The theology ofJohn Calvin has been influential in both the development of the system of belief now known asCalvinism and inProtestant thought more generally.
John Calvin developed his theology in his biblical commentaries as well as his sermons and treatises, but the most concise expression of his views is found in his magnum opus, theInstitutes of the Christian Religion. He intended that the book be used as a summary of his views on Christian theology and that it be read in conjunction with his commentaries.[1] The various editions of that work span nearly his entire career as a reformer, and the successive revisions of the book show that his theology changed very little from his youth to his death.[2] The first edition from 1536 consisted of only six chapters. The second edition, published in 1539, was three times as long because he added chapters on subjects that appear in Melanchthon'sLoci Communes. In 1543, he again added new material and expanded a chapter on theApostles' Creed. The final edition of theInstitutes appeared in 1559. By then, the work consisted of four books of eighty chapters, and each book was named after statements from the creed: Book 1 on God the Creator, Book 2 on the Redeemer in Christ, Book 3 on receiving the Grace of Christ through the Holy Spirit, and Book 4 on the Society of Christ or the Church.[3]
The first statement in theInstitutes acknowledges its central theme. It states that the sum of human wisdom consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.[4] Calvin argues that the knowledge of God is not inherent in humanity nor can it be discovered by observing this world. The only way to obtain it is to study scripture. Calvin writes, "For anyone to arrive at God the Creator he needs Scripture as his Guide and Teacher."[5] He does not try to prove the authority of scripture but rather describes it asautopiston or self-authenticating. He defends thetrinitarian view of God and, in a strong polemical stand against the Catholic Church, argues thatimages of God lead to idolatry.[6]
Calvin viewed Scripture as being bothmajestic andsimple. According toFord Lewis Battles, Calvin had discovered that "sublimity of style and sublimity of thought were not coterminous."[7]
At the end of the first book of theInstitutes, he offers his views onprovidence, writing, "By his Power God cherishes and guards the World which he made and by his Providence rules its individual Parts.[8] Humans are unable to fully comprehend why God performs any particular action, but whatever good or evil people may practise, their efforts always result in the execution of God's will and judgments."[9]
The second book of theInstitutes includes several essays on theoriginal sin and thefall of man, which directly refer toAugustine, who developed these doctrines. He often cited theChurch Fathers in order to defend the reformed cause against the charge that the reformers were creating new theology.[10] In Calvin's view, sin began with the fall ofAdam and propagated to all of humanity. The domination of sin is complete to the point that people are driven to evil.[11] Thus fallen humanity is in need of the redemption that can be found in Christ. But before Calvin expounded on this doctrine, he described the special situation of the Jews who lived during the time of theOld Testament. God made a covenant withAbraham, promising the coming of Christ. Hence, theOld Covenant was not in opposition to Christ, but was rather a continuation of God's promise. Calvin then describes theNew Covenant using the passage from theApostles' Creed that describes Christ's suffering underPontius Pilate and his return to judge the living and the dead. For Calvin, the whole course of Christ's obedience to the Father removed the discord between humanity and God.[12]
R. T. Kendall has argued that Calvin's view of theatonement differs from that of laterCalvinists, especially thePuritans.[13] Kendall interpreted Calvin as believing that Christ diedfor all people, but intercedes only for theelect.
Kendall's thesis is now a minority view as a result of work by scholars such asPaul Helm, who argues that "both Calvin and the Puritans taught that Christ died for the elect and intercedes for the elect",[14] Richard Muller,[15] Mark Dever,[16] and others.
