THE PROBLEM OF DOUBLE PREDESTINATION IN THE THEOLOGY OF JOHN CALVIN: TOWARDS AN ANTINOMY OF GOD’S SOVEREIGNTY AND HUMAN RESPONSIBILITY

Abstract

The bible teaches both sovereignty of God and human responsibility in matters of salvation. Many traditions hold and emphasize one over the other. In such manner, Christians who listen to sermons from the two traditions are torn between one emphasize over the other. Such emphasize creates anxiety. Some of these problems may be caused by partial interpretation of scripture or choosing to hold one teaching at the expense of the other. While Calvinists exalt sovereignty of God over human freedom, Arminians struggle to uphold both at par so that they can protect human freedom more so in relationship to salvation. In their quest to do this, the Calvinist’s deny human freewill as undermining sovereignty of God whilst Arminians to some extent appear to undermine the sovereignty of God. This research seeks to solve the anxiety caused by the preaching of the Calvinistic doctrine of double predestination to Christians who hold a contrary view. This thesis, in an attempt to resolve the anxiety employs the antimony that proposes that in such situation, where conflicting truths stand in contrast to each other, both truths should be held together at tension without any attempt to resolve or emphasize one at the detriment of the other. This perspective employed by the researcher is based on the argument that the Bible teaches both the sovereignty of God and human responsibility despite the fact that they contradict each other.