Calvin’s Salvation in Writing: A Confessional Academic Theology Studies in Reformed Theology
Editor-in-chief
Eddy Van der Borght (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)
Editorial Board
Abraham van de Beek (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) Martien Brinkman (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) Dirk van Keulen (Theological University, Kampen) Daniel Migliore (Princeton Theological Seminary) Richard Mouw (Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena) Emanuel Gerrit Singgih (Duta Wacana Christian University, Yogjakarta) Pieter Vos (Protestant Theological University, Amsterdam) Conrad Wethmar (University of Pretoria)
VOLUME 29
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/srt Calvin’s Salvation in Writing
A Confessional Academic Theology
By
William A. Wright
LEIDEN | BOSTON Cover illustration: “Portrait of Calvin writing,” by Ary Scheffer, 1858, MN703. Courtesy of the musées de Noyon.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wright, William A. (Associate Professor) Calvin’s salvation in writing : a confessional academic theology / by William A. Wright. pages cm. -- (Studies in Reformed theology, ISSN 1571-4799 ; VOLUME 29) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-29223-9 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Calvin, Jean, 1509-1564. 2. Theology--Methodology. 3. Derrida, Jacques. 4. Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 1770-1831. 5. Salvation--Christianity--History of doctrines--16th century. I. Title.
BX9418.W75 2015 230’.42--dc23 2015007321
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This book is printed on acid-free paper. Contents
Preface: “Beginnings” vii Acknowledgments xiii
1 Theography: A Program for an Architectonically Delimited Theological Writing 1
2 Looking for Coherence in Calvin’s Soteriology 43
3 The Inseparably Different Architectonics of Hegel and Derrida 88
4 Salvation Determined Solely by Justification: “God’s Mercy Alone and Christ’s Merit” 143
5 Transitions from Justification to Sanctification: Identity, Essential Différance, and Absolute Relation 187
6 The Interfusion of Sanctification and Justification 258
7 A Summary Useful and Superfluous 309
Bibliography 319 Index 330
Preface: “Beginnings”
Academic Beginnings
“This book began as a dissertation.” While true, this way of beginning is gener- ally an admission of shame, leavened by a hope in redemption: “Nonetheless, thanks to guidance in revision, it is now suitable for a broader audience.” Beginning from a dissertation is regarded as a deficit to be made up for in a book. A dissertation, after all, is not published. It has no wider audience, and so cannot enter into a general circulation by which it would have an “effect.” In the eyes of the world, then, the academic-bound nature of a dissertation condemns it to untruth, or what is the same thing, irrelevancy. The dissertation is only the start of a quest for professional power—a ProQuest—by which alone writing achieves a good. Yet such assumptions condemn more than just the dissertation; they would also condemn much of the inherently minute, abstruse, and exploratory research done in the academy. Perhaps the shame directed towards dissertations should be the occasion for some soul searching about just what the academy is for.
• • • • •
Whatever else one might say about it, mine was an unabashed dissertation.1 I sought to take advantage of the academic nature of a dissertation—that very leaden quality that feels to most like a millstone of obscurity. Inspired in part by Heidegger’s phenomenology, I decided to interrogate that which is nearest: what is an academic text? In Heidegger’s phenomenology, paying attention to something taken for granted, rather than passing on to something more alluring, becomes an occasion for an unveiling of truth. We busy ourselves with the most evidently grand pursuits, only to miss the supporting structures that are more real: time, language, being.2 The academic text appeared to me to be the nearest phenomenon, so near as to be invisible. Indeed, as a kind of unadul- terated academic text with little hope of being more, a dissertation affords one
1 William A. Wright, Saving Difference: The Dialectical-differential Structure of Calvin’s Soteriology. [Ph.D. in Theology] dissertation, University of Chicago. Ann Arbor: ProQuest/umi, 2006. 2 See Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. John MacQuarrie Edward Robinson (New York: Harper, 1962), esp. 42: “What is ontically nearest and familiar (i.e. our day-to-day lives) is ontologically the farthest, unrecognized and constantly overlooked in its ontological (i.e. existential) significance.” viii preface the opportunity to attend closely to the text’s own self-constitution. I felt this self-reflexive task in writing theology to be so important as to merit the intro- duction in chapter one of a neologism; and so theology that is critically and strategically self-aware of how it is shaped by the prerogatives of academic writing I will call “theography.” The academic text hides itself, as Heidegger might say, for reasons not only phenomenological but also ideological. A quite different inspiration for my self-reflexivity, both positively and negatively, comes from contextual theology and the specific forms it takes in liberation, feminist, and postcolonial theol- ogy. I consider some examples in chapter one, but the influence runs much deeper. One lesson I take from this broad movement is that the authorial convention of blithely writing from nowhere comes naturally only to those for whom empowerment is taken for granted, those for whom the “universal perspective” is an ideological cover for the fact that the voice of others is being neutralized and so excluded—and not only the now-classical subaltern others, but even, if less urgently, ordinary Christians cut off from academic discourse. Yet to take up the mantle of speaking from and to various contexts, and, even more prophetically, of transformative liberation, all while performing the quite aloof work of writing academic texts, carries a challenge and perhaps a danger: a species of bad faith may lurk behind the attempt to write a book birthed in the academy with the benign but benighted wish that it already is, or at least shall be, something more. In this way one underestimates how much the academy has shaped one’s thoughts, and even more, one’s text and its possibili- ties. Ironically, this bad faith shares the same disdain for the academy that leads us to see the dissertation as a mere shadow of a book. And indeed, behind it all is a belief in power-as-such without which nothing is true. Present but mostly tacit in my project is the question whether this belief is consistent with the Christian faith. By no means do I wish to simply answer in the negative—that to the con- trary, only truth for its own sake could be true. Such is the faith of the avowed academic Brahmin—and confessed, it seems, by the motto on my disserta- tion’s imprimatur: “Crescat scientia vita excolatur.” Rather, my inspiration from liberation and postcolonial scholars resulted in a fundamental commitment. I thoroughly believe in the necessity to be critically aware of context; for me, this includes being aware of what it means to have the academy as one’s nearest context, in all its social, political, and identity-forming dimensions. The necessity stems from the tendency of the academy to be self-perpetuating and to guard its prerogatives to power. While the tendency can be to the good, in the name of justice and critical thinking it must be exposed and resisted from within. Resisting by pretending one is not within, on the contrary, is naïve
• • • • •
This book began as a dissertation. It sought to take its being a dissertation seriously; and if a dissertation may be considered the purest instantiation of academic textuality, then the nature of academic texts must be at issue. It required self-reflexivity, but not self-obsession or naval gazing: mine was not a dissertation about dissertations, although my efforts would be aided by more scholarship on the history and sociology of academic texts. A dissertation about dissertations could hardly challenge and subvert the self-enclosure of the academic text. Rather, the topic was and remains something far different: Calvin’s soteriology, and specifically, his logically perplexing insistence that salvation comes solely by grace and yet demands active transformation. There is no easy and obvious segue from Calvin to introducing critical reflexivity into academic texts. (The imaginative reader might intuit that the academy embodies works-righteousness like few other communities.) But one may ask how a dissertation, while remaining so very academic, can say some- thing true of the Christian life in all its concrete richness. Instead of writing a pretend “public” work that everyone winks at as nothing but so much creden- tialing, I asked: how might the academic text be a privileged vessel of the truth of Calvin’s doctrine? How, on the contrary, might the academic text be of its own nature a flawed and distorted medium for this truth? On many levels, it depends. For one, no adequate proposal of what consti- tutes an academic text was, or is, possible. Instead, I selected two philosophers who could help isolate the logical issue in the dialectic of justification and sanctification while also modeling reflexivity about writing truth into academic texts. In Hegel I found a philosopher most keen on conceptual dialectics, and moreover possessing a robust faith in the power of the aca- demic text. In Derrida I found a needed counterpoint to Hegel, to both his logic and his confidence in pronouncing truth in texts, although I had to bend my reading of Derrida to identify academic textuality as the real issue. Still, Derrida proved very useful for his commitment to resisting the self-enclosure of the text, which is indeed the great temptation endemic to the academic text, including Hegel’s.
The philosopher in me finds Hegel’s vision more compelling and consistent. Yet I am a theologian, and a theologian, out of a commitment to serving the church, God, and all humanity—and let us not forget, to humility!—is not entitled to become enclosed in the text, nor beholden to its cozy, academic incubator. Theology must resist this enclosure from within, but not so single- mindedly that theology may justify itself by this resistance alone. My way forward is therefore intricate. In effect, this book explicates the irreducible variations needed in order not only to put Calvin’s doctrine of salvation in writing—specifically, the writing characteristic of academic textuality—but also to disturb the position of the theologian writing about God in an academic context. In brief, those variations run, without hierarchy or supersession, as follows. First, the theologian must say something true to fulfill his place in the academy. Second, the theologian must expose the incapacity of the academy to adequately represent the truth of theology as can, one hopes, the church. Thirdly, the theologian must seek to transform the academic vocation into one that serves and guides the church, and, making good on the previously men- tioned hope, seek to transform the church more in accordance with the true.
Theological Beginnings
Differently but inseparably from the foregoing, this book began as a quest to discern the fundamental shape of Christian theology—that classic quest of systematic theology that inflames the passions of, if no one else, the most aca- demic of theologians. The quest’s path, however, seemed to me to proceed by zigzags. That is, if one wants to articulate the whole of Christian faith, one must say a number of different and irreducible things. At times one must even leave off language and text for silent adoration, for ritualized reenact- ment of fundamental narratives, and for acts of constructive love, protest, and solidarity—and still one must admit that both words and actions fall short of the eschatological completion envisioned by the Christian faith. One must embrace all these articulations and non-articulations, freely admitting, in a way that can be painful to the prerogatives of the academic theologian, that the result is a dispersion of energies away from modern (and ancient) dreams of intellectual mastery and, instead, toward a humbled and diversified yet robust life of faith. Systematic theology must allow the life-giving waters of faith to disperse in the ways they naturally run, without underestimating the modest pool that has been left to its care. Systematic theology, that is, is capa- ble of saying something true and real in its own right, so long as it attends to serving the church and God in a variety of ways or “flows” in which the shape
3 One can argue that such strife is not ultimately true and real and so does not deserve undue attention. I do not deny this claim outright; but a theology centered in the drama of soteriol- ogy speaks richly to human experience as well as the strife-filled drama of Scripture.
Despite the struggles common to small liberal-arts colleges, Eureka College has managed to support my efforts during the last seven years to complete this book through, in the first place, several course releases. My colleagues and students have engaged with my work, especially the new first chapter; thanks go especially to Scott Hemmenway for his generous response at a faculty colloquium, and to Joseph Cunningham. Summer research funds from Eureka allowed me to return to Chicago and to hold collations, of sorts, with friends and mentors who guided the development of chapter one: Bob Cathey, Kris Culp, David Hall, Rob Saler, Tim Sandoval, and Garry Sparks. Once completed, I presented chapter one to the Association of Disciples for Theological Education, a group that has been a lifeline to mind and spirit. My courteous and patient editors at Brill, along with an enthusiastic anonymous reader, were the final shepherds of the seven-year journey from dissertation to book. As a dissertation this project happily gestated at the University of Chicago Divinity School. While some advised an induced labor—and the outsized issue that eventually emerged might vindicate them—my committee was ever patient and encouraging. Nonetheless, their incisive direction and construc- tive criticism was always delightfully shocking by the power of its wisdom and intelligence. Susan Schreiner endured and abetted my reprobate mirifica commutatio—it will be said, a “wonderful exchange” of my bizarre ideas for Calvin’s sound ones—surely through gritted teeth, though a smile was all I ever saw; I must plead that Calvin scholars everywhere absolve her of my sins. David Tracy articulated an excitement about the project that was the very essence of encouragement; his confidence assured both author and committee that our labor would not be in vain. Most especially, Kathryn Tanner was a constant guide who knew how not only to steer my thoughts sympathetically into their best form, as a teacher should, but to respect the results earnestly enough to dispute my conclusions as a peer would. She continued long after to advocate for a project rather at odds with her more persuasive theological program, and was absolutely critical to its seeing publication. Many intellectual fellowships and friendships nurtured me at Chicago. Disciples Divinity House provided the very Reformers-festooned hearth by which I worked, financial support, friendship, and opportunities to present my work to other doctoral students and larger publics. I personally benefitted immensely during a year as a junior fellow with the Martin Marty Center; as did chapter four, from the insightful comments of both senior and junior fellows. Andrew Cutrofello graciously read and discussed my chapters on xiv Acknowledgments
Hegel and Derrida. A semester of study at the Institut protestant de théologie with support from the remarkable Fondation Eugène Bersier and Global Ministries (cc(doc)/ucc) helped inspire my work on Derrida and revealed to me the tragedy and beauty bound up with French Calvinism, whose relevance lives on today joyously free of our Puritan legacy. The friendships of Matt Boulton, Jason Evans, Sandhya Jha, Pam Jones, Tim Sandoval, Garry Sparks, Andrea White and many others made my intellectual journey replete with joy. Yet no other intellectual friendships were as generously shared as those of John Knight and Cass Fisher who, among many other testaments to friendship, read and discussed over untold hours every chapter of this work in its disserta- tion phase. Their scholarly acumen, so much my aid and companion, is amply attested by their own published books. I would be a wreck without the love and wisdom, not to mention intellec- tual companionship, of Jessica, and this book would have sunk with me. But only Silas, just by being himself, was able to fully restore to me a tenderness that the contentiousness of my “scholarly habitus” had ossified. Let this lump of pulp be my heir presumptive—you alone, my son, will receive my blessing.
Introducing “Theography”
I do not expect the reader to be a lover of neologisms, but only to indulge me with an exception if it proves so helpful as to be indispensable. “Theography” calls attention to writing (graphía), an activity that “theo-logia” conceals behind its vaguely indicated reason-speech (logos).1 Theography is my desig- nation for a program of academic theology that strives to become conscious of the advantages and limitations pertaining to the medium of academic writing, and strategically structures its own writing accordingly. If this neologism is called for, it is because “theology,” designating both a gen- eral spiritual activity and a specifically academic discipline, tends to obscure the important difference between these two sets of practices. One should not for the most part expect theology that is carried out within texts defined by the standards of an academic discipline to resemble theology in non-academic contexts, as vastly diversified as these are (sermons, liturgy, prayer, base com- munities, the magisterium, pastoral care, social work, homilies, activism, lit- urgy, prayer, etc.). I believe this seemingly obvious point has been sufficiently neglected, and in some cases suppressed, to warrant a term that calls attention to the material and institutional differences between written academic theol- ogy and all others. Various reasons, not all of which are unjustified, lead theolo- gians to elide this difference. The ways that theologians attend to or obscure the difference, as I shall show below, vary greatly depending on whether they cele- brate classic academicism or disdain it. My own estimation of academia as a theological resource ranges over both extremes, roughly averaging out to, in a word, ambivalence; perhaps that is the most conducive mood possible for attaining some degree of objectivity about academia and theology.
1 There are cognates for theography (historiography, geography, hagiography) but none that serve as perfect precedents. Delwin Brown, “Refashioning Self and Other: Theology, Academy, and the New Ethnography,” in Delwin Brown, Sheila Greeve Davaney, and Kathryn Tanner, eds., Converging on Culture: Theologians in Dialogue with Cultural Analysis and Criticism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 51, coins the term “theography” in passing, but based on the paradigm of “ethnography.” Aside from that, “theography” has shown up variously in the untamed world of blogging.
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Theography deliberates over its written-ness or textuality; but since non- academic forms of theology can also be written, what counts is the way aca- demia as a network of institutions structures textuality. Writing and academia reciprocally determine each other. Academia generates an exalted and regi- mented form of writing; conversely, without writing and texts academia— thinking particularly of its research function—could not exist. Throughout this book I critically analyze and respond to academia along these two fronts, text and institution, focusing particularly on research instead of teaching.2 While attention to the structure and function of academic texts dominates the central chapters, I advert to the issue of teaching in the last chapter when I put forward a proposal for how textuality and institution can work together, in and beyond the academic context, to constitute a comprehensive program for theology. Theography is called for primarily, I believe, because it is vital for the reli- able production of good theology in the academic context. Yet, if it is to be a contributing member of the larger academic project, theography ought to ben- efit the academy itself, which needs both a reasoned defense of its institution, its writing, and the aims and goals implicit in them, as well as an internal check on its tendency to self-aggrandizement. To be sure, the discipline of theology, which, roughly speaking, specializes in critical and constructive interpretation of Christian texts as a means toward understanding God and things in relation to God, cannot carry out a critique of academic writing through its own resources; I will import and adapt some resources from other disciplines. On the other hand, all disciplines, not just theology, ought to think critically about how they are shaped by the institutions and genres of academia and in turn, how they ought to respond. While it stands to benefit immensely from interdisciplinary conversation, I believe that academic theology is in a good position to attain an objective and balanced estimation of academia—a measured, self-critical affirmation. Perhaps the greatest asset of theology, despite its lack of specific instruments for analyzing academic texts and institutions, is its peculiar dual allegiance to both academy and church. Because it has the church as a concrete, extra- academic audience, theology cannot by its own lights become a self-enclosed and esoteric academic discourse, although it does occasionally become this. Its canon of texts and its very subject matter belong—if God revealed can indeed belong to any one church, religion, or anything—to concrete communities
2 The academy looks more like a community of practice if one highlights teaching. Yet I want an honest and critical estimate of classical academia, as shaped by the Berlin model (see below). Not all scholars practice continuing research, but anyone who has attained a doctor- ate has been deeply shaped by the post-Berlin practice of textual research.
Method of This Study
While disrupting a self-enclosed academicism, the dual allegiance of theology leaves it with the difficult and contentious task of negotiating and perhaps integrating conflicting modes of academic textuality. While it may be a virtue for theology that it has this task squarely before it, the onus of this task has led to bitter feuds over theological method, particularly between correlationist and postliberal schools. There are many plausible ways to identify the root of these conflicts, but I think it likely that the dual allegiance is at the heart of the problem, even when not recognized by the disputants. My own method is rooted in correlationist method but is responsive to cor- rections from postliberalism and liberation theology. If theology is to take up academic textuality in a way that squarely faces its dual allegiance, it must first find an appropriate way to bring something essential from the content of Christian faith into the form of academic writing. In short, some type of trans- lation is required; were such not possible, no conversation could begin and the
3 Note that this is not to say that theology itself would be untenable. I assume as no foregone conclusion that theology must be an academic discipline. 4 The objection comes out of Barthian and postliberal schools. Kathryn Tanner has questioned the presumption common to both correlationists and postliberals that amid the complexi- ties of culture one could distinguish in a simple, binary way between Christian and non- Christian (secular, “modern,” etc.) cultures. See Kathryn Tanner, Theories of Culture: A New Agenda for Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997), 96–119. While I largely agree, I con- tinue to employ a binary distinction here partly because it is heuristically useful, and partly because I argue that the academic culture of research (Wissenschaft) is distinct enough to warrant a binary.
Initial Statement of the Soteriological Structure
In this study, I have selected Calvin’s soteriology to serve as not only the con- tent to be interpreted, but also the primary source for the structure guiding that interpretation. As a doctrinal locus, soteriology is at once concrete, for it pertains to the various facets of Christian life, and comprehensive, drawing upon the broad parameters set by the Trinity, Christology, anthropology, and eschatology.5 Calvin’s soteriology in particular has attained the status of a classic because it deploys a focused, and hence intelligible and writable, set of concepts, viz., justification and sanctification, which will be essential to my exposition; Calvin’s main insight is that writing about salvation requires cor- rectly distinguishing and relating justification and sanctification. This funda- mental distinction makes possible a coherently structured response to what appears to be a central problem in Christian teaching: how salvation can be wholly determined by God’s grace, rather than human effort, if some sort of human response—faith at least, if not also good works—is required in order to fulfill that salvation. Careful consideration of not only how but what it would mean to “answer” this question in academic writing raises a host of issues particular to academic writing, but nonetheless related to soteriology—for example, how a text relates to both selfhood and action in claiming to present the truth. Can a text present objective truth irrespective of the interpretive reception of and subjective response to that text? If so, one ideal—call it loosely “modernist”—of an academic text as an autonomous whole that pro- ceeds by foundational, universal truth claims is upheld. If not, “postmodern” challenges to what it means to speak of truth in texts are more to the point. The form of the above question obviously leads away from the particularly Christian language of Calvin’s texts. At the risk of distorting his historical con- text, I will interpret Calvin in the context of key philosophies that address these more abstract issues. I do not claim that Calvin provides an answer as such to philosophical questions; even if he did, submitting an “answer” in writ- ing would leave the academic medium of the debate unchallenged. If theogra- phy is to say something true by translating Christian claims, stemming for instance from Calvin’s soteriology, into a philosophical language located within an academic context, it can only authentically do so by also resisting and ges- turing beyond that language and context. The best way to accomplish this
5 What remains marginal to Calvin’s soteriology as developed in Book III of the Institutes, where I focus my interpretation, is ecclesiology. My markedly Protestant approach stands in need of critical conversation with and perhaps correction by other traditions that more prominently feature the church as a central topic.
6 In my treatment, faith is not instrumental to justification in its initial statement.
Resources for a General Description of Academia
Theography, as I defined it, stands to benefit from a critical and interdisciplin- ary analysis of both the peculiar nature of academia as an institution, particu- larly as that institution forms theologians working within it, as well as the nature and genres of academic texts that shape how the theologian writes. The work of sociologist Pierre Bourdieu stands out as a critical resource for describ- ing the scholarly “habitus,” his term for the embodied internalization of any given institutional “game.” He carries out this analysis in the name of a pro- gram of social-epistemological critique that he calls “reflexive sociology.” This program serves as a possible model for theography, which could be defined in his terms as “reflexive theology.” Reflexive sociology is an attempt to turn sociological analysis on itself and its institutional context in order to attain greater objectivity about how
7 To be sure, to demonstrate its Christian pedigree, the structure could and ultimately must be explicated in relation to a more comprehensive presentation of Christian faith than what I can carry out here by an interpretation of Calvin’s soteriology. See the final section below, “A Dialectical Interpretation of Doctrine.” 8 I consider Hegel and Derrida at length, beginning in Chapter three.
The scientific field is a field of forces whose structure is defined by the continuous distribution of the specific capital possessed, at the given moment, by various agents or institutions operative in the field. It is also a field of struggles or a space of competition where agents or institutions who work at valorizing their own capital…confront one another.9
His work in part develops this analysis in the vein of ideology critique, in which he unmasks the pretentions of the free-floating and disinterested intellectu- al.10 Bourdieu’s approach is not straightforwardly and reductively materialistic in the Marxist sense, however, since he recognizes that fields can arise based on all kinds of goods; these various goods are not reducible to a universal mate- rial currency.11 Particularly for the field of academia, what is always at stake in competitive struggles is precisely the nature of the value or good that ought to be sought by all—i.e., what counts as valuable academic work.12 Because what is valued is disputed and fluctuates, the intricacy and dynamism of fields are lost on blunt economic or rational choice analysis; only close sociological and ethnographic research can adequately approximate what is happening in any given field at one time.13 Bourdieu’s theoretically-driven, ethnographic approach produces a rich description of the prejudices to which academics are prone. Loïc Wacquant has helpfully organized Bourdieu’s critique into three areas.14 First, there are the commonly acknowledged prejudices arising from the identity of the researcher: class, gender, race, ethnicity. In the discipline of theology,
9 Pierre Bourdieu, “The Peculiar History of Scientific Reason,” Sociological Forum 5 (1991), 6–7. 10 Ibid., 8. 11 Pierre Bourdieu and Loïc Wacquant, An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 25. 12 The values of science that structure its hierarchies are often defined in opposition to those of economic and political fields. See Pierre Bourdieu, Homo Academicus, trans. Peter Collier (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988), 48–49. 13 Pierre Bourdieu, In Other Words: Essays toward a Reflexive Sociology, trans. Matthew Adamson (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990), 190–92. 14 Ibid., 39–40. See also Pierre Bourdieu, Pascalian Meditations, trans. Richard Nice (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000), 9.
15 See Pierre Bourdieu, Gisele Sapiro, and Brian McHale, “Fourth Lecture. Universal Corporatism: The Role of Intellectuals in the Modern World,” Poetics Today 12 (1991), 655. 16 See ibid., 660 and 668, where the authors critique the myth of the Gramscian “organic intellectual.” Cf. Bourdieu, Pascalian, 188 for Bourdieu’s proposal for how the scholar can speak to and for the dominated through a “transfer of cultural capital.” 17 Bourdieu has demonstrated this point with regard to views on the 1968 educational reforms in France. See Bourdieu, Homo Academicus. 18 See Bourdieu, Pascalian, 183–84. See also Bourdieu, “Peculiar History,” 9–10: “There is no scientific choice [of research area, method, publication venue, etc.] that does not consti- tute…a social strategy of investment aimed at maximizing the specific profit, inseparably political and scientific, provided by the field….” Bourdieu takes pains to argue that the institutional structure governs even the range of possible ideas, rather than the ideas gov- erning the institution.
Indeed, Bourdieu suggests that the structure of academic institutions contrib- utes to excessive differentiation of positions, or “the pursuit of distinction at any price.”19 The third prejudice is an “intellectualist bias” that arises from the worldview into which scholars are habituated, by means of the rewards and censorship adhering in academic practices; Bourdieu sometimes calls this “academicism” or “the scholastic view.”20 The scholastic view is one of “‘serious play” (Plato) that presupposes leisure (skholè); in the modern context, it is an extension of a particularly bourgeois distance or detachment from “temporal emergency and economic necessity.”21 Bourdieu finds in this detachment the fundamental source of distortion in thinking about practice and the practical orientation of ordinary human communities.22 The scholastic world, in short, is constitution- ally biased toward theory rather than practice.23 Just as essentially, the scholastic view involves a distorted understanding of language. Instead of appreciating it as an “instrument of action and power,” which Bourdieu assumes is its normal function, scholars take language to be “an object of interpretation or contemplation.” Everything becomes a “text” to be “read”; all human beings become scholastic “lectores” (readers).24 This dis- torted scholastic anthropology coincides with vaunted pretensions about what the scholar accomplishes with language:
Now, if there is one thing that our “modern” or “postmodern” philoso- phers have in common, beyond the conflicts that divide them, it is this excessive confidence in the powers of language. It is the typical illusion of the lector, who can regard an academic commentary as a political act or
19 See Pierre Bourdieu, Science of Science and Reflexivity, trans. Richard Nice (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), 8. 20 See esp. Pierre Bourdieu, “The Scholastic Point of View,” in Practical Reason: On the Theory of Action (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998) and Bourdieu, Pascalian. His analysis in these works relies more on generalizations and lacks the empirical and statistical war- rants of his study Homo Academicus. 21 Bourdieu, “Scholastic View,” 382. 22 See, e.g., Bourdieu, Pascalian, 30–31, where he suggests that many philosophical problems can be traced to the structure of the philosophical field and its abstraction from the “logic of practice.” 23 Much of Bourdieu’s efforts go towards exploring how the theoreticist bias impairs his discipline, the social sciences, in its effort to explain concrete practices. It seems to me that as a more constructive and normative discipline, theology does not encounter this problem in the same way. 24 Bourdieu, Pascalian, 53; Science of Science, 28.
the critique of texts as a feat of resistance, and experience revolutions in the order of words as radical revolutions in the order of things.25
While he does not dismiss the good that can come from theoretical distance, Bourdieu advocates an awareness of the limitation inherent in this distance from practice.26 All told, it is in “the blindness of intellectuals to the social forces that rule the intellectual field” and an accompanying “bad faith in one’s relation to…the intellectual field” that Bourdieu locates the greatest impediment to both describing human reality accurately and turning academic protests about domination into action.27 Bourdieu has described in a theoretically unified way the institutional self-interest of scholars, or scholastic ideology, as I will call it, the manifestations and effects of which appear in a burgeoning array of forms. Below, I will draw on Bourdieu’s critique of scholastic ideology in my review of academic theology, which is beset by various temptations to bad- faith academic identity, that is, misrecognized understandings of what one is doing with academic discourse. Bourdieu’s analysis, however, remains vulnerable to many possible critiques, and so I will apply it to the current theological field sparingly and cautiously.28 Before doing so, it seems to me essential to develop and extend Bourdieu’s analysis of the economic forces at work in academia by taking greater account of the centrality of textual production in academia, something about which he is largely silent.29 Everything about scholars, including their strategic pursuit
25 Bourdieu, Pascalian, 2; see also 108. 26 Bourdieu, Invitation, 70. 27 Ibid., 192–93. 28 I could raise here many possible points of criticism, all of which would require careful elaboration: Bourdieu is (despite his demurrals and refinements) still an economic reduc- tivist; he makes the academic commitment to reason seem socially arbitrary rather than constitutive; he does not answer critiques (as by Gadamer) of historicizing readings of texts; he focuses on the explanatory function of theory rather than its normative dimen- sion; he regards social institutions primarily as agents of domination rather than social cooperation, and thus employs a one-sidedly agonistic or competitive view of human nature. Though I do not entirely endorse it, see also Derrida’s critique of Bourdieu in Who’s Afraid of Philosophy? 63–66. 29 The absence of an analysis of the production of writing is all the more striking since Bourdieu’s studies of the cultural field (see Pierre Bourdieu, The Field of Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature, Randal Johnson, ed., (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993); idem, Language and Symbolic Power, trans. Gino Raymond and Matthew Adamson (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991)) examine the institutional forces conditioning art and language. These works contain some relevant insights, but
academic publishing merits a more focused study than he provides. I can only speculate that Bourdieu’s often-stated rejection of theories like structuralism (see Bourdieu, Invitation, 141–42), discourse analysis, and poststructuralism (see ibid., 259; “Peculiar History,” 11–12; Pascalian, 26), which he accuses of attending only to the text and not to the practices and “habitus” behind them, has led him to neglect the role that the production of texts plays in shaping the scholarly habitus. 30 Kathryn Tanner likewise extends Bourdieu into a social analysis of theology with helpful and insightful, but somewhat different, results and conclusions. See Tanner, Theories of Culture, 71–92. 31 William Frawley, Text and Epistemology (Norwood, nj: Ablex Publishing Co., 1987), esp. 42–48. Cf. Bourdieu, Pascalian, 29.
32 Paul Griffiths, Intellectual Appetite: A Theological Grammar (Washington: Catholic University Press, 2009), 209; see also Thomas Oden, After Modernity—What?: Agenda for Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992), 21–29. Oden’s work bears some elements of theography, but seems to me often to degenerate into rhetorical strategies lacking in rigor and accountability. 33 A classic analysis of late-modern capitalism’s need to create artificial needs is found in John Kenneth Galbraith, The Affluent Society (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1958).
