# Did Calvin say this? And where is it at?



## austinbrown2

I think Lutzer, in one of his books I read like ten years ago, quoted Calvin as saying something like the following:

When someone asked Calvin what God was doing before He created the universe, he responded, "Preparing a place called hell for those who ask such questions."

Pretty funny. 

I'd like to use that quote, but can't find it. So I'm wondering if (A) Calvin really said something like that, and (B) where in the world is it located?

Plumb the depths of your minds all you good Calvinists and help me out 

Thanks,

Austin


----------



## awretchsavedbygrace

I um. I think it was Augustine who said that? Not sure.


----------



## toddpedlar

austinbrown2 said:


> I think Lutzer, in one of his books I read like ten years ago, quoted Calvin as saying something like the following:
> 
> When someone asked Calvin what God was doing before He created the universe, he responded, "Preparing a place called hell for those who ask such questions."
> 
> Pretty funny.



Actually I think it's apocryphal. The attribution that I've always heard with this statement is Augustine, not Calvin, but I don't think that was the way Augustine actually would have treated the question, and at any rate I've never heard a source given with it.


----------



## CharlieJ

That was not Calvin, but Augustine in his Confessions, book 11.


----------



## fredtgreco

I have heard it attributed to various puritans.


----------



## toddpedlar

CharlieJ said:


> That was not Calvin, but Augustine in his Confessions, book 11.



Yes, book 11, chapter 12, now that I looked.

Luther, too, relates this in his Table Talk.


----------



## DMcFadden

Dr. Calhoun references this vignette in his course on Calvin's _Institutes_.



> Remember the episode that Calvin describes in the Institutes when someone asks a wise man, “What was God doing before He created all things?” (This story comes from Augustine.) Calvin quotes Augustine’s answer to that question by saying, “He was making hell for the curious.” I noticed that Timothy George in writing about that in the Theology of the Reformers that Calvin told this story no doubt with a twinkle in his eye. Well, perhaps there was a twinkle in his eye, but Calvin took this as a pretty good answer. Augustine did not think much of the answer. He wanted to explore these things further. However, Calvin seems to view this answer as a proper answer at least to flippant questions that he would not take seriously. I am not sure how many of Calvin’s students dared to ask him a question in class. Here, at least, he is saying what he often says, and that is, “Do not go beyond the evidence. Do not speculate. Do not ask questions and seek answers to questions that we cannot answer. That is just being flippant and irresponsible. The doctrine of creation, the history of creation as set forth in the Bible, does not answer all the questions, but it is there to strengthen our faith in God. That is really why we have the Genesis account of creation.”


_Calvin’s Institutes_, CH 523; Dr. David Calhoun; Covenant Theological Seminary; Lecture 5, pg. 2.

Thomas Brooks also quotes it in his _The Privy Key of Heaven_, published during the London plague of 1665.

Oden, Thomas C. _Pastoral Counsel_, p. 99, mentions it in connection with false starts in terms of issues of providence. He also cites it as a facetious "shrugging off the force of the question" in his _The Living God : Systematic Theology, Vol. I_, p. 261.

Graham Keith observes that Augustine disapproved of such a fatuous answer to the question in his article "Our Knowledge of God: Insights from the Fourth-Century Trinitarian Controversies" in _RAR_ 12:1 (Winter 2003), p. 98.

Paul Copan deals with it in his Augustine and the Scandal of the North African Catholic Mind, _JETS_ 41:2 (June 1998), p. 291.

Robert Knudsen puts Calvin and Augustine together in his_ WTJ_ article: 



> “What was God doing before he created the world?” asks the skeptic. Calvin calls very shrewd the answer of the man who replied “that he had been making hell for over-curious men.” Augustine is more reserved, saying, “I answer not, as a certain person is reported to have done facetiously (avoiding the pressure of the question) ‘He was preparing hell’, said he, ‘for those who pry into mysteries’. For more willingly would I have answered, ‘I know not what I know not…’.” Both answers assume, however, that there are some questions one may not ask, some questions that are out of bounds, that transgress the limits of what is meaningful.
> _Westminster Theological Journal_ Volume 40 (Westminster Theological Seminary, 1978; 2002), 40:229.



