hophni and Phinehas did not want to listen to the voice of their father because the Lord wanted to kill them. Therefore with some secret hatred God incited them to their disobedience.”
We respond. (1) In this chapter, the sons of Eli are described as being “the children of Belial3 because they did not acknowledge the Lord” (v. 12); “their sin was very great in the sight of the Lord” (v. 17); “they caused all the people to sin” ([cf.] v. [23]); “they were fornicators” (v. 22); “they took by force the best meat of the sacrifices” (v. 16). Josephus (Antiq. Jud., bk. 5, ch. 15): “Eli the priest had two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, who wanted the license to do all things without regard for what was right and godly. Not content with their honorariums, they would not even refrain from rapine; beyond that, they even violated by rape and prostitution the chastity of women who were gathering at the sacred space, so that in their behavior they differed not from tyrants,” etc. Because of these grievous sins, God in His justice hardened their hearts, which already were quite hard and stony, so that they did not listen to the voice of their father. Thus these words are describing the judiciary will of God, who appoints the insolent to deserved punishments. Through this will, He determined to deliver these criminal and insolent sons, whose sins had reached their full measure, unto the punishment which they deserved. “When God is angered and delivers people over to punishment, He usually removes their sanity first.”
(2) Yet from this [episode] we should hardly infer that God has some secret hatred which precedes all their obstinacy and by which He instilled disobedience in their hearts. For God manifested in the Law what His will is: “Honor your father and mother” [Exod. 20:12], and placing in God a secret will that contradicts this is clearly ungodly theology [ἀθεόλογον].
The incest of Absalom is attributed to God, 2 Samuel 12.
§ 122. (VI) “In 2 Sam. 12:11–12, the Lord announces to David through Nathan: ‘I am going to raise up evil against you out of your own house, and I shall take away your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he will sleep with your wives in the sight of this sun. You did it secretly, but I shall do this thing before all Israel.’ This was later fulfilled through Absalom (2 Sam. 16:22). Therefore God drove Absalom to this misdeed.”
We respond. (1) In His Law, God has severely forbidden incest and all promiscuous lusts, and [He] punished Absalom severely for his incest. In fact, He even delivered Ahithophel, at whose instigation Absalom had committed so great a sin, unto his deserved punishment (2 Sam. 17:23). Therefore God is not the instigator of what He avenges, nor should we think that He drives him with a secret inspiration to do that which He manifestly forbade with a clear command.
(2) These words also set forth the just judgment of God, who was going to avenge the adultery of David. Therefore the words “I shall raise up, I shall give, I shall make” are words of the judgment of God, from which words we can and should conclude only this: that the incest of Absalom was, in the just judgment of God, the punishment for David’s adultery. However, from this we cannot and should not conclude that God drove or urged Absalom to this sin.
(3) His incest can be considered in two ways: First, as wrongdoing and as an enormous disgrace; in this respect we must ascribe it only to Satan as the instigator and to the lust of Absalom, without at all calling God into partnership or into part of the blame. Second, it can be considered as the punishment of David’s adultery; in this respect it is to be attributed to God, who, by loosening His reins on Satan’s influence and Absalom’s passions, upheld in this work His role as a just judge who punishes the sins of David.
(4) Peter Martyr acknowledges this and writes (commentary on this passage): “Although the same act is attributed to God and to Absalom, nevertheless God instigated it only to the extent that it is David’s penalty and punishment.” We shall explain later how one and the same act is both sin and punishment [§§ 140–41].
God commanded Shimei to curse, 2 Samuel 16.
§ 123. (VII) “In 2 Sam. 16:10, when Shimei cursed David and Abishai wanted to kill him for doing that, David answered and repeated two times: ‘The Lord commanded Shimei to curse, and thus no one should say, “Why have you done this?” ’ Therefore God instigated his cursing.”
We respond. (1) God has clearly manifested His will in the Law. Exod. 22:28: “You shall not curse a ruler among your people.” He neither wills nor approves the contrary, nor does He drive anyone to do it.
(2) When David was about to die, he commanded his son Solomon not to let the one who cursed him go unpunished, but to “bring his gray head down with blood to the grave” (1 Kings 2:9), which Solomon did in fact do (v. 46). Therefore Shimei surely sinned very seriously in this action and was punished by God as a result.
(3) Therefore the words of David “the Lord commanded”—or as it is in the Hebrew: “the Lord told Shimei to curse”—should not be taken in the sense that God secretly drove or incited Shimei to curse, since in this way Shimei would not have sinned, for no one sins by fulfilling the will of God. Rather, David is speaking out of the true humility of his heart, recognizing the righteous judgment of God that because of his sins he deserved both the persecution of his son and this cursing from Shimei.