34 It is not difficult to detect an exalted sense of sociology’s province in Bourdieu’s employ- ment of sociologically reductive theories. 35 Bourdieu’s own work is aware of the dangers of reductivism; but he does on occasion pit sociological theory against philosophy, for instance. 36 One interesting entry is Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics, trans. Andrew Louth et al. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1986), vol. 2 and 3 on clerical and lay styles of theology.
Prospects for Theography in Contemporary Theology
Theologians began to produce historical accounts of how the Berlin model has shaped theology during the wave of studies on theological education in the 1980s and 90s.38 Along with furthering the often-lamented professionalization of ministry, Berlin institutionalized Wissenschaft (scholarly research) as a
37 See Anthony Grafton and Megan Williams, Christianity and the Transformation of the Book: Origen, Eusebius, and the Library at Caesarea (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006); Pierre Hadot, What is Ancient Philosophy? trans. Michael Chase (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002). 38 See Hans Frei, Types of Christian Theology (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), appendix A; Edward Farley, Theologia: The Fragmentation and Unity of Theological Education (Philadephia: Fortress Press, 1983), Chs. 4 and 5; David Kelsey, To Understand God Truly: What’s Theological about a Theological School (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1992), 78–98. For a more recent and more thorough historical investigation, see Thomas Albert Howard, Protestant Theology and the Making of the Modern German University (Oxford: oup, 2006).
39 Kelsey, Understand God, 83–85. 40 See Howard, Modern German University, 29. 41 Howard’s account of Berlin, for instance, stresses its complicity in the centralization of state power. 42 As with any institution, there are of course other, disguised functions involving the inter- ests of classes of educators, administration, board members, professions, professional athletics, etc. Colleges and universities also serve a variety of functions for students not often made explicit in mission statements: entertainment and social life, class elevation and perpetuation, exposure to diversity, etc.
In crafting a writing strategy, theography begins with the question: how should theology inhabit the intricate and potent game of Wissenschaft? Individual professional theologians can of course opt out of this game by focusing on pedagogy, denominational work, administration, or non-scholarly writing; but theology even beyond the academy remains embedded in the many institutions tied to research apart from teaching: seminaries, confer- ences and professional organizations, journals, publishing houses, research centers, etc. All of this has powerfully shaped how academic theology is prac- ticed in more ways than I can establish here. But should it? The dual-allegiance of academic theology to church and academy leads me to propose two axioms in response to that question. First, the institutionalized Wissenschaft that has already shaped academic theology is a distinct good and should continue to shape theology. This axiom is hard to avoid; in effect, any- one writing academic theology inhabits a Wissenschaft-shaped text, even when critiquing academia. At the risk of sounding ideologically compromised by the status quo: if we are to be honest, we should somehow affirm Wissenschaft or stop playing its game. Yet however one understands the church or whatever form of Christian practice commands one’s theological attention, it seems clear that academia and church are two very different institutions. Thus I add a second axiom: a theologian committed to the church, or indeed to the Kingdom of God, cannot be an uncritical partisan of academia. The theologian must critique Wissenschaft and its world from within; it is at best a distinct good, as I said, and not the summum bonum. Any individual might of course conclude that continued participation in both institutions is no longer justifiable; but these two axioms seem to me incumbent upon anyone participating in both. Nevertheless, balancing affirmation and critique within a properly aca- demic theology is quite difficult, especially since there is so much theological disagreement about the nature of the church, Kingdom of God, or summum bonum, as well as disagreement about how to evaluate academia. Yet the premise of theography is that these issues cannot be dealt with separately, for the problems are mutually conditioned. In other words, without attending directly to the issue of what theology is doing here, in this text—and hence this genre and its related institutions—disagreements over theological substance will likely remain insoluble (that is, according to the theoretical terms of Wissenschaft). In surveying current academic theology that to varying degrees comports with my program of theography, I will show that various theological camps help illumine one or the other of the two axioms, and in some cases to achieve a synthesis of the axioms; but all proposals remain contested. In current
43 Bourdieu, in contrast, posits reflexivity as the necessary condition to true sociology. So does Jacques Derrida. See Tim Cohen, ed., Jacques Derrida and the Humanities: A Critical Reader (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 50: “The Humanities of tomor- row, in all their departments, will have to study their history, the history of the concepts that, by constructing them, instituted the disciplines and were coextensive with them.” While insisting several times on the point, Derrida never argues for why reflexivity “ad infinitum” is necessary and indeed, inescapable.
Nor is theography necessarily novel, for the discipline of theology has been constantly negotiating its relation to academia—even helping, from scholasti- cism to Schleiermacher, to found academia in the first place. In that respect, all I will do is to draw out explicitly what academic theology already is. Even further, theology has already offered explicit forms of theography, complete with critical construals of academia in relation to the church. The fact that these explicit theographies take various and seemingly incompatible forms suggests that carrying out theography correctly is inherently difficult; its results are contestable. In short, what I hope my structured theography can accomplish is to synthesize the best from the three modes of my typology without annulling their distinctiveness. Such a procedure is already implicit in the structure I set out above; the three modes of pro-Wissenschaft, anti- Wissenschaft, and circum-Wissenschaft (writing as if from elsewhere) corre- spond roughly to moments of affirmation in the text, deconstruction of the text, and directing the text beyond itself. First, then, theologians have continued to affirm the academic context and its genres. Naturally, there is significant variation in how academic research (Wissenschaft) is understood and employed. Some indeed still speak of theol- ogy as a “science.”44 Yet perhaps the most important contribution toward theography within this paradigm comes from the work of David Tracy.45 In The Analogical Imagination, Tracy began with an interdisciplinary “social por- trait of the theologian,” on the basis of which he set out three publics for theology: academy, society, and church. With this device, he was able to acknowledge different contexts of theological argument while maintaining a basic shared criterion for legitimacy: publicness.46 In his more recent work, Tracy has devoted greater attention to issues of suffering and injustice, and to the theological voices of those seeking liberation in such situations.47 His dif- ferentiation of publics arguably makes it possible to do so while maintaining the importance of the epistemological issues of warrant that are the classical concern of academic discourse. Particularly in Plurality and Ambiguity,
44 Wolfhart Pannenberg, Theology and the Philosophy of Science, trans. Francis McDonagh (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1976), Ch. 5; idem, Systematic Theology vol. 1, trans. Geoffrey Bromiley (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing, 1991), 19ff.; Thomas F. Torrance, Reality and Scientific Theology (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1985). 45 Tracy’s work has served as the benchmark for many of the studies considered below. 46 David Tracy, The Analogical Imagination: Christian Theology and the Culture of Pluralism (New York: Crossroad, 1981), Ch. 1. 47 Particularly insightful are Tracy’s comments about the dangers of theological elitism and the need to resist it by listening to the oppressed. See David Tracy, Plurality and Ambiguity: Hermeneutics, Religion, Hope (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 104–105.
48 See David Tracy, “Form and Fragment: Recovering of the Hidden and Incomprehensible God” in Werner Jeanrond and Aasulv Lande, eds., The Concept of God in Global Dialogue (Maryknoll, ny: Orbis, 2005) and idem, “Fragments: The Spiritual Situation of Our Times,” in John Caputo and Michael Scanlon, eds., God, the Gift, and Postmodernism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999). Tracy’s essays on the fragment do not show the careful distinguishing of theological publics found in Analogical Imagination. This lack may be remedied in his forthcoming volume on the doctrine of God—or alternatively, could it mark a deepening of wisdom? If Tracy is right about the pervasive problems of modernity that he ties to Augustinian anthropology, then the answer lies in a theology that is, per- haps “impossibly,” at once involved with popular liberation movements and also carrying forward a rereading of western and world literature that demands polymathic powers of interdisciplinary academic scholarship. 49 According to Mary McClintock Fulkerson, Changing the Subject: Women’s Discourses and Feminist Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994), 313–14; 387 (n. 37), Tracy does not take as seriously as he ought to conflict between the epistemological concerns of classic academia and the commitment to the oppressed. 50 George Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age, 25th Anniversary Edition (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2009), 11.
51 See Linell Elizabeth Cady, Religion, Theology, and American Public Life (Albany: suny Press, 1993), 133–36. 52 See Hans Frei, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative: A Study in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Biblical Hermeneutics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974) and idem, Types of Christian Theology, appendix A. 53 Stanley Hauerwas, The State of the University: Academic Knowledges and the Knowledge of God (Malden, ma: Blackwell Publishing, 2007), 6, 15–20. Hauerwas begins disarmingly by admitting that he is not sure whether the church or the university has most determina- tively shaped him. 54 See idem, Sanctify Them in the Truth: Holiness Exemplified (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1998), Chs. 12–13. 55 Gavin D’Costa, Theology in the Public Square: Church, Academy, and Nation (London: Blackwell, 2005), 215. Like Hauerwas, he does little by way of taking account of anti-capi- talist forces within academia. 56 John Milbank, “In the University: The Conflict of the Faculties: Theology and the Economy of the Sciences,” in Mark Thiessen Nation and Samuel Wells, ed., Faithfulness and Fortitude: Conversations with the Theological Ethics of Stanley Hauerwas (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 2000). 57 See Hauerwas, State of the University, 31.
58 Milbank, “In the University,” 45. 59 For instance, Griffiths deliberately reconfigures his citations into a final chapter on “Gratitude,” and, despite impressive bouts of philosophical analysis, proclaims a rhetori- cal-aesthetic aim of “seducing” rather than convincing through rational argument. 60 Cf. the more nuanced but still oppositional position on theology in the academy by Griffiths in James Stoner, Stanley Hauerwas, Paul Griffiths, and David B. Hart, “Theology as Knowledge: A Symposium,” First Things (May 2006), 24–26. 61 See Stoner et al., “Theology as Knowledge,” 26–27. Hart confesses to presenting an “inten- tionally extreme” position.
“Christian community,” “Augustinian-Thomistic synthesis,” and “biblical narra- tive” among the postliberals, liberation theologians have proven to be a potently grounded source of critiques of Wissenschaft. However, just because of this binding of theological writing to a concrete extra-academic social com- mitment, the place of liberation theology within an academic text is all the more tenuous, and the temptation to bad-faith academic theology, all the sharper. Early liberation theologians deliberately departed from European and American models of academic theology, although the urgency of their political commitments may have prevented them from taking careful stock of whether and how far they were still implicated in the academic project. Already, the first generation developed a theologically grounded critique of scholarly “objectivity” and “impartiality” and a commitment to the inescapably political or ideological nature of thought.62 The more liberation theology has been inte- grated into and shaped by mainstream academic institutions, however, the more the issue of its academic location has pressed to the fore, although some have simply avoided confronting the issue of why a theology committed to popular political change should enjoy the privileges associated with academic membership. One strategy has been for the theologian to identify with the struggle of a popular community. Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz, for instance, acknowledges that she “straddles the academic and the Latino worlds.” She endeavors to “provide a platform for the voices of grassroot[s] Hispanic Women,” so that their voices may be brought “to bear on the academic world and on academic disciplines,” not by speaking “for them” but by speaking “with them and on behalf of them.”63 Ivan Petrella, on the other hand, is disturbed by the shift in focus in recent liberation theology to concerns about cultural politics and access to academia. These are worthy goals, he admits, yet they come at the price of a loss of focus on constructing “historical projects” to help the poor.64 Still, Isasi- Diaz, more than Petrella in his academic work, disrupts the methods and text of academic theology.65 I believe the basic conflict behind this argument could
62 Juan Luis Segundo, The Liberation of Theology, trans. John Drury (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1979), 7–34; James Cone, God of the Oppressed, revised edition (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1997), 41; Rosemary Radford Ruether, Sexism and God-talk: Toward a Feminist Theology (Boston: Beacon Press, 1983), 13. 63 Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz, En La Lucha / In the Struggle: Elaborating a Mujerista Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2004), xi. 64 Ivan Petrella, The Future of Liberation Theology: An Argument and Manifesto (London: scm Press, 2006), 132–36. 65 Of particular interest is her bilingual writing, a reminder of her intention to be account- able to Latina women, even though other academics have proven to be the main
audience. These gestures disrupt the presumption of an academic audience, at least. Petrella’s work, by contrast, is invested enough in academic theology to spend consider- able time critiquing the theological method of others for their lack of “current social, political, legal and economic theory,” for instance; yet it is not clear why a theology committed to “the construction of historical projects” should be housed within academic theology instead of political organizing, for instance. 66 Cf. the reservations toward Isasi-Diaz’s project expressed in Tanner, Theories of Culture, 184, n. 26. 67 Fulkerson, Changing the Subject, 386. See also Bourdieu et al., “Universal Corporatism,” 668. 68 Ibid., 385. 69 Ibid., 318. 70 See ibid., 323–29, for her fascinating re-reading of Ruether and Daly as academic parodies. Fulkerson admits that her own genre is that of the academic “serious argument.” 71 Ibid., 393.
This brief review of her argument only highlights what I have learned from Fulkerson’s work for my own project of theography. To the richness of her criti- cal contribution to theology as a discipline and her constructive contribution to feminist theology in particular I have not done justice. Unfortunately, I must restrict my remaining comments to points where I disagree—recognizing the irony that the appearance of theological reflexivity creates another level for meta-argument and thus more openings for academic positioning. I disagree, for instance, that academia is so tarnished by its association with the culture of professionalism. True, that culture is of ambiguous value at best, but an alter- native to professionalization in a highly specialized culture is hard to imagine. Regardless, the professional certification function of academia—teaching, essentially—is notoriously at odds with the game of research and publication. Competitively pitted against their colleagues by this game, academics by no means enjoy as a professional benefice the authority to “define what can count as true.”72 Rather, precisely in writing is where the authority of the individual academic is contested and disrupted, even if the authority of the academic system goes mostly unchallenged. Furthermore, Fulkerson’s heavy reliance on Foucault’s equation of knowledge with power works at times as a Master Method that she uses to rule out positions on debatable issues: representation in language, critical realism, the use of experience.73 Contrary to this academic agonism—again, the irony—a critique of the effects of power on discourse does not have to exclude non-reductive hermeneutical readings of texts. Indeed, I believe a more hermeneutical engagement—a mutually critical dia- logue—with classical doctrine would helpfully expand the range of theologi- cal loci applicable to her study, whereas Fulkerson relies mostly on creation and sin.74 A more developed doctrine of grace, as I later offer, could even allevi- ate the gravity of the problem of difference to which Fulkerson attends with a rather academic scrupulosity. Whereas Fulkerson, as well as most all of the theologians I have mentioned, adopts Kelsey’s description of an academy dominated still by Wissenschaft, Kathryn Tanner is among those who see academia beginning to shift away from Wissenschaft and thus becoming more amenable to constructive, norma- tive theology. According to Tanner, the academy is already moving away from its disengaged, disciplinary isolation and toward a pragmatic, interdisciplinary
72 See ibid., 303. 73 See ibid., 73, 311, 57–58, and 106, where the question of the “totalization” of the Foucaultian analysis is raised and set aside. 74 Cf. the relevant comments, ibid., 368–71; and 29, 376 for Fulkerson’s occasional use of doctrines of redemption and reconciliation.
75 Kathryn Tanner, “Theology and Cultural Contest in the University,” in Linell Cady and Delwin Brown, eds., Religious Studies, Theology, and the University (Albany: suny Press, 2002), 205. Bonnie Miller-McLemore, “The Contributions of Practical Theology,” in Bonnie Miller-McLemore, ed., The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Practical Theology (Malden, ma: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), 2–4 details a related interest in practice occurring broadly across the social sciences and philosophy, making the academy much more hospitable to practi- cal and contextual dimensions of theology—though she is less sanguine than Tanner about theology’s constructive and confessional dimensions finding a warm reception. 76 Tanner, “Theology and Cultural Contest,” 206. Tanner has produced fine examples of such contributions, esp. Economy of Grace (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005). 77 Tanner, Theories of Culture, 71–92. 78 Robert Schreiter, Constructing Local Theologies (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1985); Stephen Bevans, Models of Contextual Theology (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1992).
theology variously described as public, pragmatic, ethnographic, and contex- tual.79 This direction has led to admirable theological reflexivity, and has attained to genuine theography on the part of Linell Elizabeth Cady’s Religion, Theology, and American Public Life.80 In advocating for a theology that is pub- licly engaged and respected instead of written for “a small professional guild,” Cady finds fault with the ahistoricity, disciplinary specialization, and even writing style of current academic theology. Like Fulkerson, Cady critiques theology’s cooption into an academia dominated by the “culture of professionalization.”81 Her suggestions for a renewed public theology include avoiding technical jargon and inaccessible philosophy in order to connect academic theology with a general audience, and overcoming disciplinary boundaries by moving beyond the “textually based genre of traditional theol- ogy” in order to tie theology to the symbolic practices of religion in concrete, local contexts.82 While offering exciting possibilities, Cady’s proposal, considered along with those of like-minded theologians, is so at odds with both the current institu- tional identity of academia as well as the contextual communities she targets for service83—recall the two axioms that I proposed—that I am not sure a coherent theography can result. Cady and the cultural theorists do, however, point the way toward transforming theological research and pedagogy so that they more effectively intersect.84
79 The consensus is visible in several collections of essays, especially: Cady and Brown, Religious Studies, Theology, and the University; Delwin Brown, Sheila Greeve Devaney, and Kathryn Tanner, eds., Converging on Culture: Theologians in Dialogue with Cultural Analysis and Criticism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001); see also Sheila Greeve Devaney, Pragmatic Historicism: A Theology for the Twenty-first Century (Albany: suny Press, 2000). 80 Linell Elizabeth Cady, Religion, Theology, and American Public Life (Albany: suny Press, 1993). 81 Ibid., 127–31. Like Fulkerson but, and even more so, Cady relies heavily for her portrait of academia on Burton Bledstein, The Culture of Professionalism: The Middle Class and the Development of Higher Education in America (New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 1976). My criticism of Fulkerson on this point apply also to Cady. 82 Cady, Religion, Theology, 142–48. See also Delwin Brown, “Refashioning Self and Other: Theology, Academy, and the New Ethnography,” in Converging on Culture. 83 I can think of few particular, local Christian communities that would readily accept her easy dismissal of the “presumption that the Bible is divinely revealed” (Cady, 142). 84 See the proposal in Michael Hogue, “After the Secular: Toward a Pragmatic Public Theology,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 78:2 (June, 2010), 346–74. I agree that pragmatism is an important option in the question of theological truth, especially when theology is tied to pedagogy; I return to this in Chapter seven. But pragmatism
A consideration of the theological pragmatists leads naturally to the intrigu- ing possibilities for theography offered by the discipline of practical theology. As defined by Bonnie Miller-McLemore, practical theology seems to align closely with Cady’s project, but has the advantage of occupying its own disci- pline with a venerable, if contested, tradition. As such, it has long inhabited academia while resisting the intellectualism of systematic theology.85 Miller- McLemore reflects this tradition in her critical objectivity toward what she calls the “academic paradigm” or “the cognitive captivity of theology,” and her description of practical theology as a “thorn in the flesh of theology abstracted from life.”86 Still, as a stand-alone discipline, practical theology, on my view, remains in a position of self-alienation, which is likely felt by practitioners when it comes to the purpose of research. For instance, how can practical the- ology reconcile its concern with “the embodiment of religious belief in the day-to-day lives of individuals and communities”87 when it inevitably pro- duces texts that require formidable academic expertise? The academic self- alienation of practical theology and related movements is essentially right; theology should know the suffering that comes from resisting academic self- enclosure. But short of a radical transformation of the very idea of an academic discipline, theology will do best to press for some kind of integration of sys- tematic, that is, self-contentedly academic, theology with practical theology. These two disciplines should be distinct but not separated. Such an integration is what I attempt to conceptualize—which is not to say “achieve”—by means of the architectonics of this book. Since reflexivity seems to raise as many problems as it solves, it should not be entirely surprising that I find constructive possibilities in even the final cat- egory of my typology: academic theology which takes no explicit account of the academic context at all. Indeed, most academic theology does not begin with a reflection on the academic medium itself; one can find examples within all the schools of theology considered above. By not obsessing about its own position such theology may have an even better chance of escaping the narrow, academic context to speak truly on matters about God to some
makes little sense in the textual culture of Wissenschaft, which, besides being structurally different from pedagogical contexts, is constitutionally removed from questions of application. 85 As Miller-McLemore notes, practical theology was in the past often understood as simply applying systematic theology; now it more consciously contests the method of systematic theology. 86 Bonnie Miller-McLemore, “Five Misunderstandings of Practical Theology,” International Journal of Practical Theology 16:1 (2012), 14, 26. 87 Miller-McLemore, “Contributions of Practical Theology,” 14.
Contemporary Academic Theology: Conclusions
The strategic reflexivity within academic theology that I have denominated theography is nothing new, as this review demonstrates. The principal issue is the contested role of the modern, epistemologically centered project of cumulative research whose first historical name is Wissenschaft. In particular, the theological proposals rejecting or seeking a fundamental change in the Wissenschaft paradigm have provided powerful reasons internal to Christian practice and theology as to why theology should not be limited to the episte- mological regime that has reigned since Berlin, a regime which has been impli- cated in secularism, abstraction from commitment to liberation, the privileged usurpation of the other, and professional elitism. This chorus of witnesses, though divided over the proper direction of theology, testify that theology in the tradition of Wissenschaft can no longer claim an untroubled hegemony in presenting or adjudicating theological truth, if indeed this type of theology should exist at all. I will argue, however, that it should. Theology should con- tinue to exist as a humbled and even disgruntled Wissenschaft. Careful consideration of the foregoing theological proposals demonstrates, I believe, that theology arising within academic text practices cannot avoid epistemological Wissenschaft. Based on both Bourdieu’s analysis of the com- petitive positioning intrinsic to the academic habitus, as well as my own analy- sis of the economic demand to produce texts of relevant novelty to acquire
That is, aligning oneself with an absolute outrage can be an easy way to create the appearance of a warranted authorial position; but doing so raises the ques- tion of how academic research is effectively addressing the outrage. Thus looms the specter of bad faith. Invoking moral outrage, moreover, has the effect of freighting academic disagreement and its ever-finer discrimination of positions with excessive political gravity. To be frank, academics mostly all want to move the world in roughly the same direction. All the punctiliousness with which scholars stake out positions, especially against those with whom they share broad political sympathies, is rendered politically irrelevant by the fact that most scholars and especially theologians exist outside the political mainstream; the political differences among them, at least as they pertain to mainstream American political channels, are mostly inconsequential. Given the temptation to flee epistemological anxiety for a chimerically politicized discourse, whenever moral outrage is invoked, attention should fall on how an academic work will concretely effect either solidarity with those suffering or some political transformation of the situation. If no concrete connection is evident, the invocation of moral outrage is suspect. To be sure, the opposite tendency of academic discourse to insulate itself from politics is troubling and must be questioned. In the face of this tendency, instead of the often-repeated argument that “all theology knowingly or not is by definition always engaged for or against the oppressed,”88 there is another possible strategy that avoids the dubious claim that any academic theology is significantly “engaged for the oppressed”: a theology that accepts and accentuates the politically neutraliz- ing effect of academic textuality is free to delimit and de-legitimate that dis- course and force it beyond itself. Apart from the occasional use by various scholars to employ moral outrage to bypass epistemological demands, liberation and cultural studies theolo- gians in particular have employed the argument that all theology is contextual in order to promote a disengagement from Wissenschaft and a reorientation towards concrete communities.89 This argument is invoked as a truism but fails to take adequate account of the peculiarly textual culture of academia.90
88 Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, “Scripture in the Liberation Struggle,” in Bread Not Stone: The Challenge of Feminist Biblical Interpretation (Boston: Beacon Press, 1984), 45, cited in Fulkerson, Changing the Subject, 33. 89 Bevans, Models of Contextual Theology, 9; Sheila Greeve Devaney, “Theology and the Turn to Cultural Analysis,” in Converging on Culture, 5–10. 90 Cf. the relevant comments in Bruce Robbins, “Comparative Cosmopolitanisms,” in Pheng Cheah and Bruce Robbins, eds., Cosmopolitics: Thinking and Feeling Beyond the Nation (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998), 250–51.
Academic theology is indeed contextual theology, so long as we acknowledge that Wissenschaft is a unique cultural context. While materially dependent on other institutions and based on exclusivist professional boundaries, the culture of academic research is unique by virtue of its open scope of textual dialogue, by which it includes in principle the scholars and perhaps even non- scholars (so long as they are textually representable) of all eras. As a unique culture, Wissenschaft can plausibly claim its own proper mode of discourse and its own way of knowing. The bias inherent in academic textuality toward the literate, the articulate, and the theoretical is patent, as Bourdieu has argued; but the demand for novelty creates a drive for new sources that addresses this bias to some extent.91 Often working in tandem with the claim that all theology is contextual is the truism that scholarly objectivity is impossible.92 Bourdieu’s analysis has only provided additional evidence for the biased and interested nature of scholars as subjects. However, this truism again misconceives the textual nature of scholarly objectivity. The issue is not whether scholars have pure intentions and disinterested thought processes—of course not. Whatever objectivity exists in academia results from the free, decontextualized circulation of those scholars’ texts among other scholars who often have a selfish interest in cri- tiquing them. Objectivity, like the knowledge peculiar to Wissenschaft, arises from the system of intertextual practices of academia. Within that system, scholars will generally be successful if they learn to write in a way that antici- pates and diffuses objections. In other words, the objectivity of the mental pro- cesses of individual scholars is an effect of the objectivity of academic textuality, and not its source. Of course, the whole system can and will be infected by biases and distorting ideologies at any one time; especially enduring are the scholastic biases Bourdieu has noted. Yet even this fact does not simply impugn the system of academic textuality, for it is an open system that cannot be assessed universally by its state at any one time. Its textual game only commits to its current biases when it attempts the closure required to exercise power outside an open textual discourse. “Engagement” with issues of the day, in other words, comes with the price of inflicting possible error. In sum, arguments seeking to undermine the distinction between academic and non-academic communities appear hasty. One may still propose that
91 Indeed, this drive is doubtless manifest in the “fruitful” turn by liberation and cultural theory theologies to particular contexts. 92 Devaney, “Theology and the Turn,” 10; Brown, “Refashioning Self and Other,” 41–43; Mark Wallace, Fragments of the Spirit: Nature, Violence, and the Renewal of Creation (New York: Continuum, 1995), 172.
93 As a model, Bourdieu’s idea of reflexivity includes self-limitation; see Bourdieu, Invitation, 70.
The advantage of turning to these philosophers as an interdisciplinary source is that, in contrast to Bourdieu and other approaches, they do not merely present descriptive generalizations of what academia is and accept these as normative; rather, they present total writing projects driven by an internally established norm. Theography benefits from the empirical descrip- tions of Bourdieu and others but also needs to consider normative and radical proposals such as Hegel’s and Derrida’s. Both of these philosophers present powerful programs of academic writing based on a central “logic” or struc- ture—respectively, “the Concept” and, for my purposes, “différance”—that not only governs the genre of writing, but demands explication in that writing; I call such programs architectonic models of academic writing. I have assigned a complex task for theography: it must reflexively inhabit several seemingly incompatible models of discourse and truth within one aca- demic text. If it is to do so with any intelligible integrity, it must adopt an archi- tectonic model of writing. If it is to do so with theological integrity, it must base its model on the substance of the Christian tradition, however abstractedly interpreted. A brief word is in order about how the search for an architectonic model can look to doctrine for both its form and substance.
A Dialectical Interpretation of Doctrine
I must now suggest why doctrine in general is the ideal Christian source from which to derive this architectonic form, and why Calvin’s soteriological doc- trine in particular. By doctrine I mean written attempts at authoritative formu- lations of Christian teaching as found in creedal statements and theological works organized around theological loci.94 I do not have space to evaluate other interpretations of the nature of doctrine, except to suggest that there need be no one, exclusive interpretation of doctrine and its function. The recent, vying interpretations of doctrine as providing second-order rules for speech and practice,95 or, in reaction to that, as making claims to truth in conjunction with the church’s performance of Christian narrative,96 or even interpretations of
94 I distinguish doctrine from other genres of Christian writing, although they often inter- link with both the form and content of doctrine: biblical commentaries, specific apolo- getics and polemics, sermons, spiritual autobiography, ethics, canon law, etc. 95 Lindbeck, Nature of Doctrine. For a different approach to reading doctrine practically, see Ellen Charry, By the Renewing of Your Minds: The Pastoral Function of Christian Doctrine (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997). 96 Alistair McGrath, The Genesis of Doctrine: A Study in the Foundations of Doctrinal Criticism (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990), Chs. 2 and 3, and “An Evangelical Evaluation of
Postliberalism,” in Timothy Phillips and Dennis Okholm, eds., The Nature of Confession: Evangelicals and Postliberals in Conversation (Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 1996); Kevin Vanhoozer, The Drama of Doctrine: A Canonical-Linguistic Approach to Christian Theology (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2005), Ch. 3. 97 For an interesting example in the tradition of Rahner see Karen Kilby, “Is an Apophatic Trinitarianism Possible?” International Journal of Systematic Theology 12:1 (January 2010), 65–77; for an apophatic reading of Chalcedon with careful attention to genre, see Sarah Coakley, “What Does Chalcedon Solve and What Does it Not? Some Reflections on the Status and Meaning of the Chalcedonian ‘Definition’,” in Steven Davis, Daniel Kendall, and Gerald O’Collins, eds., The Incarnation: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Incarnation of the Son of God (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 143–63. Coakley’s typology on doctrine is similar to my own; she discriminates between “linguistic regula- tion,” “metaphor,” and “literal” theories of Chalcedon. 98 The benefit of a dialectical form, whereby realities are analyzed into contrasting polari- ties, is that such an analysis can consider a plurality of irreducible elements in a form that is brief and comprehensible. The paradox form with which I begin is not finally an ade- quate form, but is heuristically useful until I establish the dialectical form specific to Calvin’s soteriology. Some precedents to a dialectical analysis of doctrine include Bernard Lonergan, Method in Theology (London: Darton Longman and Todd, 1971), esp. Ch. 10; but he sees in dialectic nothing but clarification and the elimination of contradiction in idem,
The Way to Nicea: The Dialectical Development of Trinitarian Theology, a selection from De Deo Trino, trans. by Conn O’Donovan (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1976), 42, 49; see also David Tracy, The Analogical Imagination, 405–38; another source of interest are the Hegelian approaches to the history of doctrine in Ferdinand C. Bauer, Lehrbuch der Christlichen Dogmengeschichte (Leipzig: Fues’s Verlag, 1867) and Alois E. Biedermann, Christliche Dogmatik (Berlin: Georg Reimer, 1884). 99 Bourdieu, Pascalian, 55–56. 100 See the use of “supplementary” to describe doctrine in relation to biblical narrative in Gerard Loughlin, “Christianity at the End of the Story or the Return of the Master Narrative,” Modern Theology 8:4 (October 1, 1992), 378.
