RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Calvinism
rum to the decree of the fall, while it was doubted whether there were any decree of the fall; or as if indeed God could be held to conceive men, in his electing decree, as fallen, without by that very act fixing the presupposed fall in his eternal decree. IrTpoint of fact there is and can be no difference amon<>- Calvinists as to the inclusion of the fall in the decree of God: to doubt this inclusion is to place oneself at once at variance with the fundamental Calvinistic principle which conceives all that comes to pass teleologically and ascribes everything^ that actually occurs ultimately to the will of GocLj Accordingly even jthe Postredemptionists7 (that is to say the Salmurians or Amyraldians) find no difficulty at this jjoint. Their 9. Postre- peculiarity consists in[_jjisisting that demption- election succeeds, in the order of ism. thought, not merely the decree of the fall but that of redemption as well.X taking the term redemption here in the narrower sense of the impetration of redemption by Christ. They thus suppose that in his electing decree God ■ conceived man not merely as fallen but as already redeemed. This involves a modified doctrine of the atonement from which the party has received the name of Hypothetical Universalism, holding as it does that Christ died to make satisfaction for the sins of all men without exception if — if, that is, they believe: but that, foreseeing that none would believe, God elected some to be granted faith through the effectual operation of the Holy Spirit. The indifferent standing of the Postredemptionists in historical Calvinism is indicated by the treatment accorded it in the historical confessions. It alone of the " varieties of Calvinism " here mentioned has been made the object of formal confessional condemnation; and it received condemnation in every important Reformed confession written after its development. There are, it is true, no supralapsarian confessions: many, however, leave the questions which divide supralapsarian and infralapsarian wholly to one side and thus avoid pronouncing for either; and none is polemically directed against supralapsarianism. On the other hand, not only does no confession close the door to infralapsarianism, but a considerable number explicitly teach infralapsarianism which thus emerges as the typical form of Calvinism. That, despite its confessional condemnation, Postredemptionism has remained a recognized form of Calvinism and has worked out a history for itself in the Calvinistic Churches (especially in America) may be taken as evidence that its advocates, while departing, in some important particulars, from typical Calvinism, have nevertheless remained, in the main, true to the fundamental postulates of the system. There is another variety of Postredemptionism, however, of which this can scarcely be said. This variety, which became dominant among the New England Congregationalist Churches about the second third of the nineteenth century (e.g., N. W. Taylor, d. 1858; C. G. Finney, d. 1875; E. A. Park, d. 1900; see New England Theology), attempted, much after the manner of the " Congruists " of the Church of Rome, to unite a Pelagian doctrine of the will with the Calvinistic doctrine
of absolute predestination. The result was, of course, to destroy the Calvinistic doctrine of " irresistible grace," and as the Calvinistic doctrine of the " satisfaction of Christ " was also set aside in favor of the Grotian or governmental theory of atonement, little was left of Calvinism except the bare doctrine of predestination. Perhaps it is not strange, therefore, that this " improved Calvinism " has crumbled away and given place to newer and explicitly anti-Calvinistic constructions of doctrine (cf. Williston Walker, in AJT, Apr., 1906, pp. 204 sqq.).
It must be confessed that the fortunes of Calvinism in general are not at present at their flood. In America, to be sure, the controversies of the earlier half of the nineteenth century compacted a body of Calvinistic thought which gives way but slowly: and the influence of the great theologians who adorned the churches during that period is still felt (especially Charles Hodge, 1797-1878, Robert J. Breckinridge, 1800-71, James H. Thornwell, 1812-62, Henry B. Smith, 1815-77, W. G. T. Shedd, 1820-94, Robert L. Dabney, 1820-98, Archibald Alexander Hodge, 1823-86). And in Holland recent years have seen a notable revival of the Reformed consciousness, es- 10. Present pecially among the adherents of the Fortunes Free Churches, which has been felt as of Cal- widely as Dutch influence extends, vinism. and which is at present represented in Abraham Kuyper and Herman Bavinck, by a theologian of genius and a theologian of erudition worthy of the best Reformed traditions. But it is probable that few " Calvinists without reserve " exist at the moment in Frenchspeaking lands: and those who exist in lands of German speech and Eastern Europe appear to owe their inspiration directly to the teaching of Kohlbriigge. Even in Scotland there has been a remarkable decline in strictness of construction ever since the days of William Cunningham and Thomas J. Crawford (cf. W Hastie, The Theology of the Reformed Church, Edinburgh, 1904, p. 228). Nevertheless, it may be contended that the future, as the past, of Christianity itself is bound up with the fortunes of Calvinism. The system of doctrine founded on the idea of God which has been explicated by Calvinism, strikingly remarks W Hastie (Theology as a Science, Glasgow, 1899, pp. 97-98), " is the only system in which the whole order of the world is brought into a rational unity with the doctrine of grace. It is only with such a
universal , conception of God, established in a living way, that we can face, with hope of complete conquest, all the spiritual dangers and terrors of our time. But it is deep enough and large
enough and divine enough, rightly understood, to confront them and do battle with them all in vindication of the Creator, Preserver, and Governor of the world, and of the Justice, and Love of the Divine Personality." See Five Points of Calvinism. Benjamin B. Warfield. Bibliography: The Reformed Confessions have often been collected; the fullest collection is E. F. K. Miiller, Die Bekenntnisschriften der reformierten Kir die, Leipsic, 1903. For Eng. readers the most convenient is Schaff, Creeds, vol. iii. (vol. i. contains a history of creeds). An older
Calvinism Cambridge Platonists