(4) Augustine writes (De gratia et lib. arb., ch. 20):
Holy Scripture shows not only that good human wills (which [God] made out of wicked wills) were made good by Him and are directed toward good deeds for eternal life, but also that those wills which preserve a creature of time [seculi creaturam] are in the power of God in such a way that He causes them to be inclined where and when He wills, either to bestow benefits on some or to inflict punishments on others, just as He Himself judges with hidden but also undoubtedly just judgment, etc.
Wasn’t the Benjaminite cursing David of his own free will? Yet what does David, who is full of true, deep, and devout wisdom, say? What does he say to him who wanted to strike down the one who cursed? “Let him curse, because the Lord told him to curse” David. And who will ask him: “Why have you done this?” How did the Lord tell this man to curse David? Who is wise and understanding? For He did not tell him by ordering him so that his obedience was praised, but with His just and hidden judgment He inclined his will, wicked because of his own fault, into this sin. Therefore it was said, “The Lord told him”; for if had he obeyed a command from God, he would have to be praised rather than punished.
So much Augustine said, who does not use the word “incline” in the sense that God implanted this evil will into Shimei, but that He allowed Satan to incline the evil will of Shimei to this sin, as the entire context shows and as we shall teach in § 138. God inclines not by implanting badness into hearts nor by driving them into this or that evil act, but by relaxing the reins on Satan and on men’s lusts and by not diverting their plans.
(5) We can make this clear with a simple example. God announces to Baasha that he and his posterity are going to be cut off (1 Kings 16:3). Zimri carries out this divine punishment (v. 9) not because God incited Zimri to do this, but because He used his badness for the just punishment of Baasha. That this act of Zimri did not please God is clear from his just punishment (vv. 18–19).
God impelled David to number the people, 2 Samuel 24.
§ 124. (VIII) “In 2 Sam. 24:1, God impelled David to order Israel to be counted. Therefore God drove him to that which is truly sinful with respect to man.” We respond. (1) There is the clear addition: “The anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel.” But now, God does not become angry except because of sins. So it was not out of some secret hatred that God stirred David to do this. Rather, in His own just judgment He punishes sins with sins.
(2) Moreover, because God punishes sins with sins without being the author of sin (something we shall explain more fully in its own place [below, § 140; On Original Sin (Commonplace XII), §§ 7–25; On Actual Sins (Commonplace XIII), §§ 30–31]), the explanation of the words “God impelled David” is given in 1 Chron. 21:1: “Satan stood against Israel and incited David to number Israel.” Therefore, when it is said that God impelled David to do it, this must certainly not be taken as if God Himself placed that arrogance and these corrupt thoughts into David’s heart, but rather, because of the earlier sins of David and the Israelites, He allowed Satan to stir up David to commit this sin, and His grace departed from David so that he fell victim to this temptation.
(3) David admits that he sinned grievously and in true repentance asks for forgiveness for this sin ([1 Chron. 21:8]). In fact, God threatens to punish this sin with a three-day pestilence (v. 12). Now, how absurd would it be for God to punish what He Himself instigated? In this way He would be made fickle and His justice would be undermined. Fulgentius (Ad Monim., bk. 1, ch. 22): “It would not be justice if someone said that God did not find a man guilty of punishment, but made him so.”
God puts a lying spirit into the mouth of the false prophets, 2 Chronicles 18.
§ 125. (IX) “In 2 Chron. 18:22, God put a lying spirit into the mouth of the false prophets. Ezek. 14:9: ‘If the prophet is deceived and speaks a word, I [the Lord] have deceived him.’ Therefore God breathes erroneous doctrines into the false prophets.”
We respond. (1) In Deut. 13:5, God commands that the false prophets be killed. Therefore He neither wills nor approves their deceiving, and surely He does not drive them to it.
(2) When Scripture or God Himself attributes to God that He puts a lying spirit into the mouth of the false prophets and deceives the false prophets, we must take this to refer to the just judgment of God by which He punishes contempt for His Word through the deceits of false prophets. 2 Thess. 2:10–11: “Because they refused to love the truth and so be saved, therefore God sent them the working of error.”
(3) God does not deceive false prophets in such a way that He Himself instills erroneous opinions in their hearts or that He impels their hearts to invent false doctrines. Not at all, for the Lord says clearly, Jer. 14:14: “They are prophesying lies in My name. I did not send them nor command them nor speak to them. They are prophesying to you a lying vision and the deceit of their own minds.” Jer. 23:21: “I did not send the prophets, yet they ran. I did not speak to them, yet they prophesied” (and this is repeated in Jer. 29:9).
(4) However, the deceit of the false prophets is attributed to God in this respect: that out of His just judgment because of contempt for His Word, He allows the devil, who is “the father of lies” (John 8:44), enough authority to stir up various heresies through them; and because people are by nature “darkness” (Eph. 5:8), thus deprived of the light of the knowledge of God and the direction of the Holy Spirit they can do nothing else but err.
