798. As regards Calvin, I have been told the following. (1) When he first arrived in the spiritual world, he firmly believed that he was still in the world where he was born. Despite the fact that he had been told by the angels who were associated with him in the beginning that he was no longer in his own world but was now part of theirs, he said, "My body is the same; my hands are the same. I have the same sensations. "
The angels informed him that he was now in a substantial body. Before this, they said, he had been in this same substantial body, but it had been wrapped up inside a material body. Now that material body has been cast off, but he still has his substantial body, which is what makes him human. At first he understood this, but the next day he went back to believing that he was still in the world where he was born.
The reason for this was that he was a sense-oriented person; he believed nothing that he could not experience himself with his own bodily senses. This is why all the teachings of his faith were ideas of his own that he had hatched up himself; they did not come from the Word. He did indeed quote the Word [in his writing], but that was just for the sake of getting the common people to agree with him.
[2] (2) After that first period of time, the angels left him and he wandered here and there. He made inquiries about where the people were who since ancient times had believed in predestination. He was told, "They are a great distance from here. They are kept locked up underground. The only way to reach them is through an underground passageway on the far side. The followers of Gottschalk are still free to move around, however. Sometimes they have meetings in a place that in the spiritual language is called Pyris. "
Because he was longing to be with those people, he was taken to an assembly where some of them were staying. When he joined them, he was in his heart's delight. He formed a deep friendship with them.
[3] (3) When the followers of Gottschalk were taken away, however, to join their fellow [predestinarians] in that cave, he became bored. He went looking for a safe place to stay. He was finally accepted in a community exclusively made up of simple folk, some of whom were religious. When he became aware that they knew nothing about predestination and were incapable of understanding it even when they were told, he went into a remote corner of that community and dropped out of sight for a long time. He never opened his mouth on any subject related to the church.
This was providential, both because it allowed him an opportunity to withdraw from his erroneous belief in predestination, and also because it capped the size of the groups who ever since the Synod of Dort had been attached to that detestable heresy. In the course of time all such people were relegated to their companions in that cave.
[4] (4) Eventually, when modern-day predestinarians were asking, "Where is Calvin?" and an investigation uncovered that he was living on the outskirts of a community that consisted entirely of simple folk, he was summoned from there and taken to a governor who was caught up in the same garbage. The governor welcomed Calvin into his home and took care of him, right up until the time when the Lord began to establish the new heaven. Then, because the governor who had been taking care of him was himself thrown out along with a crowd of the governor's followers, Calvin moved into a whorehouse and lived there for some time.
[5] (5) Since he then enjoyed a freedom to go here and there, including visiting the area where I was living, I had an opportunity to speak with him. I first mentioned the new heaven, which the Lord is building up today among people who acknowledge the Lord alone as the God of heaven and earth, according to his own words in Matthew 28:18. I told him that the people in the new heaven believe that the Lord and the Father are one (John 10:30); that he is in the Father and the Father is in him; that those who see and recognize him, see and recognize the Father (John 14:6-11); and that therefore there is one God in the church, just as there is in heaven.
[6] After I said that, he at first, as usual, had absolutely nothing to say. After about half an hour, though, he did finally break his silence.
"Wasn't Christ a human being, the son of Mary who was married to Joseph?" he said. "How can a human being be worshiped as God?"
I said, "Isn't Jesus Christ, our Redeemer and Savior, both God and a human being?"
"He is both God and a human being," he replied, "but his divinity belongs to his Father, not to him. "
"Where is Christ, then?" I asked.
"He is in the lowest parts of heaven," he said. He supported this with the fact that the Lord humbled himself before his Father and allowed himself to be crucified. Calvin then added some phrases that ridiculed the worship of the Lord, which suddenly popped into his mind from his time in this world. The gist of them was that worshiping the Lord is just another form of idolatry. He wanted to add some truly heinous statements about that worship, but the angels who were with me sealed his lips.
