John Calvin on Free Will
© Scott David Foutz, May 1996

Calvin views the human soul as consisting of two fundamental faculties under which all other faculties are subordinate: Understanding and wWll. Regarding the relation of these two faculties, he writes, "The understanding is, as it were, the leader and governor of the soul; and that the will is always mindful of the bidding of the understanding, and in its own desires awaits the judgment of the understanding." ( Institutes ¹ , 1.15.7)

Calvin agrees with Origen's description of the function of the faculty of understanding as distinguishing between objects worthy of approval or disapproval, and of will as choosing and following what the understanding pronounces as good and rejecting, and fleeing, what is pronounced unworthy. Thus Calvin locates "choice" in the will and not in the understanding (2.2.26). In order for freedom of the will to exist, three necessary conditions exists: (1) That one discern good by right reason; (2) That knowing the good, one choose it; (3) That having chosen it, one follow it (Ibid). This is important in its implications, for we see that even if one is constantly able to discern what is good, such knowledge in and of itself cannot affect any good within us. Lack of the discernment of such good, or hindrance in perceiving it accurately will either render free will impossible or inoperative. The question therefore, of how accurately humans, whether regenerate or unregenerate, are able to perceive the good, or "natural law" is necessary to determine in order to know whether these conditions of free will are fulfilled. But even if such knowledge were to be concluded as present, accurate knowledge of the good remains in itself a non-determinative issue in the question of whether free will actually exists or not. The same may be said for those separate functions of the will, since even though we might clearly observe within ourselves the existence of a will to choose, this in itself, or even accompanied with accurate knowledge of the good, does not imply the presence of freedom of the will, since neither of these necessarily imply the ability to carry out what we have discerned and chosen.

In speaking of the freedom of the will, Calvin distinguishes between three types of freedom, namely, freedom from necessity by compulsion, freedom from sin, and freedom from misery. On the application of this distinction to man he writes, "The first of these so inheres in man by nature that it cannot possibly be taken away, but the two others have been lost through sin." (2.2.5) The question of whether man is free from misery is a moot point, given the obvious empirical data pertaining to human suffering despite one's will to avoid pain. The question of whether humanity is free from sin finds answer in two sources, Scripture and human nature. Calvin is very careful to maintain the scriptural witness regarding the sinfulness of humanity, as well as regards the Fall as a determinative event in man's moral history. In this regard, Calvin necessarily distinguishes between necessity per se and compulsion . "The chief point of this distinction, then, must be that man, as he was corrupted by the Fall, sinned willingly, not unwillingly or by compulsion; by the most eager inclination of his heart, not by forced compulsion from without. Yet so depraved is his nature that he can be moved or impelled only to evil. But if this is true, then it is clearly expressed that man is surely subject to the necessity of sinning." (2.3.5) Quoting Augustine, Calvin affirms, "Through freedom man came to be in sin, but the corruption which followed as punishment turned freedom into necessity." (Ibid) Here then, Calvin posits that human nature necessarily sins, yet does so not by compulsion in accord with the individual's will. This view could be considered plausible and consistent if indeed the Fall precipitated the natural change in human nature which both Calvin and Augustine claim.

The effects of the Fall on Adam and Eve were that, "the natural gifts were corrupted in man through sin, but his supernatural gifts were stripped from him." (2.2.12) By stripped supernatural gifts is meant "that light of faith as well as righteousness, which could be sufficient to attain heavenly life and eternal bliss," and includes "faith, love of God, charity toward neighbor, zeal for holiness and for righteousness". (Ibid) These things no longer are found within the human nature. All of these are of great import to any discussion of human ethics. To say that humanity does not possess within its nature a zeal for holiness and righteousness is paramount to denying humanity any motivation to abide by morality other than personal gain and safety. This is supported by the claim that charity for neighbors is likewise completely removed. Even on a purely secular level, these two missing ingredients have great ramifications of the development of human ethics. When love of God and faith are also deemed vacant, human nature indeed finds itself in an environment ruled by individualistic survival whose standard is not transcendent, but are determined by the individual itself. Or so it would be if it were not for the gracious intervention of God in the lives of both regenerate and unregenerate humans. And therefore here we will make a slight shift in our discussion to incorporate a more ethic-oriented perspective.

