John Calvin on Election & predestination
Unconditional — grounded in God's free choice
By predestination we mean the eternal decree of God, by which he determined with himself whatever he wished to happen with regard to every man. All are not created on equal terms, but some are preordained to eternal life, others to eternal damnation.
THE POSITION
Election rests on God's free choice and nothing in the person chosen: the decree is 'founded on his free mercy, without any respect to human worth' (Institutes III.xxi.7). Calvin explicitly refuses to make foreknowledge the ground — he grants God prescience but says 'it is absurd to make the latter subordinate to the former' (III.xxi.5). The decree is double and he says so in the chapter's title and body, covering both those admitted to salvation and those doomed to destruction, the latter 'by a just and blameless, but at the same time incomprehensible judgment' (III.xxi.7).
6 And if it is by grace, then it is no longer by works. Otherwise, grace would no longer be grace.
16 OTHERS HOLD THIS
ABOUT THIS FIGURE
Reformer of Geneva and the most systematic of the first-generation Reformers. This entry rests on the 1559 Institutes of the Christian Religion in Henry Beveridge's translation, checked section by section, with Calvin's own commentaries on 1 John, John, the Harmony of the Evangelists, the Psalms and the Harmony of the Law used where the Institutes are thin.
Cite this page
"John Calvin on Election & predestination", Examined Doctrine, July 2026 edition, https://examineddoctrine.com/position/calvin/election (archived at https://examineddoctrine.com/editions/2026-07/position/calvin/election).