ARTICLE IV.-OLD AND NEW CALVINISM.*

Is there any distinct line of demarkation between the two systems of theology, known as New and Old Calvinism, or between what are usually termed Old and New School Theology?

If the question be, is there any line dividing those who call themselves Calvinists into two distinct classes-the Old and New-I unhesitatingly answer, No; there is no such line. There is a wide difference between the system taught at Oberlin and the one taught at Princeton, but every shade of theological thought lying between them, and far to the outside of both, has its representatives and strenuous advocates. Dr. Duryea describes Calvinism on one side, and Arminianism on the other, as two fences, upon either of which it is difficult to walk, but intimates that there is plenty of room between them. It is certainly not an easy matter to classify theological thinkers.

But may we not classify theological thought? Are there not logically two systems indicated by the names I have suggested? Starting from opposite sides of some central doctrine, if logically consistent, are we not compelled to take either the one or the other of two paths through the realm of metaphysical theology? So it seems to me, and the object of this paper is to indicate these two paths. It will be understood my remarks relate to systems rather than to men.

The ground I should otherwise have to traverse is immeasureably narrowed by the fact that these two systems embrace in common, the great bulk of revealed truth, nine-tenths, perhaps ninety-nine-hundredths of the whole. The divine authority and inspiration of the Bible, the being, attributes, and tripersonality of God, the deity, incarnation, and atonement of Christ, the divinity, personality, and offices of the Holy Spirit, the lost and helpless state of man, his need of regeneration by the Holy Spirit, and pardon through the shedding of blood, the

VOL. IV.

* Read before the Chicago Congregational Association.

41

obligations and sanctions of the divine law, the Sabbath and Sacraments and duty of a holy and consecrated life, and the eternal awards of the life to come, belong equally to both systems. Indeed the doctrines in dispute cover but a small segment of the whole circle of revealed truth, and even in this narrow field the difference relates, not so much to the facts, as to their underlying philosophy and explanation. Dr. Hodge well asks: "What is Pelagianism or Arminianism or almost any other ism but a particular system of religious philosophy, and what are the questions which divide and alienate Christians, but questions of mental and moral science ?" It's not the fact of depravity, and atonement, and regeneration, about which we differ, but the philosophy and explanation of these facts.

Still I am compelled to admit that the explanations and underlying theories are important, and open a wide field of profitable enquiry. Every scribe well instructed in the things of the kingdom will have a philosophical theory in which all these facts will take their place in harmony with each other, and with all known truth. I can respect as a Christian, but not as a Christian teacher, the man who has no distinct selfconsistent definition of sin and holiness, of repentance regener. ation and faith, who has no idea as to how God can be just, and the justifier of believing men. Every teacher of religion, to meet the sharp questionings of his hearers and satisfy his own cravings for consistency, must have a philosophy as well as theology.

But where shall we commence? at what point does the divergence of these two systems take its rise? I answer without hesitation, with the doctrine of man's free agency, or of the freedom of the will. "In every system of theology," says says Dr. Charles Hodge, "there must be a chapter de libero arbitrio. This is the question every theologian finds in his path, and which he must dispose of, and on the manner in which it is determined depends his theology." "These two systems [Calvinism and Arminianism]," says Dr. Strieby, "are characterized and determined by the views of the human will, upon which they are respectively founded." "Calvin," says Dr. Curry, "in whose mind the logical faculty was predominant, who never hesitated to follow out his own accepted premises to their legitimate

conclusions, developed a complete system of philosophical theology, which so exalted the divine sovereignty in grace and providence, as to leave no room for the action of any creature, except as moved and actuated by the power of God. Whatever might occur, must therefore be interpreted as the outcome of the will of God, whether of righteousness or of sin, eternal life or eternal death. The only possible law in the universe was the divine decrees, from which there was no departure. The actions of all creatures were subject to his hands, in both their inception and execution, and the whole universe, spiritual and physical, was subject to a complete order of predestination," making a necessitated will the basis of the Calvinistic system.

Here is the genesis of the controversy. Both schools call the will free, but they differ, toto cœlo, as to the nature of freedom. Here is the vital pivotal point, and right here we need to do some clear thinking in order to get an adequate and comprehensive view of the two theologies.

