SOURCE: "Predestination," in The Faith of John Knox: The Croall Lectures for 1960, John Knox Press, 1961, pp. 61-79.

In the following excerpt, originally delivered as a lecture at New College, Edinburgh, McEwen compares and contrasts Knox's sometimes inconsistent views on predestination with the views of Calvin and of Luther, and examines Knox's interpretations of election, assurance, free-will, and reprobation.

There are certain historical facts that are known to everybody: as, for example, that the Norman Conquest dated from 1066, and that Calvinism was a predestinarian faith. One might go further and say that everyone is aware that Calvinism was not only predestinarian, but adjectivally predestinarian—sternly, crudely, harshly predestinarian, and so on.

The main use of adjectives of this type is to induce the reader or hearer to pass judgment on purely emotional grounds, without asking to see the facts; thereby saving trouble all round, and producing the desired result...