John Calvin
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born July 10, 1509, Noyon, Picardy, France
died May 27, 1564, Geneva, Switz.
French Jean Calvin, or Cauvin
theologian and ecclesiastical statesman. He was the leading French Protestant Reformer and the most important figure in the second generation of the Protestant Reformation. His interpretation of Christianity, advanced above all in his Institutio Christianae religionis (1536 but elaborated in later editions; Institutes of the Christian Religion), and the institutional and social patterns he worked out for Geneva deeply influenced Protestantism elsewhere in Europe and in North America. The Calvinist form of Protestantism is widely thought to have had a major impact on the formation of the modern world.
Life and works
Calvin was of middle-class parents. His father, a lay administrator in the service of the local bishop, sent him to the University of Paris in 1523 to be educated for the priesthood but later decided that he should be a lawyer; from 1528 to 1531, therefore, Calvin studied in the law schools of Orléans and Bourges. He then returned to Paris. During these years he was also exposed to Renaissance humanism, influenced by Erasmus and Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples, which constituted the radical student movement of the time. This movement, which antedates the Reformation, aimed to reform church and society on the model of both classical and Christian antiquity, to be established by a return to the Bible studied in its original languages. It left an indelible mark on Calvin. Under its influence he studied Greek and Hebrew as well as Latin, the three languages of ancient Christian discourse, in preparation for serious study of the Scriptures. It also intensified his interest in the classics; his first publication (1532) was a commentary on Seneca's essay on clemency. But the movement, above all, emphasized salvation of individuals by grace rather than good works and ceremonies.
Calvin's Paris years came to an abrupt end late in 1533. Because the government became less tolerant of this reform movement, Calvin, who had collaborated in the preparation of a strong statement of theological principles for a public address delivered by Nicolas Cop, rector of the university, found it prudent to leave Paris. Eventually he made his way to Basel, then Protestant but tolerant of religious variety. Up to that point, however, there is little evidence of Calvin's conversion to Protestantism, an event difficult to date because it was probably gradual. His beliefs before his flight to Switzerland were probably not incompatible with Roman Catholic orthodoxy. But they underwent a change when he began to study theology intensively in Basel. Probably in part to clarify his own beliefs, he began to write. He began with a preface to a French translation of the Bible by his cousin Pierre Olivétan and then undertook what became the first edition of the Institutes, his masterwork, which, in its successive revisions, became the single most important statement of Protestant belief. Calvin published later editions in both Latin and French, containing elaborated and in a few cases revised teachings and replies to his critics. The final versions appeared in 1559 and 1560. The Institutes also reflected the findings of Calvin's massive biblical commentaries, which, presented extemporaneously in Latin as lectures to ministerial candidates from many countries, make up the largest proportion of his works. In addition he wrote many theological and polemical treatises.
The 1536 Institutes had given Calvin some reputation among Protestant leaders. Therefore, on discovering that Calvin was spending a night in Geneva late in 1536, the Reformer and preacher Guillaume Farel, then struggling to plant Protestantism in that town, persuaded him to remain to help in this work. The Reformation was in trouble in Geneva, a town of about 10,000 where Protestantism had only the shallowest of roots. Other towns in the region, initially ruled by their prince-bishops, had successfully won self-government much earlier, but Geneva had lagged behind in this process largely because its prince-bishop was supported by the neighbouring duke of Savoy. There had been iconoclastic riots in Geneva in the mid-1520s, but these had negligible theological foundations. Protestantism had been imposed on religiously unawakened Geneva chiefly as the price of military aid from Protestant Bern. The limited enthusiasm of Geneva for Protestantism, reflected by a resistance to religious and moral reform, continued almost until Calvin's death. The resistance was all the more serious because the town council in Geneva, as in other Protestant towns, exercised ultimate control over the church and the ministers, all French refugees. The main issue was the right of excommunication, which the ministers regarded as essential to their authority but which the council refused to concede. The uncompromising attitudes of Calvin and Farel finally resulted in their expulsion from Geneva in May 1538.