[7] I felt a passionate desire to convert him. I said, "It is not only that the Lord our Savior is both God and a human being, but in fact in him God is a human being and a human being is God. "
I supported this point by quoting Paul's statement that all the fullness of divinity dwells physically in the Lord (Colossians 2:9), and John's statement that the Lord is the true God and eternal life (1 John 5:20). I also quoted the Lord's own words to the effect that the will of the Father is that everyone who believes in the Son has eternal life, and that those who do not believe in the Son will not see life; instead the anger of God remains on them (John 3:36; 6:40). I also said that the statement known as the Athanasian Creed indicates that in Christ, God and a human being are not two but one; they are in one person like the soul and the body of one human being.
[8] To that he replied, "All those things you just quoted from the Word are pointless. Surely the Word is the book of all heresies. It is like the weather vane on rooftops or on ships that can turn in any direction depending on the weather conditions. Predestination alone is what brings together all facets of religion. This concept is the dwelling place and tent of meeting at the center of every other aspect of religion. The faith that justifies and saves is the shrine and the sanctuary there. Does any human being have free choice in spiritual matters? Isn't everything related to salvation a free gift? Therefore arguments against all this, and against predestination, sound and smell to me like nothing more than stomach rumblings and belching.
"Because this is how it is, I have actually thought to myself that a church building where a congregation gathers to hear topics taught and the Word quoted is really a kind of zoo that holds both sheep and wolves. The laws of civil justice are a halter that keeps the wolves from attacking the sheep. (By 'the sheep' I mean those who are predestined [for salvation].) All the eloquent preaching that ministers provide has no more effect than if they were to stand there sobbing incoherently.
"I will give you my statement of faith. It is this: 'There is a God. He is omnipotent. The only people who are saved are those whom God the Father has chosen and predestined for salvation. All others are assigned their own final outcome or fate. '"
[9] Upon hearing that I was outraged. My retort was, "What you are saying is unspeakably heinous. Get away, you evil spirit! Being in the spiritual world as you are, surely you realize that there is a heaven and a hell. Predestination involves the assignment of some to heaven and of others to hell. How could you escape the idea, then, that God is like some tyrant who lets his cronies into the city and sends all the rest off to the executioner? You should be ashamed of yourself!"
[10] Then I read him sections in the Formula of Concord that declare certain Calvinist teachings concerning the worship of the Lord and predestination to be erroneous. The following Calvinist teaching on the worship of the Lord is an example: "It is a damnable form of idolatry to place our confidence and faith of heart not only in Christ's divine nature but also in his human nature, and direct our honor and adoration toward both natures. " The following Calvinist teaching on predestination is another example: "Christ did not die for all people but only for the elect. God created the majority of human beings for eternal damnation; he does not want those people to be converted and come to life. The elect and the reborn are incapable of losing faith or losing the Holy Spirit even if they commit all kinds of horrendous sins and crimes. People who are not among the elect, on the other hand, are inevitably damned; they cannot achieve salvation even if they are baptized a thousand times over, take the Eucharist every day, and lead the most holy, guiltless life imaginable" (Formula of Concord, Leipzig 1756, pages 837, 838).
After I read these passages to him, I asked, "Are the statements written in this book something you really taught or not?"
"They are," he replied, "but I don't remember whether I wrote those words myself, or whether I just spoke them [and someone else wrote them down]. "
[11] All the servants of the Lord who heard this went away from Calvin. He then hurried off to the road that led to the cave of people who had adamantly espoused the accursed concept of predestination.
Later on I had a chance to speak to several of the people held in that cave. I asked what their life was like there. They said that in order to get food they were forced to do work, and that all the people in the cave treated each other like enemies. Each one looked for occasions to do harm to the next, and would actually do so on the slightest provocation. Doing harm is the greatest delight of their lives. (For more about predestination and those who believe in it, see 485-488 above.)