Given human nature's depravity as outlined above, how are we to understand the ethical potential of individuals? Certainly history and experience provide ample examples of individuals, regenerate and unregenerate, worthy of adoration and praise. According to Calvin, virtuous humans do indeed exist, nor does their virtue seem to require their membership in the Christian community. But rather than attributing praiseworthy actions to the individual per se , Calvin will see a rule of general Providence at work whereby the corrupt nature of individuals are restrained. (2.3.3) This Providence, is said to merely restrain the corrupt nature rather than "purge" it of its depravity. One might ask at this juncture how pervasive or comprehensive is this Providence in the drama of humanity? May this Providence be understood to be so general as to be common? Calvin limits the Providence by claiming, "these [virtuous abilities in unregenerate individuals] are not common gifts of nature, but special graces of God, which he bestows variously and in certain measure upon men otherwise wicked." (2.3.4)

Here Calvin distinguishes merely between attributing good deeds to common nature and special grace, while failing to inform us of the prevalence or rarity of this special grace in regards to the unregenerate. Elsewhere, however, in quoting Augustine, Calvin locates this special grace in a much greater spectrum of willing than we might at first expect. "Not only is grace offered by the Lord, which by anyone's free choice may be accepted or rejected; but it is this very grace which forms both choice and will in the heart, so that whatever good works then follow are the fruit and effect of grace." (2.3.13) By this is meant that any good work, whether by the regenerate or unregenerate, must be attributed to grace. How are we then to understand "good work"? How pervasive is the application of this term to human activity? Again, a surprising answer emerges when he writes, "Whenever we are prompted to choose something to our advantage, whenever the will inclines to this, or conversely whenever our mind and heart shun anything that would otherwise be harmful, that is the Lord's special grace." (2.4.6) Here even the individuals will for well-being and self-preservation are attributed to that same special grace which accounted for unregenerate good deeds previously. But the degree of application is not quite complete, for in another quote of Augustine Calvin affirms, "The human will does not obtain grace by freedom, but obtains freedom by grace ; ...Controlled by grace, it will never perish, but if grace forsake it, it will straightway fall; ...The direction of the human will toward good, and after direction its continuation in good, depend solely upon God's will, not upon any merit in man; ... and whatever it can do it is able to do only through grace ." (2.4.14; italics mine)

Here we will skip over the discussion pertaining to the regenerate will in distinction to the unregenerate will, for thus far, the conditions mentioned pertain predominantly to both cases. It is clear that of primary importance to both Calvin and Augustine is the soteriological dimension of free will, whereby the individual is said to either possess or lack the ability to independently and freely choose such actions which are deemed worthy of acceptance by God. In for the most part, it is in this context that both writers address the issue of free will. However, apart from soteriological considerations, a distinction which unhealthily seems to remove the teleological dimension, we have observed certain statements pertaining to human social spheres. For example, Calvin attributes all good works accomplished by the unregenerate and regenerate to special grace. When we recognize that good works includes not only those praise-worthy deeds, but also those actions whereby we are benefitted or preserved, we see that this special grace in fact permeates a large segment of human activity. And yet this fact does not necessarily imply that we must equate special grace with a divine principle whereby God guides all his creatures. Nevertheless, given Augustine's insistence that, due to the human will's origin in the divine Will, all decisions made are attributable to grace, we may indeed be able to posit that God generally and even consistently deals with his creatures through this special grace. This is not to deny that God is free to work "greater" or "lesser" works in humanity's affairs, but merely affirms that all of God's work in the created order is perhaps best understood to be a special grace, a condition arising from the mere fact that God is Creator in relation to humanity.

This being the case, it will not be beyond our ability to affirm the (intentional and causal) role of God's grace in any choosing done by the will, and at the same time affirm a general human capacity to succeed or fail within an ethical system. This dual affirmation requires only that God wills humanity to exercise relative freedom within a moral system. In this situation humans is not free to the degree of removing themselves from any participation in morality, but would be free to choose to align themselves with moral precepts or to neglect them altogether. This seems to be precisely the situation which we experience daily, pertaining to a general moral code derived from one of a number of rationales (recall those aspects of human nature stripped away following the Fall). And given the connection made by Augustine of grace to God's causal relation as Creator, it seems possible to apply a great majority of Calvin's discussion on the role of grace in the will to our own situation, granted we recognize ourselves as the created beings of a Creator.

1	All quotations in this paper are from Battles and McNeill's translation of Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion (Philadelphia: Westminster Press; 1960)