Archive for the ‘Divine Providence’ Category

Wollebius:

(2)

1. Sin is either the first sin or the result of it.

2. The first sin is the disobedience of the first parents, by which they transgressed God’s prohibition concerning the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

PROPOSITIONS

I. The cause of the transgression of Adam and Eve was neither God nor a decree of God, nor the withholding of any special grace, nor the permission to fall, nor any naturally incited motive, nor the providential government of the fall itself.

It was not God, because he had most strictly forbidden the eating of the fruit of that tree. It was not his decree, because that carries only an immutable, not a coercive necessity, nor does it lead anyone toward sin. It was not the withholding of some special grace by which man might have remained innocent, for there was no obligation to give even the grace that God did give man; he received, in fact, the ability to act as he willed, although not that of willing as he could. It was not any naturally incited motive, for a motive in itself is not sin. It was not the providential government of the fall, for to bring good out of evil is to be the source of good rather than of evil.

II. God both did, and did not, will the first sin. He did not will, in so far as it is sin, but he willed and decreed it, in so far as it is a means of revealing his glory, mercy, and justice.

III. The immediate cause of original sin was the instigation and persuasion of that old serpent, the devil.

IV. Its antecedent cause was the will of man, which by itself was indifferent toward good and evil, but, when convinced by Satan, was turned toward evil.

V. There are five stages of the fall, by which man fell from God one step at a time, not all at once: (1) Thoughtlessness and meddlesomeness when Eve conversed with the serpent in her husband’s absence; ( 2 ) unbelief, as little by little she began to agree with the lies of Satan, who called into doubt the goodness of God toward man, so that she distrusted God; (3) desire for the forbidden fruit and for divine glory; (4) the deed itself; ( 5 ) the temptation of Adam and the arousing of undisciplined desire also in him.

VI. If all the aspects [pars] of this sin are taken into account, it is rightly called transgression of the entire natural law. Man sinned by unbelief, distrust, ingratitude, and idolatry, as he fell from God and set about making an idol of himself. He also sinned by despising God’s word, by rebellion, homicide, and intemperance, by the secret taking of what was not his without God’s permission, by assent to false statements, and finally by the desire for higher dignity, indeed, for the dignity that belongs only to God. Whence it is too narrow a definition to call this sin intemperance, ambition, or pride.

Johannes Wollebius, “Compendium Theologiae Christianae,” in John W. Beardslee III, Reformed Dogmatics (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker, 1977), 67-68.

11
Sep

Johannes Wollebius on the Providence of God

   Posted by: CalvinandCalvinism

Wollebius:

The actual providence of God is that work by which God not on preserves his creatures, but governs all things with unlimited [immensus] wisdom, goodness, power, justice, and mercy.

I. To deny providence is to deny God.

II. Actual providence differs from eternal providence as the execution of a decree differs from the decree.

III. In eternal providence what God intends to do, in actual providence what he wants, is uppermost.

IV. Providence consists not only of knowledge, but of the governance of all things, from the greatest to the least.

V. The providence of God does not destroy secondary causes, but upholds them.

VI. From the standpoint of providence, events which are contingent with respect to secondary causes are necessary. But it is the necessity of immutability, not of coercion.

VII. The providence of God is very different from Stoic fatalism. Stoic fatalism binds God in the net of secondary causes; Christian [teaching] subordinates secondary causes to the absolutely free will of God, which employs them freely, not of necessity, not because them, but because he wants them.

VIII. Both good and evil deeds are controlled by the providence of God.

IX. Good deeds are controlled by his effective act, under which heading belong the divine prevenience [praecursus] , concurrence [concursus] and support [succursus].

X. Evil deeds are controlled by realized [actuosus] permission, and hence by allowing, limiting, and directing them.

XI. The providence of God is always free from disorder and sin, even in connection with disorderly and sinful acts.

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7
Jul

Francis Turretin (1623-1687) on Divine Concurrence

   Posted by: CalvinandCalvinism

Turretin:

FIFTH QUESTION
Does God concur with second causes not only by a particular and simultaneous, but also by a previous concourse? We affirm.

I. Since the question concerning the concourse (concursus) of God is one of the most difficult in theology (in the explanation of which, if anywhere else, great labor must be employed) and error is most dangerous, it demands a peculiar and accurate discussion.

Physical and
Moral concourse
.

II. On the state of the question observe: (1) One concourse is physical by which one concurs and acts after the manner of a physical cause, i.e., truly and efficaciously and really flows into the effect by a certain positive influx; another is moral by which he operates after the manner of a moral cause, i.e., by persuading or dissuading or by proposing or removing the objects and occasions. We do not treat here of moral, but of physical concourse.

Mediate and
immediate
.

III. (2) One concourse is mediate; another immediate. For a cause can be said to act either mediately or immediately both as to the subsisting substance and as to virtue. That cause acts immediately by the immediation of the subsisting substance between which and the effect no other singular subsisting substance (subsisting of itself) is interposed (which previously receives in itself the action of the agent, as water which washes and cools the hand). The other, on the contrary, acts mediately by the mediation of the subsisting substance between which and the effect another subsisting substance falls (as the chisel between the artist and the statue). A cause acts immediately by the immediation of virtue which acts by a virtue or power proper to itself and not received from any other source (as fire warms by its own heat). A cause acts mediately, however, by the mediation of virtue which operates by a virtue not its own or proper to itself, but received and borrowed from another source (as when the moon by light borrowed from the sun illuminates the earth, she is said to illuminate mediately by a mediation of virtue, i.e., the virtue of the sun mediating). Now God concurs with second causes immediately by an immediation both of virtue (because he acts by his proper power not furnished from another source) and of subsisting substance (because by his own essence he attains the thing). Nor, if he uses second causes as means, does it follow that he does not act immediately also. For he uses them not with respect to the action of the creature and consequently of the effect itself (as if he did not reach it immediately), but inasmuch as he subordinates second causes to himself (by flowing into which he also reaches the effect itself immediately).

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23
May

Amandus Polanus on the Providence of God

   Posted by: CalvinandCalvinism

The following on the providence of God follows from Polanus’ discussion on permission of sin.

Polanus:

Hitherto concerning the parts of God’s providence: the sorts follow.

The providence of God is twofold: General or special.

The general providence of God, is that whereby the whole world is governed by a certain universal motion, Gen 7.1,2,3.

And that is declared, and especially beheld both in the preservation or destruction of things, and also in the governing of them.

The preservation of things, is that whereby God preserves all creatures, the better to declare his love towards them, Psal. 36.8, 9. Psal. 104. throughout, 105. 106. Mat. 6:36, 30.

Preservation is either universal or special.

The universal preservation, is that whereby he is present with all and every creature, even with the evil, so that he may preserve them only as long as pleases him. Psal. 104. throughout, Mat. 6.26, 30.

That is made manifest by their succeeding one another, or by continuance.

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