Calvin found refuge for the next three years in the German Protestant city of Strasbourg, where he was pastor of a church for French-speaking refugees and also lectured on the Bible; there he published his commentary on the Letter of Paul to the Romans. There too, in 1540, he married Idelette de Bure, the widow of a man he had converted from Anabaptism. Although none of their children survived infancy, their marital relationship proved to be extremely warm. During his Strasbourg years Calvin also learned much about the administration of an urban church from Martin Bucer, its chief pastor. Meanwhile Calvin's attendance at various international religious conferences made him acquainted with other Protestant leaders and gave him experience in debating with Roman Catholic theologians. Henceforth he was a major figure in international Protestantism.
In September 1541 Calvin was invited back to Geneva, where the Protestant revolution, without strong leadership, had become increasingly insecure. Because he was now in a much stronger position, the town council in November enacted his Ecclesiastical Ordinances, which provided for the religious education of the townspeople, especially children, and instituted Calvin's conception of church order. It also established four groups of church officers: pastors and teachers to preach and explain the Scriptures, elders representing the congregation to administer the church, and deacons to attend to its charitable responsibilities. In addition it set up a consistory of pastors and elders to make all aspects of Genevan life conform to God's law. It undertook a wide range of disciplinary actions covering everything from the abolition of Roman Catholic “superstition? to the enforcement of sexual morality, the regulation of taverns, and measures against dancing, gambling, and swearing. These measures were resented by a significant element of the population, and the arrival of increasing numbers of French religious refugees in Geneva was a further cause of native discontent. These tensions, as well as the persecution of Calvin's followers in France, help to explain the trial and burning of Michael Servetus, a Spanish theologian preaching and publishing unorthodox beliefs. When Servetus unexpectedly arrived in Geneva in 1553, both sides felt the need to demonstrate their zeal for orthodoxy. Calvin was responsible for Servetus' arrest and conviction, though he had preferred a less brutal form of execution.
The struggle over control of Geneva lasted until May 1555, when Calvin finally prevailed and could devote himself more wholeheartedly to other matters. He had constantly to watch the international scene and to keep his Protestant allies in a common front. Toward this end he engaged in a massive correspondence with political and religious leaders throughout Protestant Europe. He also continued his commentaries on Scripture, working through the whole New Testament except the Revelation to John and most of the Old Testament. Many of these commentaries were promptly published, often with dedications to such European rulers as Queen Elizabeth, though Calvin had too little time to do much of the editorial work himself. Committees of amanuenses took down what he said, prepared a master copy, and then presented it to Calvin for approval. During this period Calvin also established the Genevan Academy to train students in humanist learning in preparation for the ministry and positions of secular leadership. He also performed a wide range of pastoral duties, preaching regularly and often, doing numerous weddings and baptisms, and giving spiritual advice. Worn out by so many responsibilities and suffering from a multitude of ailments, he died in 1564.
Personality
Unlike Martin Luther, Calvin was a reticent man; he rarely expressed himself in the first person singular. This reticence has contributed to his reputation as cold, intellectual, and humanly unapproachable. His thought, from this perspective, has been interpreted as abstract and concerned with timeless issues rather than as the response of a sensitive human being to the needs of a particular historical situation. Those who knew him, however, perceived him differently, remarking on his talent for friendship but also on his hot temper. Moreover, the intensity of his grief on the death of his wife, as well as his empathic reading of many passages in Scripture, revealed a large capacity for feeling.
Calvin's facade of impersonality can now be understood as concealing an unusually high level of anxiety about the world around him, about the adequacy of his own efforts to deal with its needs, and about human salvation, notably including his own. He believed that every Christian—and he certainly included himself—suffers from terrible bouts of doubt. From this perspective the need for control both of oneself and the environment, often discerned in Calvinists, can be understood as a function of Calvin's own anxiety.