In the third book of theInstitutes, Calvin describes how the spiritual union of Christ and humanity is achieved. He first defines faith as the firm and certain knowledge of God in Christ. The immediate effects of faith arerepentance and the remission of sin. This is followed by spiritualregeneration, which returns the believer to the state of holiness before Adam's transgression. However, complete perfection is unattainable in this life, and the believer should expect a continual struggle against sin.[17] Several chapters are then devoted to the subject ofjustification by faith alone. He defined justification as "the acceptance by which God regards us as righteous whom he has received into grace."[18] In this definition, it is clear that it is God who initiates and carries through the action and that people play no role; God is completely sovereign in salvation.[19] According toAlister McGrath, Calvin provided a solution to theReformation problem of howjustification relates tosanctification. Calvin suggested that both came out of union with Christ. McGrath notes that whileMartin Bucer suggested that justification causes (moral) regeneration, Calvin argued that "both justification and regeneration are the results of the believer's union with Christ through faith."[20]
Near the end of theInstitutes, Calvin describes and defends the doctrine ofpredestination, a doctrine advanced by Augustine in opposition to the teachings ofPelagius. Fellow theologians who followed the Augustinian tradition on this point includedThomas Aquinas andMartin Luther,[21] though Calvin's formulation of the doctrine went further than the tradition that went before him.[22] The principle, in Calvin's words, is that "All are not created on equal terms, but some are preordained to eternal life, others to eternal damnation; and, accordingly, as each has been created for one or other of these ends, we say that he has been predestinated to life or to death."[23]
The doctrine of predestination "does not stand at the beginning of the dogmatic system as it does in Zwingli or Beza", but, according to Fahlbusch, it "does tend to burst through the soteriological-Christological framework."[24] In contrast to some other Protestant Reformers, Calvin taughtdouble predestination. Chapter 21 of Book III of theInstitutes is called "Of the eternal election, by which God has predestinated some to salvation, and others to destruction".
The final book of theInstitutes describes what he considers to be the true Church and its ministry, authority, andsacraments. Calvin also conceded thatordination could be called a sacrament, but suggested that it was a "special rite for a certain function."[25]
He denied thepapal claim to primacy and the accusation that the reformers wereschismatic. For Calvin, the Church was defined as the body of believers who placed Christ at its head. By definition, there was only one "catholic" or "universal" Church. Hence, he argued that the reformers "had to leave them in order that we might come to Christ."[26] The ministers of the Church are described from a passage fromEphesians, and they consisted of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and doctors. Calvin regarded the first three offices as temporary, limited in their existence to the time of the New Testament. The latter two offices were established in the church in Geneva. Although Calvin respected the work of theecumenical councils, he considered them to be subject to God's Word found in scripture. He also believed that the civil and church authorities were separate and should not interfere with each other.[27]
Calvin defined a sacrament as an earthly sign associated with a promise from God. He accepted only two sacraments as valid under the new covenant:baptism and the Lord's Supper (in opposition to the Catholic acceptance ofseven sacraments). He completely rejected the Catholic doctrine oftransubstantiation and the treatment of the Supper as a sacrifice. He also could not accept the Lutheran doctrine ofsacramental union in which Christ was "in, with and under" the elements. His own view was close toZwingli's symbolic view, but it was not identical. Rather than holding a purely symbolic view, Calvin noted that with the participation of the Holy Spirit, faith was nourished and strengthened by the sacrament. In his words, the eucharistic rite was "a secret too sublime for my mind to understand or words to express. I experience it rather than understand it."[28]Keith Mathison coined the word "suprasubstantiation" (in distinction to transubstantiation orconsubstantiation) to describe Calvin's doctrine of the Lord's Supper.[29][30]
Calvin believed ininfant baptism, and devoted a chapter in hisInstitutes to the subject.
Calvin believed in a real spiritual presence of Christ at theEucharist.[31] For Calvin,union with Christ was at the heart of the Lord's Supper.[31]
According to Brian Gerrish, there are three different interpretations of the Lord's Supper within non-Lutheran Protestant theology:
Calvin's sacramental theology was criticized by later Reformed writers.Robert L. Dabney, for example, called it “not only incomprehensible but impossible.”[33]
Calvin had a positive view ofMary, but rejected theRoman Catholic veneration of her.