(5) Scripture itself confirms this explanation when it calls the errors of the false prophets “the deceit of their own mind” [Jer. 14:14] and attributes that deceit to the devil. 1 Kings 22:20–23 and 2 Chron. 18:19–22: “And the Lord said, ‘Who will entice Ahab to go up?’ Then a spirit came forward and stood before the Lord, saying, ‘I will entice him.’ And the Lord said to him: ‘By what means?’ And he said, ‘I shall go forth and be a lying spirit in the mouth of his prophets.’ Therefore He said: ‘You will deceive, and you will succeed. Go forth and do so.’ Now, then, the Lord put a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets,” etc. You see it explained very well how the Lord deceived those false prophets. Augustine (De gratia et lib. arb., ch. 23): “When you hear the Lord say, ‘I the Lord have deceived that prophet,’ you know that the one He permits to be deceived has earned it by his sins.”
“The Lord works all things for His own sake, even the wicked man for the evil day,” Proverbs 16[:4].
§ 126. (X) “In Prov. 16:4, we read: ‘The Lord has made everything for His own sake, even the wicked man for the evil day.’ Therefore He even works evil in the hearts of the wicked.”
We respond. (1) “The evil day,” according to the expression of the Holy Spirit, does not mean the sins of the wicked man but the deserved punishments for their sins. Ps. 41:1: “The Lord will deliver him in the evil day.” Ps. 49:5: “Why shall I fear in the evil day?” Prov. 15:15: “All the days of the poor are evil,” etc.
(2) Therefore the wise man does not mean that God creates some people for the purpose of being wicked or that He works evil in the hearts of the wicked. Rather, he is speaking about the wonderful providence of God by which, for the sake of His own righteousness, He finally surrenders the wicked to the punishments they have earned. Wolfgang Musculus (Loci, art. de creat.): “The passage of Proverbs 16 where Solomon says, ‘The Lord has made everything for His own sake, even the wicked for the day of trouble’ [v. 4], must not be applied to the work of creation, for Solomon is speaking there not about creation but about providence and governance.” Ludwig Lavater (commentary on this passage): “One should not gather from these words that God made a wicked person wicked, for a wicked person is not so because of God. Rather, one should gather that this is about the governance by which He governs the souls of even the wicked in such a way that they act for His glory (by repaying their wickedness with the punishments it has earned).”
(3) Therefore we invert the argument. If God created the wicked man for the evil day—that is, if God establishes and draws a wicked person to punishment because of his wickedness—surely He neither wills that wickedness nor works it in the heart of the wicked. The same response applies to similar passages: Isa. 45:7: “I the Lord make peace and create evil.” Amos 3:6: “There is no evil in the city which the Lord has not caused.” Ecclus. 11:14: “Good and evil come from the Lord God,” etc. Indeed, all these passages speak not about the evil of fault but about the evil of punishment. Thus they ignorantly draw a conclusion from one thing and apply it to another. In fact, because God is the author of the evil of punishment (that is, because He punishes the wickedness of men), therefore He is not the author of the evil of fault.
God causes people to err, Isaiah 63.
§ 127. (XI) “Isa. 63:17 says, ‘Why4 have You made us stray from Your ways, and have hardened our heart, so that we do not fear You?’ Therefore God causes people to err inwardly by working errors within their hearts.”
We respond. (1) The Israelites are not ascribing the cause and fault of their error to God, but are acknowledging that by the just judgment of God, the Holy Spirit, whom they have stubbornly resisted, has been taken away from them and that they consequently have fallen into errors. [Isa. 63:]10: “We have rebelled and grieved Your Holy Spirit.” Verse 15: “Therefore Your mercies have been withheld from us.” Verse 17: “You made us stray, but turn again Your mercy upon us,” etc. Therefore God causes them to stray and hardens them by withholding His mercies and by taking away His Spirit, and also by granting the devil the power to harden them and lead them into errors.
(2) If they refer the blame for their straying and hardness to God, how could they ask for or receive forgiveness of it from God? Münster rendered this as follows: “Why do You permit our heart to be torn from fearing You?” Tertullian: “Why, O Lord, do You permit us to wander from Your ways?” Therefore these demonstrate that transitive verbs in Hebrew must often be explained permissively according to the subject matter.
The Lord deceived Jeremiah, Jeremiah 20.
§ 128. (XII) “Jer. 20:7 says, ‘You have misled me, O Lord, and I was misled.’ Therefore God misled the prophet inwardly by working deceit in his heart.”
We respond. The prophet is not speaking about a falsehood in doctrine but about his own prophetic calling into which God led and, so to speak, “misled” him. The word in Hebrew is 
, which means literally “to persuade.” “You have persuaded me, O Lord,” as if to say: “I have been obedient to Your calling, but so much hatred, so many calamitous perils have come to me in that calling that I may deservedly complain that with Your flattering words You persuaded and, so to speak, misled me to take up the prophetic office.” Münster explains it in this way: “O Lord, if I have been deceived, as they falsely say, You have deceived me, because I did not assume this office of my own free will but followed Your call.” However, the prior example is more fitting, and Luther and Chemnitz approve of it.
