Chapter V: The Creation of All People in Adam According to the Image of God
CHAPTER V: ON THE CREATION OF ALL PEOPLE IN ADAM
ACCORDING TO THE IMAGE OF GOD
§ 101. This concludes our discussion on the beneficent will of God, who earnestly seeks the salvation of all men; this directly conflicts with an absolute decree of reprobation and is rightly set against it in the first place.
The second point that we set against that fiction of theirs is the state of original [primaevae] blessedness in which man was created by God. Here we adduce the following proof: Whomever God has created in His own image, those have not been rejected by an absolute hatred nor were they destined to eternal damnation. But now, in Adam God created all human beings according to His own image. Therefore He has rejected none of them from Himself because of an absolute hatred nor has He destined them to eternal damnation. The logic of the major premise is clear because the image of God is defined as “true righteousness and holiness” (Eph. 4:24), part of which is the gift of immortality. Wisdom 2:23: “God made man for incorruption and made him in the image of His own property” (or in others, “eternity”). Calvin (Inst., bk. 1, ch. 15, sect. 4): “Under ‘image of God’ is included whatever pertains to spiritual and eternal life.” But now, the gift of immortality with which man was created directly opposes damnation, which is eternal or the second death (Rev. 20:6).
In Adam all people were created for eternal life.
§ 102. It remains for us to confirm the minor premise. The gifts conferred upon the first human beings at creation applied not only to their person but also to their descendants. In fact, if our first parents had persevered in their concreated integrity, they would also have propagated this image of God and these gifts to their children. They had received an investiture of life, so to speak, for themselves and for all their posterity. Surely, then, we can correctly say that in Adam all people were created for eternal life. Calvin (Instit., bk. 2, ch. 1, sect. 6): “Adam was not merely the progenitor of human nature but also was something like its root, and if in him the entire human race lost the image of God, it follows that it first had that [image] in Adam.” Here we bid that one carefully observe the logic which Calvin supplies us to confirm the minor premise. Whoever in and through the fall of Adam lost the image of God and life, they, too, had the image of God and life in Adam while he yet stood, and consequently they were created according to it. But now, all the descendants of Adam in and through the fall of their first parent lost the image of God and life. Rom. 5:12: “Sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, in which all sinned.” Verses 16–19: “The judgment from one [trespass brought] condemnation; because of one man’s sin death ruled through that one man; one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all men; by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners.” Therefore all the descendants of Adam had in Adam the image of God and life while he was yet standing and consequently were created for it.
§ 103. Our adversaries see that by this argument the absolute decree of reprobation is very powerfully overthrown. Therefore they are not afraid to write: “Adam was created so that he would fall. He was compelled by God to fall. Some men are created by God for destruction,” etc. Calvin (Instit., bk. 3, ch. 23, sect. 4): “Adam fell into that disaster because of the predestination of God.” Section 7: “Consequently, it happened that the fall enveloped so many nations along with their infant children in eternal death without remedy; here clever tongues should otherwise be silent except [to say] that this seemed good to God. Indeed, I admit that it is a horrible decree; yet no one can deny that God foreknew what end a man would have before He created him. Therefore He foreknew because He had ordained it so by His decree.” Chapter 21, sect. 5: “All men are not created in an equal condition, but eternal life is foreordained for some.” Zwingli (Elench. cont. Catabapt., part 2, fol. 36): “Divine providence created Esau for this: that he should live and that he should live wickedly.” Beza (on Romans 9): “Here again one may say that God the Creator created some for destruction.” Piscator (on Romans 9, in Schol., p. 187): “The apostle means to say that God created the reprobate for destruction, just as the potter assembles some vessels for dishonor.”
§ 104. We shall discuss the fall of Adam in detail in its own place [On Original Sin, Commonplace XII], and we shall clearly vindicate the righteousness of God from blame against these detractors. They especially cite two passages of Scripture with which they try to prove that some were created by God for destruction, namely, Prov. 16:4: “The Lord has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked man for the evil day”; and Rom. 9:22: “Vessels of wrath” are said to be “prepared [κατηρτημένα] for destruction.” Earlier, we provided explanations of both passages: of the former, in our treatise On Providence [Commonplace IX], § 126; and of the latter, in this very commonplace, § 100.
§ 105. Consider the words of the fathers here. Ambrose (De vocat. gent., bk. 2, ch. 8): “God created no one in hatred.” Among the articles falsely attributed to Augustine [Articulos falso Augustino impositos] we also find the statement that God creates a majority of the human race for the purpose of destroying it forever. But Augustine responds in this way (Resp. ad art. 3):
To be sure, God is the creator of all men, but He created no one that he should perish, because there is one cause for being born and another for perishing. That people are born is a benefaction, but that they perish is the fault of the sinner. Indeed, all have sinned in Adam, in whom the nature of all men was shaped, and they are all bound by the same sentence which he received. They are not loosed from that shackle even if they lacked their own sins, unless they are born again through the Holy Spirit in the mystery [sacramentum] of the death and resurrection of Christ. Therefore he is a wicked and ignorant man indeed who does not distinguish the defect [vitium] of nature from the Creator of nature. Whatever is to be condemned in each one is totally foreign to Him, for He creates them to be humans and does not remove His handi work from the multiplying successions of generations. According to the counsel of His goodwill, He shall repair in many what He made but shall punish in many what He did not make.