CALVIN, CALVINISM & THE IMPACT OF THE REFORMATION
John Calvin (1509-1564)
“Jean Cauvin” – Frenchman, fiercely devoted to his homeland but lived outside of France most of his life.
Began as Humanist Reformer
Switched to a more radical platform c. 1533
Conversion experience: God “tamed his heart and reduced it to obedience.”
Published The Institutes of the Christian Religion in 1536- 1559.
Background: Augustine’s Doctrine of Predestination
Humanity after the Fall is corrupt and impotent, requiring the grace of God to be redeemed. That grace is not given to all. For those who are “passed over,” God does not actively decide that they will be damned; God simply omits to save them. Predestination refers to the divine decision to redeem, not to the act of abandoning the remainder of fallen humanity.
Calvin on Predestination
“Logical rigor demands that God actively chooses to redeem or to damn because God is active and sovereign in God’s actions. God actively wills the salvation of those who will be saved and the damnation of those who will not.
God’s graciousness is demonstrated in God’s decision to redeem individuals irrespective of their merits: the decision to redeem is made without reference to how worthy that individual might be.”
Double predestination – based on logic and observation!
“Experience indicates that God does not touch every human heart (III.xxiv.5). Why not? Is this due to some failure on God’s part? Or is there something wrong with the gospel? There cannot be any weakness or inadequacy on the part of God or the gospel; therefore, the observable pattern of responses to the gospel reflects a mystery by which some are predestined to respond to, and others to reject, the promises of God. “Some have been allocated to eternal life, others to eternal damnation” (III.xxi.5).
(Doesn’t that make God arbitrary?)
“No. God is not subject in any sense to law; for this would place law above God, an aspect of creation - above the Creator. God is outside the law, in that his will is the foundation of existing conceptions of morality (III. xxiii.2).
We cannot know why god elects some and condemns others. It is a mystery.”
From McGrath, Alistair. Reformation Thought: An Introduction, 2nd ed. (Blackwells) 125-127.
REACTION to Calvin:Jacobus Arminius (1560-1609)
Amsterdam minister
Parishioners: we sin because we must be predestined to do so! (Placher 226).
The Arminian stance:
§ Christ died for all humanity (universal salvation)
§ There is freedom of the will (grace is resistible).
§ God knows, but God does not determine, who will accept grace and who will refuse it.
Arminian Articles of Remonstrance (1610)
God has decreed to save through Jesus Christ those of the fallen and sinful race who through the grace of the Holy Spirit believe in him, but leaves in sin the incorrigible and unbelieving. (In other words predestination is said to be conditioned by God's foreknowledge of who would respond to the gospel) [Conditional election]
Christ died for all men (not just for the elect) [universal atonement] , but no one except the believer has remission of sin.
Man can neither of himself nor of his free will do anything truly good until he is born again of God, in Christ, through the Holy Spirit. (Though accused of such, Arminius and his followers were not Pelagians; they believed in partial depravity.)
All good deeds or movements in the regenerate must be ascribed to the grace of God but his grace is not irresistible.
Those who are incorporated into Christ by a true faith have power given them through the assisting grace of the Holy Spirit to persevere in the faith. But it is possible for a believer to fall from grace.
Later Calvinism….
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The Synod of Dort (1619)
Condemned Arminius and the Remonstrants
Established the Five Principles of Calvinism
a.k.a.
T.U.L.I.P.! (see Placher, page 226).
T stands for Total Depravity
U stands for Unconditional Election
L stands for Limited Atonement
I stands for Irresistible Grace
P stands for Perseverance of the saints
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The trajectory of Calvinism
} The Reformed Church: emerged from the theological work of Calvin, Zwingli and Knox; marked by theological understandings consistent with Calvinism and usually a presbyterian form of church government.
} The “Puritans” inherited this tradition
} Significant impact on American culture (Weber’s thesis – see Placher 229 – job as a calling – a vocation).
} Revitalized in neo-orthodoxy in the 20th century (especially Karl Barth)
George Fox & the Quakers: The move to inner experience as authority
George Fox (1624-1691)
§ Founder of the Society of Friends (the Quakers)
§ God resides in people’s hearts, not in churches
§ Vision of social equality, peace and the inner light of Christ
§ Distinctive form of worship
“It was opened to me, ‘That God who made the world did not dwell in temples made with hands.’ This at the first seemed strange, because both priests and people used to call their temples or churches…. holy ground, and the temples of God. But the Lord showed me clearly, that he did not dwell in these temples which men had commanded and set up, but in people’s hearts…”
What is “a church”?
“The church was the pillar and ground of truth, made up of living stones, living members, a spiritual household, which Christ was the head of: but he was not the head of a mixed multitude, or an old house made up of lime, stones, and wood. This set them all on fire.”
- Excerpt from Fox’s Journal, Readings from the History of Christian Thought, ed. Placher, v. 2, p. 80.
On the inner light
(An epistle to his friends):
“All friends of the Lord everywhere, whose minds are turned in toward the Lord, take heed to the light within you, which I the light of Christ: which, as you love it, will call your minds inward… so your minds will be renewed by it, and turned to God in this which is pure, to worship the living God, the Lord of hosts over all the creatures. That which calls your minds out of the lusts of the world, will call them out of the affections and desires, and turn you to set your affections above. The same that calls the mind out of the world, will give judgment upon the world’s affections and lusts, that which calls out your minds from the world’s teachers and the creatures, to have your minds renewed… Here in the pure mind is the pure God waited upon fro wisdom from above; the pure God is seen night and day, and the eternal peace, of which there is no end, enjoyed.” - Excerpt from Fox’s Journal, Readings from the History of Christian Thought, v. 2, p. 80.- 81.
The Reformation’s effect on Christianity
} Emphasis on Scripture as supreme form of authority
} Shift towards an affirmative view of the world; move away from the medieval emphasis on monastic and withdrawal from society
} A new emphasis on the doctrines of creation and redemption -- the world is good; what we do in this life matters
} A recovering of the idea of calling of a Christian; Christians called to purify and sanctify everyday life (not just for monks anymore!)
} Priesthood of all believers – emphasis on individual Christian; lay participation
} Denominationalism – emergence of distinct, autonomous religious groups with particular beliefs and practices.
The Reformation’s effect on the modern world
“Every individual’s way of life is, as it were, a position assigned to him by the Lord.” – Calvin
“The whole world could be filled with the service of God – not just the churches, but the home, the kitchen, the cellar, the workshop and the fields.” – Luther.
} From the monastery to the marketplace
} All human work is capable of being important in the sight of God
} THE PROTESTANT WORK ETHIC & THE SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM
} Weber’s thesis: Protestantism generated the psychological preconditions essential to the development of modern capitalism
The Reformation’s effect on America
} Proliferation of Protestant denominations (mainline to non-denominational)
} A particular form of capitalism
} A sense of calling, not just of the individual, but of the nation
America as the “city on a hill”
The Lord will be our God, and delight to dwell among us, as His own people, and will command a blessing upon us in all our ways, so that we shall see much more of His wisdom, power, goodness and truth, than formerly we have been acquainted with. We shall find that the God of Israel is among us, when ten of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemies; when He shall make us a praise and glory that men shall say of succeeding plantations, "may the Lord make it like that of New England." For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world.
- John Winthrop, A Modell of Christian Charity (1630)
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