Is Covid-19 the judgement of God? What is Calvin’s view of judgement?
Some people would suggest that the Covid-19 pandemic is God’s judgement on the sins and transgressions of our society. A highly materialistic, self seeking and narcissistic world that abuses the created order leading to climate change and pollution with excess plastics. For Calvin the only judgement is that of rejecting God and His Son Jesus Christ “for a heavier judgement remains upon the wicked because they reject the testimony of God’s love”(Institutes Book III, 14:2). Calvin appears to believe that if human beings think that they can know God’s will for us, how we are predestined, then it is not possible for us to have access to this information. This renders any speculation about our destiny futile. If someone tries to find out “what decision has been made concerning himself at God’s judgement seat” then that person is cast into “the depths of a bottomless whirlpool”; tangled in “innumerable and inextricable snares and “buried in an abyss of sightless darkness” (Institutes Book III, 14:4).
For Calvin, the only route into God’s presence is through Christ “the sinner received into Communion with Christ is reconciled to God by His grace, while cleansed by Christ’s blood he obtains forgiveness of sins and clothed with Christ’s righteousness just as if it were his own, he stands free from care before the heavenly judgement seat” (Institutes Book II, 27:8). Is this the route you would take or would you rather plot your own course?
