On my last post I received a question about Bill Watterson, so here is some more of his background:
. . . when Watterson was coming up with names for the characters of his comic strip, he decided upon Calvin (after the Protestant reformer John Calvin) and Hobbes (after the social philosopher Thomas Hobbes) as a “a tip of the hat to the political science department at Kenyon College.” . . .
There is an ongoing argument on whether Watterson is a Christian or not. Over the 10 year period, many of his comics certainly echoed several of the philosophical debates that are present in Christianity. Certainly at Kenyon College he would have been exposed to more than one version of Christianity, since Kenyon began as an Episcopal College–and is still listed as such–but also has an extremely strong evangelical campus ministry in a college that only has a couple of thousand students in an isolated location. As you can tell from my last post, I come down on the “Christian” interpretation of Watterson, but I could be completely wrong. Nevertheless, his periodically posed questions in the strip certainly became useful for many a discussion among Christians during that era.
Yesterday, I pointed out that Watterson made a strong point about television and what was then its growing status in USA culture. The strip I have posted today, raises one of the important philosophical questions in Calvinism. Watterson was very good at being able to go from the very practical to the very philosophical.
And so, Calvin–who else?–asks about fate, which Hobbes turns into the word “predestination,” a nice turn of phrase on Watterson’s part, since the original Hobbes was a philosopher who had a “mechanistic” view of human beings and rejected “incorporeal entities.” He answers the question on predestination by having Hobbes say how terrifying a view it would be if predestination were real. You see, one of the great arguments against the Calvinists is precisely the issue of culpability. If everything is governed under the one decree–and you have to be a good scholar to know what Calvinists mean when they use that term–then not only is there the danger that free will is lost but also that God could be declared to be evil. It is an argument with which both Saint Paul and Saint James struggle.
Watterson reduces the whole argument to one simple question and Hobbe’s answer. And, his answer is that, yes, it would be a frightening world if all that happens to us is decreed before the foundation of the world, if all our choices are not choices, but that we nevertheless suffer the consequences of choices that we did not truly make. He does that simply by picturing Calvin and Hobbes in a wagon flying in the air, in the moments before it hits the ground and those who are in it are injured. If Calvin’s choice was fate, then it is indeed terrifying that when the wagon lands, they will both suffer pain as a result of a decreed choice.
And, so does Watterson take centuries of arguments–since the Reformation–and reduce one of the essential points to just one comic strip. In passing, the Orthodox would say that there is predestination but that it is based on foreknowledge, not simply on a decree which predates the choice to serve Our Lord. In extremely technical terms, the Orthodox would not be supralapsarians in the Ordo Salutis.
In much less technical terms, it means that we believe that God’s choice was based on his knowledge of who would accept His Son.
Martin Luther started the Reformation. Many of my Roman Catholic friends told me that they were taught that martin Luther left the RC church because he wanted to get married. We Lutherans have been taught that Luther believed in Justification by Faith. He wrote many articles, pamphlets & books on the subject. At the diet of Worms he was asked to give up and burn all his writings, but he refused and stated that he believe from his reading the Holy Scriptures that his writings were true and he could not/would not submit to what the Pope, etc., commanded him to do.
I know it’s useless as what I am writing in response is literally 13 years after the creation of this article, but you miss the entire point of that strip. The irony of that strip is not an argument *against* Calvinism but rather for it. The joke is not that they are going to collide with the ground, but rather the strip is pointing out the irony that the entire comic strip IS predestined. The next panel always existed, and Calvin and Hobbes live in a world that is predestined by their creator, Bill Watterson. Hobbes alluding to “What a scary thought” is pure irony, referencing the obvious predestination that they themselves cannot see from their point of view, but one that we easily see from ours.
You miss the entire point of the comic strip. The irony is that the comic strip IS predestined, even though the characters within the strip can’t see it. It is my belief that Bill Watterson is likely Presbyterian or at the least Reformed from this comic strip, other of his comic strips, and the fact that Calvin is literally named after the reformer, John Calvin.
Well, except that Calvin is the one who does not comprehend reality and goes off on his spaceship. Calvin finds no law that he cannot break. Calvin turns reality upside down, refusing to acknowledge the simple logic of what he sees. Calvin comes off as a very imaginative child with a flexible connection to reality. This is the opposite of the historical Calvin, who wished to define and stabilize the Church and Society. The comic book Calvin is the anti-Calvinist.
The irony is that the unreal Hobbes is the one rooted in reality and wishes to live in reality. Hobbes wishes for social harmony, even though he disappears whenever someone other than Calvin appears. How can one have social harmony if others cannot even perceive one? Thus, the historical Hobbes’ idea of social contract theory cannot be carried out by Hobbes, the tiger, since he is not perceived. So, the comic book Hobbes is the anti-Hobbes.
So, while Watterson may be making a play on predestination, at least in the comic strip, within the strip, he destroys any human attempt to understand reality, address it, and organize it fully. He pictures a world that is a wonderful reflection on the imagination of an uncontrollable child while also critiquing various views of reality and social arrangements. In effect, Watterson declares that neither Calvinists nor Hobbsians understand reality.