Calvin, Beza, and Perkins on Predestination

Abstract: Given the importance of predestination to Reformed theology and the place that Calvin, Beza, and Perkins have in its development and in modern historiography, this article asks what these theologians actually said about predestination. It offers a brief exposition of their teachings on this important topic and seeks to demonstrate their basic complementarity of belief, their shared intention, and their desire to promote godliness by this aspect of sola gratia. It is no surprise that succeeding generations of Reformed orthodoxy such as the divines of the Westminster Assembly and the Dutch further Reformation looked to their writings as stellar examples of a predestinarian theology that is biblical, christological, and practical.