101 “The Sentences provided for the Middle Ages what Catholic theology has never been able to regain: a focus or a unity precisely within dispersion, a common series of theological statements, a vocabulary and a common intellectual tradition which allowed substantial disagreements, and an irreducible pluralism within a shared culture.” This point is beauti- fully made by Michael Buckley, At the Origins of Modern Atheism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987), 43; of course, even medieval theology was divided into scholastic, monastic, and incipient lay styles of theology. 102 Cf. Vanhoozer, Drama of Doctrine, 4: “Christian theology must distinguish between true and false knowledge of God, for indiscriminate talk of God is not an option for those who seek to worship in spirit and in truth.” This early presupposition by Vanhoozer seems to skew his treatment of doctrine toward the juridical, whereas I believe doctrine also func- tions to suspend judgment. See also Tanner, Theories of Culture, 157–59.
One and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only-begotten, made known in two natures without confusion, without change, without division, without separation, the difference of the natures being by no means removed because of the union, but the property of each nature being preserved and coalescing in one prosopon and one hypostasis.103
Here doctrine takes a dialectical form of “both/and” that resists a conceptual reduction to one nature. In both Nicaea and Chalcedon, doctrine functions to order and specify the faith while preserving its mystery. However, Nicea high- lights a single concept, while in Chalcedon two concepts (person and nature) are played off each other. I can here only suggest that these complicated historical developments led to a dialectical use of concepts that is dimly visible across the loci of Christian doctrine. According to one possible dialectical analysis, a primary concept or conceptual statement forms the center of the doctrine at each locus, while a secondary concept counterbalances the first in a way that resists closure and reduction to the primary. For the doctrine of God, the primary concept is the unity of God; the secondary assertion is the three hypostases. For Christology, the primary concept is the divine-human unity of Christ’s person; the second- ary assertion is the distinction of human and divine natures. In the doctrine of creation, the distinction between God and creature takes the central place; the secondary concept is the potential for unity. In the doctrine of sin, the central concept is the fallenness of human nature; the secondary concept is the continuing goodness of created human nature. In anthropology, the primary concept is dependency on divine grace; the secondary concept is human co-operation with grace. In soteriology, the primary concept is justification by faith; secondary is sanctification unto perfected holiness. In eschatology, the
103 J.N.D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines (London: Continuum, 1977), 339–40, emphasis added.
104 Cf. Gerard Loughlin, “The Basis and Authority of Doctrine,” in Colin Gunton, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Christian Doctrine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 52: “Doctrine is both complete and never complete: it resists closure. This understanding of doctrine’s unified but multiple form, and of its ceaseless supplementarity, its ever burgeon- ing exposition, is not a modern insight, but one already understood by medieval theology.” 105 Systematic theology, it must be said, has also felt the effects of a general Western tendency to secure closure and thus intellectual mastery. 106 Calvin himself does something similar with Chalcedonian language, as I will argue in Chapter two. 107 I use “cataphatic” and “apophatic” loosely here. For instance, the affirmation of God’s unity is cataphatic insofar as it takes affirmative form, but of course the nature of God’s unity is beyond human knowledge.
108 Interestingly, the clarity of the distinction between primary and secondary concepts becomes, roughly, sharper from the first to the last loci. 109 The priority of the assertion of divinity is more typical of classical Christologies. Some modern Christologies, of course, give priority to the humanity.
Since a critical aim of my later constructive chapters is a reconstruction of Calvin’s soteriology by way of an investigation into abstruse modern philoso- phers, I must first demonstrate that the patient is ill enough to merit this out- landish, homeopathic remedy. The patient in this case is not Calvin himself; I will not judge Calvin’s theology in its own historical context. The patient is the Institutes as read by the contemporary academic theologian. It is quite possible that the problems that preoccupy the academic theologian, such as Calvin’s apparent inconsistencies, were perfectly adapted to the needs of the Geneva-centered wing of the Reformation.1 Yet the paper trail in theological studies of Calvin suggests that academic theology has been unable to avoid critiquing the apparent inconsistencies in Calvin, prompting others to search for the key that would unlock the evasive logic behind Calvin’s “system” in the Institutes. My own efforts will culminate in something like such an interpretive key, but not without subverting and previsioning the transformation of the institution and its practices that forced the question in the first place. In other words, my own radical reconstruction of Calvin is only “necessary” according to the dictates of an institution that I am calling into question. And yet, according to the complex relation between theology and academia that I elaborated in the first chapter, these dictates must not, and will not, be without useful fruit. Calvin’s soteriology has raised questions from the moment it appeared; moreover, it arose in the first place in response to practical as well as theoretical issues generated by the new theological vista opened by Martin Luther. While the question of Calvin’s coherence has proven to be fertile soil for a dubious harvest of studies, the questions surrounding it undoubtedly have practical significance on some level for all Christians. While too technical and complicated to be immediately accessible to all Christians, my reconstruc- tion of Calvin will generate insights of general relevance. Before proceeding to the constructive goal, a reconstruction makes little sense without an appreciation for what is undergoing treatment. I begin by providing an account of Calvin’s doctrine(s) of justification and sanctification as set within the whole Institutes and as informed by current Calvin scholar- ship. From this account I draw out aspects of his doctrine that are not evidently
1 See again Bourdieu, Pascalian, 55–56, on how academic theory obscures native logics of practice.
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An Account of Soteriology in the Institutes
It is clear that I am not attempting a strictly or even primarily historical inves- tigation of Calvin’s coherence. I do draw on, and will remain accountable to, historical studies that consider all relevant dimensions of the problem: the his- torical precedents and contexts to Calvin’s life and work, the controversies which spurred his development, and the relationship between Calvin’s com- mentaries and the five editions of the Institutes. On all of this I shall touch only lightly, focusing instead on the 1559 Institutes. It remains a viable classic in its own right that continues to inform—and confuse—contemporary construc- tive theology. I warily proceed toward a primarily constructive reading of Calvin under the following precept: a constructive engagement with Calvin without solid historical method is academically irresponsible; a historicism without constructive interests is fruitlessly academic. Accordingly, a few his- torical notes, and only a few, are in order. Many scholars have discussed the structure of Calvin’s theology by way of debating whether it is systematic. This question will be of continuing relevance to this study, since much will ride on determining what kind of text the Institutes is in comparison with academic and philosophical texts. Whether one considers the Institutes to be “systematic” depends on how one under- stands systematic method.2 Richard Muller helps clarify the systematic charac- ter of the Institutes by placing it in the context of Calvin’s other works and the theology of his 16th century contemporaries.3 As Muller testifies, Calvin evi- dences a highly developed method for writing theology, taking care to divide
2 Richard Muller, The Unaccommodated Calvin: Studies in the Foundation of a Theological Tradition (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 101–102, briefly notes contrary opinions on this issue by recent Calvin scholars. 3 No one has more competently traced the lineage of Calvin’s works and the formal principles of their organization. See Muller, Unaccommodated Calvin, esp. Chapter 6, “To Elaborate on the Topics: The Context and Method of Calvin’s Institutes.”
4 Muller is certainly correct to locate the Institutes vis-à-vis Calvin’s project of Scriptural com- mentary. Muller should have emphasized, as does Serene Jones, that the audience and pur- pose of the Institutes are multiple (e.g. the different arguments for the learned and unlearned in IV.xvii.1). See Serene Jones, Calvin and the Rhetoric of Piety (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995), Ch. 2. 5 Muller, Unaccommodated Calvin, 105. 6 See Brian Armstrong, “Duplex cognitio Dei, Or? The Problem and Relation of Structure, Form and Purpose in Calvin’s theology” in Probing the Reformed Tradition: Historical Studies in Honor of Edward A. Dowey, Jr. eds. Elsie Anne McKee and Brian Armstrong (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1989), 140. 7 The classic study by Ford Lewis Battles, “Calculus Fidei,” in Calvinus ecclesiae doctor, ed. Wilhelm H. Neuser (Kampen, 1980), 85–110, is devoted to formally analyzing Calvin’s struc- tured approach to his opponents.
As relayed in Book II, Christ acquired our salvation in principle; Book III examines how, through the work of the Holy Spirit, we receive in actuality Christ’s grace, including the effects of his benefits. Book II has justly been described as presenting the “objective” aspect of salvation; and Book III, the “subjective.”8 Many commentators see “objective” and “subjective” to be linked by the union with or “engrafting into Christ” (insitio in Christum).9 Wendel con- vincingly illustrates this theme with a quote from the Commentary on John: “He begins to love us when we are united with the body of his well-beloved Son…. We are not otherwise included in that love, except that Jesus Christ is dwelling in us.”10 While the union with Christ makes sense as a putative center, I will investi- gate at the end of my review of the Institutes a dispute among interpreters about whether there is more involved in justification than can be comprehended under the union with Christ. Although I argue that the union with Christ does not com- prehend the whole of justification, at least until one develops a multifaceted concept of “union,” it is quite fair to state that the salvation brought to us by the Holy Spirit through faith is in no way separated from Christ’s person and work.11 Calvin’s first step in Book III is to introduce explicitly the doctrine of Holy Spirit, emphasizing the “secret work” of the Holy Spirit in uniting us to Christ.12 Paralleling Christ’s mediation of the Father, the Holy Spirit mediates Christ to us.13 The Spirit witnesses to our embrace by the Father, and both mortifies and vivifies us so that we are ruled not by ourselves but by the Spirit.
8 Tjarko Stadtland. Rechtfertigung und Heiligung bei Calvin (Neukirchener Verlag, 1972), 112. 9 See especially François Wendel, Calvin: Origins and Development of His Religious Thought, trans. Philip Mairet (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1963), 234–242. 10 Calvin, Commentary on John 17:26, quoted by Wendel, Calvin, 238. 11 See Werner Krusche, Das Wirken des Heilige Geist nach Calvin (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1957), 265–70. 12 The typical emphasis on union with Christ is at pains to elide this “secret work,” insisting instead that, “In his interpretation of the Spirit’s person and work, Calvin’s whole orienta- tion is Christological” (Cornelis Venema, Accepted and Renewed in Christ: The “Twofold Grace of God” and the Interpretation of Calvin’s Theology (Göttingen: Vanderhoeck & Ruprecht, 2007), 86). This fine and thorough study, which came out after the completion of my initial study, goes astray at this point. Venema’s evidence for this statement rests on a long citation from III.i.1 in which he inexplicably omits a long section discussing the “secret work” of the Spirit (p. 84). Though inadequately substantiated, his claim is not incorrect, nor is the popular emphasis on union with Christ without insight; but these accounts remain one-sided and effectively impose a linear rationality on Calvin’s soteriol- ogy. Attending to the distinctive role of the Spirit does not endanger the Trinitarian nature of redemption, as Venema fears; rather, it avoids subordinationism. 13 Wendel, Calvin, 239–40.
But the principle work of the Spirit, our “inner teacher,” is faith.14 In his long chapter on faith, Calvin begins by constructing its definition step by step, first as an acknowledgement of God’s Word generally, and finally as “a firm and certain knowledge of God’s benevolence” revealed in Christ and sealed by the Holy Spirit.15 As such, faith is primarily our acknowledgement of God’s favor revealed in Christ—our very justification. Yet in the remaining four-fifths of this chapter, Calvin describes the complexities of the Christian life with regard to their effect on faith. Above all, our imperfect faith struggles with doubt and unbelief. Calvin also takes account of various Scriptural passages on faith, describing the struggle between true faith and what only resembles true faith, and the many ways the life of faith advances: from knowledge to understanding, from acknowledgement to certainty, from false to true fear, and, since faith grasps what is still only a promise, from faith in the unseen to hope for the “open showing of what is hidden.”16 What Calvin accomplishes in this long discussion is not so much an assertion of the importance of the union with Christ and a redoubling of the Christocentrism of Book II, as a description of the phenomenal complexity of the life of the believer, corre- lated theologically to a description of the peculiar character of the work of the Holy Spirit. The pattern set by III.ii (on faith) is fairly typical for most of the other loci, including the discussion of repentance that immediately proceeds (III.iii): a clear definition to begin, followed by a description of the complexity arising from the conjunction of believers’ varied experiences, then problematic pas- sages from Scripture, and finally the refutation of opponents. Faith is the medium or “material cause” by which one receives from Christ both repentance
14 Important works on faith in Calvin include Walter E. Stuermann, A Critical Study of Calvin’s Concept of the Faith (Ann Arbor: Edwards Brothers, 1952); Victor A. Shepherd, The Nature and Function of Faith in the Theology of John Calvin, nabpr Dissertation Series, no. 2 (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1983); Heribert Schützeichel, Die Glaubenstheologie Calvins, Beiträge zur Oekumenischen Theologie 9, ed. Heinrich Fries. (Munich: Max Hueber, 1972); Barbara Pitkin, What Pure Eyes Could See: Calvin’s Doctrine of Faith in Its Exegetical Context (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999). See Shepherd, Nature and Function of Faith, 223–33, for his often unfair but occasionally insightful critique of Stuermann. Pitkin, Pure Eyes, 4, says of Shepherd’s work, without any analysis to back it up, that it is “driven by such dogmatic interests that the light…shed on Calvin’s thought is quite inadequate.” 15 See the detailed exposition of Calvin’s definition of faith in relation to the Word in Edward Dowey, The Knowledge of God in Calvin’s Theology (New York: Columbia University Press, 1952), 155ff. 16 See, inter alia, Stuermann, Faith, 234–58.
17 It seems thus unless, that is, one counts the discussion of Christ’s work in Book II and the chapter on faith as already beginning the discussion of justification. 18 Wilhelm Niesel, The Theology of John Calvin. Trans. Harold Knight (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1956), 130. I will have something to add to this discussion in Chapter 4. 19 Muller, Unaccommodated Calvin, 135. 20 Cf. Calvin’s earlier and more Lutheran description of repentance as a sorrow for sins pre- ceding justification in his reply to Sadoleto. See Calvin, John and Jacopo Sadoleto, A Reformation Debate: Sadoleto’s Letter to the Genevans and Calvin’s Reply ed. John Olin (New York: Fordham University Press, 2000), 60. Even in the Institutes, it is sometimes stated that sorrow for sins precedes faith, as in the preaching of John the Baptist (see III. iii.19). Calvin perhaps attains some clarity by invoking the ordo recte docendi: “Perhaps some have been deceived by the fact that many are overwhelmed by qualms of con- science or compelled to obedience before they are imbued with the knowledge of grace…. But here it is not a question of how variously Christ draws us to himself, or prepares us for the pursuit of godliness.” (III.iii.2). True Christian virtue, including repentance, can only come as a response to grace. Furthermore, Calvin is concerned that repentance not become “the basis of our deserving pardon…” (III.iii.20). Lastly, God’s sovereignty in par- doning through mercy, irrespective of any repentance of sinners, is clearly upheld in the tentative “order” of “the experience of faith” found in III.xi.16. 21 One sees with this argument how important it was that Calvin discuss faith before turn- ing to repentance. Evident also is the very different dialectic at the center of Calvin’s sote- riology from that of Luther, for whom the dialectic between Law and Gospel, and hence God’s hidden and proper work, is central. 22 Cf. III.iii.19: “…because the proper object of faith is God’s goodness, by which sins are for- given, it was expedient that it should be carefully distinguished from repentance.”
23 “Now if it is true…that the whole of the gospel is contained under these two headings, repentance and the forgiveness of sins, do we not see that the Lord freely justifies his own in order that he may at the same time restore them to true righteousness by the sanctifica- tion of his Spirit” (III.iii.19). According to Ronald Wallace, Calvin’s Doctrine of the Christian Life (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1959), 94: “…dying and rising with Christ is repentance or sanctification. ‘Sanctification’ possibly refers more properly to the process as a whole— in inward and outward aspects.” 24 Admittedly, this description of repentance, including the reference to “sinners,” seems to be in some tension with Calvin’s claim that repentance comes from faith. 25 In II.viii.4 (on the moral Law), Calvin states that God, because we are too blind to be “moved solely by the beauty of the good,” includes both promises and threats in the Law. The former are given out of God’s “benevolence,” the latter out of “wrath.” 26 III.iii.9. Philip Butin attempts to make the restoration of the imago Dei the dominant theme of Calvin’s doctrine of justification and sanctification. See Philip Walker Butin, Revelation, Redemption, and Response: Calvin’s Trinitarian Understanding of the Divine- Human Relationship (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 69. While a valuable study, the result is a flattened account of Calvin and an obscuring of justification. A better attempt to place participation at the center of Calvin’s soteriology is found in J. Todd Billings, Calvin, Participation, and the Gift: The Activity of Believers in Union with Christ (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), Ch. 4. 27 The shift in terms (“I interpret repentance as regeneration…”) is curious and left unde- fended. Certainly the subject matter shifts significantly when Calvin goes from pairing faith and repentance to mortification and vivification as aspects of regeneration (= “repen- tance”!). Chapter 6 will attempt to make sense of these shifts.
28 Wallace, Christian Life, 51, rightly notes that mortification is itself twofold, such that one can distinguish between an “inward” and an “outward process of mortification.” The first is our voluntary denial of self out of deferral for God and others. The second involves bearing the cross. As discussed in the Institutes III.ix, bearing the cross largely concerns interpreting our suffering via Christ’s sufferings as Providential. 29 The taint of sin is several times connected with “the body,” as if materiality were the cul- prit, yet in III.iii.20 Calvin fingers the corruptions of “our own natural soul.” 30 There are exceptions, which I shall dub “Lutheran moments.” These do not occur in the section on repentance/regeneration (III.iii-x), but within the chapters on justification, par- ticularly where Calvin is relating justification to the Christian life. Here, justification takes on a causative force that leads of itself, even “simultaneously,” to a more holy life; the stress on “striving” and effort becomes mute. See III.xiv.9, xv.5–8, xvi.1, xvii.2, 5–6, 9–10, xix.5. I take up the “Lutheran moment” in Calvin’s soteriology in Chapter 5, below. 31 Note that since repentance does not simply lead back continuously to the act of faith, as in the “Lutheran” model, it must be given a teleology, even an eschatological one, for which faith is only the beginning. 32 See also II.vii.12: “[The third use of the Law] is the best instrument for [believers] to learn more thoroughly each day the nature of the Lord’s will to which they aspire, and to con- firm them in the understanding if it.” See also II.viii.51.
33 III.v.1. The context here is on using the goods of this life, but I think the phrases character- ize Calvin’s general approach to applying the Law. See III.vi.1. 34 See Wallace, Christian Life, 42f. 35 I borrow these terms from Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology, 83–85. I do not mean to imply that the Law and Christ are not equal partners in sanctification, only that they work differently. 36 Wallace gives eloquent voice to the role of union with Christ in our sanctification. He strongly emphasizes the sanctification of Christ as providing the once-for-all sanctifica- tion of the Church, or what one could call the objective and external aspect of sanctifica- tion. See Wallace, Christian Life, vi, 12–14, 18, 42–47, 64, 78, and passim. The role of the Law receives much less attention by Wallace (pp. 112–121). The result is that his presentation of Calvin’s doctrine of the Christian life, while excellent, over-emphasizes the organic at the expense of the deliberative. That is, sanctification appears too much as something flow- ing from our union with Christ, rather than something also requiring our deliberate reflection and effort. Both are present in Calvin, as I argue below. 37 Wallace, Christian Life, 18. 38 The initial method of this chapter is to derive “general rules for lawful use” from Scripture, including the teachings of Jesus (III.x.1). However, Calvin ends the chapter by generalizing
While justification has been presupposed all along, only after these issues of sanctification does Calvin properly delineate justification by faith. Calvin begins Chapter xi by reiterating that both justification and sanctification are together a double grace we receive “by partaking of” Christ, who is “grasped and possessed by us in faith.” Justification signifies “that being reconciled to God through Christ’s blamelessness, we may have in heaven instead of a Judge a gra- cious Father” (III.xi.1). Justification is said to “consist in the remission of sin and the imputation of Christ’s righteousness.” It is useful to elaborate on these two parts of justification by positing a parallel distinction between justification extra nos (outside of ourselves) and in nobis.39 Extra nos, justification concerns a theological determination of God as revealed by Christ, external to our own being. In nobis, justification concerns what we ourselves “grasp and possess,” something involving our own being, though mediated by Christ. The extra nos aspect of justification can be identified whenever Calvin describes our relation with Christ in terms of observation or acknowledgement. The in nobis takes the form of participation, indwelling, engrafting, union, communion, etc.40 This hypothetical distinction of extra nos and in nobis takes on more sub- stance when seen in the light of the broader dispute between the Reformation and Medieval theology on imputed versus inherent grace. By Calvin’s time, and particularly after the Osiander controversy, Protestant theology had formed a consensus that justification consisted of righteousness being “imputed” to us, by God’s declaration.41 The emphasis on imputation must be seen as a reaction against the element of infused righteousness, or gratia creata, in Medieval the- ology.42 There was an unending controversy in the Medieval period as to
the example of Jesus’ calling, so that “no man may thoughtlessly transgress his limits” and appointed duties. 39 These are not terms systematically set out by Calvin. I am adopting them for convenience from interpreters, especially from Krusche, Wirken, 273–74, and Stadtland, Rechtfertigung, 16. I will expand upon these two sides in Chapter 4, arguing that they correspond to Calvin’s definition of justification as consisting in “the remission of sin and the imputa- tion of Christ’s righteousness.” See III.xi.11: “iusti extra se censeantur.” 40 Cf. Stuermann, Faith, 30, who divides his discussion of faith into two main headings: its cognitive nature, and its saving nature. I will offer an elaboration on these two sides at the end of this section. His reserving the concept of justification exclusively for the discussion of faith’s saving nature, however, seems artificial. 41 See Alistair McGrath, Iustitia Dei: A History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification, third edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 229; 239–241. 42 To be sure, the diversity of opinions within what I am grouping together under “Medieval theology” is enormous. See ibid., 176–86. This diversity has often been lost on Protestants, beginning with the Reformers.
43 Ibid., 176. 44 See III.xi.5, 7.
Osiander and unspecified Catholics, to sanctification, which here is starkly dif- ferentiated from justification. Justification is thus allowed to be something outside of our own being: We are “to turn aside from the contemplation of our own works and look solely upon God’s mercy and Christ’s perfection” (III.xi.16). Yet even in this chapter it is not so clear that faith could be defined as simply the extra nos acknowledgement of God’s gracious acceptance. What is clear is that faith is not a work, something we accomplish; yet faith may still be some- thing we have, so to speak, and that others do not—a kind of quality and pos- session.45 Thus Calvin’s terms for the operation of faith sometimes suggest the possibility of a more substantial communication, something in nobis: Faith “receives and embraces” righteousness (xi.17), “the righteousness of Christ is communicated to [humanity] by imputation” (xi.23). More typical are mixed and ambiguous statements, such as:
You see that our righteousness is not in us but in Christ, that we possess it only because we are partakers in Christ; indeed, with him we possess all its riches…. The only fulfillment…is that which we obtain through impu- tation. For in such a way does the Lord Christ share his righteousness with us that, in some wonderful manner, he pours into us enough of his power to meet the judgment of God…. To declare that by him alone we are accounted righteous, what else is this but to lodge our righteousness in Christ’s obedience, because the obedience of Christ is reckoned to us as if it were our own? (III.xi.23)
While righteousness is “in Christ” and not in us, we “partake” in it and “possess” it. And Calvin glosses the claim that righteousness is ours by “imputation” with language that sounds strongly like a substantial and quantitative infusion of grace (“he pours into us enough of his power…”). So while the extra nos side of justification is powerfully voiced in much of Chapter xi, Calvin does not place justification as consistently extra nos as does Karl Barth in the 20th century.46
45 I will raise in Chapters 4 through 6 my suspicion that Calvin resists purely extra nos justi- fication out of a desire to maintain a clear and manageable delineation between the saved and the damned. Of course, if faith is a “firm and certain knowledge of God’s benevolence toward us,” it is clear how one could have faith while another lacked it. But the real prob- lem is whether “faith” would then take on the function of a meritorious work, that is, whether faith becomes something we accomplish that distinguishes us inherently from those without it. 46 See my comparison of Barth and Calvin in Chapter 5.
Chapter xii shifts the focus from trusting in God’s mercy to humbling one- self before God’s holiness. The first point, connecting to the polemic in xi, is that the Catholic opponents who mix works righteousness with faith “do not think about God’s justice,” which is “so perfect that nothing can be admitted except what is in every part whole and complete and undefiled by any corrup- tion” (xii.1). Here Calvin encourages the reader, with reference to many pas- sages of Scripture, to meditate not on God’s mercy, but on God’s holiness symbolized by the “judgment seat.”47 God’s holiness demands not outward works, but “purity of will alone” (xii.4). In all of this, Calvin seems to be advert- ing not to the repentance that, as seen previously, flows from faith, but to the preparation for grace.48 Yet there is no basis to assume Calvin is putting for- ward a definitive ordo salutis or checklist by which salvation proceeds; rather, he can speak at once to the situation of both the sinner and the one overcom- ing sin. Applying either way, the main point is that humility and self-abase- ment are the corollary to trusting in Christ: “We will never have enough confidence in him unless we become deeply distrustful of ourselves; we will never lift up our hearts enough in him unless they be previously cast down in us” and so on. Chapter xiii begins by noting two methodological principles. The first may be described as theological, in the sense of being concerned with claims about God: “That the Lord’s glory should stand undiminished….” The second is anthro- pological and pastoral: “That our consciences in the presence of his judgment should have peaceful rest and serene tranquility” (III.xiii.1).49 Calvin turns first
47 Here (III.xii.1) is found is a good statement of the “first use” of the Law (see also II.vii.6): “If our life is examined according to the standard of the written law, we are sluggish indeed if we are not tormented with horrid fear….” Calvin even mentions the “incomprehensible” justice of God he sees in Job. On this, see Susan Schreiner, Where Shall Wisdom Be Found? Calvin’s Exegesis of Job from Medieval and Modern Perspectives (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 112–19. 48 “And the rigor of this examination ought to proceed to the extent of casting us down into complete consternation, and in this way preparing us to receive Christ’s grace” (III.xii.5). Perhaps these passages, dating to 1539, reflect Calvin’s earlier, more Lutheran understand- ing of justification. A 1559 summary passage in xii.8 seems also directed to sinners prior to faith: “For many sinners are so drunk with the sweetness of their vices that they think not upon God’s judgment, but lie dazed…and do not aspire to the mercy offered to them.” 49 See Marijn de Kroon, The Honour of God and Human Salvation Trans. John Vriend and Lyle D. Bierma (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2001). De Kroon has traced tensions in Calvin’s theology to a fundamental bipolarity between defending God’s honor and speaking to human needs. He convincingly connects this bipolarity to Calvin’s opening correlation of the knowledge of God and of ourselves.
Therefore, we must come to this remedy: that believers should be con- vinced that their only ground of hope for the inheritance of a Heavenly Kingdom lies in the fact that, being engrafted in the body of Christ, they are freely accounted righteous. For, as regards justification, faith is some- thing merely passive, bringing nothing of ours to the recovering of God’s favor but receiving from Christ that which we lack.51
The polemic against works righteousness continues into III.xiv, particularly through Section 17. At the same time, III.xiv is organized according to a
50 See Stuermann, Faith, 236–43. 51 III.xiii.5. Calvin also turns to Christ at the end of the previous Section 4: “we must seek peace for ourselves solely in the anguish of Christ our Redeemer.”
For impurity of conscience proves that both classes [viz., second and third] have not yet been regenerated by the Spirit of God. On the other hand, the absence of regeneration in them shows their lack of faith. From this it is clear that they have not yet been reconciled to God, not yet justified in his sight, inasmuch as men attain these benefits only by faith (III.xiv.7).
While this argument may seem to redirect the focus from faith to works, the problem with the second class is that they “cannot be compelled to confess themselves empty of righteousness,” i.e., they are still oriented toward works righteousness. Yet Calvin’s point seems to be that faith includes a definitive purity of conscience that is the key to true virtue. This virtue is seen in the fourth class alone: “Regenerated by God’s spirit, they make true holiness their concern.” In their case, while God reconciles them through forgiveness and the intercession of Christ,
his beneficence is at the same time joined with such a mercy that through his Holy Spirit he dwells in us and by his power the lusts of our flesh are each day more and more mortified; we are indeed sanctified, that is, con- secrated to the Lord in true purity of life, with our hearts formed to obedi- ence to the law (III.xiv.9).
This passage is odd because, first, it describes sanctification with past partici- ples as if completed, even while sanctification advances “more and more.” Second, building on the simultaneity of justification and sanctification, it binds these two in close unity. Calvin is granting, at least indirectly, that faith brings a genuine transformation of character by which one can distinguish those who have faith from those who only seem to have faith.52 This newfound
52 The ground for this point was laid in xiv.3, where Calvin is making the argument that true virtue can only come from faith, despite the relative differences in virtue discernible among pagans (e.g. Titus and Caligula). One way of making this argument would be to claim that faith places virtuous acts into a framework of giving glory to God. That is, true
virtue has a purpose beyond just performing individual good deeds; namely, good works become a way to ascribe honor to God. Perhaps one could read this reasoning into Calvin’s claim that “In short, when we remember the constant end of that which is right—namely, to serve God—whatever strives to another end already deservedly loses the name ‘right’.” Furthermore, “true righteousness was not in them, because duties are weighed not by deeds but by ends.” However, Calvin’s argument, citing Augustine, involves more than this point. He argues that the virtuous pagans “defile God’s good works” by the “pollution” or “impurity” of their hearts. In particular, their motives are not “pure”: “For they are restrained from evil-doing not by genuine zeal for good but either by mere ambition or by self-love, or some other perverse motive.” Apparently, one may simply assume, a priori, perverse motives of the pagan. While their deeds may seem virtuous, there must be some- thing about their internal character that is bad: “Since there is no sanctification apart from communion with Christ, it is evident that they are evil trees; they can bear fruits beautiful and comely to the sight,…but not at all good” (xiv.4). It is a simple matter of syl- logism to conclude that Christians must have some inherent purity of heart by virtue of justification. The gist of Calvin’s explanation of this purity is that Christians do not act out of any motive than to please God. Yet one wonders how the assertion of “purity” over against impure pagans squares with the recognition of sin remaining in Christians while in the flesh. Calvin’s use of “purity” is tricky to specify. Compare III.xiv.12, where the faith- ful are covered with the purity of “continual forgiveness of sins.”
