[rjtobin]

I think the idea is that early Protestants like Calvinists believed in predestination - that it was already decided who would was going to heaven. One would think this would make the predestined not care about their actions, but the trick is that no one was sure who the predestined were. Since it was believed that the predestined would be exemplars of the faith, people would act like they thought the predestined would act.

I’m not a psychologist or a theologian, but it sounds related to that concept in child psychology: when a child misbehaves, it’s better to say “you did a bad thing” than “you are bad”. The latter leads to the child labeling themselves as bad, suggesting that’s the natural way they should act.