Tag: Francis Turretin

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Understanding God’s Compassion for All . . . And Our Own

One of the most persistent questions in theology is this: how do we bring together God’s sincere compassion for all sinners and His decision to save only some of them?

Scripture presents this to us in at least three ways. First, there are God’s indiscriminate offers of mercy to all. Second, there are declarations of His love for the world, such as John 3:16. Third, there are passages that speak of God’s compassion toward those who are never saved. These seem to pull in different directions. Either God does not truly have compassion for all, or He has compassion but cannot act on it.

This is not a minor difficulty. As A. A. Hodge noted, it is one of the strongest points pressed by Arminians against Calvinists. Robert Lewis Dabney also recognized that Calvinists have often struggled here. Because of that, he believed that this issue deserved another look.

Nor is this just a theoretical issue. When we look at any person and have compassion, we may ask, “Does God stand behind this compassion?”

Dabney offered a solution to this perplexing question in his article, “God’s Indiscriminate Proposals of Mercy: As Related to His Power, Wisdom, and Sincerity.” But his real contribution, I would suggest, lies deeper than he himself fully realized. He did not so much introduce a new principle as expose one already at work—and show how it ought to be applied more consistently.

The Problem: Collapsing Affection into Action
The difficulty arises from an assumption that feels intuitive but is false:

If an affection is real, one must act on it.

If God truly has compassion, then He must relieve the misery. If He does not relieve it, then compassion must not be there.

This assumption drives both sides:

  • The Arminian says: if God has compassion, He must act—so something must limit His action.
  • Some Calvinists reply: since God does not act, the compassion must not exist in that case.

Both accept the same premise. Both are mistaken.

What is needed is not a new theological distinction, but a clearer understanding of the structure of rational agency itself. Continue reading “Understanding God’s Compassion for All . . . And Our Own”

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Turretin on the Celebration of Days

In this section (Institutes, 11.15.13–15), Francis Turretin sets forth a balanced view of the celebration of days in the church. He urges toleration for those who celebrate them and those who do not, provided they agree in rejecting the superstitious use of them and the idolatrous rites of the Papists. On the other side, he gives cautions concerning their use and explains how they can be used in a right and wrong way. He writes:

XIII. If some Reformed churches still observe some festivals (as the conception, nativity, passion and ascension of Christ), they differ widely from the papists because they dedicate these days to God alone and not to creatures. (2) No sanctity is attached to them, nor power and efficacy believed to be in them (as if they are much more holy than the remaining days). (3) They do not bind believers to a scrupulous and too strict abstinence on them from all servile work (as if in that abstinence there was any moral good or any part of religion placed and on the other hand it would be a great offense to do any work on those days). (4) The church is not bound by any necessity to the unchangeable observance of those days, but as they were instituted by human authority, so by the same they can be abolished and changed, if utility and the necessity of the church should demand it. “For everything is dissolved by the same causes by which it was produced,” the lawyers say. In one word, they are considered as human institutions. Superstition and the idea of necessity are absent.
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Turretin on Reward and Merit From a Sermon on Hebrews 11:24–26

You can find the original sermon here, printed in 1686. He is responding to the objection that the term “reward” in Heb. 11:26 implies merit.

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On this point, before we finish, we must answer two scruples that can come from these words. The first is whether it is permitted to do good works looking for a reward. The second is whether we can gather as a consequence merit from reward so as to conclude that since our good works have a reward they must be meritorious as [110] the false Church alleges. But neither the first nor the second have much difficulty in them.
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