Calvin's reference in 1.14.1 (the Beveridge edition) . . . 



> First, in that history, the period of time is marked so as to enable the faithful to ascend by an unbroken succession of years to the first origin of their race and of all things. This knowledge is of the highest use not only as an antidote to the monstrous fables which anciently prevailed both in Egypt and the other regions of the world, but also as a means of giving a clearer manifestation of the eternity of God as contrasted with the birth of creation, and thereby inspiring us with higher admiration. We must not be moved by the profane jeer, that it is strange how it did not sooner occur to the Deity to create the heavens and the earth, instead of idly allowing an infinite period to pass away, during which thousands of generations might have existed, while the present world is drawing to a close before it has completed its six thousandth year. Why God delayed so long it is neither fit nor lawful to inquire. Should the human mind presume to do it, it could only fail in the attempt, nor would it be useful for us to know what God, as a trial of the modesty of our faith, has been pleased purposely to conceal. *It was a shrewd saying of a good old man, who when some one pertly asked in derision what God did before the world was created, answered he made a hell for the inquisitive *(August. Confess., lib. 11 c. 12). This reproof, not less weighty than severe, should repress the tickling wantonness which urges many to indulge in vicious and hurtful speculation.



Battles translates it this way:



> Therein time was first marked so that by a continuing succession of years believers might arrive at the primal source of the human race and of all things. This knowledge is especially useful not only to resist the monstrous fables that formerly were in vogue in Egypt and in other regions of the earth, but also that, once the beginning of the universe is known, God’s eternity may shine forth more clearly, and we may be more rapt in wonder at it. And indeed, that impious scoff ought not to move us: that it is a wonder how it did not enter God’s mind sooner to found heaven and earth, but that he idly permitted an immeasurable time to pass away, since he could have made it very many millenniums earlier, albeit the duration of the world, now declining to its ultimate end, has not yet attained six thousand years. For it is neither lawful nor expedient for us to inquire why God delayed so long, because if the human mind strives to penetrate thus far, it will fail a hundred times on the way. And it would not even be useful for us to know what God himself, to test our moderation of faith, on purpose willed to be hidden. *When a certain shameless fellow mockingly asked a pious old man what God had done before the creation of the world, the latter aptly countered that he had been building hell for the curious*. Let this admonition, no less grave than severe, restrain the wantonness that tickles many and even drives them to wicked and hurtful speculations.


----------



## Whitefield

DMcFadden said:


> Dr. Calhoun references this vignette in his course on Calvin's _Institutes_.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Remember the episode that Calvin describes in the Institutes when someone asks a wise man, “What was God doing before He created all things?” (This story comes from Augustine.) Calvin quotes Augustine’s answer to that question by saying, “He was making hell for the curious.” I noticed that Timothy George in writing about that in the Theology of the Reformers that Calvin told this story no doubt with a twinkle in his eye. Well, perhaps there was a twinkle in his eye, but Calvin took this as a pretty good answer. Augustine did not think much of the answer. He wanted to explore these things further. However, Calvin seems to view this answer as a proper answer at least to flippant questions that he would not take seriously. I am not sure how many of Calvin’s students dared to ask him a question in class. Here, at least, he is saying what he often says, and that is, “Do not go beyond the evidence. Do not speculate. Do not ask questions and seek answers to questions that we cannot answer. That is just being flippant and irresponsible. The doctrine of creation, the history of creation as set forth in the Bible, does not answer all the questions, but it is there to strengthen our faith in God. That is really why we have the Genesis account of creation.”
> 
> 
> 
> Calvin’s Institutes, CH 523
> Dr. David Calhoun
> Covenant Theological Seminary
> Lecture 5, pg. 2
Click to expand...


I wish Calhoun had given the reference for that. I don't think it is in the Institutes.

I retract that I found it... it is in the middle of I.14.1 in Battles.


----------



## DMcFadden

Lance, I added/edited my response to add a few more.


