Notes on John Calvin’s (1509–1564) Awe-Inspiring (or “Horrible”) Decree

PRIMARY SOURCES:

In John Calvin’s Institutes, he famously said, “The decree is dreadful indeed, I confess [Lat. Decretum quidem horribile, fateor; Fr. Je confesse que ce décret nous doit épouvanter]…” Here is the Battles translation of the entire context:

Again I ask: whence does it happen that Adam’s fall irremediably involved so many peoples, together with their infant offspring, in eternal death unless because it so pleased God? Here their tongues, otherwise so loquacious, must become mute. The decree is dreadful indeed, I confess.¹⁷ Yet no one can deny that God foreknew what end man was to have before he created him, and consequently foreknew because he so ordained by his decree. If anyone inveighs against God’s foreknowledge at this point, he stumbles rashly and heedlessly. What reason is there to accuse the Heavenly Judge because he was not ignorant of what was to happen? If there is any just or manifest complaint, it applies to predestination. And it ought not to seem absurd for me to say that God not only foresaw the fall of the first man, and in him the ruin of his descendants, but also meted it out in accordance with his own decision. For as it pertains to his wisdom to foreknow everything that is to happen, so it pertains to his might to rule and control everything by his hand. And Augustine also skillfully disposes of this question, as of others: “We most wholesomely confess what we most correctly believe, that the God and Lord of all things, who created all things exceedingly good [cf. Gen. 1:31], and foreknew that evil things would rise out of good, and also knew that it pertained to his most omnipotent goodness to bring good out of evil things rather than not to permit evil things to be …, so ordained the life of angels and men that in it he might first of all show what free will could do, and then what the blessing of his grace and the verdict of his justice could do.”¹⁸
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17 “Decretum quidem horribile, fateor.” VG: “Je confesse que ce décret nous doit épouvanter.” Cf. “horribilis Dei maiestas,” III. xx. 17. Calvin is awestruck but unrelenting in his declaration that God is the author of reprobation. The theme is pursued in his treatise On the Eternal Predestination of God (cf. CR VIII. 316 ff.; tr. H. Cole, Calvin’s Calvinism, pp. 128 ff.).
18 Augustine, On Rebuke and Grace x. 27 (MPL 44. 932; tr. NPNF V. 482 f.). Calvin affirms Adam’s original free will (cf. I. xv. 8), yet insists that Adam’s fall was willed by God, thus demonstrating the feebleness of man’s will and the power of divine grace and judgment. Cf. Cadier, Institution III. 427, note 2.

John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, 2 vols., The Library of Christian Classics (Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 2:955–56; 3.23.7; italics original.

The Latin says:

Decretum quidem horribile, fateor: inficiari tamen nemo poterit quin praesciverit Deus, quem exitum esset habiturus homo, antequam ipsum conderet, et ideo praesciverit, quia decreto suo sic ordinarat.

John Calvin, Institutio Christianae Religionis, vol. 2 (Berolini: Gustavum Eichler, 1834), 151; 3.23.7. The French says:

Je confesse que ce decret nous doit espovanter: toutesfois on ne peut nier que Dieu n’ait preveu devant que creer l’homme, à quelle fin il devoit venir: et ne l’ait preveu, pource qu’il l’avoit ainsi ordonné en son conseil.

Jean Calvin, Institution de La Religion Chrétienne (Genève: E. Beroud & C., 1888), 442; 3.23.7.

Norton translates it this way:

It is a terrible decree, I graunt: yet no man shall be able to deny, but that God foreknew what end man should have, ere he created him, and therefore foreknew it because he had so ordained by his decree.

John Calvin, The Institution of the Christian Religion, trans. Thomas Norton (London: Bonham Norton, 1599), 258; 3.23.7.

Allen has it as:

It is an awful decree, I confess; but no one can deny that God foreknew the future final fate of man before he created him, and that he did foreknow it because it was appointed by his own decree.

John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. John Allen, vol. 2 (Hezekiah Howe; Philip H. Nicklin, 1816), 450; 3.23.7.

