Calvin and the Glory of God


As noted earlier, today is John Calvin's birthday. He is known best for his doctrine of predestination, a doctrine that he shared with other theologians of that day -- as well as one's both before and since. He's seen as being dour and legalistic, but while his training was in law and he was adept at laying things out in an orderly manner, I expect we're too hard on the man (if we're not Calvinists).

But, what is at the heart of his theology? What makes him go?

While we think of Predestination as the key to understanding John Calvin, the second generation reformer from Geneva, the key is God's glory. Calvin's concern was with the divine-human relationship, and like Kart Barth, he begins not with human experience, but with God.

For Calvin, God's glory is the goal or end for all of God's plans for humanity and salvation. In his Catechism for the Church at Geneva he writes that the "chief end of human life" is to know God, "because he has created us for this, and placed us in the world that he might be glorified in us. And it is certainly proper that our life, of which he is the beginning, be directed to his glory" (John Calvin, "Catechism of the Church of Geneva," in J.K.S. Reid, ed., Calvin: Theological Treatises, Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1954, p. 91). All that follows in life and in theology is rooted in this, that we are to glorify God in our lives. Though our chief concern is with God's glory and not our own condition, Calvin makes it clear that:
"He indeed of his infinite goodness so orders all things that nothing contributes to his glory without being also salutary to us. Therefore when his name is hallowed, he causes it to turn to our sanctification also; nor does his kingdom come, with us being in some sense partakers of it But in asking all these things, it is appropriate to regard only his glory and overlook our own advantage." (Calvin, "Catechism of Geneva," 123).

Modern folk, tend to begin with the human experience and aspirations, and order our theology accordingly. That wasn't Calvin's predilection, though most assuredly his theology emerged from his own experience -- especially his own sense of need to be converted. In his Reply to Sadoleto he spoke of his own doubts and concerns about salvation, doubts sown by the theology he had imbibed growing up:

"They, indeed, preached of thy [God's] clemency towards men, but confined it to those who should show themselves deserving of it. They, moreover, placed this desert in the righteousness of works, so that he only was received into thy favor who reconciled himself to thee by works." (John Calvin, Reply to Sadoleto, in Hans Hillerbrand, The Protestant Reformation, New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1968, pp. 170-72).
With that in mind, we can understand his need for certainty -- but at the same time find it helpful to get the focus off the self and on to God. For Calvin, our purpose is to demonstrate God's glory in our lives, to work industriously at the task which God has entrusted us with so that the world may perceive the glory of God. It is this concept that undergirds his view of providence and predestination.

What is the key to our own sense of faith? How does Calvin speak to us, five hundred years after his birth about the glory of God?

Comments

Mystical Seeker said…
I don't think I can ever forgive Calvin for his involvement in the theocratic state that executed Michael Servetus.
Robert Cornwall said…
I understand the sentiment, but you have to understand the times and context. Everyone was executing everyone -- and if I remember he at least at first tried to prevent this from happening.

But, that said, there is good in aspects of his theology!
Mystical Seeker said…
Calvin was not opposed to Servetus's execution. He wanted Servetus to be decapitated rather than burned at the stake. Wikipedia reports, Calvin believed Servetus' deserving of death on account of his "execrable blasphemies". Calvin expressed these sentiments in a letter to Farel, written about a week after Servetus arrest, in which he also mentioned an exchange with Servetus.

I'm not sure I buy the "everyone was doing it" excuse (Rome was executing troublemakers in 30 AD, but was that okay?), although I do agree that Calvin's theological contributions can be looked at objectively even if he was a theocrat who suppressed dissent. Luther, after all, was a antisemite, but he still obviously had a major contribution to make to theology. I do think that Calvin was a major villain in the story of what happened to Servetus, and I do think it is worth asking whether his theocratic notions about the suppression of dissent and the execution of "heretics" represented a failure of imagination on his own part as he was willing to take the Protestant impulse only so far. It seems like another example of, as the Who put it, "meet the new boss, same as the old boss."
Robert Cornwall said…
Your point, MS, about "every one is doing it" is well taken, but I'm not sure we should call Calvin a theocrat. At the time it was assumed that church-state were one. In most Protestant states, the government oversaw religion, as was true in Catholic states, though in Catholic states you had the papacy to contend with.

Geneva was a Republic in an age of monarchies. Heresy was considered to be a capital offense, in large part, I think, because it was seen as undermining the cohesion of the community. When Locke issued his teachings on tolerance, he wasn't sure about extending it to Catholics or to atheists.
Paul said…
AFter teaching Inst. in a church for 6 months, I read somewhere that C. put off the execution of Servetus for 2 years, saying something like, 'He might be right in his criticism of me.' He was in Geneva to escape execution by the Catholics. But his execution bothered C. so much he never got over it. He preached over 150 sermons on the suffering of Job, to try to deal with his own guilt.
He should be criticized on the basis of Biblical forgiveness, but I've never been in his position; it was somewhat like Abraham, having to do something which was horrifying but there in front of him.
I'm a Calvinist, but I know we have skeletons in our closet. Fortunately for John and me, God is a God of mercy.
Let's not go back to those times.
Paul Austin

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