From The Princeton Theologial Review, xiii. 1915, pp. 190–255, continuing the series of articles published in the Review during 1909 (pp. 27–284 of this volume).
In developing his system, Calvin proceeds at once from the doctrine of God to an exposition of His works of creation and providence (I. xiv.–xv. and xvi.–xviii.). That he passes over the divine Purpose or Decree at this point, though it would logically claim attention before its execution in creation and providence, is only another indication of the intensely practical spirit of Calvin and the simplicity of his method in this work. He carries his readers at once over from what God is to what God does, reserving the abstruser discussions of the relation of His will to occurrences for a later point in the treatise, when the reader’s mind, by a contemplation of the divine works, will be better prepared to read off the underlying purpose from the actual event. The practical end which has determined this sequence of topics governs also the manner in which the subject of creation, now taken up (chaps. xiv.–xv.), is dealt with. There is no discussion of it from a formal point of view: the treatment is wholly material and is devoted rather to the nature of the created universe than to the mode of the Divine activity in creating it. Even in dealing with the created universe, there is no attempt at completeness of treatment. The spiritual universe is permitted to absorb the attention; and what is said about the lower creation is reduced to a mere hint or two introduced chiefly, it appears, to recommend the contemplation of it as a means of quickening in the heart a sense of God’s greatness and goodness (xiv. §§ 20–22).
It is quite obvious, in fact, from the beginning, that Calvin’s mind is set in this whole discussion of creation primarily on expounding the nature of man as a creature of God; and all else that he incorporates into it is subsidiary to this. He is writing for men and bends all he is writing to what he conceives to be their practical interests. He does not reach the actual discussion of man as creature, to be sure (chap. xv.), until after he has interposed a long exposition of the nature of angels and demons (xiv. 3–12, and 13–19). But this whole exposition is cast in a form which shows that angels and demons are interesting to Calvin only because of the high estimate he places upon the topic for the practical life of man; and it is introduced by a remark which betrays that his thought was already on man as the real subject of his exposition and all he had to say about other spiritual creatures was conceived as only preliminary to that more direct object of interest. “But before I begin to speak more fully concerning the nature of man,” he says quite gratuitously at the opening of the discussion (xiv. 3, ad init.), “something should be inserted (inserere) about angels.” What he actually says about angels, good and bad, in the amount of space occupied by it, is more than what he says about man; but it stood before his mind, we observe, as only “something,” and as something, be it noted, “inserted,” before the real subject of his discourse was reached. In his own consciousness what Calvin undertakes in these chapters is to make man aware of his own nature as a creature of God, and to place him as a creature of God in his environment, the most important elements of which he conceives to be the rest of the intelligent creation.
It is not to be inferred, of course, from the lightness with which Calvin passes over the doctrine of creation itself in this discussion that he took little interest in it or deemed it a matter of no great significance. That he does not dwell more fully on it is due, as we have said, to the practical nature of his undertaking, and was rendered possible by the circumstance that this doctrine was not in dispute.1 All men in the circles which he was addressing were of one mind on it, and there were sources of information within the reach of all which rendered it unnecessary for him to enlarge on it.2 That he had a clear and firm conception of the nature of the creative act and attributed importance to its proper apprehension is made abundantly plain; and is emphasized by his consecration of the few remarks he gives professedly to the topic to repelling assaults upon its credibility drawn from the nature of the Divine Being (xiv. 1–2).
In his conception of creation Calvin definitely separated himself from all dualistic,3 and especially from all pantheistic4 elements of thought by sharply asserting that all substantial existence outside of God owes its being to God, that it was created by God out of nothing, and that it came from God’s hand very good. His crispest definition of creation he lets fall incidentally in repelling the pantheistic notion that, as he scornfully describes it, “the essence of the Creator is rent into fragments that each may have a part of it.” “Creation,” he says, “is not the transfusion, but the origination out of nothing, of essence.”5 “God,” says he again, “by the power of His Word and Spirit created out of nothing, the heavens and the earth,” that is to say, all that exists, whether celestial or terrestial.6 Firmly stated as this doctrine of creation is, however, so as to leave us in no doubt as to Calvin’s conception,7 the elements of it are little elaborated. There is no attempt for example to validate the doctrine of creation ex nihilo whether on Biblical8 or on such rational grounds as we find appealed to by Zwingli, who argues that creation ex materia implies an infinite series whether the material out of which the creation is made be conceived as like or unlike in kind to that which is made from it.9 As we have seen, Calvin does argue, however, (like Zwingli), that creation in its very nature is “origination of essence,” so that he would have subscribed Zwingli’s declaration: “This is the definition of creation: to be out of nothing.”10 He does not even dwell upon the part which the Son takes in the creating, although he does not leave this important matter unmentioned, but declares that “the worlds were created by the Son” (I. xiii. 7), and that God created the heavens and earth “by the power of His Word and Spirit” (I. xiv. 20), thus setting the act of creation in its Trinitarian relation. It is, however, rather in the preceding chapter where he adduces the share they took in creation in proof of the deity of the Son and the Spirit that Calvin develops this fact. There he urges that “the power to create and the authority to command were common to the Father, Son, and Spirit,” as is shown, he says, by the words “Let us make man in our image” of Genesis 1:26; and he argues at length from the creation-narrative of Genesis and the Wisdom passage in Proverbs, no less than from Heb. 1:2, 3, that it was through the Son that God made the worlds.11 On one thing, however, he manages to insist despite the sketchiness with which he treats the whole subject. This is that whatever came from the divine hands came from them good. “It is monstrous,” he declares,12 “to ascribe to the good God the creation of any evil thing,” and we may not admit that there is in the whole world anything evil in its nature,13 but must perceive that in all that He has made God has displayed His wisdom and justice. Wherever evil has appeared, then, whether in man or devil, it is not ex natura, but ex naturae corruptione (I. xiv. 3), not ex creatione but ex depravatione (I. xiv. 16, ad init.). We must beware, therefore, lest in speaking of evil as natural to man, we should seem to refer it to the author of nature, whether we more coarsely conceive it as in some measure proceeding from God Himself, or, with more appearance of piety, ascribe it only to “nature.” We cannot attribute to God what is in the most absolute sense alien to His very nature, and it is equally dishonoring to Him to ascribe any intrinsic depravity to the “nature” which comes from His hands.14