Beveridge translates it as:

The decree, I admit, is dreadful; and yet it is impossible to deny that God foreknew what the end of man was to be before he made him, and foreknew, because he had so ordained by his decree.

John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans., Henry Beveridge, 3 vols. (The Calvin Translation Society, 1845), 2:568–69; 3.23.7.

Related to this is what Calvin says in Institutes, 3.20.17. Battles translates this portion as follows:

For as soon as God’s dread majesty²⁸ comes to mind, we cannot but tremble and be driven far away by the recognition of our own unworthiness, until Christ comes forward as intermediary, to change the throne of dreadful glory into the throne of grace.
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28 “Horribilis Dei maiestas.” Cf. III. xxiii. 7: “decretum … horribile.”

John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, 2 vols., The Library of Christian Classics (Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 2:874–75; 3.20.17.

The Latin says:

Nam simulac in mentem venit horribilis Dei maiestas, fieri non potest quin expavescamus, ac nos indignitatis propriae agnitio procul abigat, donec medius occurrat, Christus, qui solium formidabilis gloriae in solium gratiae commutet: sicuti etiam docet Apostolus (Heb. 4:16.).

John Calvin, Institutio Christianae Religionis, vol. 2 (Berolini: Gustavum Eichler, 1834), 100; 3.20.17.

The French says:

Et de fait, quand l’horrible majesté de Dieu nous vient en pensée, il est impossible que nous ne soyons espovantez, et que le sentiment de nostre indignité ne nous effarouche et dechasse bien loin, jusques à ce que Jesus Christ vienne en avant, et se rencontre au milieu pour changer le throne de gloire espovantable en throne de grace: comme l’Apostre nous exhorte d’y oser comparoistre avec toute fiance, pour obtenir misericorde et trouver grace, afin d’estre aidez au besoin (Hebr. 4:16).

Jean Calvin, Institution de La Religion Chrétienne (Genève: E. Beroud & C., 1888), 404; 3.20.17. Thomas Norton translates it as:

For so soone as the terrible majestie of God commeth in our minde, it is impossible but that we should tremble for feare, and the acknowledging of our owne uuworthinesse should drive us farre away, till Christ come meane betweene us and him, which may change the throne of dreadfull glory into the throne of grace: as also the Apostle teacheth that we may be bold to appeare with all confidence which shall obtaine mercy and find grace in helpe comming in fit season (Heb 4:15).

John Calvin, The Institution of the Christian Religion, trans. Thomas Norton (London: Bonham Norton, 1599), 235; 3.20.17.

Allen translates it this way:

For as soon as we reflect on the terrible majesty of God, we cannot but be exceedingly afraid, and driven away from him by a consciousness of our unworthiness, till we discover Christ as the Mediator, who changes the throne of dreadful glory into a throne of grace: as the apostle also exhorts us to “come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb 4:16).

John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. John Allen, vol. 2 (New-Haven; Philadelphia: Hezekiah Howe; Philip H. Nicklin, 1816), 365; 3.20.17.

Finally, Beveridge translates it as:

For it is impossible to think of the dread majesty of God without being filled with alarm; and hence the sense of our own unworthiness must keep us far away, until Christ interpose, and convert a throne of dreadful glory into a throne of grace; as the Apostle teaches that thus we can “come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need,” (Heb. 4:16.)

John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans., Henry Beveridge, 3 vols. (The Calvin Translation Society, 1845), 2:477–78; 3.20.17.

SECONDARY SOURCE COMMENTS:

The following authors address the matter of the “horrible decree”:

…the Latin horribilis has a wider use than the English word “horrible” of similar sound. Cicero and Cæsar sometimes use it to express what is frightful and horrible, in the sense of a horrible massacre, but it is also used by Petronius and others to signify what is very great, astonishing, sacred, awful, venerable. There is hardly a tyro in Latin who has not learned that it is unwise to render a Latin word into English by using an English word of similar sound. So Lucretius uses the Latin word horror, in describing the worship of the gods as originating in the “Mortalibus insitus horror,” not meaning the English “horror,” but the “astonishment” awakened in the minds of men. Accordingly, Allen does not translate decretum horribile as though it represented the action of God towards infants as comparable to the action of Herod in the horrible massacre of the children of Bethlehem, as some have said it did, but he gives the true sense of Calvin as an “awful decree,” something astonishing, sacred, dreadful, in the reverential sense; as Jacob, when he awoke from his vision of the Lord, exclaimed, “How dreadful is this place.” So Calvin looked with reverential awe upon the divine decree, in which was mirrored the certainty of all events, and, instead of any relenting of heart as against what was true in the head, he was filled with heartfelt adoration.