Calvin's anxiety found expression in two metaphors for the human condition that appear again and again in his writings: as an abyss in which human beings have lost their way and as a labyrinth from which they cannot escape. Calvinism as a body of thought must be understood as the product of Calvin's effort to escape from the terrors conveyed by these metaphors.
Intellectual formation
Historians are generally agreed that Calvin is to be understood primarily as a Renaissance humanist who aimed to apply the novelties of humanism to recover a biblical understanding of Christianity. Thus he sought to appeal rhetorically to the human heart rather than to compel agreement, in the traditional manner of systematic theologians, by demonstrating dogmatic truths. His chief enemies, indeed, were the systematic theologians of his own time, the Scholastics, both because they relied too much on human reason rather than the Bible and because their teachings were lifeless and irrelevant to a world in desperate need. Calvin's humanism meant first that he thought of himself as a biblical theologian in accordance with the Reformation slogan scriptura sola. He was prepared to follow Scripture even when it surpassed the limits of human understanding, trusting to the Holy Spirit to inspire faith in its promises. Like other humanists, he was also deeply concerned to remedy the evils of his own time; and here too he found guidance in Scripture. Its teachings could not be presented as a set of timeless abstractions but had to be brought to life by adapting them to the understanding of contemporaries according to the rhetorical principle of decorum—i.e., suitability to time, place, and audience.
Calvin's humanism influenced his thought in two other basic ways. For one, he shared with earlier Renaissance humanists an essentially biblical conception of the human personality, comprehending it not as a hierarchy of faculties ruled by reason but as a mysterious unity in which what is primary is not what is highest but what is central: the heart. This conception assigned more importance to will and feelings than to the intellect, and it also gave new dignity to the body. For this reason Calvin rejected the ascetic disregard of the body's needs that was often prominent in medieval spirituality. Implicit in this particular rejection of the traditional hierarchy of faculties in the personality, however, was a radical rejection of the traditional belief that hierarchy was the basis of all order. For Calvin, instead, the only foundation for order in human affairs was utility. Among its other consequences this position undermined the traditional one subordinating women to men. Calvin believed that, for practical reasons, it may be necessary for some to command and others to obey, but it could no longer be argued that women must naturally be subordinated to men. This helps to explain the rejection in Geneva of the double standard in sexual morality.
Second, Calvin's utilitarianism, as well as his understanding of the human personality as both less and more than intellectual, was also reflected in deep reservations about the capacity of human beings for anything but practical knowledge. The notion that they can know anything absolutely, as God knows, so to speak, seemed to him highly presumptuous. This conviction helps to explain his reliance on the Bible. Calvin believed that human beings have access to the saving truths of religion only insofar as God has revealed them in Scripture. But revealed truths were not given to satisfy human curiosity but were limited to meeting the most urgent and practical needs of human existence, above all for salvation. This emphasis on practicality reflects a basic conviction of Renaissance humanism: the superiority of an active earthly life devoted to meeting practical needs to a life of contemplation. Calvin's conviction that every occupation in society is a “calling? on the part of God himself sanctified this conception. Calvin thus spelled out the theological implications of Renaissance humanism in various ways.
But Calvin was not purely a Renaissance humanist. The culture of the 16th century was peculiarly eclectic, and, like other thinkers of his time, Calvin had inherited a set of contrary tendencies, which he uneasily combined with his humanism. He was an unsystematic thinker not only because he was a humanist but also because 16th-century thinkers lacked the historical perspective that would have enabled them to sort out the diverse materials in their culture. Thus, even as he emphasized the heart, Calvin continued also to think of the human personality in traditional terms as a hierarchy of faculties ruled by reason. He sometimes attributed a large place to reason even in religion and emphasized the importance of rational control over the passions and the body. The persistence of these traditional attitudes in Calvin's thought, however, helps to explain its broad appeal; they were reassuring to conservatives.
