Fathers and Sons

Abstract

English-Canadian Calvinism shares a common denominator with the Jansenism of French-Canadian Catholicism. The root of both is Augustinian theology as interpreted by Calvin, and by Jansen after him. "In its doctrine of hereditary corruption, universal deprivation, and complete loss of spiritual freedom on the part of man," says one authoritative source, "Calvin takes over almost unchanged the doctrine of Augustine." Similarly, says another, "Jansen adopted in their entirety the most rigid of St. Augustine's formulas, and adhered especially... to the most rigid [gratuitous predestination]...." In treating of the Fall of man Jansen assumed "a very pessimistic standpoint in which he presented as absolute the power of concupiscence over free will, thenceforth inclined to sin." The doctrine of predestination affirmed by Calvin and Jansen raised thorny problems of divine grace for orthodox theologians. Given the total depravity of man since the Fall — not only in his spiritual nature but also in his human powers of intellection and will — then "all man's works are contaminated by sin" (NCE, II, 1092), and human activity is impotent to establish a proper relationship with god. It is an image of man corrupted into a "horrible deformity," as Calvin put it. Salvation then, is absolutely in the divine will and not at all in man's merits and good works, for predestination either to election or reprobation is presented as independent of God's foreknowledge of individual merit.