Now, since the arrangement of all things is in the hand of God, since to him belongs the disposal of life and death, he arranges all things by his sovereign counsel, in such a way that individuals are born, who are doomed from the womb to certain death, and are to glorify him by their destruction. If any one alleges that no necessity is laid upon them by the providence of God, but rather that they are created by him in that condition, because he foresaw their future depravity, he says something, but does not say enough. Ancient writers, indeed, occasionally employ this solution, though with some degree of hesitation. The Schoolmen, again, rest in it as if it could not be gainsaid. I, for my part, am willing to admit, that mere prescience lays no necessity on the creatures; though some do not assent to this, but hold that it is itself the cause of things. But Valla, though otherwise not greatly skilled in sacred matters, seems to me to have taken a shrewder and more acute view, when he shows that the dispute is superfluous since life and death are acts of the divine will rather than of prescience. If God merely foresaw human events, and did not also arrange and dispose of them at his pleasure, there might be room for agitating the question, how far his foreknowledge amounts to necessity; but since he foresees the things which are to happen, simply because he has decreed that they are so to happen, it is vain to debate about prescience, while it is clear that all events take place by his sovereign appointment.
— John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, Book 3, Chapter 23, Paragraph 6
...how foolish and frail is the support of divine justice afforded by the suggestion that evils come to be, not by His will but by His permission... It is a quite frivolous refuge to say that God otiosely permits them, when Scripture shows Him not only willing, but the author of them...
— John Calvin, The Eternal Predestination of God, 10:11
(Definition of Otiosely: serving no practical purpose or result.)
The devil, and the whole train of the ungodly, are in all directions, held in by the hand of God as with a bridle, so that they can neither conceive any mischief, nor plan what they have conceived, nor how muchsoever they may have planned, move a single finger to perpetrate, unless in so far as he permits, nay unless in so far as he commands, that they are not only bound by his fetters but are even forced to do him service (John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, Book 1, Chapter 17, Paragraph 11)
...thieves and murderers, and other evildoers, are instruments of divine providence, being employed by the Lord himself to execute judgments which he has resolved to inflict.
— John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, Book 1, Chapter 17, Paragraph 5)
For God's will is so much the highest rule of righteousness that whatever he wills, by the very fact that he wills it, must be considered righteous. When, therefore, one asks why God has so done, we must reply: because he has willed it. But if you proceed further to ask why he so willed, you are seeking something greater and higher than God's will, which cannot be found. Let men's rashness, then, restrain itself, and not seek what does not exist, lest perhaps it fail to find what does exist.
— John Calvin
Here they recur to the distinction between will and permission, and insist that God permits the destruction of the impious, but does not will it. But what reason shall we assign for his permitting it, but because it is his will? It is not probable, however, that man procured his own destruction by the mere permission, without any appointment, of God; as though God had not determined what he would choose to be the condition of the principal of his creatures. I shall not hesitate therefore to confess plainly with Augustine, "that the will of God is the necessity of things, and that what he has willed will necessarily come to pass." God is very frequently said to blind and harden the reprobate, and to turn, incline, and influence their hearts, as I have elsewhere more fully stated. But it affords no explication of the nature of this influence to resort to prescience or permission.... For the execution of his judgements, he, by means of Satan, the minister of his wrath, directs their counsels to what he pleases and excites their wills and strengthens their efforts. Thus when Moses relates that Sihon the king would not grant a free passage to the people, because God had "hardened his spirit and made his heart obstinate" he immediately subjoins the end of Gods design: "That he might deliver him into thy hand" Since God willed his destruction, the obduration of his heart therefore was the divine preparation for his ruin.”
— John Calvin, Institutes, III, xxili, 8; and II, iv, 3
And it ought not to seem absurd for me to say that God not only foresaw the fall of the first man, and in him the ruin of his descendants, but also meted it out in accordance with his own decision...
— John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, Book 3, Chapter 23, Paragraph 7
A distinction has been invented between doing and permitting, because to many it seemed altogether inexplicable how Satan and all the wicked are so under the hand and authority of God, that He directs their malice to whatever end He pleases, and employs their iniquities to execute His judgements… How foolish and frail is the support of divine justice afforded by the suggestion that evils come to be, not by His will but by His permission… It is a quite frivolous refuge to say that God otiosely permits them, when Scripture shows Him not only willing, but the author of them…Who does not tremble at these judgments with which God works in the hearts of even the wicked whatever He will, rewarding them nonetheless according to desert? Again it is quite clear from the evidence of Scripture that God works in the hearts of men to incline their wills just as he will, whether to good for His mercy’s sake, or to evil according to their merits.
— John Calvin, The Eternal Predestination of God, 10:11
We hold that God is the disposer and ruler of all things, –that from the remotest eternity, according to his own wisdom, He decreed what he was to do, and now by his power executes what he decreed. Hence we maintain, that by His providence, not heaven and earth and inanimate creatures only, but also the counsels and wills of men are so governed as to move exactly in the course which he has destined.
— John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, Book 1, Chapter 16, Paragraph 8
Creatures are so governed by the secret counsel of God, that nothing happens but what he has knowingly and willingly decreed.
— John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, Book 1, Chapter 16, Paragraph 3
God causes everything and of necessity, that is, in accordance with his providence.
— John Calvin, The Bondage and Liberation of the Will, 1996, pg. 253
Everything that happens, happens of necessity, as God has ordained.
— John Calvin, The Bondage and Liberation of the Will, 1996, pg. 258
We define predestination as the eternal design of God, whereby he determined what he wanted to do with each man. For he did not create them all in the same condition, but foreordains some to everlasting life and others to eternal damnation.
— John Calvin