God commands Hosea to marry a harlot, Hosea 1.
§ 129. (XIII) “In Hosea 1:2, God commands Hosea to take a wife of fornication. Therefore God sometimes commands that which is sin with respect to us.”
We respond. There are various explanations of this passage of the prophet. (1) Some believe that the prophet truly fornicated with a harlot, and they make God the author of this fornication, but Luther correctly calls these people “the most inept interpreters of all” (commentary on Hosea, vol. 4, Jena Latin, f. 588)5 because God could never command or approve promiscuous lusts, since His permanent and unchangeable will is “You shall not commit adultery” [Exod. 20:14], since the prophet would have come into the utter contempt of his people by the crime of fornication, etc.
(2) In his preface to Hosea, Jerome claims that the harlot must be understood not as a prostitute with a body for sale but “a heathen who did not know God,” because it is common in Scripture to call heathen idolatry “spiritual fornication.”
(3) The rabbinic scholars claim that this happened “through a vision,” that he did not actually marry a harlot but that this happened to him in a vision. For this reason the Chaldean translator translates the passage in this way: “The Lord said to Hosea: Go and tell this prophecy to those who dwell in the cities which wander after idols. They add to their sin because by their erring the inhabitants of the land err and depart from their worship of God. Therefore I went away and prophesied against them that, if they were to repent, their sin would be forgiven them. If they did not, they would waste away like the leaves of the fig trees by causing and committing evil.”
(4) Some claim that Hosea took to himself in lawful marriage a woman who was already infamous for prostitution. Lyra appears to favor this position, for he writes in his commentary: “ ‘Take, with the mother, the children that she had before,’ because he took the mother as wife and adopted her children.” (Augustine thinks so too: Contra Faustum, bk. 22, ch. 80.)
(5) However, in all these explanations something can rightly be shown to be missing. Therefore we claim along with Luther and some very fine interpreters that the prophet entered into a lawful marriage by God’s command and married not an infamous harlot but an honorably reared maiden, which the addition of her father’s name indicates; but he imposed on this lawful wife the charge of harlotry and on the name of their legitimate children the name of illegitimate, and this indeed by God’s command, that he might teach by this gesture or sign, so to speak, that all the people were guilty of spiritual fornication before God and would soon be punished accordingly. The words immediately following teach that this is the genuine meaning of this passage, because it adds: “For the land commits great fornication by forsaking the Lord” [Hosea 1:2]; that is, it has followed strange worship and strange gods.
The Jews could not believe because of the predictions of the prophets about their unbelief, John 12.
§ 130. (XIV) “In John 12:39, the Jews could not believe because Isaiah said, ‘Blind the heart of the people’ [cf. Isa. 6:10]. Therefore the prophecy and decree of God are the effective causes of unbelief for some.”
We respond. (1) We showed earlier that the foreknowledge of God does not, from the standpoint of before [a priori], bestow necessity on things. We must also make the same claim with regard to divine prophecy published in Holy Scripture, for God foretells through the prophets not only what He Himself intends to do but also those things which He sees that others are going to do. We shall also show quite clearly in its own place [On Election and Reprobation (Commonplace X), §§ 177–89] that God does not predestine some people to destruction nor does He predestine the causes of their destruction by an absolute hatred and decree.
(2) This passage, then, describes the truly just punishment for a persistent and stubborn contempt for the Word which God punishes out of His just judgment with hardness and blindness. Through these He causes those who could have believed through the working of the Holy Spirit to be blinded because of their stubbornness and to be unable to believe afterward.
(3) We accordingly proceed in this way. The stubborn Jews could not believe because God had prophesied through the prophet that the heart of this people was going to be blinded. But why had He foretold the blinding? Because He foresaw from eternity that that stubborn and rebellious people were going to close their eyes voluntarily to the light of the Word, and because He decided from eternity to blind and harden their hearts because of their astonishing blindness and stubborn contempt for the Word.
(4) Let it be repeated again: God does not harden or blind out of some absolute hatred but out of His own just judgment, which avenges an earlier contempt for His Word. Also, God hardens and blinds not of Himself, by working that hardness and blindness within the hearts of people, but by taking away His grace and the power of the Holy Spirit, who softens and illumines hearts, and by granting Satan such a right toward people.
