Charles Hodge - Resistible vs. Irresistible Grace

God willing, I plan on blogging through the topic of Resistible vs. Irresistible Grace. To define and defend the Calvinist position, I plan on using the Systematic Theology of Charles Hodge. Many Calvinists highly recommend Hodges' Systematic Theology for good reason - Hodge's scholarship was first rate. But his treatment of irresistible grace doesn't carry the same weight as "a definitive and irrefutable work" in the same way Calvinists describe Jonathan Edwards' book on the will and John Owen's The Death of Death in the Death of Christ. But Calvinists don't have a single work they point to like they do for the atonement and the will.

Still, Hodge seems appropriate on this topic. Before selecting him, I read Grudem's The Gospel Call and Effective Call, Paul Helm's The Call that Generates a Response, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones' Effectual Calling and Regeneration and Francis Turretin's Effectual Calling. Unfortunately, Turretin's work was highly abridged and the rest of his work on the subject is unavailable online. Otherwise he might have been stronger than Hodge. Of all these articles, Hodges was the most extensive and detailed, so I went with him. Of the rest, the one that I would recommend the most would be Paul Helm's article, as I thought it was quite good.

The topic itself is of vital importance. In my experience, Calvinist's biggest objection to Arminianism is that it's a man centered theology and gives man a reason to boast. In contrast, they view Calvinism as the "doctrines of grace". This topic deserves attention.

Here's a little about Hodge, taken from both wikipedia and Christian Classics Ethereal Library. The basic picture is a man who spent most of his life studying, teaching and defending Calvinism.

Hodge was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on the 28th of December 1797. He graduated at the College of New Jersey (now Princeton) in 1815, and in 1819 at the Princeton Theological seminary, where he became an instructor in 1820, and the first professor of Oriental and Biblical literature in 1822. Meanwhile, in 1821, he had been ordained as a Presbyterian minister. From 1826 to 1828 he studied under de Sacy in Paris, under Gesenius and Tholuck in Halle, and under Hengstenberg, Neander and Humboldt in Berlin. In 1840 he was transferred to the chair of exegetical and didactic theology, to which subjects that of polemic theology was added in 1854, and this office he held until his death.

In 1825 he established the quarterly Biblical Repertory, the title of which became the Princeton Review in 1877. He secured for it the position of theological organ of the Old School division of the Presbyterian Church, and continued its principal editor and contributor until 1868, when the Rev. Lyman H. Atwater became his colleague.


He was conservative by nature, and his life was spent in defending the Reformed theology as set forth in the Westminster Confession of Faith and Larger and Westminster Shorter Catechisms. He was fond of saying that Princeton had never originated a new idea; but this meant no more than that Princeton was the advocate of historical Calvinism in opposition to the modified and provincial Calvinism of a later day. And it is true that Hodge must be classed among the great defenders of the faith, rather than among the great constructive minds of the Church. He had no ambition to be epoch-making by marking the era of a new departure. But he earned a higher title to fame in that he was the champion of his Church's faith during a long and active life, her trusted leader in time of trial, and for more than half a century the most conspicuous teacher of her ministry. Hodges' understanding of the Christian faith and of historical Protestantism is given in his Systematic Theology.