53 I mean to draw attention to the troubling way that the use of the same Latin word to describe the relation of faith and works, respectively, to justification has the effect of undermining the distinction Calvin is trying to make. 54 III.xvii.6 has it somewhat differently: “It is not the foundation by which believers stand firm before God that is described [referring to passages in which the righteous shall be saved] but the means whereby our most merciful Father introduces them into his fellow- ship, and protects and strengthens them therein.” He further distinguishes the “first cause, that opens for the saints the door to God’s Kingdom, and gives them permanent standing- ground in it” from “the manner,” which concerns regeneration. 55 III.xiv.20. Calvin addresses the same issue somewhat differently in III.xvii.6. There he says that God’s mercy does not depend on believers’ works, “but that he fulfills the promise of salvation for those who respond to his call with upright life, because in those who are directed to the good by his Spirit he recognizes the only genuine insignia of his children.” This statement is odd, since it implies that faith is not a genuine insignia. 56 Wendel, Calvin, 260–61. The concept and language of a “double justification” predates Calvin by far, both within Protestantism and in Medieval theology, though the meaning of it differs. See McGrath, Iustitia Dei, 179–80 (on Scotus’ two-fold acceptatio); 251–53 (Protestant precedents). Venema, Accepted and Renewed, 163–70 includes a helpful treat- ment, arguing that Calvin saw double justification as a “point of contact” with reform- minded Catholic theologians. 57 It is not obvious what “we ourselves” refers to, in distinction from our works. Typically, Calvin has connected justification with our conscience and our hearts, both of which indicate our innermost personal center as distinguished from the externality of our works.
58 Cf. III.xi.14. 59 Note how this phrase invokes and depends upon the entire loci communes method.
60 Note that he speaks here of justification and repentance; in other places, the relationship between faith and repentance runs parallel in a confusing manner. 61 Cf. III.iii.19: it is “expedient [operaepretium]” to distinguish faith and repentance. 62 III.xvi.1.
63 III.iii.19, emphasis added. See also III.ii.8, III.xi.6, III.xiv.9, and above all, III.xvi.1. Cf. II.ix.3. 64 III.xvi.1 and III.xx.11. 65 Wallace, Christian Life, 26, notes this metaphor and refers to Kolfhaus’ assessment that justification and sanctification are “one and the same act of God.” It must be noted, however, that Calvin uses the same metaphor in III.xi.6, acknowledging a “mutual and indivisible connection,” but in order to argue that reason “forbids us to transfer the peculiar qualities of the one to the other,” just as we cannot say that the earth is lighted by the sun’s heat. 66 “Since faith embraces Christ, as offered to us by the Father—that is, since he is offered not only for righteousness, forgiveness of sins, and peace, but also for sanctification and the fountain of the water of life—without a doubt, no one can duly know him without at the same time apprehending the sanctification of the Spirit” (III.ii.8). See Pierre Marcel, “The Relation between Justification and Sanctification in Calvin’s Thought,” Evangelical Quarterly 27:3 (1955), 134: “In the economy of the Trinity, it is God the Father who declares the sinner righteous, it is God the Holy Spirit who sanctifies him.” 67 On Calvin’s doctrine of the Holy Spirit, see Krusche, Wirken. See also Stadtland, Rechtfertigung, 130–31, where he discusses Paul Jacob’s contention that the relation of justification and sanctification corresponds to that of Son and Spirit. Stadtland finds this difficult to establish. Krusche, Wirken, 277, locates the togetherness of Spirit and Christ in Calvin’s office Christology. 68 For instance, faith, including its role in justification, is the work of the Spirit. At the extreme, Calvin says that “without the illumination of the Holy Spirit, the Word can do nothing” (III.ii.33), and “faith itself has no other source than the Spirit” (III.i.4). These pas- sages demand a careful consideration of Calvin’s entire teaching of the Trinity and soteri- ology. See also IV.xv.6.
Calvin assigns justification more to Christ’s priesthood, and sanctification to Christ’s kingship.69 Regarding the treatment of the doctrines themselves, Calvin draws a stark distinction between faith and works, particularly when attacking his Catholic opponents. At the extreme, he says that “works do not enter the account of faith but must be utterly separated [prorsus separanda].”70 That is not to say that justification and sanctification are separated, for in this case Calvin is referring to works righteousness, not the place of works in sanctification. Again, the simplest way to distinguish justification and sanctification is to note that works have no place in the former and a definite role in the latter. Another point of distinction is the different temporal modes that corre- spond to justification and sanctification, respectively. Werner Krusche identi- fies the “decisive distinction” between justification and sanctification exactly here, that justification is a “complete act” while sanctification is a “progressive happening.”71 Krusche also distinguishes justification and sanctification by noting the quantitative descriptions that attach to sanctification,72 whereas justification receives qualitative descriptions.73 Accordingly, in justification our salvation appears in its completion, whereas sanctification is only ever something completed “by degrees”74 in this life. Distinct passions or feelings
69 See Stadtland, Rechtfertigung, 140–43; Krusche, Wirken, 277. Cf. Wallace, Christian Life, 4–14. Wallace emphasizes the once-for-all sanctification of believers in Christ (p. 12), by which he tends to minimize the difference between justification and sanctification. In all cases, it seems to me that one minimizes that difference when one locates it materially in the distinction of Christ’s offices, rather than in Christ’s two natures or in the Trinitarian difference of Son and Holy Spirit. 70 III.xi.18. The wording is interesting, for it stands in contrast with the formula Calvin often uses to relate justification and sanctification, “distinguished but not separated.” I shall examine this formula below. 71 Krusche, Wirken, 281. See III.xi.11. 72 Krusche, Wirken, 283. A thorough consideration of quantitative categories would require an analysis of Calvin’s frequent use of “in so far as [quatenus]” and its implicit logic, as in: “Since, therefore, no good work comes from us except in so far as we have been regener- ated…” (III.xv.7). 73 See, e.g., Calvin’s rejection of the “Sophist’s” doctrine of repentance, demanding contrition “that corresponds to the magnitude of the offense, and which may balance in the scales with assurance of pardon” and also invoking “doing what is within you” (III.iv.2). Also, III.xi.11: “No portion of righteousness sets our conscience at peace until it has been determined that we are pleasing to God, because we are entirely righteous before him” (emphasis added). 74 I take the phrase from III.ii.33 about the growth of faith, attributed to the Spirit: “For the Spirit is not only the initiator of faith, but increases it by degrees, until by it he leads us to the Kingdom of Heaven.”
75 III.iii.2. Later Calvin says that the “really religious” experience “shame, confusion, groan- ing, displeasure with self, and other emotions that arise out of a lively recognition of sin” (III.iii.15). 76 Indeed, Calvin can say that sanctification, in connection with the Sabbath, is the very opposite of striving: “We must be wholly at rest that God may work in us; we must yield our will…. [W]e must rest from all activities of our own contriving so that, having God working in us, we may repose in him…” (II.viii.29). 77 Wendel, Calvin, 236. 78 On Calvin and Osiander, see Wilhelm Niesel, “Calvin wider Osianders Rechtfertigung slehre,” Zeitschrift fur Kierkengeschichte 46 (1928), 410–30. 79 Calvin typically puts his own position between two extremes. See Battles, “Calculus Fidei,” 85–110.
80 III.xi.11. This point occurs toward the end of Calvin’s critique. Niesel, “Calvin wider Osiander,” follows Calvin’s order sequentially, beginning with Calvin’s need to differenti- ate his understanding of union with Christ from Osiander’s. I think the order of my expo- sition, while altered, is both fair to Calvin and more efficient, moving from theocentric to Christocentric principles. It also accords better with my later constructive proposals. 81 III.xi.6. Otherwise sympathetic, Niesel, “Calvin wider Osiander,” 425, notes that Calvin wrongly accuses Osiander of “blocking out” imputation. In Calvin’s defense, he briefly notes that Osiander does not intend “to abolish freely given righteousness,” but has “enveloped it in such a fog as to darken pious minds” (III.xi.5). 82 III.xi.7; see also Niesel, “Calvin wider Osiander,” 428f.
“forces a gross mingling of Christ with believers.”83 Nor can faith, as Osiander would apparently have it, be the site of a substantial union with Christ, that is, one that would amount to making us really righteous, since faith is only an empty vessel and “instrument” (xi.7). Besides these differences on the Trinity and anthropology, Calvin employs the distinction of justification and sanctification as a significant diagnostic of Osiander’s errors. Again, Calvin begins with a concession to Osiander’s point that God does not just pardon but also changes the vices of the believer: “As Christ cannot be torn in two, so these two which we perceive in him together and conjointly are inseparable [inseparabilia]—namely, righteousness and sanctification” (xi.6). On analogy to the relation of heat and light from the sun, these two have a “mutual and indivisible connection [connexio].” Nevertheless, “reason itself [ratio ipsa] forbids us to transfer the peculiar qualities of the one to the other.” He continues:
Osiander mixes that gift of regeneration with this free acceptance and contends that they are one and the same. Yet Scripture, even though it joins them, still lists them separately [utrunque coniungens distincte tamen enumerat], in order that God’s manifold [multiplex] grace may bet- ter appear to us.
Calvin elaborates in Section 11, using language that I find highly significant: “The grace of justification is not to be separated [separari] from regeneration, although they are things distinct [distinctae].”84 This claim may seem to say little, since it is not immediately clear where the line is drawn between distin- guishing and not separating. Nonetheless, with these words Calvin has invoked a rich legacy of dogmatics. He cannot be unaware of the similarity of his lan- guage to that originally found in “Definition of the Faith,” issued by the Council of Chalcedon in 451 ce.85 In these Chalcedonian terms Calvin finds the correct grammar to judge soteriology. Thus, he returns to the same formula in
83 III.xi.10. Calvin notes that this difference on the Spirit as the agent of union carries over into differences on the Eucharist, as Osiander believes that Christ is eaten in substance. 84 Translation altered. 85 However, Calvin’s typical formula, “distinguished but not separated,” does not correspond exactly to the language of Chalcedon: “in duabus naturis inconfuse, immutabiliter, indivise, inseparabiliter.” Norman P. Tanner, S.J., ed. Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils vol.1 (London: Sheed & Ward and Georgetown University Press, 1990), 86. Stadtland, Rechtfertigung, 211, briefly indicates that Calvin might have learned from Zwingli, Bullinger, and Oekolampadius in his use of this formula for describing justification and sanctification.
86 III.iii.5 (where he adds the pair, “magis coniungi…quam confundi”); III.iii.21; III.xi.6. 87 See below; Niesel, Calvin, 247–48, is to my knowledge the first interpreter to note this. 88 Niesel, Calvin, 247–48, sees the formula as indicating the Christocentric character of Calvin’s theology. Venema, Accepted and Renewed, 137–49, sees the formula confirming the centrality of the union with Christ. Krusche, Wirken, 277, says much the same, empha- sizing the relation of Priestly and Kingly offices against Paul Jacobs. Stadtland, Rechtfertigung, 129, notes primarily the Christological connection of this language, but also the connection of Christ and Spirit. Benjamin Charles Milner, Jr., Calvin’s Doctrine of the Church (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1970), 191, is the clear dissenter, if less than persuasive, find- ing that it is the relation of Word and Spirit, “not the two natures of Christ, which stands behind his distinctio sed non separatio.” 89 But for an argument as to why skipping prayer may be unwise, see Jae Sung Kim, “Prayer in Calvin’s Soteriology” in Calvinus Praeceptor Ecclesiae, ed. Herman Selderhuis (Geneva: Librairie Droz, 2004); a helpful treatment of the duplex gratia at work in III.xx is found in Billings, Calvin, Participation, and the Gift, 108–16. 90 See Wendel, Calvin, 263–284, for a reliable explanation of the development of Prede stination through the editions of the Institutes.
91 III.xxi.1. There are three different reasons given in the immediate context. One is that grace of election is heightened by contrast with reprobation. The second is that election ensures that salvation is unmerited. The third is that election grounds the permanence of our salvation amid troubles and fears. Cf. the way the three reasons are identified in Institutes, 922, footnote 4. 92 Cf. III.xxiv.8, where Calvin identifies only two kinds of call. 93 “The very inequality of his grace proves that it is free” (III.xxi.6). 94 III.xxii.10. 95 Of course, it has already been made clear that faith and perseverance are gifts of the Holy Spirit. One way to interpret predestination, I believe, is that Calvin is transferring the explanatory principle from the Spirit to the Father, but Christ remains central in predes- tination as well. 96 Worth noting is the way that the most individual-oriented part of Calvin’s soteriology cor- responds to the strongest picture of God’s autonomy.
97 Hence the focus on calling, justification, and sanctification as, respectively, “testimony,” “sign of manifestation,” and “marks” of election (III.xxi.7). 98 It is clear that the distinction of general and special election in Israel applies to the church of today: “Although the voice of the gospel addresses all in general, yet the gift of faith is rare” (III.xxii.10). 99 “The advancement of every man in godliness is the secret work of the Spirit” (III.xxiv.13). 100 So in the case of III.xxi.7, the question of why the outer Word is not effective is answered by reference to sanctification: “It is easy to explain why the general election of a people is not always firm and effectual: to those with whom God makes a covenant, he does not at once give the spirit of regeneration that would enable them to persevere in the covenant to the very end” (emphasis added). See also Calvin’s interpretation of the parable of the wedding banquet, where the message about the one who comes without a wedding gar- ment applies “to those who enter the church on profession of faith but not clothed with Christ’s sanctification.” (III.xxiv.8). 101 To be sure, Calvin stresses seeking election in the Word, but “this does not prevent believ- ers from feeling that the benefits they receive daily from God’s hand are derived from that secret adoption…” (III.xxiv.4). 102 See the uncomfortable discussion of faith and perseverance in III.ii.11-12. The bulk of these sections comes right out of Calvin’s 1555 letters in reply to Laelius Socinus; see E. David Willis, “The Influence of Laelius Socinus on Calvin’s Doctrines of the Merits of Christ and the Assurance of Faith” in John A Tedeschi, ed. Italian Reformation Studies in
Now what is the purpose of election but that we, adopted as sons by our Heavenly Father, may obtain salvation and immortality by his favor? No matter how much you toss it about and mull it over, you will discover that its final bounds still extend no farther. Accordingly, those whom God has adopted as his sons are said to have been chosen not in themselves but in his Christ (III.xxiv.5).
Much like growth in sanctification, then, the seeking out of our adoption in God’s eternal decree both goes beyond but also remains tethered to our justifi- cation in Christ. We receive our salvation in and through faith, yet faith remains correlated with hope for what we have not yet received—above all, for the final resurrection with which Calvin concludes Book III. Book IV supplements the account that has thus far been centered on indi- vidual soteriology, according to which salvation is granted by the mercy of the Father, revealed in Christ, possessed in a growing union with Christ by the
Honor of Laelius Socinus (Firenze: Felice Le Monnier, 1965), 234. We do not have Socinus’ original questions, but they pushed Calvin to articulate some difficult issues. Thus in III. ii.11, Calvin admits that “experience shows that the reprobate are sometimes affected by almost the same feeling as the elect, so that even in their own judgment they do not in any way differ from the elect.” Cf. III.xxiv.7: “Yet it daily happens that those who seemed to be Christ’s, fall away from him again, and hasten to destruction.” See my article, “Negative Experience in Calvin’s Institutes and its Systematic Consequences,” Journal of Religion 93:1 (2013): 41–59. 103 “Satan has no more grievous or dangerous temptation to dishearten believers than when he unsettles them with doubt about their election, while at the same time he arouses them with a wicked desire to seek it outside the way” (III.xxiv.4). While Calvin blames the troubles that predestination causes on a “willful desire” to endanger oneself, he admits that those not tempted in the above way are “rare.” Cf. xxiv.6, where, by the very warnings of Christ and Paul, “anxiety about our future state steals in.” The tension is resolved back to the promises in Christ: “Christ has freed us from this anxiety….”
Interrogating Calvin’s Soteriology for Coherence
The foregoing sketch of soteriology in the Institutes has followed the main top- ics in the order Calvin gives them, staying mostly with his own language and concepts, and mostly withholding critical concerns. For a number of reasons, Calvin does not emphasize possible points of logical tension or contradiction. Naturally, he sought to present his own views in a harmonious way; he was not a dialectical stylist. Furthermore, the Institutes, as explained above, is intended for the practical use of the Christian church and the training of its ministers. It therefore lacks the intentional foregrounding of issues of coher- ence that one finds in a scholastic text like Aquinas’ Summa Theologica.106 Yet many interpreters and critics have keenly pointed out such logical problems. This section examines as many of these points as possible. The ultimate goal, to be taken up in Chapters 4 through 6, is to show that setting Calvin’s soteriology
104 IV.i.20. See also Wallace, Christian Life, 195–205. 105 Calvin qualifies the role of sacraments as against the word of justification (IV.xiv.14). But he says of baptism: “Our faith receives from baptism the advantage of its sure testimony to us that we are not only engrafted into the death and life of Christ, but so united to Christ himself that we become sharers in all his blessings” (IV.xv.6). As for the Lord’s sup- per, Calvin stresses the metaphor of feeding and strengthening, with reference back to the sacrificial basis of Christ’s work. “Godly souls can gather great assurance and delight from this Sacrament; in it they have a witness of our growth into one body with Christ such that whatever is his may be called ours” (IV.xvii.2). If Book II emphasizes the extra nos work of Christ, Book IV balances it with an emphasis on the in nobis effect of the union with Christ. 106 That is, in Thomas’ method, contrary questions are posed at each step and assessed, in keeping with the scholastic method of disputation.
107 III.xiii.3. Cf. III.xiii.3. 108 III.ii.22–27.
109 “Both are attained by us through faith” (III.iii.1). See also III.xi.11, and Wallace, Christian Life, 23. 110 I will discuss Willy Lüttge’s presentation of this critical point below. 111 See the distinction between proprietas and possessio that Oberman thinks crucial for understanding Luther’s doctrine of justification, “Luther and the Scholastic Doctrines of Justification,” in Dawn of the Reformation, 121–22 and 125. This may well be the central point on which Calvin’s doctrine also turns; the problem is how to make sense of and justify the distinction. 112 Stadtland, Rechtfertigung, 113–14, makes much the same point about the “objective, foren- sic justification” on one hand, and the benefits of “communion with Christ” on the other. 113 Ibid., 119. 114 He poses them together in II.ix.3: “I admit, indeed, that in believing Christ we at once pass from death to life…. [Yet] we enjoy Christ only as we embrace Christ clad in his own promises…. Now these two things agree rather well with each other: we posses in Christ all that pertains to the perfection of heavenly life, and yet faith is the vision of good things not seen.”
115 Krusche, Wirken, 281. 116 At least one text confirms the “once for all”: “Because the Lord by his own mercy has adopted them once for all, and keeps them continually [adoptavit semel, et perpetuo tue- tur]” (III.xvii.6). 117 See III.ii.19. 118 Wallace, Christian Life, 12. 119 I suggested above that III.xiv.7 permits this reading. 120 See Stadtland, Rechtfertigung, 203.
In this case, Calvin runs the risk of subsuming the foundational act of justifica- tion to the process of sanctification. As we have seen, however, Calvin rejects the notion of looking to works as a foundation for confidence, since all works in the flesh are forever tinged with sin. For its part, sanctification presents different guises as well. On one hand, it seems to be a free gift that is wholly accomplished by God.121 One might infer that sanctification is experienced passively. Yet, more typically, Calvin empha- sizes that repentance and sanctification is a matter of striving, even a war- fare.122 The believer must apply “his whole effort to the practice of repentance” (III.iii.1); mortification is “a very hard and difficult thing” (iii.8). In this latter case, sanctification seems to be a demand made on the believer; appropriately, Calvin reclaims a role for the law in sanctification. He even goes as far as to reclaim the notion of a conditional covenant, which implies that the righ- teousness of justification could be lost by a failure of sanctification: “Indeed, in all covenants of his mercy the Lord requires of his servants in return upright- ness and sanctity of life….”123 In sum, in the words of Wallace, “Sanctification is not only a gift to be received, but is also a demand laid upon us.”124 These questions at least suggest that Calvin’s various statements do not cohere in an immediately obvious way. One method for proceeding would be
121 The best passages on this are found in III.xv, where Calvin is arguing against the Catholic notion that justification allows us to pursue merit in our works. Calvin responds: “As soon as you become engrafted into Christ through faith, you are made a son of God, an heir of heaven, a partaker in righteousness, a possessor of life; …all the merits of Christ…are com- municated to you” (xv.6). And: “Since, therefore, no good comes forth from us except in so far as we have been regenerated, but our regeneration is entirely and without exception from God, there is no reason why we should claim an once of good works for ourselves” (xv.7). See also xv.5. These passages are emphasized by those who subsume soteriology to participation in Christ, as in Julie Canlis, Calvin’s Ladder: A Spiritual Theology of Ascent and Ascension (Grand Rapid: Eerdmans, 2010), 111–12. 122 See Leith, John Calvin’s Doctrine of the Christian Life (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1989), 117, on the “paradox of relaxation and intensity of effort.” Cf. Susan Schreiner, The Theater Of His Glory : Nature and the Natural Order in the Thought of John Calvin (Durham: Labyrinth Press, 1991), 101–103. Marcel’s account begins with passive sanctifica- tion and proceeds to active; see Marcel, “Relation,” 137–39. Jean Cruvellier, “La théologie Calviniste et la notion de sanctification,” La revue réformée 38:4 (1987), 2, juxtaposes three principles of sanctification in Calvin that also apply here: “(1) La sanctification est un grace; (2) La sanctification est une lutte; (3) La sanctification est une réalité.” 123 III.xvii.5. Just after he adds, “nonetheless the covenant is at the outset drawn up as a free agreement, and perpetually remains as such.” 124 Wallace, Christian Life, 28. “Christian life” concerns mostly sanctification but also treats justification.
125 See John Leith, “Calvin’s Theological Method and the Ambiguity of His Theology,” in Articles on Calvin and Calvinism: The Organizational Structure of Calvin’s Theology. vol. 7 ed. Richard Gamble (NY: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1992), 112, who asserts that Calvin’s “formal Biblicism” is a source of distortion. 126 See Billings, Calvin, Participation, and the Gift is a recent fine attempt; I find that his cen- tering Calvin’s theology on participation inevitably eclipses forensic justification, despite a valiant attempt to include it, and on sanctification favors the accomplishment of the Spirit over striving, as on pp. 107–8. 127 Wallace is particularly skilled at this kind of both/and interpretation. Typically he begins a section with something like this: “There is a sense in which we may be said to possess [the fruits of Christ’s resurrection] fully here and now by faith, through communion with Christ.” The next section adds the necessary amendment: “Nevertheless, as long as we live in the flesh, our participation in the resurrection of Christ is severely limited.” Wallace, Christian Life, 82–3. Venema, Accepted and Renewed, 137–45 simply takes the distinction and the non-separation of justification and sanctification in turn. 128 Stuermann, Faith, divides Calvin on faith principally between the “cognitive” and “sal- vific” sides. Pitkin, Pure Eyes, uses many two-fold structures, particularly the two-fold knowledge of God in creation and redemption. 129 Wallace, Christian Life, v (Foreword).
Calvin distinguishes clearly between justification and sanctification. It must not be imagined, however, that these could ever be separated in reality. They are distinct, but they can be separated the one from the other only in thought, but never in experience.131
Stadtland begins by noting the “bipolarity” of justification and sanctification, and suggesting that their unity is found in the doctrines of election, church, and faith. When he later presents justification and sanctification “in their different systematic relations,” he centers the discussion on the union with Christ. By means of the union, Calvin is able to overcome “das unverbundene Nebeneinander,” the unrelated juxtaposition of justification and sanctification seen in Melanchthon.132 An organic relation of the two is Calvin’s goal.133 One could say that Wallace finds the unity of justification and sanctification extra nos in Christ, whereas Stadtland, along with Krusche, finds it in the union with Christ; but this comparison would require much nuance. Willy Lüttge’s work on Calvin has been the source of much wrestling with the unity of Calvin’s doctrine of justification, and sanctification inevitably comes in as well.134 This particular controversy, helpfully relayed by Stuermann, will serve as a bridge to my own constructive proposals. Lüttge observes an apparent contradiction between justification as imputation and justification through union with Christ. These two concepts of justification can be found side-by-side in Calvin.135 On a more focused point, Lüttge sees Calvin using
130 Ibid., vi. 131 Ibid., 25–6. See also John Leith, Christian Life, 96: “Justification and sanctification are two parts of one complex whole which, for the sake of analysis, must be separated but which in actual life are indissolubly united”; Venema, Accepted and Renewed, 138, 142: “Though justification and sanctification are conceptually distinct, they are inseparable in reality.” These terms, being imported into Calvin, carry significant metaphysical presupposi- tions—perhaps even a mind/body dualism—that need to be theologically examined. 132 Stadtland, Rechtfertigung, 83; see also 129. 133 Ibid., 131. Krusche, Wirken, 279, says as much, adding that Calvin learns the notion of an “organischen Verbindung” from Bucer. 134 Willy Lüttge, Die Rechtfertigungslehre Calvins und ihre Bedeutung für seine Frömmigkeit (Berlin: Reuther und Reichard, 1909), esp. Kapitel 2. I will rely on the review of Lüttge in Stuermann, Faith, 180–87, and Venema, Accepted and Renewed, 150–52. 135 Stuermann, Faith, 181, cites Lüttge’s reading of III.xi.1 and 2.
The cause of our justification is the sacrifice of Christ, the justice of which is imputed to us. The means, through which this justice that is imputed to us becomes ours, is the mystical union with Christ, the result of which union is our regeneration. Where is the contradiction?137
Stuermann calls this resolution “fallacious,” since by it justification is compre- hended under the mystical union. Imputation therefore seems superfluous. Stuermann also sees in Doumergue a confusion of justification and regenera- tion, “which Calvin was so anxious to avoid.”138 Building on the work of Simon Pieter Dee,139 Stuermann constructs his own interpretation, though providing no further exegesis of Calvin. His interpreta- tion, it seems to me, is based on some sort of ordo salutis (a sequence of salva- tion). Faith effects the union with Christ, according to Stuermann, and “this results in a renewal of life; but this consideration is to be left aside when one is concerned with justification.” In relying solely on God, faith “first of all results in our guilt not being imputed to us. And second, since Christ and his righ- teousness live in us through the unio mystica, Christ’s righteousness is imputed to us.”140 Stuermann maintains that “Justification…is for Calvin a purely foren- sic term,”141 and therefore the union must be understood via imputation: “Calvin’s idea seems to be that Christ lives in us by faith without our possessing him.”142 Stuermann’s solution relies on a sharp, analytic distinction between
136 Lüttge, Rechtfertigungslehre, 43, cited in Stuermann, Faith, 181. 137 Émile Doumergue, Jean Calvin, les homes et les choses de son temps, v. 1 of La pensée reli- gieuse de Calvin (Lausanne: Georges Briedel et Cie, 1910), 275, cited in Stuermann, Faith, 182 (my translation). 138 Ibid., 182. 139 Simon Pieter Dee, Het Geloofsbegrip van Calvijn (Kampen: J.H. Kok, 1918). 140 Stuermann, Faith, 184. 141 Ibid., 186. 142 Ibid., 185. Cf. footnote 111, above, on the distinction between possessio and proprietas drawn by Oberman.
143 The result is a definition that is not very convincing: “The creature is justified, not because he is anything or possesses anything, but simply because Christ dwells in him; and God, out of his mercy, decides to consider him as if he actually were the possessor of that per- fect righteousness,” ibid., 186. 144 Commenting on III.xi.10, Stuermann (ibid., 191–92) says: “The terms communion and par- ticipation, which after all imply some definite response [or] contribution on the part of man, really seem to have no place in the discussion of this matter. Inasmuch as they are used by Calvin, all that one can say is that he has redefined them so as to preclude their carrying any idea of a positive contribution of man in the unio mystica.” See the critical response by Shepherd, Nature and Function of Faith, 230–31, whose doggedly Christocentric reading cannot itself account for the nuances in Calvin. 145 Stuermann, Faith, 385. 146 See Pitkin, Pure Eyes, 9–40; 134. Pitkin’s main effort is to follow Calvin’s extension of faith from its initial soteriological center to the two-fold knowledge of God in creation and redemption. As a result, she does not extensively treat the union with Christ in its soterio- logical significance.
A Two-fold Interpretive Proposal
What is similar between Doumergue and Stuermann is that while each ini- tially recognizes logical tensions more explicitly than Calvin himself does, they both seek to resolve the tension into a central concept: respectively, the union with Christ and forensic justification. I fear that they too quickly attempt to dispel the difficulty. My alternative proposal, inspired by Lüttge, is first to accentuate the tension and thereby acknowledge it to the fullest extent. I believe Lüttge’s question is best left open. Otherwise, the tendency of modern academics will be to tidy up Calvin’s texts, making a clear, logical doctrine that inevitably constricts the diversity of his soteriological claims. By restructuring Calvin’s doctrine along the lines of a properly theological and therefore more complex logic, my constructive work in the later chapters will recognize genu- inely diverse sides of soteriology, including forensic justification and the union with Christ, while maintaining some sense of doctrinal unity. Lüttge wishes to claim contradiction in Calvin; yet it is difficult to show that the diversity is tantamount to contradiction. Still, I wish to employ Lüttge for heuristic purposes to confront the genuine diversity implicit in Calvin’s soteri- ology. To this end, I begin by positing two possible headings for Calvin’s doc- trine of salvation in the Institutes, “forensic justification” and “union with Christ,” each of which suggests a complete and consistent account of salvation.147 To choose either one to the exclusion of the other, however, would require abstract- ing one consistent, logical explanation from the texts in which both versions often appear intermingled or side-by-side.148 Each version consistently con- nects the various concepts, including both justification and sanctification, but in a distinct manner. For that reason, either version could conceivably stand alone, although I believe that the Institutes will not permit an interpretation that excludes one in favor of the other. Under the “forensic” heading, justification is approached via the metaphor of the sinner standing before God’s “judgment seat.”149 The fundamental prob- lem is God’s wrath at humanity and thus at the individual sinner. Justification
147 There have been many attempts to analyze Calvin and interpretations of him into various dichotomies. Mine runs close to the recent posing of “legal” and “anti-legal” schools in J. Todd Billings, Calvin, Participation, and the Gift, 22 et passim. 148 The brief signal of the two versions appearing side-by-side is seen in his definition that justification “consists in the remission of sins and the imputation of Christ’s righteous- ness” (III.xi.2). See also Stadtland, Rechtfertigung, 114. 149 Calvin invokes this metaphor most decisively in III.xii. The effect is to focus on justifica- tion as the individual’s relationship to God as to a judge.