(5) Therefore, because the Jews consequently were unable to believe, blinded as they were because of their own badness and willing stubbornness, the ancients deny that the cause of their unbelief should be referred to the prediction of the prophet. Cyril, on John 10, bk. 9: “Who could be so dim-witted as to ever possibly believe that the Scripture of the Holy Spirit gave man the cause of sinning?” And later: “Because some people were going to do it willingly, the foreknowing Holy Spirit foretold what was going to happen. Therefore the words ‘they were not able to believe’ say the same thing as ‘they were unwilling to believe.’ ” This is just as Christ Himself explains in Matt. 23:37: “How often I wanted to gather you together, and you were not willing.” Elsewhere we have similar statements, such as 2 Sam. 17:17: “They could not be seen entering the city,” that is, “They did not want to be seen.” Hosea 8:5: “How long were they incapable of innocence?” that is, “For how long were they unwilling?” Athanasius (Pass. et cruc. Domini, pp. 788–89): “By their own will the Jews were led to do those things, nor do the holy [prophets] through their words add a necessity to the circumstances so as to force them to happen in that way. Rather, because they foresee the efforts and intents of those who are going to do such things, they announce the situation as it will happen. It is not as those who oppose us say, ‘Take away the prophet’s words, and it will happen that all the Jews will believe,’ for then I would say, ‘On the contrary, take away the Jews’ deeds, and Isaiah would have foretold none of it.’” Augustine (on John, tractate 53):
Having foreknowledge of the future, the Lord through the prophet foretold the unbelief of the Jews. Now, though He foretold it, He did not cause it; for God does not force anyone to sin just because He already knows men’s future sins. He foreknew their sins, not His own, etc.
And later:
They could not believe because the prophet Isaiah foretold this; but the prophet foretold this because God foreknew that this was going to happen. If I should be asked why they could not believe, I quickly respond that they did not want to. Indeed, God foresaw their wicked will, and since the future cannot be hidden from Him, He foretold it through the prophet. But, you say, the prophet gives a reason other than that of their will. What reason does the prophet say? That God gave them a spirit of remorse, eyes that they not see, ears that they not hear, and that He blinded their eyes and hardened their heart. Again, I answer that their will earned this. For God hardens and blinds thus by abandoning and not helping, something which God can do with His secret, but not unjust, judgment. The piety of the devout should preserve this unshaken and inviolate, etc.
And later:
It is no wonder that they were unable to believe, because their will was so arrogant that, ignorant of the righteousness of God, they wanted to establish their own. But since it was not of faith but as of works, they became puffed up and blinded by this swelling, and they stumbled against the stumbling block, etc.
You see that Augustine confirms our opinion explicitly. From eternity God established (by His consequent and judicial will) and foretold by His prophet that He would harden the arrogant and stubborn Jews in His just judgment. Thus they also were incapable of believing. However, if they had not stubbornly resisted the Holy Spirit, surely God would not have blinded them nor from eternity decreed their blinding nor foretold it through the prophet. On the contrary, the Jews could have believed and would have believed because God kept offering them His Word for this purpose and because Christ kept inviting them to believe. John 12:35–36: “Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you. While you have the light, believe in the light that you may be the sons of light,” etc. Theophylact points out that the words “that” and “because” are not “causal but demonstrative of the outcome.” Lyra: “The conjunction ‘that’ must be understood not causally but consecutively. This impossibility is not absolute but suppositional, that is, supposing that they had a will obstinate in its evil.” Bucer: “They were not that way because the prophet foretold it, but the prophet foretold it because they were going to be that way.”
“Christ was delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God,” Acts 2[:23].
§ 131. (XV) “Acts 2:23: ‘Christ was delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God.’ Acts 4:27–28: ‘Against Your Son, Jesus, there were gathered Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, to do whatever Your hand and Your plan had predestined to take place.’ Therefore Judas and the Jews were driven by divine prompting to hand over and crucify Christ.”
We respond. A careful distinction must be made between the actual deed of betraying, condemning, and crucifying Christ and the most salutary goal of that crucifixion. The deed itself was wicked and unjust, and for this reason Peter says clearly that Christ was crucified “through the hands of lawless people” (Acts 2:23); and John says that Satan “put it into the heart of Judas to betray Christ” (John 13:2). Therefore God did not force the Jews to act, nor did He approve it, but He truly avenged Himself with the destruction of the entire city. On the other hand, because God, who foreknows the future, knew from eternity the evil will of the Jews and therefore that they were going to act most badly, He, in His goodness and wisdom, turned that to the redemption of the human race. (The outstanding passage of Leo is pertinent here, De pass., sermon 16, quoted above in § 99.) The salutary fruit of the Passion is deservedly credited to the plan and the decree of the wisdom of God, but the unjust execution of Christ must be attributed to the snares of the ancient serpent and to the cruelty of the Jews. This is why blessed Peter connects the plan and foreknowledge of God, because that plan of God regarding the redemption of the human race through the Passion of Christ had as its companion—or, rather, its antecedent (not with respect to time but with respect to order and to our thought)—the foreknowledge of God, by which from eternity God saw the wicked wills of Satan and the Jews with the most present sight.
