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Calvin and Bernard On Freedom and Necessity: A Reply to Brümmer

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Paul Helm
Paul Helm
Affiliation:
Department of Theology and Religious Studies, King's College LondonStrand, London WC2R 2LS
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Abstract

It is argued that Calvin does not veer between two incompatible accounts of grace, freedom and necessity in Institutes II. 2, but presents a consistent position. The consistency is evident once it is seen that Calvin carefully distinguished between necessity and compulsion. For him not all necessitated acts are compelled, but all human acts which are the outcome of efficacious divine grace are necessitated by that grace. Because Calvin is consistent, there is no need to suppose that he has mistaken the causal sufficiency of divine saving grace for its causal importance.

Type
Research Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 30 , Issue 4 , December 1994 , pp. 457 - 465
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

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References

1 All references to the Institutes are to the translation by Battles, F. L. (London: S.C.M. Press, 1960).Google Scholar

2 Those familiar with Frankfurt's, Harry ‘Identification and Externality’ in The Importance of What We Care About (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988) will recognize how indebted these remarks are to that paper.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Lucas's, views are to be found in Freedom and Grace (London: S. P. C. K., 1976), in the paper from which the book draws its title.Google ScholarFor an earlier critical discussion of Lucas's views, see Helm, Paul, ‘On Grace and Causation’, Scottish Journal of Theology, xxxii (1979), 101–12CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 I am most grateful to Professor Brümmer for showing me a copy of his paper in advance of publication and to A. N. S. Lane for his comments on an earlier version of this reply.