150 See Calvin’s classic definition of faith in III.ii.7. This definition sits in proximity with the strong sense of union with Christ in III.i.1. See also Calvin’s reply to Osiander’s claim that faith only justifies because it substantially unites with Christ: “We say that, properly speaking, God alone justifies; then we transfer this same function to Christ because he was given to us for righteousness” (III.xi.7). Cf. Stuermann’s fundamental distinction between faith as a “cognitive transaction” and a “saving transaction.” 151 Calvin typically wants a justification that brings with it certainty and permanency. Cf. the following passage, which seems to say otherwise: “The moment we turn away even slightly from [Christ], our salvation, which rests firmly in him, gradually vanishes away” (II.xvi.1). Note that this passage shows an inconsistent logic, juxtaposing “the moment that [simu- lac]” with “gradually [sensim].” 152 II.xv.6. Later in that section, Calvin adds that Christ in the priestly role not only assures us of God’s mercy, but “receives us as his companions in this great office.” One could associ- ate this second function with the union with Christ. 153 See Mark C. Mattes, The Role of Justification in Contemporary Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 187. 154 This line of reasoning is rare in Calvin: “God wills to be freely worshipped, freely loved… [W]e have been freed from sin to cultivate righteousness with a free spirit” (III.xvi.2); “the remembrance of [God’s] benefits will, nevertheless, amply suffice to arouse such persons to well-doing…. [God] forbids anything being given as if ‘grudgingly or of necessity’ [II Cor. 9:7]!” (III xvi.3). Most of all, in the chapter on Christian freedom: “But if, freed from this severe requirement of the law…they hear themselves called with fatherly gentleness by God, they will cheerfully and with great eagerness answer, and follow his leading.” See also Wallace, Christian Life, 34.
155 Calvin makes the point in an unusually strong way in III.xvii.5: “Indeed, in all covenants of his mercy the Lord requires of his servant in return uprightness and sanctity of life….” 156 Christ here is a mediator of divinity and humanity, “in such a way that his divinity and our human nature might by mutual connection grow together” (II.xii.1). Furthermore, the Son of God “took what was ours as to impart what was his to us, and to make what was his by nature ours by grace” (II.xii.2). This form of mediation is aligned with the Incarnation and is demonstrated more in Christ’s righteous obedience than in his sacrificial death. 157 See Bruce McCormack, “What’s at Stake in the Current Debates Over Justification?” in Justification: What’s at Stake in the Current Debates eds. Mark Husbands and Daniel J. Treier (Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 2004), 101–102. 158 For instance, Billings, Calvin, Participation, and the Gift emphasizes throughout the “miraculous exchange” between Christ and believer over the free pardon of the Father. 159 This could account for the odd occasions when Calvin uses “imputation” as if a transac- tion: “We are justified before God solely by the intercession of Christ’s righteousness. This is equivalent to saying that man is not righteous in himself but because the righteousness of Christ is communicated to him by imputation” (III.xi.23, emphasis added). The rest of that section could be read as jamming together the two versions I am proposing. On Calvin’s similar use of transferro and transfundo, see Stuermann, Faith, 185–86.
160 “God the Father gives us the Holy Spirit for his Son’s sake, and yet [tamen] has bestowed the whole fullness of the Spirit upon the Son to be minister and steward of his liberality” (III.i.2). 161 “Do you wish, then, to attain righteousness in Christ? You must first possess Christ; but you cannot possess him without being made partaker in his sanctification, because he cannot be divided in pieces” (III.xvi.1). 162 E.g., “[Faith] justifies in no other way but in that it leads us into fellowship with the righ- teousness of Christ” (III.xi.20). 163 In III.xiv.12, Calvin begins with what sounds like the forensic version and supplements it by the union with Christ: “I reply that ‘accepting grace’, as [the Schoolmen] call it, is
Restructuring Calvin’s Soteriology under a Governing Architectonic
In the constructive chapters below, my main task will be to offer a reorganiza- tion of Calvin’s soteriology. While dialectical, my version still offers a continu- ous path, rather than merely shuffling two irreducible versions together. My reorganization remains faithful to Calvin to the extent that it finds a coherent place for most of his diverse texts on justification and sanctification. Having amplified the problem of coherence in Calvin’s soteriology, I can now specify the brief outline of the soteriological structure presented in Chapter One:
1. Justification is singularly determinative of salvation 2. Justification and sanctification differently (though not equally) comprise salvation 3. Salvation in practice involves the interfusion of justification and sanctifi- cation
nothing else than his free goodness, with which the Father”—note the transition— “embraces us in Christ when he clothes us with the innocence of Christ and accepts it as ours that by the benefit of it he may hold us as holy, pure, and innocent. For Christ’s righ- teousness, which as it alone is perfect, alone can bear the sight of God, must appear in court on our behalf, and stand surety in judgment. Furnished with the righteousness, we obtain continual forgiveness of sins in faith” (emphasis added). Despite the strong pres- ence of the forensic metaphor, here faith does not seem to be a belief in God’s acceptance, but the state of being united with Christ. So in this passage about accepting grace, are we justified because God “accepts” Christ in our place—that is, we are displaced by Christ— or because we appear differently because we have received Christ’s righteousness? (Or it is because God “accepts” that we appear differently?) Are we or are we not in the court- room when Christ takes the stand?
Each of these is a “moment” (in the Hegelian sense to be explained in the next chapter) of Calvin’s soteriology. Moments are parts of a whole, and so are “dis- tinct but not separated”; yet they should not necessarily be considered equal parts. Indeed, the formula of “distinct but not separate” is most at home in the second moment, which constitutes the dialectical center of soteriology. Still, the dialectic captured in the second moment is not an evenly balanced polar- ity, for justification remains, in a way I will later investigate, “foundational” for sanctification. For their part, the first and third moments show an interesting parallel as extremes. The first moment presses the boundaries of distinction such that sanctification is entirely marginal and “separate,” even invisible; and yet as separate, sanctification has a tendency to be immediately sublated or incorporated into justification, meaning the two are no longer distinct.164 Conversely yet similarly, the third movement pushes the boundary of “non separatio” such that justification by faith no longer seems to be a distinct real- ity in soteriology; yet since sanctification entails integration and overcoming of opposition, this same moment tends to exhibit sanctification in its distinc- tion. In either case, an excess of either distinction or non-separation calls for its opposite. The result is that both the first and third moments are unstable and call forth the others, especially the second. For all these reasons, there is one appropriate axiom to this dialectic, though it involves a word play: the most effective reading of Calvin’s soteriology “works through” the differ- ence between justification and sanctification.165 Consequently, one must move through the moments, since they cannot be simultaneously asserted nor resolved one into another. Nor is this motion a progressive, teleological march forward, since the third moment re-incorporates the first, as I will show. Considered most formally, abstractly, and logically, the three moment pattern allows for both a genuine differentiation of justification from sanctifi- cation (in keeping with forensic justification), yet also the possibility for over- coming that difference (as does the union with Christ). The logical oddness of this pattern will occupy the remainder of my investigation. Justification and sanctification do not simply form a balanced pair of opposites. Justification can be considered in itself, and thus as unrelated to sanctification. Yet in some ways the second moment enhances the singularity of justification by explicitly distinguishing it from sanctification. Conversely, sanctification cannot be con- sidered in itself, but the more one does take account of it, the less distinct from justification it appears. When considered abstractly, there is no neutral
164 I shall thoroughly explore this possibility at the beginning of Chapter 5. 165 That is, soteriology is enabled by the difference and at the same time works out the differ- ence to find a unity.
Pure being and pure nothing are, therefore, the same. What is the truth is neither being nor nothing, but that being—does not pass over but has passed over—into nothing, and nothing into being. But it is equally true that they are not undistinguished from each other, that, on the contrary, they are not the same, that they are absolutely distinct, and yet that they are unsepa- rated and inseparable and that each immediately vanishes in its opposite.1
From the moment that one questions the possibility of such a transcen- dental signified, and that one recognizes that every signified is also in the position of a signifier, the distinction between signified and signifier becomes problematical at its root…. [N]or is it a question of confusing at every level, and in all simplicity, the signifier and the signified. That this opposition or difference cannot be radical or absolute does not prevent it from functioning, and even from being indispensable within certain limits—very wide limits.2
Theography and Philosophies of Difference
Attending to the Chalcedonian logic—or pattern, or structure—of “distinct but not separated” (or “not confused”), which I argued plays a persistent role in Calvin’s theology and perhaps Christian doctrine generally, offers a potent orien- tation to systematic theology. But it promises other fruit as well, by which theol- ogy can make a contribution to interdisciplinary discussion: a wide-ranging comparison between the abstract structure of Christian doctrine and the abstract logic, structures, or patterns that animate other fields of thought—so long as one is mindful of what theological particularities are left out of this abstractive comparison and seeks to recoup them elsewhere. Particularly
1 G.W.F. Hegel, Hegel’s Science of Logic, trans. A.V. Miller (New York: Humanity Books, 1999), 82–83. Since Hegel employs emphasis so frequently, I will reproduce his emphasis using ital- ics; if and when I add emphasis, I will use underlining, as I have done in this citation. 2 Jacques Derrida, Positions, trans. Alan Bass (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), 20.
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3 See David Duquette, “Kant, Hegel, and Possibility of Speculative Logic,” in George di Giovanni, ed., Essays on Hegel’s Logic (Albany: SUNY Press, 1990), 3: “The separateness of the concepts is denied or abolished, but their distinctness is nonetheless preserved.” 4 It is often said that modern philosophy turned to the subject—consciousness and percep- tion—while twentieth century philosophy turned to language. Hegel and Derrida suggest a further turn to academic textuality as the starting point for philosophy.
Hegel, Derrida, and their philosophical relationship. I do not attempt a conclu- sive interpretation to the exclusion of all others; but I employ a lens that is plausible as well as novel: both thinkers can be seen as yielding profound meditations on academic textuality as a medium of truth. While both inhabit academic discourse with exemplary reflexivity, neither engages in academic navel-gazing. Rather, their reflexivity is a reflection of the expansive scope of their questions about truth and language. Both possess a fundamental logic with a consistent, architectonic structure that permits each to pay philosophical attention to the particularities of academic text and institu- tion within a universal scope of concern while maintaining an integrated and comprehensible approach. This architectonics inspires my theography. Theography cannot indulge in academic reflexivity as an end in itself; the result easily becomes a hall of mirrors, feeding an endless and vain need for new reflection and new writing. Properly done, reflexivity only dwells within academia and its text-practices deliberately and sufficiently enough to know how to pass beyond academia, allowing for a responsible return to first-order (practical) theology: dogmatics, homiletics, catechesis, liberative praxis, etc. But this methodical exceeding of the bounds of academia is also called for because theology, like the philosophies of Hegel and Derrida, addresses a real- ity that extends beyond the academy. By virtue of both its object and its duty to the church, theography must escape the academy—in both senses of overflow- ing its confines from within and fleeing academic entrapment. Hegel and Derrida help identify two strategies for this escape. Like Hegel, theography may attempt to speak with a finality that obviates further dis- course; it may write the absolute. In this way it enacts an end—though perhaps a Sabbath rather than a “death,” “destruction,” or “overcoming (Aufhebung)”—to the endless production and consumption of academic texts. But like Derrida, and in apparent antithesis to Hegel, theography must also write in such a way that finality always escapes the text; it must always defer its claim to truth. In this way theography registers the vanity of, borrowing Derrida’s word, the logocentric endeavor to comprehend truth within an aca- demic text. Either strategy, taken alone, would still confirm one or the other aspects of Wissenschaft: Hegel leaves in tact its vaunted dominion; Derrida, its self-justifying endlessness. If this brief assessment is correct, deploying both strategies is requisite. Theography must somehow combine them. But “strategizing” in this way against the dominion of academic texts sug- gests that one is desperately obsessed with overcoming academia in way that both concedes its self-importance and also fails to appreciate its gifts and to use them appropriately. A third approach toward academic writing does not seek to overcome or delimit but to overflow its academic confinement. Chapter 6
Hegel’s Absolute Academic Text
One can scarcely imagine a more architectonic thinker than Hegel. If this alone were the point of interest, any or all of his works could be employed. They are all ordered by the same doggedly consistent philosophy of difference, variously put: “The living Substance is…in truth actual only insofar as it is the movement of positing itself, or is the mediation of self-othering within itself.”5 My choice to employ Hegel’s 1812 Wissenschaft der Logik (Science of Logic) for a theologi- cal project, rather than his more evidently theological works, is admittedly unusual.6 For this project, Hegel’s interpretation of religion does not interest
5 G.W.F. Hegel, Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A.V. Miller (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), 10 (§18). 6 Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Wissenschaft der Logik, ed., E. Moldenhauer and K.M. Michel, 2 vols, Werke in zwanzig Bänden, vols. 5, 6 (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1969); G.W.F. Hegel, Hegel’s Science of Logic, trans. A.V. Miller (New York: Humanity Books, 1999); less important for my purposes is G.W.F. Hegel, The Encyclopedia Logic (with the
Zusätze), trans. T.F. Geraets, W.A. Suchting, H.S. Harris (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1991). I will refer to the principal work as the Logic for short, or WL and SL to specify the German and English versions, respectively, and EL for the Encyclopedia. For a more typical theological use of Hegel, see Peter Hodgson, God in History: Shapes of Freedom (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1989). 7 The EL, which Burbidge characterizes as a series of “still-lifes” of concepts essential to thinking, intended as a lecturing textbook, falls short of the WL’s achievement of present- ing the unity of movement that ties all the concepts together. See John Burbidge, “Hegel’s Conception of Logic,” in F. Beisar, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Hegel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 94. 8 SL, 592, emphasis reproduced. 9 See the account in Terry Pinkard, Hegel: A Biography, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 92–93, which places Fichte in a prominent role alongside Kant, Schleiermacher, Goethe, and Schiller. Cf. the account in Jeffrey Reid, “Hegel and the State University: The University of Berlin and Its Founding Contradictions,” The Owl Of Minerva 32:1 (2000), 5–20. 10 See Thomas Howard, Protestant Theology and the Making of the Modern German University (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 29 and 140: “The new ideology [of Wissenschaft] did not sever the tasks of scholarship and teaching; …the scholar should be able to bring the fruit of research to the lecture hall.” Von Humbolt’s vision for the University of Berlin
stressed lectures more than publications for the dissemination of the latest research; see Pinkard, Hegel, 427. 11 Pinkard, Hegel, 85–87. 12 SL, 67–68; he returns to the justification of the beginning in 839–42. I am convinced by the argument made by William Maker that the Phenomenology of Spirit establishes a “self-sublating presupposition for a presuppositionless science.” See William Maker, “Beginning,” in George Di Giovanni, ed., Essays on Hegel’s Logic (Albany: SUNY Press, 1990), 27–44. 13 “In no science is the need to begin with the subject matter itself, without preliminary reflection, felt more strongly than in the science of logic,” SL, 43; see also 78, the conclud- ing comment on the introductions: “These preliminary, external reflections about [the beginning] were not so much intended to lead up to it as rather to eliminate all prelimi- naries.” Cf. Derrida’s preface, “Outwork,” in Jacques Derrida, ed. Dissemination, trans. Barbara Jordan (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), 3–59. 14 SL, 43. He nonetheless refers back to his definition of science from the Phenomenology of Spirit, for instance, in §800: “Systematic science appears only when Spirit has achieved a purely conceptual self-consciousness and can reduce all objectivity to Concepts, and so see itself in them” (Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, 486). 15 SL, 49.
For my purposes, then, the Logic represents a certain maximized literary or generic ideal. Building on recent interpretations stressing the linguistic nature of the Logic, I see this Hegelian centerpiece as staging the most exalted achieve- ment for the academic book: a book that is “presuppositionless,” developing its content strictly internally, and as such presenting within its pages the totality of truth of all possible thought. Never before or since has a book so claimed to attain such “objective thinking.”16 And nowhere does the apotheosis of the aca- demic book take clearer shape than when Hegel claims that the Logic provides an exposition of God “in his eternal essence.”17 Since not all philosophers and even fewer theologians have read the Logic, a general description of its contents is in order. Prima facie, the Logic consists in prefaces from the first and second editions (1812 and 1831), an introduction on the general idea of the logic and its organization, and then a progressive expli- cation of a series of concepts,18 interrupted only occasionally by digressive “remarks.” On Hegel’s account, the principle of selection for these concepts as well as their ordering is strictly internal, that is, developed within the text by the progress of “the dialectic.” The beginning concept, Being, is justified both in the introduction of Book I and retrospectively in the concluding chapter on the Absolute Idea; beyond that, every concept that appears is supposed to arise necessarily from the previous one.19 While Hegel throughout maintains this linear development, much more prominent is the division of the Logic into the three major parts: Being, Essence, and Concept, each discussed below. Eschewing linear metaphors, Hegel calls the method a “circle returning upon itself,” or “moreover a circle of circles.”20
16 SL, 49; see also Jeffrey Reid, Real Words: Language and System in Hegel (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007), 5. 17 SL, 50. Such language does not prove that the Logic is a theological book. 18 Technically speaking, the “Concepts [Begriffe]” are said by Hegel to be implicitly the one Concept explicated in the Logic’s third part. Considered outside of this inner unity, each concept is technically called by Hegel a “form-determination [Formbestimmung].” See his comments on the Formbestimmtheit on SL, 825 (WL, II, 550). 19 Hegel concludes an introductory discussion of his dialectical method with this statement: “It is in this way that the system of Concepts as such has to be formed—and has to com- plete itself in a purely continuous course in which nothing extraneous is introduced” (SL, 54). He admits that the concepts are embedded in ordinary language (SL, 31) and critically treats previous philosophical uses of the concepts, most often in the remarks. He is aware, in other words, of a hermeneutical dimension to his task; seen in this light, his is a re-interpretation the concepts as opposed to a generating them from nothing. 20 SL, 842. Howard Kainz has carried this phrase forward with an intriguing series of dia- grams of the circular patterns in the Logic. See Howard Kainz, Paradox, Dialectic, and
The concepts covered include some of Aristotle’s categories (quality, quantity, essence), others which parallel Kant’s judgments and categories (universal-particular-singular, limitation, causality, reciprocity, possibility- actuality-necessity), and still others which pertain to relating and synthesizing concepts or propositions (identity-difference- contradiction, the types of judg- ments and syllogisms).21 All of these recognizably pertain to the standard sub- ject matter of logic, although Hegel departs from standard orders of treatment, sometimes explicitly so.22 More perplexing are the final sections on Objectivity and the Idea, which contain concepts that have never belonged to classical treatments of logic: mechanism, chemism, teleology, life, the true, the good, and the Absolute Idea. Yet these are said to have arisen out of the earlier train of concepts. How each concept is described and analyzed is even more puzzling. He dis- cusses ordinary-sounding concepts by means of a technical vocabulary that redefines each concept according to Hegel’s own purposes. Consider his defini- tion of a concept like “Causality”:
The absolute actuosity [Aktuosität] is thus cause—the power of sub- stance in its truth as manifestation, which immediately also expounds- or-explicates [ist…auslegt] that which is in itself [an sich], that is, the acci- dent (which is a positedness), in the becoming of the latter, posits it as positedness—as effect. This is therefore first, the same thing as the acci- dentality of the relation of substantiality, namely, substance as posited- ness; but secondly, accident as such substantiality is only through its vanishing, as something transitory; but as effect, it is positedness as self-identical; the cause is manifested in the effect as whole substance, namely, as reflected into itself in the positedness itself as such [als an dem Gesetzsein selbst als solchem in sich reflektiert].23
This passage demonstrates two traits of Hegel’s Logic, beyond its near illegibil- ity. First, the definition of cause (specifically here “formal causality”) is con- cerned to show its outgrowth from the concept whose treatment preceded it—in this case, Substance (specifically, “the relation of substantiality”). It does
System: A Contemporary Reconstruction of the Hegelian Problematic (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1988), 95–107. 21 For a more thorough list of sources for the topics in the Logic, see Michael Inwood, A Hegel Dictionary (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992), 268–69. 22 See SL, “Introduction.” 23 SL, 558–59 (WL, II, 223).
24 There are four figures of the syllogism, and only two subheadings to the idea of cognition, within which the idea of the true has two further subheadings. The popular scheme of “thesis-antithesis-synthesis” is of little use in interpreting the Logic. 25 While these headings are clearly all materially significant, one should note that Hegel regards all such headings as imposed by the author’s prior understanding, in order to “promote an understanding beforehand” for the reader (SL, 59). 26 See John McCumber, The Company of Words: Hegel, Language, and Systematic Philosophy (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1993), 19–20. McCumber’s rejection of all meta- physical readings seems forced, however. 27 Clark Butler, Hegel’s Logic: Between Dialectic and History (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1997), 3 is the most explicit example: “I propose that the Logic is about definitions of the absolute by pure thought.…” The account in Charles Taylor, Hegel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975) is one of the most multi-faceted studies, yet still lays a heavy stress on Hegel’s absolute ontology. Hence he sees the development of the whole completed in principle at the early stage of the Infinite (ibid., 346–47) and frequently translates Hegel’s arguments into deductions from the necessity of Spirit being embodied (see e.g. ibid., 232, 344–45).
28 See the “Hartman school” as represented in H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr. and Terry Pinkard, eds., Hegel Reconsidered: Beyond Metaphysics and the Authoritarian State (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1994). Cf. Frederick Beisar, “Hegel, A Non-Metaphysician? A Polemic Review of H T Engelhardt and Terry Pinkard, eds., Hegel Reconsidered,” Bulletin of the Hegel Society of Great Britain, vol. 32 (1995), 1–13. 29 Hegel notes that “the science of logic constitutes metaphysics proper or purely specula- tive philosophy” (SL, 27). 30 SL, 28; on how forms of thought are “displayed and stored in human language,” see SL, 31 (“Preface to Second Edition”). 31 SL, 27. 32 The reflexivity is notable in especially the “Determinations of Reflection” (SL, Book Two, Ch. 2) and is described in so many words by Burbidge, “Hegel’s Conception of Logic.” 33 SL, 28.
34 See Burbidge, “Hegel’s Conception of Logic,” 99. 35 SL, 35. 36 SL, 31. The analysis in McCumber, Company of Words, 15ff. is interesting but tendentious.
37 SL, 839.
Moments of the Absolute Idea
I. Objectivity as Being “The Objective Logic” is the first main division of the Logic, and is itself divided between the Doctrine of Being and the Doctrine of Essence.38 The famous first chapter39 recounts the first dialectical movement that proceeds from Being, through Nothing, and thence to Becoming. Hegel begins with Being (Sein) since it is the most indeterminate of concepts—“Being is indeterminate imme- diacy.” Being offers itself as a singular, catch-all category, inclusive of whatever can be thought. Thus it appears to be without need of another category (“it has no diversity within itself nor any with a reference outwards”); that is, it appears to possess the formal relationality of self-subsistence. Although Being is meant to be simply what it is, or self-equal, it is only thus by an absence of determination. Considered only as a concept, it would not be equal to itself if it contained a distinction within it, or something that can dis- tinguish it from another. Reflexively considered, Being represents the nature of thought as “pure intuiting,” if one can speak thus, and as such is “empty think- ing.” In either case, Being is empty, or “is in fact nothing.” Hegel means that what is named as Being, the absence of determination, cannot be distinguished from Nothing (Nichts). Nothing, the second concept, is likewise “complete emptiness, absence of all determination and content.” It is thus “altogether the same as pure being.” They are the same; yet they are not the same, for they are even “absolutely dis- tinct”—obviously they are two different words, but there is nothing (literally) in their content to stabilize that difference. Instead, each “vanishes” into its opposite as soon as it is thought. “Their truth” is therefore to be found in their self-movement that Hegel later calls the “unrest of incompatibles.”40 This self- movement is “becoming [Werden], a movement in which both are distin- guished, but by a difference which has equally immediately resolved itself.” To summarize: reflexively, or within the realm of thought, “being” becomes the
38 Hegel is uncannily forthright in admitting that these divisions are given provisionally “in so far as the author is already familiar with the science” (SL, 59). 39 SL, 82–83. 40 SL, 91.
41 This is still a becoming of pure thought, still more abstract than actual time. 42 SL, 105. Hegel does not use the term “state” here, and italicizes the entire sentence. 43 “The unity of Being and Nothing now forms…the basis and element of all that follows,” (SL, 85, cf. 111), i.e., all of the consequent concepts will be more concrete forms of the as yet completely abstract synthesis of Being and Nothing. In short, affirmation and negation are never separated in the Logic; moreover, the sequence of their interaction determines the structure of the whole work. So, for instance, being and immediacy characterize Book I, but negation dominates in Book II on Essence (SL, 397). On a smaller scale, “Dasein” is said to place the “accent on being,” (SL, 111), while “Finitude” accents the negative. 44 SL, 122. 45 Each concept has something of this reflexivity, but one sees it most clearly in particular moments, such as the derivation of the infinite from the finite, or of contradiction from difference under Essence.
46 SL, 107. 47 Hegel borrows this word from mechanics, not from temporality; see Inwood, Hegel Dictionary, 311. 48 SL, 121–22. 49 Taylor, Hegel, 243.
II. Objectivity as Essence The Essence of a thing is not what it immediately is (quality), nor is it, like quantity, a determination that is external and indifferent to the thing. As the opposite of Being, Essence begins with negation; thus the immediate surface is only the appearance-or-illusion (Schein—“a (mere) show”50) that is “posited” by the inner essence. At least in its beginning, the immediate surface is equiva- lent to the nothing that Being, in its ultimate failure and self-negation, showed itself to be; what is real is Essence, although at first Essence is just the negation of the immediate or Being.51 As the Essence section progresses, Essence takes on a more positive relation—true “relativity”52—to its exteriority; put differ- ently, it begins to heal its rift with Being, such that Essence explains the exte- rior, and the exterior is the appearance of Essence. Thus Hegel follows Essence through a variety of ever-more reciprocal pairs of Concepts: the Thing and its Properties, Law and its Appearance, Whole and Part, Outer and Inner, the Absolute and its Modes, Necessity and Possibility, and finally Cause and Effect. When Cause and Effect show themselves to be in fact reciprocal, Essence passes over into the Concept. Thus Essence as a whole enacts the transition from Objectivity to Subjectivity. This self-development of Essence is complex; yet for the present purposes one can understand Essence as simply representing a distinct class of formal rela- tionality. The forms of Essence leave behind the singular, serial forms of Being for a true relationality. Each concept contains a constitutive “negativity,” so that its own identity points beyond itself to another (what Hegel calls “positing”); thus concepts of Essence tend to occur in pairs. While their relationality is initially
50 Findlay and others translate Schein as “show” or “semblance.” Miller, unfortunately, uses “illusory being.” 51 SL, 397. 52 SL, 384.
53 Thus Hegel considers both skepticism and Kantian nescience of the thing-itself under Schein (SL, 396). 54 SL, 409; see also Paul Owen Johnson, The Critique of Thought: A Re-examination of Hegel’s “Science of Logic” (Aldershot: Avebury, 1988), 97. This treatment of the rules of classical logic is odd, no doubt, and has led to disagreements over whether Hegel is rejecting these rules. See for instance Kainz, Paradox, Dialectic, and System, 19–21; Errol E. Harris, Formal, Transcendental, and Dialectical Thinking: Logic and Reality (Albany: SUNY Press, 1987). Against David Duquette’s perhaps careless version of this interpretation, Terry Pinkard vigorously maintains Hegel’s friendliness toward ordinary logic. (See “A Reply to David Duquette,” Essays on Hegel’s Logic, 16–24.) While Pinkard knows ordinary logic better than many Hegel interpreters, I do not find his argument persuasive, particularly in the cita- tions which ground his case. 55 SL, 407.
Despite this appearance of quality-like independence, Hegel believes these rules “mutually sublate themselves.”56 Both Identity and Difference, mirror- ing the initial structure of Essence, involve a negation of each other that seems to result in simple, non-relational identity. Thus they appear to be external or indifferent to one another, a state Hegel calls Diversity. But Hegel shows that Identity and Difference are in fact complexly interdependent; each is a negation of its other. Likewise, Diversity must yield to comparisons of like and unlike.57 So Diversity gives way to Opposition, in which terms like identity and difference, like and unlike are themselves seen as co-constituted opposites, so that each term contains opposition in itself. It is only a short step to see each opposite as a Contradiction in itself between self-identity and relationality. The Determinations of Reflection are critical for my project. Particularly significant is the way the Logic pushes beyond simple difference and diversity. The whole project of the Logic could be terminated at Diversity, with its recognition that the world contains many different realities, each iden tical with itself and different from all others—not only distinct but also separate—with no intelligible unity behind or beyond them. At this point the book would terminate, and the text would yield itself in deference to the infi- nite diversity of the exterior world. In terms of soteriology, one might conclude that justification and sanctification are simply different, this difference being an irreducible given of doctrinal grammar. And with that, second-order discourse would give way to first-order discourse or practice.58 As I will consider below, Derrida will in a sense want to stall the dialectic precisely here. He agrees with Hegel that categories like identity and difference are mutually constituted, and each term of language arrives at itself through a kind of differential system.59 But for Derrida there is no rising above this rest- less difference to a higher term that would circumscribe and rationalize it. The neologism Derrida chooses, différance—itself arbitrary and “strategic”— deliberately lacks a fixed identity. Thus there is no way to complete the text, nor can its borders be secured; for the same reason, life and text, discourse and action merge into one another.
56 SL, 411. 57 SL, 423. 58 These terms are borrowed loosely from George Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age (London: SPCK, 1984). 59 Hegel seems to anticipate Derrida on SL, 438: “It is of the greatest importance to perceive and to bear in mind this nature of the reflective determinations we have just considered, namely, that their truth consists only in their relation to one another….”
Of course, in following the march of the dialectic onward, Hegel is not denying the reality of Diversity.60 The thought of diversity exists and has an intelligible and therefore relatively justifiable basis, just as diverse objects exist without any apparent intelligible unity.61 Yet Hegel is convinced that the very concept of Diversity implies Contradiction, and therefore the Logic cannot throw up its hands in the face of an external world of diverse things. Thought must proceed to look for a better account of the diversity by treating the non-immediate Essence as Ground. And from there, thought proceeds to consider ever-more mutual relations between the essential and the unessential, all of which prove to be unsta- ble. Finally the perfect structure by which opposition can be contained in an encompassing identity is not to be found in Objectivity, but only in the operations of thought itself.
III. Subjectivity: The Doctrine of the Concept Having considered an exhaustive range of concepts about objective reality, the Logic arrives at last at the Concept itself: thought thinking about itself, hence “subjectivity.” The reflexivity that has been implicit in the Logic here comes into its own, for now thought is directly examining its own most fundamental operations. Here at its architectonic heart the Logic considers the concept according to a threefold structure: the Universal Concept [der allgemeine Begriff ], the Particular Concept [der besondere Begriff ], and the Individual [das Einzelne]. These are not three different concepts, for difference and unity are here configured in the most protological way: all the concepts considered in the Logic find here the basic principle of their distinction and unity. Under Being, concepts attempted but failed to assert themselves singularly; under Essence, they posited themselves into relational pairs, but with unstable results. At last, the Logic finds that the concepts have organized themselves into a system of universals and particulars that includes all other concepts as moments. In effect, the Concept is the Universal, Essence is the Particular, and Being is the Individual—except that the Concept includes all three and accounts for both their unity and difference. In other words, with the Concept the Logic has finally found the architectonic principle for ordering an
60 “That everything is different from everything else is a very superfluous proposition” (SL, 422). 61 Hegel concedes that nature, in which one genus has myriad species, “cannot adhere to and exhibit the strictness of the Concept and runs wild in this blind irrational [begrifflos] multiplicity” (SL, 607).