Theology
Calvin has often been seen as little more than a systematizer of the more creative insights of Luther. He followed Luther on many points: on original sin, Scripture, the absolute dependence of human beings on divine grace, and justification by faith alone. But Calvin's differences with Luther are of major significance, even though some were largely matters of emphasis. Calvin was thus perhaps more impressed than Luther by God's transcendence and by his control over the world; Calvin emphasized God's power and glory, whereas Luther often thought of God as the babe in the manger, here among human beings. Contrary to a general impression, Calvin's understanding of predestination was also virtually identical with Luther's (and indeed is close to that of Thomas Aquinas); and, although Calvin may have stated it more emphatically, the issue itself is not of central importance to his theology. He considered it a great mystery, to be approached with fear and trembling and only in the context of faith. Seen in this way, predestination seemed to him a comforting doctrine; it meant that salvation would be taken care of by a loving and utterly reliable God.
But in major respects Calvin departed from Luther. In some ways Calvin was more radical. Though he agreed with Luther on the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, he understood this in a completely spiritual sense. But most of his differences suggest that he was closer to the old church than was Luther, as in his ecclesiology, which recognized the institutional church in this world, as Luther did not, as the true church. He was also more traditional in his clericalism; his belief in the authority of clergy over laity was hardly consistent with Luther's stress on the priesthood of all believers. He insisted, too, on the necessity of a holy life, at least as a sign of genuine election. Even more significant, especially for Calvinism as a historical force, was Calvin's attitude toward the world. Luther had regarded this world and its institutions as incorrigible and was prepared to leave them to the Devil, a far more important figure in his spiritual universe than in Calvin's. But for Calvin this world was created by God and still belonged to him. It was still potentially Christ's kingdom, and every Christian was obligated to struggle to make it so in reality by bringing it under God's law.
Spirituality
Calvin's reservations about the capacities of the human mind and his insistence that Christians exert themselves to bring the world under the rule of Christ suggest that it is less instructive to approach his thought as a theology to be comprehended by the mind than as a set of principles for the Christian life—in short, as spirituality. His spirituality begins with the conviction that human beings do not so much “know? God as “experience? him indirectly, through his mighty acts and works in the world, as they experience but can hardly be said to know thunder, one of Calvin's favourite metaphors for religious experience. Such experience of God gives them confidence in his power and stimulates them to praise and worship him.
At the same time that Calvin stressed God's power, he also depicted God as a loving father. Indeed, although Calvinism is often considered one of the most patriarchal forms of Christianity, Calvin recognized that God is commonly experienced as a mother. He denounced those who represent God as dreadful; God for him is “mild, kind, gentle, and compassionate.? Human beings can never praise him properly, Calvin declared, “until he wins us by the sweetness of his goodness.? That God loves and cares for his human creatures was, for Calvin, what distinguished his doctrine of providence from that of the Stoics.
Calvin's understanding of Christianity is thus in many ways gentler than has been commonly supposed. This is also shown in his understanding of original sin. Although he insisted on the “total depravity? of human nature after the Fall, he did not mean by this that there is nothing good left in human beings but rather that there is no agency within the personality left untouched by the Fall on which to depend for salvation. The intention of the doctrine is practical: to reinforce dependence on Christ and the free grace of God. In fact, unlike some of his followers, Calvin believed in the survival after the Fall, however weak, of the original marks of God's image, in which human beings were created. “It is always necessary to come back to this,? he declared, “that God never created a man on whom he did not imprint his image.? At times, to be sure, Calvin's denunciations of sin give a very different impression. But it should be kept in mind that as a humanist and a rhetorician Calvin was less concerned to be theologically precise than to impress his audience with the need to repent of its sins.
The problem posed by sin was, for Calvin, not that it had destroyed the spiritual potentialities of human beings but rather that human beings had lost their ability to use their potentialities. Through the Fall they had been alienated from God, who is the source of all power, energy, warmth, and vitality. Sin, on the contrary, had exposed the human race to death, the negation of God's life-giving powers. Human beings thus experience the effects of sin as drowsiness when they should be alert, as apathy when they should feel concern, as sloth when they should be diligent, as coldness when they should be warm, as weakness when they need strength. Thus also, since the Devil, who seeks to drain human beings of their God-given spirituality, tries to lull them to sleep, God must employ various stratagems to awaken them. This helps to explain the troubles that afflict the elect: God threatens, chastises, and compels them to remember him by making their lives go badly.
