The Calvinist conception of human nature deviates from that of Catholic theology in two critical respects. The first, fleshed out in the Calvinist doctrine of Irresistible Grace, concerns the role that free will plays in salvation. The second, embodied in the doctrine of Total Depravity, deals with the extent of humans’ natural inclinations toward sin. It will be shown herein that the Calvinist view of human nature is far more compatible with the discoveries of modern science than the Catholic view—so much so that it appears as if Calvinist doctrine was developed with modern science in mind.
Irresistible Grace
For He said to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy . . .
Thou will say then to me, Why does he yet find fault? For who has resisted his will? But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, 'Why have you made me thus?' Rom. 9:15-20.
Catholic salvation doctrine focuses on our ability to choose to cooperate with God’s grace and to accept Jesus as our savior. Under Catholicism, we are enabled with the free will to choose between God and sin, and between salvation and damnation. Calvinist salvation doctrine, on the other hand, rejects the notion that God endowed us with this power. According to Calvinism, our ability to accept God’s grace arises not from free will, but rather from the faithfulness that God instilled into us to save us from sin. To those God ordained to be saved, God’s grace is irresistible. Calvinists have claimed support for their theology from several Biblical passages, including the poignant passage from Paul’s letter to the Romans that begins this section. The apostle Paul, in Ephesians 1:11, proclaimed that “in Him also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose.” And as described in John 6:44, Christ told his disciples, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him.”
The Calvinist view of humans’ limited power of choice, as exemplified by the salvation doctrine, is far more compatible with the modern science of human nature than that of Catholic theology. The concept of a ghost in the machine is rejected by modern science, which insists that all human cognition is rooted in the physical brain controlled by biochemistry and, more fundamentally, the laws of physics. Humans have no free will at all according to scientists of human nature; rather, what we call “free will” is merely the computational results of the complex decision-making circuitry of the brain. From the modern scientific perspective, then, we certainly lack the ability to accept or resist God’s grace. Indeed, as Martin Luther wrote in Bondage of the Will, “‘Free will’ cannot be applied to any one but to God only.” If we accept that the God of Christianity purposefully created our world, then we are, as Paul declared, predestined according to His purpose.
Total Depravity
The carnal mind is enmity against God. Rom. 8:7.
Catholic tradition interprets the Bible, especially the book of Genesis, to declare that all God’s creations are good. Under Catholic doctrine, God endowed us with choice, a fundamental benevolent power, and we sometimes choose to sin. Adherents to Calvinism, on the other hand, believe that we are innately sinful, selfish and, as Saint Augustine propounded, predisposed to concupiscence. In his Institutes, John Calvin wrote that “everything in man, the understanding and will, the soul and body, is polluted and engrossed by this concupiscence.” Calvinist thinkers cite several passages in the Bible as evidence of our total depravity. For instance, 1 Corinthians 2:14 declares that “the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” And 2 Timothy 3:2-7 laments that “men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, . . . without natural affection, . . . ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.” We act, according to Calvinist doctrine, in response to our ineluctable sinful drives; good results are the accidental results of selfish motives. We are “all under sin; . . . there is none righteous, . . . none that understands, . . . none that does good, no, not one.”
The Calvinist view of humankind’s inherent depravity is consistent with modern scientific knowledge concerning human nature. We evolved particular drives, and their underlying genes, solely because they increased our reproductive fitness. Human beings are thus naturally concupiscent, self-interested, and covetous. Our moral sensibilities can often be understood as innate empathy for others with similar genes that, in effect, acted to proliferate our genes. Further, we are naturally predisposed to certain altruistic activities, Robert Trivers explains, not out of an innate desire to do good, but because we evolved to expect reciprocation from others. The Catholic view of a natural inclination toward unselfishness and morality, on the other hand, is incompatible with modern science. Not only does it presume that humans are born with a moral sense that simply does not and should not exist in our genetic code, according to the theory of natural selection, but the Catholic conception of human nature also depends on the scientifically disavowed notion of a ghost in the machine to explain sin.
Summation
Modern science’s rejection of free will and its view that human nature arose solely through natural selection, a process controlled by reproductive success without regard for morality, contradict the tenets of most religious systems. Catholicism in particular, based on the premises that man is innately good and that sin results from free choice, is incompatible with the scientific conception of human nature. It is thus remarkable that the Calvinist vision of human nature, expounded centuries before Darwin, finds facile support from our modern scientific understanding of ourselves.