62 SL, 621. See also EL, 241 (addition 2). 63 Thus Hegel can apply the Concept to forms of life sharing the same formal relationality, that is, those that maintain themselves through relation to what is other: “Life, ego, spirit, absolute Concept” (SL, 605). EL, 17 (Preface to Second Edition): “The Concept is the understanding both of itself and of the shape without Concept….” 64 While genus and species are a primary instantiation of the Concept, invoking the genus- species relationship jumps the gun by displaying the Universal as a determinate relation to something more particular. 65 SL, 601.
Universal “takes its other within its embrace, but without doing violence to it.”66 The Universal thus freely determines itself as the Particular, in the way a genus does to a species. The following passage is key:
The universal determines itself, and so is itself the particular; the deter- minateness is its difference; it is distinguished only from its own self. Therefore its species are only (a) the universal itself, and (b) the par- ticular. The universal as the Concept is itself and its opposite, and this again is the universal itself as its posited determinateness; it embraces its opposite and in it is in union with itself. Thus it is the totality and principle of its diversity, which is determined wholly and solely by the universal itself. [¶] Therefore there is no other true logical classifica- tion than this, that the Concept sets itself on one side as immediate indeterminate universality; this very indeterminateness constitutes its determinateness or makes it a particular. Each of them is the particular and is therefore co-ordinate with the other. Each of them as a particular is also determinate as against the universal, and in so far can be said to be subordinate to it. But even this universal, as against which the par- ticular is determined, is for that reason itself merely one of the opposed sides.67
Thought only happens because relationality is instantiated in particular relations of universal and particular—as in the genus “mammal” in relation to “cat.” But in the prototypical instance that Hegel describes, the Universal itself becomes a Particular Concept by being distinguished from the Particular. This mind-bending transformation, in which the Universal becomes itself precisely by becoming its other, illustrates Hegel’s often repeated rule: “Each of these moments is no less the whole Concept than it is a determinate Concept and a determination of the Concept.”68 The Particular is the Universal Concept, but in its moment of self-differenti- ation. Considered in itself, the Particular is the “abstract universal,” which is what is “usually meant” when people talk about concepts as mere abstractions. In its differentiation, that is, the Concept gives rise to the possible form of a mere concept, a particular concept taken in separation from its universal matrix. Hegel describes the Particular as having the form of universality but
66 SL, 603. 67 SL, 606–607. 68 SL, 600; the rule is invoked again on 612, 619, and 621.
69 SL, 608. 70 SL, 610–11. 71 SL, 622. 72 The first way of understanding the Individual is not very clear in Hegel; I am taking my cues from Hegel’s positive assessment of the role of the understanding with regard to the Abstract Universal (SL, 611–12). See also SL, 622: “The Concept is itself this abstractive process, the opposing of its determinations is its own determining activity.” The EL’s sim- plified treatment of the Concept lacks this development of the Abstract Universal. 73 Hegel, Phenomenology, 58–66 (§90–110). Hegel’s argument there, quite importantly, relies on the inability to write the truth of a pure intuition of an indexical, such as “now is night.”
That is, even as the Concept has lost itself through its own inherent self- differentiation, the alienated idea of a pure this still contains the Universal and can be rescued by careful thinking. The rest of the Logic applies the formal relationality of the Concept to more complex forms of reasoning: first to judgments and then conjunctions of judg- ments into syllogisms. Finding necessity in syllogism drives the Logic to pass over into forms of objective existence, and finally to attempts at reconciling thought with objectivity. In all cases the logic of the Concept holds sway: because the Concept is itself in its self-differentiation, it is itself even in self- alienation; yet in its self-alienation the Concept is present as an urge to reunite itself. So the category of mechanistic objectivity is as such posited by the Concept, but also directs itself to more relational forms of objective existence (Chemism, Teleology), and ultimately to Life. Specifically human life exhibits the two sides of the Concept in the dialectic between the Theoretical Idea, where the goal is for the subject to understand objective reality in its difference from the subject, and the Practical Idea, in which the goal is to transform objectivity according to the subjective idea of what ought to be. These two ends sublate themselves in the Absolute Idea, in which it is recognized that objectivity exists for the purpose of being transformed. But the structure of the Concept holds: reality in its self-alienation is posited by the Concept and imbued (“spiritually impregnated”) with the urge to reunite. In its concluding concepts, the Logic has approximated the doctrines of jus- tification and sanctification in both form and substance. Justification resem- bles the Theoretical Idea, a reconciliation with difference as such; and by analogy, sanctification represents the Practical Idea, the urge to transform that which exists according to an ideal. Hegel favors the reconciliation with differ- ence as such, for the ultimate concept, the Absolute Idea, concerns knowledge rather than practical transformation. Calvin, similarly, favors justification over sanctification, but tends to maintain the two concepts in tension. Chapter 4 exploits this analogy to the Absolute Idea in reinterpreting Calvin’s doctrine of justification. Chapter 5 in turn reconsiders why Calvin, in contrast to Hegel’s sublation, maintains a tension between justification and sanctification, and at that point my soteriology begins to depart from Hegel and incorporate insights from Derrida. To play Derrida off of Hegel in this way is not to reach far afield, for the work of Derrida represents one of the most profound encounters with Hegel’s philosophy.
As such, his argument presupposes a certain model of textual rationality. See Jens Brockmeier, “Language, Thought and Writing: Hegel after Deconstruction and the Linguistic Turn,” Bulletin of the Hegel Society of Great Britain 21–22 (1990), 30–54.
Derrida’s Difference from Hegel
Recent theology has employed the work of Jacques Derrida on several occa- sions; most typically, Derrida serves as either a caricatured foil or, rather uncritically, a direct source of inspiration.74 My intention is to employ Derrida both critically and constructively.75 But as with my use of Hegel, I am not inter- ested in appropriating Derrida to reinterpret God or any other theological locus, at least not directly. Derrida is of interest for what he reveals about aca- demic writing; in short, Derrida is a useful guide on the detour of theography. Specifically, Derrida serves as a foil to Hegel, providing an antitype to Hegel’s wissenschaftlich academic text; yet the character of their opposition is complex. I will review Derrida’s critical departure from Hegel with regard to the two junc- tures I have been following: writing and academic institutions. Derrida’s views not only are very different, but are set out explicitly in opposition to Hegel. While their writings couldn’t appear much more contrary, the architectonics of Derrida’s thinking is very close to Hegel, as I shall demonstrate. What then accounts for the dramatically different results in writing? The difference appears to be arbitrary, most likely the effect of their different academic com- mitments and their attendant scholastic ideologies; a thorough and decisive answer is beyond my purview. What the question exposes is that neither has consistently grounded his own scholasticism in an architectonics of difference that can rule out the other’s. Bringing together the Concept and différance thus reveals how the thinking of each can be transmuted into the other, affording a potent critical perspective on each. Yet my goal is not to discount either or both. Rather, the instability of their difference creates an opening for my own soterio- logical architectonics and its concomitant program of institutionally config- ured writing, based on a novel interpretation of the Institutes, that can both synthesize Hegel and Derrida and justify their difference.
Derrida’s Difference on Writing and Academia
Perhaps the entire academic tradition can be viewed as an ever-shifting amal- gam of dialectic, that is, the sorting out of logical conflicts, and commentary,
74 Respectively, particularly renown examples are John Milbank, Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1991); and Mark C. Taylor, Erring: A Postmodern A/theology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984). 75 Exemplars here include David Tracy, Plurality and Ambiguity (University of Chicago, 1987), Walter Lowe, Theology and Difference: the Wound of Reason (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993), and Graham Ward, Barth, Derrida, And The Language Of Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).
76 Derrida, Positions, 41. 77 Derrida, Positions, 77. 78 Derrida, “Outwork,” treated below, comes close, as a long deconstructive meditation on Hegel’s use of prefaces. Jean-Louis Houbedine highlights these comments in his question in Derrida, Positions, 77, prompting an interesting response from Derrida that he cuts short by his reference to an upcoming publication. 79 Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology, trans. G.C. Spivak (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1976), 26. Derrida’s promise to “try to show elsewhere” that Hegel reintroduced the written trace— presumably referring to Hegel’s use of writing in the Phenomenology’s argument against sense-certainty—has been fulfilled more by his interpreters, drawing on some subtle refer- ences in Glas. See John Leavey, Gregory Ulmer, and Jacques Derrida, Glassary (Lincoln: University Of Nebraska Press, 1986), 48, 50. Brockmeier, “Language, Thought and Writing” also rigorously reviews Hegel’s argument against sense-certainty in light of Derrida’s critique.
Derrida thus seems possible, and I attempt as much below, the preponderance of Derrida’s early work defines itself as a wholesale assault on Hegel and every- thing he stands for. Much of Derrida’s criticism takes issue with Hegel over the form and purpose of writing. On the most fundamental level, the status of the sign is in dispute. In his essay “The Pit and the Pyramid: Introduction to Hegel’s Semiology,” Derrida pursues a complex analysis of Hegel’s semiology and psychology, as elaborated in the Philosophy of Spirit; he concludes that Hegel’s semiology continues in the logocentric tradition, seeing the sign as a mere transition from exteriority to interior understanding. The result is a privileg- ing of hearing over seeing, of time over space, and of speech over writing— what Derrida calls “phonocentrism.”80 He also indicts Hegel for espousing a linguistics centered on names, according to which the single word or name “bears the unity of sound and sense in the voice.”81 In these ways Hegel is playing into a metaphysical tradition that seeks presence, knowledge, and control. Derrida’s own understanding of the sign is so radically different that he can only make furtive gestures towards it in this essay, for to put forward a theory of the sign means “already submitting to the profound schemas of the metaphysics of the sign”—that is, an articulated theory is already an attempt at presence, knowledge, and control. With such a radical critique of lan- guage, one can see that, if Derrida has correctly diagnosed the workings and prevalence of metaphysics, a consistent attempt to break out of this system must resort to unconventional writing; thus he mostly stays with critique in this essay. His final challenge to Hegel stems from the observation that Hegel eschews linguistic systems, like that proposed by Leibniz, based on mathematical or formal symbols; this observation prompts Derrida to posit that Hegel’s dialectic could never really comprehend the working of a machine, something that is productive without any kind of interiorization or understanding. The idea of a machine returns to the theme of language, for Derrida suggests that not only Hegel’s system but even language itself is like a machine that generates difference repeatedly without intention or teleology.82
80 See Jacques Derrida, Margins of Philosophy, trans. Alan Bass (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), esp. 88–94. 81 Derrida, Margins, 96. 82 Derrida, Margins, 107. This use of the metaphors of machine and formal calculation seems to diminish in Derrida’s later work; no doubt it served to distinguish Derrida’s cri- tique of metaphysics from that of Heidegger, on whom Derrida is highly dependent, and who is the subject of Derrida’s parting shot in this essay.
There is good reason to think that these critiques are off the mark. Andrew Cutrofello has shown that there is no simple privileging of speech over writing in Hegel.83 Moreover, based on my review of the Logic, the alleged centrality for Hegel of singular names seems belied by the Logic’s development of more complex linguistic structures from out of the simple names that were sublated in the Being section. Indeed, Hegel’s affirmations of the name must be seen alongside his negations of it; the same holds for his affirmation of both deter- minate expressions and polysemia, which seems to confuse Derrida.84 Perhaps Derrida has missed some of the dynamics involved in the dialectical play between analysis and synthesis or understanding and reason. In any event, it seems hasty to insert Hegel into a metaphysical system of semiotics of “a highly general character.”85 To remain at the very general level of “the sign,” and to remain within a critique of “phonocentrism” is, I believe, to miss—and perhaps deliberately to evade—the particularities of Hegel’s (and our) academic textuality, which hardly seems to privilege speech in an ordinary sense. Derrida’s critique becomes more useful, and I believe more accurate and insightful, when it turns to the history and status of the book, in which Hegel again plays a dis- tinctive role. “Tympan,”86 the introduction to the philosophical essays assembled in Margins of Philosophy, begins by rendering problematic the structure of the book itself. The announced concern of “Tympan” is the ten- dency in philosophy, with Hegel’s Aufhebung as its highest exemplar, to assimilate in thought all others to oneself and one’s system of intelligibility (thus the other becomes “the same”). More specifically, Derrida is interested in how one can oppose philosophy when it always wants to assimilate the anti-philosophical into its own medium of thought, reason, argument, and dialectic. This assimilative desire manifests itself in the urgency with which philosophy distinguishes what belongs in its text from what is improper; it is an obsession with “margins,” a word whose metaphorical relation to typog- raphy Derrida exploits. Thus philosophy tries to “master its margin,” that is, justify the integrity of its textual practices; at the same time, it consigns
83 Andrew Cutrofello, “A Critique of Derrida’s Hegel Deconstruction: Speech, Phonetic Writing, and Hieroglyphic Script in Logic, Law, and Art,” Clio 20:2 (1991): 123–37. Less reli- able is the probing of “The Pit and the Pyramid” by Tanja Stähler, “Does Hegel Privilege Speech Over Writing? A Critique of Jacques Derrida” International Journal of Philosophical Studies 11(2), 191–204. See also McCumber, Company of Words, 384 n. 84. 84 He sees “incoherences” and “kettle logic” here (Derrida, Margins, 103–104). 85 Derrida, Margins, 72. 86 Tympaniser means “to ridicule publicly.”
within a totality, and enveloped in a volume or book. … The idea of the book, which always refers to a natural totality, is profoundly alien to the sense of [deconstructive] writing. It is the encyclopedic protection of theology and of logocentrism against the disruption of writing, …against difference in general.89
In other words, despite the appearance of contradiction, the same logocen- trism (and “theology,” in some peculiar sense) that has purportedly privileged speech over writing has also valorized the classic model of the book, because its ideal is to form a totality secured in a reality outside of language. “Writing” in the sense Derrida subscribes to foregoes that security in something outside of language. Years later in Paper Machine, Derrida furthered his analy- sis of the book, gesturing toward a more careful consideration of the eco- nomic and political conditions supporting the book.90 He also explicitly links the book to Hegel: “In speaking of the ongoing ‘end of the book’, …mainly I meant the onto-encyclopedic or neo-Hegelian model of the great total book,
87 Derrida, Margins, xxiv. 88 Derrida, Margins, xxiv. 89 Derrida, Grammatology, 18; it is doubtful, however, that the Renaissance paradigm of the book of Nature has remained undisturbed through the advent of post-Berlin academic research and writing. See also Jacques Derrida, Dissemination, trans. Barbara Johnson (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), 44. 90 Jacques Derrida, Paper Machine, trans. Rachel Bowlby (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005), 5. I believe he should have carried the economic and political analysis fur- ther, as I have tried to do. Instead, he quickly falls back on a non-material analysis, viz., of the etymology of “book” and “bibliothèque.”
91 Derrida, Paper Machine, 15. One can question the validity of making the most extreme variation (Hegel) into a figure tout court for the whole category, although doing so can have a limited utility. 92 Derrida, Dissemination, 3. 93 Ibid., 20. 94 Ibid., 36. 95 “There is nothing but text, there is nothing but extratext, in sum an ‘unceasing preface’,” ibid., 43. Derrida seems to point up the contradiction inherent Hegel’s view of the self- sublating preface, but this would not trouble Hegel, who gladly admits that “everything is inherently contradictory” (SL, 439).
96 See esp. the essays in Stuart Barnett, ed., Hegel after Derrida (London: Routledge, 1998). 97 Derrida’s strategy in “The Age of Hegel” (in Jacques Derrida, ed., Who’s Afraid of Philosophy: Right to Philosophy I, trans. Jan Plug (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002), 117–57) similarly attempts to deflate Hegel’s rationalist façade by exposing his dubious academic politics, using an obscure and unpublished letter of Hegel’s. 98 Kevin Thompson identifies Hegel’s Diversity as that which Derrida intends to cling to as the remains of the dialectic. See Kevin Thompson, “Hegelian Dialectic and the Quasi- Transcendental in Glas,” in Barnett, ed., Hegel after Derrida, 257–58. The critical reading of Derrida in Wendell Kisner, “Erinnerung, Retrait, Absolute Reflection: Hegel and Derrida” Owl of Minerva 26: 2 (1995), 171–86 also pertains to the strategy of the “remains.” 99 In Jacques Derrida, Writing and Difference, trans. Alan Bass (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1978), 251–77.
100 Joseph Flay disputes Derrida’s critique of the Aufhebung, arguing that, in the first place, the Aufhebung has no single general character, and second, it does not govern the entirety of the Phenomenology or Hegel’s system generally as Derrida imagines. See Joseph Flay, “Hegel, Derrida, and Bataille’s Laughter,” in Desmond, William, ed., Hegel and His Critics: Philosophy in the Aftermath of Hegel (Albany: SUNY Press, 1989); see Desmond’s introduc- tion (vii) on the “panlogistic” reading. For several debunkings of the idea that Hegel believes all things are rational, see Jon Stewart, ed., The Hegel Myths and Legends (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1996), 19–49 as well as Hegel’s own comments in EL, 29–30 (§6). That nature can be irrational is attested to in SL, 607: “This is the impo- tence of nature, that it cannot adhere to and exhibit the strictness of the Concept and runs wild in this blind irrational [begrifflos] multiplicity. We can wonder at nature’s mani- fold genera and species and the endless diversity of her formations, for wonderment is unreasoning and its object the irrational” (emphasis reproduced, translation slightly modified). 101 Leavey et al., Glassary, 73 finds a connection between the aigle, aile, and “aleatory” (ran- domness) in opposition to Hegel’s teleological thinking. See also 79, 81.
102 Simon Critchley, “A Commentary Upon Derrida’s Reading of Hegel in Glas,” in Barnett, ed., Hegel after Derrida, 223–24. 103 Leavey et al., Glassary, 29. 104 Leavey et al., Glassary, 23; note the play on “make sense.” Glassary approximates some of the unconventional gestures of Glas by interspersing two essays on Glas, the typography of which is similar, and the page-setting of which is irregular. The effect is often simply confusing and can come off as obscurantist. 105 Leavey et al., Glassary, 23. See also Derrida, Paper Machine, 45: “I tried to play with the surface of paper and also to foil it…. the point was to try to deflect particular typographic norms, including even paper” (emphasis reproduced). 106 Leavey et al., Glassary, 103; 95; see also Jacques Derrida, Points…: Interviews, 1974–1994, ed., Elizabeth Webber, trans. Peggy Kamuf et al. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995), 56: “There is an undue haste—let us call it motivationist to save time—that Glas parodies, puts on stage and in trouble in order to make way for a general elaboration.” 107 “What happens when Hegel’s text is not read, or when it is read badly?” (Derrida, Glas, 227). This reads like a programmatic statement, although in comes in the midst of what looks like a pertinent section. Cf.: “Glas for example is nothing but a long explication of itself” (interview cited by Ulmer in Leavey et al., Glassary, 105, 107). Perhaps Derrida is suggesting a parody of Hegel’s claim to simply explicate the Concept.
108 Andrew Cutrofello, “Derrida’s Deconstruction of the Ideal of Legitimation,” Man and World 23:2 (1990), 162. 109 Ibid., 167–68. This point is unintentionally demonstrated by the self-indulgent repetition and pointless extension of the dissemination of Glas in John Llewelyn, “A Point of Almost Absolute Proximity to Hegel” in John Sallis, ed., Deconstruction and Philosophy (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1987), esp. 93–94. 110 Derrida, Glas, 227. 111 Leavey et al., Glassary, 29, 31. The claim that academic texts embody a “linear” model of discourse should be qualified. Though not as extremely as with Derrida’s split columns, academic texts are already inhabit an intertextual structure through the use of commen- tary and footnotes. Again, while governed by a signature, they weave together many names of others, both critically and constructively. 112 In response to a question on why he wrote Glas and what motivates him as a writer, Derrida, Points, 30–56 touches on important questions of market forces in writing and academia (esp. 46–47). But the opportunity for focused institutional self-reflexivity here is squandered amid an (of course) brilliant cavalcade of deconstructive themes.
To oppose academic writing by more academic writing, however transgressive, may fail to touch the institutional basis of its power. What of the social and institutional conditions of philosophy/Wissenschaft—publishing, credential- ing, etc.? These concerns are not primary for Derrida; he often gestures toward a critique of the economic and institutional substratum of rationalism without either following through or citing the relevant work of others.113 Yet he makes significant headway towards an institutional critique of academia in several essays that deal with the university. Only one of these, “The Age of Hegel,” treats Hegel significantly. Here Derrida, continuing his strategy of critiquing Hegel at the margins rather than head-on, calls attention to a “minor” letter of Hegel that Derrida alleges has been suppressed from the collections of Hegel’s works; the letter indicates to Derrida how Hegel compromised the goals of philosophical education by ally- ing it with the Prussian state.114 What results from this reading is a double anal- ogy between Hegel’s philosophical system, which tends to usurp all exteriority into itself, and both the modern state as well as the university on the Berlin model. The university is thus an “onto- and auto-encyclopedic circle of the State.”115 Attacks on the university, such as those found in Marx, Nietzsche, and Heidegger, are simply absorbed into the “discursive machine.”116 Having cast the university in the image of Hegel’s absolute system, Derrida proceeds to counsel that deconstruction cannot, however, “abandon the terrain of the University,” for to do so would be to invite other political-economic interests to “take over the State and the University.”117 In his brief conclusion Derrida
For example, on pp. 42–43 Derrida lists “the university machine” and “the theoretical machine” among many discourse institutions he takes deconstructive aim at, but in a typical move opts for a general and thus abstracted approach: “One must move toward that which all the belligerent parties…agree to exclude together [emphasis reproduced].” 113 Derrida, Paper Machine, 5; Jacques Derrida, “The Future of the Profession or the University with- out Condition (Thanks to the ‘Humanities,’ What Could Take Place Tomorrow),” in Tom Cohen, ed., Jacques Derrida and the Humanities: A Critical Reader (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 25, 38. Brockmeier, “Language, Thought, Writing,” 48 makes the same point. 114 Derrida, “Age of Hegel,” 135–36. This essay is the only of Derrida’s writings after Glas to center on Hegel. 115 Derrida, “Age of Hegel,” 148. 116 Derrida, “Age of Hegel,” 125. See also “Privilege” in Derrida, ed., Who’s Afraid of Philosophy, 60–61, where Derrida points out that the totalization of university philosophy is hardly affected by critique, e.g. Heidegger’s. 117 Derrida, “Age of Hegel,” 148. Note the odd rhetorical move here, according to which ceding the university would result at once in the loss of the university and apparently the total political loss of the state.
This university [i.e., following the “classic,” European model] claims and ought to be granted in principle, besides what is called academic free- dom, an unconditional freedom to question and to assert, or even, going still further, the right to say publicly all that is required by research, knowledge, and thought concerning the truth.119
While he wishes to trouble the Enlightenment commitments underlying this profession, he confesses that one can do so “only” within the University, within “its space of discussion without condition and without presupposition.”120 This “University without condition” serves here as a kind of Kantian transcen- dental Idea—another version of an “impossible possibility.”121 Were it to exist, despite attempts by governmental, media, corporate, and religious interests or dogma to co-opt it, the University without condition would be synonymous with “the right to deconstruction as an unconditional right to ask critical ques- tions….”122 It is striking that deconstruction seems to stand alone as having this unconditional right; deconstruction would appear to be synonymous with “asking critical questions.” Perhaps this exclusive right is granted because the critical purview of deconstruction includes critique itself—i.e., of “the form and authority of the question.”123 What is surprising here is Derrida’s apparent
118 This classical note is also found in the essay, “Privilege: Justificatory Title and Introductory Remarks,” in which Derrida in a complicated argument discounts the notion that philoso- phy is an immediate right that has no need of academic institution or canon. See Derrida, Who’s Afraid of Philosophy? 22–31. 119 Derrida, “University without Condition,” 24. 120 Ibid, 25. 121 Ibid., 54. 122 Derrida, “University without Condition,” 26. 123 Derrida, “University without Condition,” 26. There are other hermeneutic philosophies that would seem to provide a different way to critique the critical question itself; see Hans Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method (New York: Continuum, 1994), 373–79.
124 However, in “Privilege” (Derrida, Who’s Afraid of Philosophy, 61)—where he also addresses Bourdieu—Derrida acknowledges the “self-authorization” that “defines the autonomous power of the University as philosophy,” only to redirect his critical attention to “the uni- versity side outside the walls of the institution itself: in the allegory or metonymy of the University; in the social body that gives itself this power and this representation.” Much as Derrida elsewhere attends to a general “writing” rather than the particularities of aca- demic discourse, he here remains with a “general” university; this move hampers reflexive academic philosophy. 125 The “most serious” question of the economy of publishing, and the concern that the uni- versity not become self-enclosed are mentioned but passed over (Derrida, “University without Condition,” 25); the audacious demand to preserve “the ancient canons” of the Humanities “at any price” (29) is advanced with no defense. The unconditional right to free research is quickly said to include unlimited deconstructive historical research (29), without considering the greater difficulty of justifying the public relevance of such research. Such moves seem particularly vulnerable to Bourdieu’s critique (see Chapter 1). Derrida responds to some elements of Bourdieu’s critique in Right to Philosophy I, 63–65. 126 Responsibility is not foreign to Derrida’s works. He discusses responsibility in the context of the university in Richard Rand, ed. and trans., Logomachia: The Conflict of the Faculties (Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 1992), 202–204, but this very abstract treatment of the concept of responsibility does not touch upon responsibility as a genre-defining structure. 127 Derrida’s dilating on professing, the “event,” and performative speech in relation to aca- demic sovereignty (e.g. Derrida, “University without Condition,” 34–35) only serves to obscure the processual, indefinite accountability that structures academic discourse, as I argued in Chapter 1. His emphasis falls more on academic freedom. 128 Derrida, “University without Condition,” 53–55 takes up the impossible-possible (but familiar in his work) “event” that could “put to rout the very authority that is attached, in the university, in the Humanities.” Yet he affirms that one “would have to make arrive” this “unconditional” in the Humanities (see my later comments on the “Absolute” in Derrida).
Effectively, he is contesting the self-enclosure of the Humanities while all the more affirming the Humanities: “One thinks in the Humanities that one cannot and must not let oneself be enclosed”—would that the Humanities were only passively self-enclosed!— “within the inside of the Humanities. But for this thinking to be strong and consistent requires the Humanities.” 129 Derrida, “University without Condition,” 27–28, also 55–56. Of course, Derrida does not mean to justify academia in its actual separation from the non-academic. His theme of “profession” is meant to deconstruct the difference. By the end of the essay (56), he signals that he has sufficiently disturbed this barrier in his own discourse: “I especially do not know what status, genre, or legitimacy the discourse has that I have just addressed to you. Is it academic?” 130 A peculiar ambivalence towards the institutional place of “philosophy”—surely he has in mind specifically deconstruction—is expressed by Derrida in the form of an “antinomy”: “D’une part, nous jugeons normal d’exiger des institutions à la mesure de cette discipline impossible et nécessaire.” But on the other side, “La Philosophie excède ses institutions…. Il lui est licite de rompre tout engagement institutionnel. L’extra-institutionnel doit avoir ses institutions sans leur apparetenir” (Jacques Derrida, “Les antinomies de la discipline philosophique: Lettre preface,” in La Grève des philosophes: école et philosophie (Paris: Osiris, 1986), 15). Here deconstruction at a minimum has an unquestionable right to institutional support; at a maximum, it has no responsibility or accountability to its institutions. 131 See Jason Powell, Jacques Derrida: A Biography (London: Continuum, 2006), 116–18; Jacques Derrida, Who’s Afraid of Philosophy? ix–x (translator’s note).
132 See Derrida’s description of these efforts, with reference to Hegel, in Lisa Appignanesi, ed., Postmodernism: ICA Documents (London: Free Association Books, 1989), 211–14. 133 See Derrida’s call for “fundamental” (non-goal-oriented) philosophical research to remain at the center of the College Internationale de Philosophie in ibid., 213–15. Even more reveal- ing are the questions by Geoffrey Bennington and others that press Derrida on this front (217–28), recorded along with Derrida’s responses. See also Powell, Derrida, 156–57.
134 According to the otherwise sympathetic Richard Rorty, “Deconstruction and Circum vention,” Critical Inquiry 11:1 (1984), 3: “The claim, shared by Heidegger and Derrida, that the ‘ontotheological’ tradition has permeated science, literature, and politics—that it is central to our culture—is a self-deceptive attempt to magnify the importance of an academic specialty.”
135 See Derrida, Positions, 90–96, where, in the face of a challenge from Marxist position- oriented praxis, Derrida affirms that the “theoria/praxis” opposition can no longer govern
his “definition of practice,” but he several times asserts the need for extensive if not inter- minable analysis: “There is no effective and efficient position, no veritable force of rupture, without a minute, rigorous, extended analysis, an analysis that is as differentiated and scientific as possible” (94). In effect, this is to say that overcoming the praxis/theory divide requires an interminable scientific analysis, thus an interminable remaining in the aca- demic text. 136 “Writing structurally carries within itself (counts-discounts) the process of its own era- sure and annulation, all the while marking what remains of this erasure, according to a logic very difficult to summarize here” (Derrida, Positions, 68).
The Difference between Concept and Différance
Derrida’s work is not architectonic in the same explicit way that Hegel’s is; Derrida does not write a logic.139 Nonetheless, his work proceeds according to a consistent logical structure, and this structure permits a close comparison with Hegel. Like many commentators, I find the essay “Différance” congenial to exemplifying this structure because it works within a discourse about con- cepts, though of course disrupting this type of discourse from within. Derrida makes it clear that one will find in différance no foundational concept upon
137 See Powell, Derrida, 16–120, 150–52, 156–58, 185, 212–14. 138 See Derrida’s too-brief comments on the Concept in Derrida, Dissemination, 31 and 48, where he reiterates what some call the “panlogistic” fallacy. 139 See Derrida, Dissemination, 52: “Seminal dissemination does constitute itself into a pro- gram, but it is a program that cannot be formalized. For reasons that can be formalized.”
