Author of what?

[cupotea]

Please kindly take note to the highlighted part, I'd like to know when Calvin
said God is the author, what did he mean? Author of what?

I just came across a thread in a Chinese forum where a guy is using this
to blast Calvinism.

Thanks for any feedback.

Section 3. Second answer. God owes nothing to man. His hatred against those who are corrupted by sin is most just. The reprobate convinced in their own consciences of the just judgment of God.

God may thus quell his enemies by silence. But lest we should allow them with impunity to hold his sacred name in derision, he supplies us with weapons against them from his word. Accordingly, when we are accosted in such terms as these, Why did God from the first predestine some to death, when, as they were not yet in existence, they could not have merited sentence of death? let us by way of reply ask in our turn, What do you imagine that God owes to man, if he is pleased to estimate him by his own nature? As we are all vitiated by sin, we cannot but be hateful to God, and that not from tyrannical cruelty, but the strictest justice. But if all whom the Lord predestines to death are naturally liable to sentence of death, of what injustice, pray, do they complain? Should all the sons of Adam come to dispute and contend with their Creator, because by his eternal providence they were before their birth doomed to perpetual destruction, when God comes to reckon with them, what will they be able to mutter against this defense? If all are taken from a corrupt mass, it is not strange that all are subject to condemnation. Let them not, therefore, charge God with injustice, if by his eternal judgment they are doomed to a death to which they themselves feel that whether they will or not they are drawn spontaneously by their own nature. Hence it appears how perverse is this affectation of murmuring, when of set purpose they suppress the cause of condemnation which they are compelled to recognize in themselves, that they may lay the blame upon God. But though I should confess a hundred times that God is the author, (and it is most certain that he is), they do not, however, thereby efface their own guilt, which, engraven on their own consciences, is ever and anon presenting itself to their view.

 

[cupotea]

Still waiting for explanation.

 

[Skyler]

I would say that in context he is saying that God is the author of sin.

Note that that doesn't make him morally responsible for that sin.

By way of analogy, Shakespeare is the author of Hamlet's crimes. Yet he cannot be held responsible for them.

 

[MW]

"Condemnation" is the antecedent of "it." It comes in the context of the doctrine of reprobation -- "they are destined by his eternal judgment to death" (Battles translation). God is the author of their condemnation by means of the decree of reprobation, but the reprobate is compelled to recognise the cause of condemnation to be in themselves, which their own consciences clearly attest to.

 

[Skyler]

"Condemnation" is the antecedent of "it." It comes in the context of the doctrine of reprobation -- "they are destined by his eternal judgment to death" (Battles translation). God is the author of their condemnation by means of the decree of reprobation, but the reprobate is compelled to recognise the cause of condemnation to be in themselves, which their own consciences clearly attest to.

Does the "author" not refer back to the construct "cause of condemnation"?

Calvin goes on to state that they try to thereby lay the blame upon God. Calvin then concedes that God is the author of something, but that it does not efface their own guilt. If these people are saying that God is the author of condemnation, how would that tend to excuse their guilt? I don't get it.

 

[MW]

Does the "author" not refer back to the construct "cause of condemnation"?

The "cause of condemnation" would be guilt. See the following article by John Murray on Calvin's rejection of God being the author of sin:

"Calvin on the Sovereignty of God" by John Murray