An early and true thought belonging to Calvin is the notion of unconditional election which gradually became a part of reformed theology’s assertions about God. According to William Stacy Johnson, unconditional election is defined as “…the belief that God’s selection of humans for salvation does not base itself on any human response, including a prior faith in Jesus Christ.” The surprising last phrase of this excerpt I believe may be included by Johnson because Calvin attended so closely to the Hebraic scriptures in developing his idea of election. Charles Partee notes that “Calvin knows that in the Old Testament God chooses Isaac over Ishmael and Ephraim over Manasseh. And most directly ‘Jacob have I loved but Esau I have hated’.” (241) Not to mention choosing Cain over Abel. The notion of God’s surprising election of some came from Calvin’s respect and appreciation for the details of the Hebrew scriptures.
However, Johnson’s definition cannot go without critique. It is important to note that Old Testament aside, Calvin measures his election or ours according to our communion in Christ but there is no assurance that this is God’s measure. Therein lies some of the confusion about unconditional election. Calvin never presumes that his observations regarding God’s choices from among human beings is a sufficient explanation of the mind of God. Rather, Calvin’s election (also known as predestination) is a way for human beings to imagine the way that God knows them and stays active in their lives. This includes (however unpopular it may be) the notion that some are not chosen (or reprobate) because they refuse to respond faithfully to God. But again, Calvin does not presume that the mind of God works like this. The idea of the unchosen or the reprobate is the way that we imagine how God is at work in our lives.
The tradition of our church has, in its systematizing work, done some rearranging of Calvin’s work and the notion of election/predestination. Charles Partee, in his book The Theology of John Calvin, takes important note of the role that Westminster Confession plays in such rearranging.
For example, the Westminster Confession, a hundred years later, deals with the Scripture in article 1, with God in article 2, and election in article 3. (Jesus Christ is article 8!) At Westminster predestination is developed before the doctrines of creation, redemption, faith and so on. In Calvin, eternal election is properly an attempt from the believer’s perspective to understand God’s love for those whom God chooses. According to Westminster the doctrine is an attempt, from God’s perspective, to explain the eternal choice of those whom God will love. Put another way, predestination in Calvin deals with our experience of God’s grace; in Westminster it deals with God’s bestowal of grace. We can understand something of the former, but we can only guess about the latter. (243-244).
The distinction is crucially important. For if Calvin portends only to offer election as a way to imagine how God works and loves us, then Calvin cannot be regarded as rigid as the tradition that rearranges him. Kristine A. Culp reminds us that if we measure our election by God according to our union with Christ, the church is a vehicle for such union. Calvin likened God first as a nursing mother and then the church as a school. Further, he imagined God as a schoolmaster who repeats lessons while looking over the shoulders of developing and practicing students who are attending to scripture. Such a vision of God, the church and individuals cannot be understood as rigid.
So we must read carefully when process theologians like Bruce Epperly draw out the Calvinist tradition as being rigid. Calvin need not be thrown out with the Calvinist bath water. Epperly asserts for process theology that “The universe is the theatre of divine artistry and glory, but unlike the Calvinist tradition, God glory embraces all creation, seeking wholeness for every creature in its particular environmental context. God plays no favorites, but seeks abundant life for all creatures.” (I believe Calvin himself uses the imagery of the world as God’s theatre.) Note that Epperly’s statement reflects a similar direction as the Westminster Confession. Both try to imagine the mind of God…Calvin keeps a respectful distance and true his humanist perspective invites the human mind, given the evidence of scripture, to imagine God without pretending to know God’s mind.
I, personally, believe that the great reformer and teacher, John Calvin, would have appreciated process theology’s work toward greater explication of the way that we experience God choosing us over and over again. Process theology’s assertion that God’s initial aim (i.e. God’s beginning provision of possibility for our lives) becomes God’s consequent aim (i.e. when we make our limited response that cannot fully realize God’s possibility for us) seems to me very much like Calvin’s notion of the parent or school teacher that returns to instruct us through our deficits and celebrate our competencies choosing not only us….but our emergence and our reformation.
Granted, process theology is suggesting an understanding of God’s mind but I think Calvin might forgive them that.