140 Derrida, Margins, 7. 141 Derrida, Margins, 27. 142 Derrida takes a great interest in Heidegger’s ontological “difference” and how “différance” may differ from it. See esp. Derrida, Margins, 23f. 143 While différance “makes possible the presentation of the being-present, it is never pre- sented as such” (Derrida, Margins, 6). 144 This is my own term that contains an appropriate and at least three-fold polyvalency: transcendental “condition of the possibility”; that which conditions or impinges upon; and finally a malady, a physical and mental disorder. This word play is faithful to Derrida’s resistance to putting différance in a broader category, and lodges it both within and out- side of philosophical categorization. 145 Rodolphe Gasché, The Tain of the Mirror: Derrida and the Philosophy of Reflection (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986), 146ff. 146 Derrida, Margins, 24.
147 The French nominative “différence” means precisely the same as in English, without equivocation. 148 Derrida, Margins, 9. 149 Derrida, Margins, 11. 150 Derrida is quite conscious of this paradox. He acknowledges that using philosophical explanations implies a “metaphysical” legacy: “We ought to demonstrate why concepts like production, constitution, and history remain in complicity with what is at issue here. But this would take me too far today…and I utilize such concepts, like many others, only for their strategic convenience and in order to undertake their deconstruction at the cur- rently most decisive point” (Derrida, Margins, 12). Quite consistently, he defers from defining différance in the systematic completeness that theory would demand. 151 Derrida, Margins, 13.
The translation would be, as it always must be, a transformation of one language by another. I contend, of course, that the word différance can also serve other purposes: first, because it marks not only the activity of “originary difference,” but also the temporizing detour of deferral; and above all because différance thus written, although maintaining relations of profound affinity with Hegelian discourse (such as it must be read), is also, up to a certain point, unable to break with that discourse (which has no kind of meaning or chance); but it can operate a kind of infinitesimal and radical displacement of it….153
That is, to read différance into Hegel is a way to mark that wherever Hegel, with plausibility, sees a dialectical advance arising from difference, which in the Logic leads to contradiction, one can equally see a deferral—a kind of stall in the dialectic. On Derrida’s reading, Hegel can only see in this deferral “the economic detour which…always aims at coming back to the pleasure or the presence that has been deferred by (conscious or unconscious) calculation.”154 At this point Derrida is reprising the argument made in Glas and “From Restricted to General Economy.” I considered above whether that argument was premised upon a simplistic, totalizing reading of Hegel. Several scholars, moreover, have analyzed Derrida’s critical but furtive intervention in the Logic’s Essence section, particularly at the transition from difference to contradiction; the consensus is that Derrida’s attention to this locus comes at the price of a fuller understanding of the Logic’s complete course.155
152 Koyré is dealing with the Jena Logic. In WL, Hegel uses “unterschieden” and its cognates rather than “differente.” 153 Derrida, Margins, 14. 154 Derrida, Margins, 19. 155 Kevin Thompson, “Hegelian Dialectic and the Quasi-Transcendental in Glas,” in Barnett, ed., Hegel after Derrida, 239–59; Kisner, “Hegel and Derrida,” 171–86; Karin de Boer, “Différance as Negativity: The Hegelian Remains of Derrida’s Philosophy,” in Stephen Houlgate and Michael Baur, eds., A Companion to Hegel (Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2011), 594–610. The article by de Boer, unfortunately taking no account of the similar work
Instead of substituting différance for Hegel’s differente Beziehung, a more productive crossing of Hegel and Derrida is suggested by Kisner’s article: dif- férance and the Concept. The two terms can even be substituted within their respective texts. First, différance may be substituted for the Universal in Hegel’s text. Like the Universal, différance “does not seem capable of any explanation.”156 Différance, congruous with my description of the Universal, may be said to be relationality that is never present as such, for it always instantiates itself in particular differences without being present as such in them. Moreover, dif- férance/the Universal is indicated by the deconstruction of purportedly fixed differences; just so, Hegel’s derivation of the Concept from the failure of con- cepts of Being and Essence may be said to involve a necessary “deconstruction” of attempts at self-presence. That is, différance/the Universal is both active and passive, both origin and result—and beyond these binaries. Furthermore, the definition of différance/the Universal involves a deferral of its presence, begin- ning with the Particular and Individual. Indeed, by the time Hegel finishes his exposition of the Concept, he has completed what sounds like a deconstruc- tion: “It is self-evident that each determination made in the preceding exposi- tion of the Concept has immediately dissolved itself and lost itself in its other. Each distinction is confounded in the very attempt to isolate and fix it.”157 This deferral proceeds, in a sense, through the whole array of concept pairs in phi- losophy exhibited in the Logic, and indeed through the infinite expanse of real- ity. Of course, despite this impressive congruence, Hegel organizes the “dissemination” of the Universal much more definitively, hierarchically, and teleologically than Derrida would. The Logic is its definitive, triumphant expression of reality in abstract thought, and is complete as the foundational volume for Hegel’s system. Yet is all this vaunted achievement inherent in the Universal, or has it been imposed by Hegel’s commitment to a certain genre of text as befits a certain institutionalization of academic discourse? In other words, is this order necessitated architectonically or is it the effect of Hegel’s scholastic ideology?
of Kevin Thompson, runs closely parallel to my comparison of différance and the Concept, except she chooses “absolute negativity” to facilitate a better comparison with Hegel. The Concept seems to me to be a more valuable textual locus in Hegel; Kisner’s article sug- gests likewise. She also points out that Derrida follows his teacher Jean Hyppolite, who placed the transition from difference to contradiction at the center of the Logic. 156 SL, 601. This is said because the Universal is “simple,” but Hegel seems to deconstruct the notion of simplicity, for “the simplicity which constitutes the very nature of the universal is such that, through absolute negativity, it contains within itself difference and determi- nateness in the highest degree.” 157 SL, 620.
In the opposite direction, the Universal can be substituted for différance in Derrida’s texts. Surprisingly, Derrida’s one definition for différance, cut short, may be said of the Universal: “the non-full, non-simple, structured and differ- entiating origin of differences.”158 The Universal/différance, which, as was shown, generates both true and false concepts,159 is the condition for and undoing of both truth and falsity. The Universal/différance allows one to “posit presence” (or the self-subsistency of concepts of Being) “no longer as the abso- lutely central form of Being but as a ‘determination’ and ‘effect’.”160 The Universal/différance is both a differentiating and a deferral of itself, as noted above.161 In other words, it is a key element in a differential system of signs in which there are no “positive terms.” Indeed, Derrida provides a virtual program for the Universal:
Thus one could reconsider all of the pairs of opposites on which philoso- phy is constructed and on which our discourse lives, not in order to see opposition erase itself but to see what indicates that each of the terms must appear as the différance of the other, as the other different and deferred in the economy of the same….162
Again, however, what justifies Derrida in reducing all pairs of opposites to an “economy of the same,” the economy of logocentrism allegedly so recalcitrant and omnipotent that its deconstruction becomes a boundless imperative, and as boundless, justifying also the appropriation of the university as a perfor- mance space? Is this again a reflection of scholastic ideology? Placed side by side, the architectonics of relationality seen in the Concept and différance are not so different. Différance is designed as a self-dissembling
158 One can, however, find notes of simplicity and fullness in Hegel’s text on the universal. But “simplicity” should be taken in a sense particular to Hegel. Cf. SL, 829: “For this reason too there is nothing, whether in actuality or in thought, that is as simple and as abstract as is commonly imagined.” 159 Hegel takes pains to derive the abstract universal, which is false, from the true universal Concept. However, it seems that there could be no abstract universal without the “subjec- tive impotence of reason” which holds abstract universals as fixed. It is unclear to me how much credit for abstract universals should go to arbitrary human error. 160 Derrida, Margins, 16. 161 That is, the Concept “is essentially a determining and a distinguishing….” Hegel, of course, sees this as the “pure relation of the Concept to itself,” and the language of self-identity can sound quite the opposite of différance: “[The universal] possesses the power of unal- terable, undying self-preservation” (SL, 602). 162 Derrida, Margins, 17.
163 I believe Hegel consciously and ingeniously plays on “the Concept” being both a proper name for the central moment of Book III, and a genus for all the concepts treated through- out the logic, especially but not only the universal, particular, and the individual. This play ensures that the center of the Logic remains embedded in its totality. 164 SL, 601 (emphasis reproduced). 165 SL, 603. Hegel believes he is justified to speak of the Universal because the failure of Being and Essence has pointed the way to it. Yet that is not so different from Derrida’s strategic justification of invoking “différance” in critique of philosophy, since Hegel believes all philosophical error comes from becoming stalled in the realm of Being or Essence. 166 My agenda is thus similar to Simon Lumsden, “Dialectic and Difference,” Philosophy and Social Criticism 33:6 (2007), 667–90 except his reading of Derrida on the “singular” seems unreliable to me, and his reading of Hegel ignores the central importance of the logic of the Concept.
167 If “equally” generating difference, however, the very principle of system in Hegel may be compromised, in which case the attempt to contain and hierarchically order the Logic in one volume would have to seem arbitrary. Cf. McCumber, Company of Words, 25 for an interpretation of Hegel as a pluralist. 168 Brockmeier, “Language, Thought, and Writing”; Lumsden, “Dialectic and Différance”; John Russon, “Reading Derrida in Hegel’s Understanding,” Research in Phenomenology 36 (2006), 181–200. 169 Derrida, Dissemination, 20 makes a similar point about the impossibility of Hegel’s attain- ing the kind of “semantic saturation” he purports to achieve in the Logic. 170 See “White Mythology: Metaphor in the Text of Philosophy” in Derrida, ed., Margins, esp. 219, as well as Kisner, “Hegel and Derrida.” 171 SL, 606; recall that I have carefully examined this passage above.
Hence logic exhibits the self-movement of the absolute Idea only as the original word, which is an outwardizing-utterance [Äusserung], but an utterance that in being has immediately vanished again as something outer [Äusseres]; the Idea is, therefore, only in this self-determination of apprehending itself; it is in pure thought, in which difference is not yet otherness, but is and remains perfectly transparent to itself.172
Yet the Logic does not simply terminate in the pure transparency of the Absolute Idea, consigning the development up to this point to a disposable preface. The entire course, given in the complex text, is itself the Idea as the dialectical method:
Now the determinateness of the Idea and the entire course followed by this determinateness has constituted the subject matter of the science of logic, from which course the absolute Idea has issued into an existence of its own [die absolute Idee selbst für sich hervorgegangen ist]; but the nature of this its existence has shown itself to be this [ für sich aber hat sie sich als dies gezeigt], that determinateness does not have the shape of a content, but exists wholly as form, and that accordingly the Idea is the absolutely universal Idea. Therefore what remains to be considered here is not a content as such, but the universal aspect of its form—that is, the method.173
The Idea is supposedly an existence of its own (a “for-itself”) in pure thought, and yet mandates the entire apparatus of the Logic. The entire Logic, in other
172 SL, 825. 173 SL, 825, emphasis added using underlining.
Conclusion
The difference between Hegel and Derrida, upon close scrutiny, fails to be secured architectonically; yet that difference is so painfully instantiated in their respective academic textual practices and their different, if equally robust, commitment to autonomous academic institutions.175 The difference
174 Cf. Desmond’s similar “double reading,” seeing both closure and possibilities for opening in Hegel’s dialectic generally. William Desmond, “Hegel, Dialectic, and Deconstruction,” Philosophy & Rhetoric 18:4 (1985), 260. 175 Russon, “Derrida in Hegel’s Understanding” has similarly sought to show the similarity of Hegel and Derrida’s projects, but his reading is to my mind forced and misleading at places. I do not intend to deny the phenomenal difference between them, only that the logical account of this difference, above all by Derrida of course, remains inconclusive.
Desmond, “Hegel, Dialectic, and Deconstruction,” 257 also brings Hegel’s dialectic into proximity with deconstruction, but rightly maintains the difference—namely, the syn- thetic element in Hegelian dialectic. 176 See Derrida, Dissemination, 4. 177 For an argument that Derrida’s “structural infinite” does not fall into Hegel’s bad or spuri- ous infinite, see Rodolphe Gasché, Inventions of Difference (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994), 129–49. The argument is mainly convincing, except that the Derrida estab- lishes the “structural infinite” by a theory of signs set out against the idea of their “self- coincidence” (143); but I argued above that Hegel’s Concept does not trade on this same notion of self-identity. Be that as it may, according to Gasché’s impressive analysis, Derrida’s “structural infinite” accounts for both the spurious infinite and Hegel’s “true infinity,” while being inseparable from and irreducible to either. Still, it is worth noting that the resulting economy of textuality—seen in Derrida’s calls for infinite analysis— would seem to fall into the spuriously infinite.
178 The figure of an “infinite analysis” makes a regular appearance in Derrida’s essays on the university (Derrida, Who’s Afraid of Philosophy? 65–66; Derrida, Jacques Derrida and the Humanities, 49) and elsewhere (Derrida, Paper Machine, 139; Derrida, Dissemination, 204– 205, 237; Derrida, Positions, 94). In my view, Derrida has articulated why such an infinite analysis is possible, but not why it (and its textual-institutional apparatus) is justified. 179 SL, 531–71 (from “Absolute” to “Absolute Relation”). 180 Thus: the totalizing self-authorization of academic philosophy “corresponds to the essence of the dominant discourse in industrial modernity of the Occidental type” (Who’s Afraid of Philosophy, 61). See also Logomachia, 15, where Derrida invokes, with a pathos of victimization, the figure of the parasite to describe the form resistance can take within the University against overwhelming forces. 181 See Derrida, Writing and Difference, 117 for particularly bellicose rhetoric. 182 Derrida, in other words, constitutes a possible case of the false use of “moral outrage” (see Chapter 1).
183 Richard Rorty, “Deconstruction and Circumvention,” 2. 184 See Derrida, Paper Machine, 139: “A culture of the bad conscience is always better than a culture of the good conscience” and also 129; Derrida, “Mochlos,” in Rand, ed., Logomachia, 202–204; Derrida, Who’s Afraid of Philosophy?, 66 (here rejecting—by way of response to Bourdieu—the “clean conscience” of a “limited responsibility”).
As philosophers have fixed limits of the right and the honorable, whence they derive individual duties and the whole company of virtues, so Scripture is not without its own order in this matter, but holds to a most beautiful dispensation, and one more certain than all the philosophical ones. The only difference is that they, as they were ambitious men, dili- gently strove to attain an exquisite clarity of order to show the nimble- ness of their wit. But the Spirit of God, because he taught without affectation, did not adhere so exactly or continuously to a methodical plan; yet when he lays one down anywhere he hints enough that it is not to be neglected by us (III.vi.1).
Introduction to an Architectonic Soteriology
The next three chapters elaborate a reconstruction of Calvin’s soteriology according to a series of three dialectical moments. This threefold architectonic soteriology makes possible a coherent arrangement of diverse and potentially contradictory material from Calvin. Hegel and Derrida provide models for this architectonics. Yet as I argued in the previous chapter, their respective archi- tectonic conceptualities, in order to be understood and perhaps even to be distinguished from one another, demand attention as to how architectonics unfolds into textuality and institution. Just so, in my presentation the textual form cannot be taken for granted, but will shift at each turn of the threefold movement; some of these turns will push against the parameters of academic textuality, even while failing to escape it—an academic book cannot suddenly become something other. This chapter examines the first moment, justification considered alone. Here justification suffices as the sole and complete concept by which salvation is defined and comprehended; it must stand alone, in some way. Hegel’s Science of Logic, being a preeminently self-sufficient and complete science, presents a potentially appropriate model of academic textuality. In adopting its form, this chapter attempts to recast Calvin’s doctrine of justification by progressing from fundamental, maximally condensed statements about the Father’s mercy
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1 Of course, the Institutes is itself a kind of commentary on the Bible, itself taken by Calvin as a self-attestation of absolute truth; in that regard, despite many layers of mediation, this chapter is not as far removed from Hegel’s Logic as it might appear. 2 See Stadtland, Rechtfertigung, 118–124; Charles Partee, “Calvin’s Central Dogma Again,” in Articles on Calvin and Calvinism: The Organizational Structure of Calvin’s Theology, ed. Richard Gamble. vol. 7, (New York: Garland Publishing, Inc. 1992); Wendel, Calvin, 234–240; Paul Van Buren, Christ in Our Place: The Substitutionary Character of Calvin’s Doctrine of Reconciliation (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1957), 95–124; Wendel, Calvin, 235; McGrath, Iustitia Dei, 255–56. The controversy over forensic justification versus “union with Christ” has continued in recent scholarship, with the latter side currently carrying the day. Most recently see Canlis, Calvin’s Ladder. Mark Garcia, Life in Christ: Union with Christ and the Twofold Grace in Calvin’s Theology (Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2008) has argued that the duplex gratia is essential to preserving forensic justification. J. Todd Billings, while strongly featuring the union with Christ (see Calvin, Participation, and the Gift), has argued against pitting it against the importance of the distinction of justification and sanctification; see his , “John Calvin’s Soteriology: On the Multifaceted ‘Sum’ of the Gospel” International Journal of Systematic Theology, 11:4 (2009), 428–47. Other articles and books have appeared recently, but the debate
over Calvin seems to be retreating to evangelical presses; as this happens, it largely departs from the spirit of my freely critical appropriation of Calvin. For an impressive broadening of the scope see J.V. Fesko, Beyond Calvin: Union with Christ and Justification in Early Modern Reformed Theology (1517–1700) (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2012), but note the use of inspiration on p. 94 to rule out the idea that the Bible could contain two different Christologies. 3 Stadtland, Rechtfertigung, 118. 4 See Stadtland’s warning about this attempt to be systematic as “ein wenig verfälschender,” ibid., 112. 5 See Partee, “Central Dogma,” 195. 6 In opposition to Bauke’s portrayal of justification and sanctification as lacking an inner unity, Stadtland, Rechtfertigung, 121 asserts that “Calvin versteht die ganze Heilslehre als ein einzige Entfaltung des durch den Heiligen Geist gewirkten neuen Seins in Christus, wobei sowohl die Zurechnung der Gerechtigkeit Christi wie die Zueignung seiner Heiligkeit in engster Beziehung zur in Glauben erfahrenen unio cum Christo stehen.” And so, “Die unio inkludiert nicht nur die Rechtfertigung, sondern auch die Heiligung,” ibid., 123. Yet he must qualify this claim on the one hand by adding that, “auch in der unio wird Christus nie mit uns identisch,” ibid., 122, and on the other, by emphasizing “[den] streng eschatologische Aspekt der unio cum Christo” to cover the growth in the union. At some point in this stretching and qualifying, the
explanatory and systemizing powers ascribed to the union with Christ begin to falter. See also T.H.L. Parker, Calvin: An Introduction to His Thought (Lousiville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1995), 79, who begins his review of Book III by distinguishing two kinds of union with Christ, one “on Christ’s side…already effected,” and another “on ours…, the closer, more inti- mate union.” 7 III.xi.2, emphasis added. Cf. the definition in III.xvii.8. 8 III.xi.16, emphasis added: “in Dei misericordiam ac Christi perfectionem.” For a parallel, con- sider III.ii.30: “First, that faith does not stand firm until a man attains to the freely given promise; second, that it does not reconcile us to God at all unless it joins us to Christ.”
Suspended Presuppositions: Absolute Standard, Ownership, Sin Reshaping soteriology to approximate Hegel’s Logic entails eliminating presup- positions, so that one concept can direct the dialectic. I will invoke three pre- suppositions that frame Calvin’s soteriology: the absolute standard, ownership, and sin. Only after “suspending” these can I begin with justification as the sole principle of soteriology. Calvin set himself against what he understood as a medieval Catholic configuration of these presuppositions. Simplistically put and regrettably caricatured, the Catholic configuration went as follows: sinful humanity, in order to be saved, needs to meet the absolute standard of God’s judgment by establishing ownership of sufficient merits.9 What is most interest- ing for my purposes is not the sheer and simple difference between Calvin and late medieval theology. Rather, I am interested in exploring how these presup- positions can be reconfigured within a Calvinist dialectic of justification and sanctification; in effect, this dialectic initially negates but secondarily preserves them—hence it “suspends” them.10 In this movement there are many parallels
9 See Steven E. Ozment, “Homo Viator: Luther and Late Medieval Theology,” in Steven Ozment, ed. The Reformation in Medieval Perspective (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1971), 142–154, for background. 10 I use “suspend” to continue the conscription of aufheben by Derrida, who deliberately trans- forms Hegel’s key term by translating it as relèver. This French verb carries the meanings of
“lift” and “cancel” along with other associations not under Hegel’s control. “Suspend” like- wise carries the meanings of “raise” and “cancel” while connoting a temporary state that will receive further determination by association with Jesus’ being lifted up/hung on the cross. The meaning of “suspend” also carries Derridean meanings, including “undecided, undeter- mined,” “deferred;” and these helpfully extend into forensic associations, as in the phrase “suspended sentence.” 11 II.i.3, emphasis added. See the judgment of Paul Wernle (quoted in Leith, Christian Life, 88): “As sharply and clearly as only Luther did, [Calvin] has recognized and experienced the way which alone leads to the evangelical faith of justification: the awareness of the absolute ideal, the standing before God, the true judge, the absolute honesty of self-recog- nition. This and nothing else has made him a reformer,” Paul Wernle, Calvin, vol. 3 of Der evangelische Glaube nach den Hauptschriften der Reformatoren (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1919), 15, emphasis added. See also Stuermann, Faith, 24: “The divine standard measures all human deeds, however creative or pure they may seem to us, as useless for bridging the gulf between man and God.”
We are not our own: in so far as we can, let us forget ourselves and all that is ours. Conversely, we are God’s: let us therefore live for him and die for him. . . . Let this therefore be the first step, that a man depart from himself in order that he may apply the whole force of his ability in the service of the Lord (III.vii.1).
Likewise, in my reconstruction ownership of salvation is first wholly and sim- ply negated in justification, and this is Christ’s doing, not ours. Only second- arily is ownership re-appropriated under a reflected form through the course of sanctification. The desire to own something over against God is a legacy of the fall. In Book II, Calvin discerns this legacy in the course of the history of theology itself. Beginning with the early fathers and culminating in “more recent [unspecified]
12 II.vii.6. Cf. III.xix.4: “For unless its rigor be mitigated, the law in requiring perfect love condemns all imperfection.”
Sophists,” soteriology was infected by the concept of free will, another manifes- tation of ownership:13
And truly, whenever this lust invades our mind to compel us to seek out something of our own that reposes in ourselves rather than in God, let us know that this thought is suggested to us by no other counselor than him who induced our first parents to want to become “like gods, knowing good and evil.” If it is the devil’s word that exalts man in himself, let us give no place to it unless we want to take advice from our enemy (II.ii.10).
Theology rooted in sinful pride takes ownership as its primary principle, thus defending free will, the uprightness of the natural mind, and the place of mer- its granted to works (III.xv). Against this theology, Calvin must recover a legiti- mate use of the principle of ownership; in doing so, “the possessive pronoun ‘ours’” becomes an important issue (II.v.14). Considered abstractly, absolute standard and ownership are complex forms of the relation of the infinite and finite. That is, soteriology is about how the infinite absolute standard confronts the finite conditions of human ownership. A false configuration, like the one Calvin saw in medieval theology, makes grasping God’s mercy impossible—a falsely “impossible possibility”—and makes sin inescapable. Sin would seem to be the obvious presupposition to and therefore begin- ning of soteriology, and to be sure Calvin’s order of teaching treats sin in II.1-v, obviously a premise to justification and sanctification.14 For Calvin, most likely, the main purpose of the section on sin is to make sense of the need to go beyond the knowledge of God the Creator to God in Christ. Humanity, stricken with terror by God’s curse because of the fall, must seek a different way to per- ceive God’s favor. Originally, created humanity should have been able to dis- cern the Fatherhood of God from the created world, whether from the order of nature or one’s internal awareness (the sensus divinitatis).15 Self-knowledge, reflecting on the world without and within, should therefore naturally lead to contemplation of God (I.i.1). Yet from Adam’s unfaithfulness and disobedience
13 Calvin applies an interesting Hellenization hypothesis, so to speak, to the history of theol- ogy in II.ii.2–9; see esp. Section 4. For an account of how Calvin is working out his anthro- pology in conflict with Melanchthon, who is an unnamed target in this section, see Barbara Pitkin, “The Protestant Zeno,” in Journal of Religion 84:3 (2004), 366–67. 14 Calvin is heavily indebted to the presentation of justification in Romans, which begins with a strong account of universal sin. 15 I.v.1, I.xv.8, II.vi.1; see Schreiner, Theater, 65.
16 See Venema, Accepted and Renewed, 64. 17 T.F. Torrance, Calvin’s Doctrine of Man (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1957), 85. 18 Cf. Muller, Unaccommodated Calvin, 54 who points out the Scotist legacy by which Calvin avoids placing God under any necessity, and thus “[Calvin] does not agree that the nature of the problem of human sin can dictate the nature of the Mediator.” See also Stadtland, Rechtfertigung, 153: “Sin is only known through grace.”
Justification: A Merciful Father Received by Faith in Christ
Order of Exposition This exposition of justification is unusual for its division of the doctrine into two parts: the mercy of the Father and the mediation of the Son.19 In doing so, I am picking up on and exaggerating for my own purposes the language Calvin uses to describe justification in relation to both the “Father” (or an unspecified “God”20) and Christ. Take, for instance, his description justification in III.xi.1: “That being reconciled to God through Christ’s blamelessness, we may have in heaven instead of a Judge a gracious Father.” The two sides are also suggested when Calvin says that we obtain salvation “when we know that God is our merciful Father, because of the reconciliation effected through Christ, and that Christ has been given to us as righteousness, sanctification, and life.”21 Calvin is clearly not making a firm and schematic distinction in these cases. But I believe that parti- tioning these implicit sides can help clarify the doctrine of justification. Calvin would object to approaching the Father prior to the Son, since no one has access to the Father except through the Son.22 Ultimately, I want to affirm the role of Christ in a complete doctrine of justification. Yet I will first consider what justification looks like when enunciated solely as the mercy of God. Only once the truth and limitations of this perspective have been explored will I proceed to Christ’s mediation of God’s mercy. In other words, by presenting God’s mercy first, I intend to raise the question as to whether the mercy of the Father falls within or outside of a smooth dialectical continuity with Christ’s mediation.
19 My approach at least agrees with the way Calvin makes the first principle of salvation God’s self-determination: “For Scripture everywhere proclaims that the efficient cause of our obtaining eternal life is the mercy of the Heavenly Father and his freely given love toward us” (III.xiv.17). 20 Calvin denies in I.xiii.2 that Scriptural references to “God” apply to the Father alone. More study would be needed to determine how “God” is functioning in the definitions of justi- fication that mention both “God” and “Christ.” Is this “God” considered as the Trinity but apart from the Incarnate Word? The extra-Calvinisticum is part of the issue; see David Willis, Calvin’s Catholic Christology: The Function of the So-called Extra Calvinisticum in Calvin’s Theology, in Studies in Medieval and Reformation Thought vol. 2, ed. Heiko A. Oberman (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1966). 21 III.ii.2. This quote in fact illustrates the first three moments of my soterio-logic, namely: the Father’s mercy and Christ’s mediation (in Chapter 4), and our union with Christ (in Chapter 5). 22 See Wendel, Calvin, 230: “The love of God cannot be known and apprehended by man except through the intermediation of Jesus Christ.”
My reordering also helps to address questions that arise from Calvin’s account, starting with questions of coherence. Calvin affirms that justification rests on the certainty of “God’s benevolence toward us.” Once that benevolence is made conditional on Christ’s mediation, however, there is room for the sus- picion (at least, on the part of a suspicious reader) that God may not be abso- lutely benevolent toward us. How do I know, for instance, that Christ’s death has been applied to me? Indeed, later Calvinism could affirm unequivocally that the atonement, and thus God’s mercy, applies only to the elect. If justifica- tion means to have certainty, it seems worth exploring whether a simple decla- ration of God’s mercy, considered unconditionally, could serve as the grounding of our justification. Furthermore, there is a potential disjuncture between God’s eternal deci- sion to be appeased by Christ’s sacrifice (God’s “eternal decree”23) and Christ’s historical death effecting that appeasement in time. Calvin, who is normally disinclined to speculate about counterfactuals in the history of salvation,24 nevertheless addresses this conundrum in II.xvi.2–4. He is satisfied that the eternality of atonement is “beautifully harmonize[d]” with its temporal accom- plishment.25 Yet he also describes as “ineffable” the way that “God loved us and yet was angry at us at the same time, until he became was reconciled to us in Christ” (II.xvii.2). I will try to provide my own explanation about how these assertions may be harmonized. A related issue comes up in II.xvii. This section originated as a response to Socinus, who apparently wanted to eliminate the idea that Christ merited our salvation, as this could obscure God’s grace.26 Calvin finds it “absurd to set Christ’s merit against God’s mercy.” Invoking a “common rule that a thing sub- ordinate to another is not in conflict with it,” Calvin concludes that “nothing hinders us from asserting that men are freely justified by God’s mercy alone, and at the same time that Christ’s merit, subordinate to God’s mercy, also inter- venes on our behalf.”27 By exploring the meaning of God’s mercy apart from Christ’s merit, I hope to make better sense of how these two concepts are complementary.
23 II.xii.5. Cf. Calvin’s references to “God’s eternal plan” (II.xii.4) and the “eternal atonement” (II.vii.17). 24 See, e.g., Calvin’s rebuke to Osiander in II.xii.5. 25 The issue is nothing new to Calvin, as it comes up in Anselm and, as Calvin’s lengthy cita- tion demonstrates, in Augustine (II.xvi.4). See also Venema, Accepted and Renewed, 74–5. 26 See Willis, “Influence of Socinus.” 27 II.xvii.1. His argument here seems to hinge on the fact that both grace and Christ’s merit are opposed to human merit, but that does not to my mind address the conceptual prob- lem fully.