The effect of sin also prevents human beings from reacting with appropriate wonder to the marvels of the world. The failure of spirituality is the primary obstacle to an affective knowledge that, unlike mere intellectual apprehension, can move the whole personality. Calvin attached particular importance to the way in which sin deadens the feelings, but spiritual knowledge renews the connection, broken by sin, between knowledge, feeling, and action. Thus God's spirit, in all its manifestations, is the power of life. Calvin's understanding of sin is closely related to his humanistic emphasis on activity.
As his emphasis on sanctification for the individual believer and on reconquering the world for Christ implies, Calvin's spirituality also included a strong sense of history, which he perceived as a process in which God's purposes are progressively realized. Therefore, the central elements of the Gospel—the Incarnation and Atonement, the grace available through them, the gift of faith by which human beings are enabled to accept this grace for themselves, and the sanctification that results—together describe objectively how human beings are enabled, step by step, to recover their original relationship with God and regain the energy coming from it. Calvin described this as a “quickening? that, in effect, brings the believer back from death to life and makes possible the most strenuous exertion in God's service.
Calvin exploited two traditional metaphors for the life of a Christian. Living in an unusually militant age, he drew on the familiar idea of the believer's life as a ceaseless, quasi-military struggle against the powers of evil both within the self and in the world. The Christian, in this conception, must struggle against his own wicked impulses, against the majority of the human race on behalf of the Gospel, and ultimately against the Devil. Paradoxically, however, Christian warfare consists less in inflicting wounds on others than in suffering the effects of sin patiently, that is, by bearing the cross. In Calvin's thought the metaphor for the Christian life as conflict thus takes on the added meaning of acquiescence in suffering. The disasters that afflict human existence, though punishments for the wicked, are an education for the believer; they strengthen faith, develop humility, purge wickedness, and compel him to keep alert and look to God for help.
The second traditional metaphor for the Christian life employed by Calvin, that of a journey or pilgrimage—i.e., of a movement toward a goal—equally implied activity. “Our life is like a journey,? Calvin asserted; yet “it is not God's will that we should march along casually as we please, but he sets the goal before us, and also directs us on the right way to it.? This way is also a struggle because no one moves easily forward and most are so weak that, “wavering and limping and even creeping along the ground, they move at a feeble pace.? Yet with God's help everyone can daily make some advance, however slight. Notable in this conception is a single-mindedness often associated with Calvinism: Christians must look straight ahead to the goal and be distracted by nothing, looking neither to the right nor left. Calvin allows them to love the good things in this life, but only within limits.
Thus the Christian life is a strenuous progress in holiness, which, through the constant effort of the individual to make the whole world obedient to God, will also be reflected in the progressive sanctification of the world. These processes, however, will never be completed in this life. For Calvin even the most developed Christian in this world is like an adolescent, yearning to grow into, though still far from, the full stature of Christ. But, Calvin assured his followers, “each day in some degree our purity will increase and our corruption be cleansed as long as we live in the world,? and “the more we increase in knowledge, the more should we increase in love.? Meanwhile the faithful experience a vision, always more clear, of “God's face, peaceful and calm and gracious toward us.? So the spiritual life, for Calvin as for many before him, culminates in the vision of God.
Assessment
Calvin's influence has persisted not only in the Reformed churches of France, Germany, Scotland, the Netherlands, and Hungary but also in the Church of England, where Calvin was long at least as highly regarded as among those Puritans who separated from the Anglican establishment. The latter organized their own churches, Presbyterian or Congregational, which brought Calvinism to North America. Even today these churches, along with the originally German Evangelical and Reformed Church, recall Calvin as their founding father. Eventually Calvinist theology was also widely accepted by major groups of Baptists; and even Unitarianism, which broke away from the Calvinist churches of New England in the 18th century, reflected the more rational impulses in Calvin's theology. More recently Protestant interest in the social implications of the Gospel and Protestant neo-orthodoxy, as represented by Karl Barth, Emil Brunner, and Reinhold Niebuhr, reflects the continuing influence of John Calvin.
