Schaff - History of the Christian Church Vol. 8 - Media Sabda Org

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Yet there were some characteristic differences in the views of the leading
Reformers on this subject. Luther, like Augustin, started from total moral
inability or the servum arbitrium; Zwingli, from the idea of an all-ruling
providentia; Calvin, from the eternal decretum absolutum.
The Augustinian and Lutheran predestinarianism is moderated by the
churchly and sacramental principle of baptismal regeneration. The
Calvinistic predestinarianism confines the sacramental efficacy to the elect,
and turns the baptism of the non-elect into an empty form; but, on the
other hand, it opens a door for an extension of electing grace beyond the
limits of the visible Church. Zwingli’s position was peculiar: on the one
hand, he went so far in his supralapsarianism as to make God the sinless
author of sin (as the magistrate in inflicting capital punishment, or the
soldier in the battle, are innocently guilty of murder); but, on the other
hand, he undermined the very foundation of the Augustinian system—
namely, the wholesale condemnation of the race for the single transgression
of one; he admitted hereditary sin, but denied hereditary guilt; and he
included all infants and pious heathen in the kingdom of heaven. Such a
view was then universally abhorred, as dangerous and heretical. f819
Melanchthon, on further study and reflection, retreated in the Semi-
Pelagian direction, and prepared the way for Arminianism, which arose,
independently, in the heart of Calvinism at the beginning of the seventeenth
century. He abandoned his earlier view, which he characterized as Stoic
fatalism, and proposed the Synergistic scheme, which is a compromise
between Augustinianism and Semi-Pelagianism, and makes the human will
co-operate with preceding divine grace, but disowns human merit. f820
The Formula of Concord (1577) rejected both Calvinism and Synergism,
yet taught, by a logical inconsistency, total disability and unconditional
election, as well as universal vocation.
CALVIN’S THEORY.
Calvin elaborated the doctrine of predestination with greater care and
precision than his predecessors, and avoided their “paradoxes,” as he called
some extravagant and unguarded expressions of Luther and Zwingli. On
the other hand, he laid greater emphasis on the dogma itself, and assigned
it a higher position in his theological system. He was, by his Stoic temper
and as an admirer of Seneca, predisposed to predestinarianism, and found it
in the teaching of Paul, his favorite apostle. But his chief interest in the