John Calvin Quotes

There is no rational creature which is not capable both of good and evil

The more...we consider man to be free, the less we can say, that he can neglect to use reason, or choose evil in preference to good

It is false that the will, left to itself, can do good as well as evil, for it is not free, but in bondage...On the side of man there is nothing that goes before grace, unless it be impotency and even rebellion.

The priests say that God created our souls, and that just puts us under the control of another puppeteer. If God created our will, then he's responsible for every choice we make.

That is the true definition of sin; when knowing right you do the lower, ah, then you sin. Where there is no knowledge, sin is not present.

I suspect that here theists and atheists would agree: Human beings have within them the ability to choose evil or good. We wake up each day facing the age-old struggle of good and evil. In some situations, mental illness clouds our judgment.

If our wondrous kindness is evidence for God, is our capacity for great evil proof of the Devil?

It makes a great deal of difference whether one wills not to sin or has not the knowledge to sin.

Do freshman philosophy classes nowadays debate updated versions of the age-old questions? Like, how could a merciful God allow AIDS, childhood cancers, tsunamis and Dick Cheney?

The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never made up their minds to be either good or evil.

Augustine started from God's grace and got it right, Pelagius started from human effort and got it wrong. Augustine passionately pursued God; Pelagius methodically worked to please God.

If he can only perform good or only perform evil, then he is a clockwork orange—meaning that he has the appearance of an organism lovely with colour and juice but is in fact only a clockwork toy to be wound up by God or the Devil.

In vain people busy themselves with finding any good of man's own in his will. For any mixture of the power of freewill that men strive to mingle with God's grace is nothing but a corruption of grace. It is just as if one were to dilute wine with muddy, bitter water.

The general consent of all that sect is that God (by his foreknowledge, counsel, and wisdom) has no assured election, neither yet any certain reprobation, but that every man may elect or reprobate himself by his own free will, which he has (say they) to do good or evil ... [All these things are] forged by their own brains, and polished by the finest of their wits, when yet in very deed they are but the rotten heresies of ... Pelagius, long ago confuted by Augustine.

Grace is necessary to salvation, free will equally so - but grace in order to give salvation, free will in order to receive it.

Let all Arminians know: we have as high an esteem for faith as any men in the world, but yet we will not rob Christ to clothe faith.

The will of man without the grace of God is not free at all, but is the permanent prisoner and bondslave of evil since it cannot turn itself to good.

No sinner has the right to say with impunity, 'God you owe me grace.' If grace is owed, it is not grace. The very essence of grace is its voluntary character. God reserves to himself the sovereign, absolute right to give grace to some and withhold that grace from others.

[It is] essentially wholesome and necessary, for a Christian to know, whether or not the will does any thing in those things which pertain unto Salvation. Nay, let me tell you, this is the very hinge upon which our discussion turns. It is the very heart of the subject

It's not as if grace did one half of the work and free choice the other; each does the whole work, in its own peculiar contribution. Grace does the whole work, and so does free choice - with this one qualification: That whereas the whole is done in free choice, so is the whole done of grace.

Good and evil are essential differences of the act of the will. For good and evil pertain essentially to the will; just as truth and falsehood pertain to the reason, the act of which is distinguished essentially by the difference of truth and falsehood (according as we say that an opinion is true or false.) Consequently, good and evil volition are acts differing in species.

Catholic theology accounts for the fact that there's evil in the world. People say, well, how could God let this happen. Well, what God did was set the mechanism in motion and then allow people to do the best they can under the circumstances that they're dealt in order to gain grace and get into heaven.

Dangerous thing, giving humanity the knowledge of good and evil. And the capacity to make the wrong choice more often than not.

O God, for as much as without Thee We are not enabled to doubt Thee, Help us all by Thy grace To convince the whole race It knows nothing whatever about Thee.

The world of evil is only as evil as we allow it to be.