Theological Determinism Quotes

By predestination we mean the eternal decree of God, by which He determined with Himself whatever He wished to happen with regard to every man

If there is one maverick molecule in all the universe, then God is not sovereign. And if God is not sovereign, He is not God.

Everything that happens is determined by God.

Events of human origin are uncertain, but all is regulated and governed by the incalculable power of God, inspiring us not through drunken fury nor by frantic movement, but through the influences of the stars.

Without doubt, God is the universal moving force, but each being is moved according to the nature that God has given it.

We are all bound to the throne of the Supreme Being by a flexible chain which restrains without enslaving us. The most wonderful aspect of the universal scheme of things is the action of free beings under divine guidance.

A God without dominion, providence, and final causes, is nothing else but fate and nature.

To say that God's sovereignty is limited by man's freedom is to make man sovereign.

Calvinism is an all-embracing system of principles... It is rooted in a form of religion which was peculiarly its own, and form that specific religious consciousness there was developed first a particular theology, then a special church-order, and then a given form for political and social life.

The good pleasure of God is an act of the divine will freely and effectively determining all things.

There is no philosophy that is not to some extent also theology.

John Calvin's theology emphasizes the sanctity of conscience, the sanctity of companionate marriage, and the obligation of those in power to attend to the well-being of the people in general, especially the poor. Interestingly, for the interpretation of Hamlet, for example, he forbids even the thought of revenge. This is not the Calvin of myth, but when the Elizabethans read him there was no such myth, nor would there be now, if he were read.

God foreknows nothing by contingency, but that He foresees, purposes, and does all things according to His immutable, eternal, and infallible will. By this thunderbolt, "Free-will" is thrown prostrate, and utterly dashed to pieces.

Islam is itself destiny and will not suffer destiny.

Calvinism is the consistent endeavor to acknowledge the Creator as the Lord, working all things after the counsel of His will.

Free-will doctrine-what does it? It magnifies man into God. It declares God's purposes a nullity, since they cannot be carried out unless men are willing. It makes God's will a waiting servant to the will of man, and the whole covenant of grace dependent on human action. Denying election on the ground of injustice, it holds God to be a debtor to sinners.

We are the playthings of the gods.

There is no erratic power or action or motion in creatures but they are governed by God's secret plan in such a way that nothing happens except what is knowingly and willingly decreed by Him.

Grace is necessary to salvation, free will equally so - but grace in order to give salvation, free will in order to receive it.

For He (God) seems to do nothing of himself which He can possibly delegate to His creatures.

To suggest that the merciful, longsuffering, gracious and loving God of the Bible would invent a dreadful doctrine like Calvinism, which would have us believe it is an act of 'grace' to select only certain people for heaven and, by exclusion, others for hell, comes perilously close to blasphemy.

I describe a world with no exit, convinced that God accompanies man throughout his history.

Hence, at the moment of the creation of the universe, God could also have activated evolution, with full knowledge of how it would turn out, perhaps even including our having this conversation. The idea that he could both foresee the future and also give us spirit and free will to carry out our own desires becomes entirely acceptable.

Blind metaphysical necessity, which is certainly the same always and every where, could produce no variety of things. All that diversity of natural things which we find suited to different times and places could arise from nothing but the ideas and will of a Being, necessarily existing.

My Calvinism persuades me that we are open to God, in the sense that we are not delimited, not organisms with fixed attributes in the manner of the other creatures, but are instead participants in a reality that utterly exceeds our powers of description.