I offer the following proof. If with His eternal decree God, by hidden force, had compelled or incited Judas and the Jews to crucify Christ, then surely Judas and the Jews would have intended no other purpose in betraying and crucifying Christ than what God Himself intended. But now, God intended a purpose far different from that of Judas and the Jews in this work, which no one can deny under any appearance of the truth. Therefore God did not compel Judas and the Jews with His decree, nor drive them with His impulse, to crucify Christ. The logical connection in the major premise is obvious, because one must consider actions on the basis of their purpose and intent, the difference of which causes the acts to differ.
God gave up the heathen to impurity.6
§ 132. (XVI) “In Rom. 1:24, God is said to have given up the heathen to impurity. Therefore the impurity of the heathen must be ascribed to His effectual working.”
We respond. (1) He gave them up not with an absolute hatred, which precedes the consideration of all causes, but with His just judgment, which avenges a wickedness that has already occurred, as the apostle teaches here clearly, Rom. 1:21, 23–26: “Although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, for they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images of mortal man. Therefore God also gave them up, etc., because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie. For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions.”
(2) He gave them up not by instilling impurity in the minds of the heathen or by moving their minds to impurity, but by abandoning them to Satan and to their own lusts. For this reason the apostle adds clearly that “they were given up to impurity by the lusts of their own hearts” [Rom. 1:24]. Theodulus: “He Himself did not hand them over” (of Himself). “Heaven forbid! However, He did abandon them, permitting them to be cut off from His care. When this happened, it followed that Satan took them. Hence He gave them up into that which He abandoned.” Ambrose: “Because they made gods out of their inventions and the images of things to the harm of their Creator, they were abandoned to be deceived. Yet they were abandoned not to do that which they were unwilling to do, but in order to perfect that which they desired. To give up is to permit, not to rouse or to send to, so that, helped by the devil, they might complete in their work that which they had conceived in their desires.” Thomas ([ST,] part 1, q. 2, art. 1): “If God gives some people up to a debased mind [Rom. 1:28], they already had a debased mind.”
“God has confined all under unbelief,” Romans 11[:32].
§ 133. (XVII) “Rom. 11:32 says, ‘God has confined all under unbelief, that He may have mercy on all.’ Therefore man’s unbelief is of God’s doing.”
We respond. The apostle himself explains how God confines all under unbelief in Gal. 3:22: “The Scripture confined everything under sin.” Therefore to confine under sin is to accuse of sin by the voice of the Law all men, or the entire human race, because it was infected and corrupted with sins because of the transgression of Adam, and to declare them guilty of eternal damnation. In Rom. 3:9 and 19 the apostle also explains how God confines under sin: “We have already charged that Jews and Greeks are sinners. We know that whatever the Law says it speaks to those who are under the Law so that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may be held accountable to God.” Therefore we invert the argument. Because God has confined everyone under unbelief—that is, because with the voice of the Law He accuses and condemns in everyone the sin introduced through the transgression of Adam—He can in no way be called the author or instigator of sin.
Calvin (commentary on this passage) writes that the meaning of the apostle’s words is this: “In His providence, God has arranged that all are guilty of unbelief, because of which He holds them liable to His judgment and does so, indeed, for this purpose: that salvation might come solely from His goodness and that all merits might be buried.” However, in its own place we shall show that God did not will the fall of our first parents, through which all people contracted the guilt of unbelief and sin, and He did not drive them to it by His own decree [On Original Sin (Commonplace XII), §§ 15–25]. Augustine writes devoutly (Confess., bk. 3, ch. 2): “It would be an ill-willed benevolence if someone wanted a person to be wretched in order to have compassion on him.” In fact, one cannot deny that, even if man had persisted in his created goodness along with all his descendants, nonetheless he would have received salvation solely through the goodness of God, with all his merits buried, both because his obedience was already owed to God his Creator and because the eternal reward would have been far greater and more excellent than that which he could have acquired with the merit of his own temporal obedience.
Those who do not believe the Word were appointed for this, 1 Peter 2.
§ 134. (XVIII) “In 1 Pet. 2:8, Christ is a stumbling block for those who do not believe the Word, for which they also were appointed. Therefore God has predestined some people to unbelief with His immutable decree.”
We respond. (1) The real meaning of the passage is this: Christ, who is of Himself the rock of salvation, became a stumbling block for the unbelieving Jews because of their unbelief, because they did not believe the Word of the Gospel despite the fact that God called them “to this” (εἰς τοῦτο) and despite the fact that God in the first place offered them the Word by His beneficent will.
(2) Therefore with this passage we compare the words of Paul and Barnabas, Acts 13:46: “It was necessary that the Word of God should be spoken first to you” (the Jews). “But because you thrust it from yourselves and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we turn to the Gentiles.”
(3) Calvin himself does not disapprove of this interpretation, for he comments as follows on this passage: “This meaning is not a bad fit with this passage—that the Jews were appointed to believe—because the promise of salvation had been directed to them. Indeed, Peter seems to exaggerate the unbelief of the people chosen by God because they rejected the salvation uniquely ordained for them and thus made themselves unworthy of eternal life.”
