John Calvin and Sebastian Castellio, The Secret Providence of God, ed. Paul Helm, trans. Keith Goad

Crossway, 2010, 125 pgs.

Summary: John Calvin’s former friend Sebastian Castellio (1515-1563) wrote, privately published, and circulated among Protestants a letter attacking Calvin’s articulation of the decrees of God. (Calvin divides God’s will into the revealed will of God and the secret will of God or the published and secret decrees [cf. Deut. 29:29]). The letter is rhetorically sophisticated and claims to summarize Calvin’s teachings into 14 articles drawn from his writings. Castellio, or the calumniator, then makes a show of defending Calvin and his careful theological distinctions before collapsing into accusing Calvin of erecting Satan as the God of the Bible (53), because God is the ultimate cause of evil.

Castellio sets the attitude and the framework of the later developments of Arminianism egalitarian love and libertarian free will. There is also the use of a “normal” hermeneutic used to shield Castellio’s  first premises: “When Christ taught divine thing he followed common sense. If common sense is taken away, then all the parables of Christ will be nullified, for we interpret these parables by means of common sense” (43).

“Calvin’s response to such questions is threefold: to affirm the meaning of the truth of the scriptural data that call forth these distinctions, to resolutely refuse to apply analogies to God that are not themselves warranted by Scripture, and to affirm (also on scriptural precedent) that God’s ways are mysterious and unfathomable” (29, Helm).

Calvin affirms that “there are enough testimonies pointing toward God’s love for the entire human race to prove that all who will die in a state of ingratitude are guilty. Nor is this any different from his special love with which he draws a few whom he esteems enough to be chosen from the many” (66). He also defends his attacked distinctions from Scripture and supports God’s absolute sovereignty.

Benefits/Detriments:

In as much as Castellio represents the modern tendency toward indifference to careful distinctions and exegesis created by the biblical data (cf. John 3:19; Rom. 9:13-18) and the semi-Pelagian push for “free will” and egalitarian love without recognizing the theological contradictions Calvin’s response is applicable. Helpful introduction by Paul Helm.