Calvin's theology was not without controversy.Pierre Caroli, a Protestant minister inLausanne accused Calvin, as well asViret andFarel, ofArianism in 1536. Calvin defended his beliefs on the Trinity inConfessio de Trinitate propter calumnias P. Caroli.[34] In 1551Jérôme-Hermès Bolsec, a physician in Geneva, attacked Calvin's doctrine of predestination and accused him of making God the author of sin. Bolsec was banished from the city, and after Calvin's death, he wrote a biography which severely maligned Calvin's character.[35] In the following year,Joachim Westphal, aGnesio-Lutheran pastor in Hamburg, condemned Calvin and Zwingli as heretics in denying the eucharistic doctrine of the union of Christ's body with the elements. Calvin'sDefensio sanae et orthodoxae doctrinae de sacramentis (A Defense of the Sober and Orthodox Doctrine of the Sacrament) was his response in 1555.[36] In 1556Justus Velsius, a Dutch dissident, held a publicdisputation with Calvin during his visit toFrankfurt, in which Velsius defendedfree will against Calvin's doctrine ofpredestination. Following the execution of Servetus, a close associate of Calvin,Sebastian Castellio, broke with him on the issue of the treatment of heretics. In Castellio'sTreatise on Heretics (1554), he argued for a focus on Christ's moral teachings in place of the vanity of theology,[37] and he afterward developed a theory of tolerance based on biblical principles.[38]
Scholars have debated Calvin's view of the Jews and Judaism. Some have argued that Calvin was the least antisemitic among all the major reformers of his era, especially in comparison to Martin Luther.[39] Others have argued that Calvin was firmly within the antisemitic camp.[40] Scholars agree, however, that it is important to distinguish between Calvin's views toward the biblical Jews and his attitude toward contemporary Jews. In his theology, Calvin does not differentiate between God's covenant with Israel and the New Covenant. He stated, "all the children of the promise, reborn of God, who have obeyed the commands by faith working through love, have belonged to the New Covenant since the world began."[41] Still he was asupersessionist and argued that the Jews are a rejected people who must embrace Jesus to re-enter the covenant.[42]
Most of Calvin's statements on the Jewry of his era were polemical. For example, Calvin once wrote, "I have had much conversation with many Jews: I have never seen either a drop of piety or a grain of truth or ingenuousness – nay, I have never found common sense in any Jew."[43] In this respect, he differed little from other Protestant and Catholic theologians of his time.[44] Among his extant writings, Calvin only dealt explicitly with issues of contemporary Jews and Judaism in one treatise,[45]Response to Questions and Objections of a Certain Jew.[46] In it, he argued that Jews misread their own scriptures because they miss the unity of the Old and New Testaments.[47]
Calvin's ideas on mission are widely in line with those of the otherreformers. Calvin is also astonished by the spread of theGospel in the world. Although Christ after his resurrection “pervaded the whole world like lightning“,[48] the comprehensivemissionary mandate will not be completed until Christ’s return. Until then, Calvin believes, God can still awakenapostles as messengers or even place authority at his service. An organized missionary enterprise is not necessary. However, Calvin continues, the individual Christian is in no way absolved of his responsibility: “As far as we can, [we] shall endeavour to lead all men on earth to God” or “to draw poor souls out of hell“, so that he [i.e. God] may be “honored unanimously by all, and all may serve him.”[49]
The Encyclopedia of Christianity suggests that:
[Calvin's] theological importance is tied to the attempted systematization of the Christian doctrine. In the doctrine of predestination; in his simple, eschatologically grounded distinction between an immanent and a transcendent eternal work of salvation, resting on Christology and the sacraments; and in his emphasis upon the work of the Holy Spirit in producing the obedience of faith in the regenerate (thetertius usus legis, or so-called third use of the law), he elaborated the orthodoxy that would have a lasting impact on Reformed theology.[50]