(4) Therefore we seriously disapprove of the fact that Beza in his marginal glosses corrupts the text in this way, as if its meaning were that “some were created for the purpose of stumbling.” This corruption was so pleasing to some people that they were not afraid to insert it in the actual text in the Latin Bible published in Frankfurt in 1591, for they translate the passage in this way: “Those who stumble were disobedient to the Word and were even created for this purpose.”7
(5) Even if that word ἐτέθησαν [“appointed”] were referred to the stumbling of the Jews, nevertheless this would not yet prove that they were destined for that stumbling by the absolute hatred of God, but it would be a description of the just judgment of God by which they are said to have stumbled against the rock of salvation because of their stubborn contempt for the Word and because of their own unbelief.
§ 135. Those are the stronger testimonies of Scripture which our adversaries twist into this meaning: as if God by His decree and secret will drives people to sins which nevertheless are not sins with respect to God since He acts freely. It was necessary to vindicate God from this alleged crime and the words of Scripture from this corruption. If they present any other testimonies of Scripture or arguments to establish their opinion, an explanation of them can be sought from Chemnitz, who treats this subject carefully (Loci, part 1, locus 5, ch. 4), and surely also from Schafmann, who has likewise explained this matter firmly and in detail (Libri de causa peccati).
Suitable statements of some of the Calvinists.
§ 136. We quite willingly admit that some people who follow Calvin in other respects sometimes speak quite suitably. For instance, Franciscus Junius (De peccato Adae, q. 1, ch. 4) argues: “No necessity to fall was imposed by God on our first parents.” In q. 2, ch. 2, he says: “Had Adam been unwilling, he would not have sinned, but he was willing through the means of his counsel to rush into sin by his free will; though this will was permitted by God, it was sent by the devil.” Musculus writes as follows (Loci comm., p. 975): “It is our responsibility simply to give our omnipotent and just God freedom of will and righteousness, so that He wills or does nothing evil—in fact, is not even able to do evil—for how could the inestimable goodness of the divine nature want, love, or do anything evil?” More such statements occur in Sebastian Castalion, Antonius Corranus, William Perkins, and others. On the other hand, a great deal of burdensome declarations occur in other writers, from which it follows obviously that they attribute the cause of sin to God. Some bandages are applied earlier, in §§ 112–15.
The way to achieve harmony in this question.
§ 137. Accordingly, let them give this glory to God and to the truth and publicly disapprove of these and similar statements which occur in their party’s writings: “That God has foreordained by absolute decree some people—and, in fact, the largest portion of mankind—to sins and to the punishments for sins; that by order of God Adam fell into sin; that divine providence creates some people for the express purpose of living wickedly; that by the hidden power of God the wicked are dragged to ends set forth by God; that all things which God foreknows are also done by His decree and command; that God drives the wicked to serious sins; that God in some way is the cause of sin”; etc. Let them explicitly condemn these and similar statements that exist in their public writings if they wish to return into grace with the church.
Concerning the term “incline.”
§ 138. However, they should change not only their language but also their mind. For it is not yet sufficient that the irenical booklet [libellus εἰρηνικός] recently published at Heidelberg (p. 310) tried to cover up this position with the word inclinandi [“incline”]. For the word “incline” can be understood to mean this: that God by His hidden might inclined the will of Adam, though of itself free to act, to the fall and that still today God inclines the wills of the wicked to various sins. It is in this sense that they take this word, as is clear from Beza (Resp. ad colloq., part 2, p. 207) and from Peter Martyr (on the Epistle to the Romans, f. 38). In fact, from that very booklet we actually have the addition: “All things, both good and bad, occur according to the eternal decree of God. God so controls the cord of free choice with His hand that He permits a person to go ahead as God wills or that He draws him back and inclines him in this or that direction in the same way as a man uses a rope to control a beast, which he permits to go off freely or pulls back or inclines in another direction” (p. 312). Therefore, if they take the word “inclination” (as they do take it) to refer to the sort of internal impulse of God by which He directs or moves or inclines a man’s will to an actual sin, then we earnestly reject that word.
§ 139. On the other hand, the word “incline” can be taken to refer to predetermining limits and to directing sin committed by a man of his own free will to a good end. It is in this sense that Augustine uses it (De grat. et lib. arbitr., ch. 20); and the word “incline” can be tolerated in this significance, but one should be careful because of the tricks of our adversaries which we have exposed. We readily concede this word to Augustine, because he has explained his opinion clearly in very many places (De grat. et lib. arbitr., ch. 21): “God is capable of working through His angels, either good or bad, or in any other way, in the hearts of the evil according to the merits of those whose badness He Himself did not create but was originally contracted by Adam himself or grew through their own will.” Augustine again (Contra Julian., bk. 5, ch. 3): “God does not make evil wills but uses them as He wills.”
