Question: On page 233 in What Love Is This? you say, “Calvin seems to be denying the eternal ...

Question: On page 233 in What Love Is This? you say, “Calvin seems to be denying the eternal Sonship of Christ and His eternal oneness and equality with the Father.” This is false. In the Institutes (I:xiii, 7), you will see that  Calvin states unequivocally that “the Son...is himself the eternal and essential Word of the Father.”

Answer: Here we have one more example of the contradictions into which Calvin fell at times. I quote him as follows: “he did not become the Son of God by living righteously, but was freely presented with this great honour, that he might after-wards make others partakers of his gifts” (III: xxii,1.). For Christ to have “become the Son of God,” having been “freely presented with this great honour,” there must have been a time when He was not the Son and then became the Son.

Which statement are we to believe—the one at I: xiii, 7, or the one I just quoted? It is certainly as legitimate for me to quote one of these as for you to quote the other.  I will let you try to reconcile this contradiction—and the many others.