Calvin: free will and the Fall

Tuesday, August 1, 2023
Meditation:
    This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
    —Deut. 30:19-20 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Therefore Adam could have stood if he wished, seeing that he fell solely by his own will. But it was because his will was capable of being bent to one side or the other, and was not given the constancy to persevere, that he fell so easily. Yet his choice of good and evil was free.
    ... John Calvin (1509-1564), The Institutes of the Christian Religion, v. I [1559], tr. John Allen, Presbyterian Board of Publication and Sabbath-School Work, 1921, I.xv.8, p. 181 (see the book)
    See also Deut. 30:19-20; Gen. 3; 1 Cor. 15:22
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant me the stamina to resist sin. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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