Calvin's larger influence over the development of modern Western civilization has been variously assessed. The controversial “Weber thesis? attributed the rise of modern capitalism largely to Puritanism, but neither Max Weber, in his famous essay of 1904, “Die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus? (The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism), nor the great economic historian Richard Henry Tawney, in Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (1926), implicated Calvin himself in this development. Much the same thing can be said about efforts to link Calvinism to the rise of modern science; although Puritans were prominent in the scientific movement of 17th-century England, Calvin himself was indifferent to the science of his own day. A somewhat better case can be made for Calvin's influence on political theory. His own political instincts were highly conservative, and he preached the submission of private persons to all legitimate authority. But, like Italian humanists, he personally preferred a republic to a monarchy. In confronting the problem posed by rulers who actively opposed the spread of the Gospel, he advanced a theory of resistance, kept alive by his followers, according to which lesser magistrates might legitimately rebel against kings. Unlike most of his contemporaries, furthermore, Calvin included among the proper responsibilities of states not only the maintenance of public order but also a positive concern for the general welfare of society.
Calvinism has a place, therefore, in the development of liberal political thought. Calvin's major and most durable influence, nevertheless, has been religious. From his time to the present Calvinism has meant a peculiar seriousness about Christianity and its ethical implications.
Additional reading
The most complete edition of Calvin's works is Ioannis Calvini Opera quae supersunt omnia, 59 vol. in 26, ed. by Guilielmus (Johann Wilhelm) Baum, Eduardus (Eduard) Cunitz, and Eduardus (Eduard) Reuss (1863–1900; reprinted 59 vol. in 58, 1964). Supplementary material may be found in the series “Supplementa Calviniana: Sermons inédits? (1961– ), which collects hitherto unpublished sermons, with 5 vol. published by 1988; and the Registres de la Compagnie des Pasteurs de Genève au temps de Calvin, ed. by Robert M. Kingdon and Jean-françois Bergier, 2 vol. (1962–64), a partial record of the deliberations of the Geneva Company of Pastors from 1546 to 1564, the first 2 vol. of a larger set, Registres de la Compagnie des Pasteurs de Genève, ed. by Olivier Fatio et al. The best English translation of Institutio Christianae religionis is Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. by Ford Lewis Battles, 2 vol. (1960). For selected other works of Calvin in English, see David W. Torrance and Thomas F. Torrance (eds.), Commentaries, 12 vol. (1959–72, reprinted 1976–88), on the New Testament; and Donald K. McKim (ed.), Readings in Calvin's Theology (1984).Studies of Calvin are numerous. For guidance to older works, see Alfredus (alfred) Erichson, Bibliographia Calviniana (1900, reprinted 1979); and Wilhelm Niesel, Calvin-Bibliographie, 1901–1959 (1961). For literature since 1960, see the bibliographies ed. by Peter De Klerk and published annually in issue no. 2 of Calvin Theological Journal. A recent scholarly biography of Calvin is T.H.L. Parker, John Calvin (1975, reissued 1987). For a fuller account of his thought, see François Wendel, Calvin: Origins and Development of His Religious Thought (1963, reprinted 1987; originally published in French, 1950); and for Calvin in historical context, see William J. Bouwsma, John Calvin: A Sixteenth-Century Portrait (1988). Robert M. Kingdon, Geneva and the Coming of the Wars of Religion in France, 1555–1563 (1956), deals with Calvin's interest in France.
William J. Bouwsma
Copyright © 1994-2002 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Sources
- Encylopedia Britannica 2002, Expanded Edition DVD
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