Dr. Reid's definition of Freedom (see vol. iii., p. 326), which a writer in the Princeton Review tells us has been substantially adopted by all subsequent Pelagian and Arminian writers, is this: "By liberty of a moral agent, I understand a power over the determinations of his own will. If in any action, he had power either to will or not to will, what he did, he is free. But if in every voluntary action, the determination of his will be a necessary consequence if something involuntary in the state of his mind, or of something in his external circumstances, he is not free, but is the subject of necessity." New Calvinism accepts, Old Calvinism rejects, this definition, and just here theology divides into two schools.

There is something in the mind antecedent to choice, from which choices proceed; call it nature, disposition, motive, inclination, heart, taste, relish, propensity, what we will; the decisive question is, what is the relation between this antecedent something, and the resultant choice. Is it that of cause and effect, or of necessity? Do inclinations and motives coerce or merely solicit? Must the choice correspond, without the possi bility of an alternative, with this preceding state, or in given conditions, are either of opposite choices possible? In other words does the will determine its own choices, or something behind

the will? Something, answers the Old Calvinist, behind the will-the strongest motive, the most agreeable, the greatest apparent good-in every case.

The gist of the argument of Edwards-the most able exponent of the Calvinistic theory of the will, is this: If motive is not the producing cause of choice, then choice has no cause, and we have the anomaly of an event without a cause. Dr. Hodge holds that choices are always dominated by the previous state of mind and characterizes the opposite view as "Pelagianism," "the doctrine of contingency," "the liberty of indifference," His definition of freedom is this: 66 Man is free, when his volitions are truly and properly his own, determined by nothing out of himself, but proceeding from his own views and feelings and imminent states of mind, so that they are real conscious expressions of his own character, or what is in his mind." (See Theology, vol. xi., p. 285.) This is substantially Dr. Reid's definition of necessity.

etc.

Again, vol. ii., p. 289, he says: "The will is not independ ent, indifferent, or self-determined, but is always determined by the preceding state of mind, so that a man is free so long as his volitions are the conscious expressions of his own mind, so long as his activity is determined by his own reason and feelings"— a definition which would make water free, so long as its activity is determined by its own nature and laws.

Page 279 he is still more explicit: "The whole question therefore is whether when a man decides to do a certain thing, his will is decided by his previous state of mind, or whether with precisely the same views and feelings, his decisions may be one way at one time, and another at another; that is, whether the will to be free must be undetermined," and he clearly takes the ground that choices are decided by the previous state of mind, and cannot but accord with it.

Prof. Atwater in his celebrated article (see Princeton Review, 1840), on "the power of Contrary Choice," sums up the whole matter thus: "The question is whether the will is so constituted, that at the moment of any given choice, under precisely the same motives and inward inclinations and external inducement, it may turn itself either way, either in the way it actually does choose, or in the opposite, either in accordance with its

highest pleasure, or inclination, or in direct and utter hostility to them; and whether such a property in the human will be essen tial to liberty, moral agency, praise and blame, rewards and punishments; a question which lies at the very root, as will be perceived, of some of the chief questions in divinity and ethics." The Professor, lest he should be charged with "fighting a fiction of his own fancy," quotes to some extent from contemporary writers, to prove there are men who hold and teach the doctrine of the power of contrary choice, and then devotes the remainder of his lengthy article to an exposure of the folly and absurdity of such a theory, and earnestly contends that in a given state of mind, the power of making either one of the two opposite choices is not possible to any human being.

Now a man, when he acts, is always in a given state of mind, and if he cannot turn in either of two ways, he can, of course, turn in but one way-the way he does turn, and can do only as he does. He has no freedom, no choice, no alternative. This is the Old Calvinistic doctrine of the will, to wit: choices necessarily accord with their antecedent motive or states of mind.

But says the Old Calvinist, after all, a man has ability to do as he pleases, and this is all the liberty he can ask. But if he cannot do otherwise, if he can act in but one way-the way he pleases—is he in any proper sense free? The will can yield to the most pleasing, the most agreeable, to the strongest motive undoubtedly, so can the scales to the greatest weight, and there is just as much freedom in the one case as the other.

I am aware the Old Calvinist endeavors to conceal this bald fatalism, by making a distinction between moral and physical inability. Edwards repeatedly asserts that were the sinner's inability to do right physical, he could not be held blameworthy for not doing right, but inasmuch as it is moral, the greater the inability the greater the sin, because it is depravity or sin which constitutes this inability. Here, it seems to me, is a distinction without a difference. If his moral inability is a mere reluctance, which his will can overcome, the doctrine of contrary choice is conceded, and the whole Calvinistic theory is abandoned, but if, on the other hand, it is an inability he cannot in the circumstances overcome, the distinction affords no relief.