Predestination's own safeguards
in the Calvinistic seventeenth century, to fall into the bottomless pit of predestination
The Westminster Confession supplies a substantial seventeenth-century comparison. Chapter III affirms an immutable divine decree, election without foreseen merit, and the passing over of others. Chesterton's objection therefore meets a real doctrinal commitment. Yet the same chapter denies that the decree makes God the author of sin or coerces the creature's will, and preserves secondary causation. Its final section instructs teachers to handle predestination carefully so that it encourages humility, diligence, and assurance. These safeguards complicate the implication that Calvinism simply lets one idea run unchecked. See Westminster Confession III.1–8.
The inspected witness is the Free Presbyterian Church's undated online transcription headed Westminster Confession of Faith, 1647, not a facsimile of that first-publication period. It documents how this confessional tradition describes its intended balance; it does not settle whether that balance succeeds. Chesterton's 'pit' names his judgment about the consequences of the system. A Calvinist could reply that preserving divine sovereignty together with accountable human action is precisely the difficult equilibrium that he praises elsewhere in this chapter.
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