John Calvin's Argument Analysis

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LEE UNIVERSITY

AN ANALYSIS OF CALVIN'S ARGUMENT FOR PROVIDENCE

PRESENTED TO TERRY CROSS, PhD

IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS

FOR THEO-250: SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY I

THE SCHOOL OF RELIGION

BY

QUENTIN MURRAY

CLEVELAND, TENNESSEE

24 NOVEMBER 2015

AN ANALYSIS OF CALVIN’S ARGUMEN FOR PROVIDENCE

In I.17.1 of John Calvin’s work, Calvin argues that people do not need to worry about anything they do not understand because God takes care of everything. It is important to understand that this is not the beginning of Calvin’s Institutes of Christian Religion, because his points in chapter sixteen set the basis for his argument in this next section. Chapter sixteen on providence gives the foundation of …show more content…

Calvin begins the argument in the right place. He begins by addressing important issues of true understanding of Christianity. Calvin has already formed the doctrine of providence in chapter 16. In this chapter, he confronts the wrong understandings of providence. In the first premise stated above, it can be seen as a different way to understand why things take place. People view events as a result to fortune instead of accounting them to be controlled by God. It was a great idea for Calvin to bring up this first point because it is one of the major alternatives of the …show more content…

Instead of stating reasons for why God wills certain events to happen, it would have been helpful if Calvin gave scriptures that would demonstrate each point he made. Instead of just stating, “To correct their wicked affections and tame their lust” it would have been beneficial to give a biblical account for God doing this (211). Calvin is a well-known and trustworthy interpreter of the scriptures, but providing these scripture passages would be helpful for his argument. Calvin also makes a generalization in that everything shows the glory of God. Unbelievers might take this statement as God not loving the created beings and being selfish. In order to strengthen the argument it would have been a good idea to treat this issue with the fourth premises about God being perfectly

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