----------



## Grymir

One has to wonder how Barth used it???


----------



## seeknowledge

Hi,

it was Luther who said that


----------



## toddpedlar

seeknowledge said:


> Hi,
> 
> it was Luther who said that



Well, yes he did say it - but see above; Augustine is the original source.


----------



## DMcFadden

Grymir said:


> One has to wonder how Barth used it???



Upon examination, Tim, the Barth quote is off point. My bad.


----------



## caddy

austinbrown2 said:


> I think Lutzer, in one of his books I read like ten years ago, quoted Calvin as saying something like the following:
> 
> When someone asked Calvin what God was doing before He created the universe, he responded, "Preparing a place called hell for those who ask such questions."
> 
> Pretty funny.
> 
> I'd like to use that quote, but can't find it. So I'm wondering if (A) Calvin really said something like that, and (B) where in the world is it located?
> 
> Plumb the depths of your minds all you good Calvinists and help me out
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Austin



From WORDSEARCH 8:

14. How, then, shall I respond to him who asks, “*What was God doing before he made heaven and earth?” I do not answer, as a certain one is reported to have done facetiously (shrugging off the force of the question). “He was preparing hell,” he said, “for those who pry too deep.”* It is one thing to see the answer; it is another to laugh at the questioner--and for myself I do not answer these things thus. More willingly would I have answered, “I do not know what I do not know,” than cause one who asked a deep question to be ridiculed--and by such tactics gain praise for a worthless answer.

Rather, I say that thou, our God, art the Creator of every creature. And if in the term “heaven and earth” every creature is included, I make bold to say further: “Before God made heaven and earth, he did not make anything at all. For if he did, what did he make unless it were a creature?” I do indeed wish that I knew all that I desire to know to my profit as surely as I know that no creature was made before any creature was made.

~Confessions of St. Augustine. Book 11~


----------



## Grymir

DMcFadden said:


> Grymir said:
> 
> 
> 
> One has to wonder how Barth used it???
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Upon examination, Tim, the Barth quote is off point. My bad.
Click to expand...


----------



## jogri17

It would not suprise me if all 3 of them said it (Augustine being the first though he could have just stole a joke like we all do sometimes) given Luther was an Augustanian and Calvin was an expert on the Patristics and had an special love for Augustine (very evident in the Institutes).


----------



## DMcFadden

jogri17 said:


> It would not suprise me if all 3 of them said it (Augustine being the first though he could have just stole a joke like we all do sometimes) given Luther was an Augustanian and Calvin was an expert on the Patristics and had an special love for Augustine (very evident in the Institutes).



Guys, please *read *the posts . . .

Augustine is the first one attested to have said it. Calvin cites the saying by Augustine as have several others (as listed in post #7).

Chronologically . . .

Augustine, _Confessions_, 11.12 (397-398).

Martin Luther, _Tabletalk_ (1540)


> *No. 5010: What Was God Doing Before the Creation? Between May 21 and June 11, 1540*
> Severus said, “The scholastics even disputed about the question of where God was before the creation of the world. I heard Camers reply in Vienna that God was in himself.”
> The doctor [Martin Luther] said, “Yes, Augustine mentioned this. But once, when he was asked, he said, ‘God was making hell for those who are inquisitive.’ ” Then he added, “Where is God now, after the creation?”
> 
> Martin Luther, vol. 54, Luther's Works, Vol. 54 : Table Talk, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald and Helmut T. Lehmann, Luther's Works (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1999, c1967), 54:377.



Calvin, _Institutes_, 1.14.1 (1559).


----------



## Whitefield

DMcFadden said:


> Guys, please *read *the posts . . .


----------



## PresbyDane

I heard Luther said it I think it is in his tabletalk


----------



## Sven

DMcFadden beat me to the post. He's got the answer correct. Augustine originally said it, Luther quoted it, and so did Calvin.


----------



## austinbrown2

*Many thanks to all*

Well, thank you everyone. I didn't expect such a proponderance of responses, but again, many thanks. You answered my question and then some 

Austin


----------