O. T. Lanphear, “Some Misapprehensions Concerning Calvin,” Bibliotheca Sacra 53, no. 211 (1896): 412–13; italics original.

decretum horribile: terrifying decree; a much-abused term from Calvin. It does not translate “horrible decree” and in no way implies that the eternal decree is somehow unjust or horrifying, but only that the decree is awesome and terrifying, particularly to those who are not in Christ.

Richard A. Muller, Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms: Drawn Principally from Protestant Scholastic Theology, 2nd ed. (Baker Academic, 2017), 88; italics original.

Of the doctrine of reprobation he uses words, often quoted against him: “It is an awful decree, I confess,” with the variant renderings of “a dreadful decree,” and “a horrible decree.” The actual words of Calvin—decretum horrible—are capable of a better translation. The Latin horribilis is a derivative of the verb horreo, meaning “to tremble,” or “to stand in awe.” The words of Calvin could, therefore, be appropriately translated “an awe-inspiring decree.” And that eminently suits the subject.

R. A. Finlayson, “John Calvin’s Doctrine of God,” in Puritan Papers: 1963–1964, ed. J. I. Packer, vol. 3 (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2001), 133; italics original.

Arminians, including Cottrell and Pinnock in the present volume, have often observed that Calvin described reprobation as he understood the Bible’s teaching about it as a “horrible decree”: “The decree indeed is horrible, I confess,” he writes (“Decretum quidem horribile, fateor.”) (Institutes, 3.23.7). (His French version of the Institutes reads here: Je confesse que ce décret nous doit épouvanter.) Arminians apparently think or at least want to convey the notion that his word horribile carries the negative connotation that it does today of “vile” or “repulsive” and that Calvin was describing reprobation as a “vile decree.” But both the Latin horribile and the French épouvanter mean “dreadful” here in the sense of “awesome” as is evident from his phrase, horribilis Dei maiestas (“God’s dread [or “awesome”] majesty”) in Institutes, 3.20.17. Therefore, John T. McNeill writes in the Battles translation of the Institutes, 1, 955, fn 17: “Calvin is awestruck but unrelenting in his declaration that God is the author of reprobation.”

Robert L. Reymond, “Chapter 10: Responses to Clark H. Pinnock: Response by Robert L. Reymond,” in Perspectives on Election: Five Views, ed. Chad Owen Brand (Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2006), 330, n. 22; italics original.

John Calvin set the theological trajectory for later Reformed theology by repeatedly teaching it. He called it a decretum horribile⁵—not a horrible decree, but a horrifying or fearsome decree.
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5 John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960), 3:23:7 (p. 955). The McNeill-Battles translation renders it “the decree is dreadful.”

Curt Daniel, The History and Theology of Calvinism (EP Books, 2019), 398; italics original.

People sometimes claim that Calvin referred to reprobation as God’s “horrible” decree. However, this is inaccurate for two reasons. First, in the source cited, Calvin refers to God’s decree of the fall of all mankind, not to reprobation. Second, horribile is best understood to mean “inspiring dread or awe.”

Joel R. Beeke and Paul M. Smalley, Reformed Systematic Theology: Revelation and God, vol. 1 (Crossway, 2019), 1019; italics original. Assuming that the decree in view refers to reprobation, Schaff notes that, “This famous expression is often ignorantly applied to the whole doctrine of predestination, while Calvin only uses it of the decree of reprobation.” Philip Schaff and David Schley Schaff, History of the Christian Church, vol. 8 (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1910), 559, n. 1.