Observe carefully that when the Pelagians, because of these and similar statements, falsely attribute to Augustine the wicked opinions that people sin because of the will of God, that sins are committed because God has predestined them, that God creates the largest portion of the human race for the purpose of destroying them forever, etc., there Augustine has set against those false charges the brief but very useful clarification whose chief points are in vol. 7 under the title Responsio ad articulos sibi falso impositos. Moreover, Fulgentius points out (Ad Monimum) that Augustine was prevented by death from being able to refute those false accusations fully, but that Prosper later answered in his stead. In that response of Augustine to the articles falsely attributed to him, we have very many words which clearly prove that nowhere is the word “incline” used in the sense in which our adversaries take it today. Note in particular the words in Respons. ad artic. 10: “One must detest and hate the opinion which believes that God is the author of any evil will or action, for His predestination is never without goodness,8 never without righteousness,” etc. “The predestination of God has not stirred up nor persuaded nor impelled accidents of minds or malignity of wicked acts or the lusts for sins. However, it has clearly predestined His judgment by which each person will be recompensed according to whether he has done good or evil, which judgment would not happen if men had sinned by the will of God.” Resp. ad art. 11: “By what folly or madness is it taught that one must attribute to God’s plan that which cannot wholly be ascribed to the devil, whois believed to be the aider of the enticements in the disgraceful acts of those who sin, not the generator of wills?9” etc.
How God punishes sin with sin.
§ 140. Finally, let us conclude this discourse on the concurring of divine providence in evil actions once we have explained how God punishes sin with sin, and yet is not the cause of sin. You will understand this easily if you observe the five ways that sin can be the cause of another sin: (1) When by the commission of one sin the grace of the Holy Spirit is lost, and when that has been lost a person can do nothing else but fall into sin. (2) When God hands over a person who has sinned into the hands of Satan, who drives him into various sins. (3) Insofar as it is easy to fall from one sin into similar sins, for dispositions and habits are formed from one’s actions, and they incline people to lean toward similar actions. (4) According as one sin cannot be committed without others, as, for example, avarice is the “root of evil,” as the apostle says [1 Tim. 6:10]. (5) According as often a second sin is committed because of one sin, just as Judas betrayed Christ out of avarice. God punishes sin according to the first and second ways and nevertheless is neither the cause nor the author of sin.
Whether every sin is a punishment.
§ 141. The Scholastics argue: “Every sin is a punishment in a way of its own because the will that deprives itself of righteousness deprives itself of the greatest good which is fitting for it. The lack of the former is greater than any favorable gain brought upon it as a result of committing so great a fault.” Nevertheless they add that “not every sin is the punishment for another sin—the first sin of Adam, for instance, because God is not an avenger before someone is a sinner.” (See Lombard, Sent., bk. 2, dist. 36 and the commentary.) They wear themselves out in various ways in explaining how the same sin can be formally fault and punishment, and how a sin which is neither just nor from God can be a punishment, because every just punishment comes from God. Scotus proceeds in this way (Sent., bk. 2, dist. 37): “The fault itself comes from the will as from a deficient active cause and thus is a fault because it is voluntary. Also, the very fault is in the will as in a subject, not of inhesion but of denomination; this” (will) “is deprived by the fault of the good that is fitting for it [bono conveniente], which good was owed insofar as the will itself could act with due uprightness and did not act. In this way it is punishment.” Thomas ([ST,] 1.2., q. 87, art. 2): “Sin of itself cannot be the punishment of sin, for sin is considered of itself according as it proceeds from the will. But it belongs to the definition of ‘punishment’ that it is against the will. By accident, sin is the punishment for sin, and this happens in three ways: (1) On the part of a cause, which is the removal of something that prevents sin, namely, of divine grace. (2) On the part of the substance of the act, which causes an affliction, whether it be an inner act, such as anger or envy, or an exterior act, such as hardship. (3) On the part of the effect that follows [effectus consequentis].” Biel (Sent., bk. 2, dist. 36, q. 1): “The definition corresponding to the noun ‘sin’ connotes the deprivation of the good of due righteousness, which was omitted voluntarily, not caring whether that good benefits or hinders the will to sin. ‘Punishment’ connotes the deprivation of a good that is fitting, not caring whether that good is just or beneficial.”
1 The voluntas signi (“will of the sign”) is God’s will as it is revealed to humanity.
2 The voluntas beneplaciti (“will of good-pleasure”) is what God is well-pleased to do, which is not always revealed to humanity.
3 Hebrew for “worthlessness.”
4 Read Quare instead of Quasi.
5 Enarratio in Hoseam Prophetam (1545), E ex 24:175. Cf. Lectures on Hosea (1524/1884), AE 18:3–4.
6 Read impuritatem instead of impietatem.
7 iis qui offendunt ad sermonem immorigeri, ad quod etiam conditi fuerunt.
8 Insert nunquam extra bonitatem with Cotta.
9 Read voluntatum with Cotta instead of voluntatem.