Calvin & Beza on Providence

Résumé du livre

These two valuable pieces on Providence by Calvin and Beza have lain in obscurity, so much so that most people likely do not know that they exist. They originally appeared, translated by John Knox from the French and Latin respectively, in the midst of Knox’s massive treatise on predestination.  That treatise remains in old English, which is old enough and difficult enough that to many it is unreadable.

The Libertines, having such a high view of God’s eternal decree, held to what is known in philosophy as a form of Occasionalism, that all events that occur are directly and immediately worked by God.  True secondary causation is eliminated.  One main problem with this is that it makes God the Author of Sin, something that the Libertines expressly affirmed.  Calvin here not only repudiates this blasphemy, but he also lays out three ways (and only three ways) in which God brings all things to pass through his providence, herein establishing true secondary causation.

Beza provides 29 propositions on providence from his work against Sebastian Castellio, touching upon similar themes as Calvin.  Both Calvin and Beza’s pieces, while making some basic distinctions, expound the Lord’s providence in a way that is easy to grasp with illustrations from Scripture and human life.