Calvin’s Doctrine of Predestination and the Psychology of Destructiveness

According to Erich Fromm, “Destructiveness is the outcome of unlived life.” He and much of the psychoanalytic community have the idea that the amount of destructive tendencies in a person is directly proportionate to the degree to which his or her expansiveness of life is frustrated.

Fromm was of the belief that this frustration is not primarily the curtailing of this or that individual desire, but rather the thwarting of the whole of life, or as he put it, “the blockage of spontaneity of the growth and expression of man’s sensuous, emotional, and intellectual capacities.” When this dynamism of life is blocked the energy that was originally aimed at life becomes “decomposed” and changes into energy aimed at destruction.

Hopefully the reader is already asking, “What does this destructiveness have to do with the Calvinist doctrine of predestination?” Indeed, what link could there possibly be between the two?

I have never personally made the link until reading Erich Fromm’s classic work, “Escape from Freedom.” He spends an incredible amount of effort tracing the historical roots of the Protestant Reformation in terms of why its ideas were so appealing to the masses in the late 16^th century. If the reader is at all interested in the subject I recommend a close reading of his text.

In essence, the average person at the time was psychologically overwhelmed with major changes in economic functioning – from that of medieval guilds and feudalism, where everyone had a secure identity and a place within society, to a more capitalistic mode where the average person was freed from his predetermined economic fate, but also pushed into a world where he stood against colossal economic forces beyond his control. These changes created in the populace (primarily the middle class) a deep seated feeling of isolation and powerlessness. The writings of Martin Luther and John Calvin appealed to and epitomized these basic feelings.

Many elements of their writings could be emphasized in this respect, but the most profound is captured in the doctrine of predestination. Both these men taught a version of predestination, but, as is well known, Calvin took the idea to extreme conclusions claiming that God not only predestined some for eternal glory, but predestined others to eternal damnation for no fault of their own.

This new picture of God—that of an arbitrary tyrant—fit the psychological orientation of Calvin’s audience towards extrapersonal powers which they already felt powerless against. As Fromm put it, “This picture of a despotic God, who wants unrestricted power over men and their submission and humiliation, was the projection of the middle class’s own hostility and envy;” hostility and envy of not only the authority of the Roman Church but of the new and growing capitalist mode of production as well.

The ideas of the Protestant Reformation psychologically prepared man for the role he would adopt in modern society: “of feeling his own self to be insignificant and of being ready to subordinate his life exclusively for purposes which were not his own” (E. Fromm).

Has there ever been a more all-encompassing notion of man’s powerlessness than the idea that one’s eternal fate is decided before he is even born, regardless of anything he does or doesn’t do with his life? This is a doctrine ripe for the development of destructive tendencies in its adherents; and not just its adherents but all those who fall within its orbit of psychosocial influence.

And the implications don’t stop there. The Calvinist doctrine of predestination posits man’s basic inequality as well. Since each individual is created unequal concerning the thing that matters most—their eternal standing with God—the equality of mankind is denied in the most psychologically significant way imaginable.

The average person cannot live within this paradigm of personal insignificance, powerlessness, and isolation for very long before anxiety forces him into one of many escape routes. The escape route of concern in this article is destructiveness. The coping mechanism of destructiveness is a well-established one in psychological studies.

Fromm claimed that, “Any threat against vital (material and emotional) interests creates anxiety, and destructive tendencies are the most common reaction to such anxiety.” Once the feeling of powerlessness reaches critical mass in one’s psyche it is not unusual for him or her to attempt to destroy the external threat. And if the threat cannot be destroyed one’s own self often becomes the object of abuse (observe the masochistic tendencies of many today in the form of bodily mutilation, such as “cutting,” as prime evidence of this fact). It is difficult to imagine a society more anxious and destructive, particularly self-destructive, than our own.

Is the attempt of this article to place the blame of all forms of destructiveness on the doctrine of predestination? Of course not. But once all the historical and psychological dots are connected the link becomes clear. For those living in Europe from the late Middle Ages to modern times, and by extension the majority Western civilization, Protestantism, and more specifically Calvinism, has had vast influence over man’s psychology. If the primary entity/reality in a culture’s thinking is tyrannical and arbitrary (i.e., the Reformed idea of God) then the notion cannot help but influence every other aspect of that culture. Today we—the adopted sons and daughters of a society built on principles of classic Protestantism—are still reeling from the aftershock of this idea about God. The attacks on Christianity today by atheist and secular factions should not be surprising. They are merely reacting to the innate feelings of powerlessness and isolation reinforced at every turn in modern society and, unfortunately, still reinforced by a Calvinistic/Reformed view of God, which remains popular with many Christians.

Thanks for reading.