Other questions arise from contemporary theological inclinations that run at variance from Calvin’s. Calvin, for instance, adopts Anselm’s formulation that Christ’s death served as a substitutionary appeasement of the Father’s wrath.28 This doctrine of the atonement has been roundly attacked recently, both for portraying God as vengeful and for underwriting the suffering of vic- timized people.29 While responding to all of these critiques is not possible here, I would like to contribute to the discussion a portrayal of Christ’s death as significant for our salvation but not strictly necessary to render the Father mer- ciful. By beginning with God’s mercy, I can consider that mercy apart from any need for punishing sins. However, in turning secondarily to Christ’s mediation, particularly Christ’s death on the cross, I will begin to recover a sense of God’s demand of justice and even punishing of sins. A second case concerns the appeal, steadily growing throughout recent cen- turies, of the doctrine of universal salvation, a notion Calvin dismissed with hostility (III.xxiv.15–17). If justification by faith is truly not at all dependent on anything one does or anything that might distinguish oneself from another, then the possibility of universal salvation must be considered. Again, I believe my dialectical approach to this question affords much more nuance than some contemporary accounts.30 Finally, distinguishing God’s mercy from Christ’s mediation opens the pos- sibility that God’s mercy could be apprehended apart from Christ. Once again, Calvin explicitly rejects the notion. Yet Calvin is constrained by Scripture to
28 Wendel, Calvin, 219. 29 See Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Ann Parker, Proverbs of Ashes: Violence, Redemptive Suffering and the Search for What Saves Us (Boston: Beacon Press, 2001); Delores Williams, “Black Women’s Surrogate Experience and the Christian Notion of Redemption,” in Paula M. Cooey, William R. Eakin, and Jay B. McDaniel, eds., After Patriarchy: Feminist Transformations of the World Religions (Maryknoll, n.y.: Orbis Books, 1991), 1–13; Denny Weaver, The Nonviolent Atonement (Grand Rapids: W.B. Eerdmans, 2001); Darby Ray, Deceiving the Devil: Atonement, Abuse, and Ransom (Cleveland: Pilgrim Press, 1998). For a theological response that recasts the meaning of Christ’s sacrifice, see Kathryn Tanner, “Incarnation, Cross, and Sacrifice: A Feminist-Inspired Reappraisal,” Anglican Theological Review 86:1 (2004), 35–56. 30 For an account with more mystery, see Hans Urs von Balthasar, Dare We Hope “That All Men Be Saved?” with, a Short Discourse on Hell (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1988); with less mystery, Thomas Talbott, The Inescapable Love of God (Parkland, fl: Universal Publishers, 1999), and of course, Rob Bell, Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived (New York: HarperOne, 2011). My implied dialectical response on this issue would have to depart from any account that treats individual sub- jectivities as units apart from identity with Christ.
I The Mercy of God
In Hegel’s Logic, the Concept is the simplest unit that serves as the principle of the whole; it is the architectonic heart. The Concept develops its own content into judgments and syllogisms, thence into objectivity, and concludes in the union of subjective and objective in the Idea. I trace a similar line here. Calvin’s phrase “mercy of God” will serve as an analogue to the Universal Concept, as the simple form of the relational totality. I will distinguish moments within this simplicity before considering the objectivity of mercy in Christ, and a cor- responding form of Absolute Idea in the next chapter.
God’s Mercy as Universal The Universal is the Concept in its “negativity”: relationality apart from par- ticular relations, in my parlance. The corresponding concept of justification would have to avoid particular reference to relations. Words like “mercy” and “love” are ruled out, since they are incomplete without a specified object. I pro- pose the formula, “God’s goodness.” This formula presents an object of thought or contemplation that is immediate—having no need of reference to anything
31 Calvin believed that the Israelites of the Old Testament had in the law a “shadowed out- line” of Christ and the Gospel (II.ix.1–2). For the cases of exceptional gentiles, see III.ii.32. See also Dowey, Knowledge of God, 164–167; Pitkin, Pure Eyes, 134–35. 32 This point raises the issue of the so-called “extra Calvinisticum.” See Willis, Christology. One of the most striking passages that assert the freedom of the Mediator from the incar- nate Jesus is found in II.xii.7, where Calvin counters Osiander’s argument for the necessity of the Incarnation: “As if the Kingdom of God could not stand had the eternal Son of God—though not endued with human flesh—gathered together angels and men into the fellowship of his heavenly glory….” See also II.xii.1, 4–5. See also the mysterious passage describing Christ’s eschatological “returning Lordship to the Father,” II.xiv.3.
33 Dowey, Knowledge of God, 208, identifies goodness as the “broadest” term within a range of terms that designate the aspect of God’s mercy. 34 III.ii.7. The phrase appears in a more isolated form just prior, though as such it is said to be deficient: “The knowledge of God’s goodness will not be held very important unless it makes us rely on that goodness.” The same phrase also appears in passing in III.xiv.19.
Yet one effect of adding the possessive modifier “God’s” is to invest this con- cept with an infinite and eternal quality. Like Hegel’s Universal, “God’s good- ness” does not permit of any temporal distinctions; it remains self-identical in its transcendent negativity (i.e., absence of relation). The figurative language of substitutionary atonement, which speaks as though God changes from wrath to mercy, makes no sense at this first step. While the account will soon come to include the narrative temporality associated with Christ, the atempo- ral quality of God’s goodness will not entirely disappear. Rather, atemporality or eternity infects the whole account of justification by faith, which, properly considered, permits in God neither change nor growth nor development, nor requires the same in its human recipients. While “God’s goodness” is not false as the singular principle of justification, it can hardly stand as an adequate formulation on its own. As shown above, the necessity of reference to God in this linguistic form remains tenuous. What is needed for a theocentric justification is a linguistic form that places God as the true object of thought; and this requires making God the subject of predication or action: “God is x,” “God does y.” Moreover, the bare determination of the quality “goodness,” conceived apart from any relationality, does not have a determinate meaning. Indeed, such a concept can have little meaning without particular reference to what God is or has done, and would apparently be com- patible with any state of affairs, even if God had never created. Just as Hegel’s Universal could not be articulated without the negation of Being and Essence, so “God’s goodness” is meaningless without reference to the negated presup- positions of soteriology. It is indistinguishable from whatever is, like Being/ Nothing.35 “God’s goodness” has said everything and nothing. It goes without saying that “God’s goodness” may be the object of belief, but has no power to convict anyone of its reality. It fails to indicate any demon- strable difference in how reality is conceived and interpreted. This epistemic impotence echoes Calvin’s view of human incapacity to discern God’s good- ness in creation, although Calvin holds human sinfulness accountable for this
35 Calvin indeed borders on just such a formal and empty sense of God’s goodness whenever he interprets Providence or Predestination to mean simple and absolute adherence to an abstract, metaphysical rule. Cf. III.vii.10: “In short, whatever happens, because he will know it ordained of God, he will undergo it with a peaceful and grateful mind.” See also I.xviii.2, “Since God’s will is said to be the cause of all things…” The problem is that these rules allow no way to specify goodness but simply equate it with what is. That God’s good- ness as such cannot be distinguished by us from its opposite also poses the issue of the hiddenness of God, a point Calvin must occasionally acknowledge: God’s light “is over- spread with darkness” (I.xviii.3).
Particularizing God’s Mercy in Judgments Like Hegel’s Concept, the progression passes on to forms of propositions. Examples of such propositions are common in Calvin: “God is merciful,” “God is a loving Father,” “God is forgiving.” God now appears as the subject of a prop- osition, of whom relational terms are predicated.37 These relational terms, such as “Father” and “merciful,” carry the implicit meaning that God in princi- ple takes part in relationships. Yet a concrete relationship is not yet given; instead, God as subject is the sole focus of determination. While God is now a propositional “subject,” the form of speaking is still wholly objective; what is being said about God in no way reflexively refers back to the speaker or hearer. The form of an objective proposition marks a significant advance. The attempt to determine salvation has adopted the proper grammatical form of the sentence.38 And so the content is a complete thought. A definitive claim is now made, which formally stands on its own and offers a decisive account of salvation. The sentence has “propositional content” that separates it from the
36 Recall that, for Hegel, truth is the agreement of form and content (see SL, 826). 37 One could first explore other concept formulations with a more relational content, such as “God’s mercy,” “God’s love”—the latter is prominent for Calvin in II.xvii. But these would still fail to make God into a true subject. For the same reason, I will not address claims that have a potentially “speculative form,” such as “God is love,” since here the place of subject and predicate can easily be switched. 38 See Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 7 on the significant difference between sentence and sign (what I have called “concept”): “The sentence is not a larger or more complex word, it is a new entity. …The sentence is a whole irreducible to the sum of its parts.”
39 While the concept of “God’s goodness” only had use in private meditation and pure thought, the sentence enters into writing and becomes public: “The experience as experi- enced, as lived, remains private, but its sense, its meaning, becomes public,” ibid., 16. 40 Even if intended for a certain audience, “a written text is addressed to an unknown reader and potentially to whoever knows how to read,” ibid., 31.
From Judgment to Syllogism This theography is now ready to make the transition into a consideration of Christ. The simple form of a judgment with one subject may now develop into a more complex form, analogous to the way Hegel develops from the Concept the forms of judgment and then syllogism. Here the result is that the singular subject
41 Cf. Stadtland, Rechtfertigung, 113f.
42 Cf. III.ii.29–30, where Calvin is asserting that “there can be no firm condition of faith unless it rests upon God’s mercy” and it is faith in mercy that distinguishes believers from unbelievers. Thus engrafting stands alongside grasping “the freely given promise,” yet Calvin can only posit the former’s importance as a rhetorical question: “But how can there be saving faith except in so far as it engrafts us in the body of Christ?” So it remains unclear why engrafting is necessary to have saving faith.
For this reason Christ bade his disciples believe in him, that they might clearly and perfectly believe in God: “You believe in God; believe also in me” [John 14:1]. For even if, properly speaking, faith mounts up from Christ to the Father, yet he means this: although faith rests in God, it will gradually disappear unless he who retains it in perfect firmness inter- cedes as Mediator. Otherwise, God’s majesty is too lofty to be attained by mortal men…. (II.vi.4, emphasis added)
While God is the object of faith, and in particular its content is God’s mercy, Christ’s mediation is needed not only to arrive at this content but also to main- tain it:
43 Calvin draws the following conclusion in II.vi.1 from Christ’s words to the Samaritan woman: “In these words he both condemns all pagan religions as false and gives the rea- son that under the law the Redeemer was promised to the chosen people alone. From this it follows that no worship has ever pleased God except that which looked to Christ.” 44 Calvin is willing to concede momentary and discrete insights to “the philosophers”: “They are like a traveler passing though a field at night who in a momentary lightening flash sees far and wide, but the sight vanishes so swiftly that he is plunged again into the darkness of the night before he can take even a step—let alone be directed on his way by its help” (II.ii.18). The overall characterization of pagan truth is that it lacks the stability by which it can be a constant and practical guide to life. Compare II.ii.16: “But lest anyone think a man truly blessed when he is credited with possessing great power to comprehend truth under the ele- ments of this world, we should at once add that this capacity to understand…is an unstable and transitory thing in God’s sight, when a solid foundation of truth does not underlie it.” 45 See III.ii.8, 14–16.
Only let the readers agree on this point: let the first step toward godliness be to recognize that God is our Father to watch over us, govern and nour- ish us, until he gather us unto the eternal inheritance of his Kingdom. Hence, what we have recently said becomes clear, that apart from Christ the saving knowledge of God does not stand…. John’s saying has always been true: “He that does not have the Son does not have the Father.” For even if many men once boasted that they wor- shiped the Supreme Majesty, the Maker of heaven and earth, yet because they had no Mediator it was not possible for them truly to taste God’s mercy, and thus be persuaded that he was their Father. Accordingly, because they did not hold Christ as their Head, they possessed only a fleeting knowledge of God.46
Those with such fleeting knowledge include “the Turks” in their “idolatry.” Calvin clearly believes them to be without a salvific knowledge of God, but not therefore devoid of any knowledge at all. The same point is made in terms of the “stability” of knowledge wrought by faith in Christ in III.ii.1. An exclusively Christocentric reading of Calvin must not only face Calvin’s identifying the Father as the true object of faith, but must also deal passages where Calvin concedes apparent exceptions to the rule that “no one is loved by God apart from Christ,” the exceptions being Naaman the Syrian, Cornelius, and the eunuch in Acts 8:
I confess that their faith was in some part implicit, not only with respect to the person of Christ, but also with respect to the power and office enjoined upon him by the Father. In the meantime, it is certain that they were instructed in principles such as might have given them some taste, however small, of Christ (III.ii.32).
So while Calvin will only talk about knowledge of God through reference to Christ, it is clear that “Christ” does not exclusively mean knowledge of the incarnate Lord Jesus.47 A related issue is the salvific knowledge available to the Israelites of the Old Testament.48 Calvin begins his discussion of this issue in II.vi.2 with a strong
46 II.vi.4, emphasis added. Ironically, for Calvin it is the failure by those who value God’s majesty to appreciate God’s mercy that spells their damnation. 47 The complexity of this issue is illuminated by Pitkin, Pure Eyes, 135, who traces how the increased Christocentrism of faith in the 1559 Institutes “serves simultaneously to under- score and expand faith’s focus on Christ.” 48 See Shepherd, Nature and Function of Faith, 171–77.
For even though atonement for sins had been truly promised in the ancient sacrifices, and the Ark of the Covenant was a sure pledge of God’s fatherly favor, all this would have been but a shadow had it not been grounded in the grace of Christ, in whom one finds perfect and everlast- ing stability.50
While Calvin believes that the knowledge of God’s mercy available to ancient Israel was promissory in nature and obscured in shadows, the case of Israel validates the possibility that Christ’s truth can be salvific and effective outside of the knowledge of the historical Jesus. Of course, Calvin always insists that there is a definite advantage to having the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Today, many theologians want to recognize not only that other religions have a legitimate claim to truth, but even that their understanding of divine truth can be a possible source of truth for Christians.51 From the vantage point of this particular moment of this theography (“God’s mercy in particularity
49 “Abraham’s seed is to be accounted chiefly in one Head, and that the promised salvation was not realized until Christ appeared…. So, then, the original adoption of the chosen people depended upon the Mediator’s grace” (II.vi.2). 50 (II.vii.16). More typically, Jesus Christ carries the advantage of greater clarity (see II.ix–xi). 51 This agenda has been pursued perhaps most famously in Paul F. Knitter, No Other Name?: A Critical Survey of Christian Attitudes Toward the World Religions (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1985).
II The Mediation of Christ: Suspending Absolute Standard and Ownership
These are indeed things apparently contrary: to join the firm assurance of God’s favor to a sense of his just vengeance (III.xx.11).
Without proper mediation, God’s mercy considered on its own, conceptually as it were, has been shown either to erase our subjectivity (or ownership, identity) or to underwrite it uncritically. The solution—again, conceptu- ally—to this instability that is to be explored next looks to a mediator who reintroduces human form and action (i.e., Christ’s person and work) while remaining objective to us; thus, ownership of salvation is instantiated with- out being immediately conferred upon us. The other advantage is that a mediator can preserve a negative moment in the affirmation of God’s mercy; in that way, the absolute standard of judgment is preserved without being immediately and cripplingly applied to us. In sum, Christ establishes God’s mercy while preserving the reality of judgment, all in a human form that is nonetheless objective to us.
52 See the comments about the relevance of justification to a theology of world religions in Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Towards a World Theology: Faith and the Comparative History of Religion (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1989), 114. 53 Some statements Calvin makes could be useful for this agenda only if taken out of con- text, for example, the striking claim in II.vi.3: “Now, where solace is promised in affliction, especially where the deliverance of the church is described, the banner of trust and hope in Christ himself is prefigured.”
Justification has so far been entirely theocentric. It has not concerned our own or any human’s being or acting.54 Justification is nothing that we or any human being does. Generally speaking, justification is about our passive stand- ing, how it is we are found or reckoned. Indeed, it concerns how we are sen- tenced. So far, our standing has been only inferred from completely objective claims about God. But rather than apply theocentric principles directly to “us,” Calvin’s preference is to place our salvation “in Christ.”55 Again, I am following Calvin’s definition of justification by turning to justification in Christ after con- sidering the mercy of the Father: “We explain justification as the acceptance with which God receives us into his favor [gratiam] as righteous men. And we say that it consists in the remission [remissione] of sins and the imputation of Christ’s righteousness;”56 more succinct is the formula, “God’s mercy and Christ’s perfection.”57 Among its other advantages, this chapter’s dialectical synthesis of the remission of sins and the imputation of righteousness corre-
54 At least one quote from Calvin suggests that justification may be considered in an entirely theocentric, objective way, apart from matters of our salvation and piety: “For unless you first of all grasp what your relationship to God is, and the nature of his judgment concern- ing you, you have neither a foundation on which to establish your salvation nor one on which to build piety toward God” (III.xi.1). Also striking is the way he here makes salvation sound like a project of one’s own establishing (“stabiliendae”). 55 Wallace, Christian Life, 18, points out Calvin’s preference for saying we are saved “in Christ” (in Christo) rather than “by Christ” (per Christum). 56 III.xi.2, emphasis added. Cf. III.xi.16: “with Christ’s righteousness interceding and forgive- ness of sins accomplished [the sinner] is justified.” See Stuermann, Faith, 173–74. Stadtland makes little reference to this twofold formula, although he makes much of the distinction between “the non-imputation of sins” and the “forgiveness of sins” (Stadtland, Recht fertigung, 148–159). Wendel, Calvin, 258, transmutes a passage explicitly about justifica- tion as forgiveness of sins and imputation of Christ’s righteousness into “imputation and union with Christ,” and henceforth obscures the importance of forgiveness as a distinct component. 57 Cf. the conundrum created by Calvin in III.xviii.8: “Our justification rests upon God’s mercy alone and Christ’s merit…[sola Dei misericordia et merito Christi constat nostra ius- tificatio].” There may also be a parallel in Calvin’s original, ‘hypothetical’ definition of jus- tification generally: “He is said to be justified in God’s sight who is both reckoned righteous in God’s judgment and has been accepted on account of his righteousness” (III.xi.2)— perhaps the first part becomes forgiveness, while the second is supplanted by Christ’s merits in place of our own. Elsewhere, we find in iv.26 an affirmation of Christ’s role in interceding for our sins, yet the Father has priority: “For while the right and power of for- giving sins properly belong to the Father, in which respect he is distinguished from the Son, as we have already seen, Christ is here placed on another level [in altero gradu] because, taking upon himself the penalty that we owe, he has wiped out our guilt before God’s judgment.” Cf. II.xvii.2.
58 At this point, I cite instances of Calvin’s language where he thoroughly integrates Christ into God’s mercy, as in his later definition of justification in III.xvii.8: “The sinner, received into communion with Christ, is reconciled to God by his grace, while, cleansed by Christ’s blood, he obtains forgiveness of sins, and clothed with Christ’s righteousness as if it were his own, he stands confident before the heavenly judgment seat.” Cf. II.xvii.5: “Not only was salvation given to us through Christ, but, by his grace the Father is now favor- able to us.” 59 He moves seamlessly in xi.3 from saying, “Therefore, since God justifies us by the interces- sion of Christ, he absolves us…by the imputation of righteousness, so that we who are not righteous in ourselves may be reckoned as such in Christ;” to concluding, “You see finally that a satisfaction is introduced where he says that we are justified from our sins through Christ. …[A]fter pardon of sins has been obtained, the sinner is considered as a just man in God’s sight. Therefore, he was righteous not by approval of works but by God’s free absolution.” I am trying to hold on to both sides by first carefully distinguishing them, but here Calvin has them jumbled together. Cf. Calvin’s comment on Paul in III.xi.22: “The apostle so connects forgiveness of sins with righteousness that he shows them to be exactly the same.” 60 Interestingly, in the latter place, the imputation of righteousness seems to account for forgiveness: “Furnished with this righteousness, we obtain continual forgiveness of sins in faith. Covered with this purity, the sordidness and uncleanness of our imperfections are not ascribed to us….”
xi.21: The righteousness of faith is reconciliation with God, which con- sists solely in the forgiveness of sins…. [R]ighteousness can be called, in a word, “remission of sins.”
xi.23: We are justified before God solely by the intercession of Christ’s righteousness. This is equivalent to saying that man is not righteous in himself but because the righteousness of Christ is communicated to him by imputation….61
No doubt, Calvin considers both sides to be united in justification, especially since both are equally acts of God and are conceivably the same act. Moreover, the person and work of Christ as narrated in the Gospel tie together both his atoning suffering and his righteous obedience;62 and as will be shown, our sanctification is to reflect both sides in mortification and vivification. Yet prior to or outside these living unities, and for the purposes of the rigorous theo- logical analysis, one may draw a distinction between these two dialectical moments. The first, concerning primarily Christ in relationship to the Father, is Christ’s passive negation as an offering for sin. The second, looking forward to our sanctification, considers Christ’s active obedience and righteousness that provides the principle for our own affirmation as active, sanctified individuals. Each plays a different role in a complex dialectic. A separate treatment of each will show how this is so.
Forgiveness of Sins Mediated by Christ At this point, the account of salvation must advert to Christ’s mediation and especially his atonement. By departing from Calvin in giving prior treatment to God’s mercy, I was able to avoid making justification conditional on God’s wrath being appeased. However, I now can recover Calvin’s atonement the- ology as a means of configuring God’s wrath. Through this avenue, God’s
61 Emphasis added. See Stuermann, Faith, 175–77. 62 For Calvin, there is no sacrifice of Christ that is not tied to his obedience, and no obedi- ence that is not also a sacrifice. It is interesting that when Calvin explains why Christ’s sacrifice had to be freely and obediently offered by Christ himself, his reasoning seems to rely on the condition for righteousness and, ultimately, sanctification: “And truly, even in death itself his willing obedience is the important thing because a sacrifice not offered voluntarily would not have furthered righteousness.” (xvi.5)
63 II.xvi.1. Matthew Myer Boulton has also picked up on this unusual chapter in Calvin’s atonement theology in a conference paper that I believe will soon be in print. 64 II.xvi.3, emphasis added. The implication here is that our unrighteousness is our fear of God’s punishment; and paradoxically, it is this fear that is “accursed and condemned before [God].”
We are taught by Scripture to perceive that apart from Christ, God is, so to speak, hostile to us…. Although this statement is tempered to our feeble
65 See II.xvi.5–19.
comprehension, it is not said falsely. For God, who is the highest righ- teousness, cannot love the unrighteousness he sees in us at all (II.xvi.3).
In light of Christ’s mediation, God’s mercy cannot be applied immediately to us (to what “he sees in us”) but enters into a dialectic with God’s judgment. The simple claim of God’s mercy had an atemporal and eternal quality to it; now that mercy is seen as dynamic, dramatic, and contingent—the result of an event that could have been otherwise. Thus the cross works dialectically and, as it were, at cross-purposes: both to assure us of God’s mercy and to give a vis- ible form to God’s suspended wrath. The cross also pertains to God’s absolute standard as revealed in the Law. Christ’s sacrifice abrogates the moral Law while preserving it:
[The apostle Paul] says: “All who are of the works of the law are under a curse, for it is written, ‘Cursed be every one who does not fulfill all things’.” …To redeem us from this curse, I say, Christ was made a curse for us. “For it is written: ‘Cursed be every one who hangs [pendet] on a tree’.” In the following chapter Paul teaches that Christ was made subject to the law “that he might redeem those under the law.” …What does this mean? That we should not be borne down by an unending bondage, which would agonize our consciences with the fear of death. Meanwhile this always remains an unassailable fact: no part of the authority of the law is with- drawn without our having always to receive it with the same veneration and obedience (II.vii.15).
Calvin’s subscription to Paul’s implausible midrash on Exodus has a deconstruc- tive ring to it: like Derrida’s deconstruction, this one only works by presuppos- ing an absolute—here, the absolute standard of the “rigor of the law.” Instead of opposing the absolute law with a counter-absolute declaration, Christ, in a sub- tle form of active passivity, subjects himself to an absolutist interpretation of the law that shows itself to be unjust. The law is negated by Christ’s letting it be enacted; it negates itself, and yet (like sinful humanity) is preserved in all of its “parts.” By being thus suspended on the cross, the law demonstrates the dis- tinctive movement that I call “suspension”—more passive and preserving than Hegel’s sublation, more personal and less mechanical than Derrida’s différance. The meaning of grace is also refigured by the cross. In the light of the sacri- fice, what was first considered as freely given is now considered, secondarily, as entering into an economy of exchange. Calvin often speaks about grace that way: “Now for us indeed [forgiveness] is free, but not so for Christ, who dearly
66 “Yet this is our wisdom: duly to feel how much our salvation cost the Son of God” (xvi.12). The third of Calvin’s chapters on justification, III.xiii, includes the idea that our loss is God’s gain—i.e., there is a kind of competitive relationship between God and us: “Thus the matter stands: we never truly glory in him unless we have utterly put off our own glory” (.2). Yet this competitive relationship is only a dialectical moment en route to God’s giving to us: “Do you see that the righteousness of God is not sufficiently set forth unless he alone be esteemed righteous, and communicate the free gift of righteousness to the under- serving” (.1)? “Now if we ask in what way the conscience can be made quiet before God , we shall find the only way to be that unmerited righteousness be conferred upon us as a gift of God.” Only if righteousness is conceived dialectically as both a gift and a zero-sum- game can God’s forgiveness in its form of presence maintain the critical edge that is gen- erally necessary for transformation. 67 The difference reveals a shift in the language and truth conditions of the account of sote- riology. It began with a simple truth claim, wholly objective and apart from the universal reader who might appropriate it. Now the account is taking into account the character of the audience, and so has adopted rhetorical truth conditions. Truth conditions them- selves are becoming enfleshed. 68 The relation of Christ’s activity and passivity is shown in III.xvi.6, but the passage presents difficulties. I am convinced that Calvin has unnecessarily attempted to merge activity and passivity, foreclosing the possibility that there is a significant distinction. Thus while focusing on Christ’s death, the culmination of which is a passive act, Calvin nonetheless insists that “even in death itself his willing obedience is the important thing.” Yet para- doxically the content of that obedience can only be described as self-negation: “No proper
Father’s judgment.69 If, contrariwise, Jesus’ own life and activity were at the fore- front, they would set him in distinction from God the Father. In his self-negation Christ instead defers to the Father’s mercy. At the same time, God’s wrath is pre- served and made visible in the form of Jesus’ sacrifice, such that judgment may be seen to be the (simultaneously canceled) presupposition to the atonement. This wrath is negated twice; it is shown as already cancelled and also applied only to Christ. It is an “as-if” wrath, both in Christ’s being condemned while really innocent, and in his being punished as if in our place.70 Christ has been substituted for us, preserving God’s wrath in the form of his sacrifice. Now the account can finally turn from the knowledge of God alone to the knowledge of ourselves—the two poles of theology announced at the beginning of the Institutes—although with very little yield at this point. This substitution, effected by the negativity of Christ’s death, grounds the first
sacrifice to God could have been offered unless Christ, disregarding his own feelings, sub- jected and yielded himself wholly to his Father’s will” (II.xvi.5). Christ’s condemnation is prefaced with Christ’s active role: “He allowed himself to be condemned before a mortal man….” Nonetheless, the role of Pontius Pilate is heartily acknowledged by Calvin (xvi.6). So whereas Christ’s active obedience and passive suffering (by the actions of others) can- not be separated, neither can they be confused. The one paradoxically becomes the other, but really becomes something other and different: Christ actively becomes passive and self-negating. Preserving this self-negativity in its distinctiveness is vital to the dialectic of salvation I am proposing. 69 Again, Calvin acknowledges this passivity despite himself: “We could not believe with assurance that Christ is our redemption, ransom, and propitiation unless he had been a sacrificial victim” (II.xvi.6, emphasis added). The same passivity is tacitly acknowledged when Calvin places the action of Christ’s becoming a sacrifice in others’ hands or in the passive voice: Christ “suffered under Pontius Pilate;” “the guilt that held us liable for punishment has been transferred to the head of the Son of God;” “The Father destroyed the force of sin when the curse of sin was transferred to Christ’s flesh” (xvi.5–6). In a significant sense, the truth of which is hidden in Calvin’s use of the passive voice, it is we who transfer our guilt to Christ. Pilot’s role thus also represents ours: “He therefore suf- fered under Pontius Pilate, and by the governor’s official sentence was reckoned among criminals.” 70 These are related, apparently in that the jarring appearance of the innocent Christ being punished recalls us to the as-if nature of the punishment—as-if God were angry as-if at us. Calvin’s description reflects this complexity: “For he suffered death not because of innocence but because of sin. On the other hand, when we hear that he was acquitted by the same lips that condemned him [i.e., Pilate]…there should come to mind the utter- ance of another prophet: that he repaid what he did not steal. Thus we shall behold the person of a sinner and evildoer represented in Christ, yet from his shining innocence it will at the same time be obvious that he was burdened with another’s sin rather than his own” (II.xvi.5).
71 Faith as a full-blown anthropological category will receive its fuller treatment in Chapter 5. At this stage, the emphasis is clearly on the objective justification in Christ, not justifica- tion by faith. Still, since Christ has been cast as the Mediator, it is impossible not to posit some anthropological form to which Christ is mediating. 72 III.ii.6. Calvin begins discussing faith “from general to particular.” He thus begins with a mere knowledge of God’s will and Word, based on “a preconceived conviction of God’s truth.” The next step is to “substitute his benevolence or his mercy in place of his will” (ii.7). This is as far as this account of soteriology has come. 73 I see a similar self-negativity in Calvin’s notion that faith in the Word requires “that you hold to be beyond doubt that whatever proceeds from [God] is sacred and inviolable truth” (III.ii.6). Faith begins with a sense of God’s objective truth. 74 “For, as regards justification, faith is something merely passive, bringing nothing of ours to the recovering of God’s favor but receiving from Christ that which we lack” (III.xiii.5).
75 III.xi.13: “A man who wishes to obtain Christ’s righteousness must abandon his own righ- teousness.” The issue with the Catholic opponents, whom Calvin calls “sophists,” concerns not just the content, for all can agree that salvation comes from God. Rather, the form of non-ownership is the issue. I.e., they believe “man is justified by both faith and works pro- vided they are not his own works but the gifts of Christ and the fruit of regeneration.” For Calvin, only faith, the “formal cause” of salvation, can receive Christ’s righteousness; so of the four causes of salvation, “none of them has anything to do with works” (III.xiv.17). 76 Again, one could grasp the negation of ownership just from the claim of God’s goodness and mercy alone, yet Christ is a useful accommodation to our tendency to reappropriate ownership of the gift of mercy. The non-ownership of our salvation is made concrete when there is someone else (Christ) who can be said to possess it; thereby God, to borrow loosely from Calvin’s theory of accommodation, appropriates our notion of possession and property so as to subvert it. 77 All examples taken from II.xvi.5–7. 78 Here one could reexamine the controversy over the ambiguous genitive in the “faith of Christ” (Romans 3:22). 79 The phrase is characteristic of Luther and not Calvin, for good reason: Calvin’s doctrine of justification does not focus on the subjective state of the believer, but foremost on the objective justification in Christ.
This is a wonderful plan of justification that, covered by the righteous- ness of Christ, they [viz., “those who were lost”] should not tremble at the judgment they deserve, and that while they rightly condemn themselves, they should be accounted righteous outside themselves (III.xi.11).
The attitude of faith in the face of Christ’s sacrifice is, in a word, humility. Yet the psychological manifestation of faith is, at least at this point, of no rele- vance.80 Within the objectivity of justification, feelings are not yet an issue; indeed, nothing subjective may at this point be posited to be a condition of justification. What matters is objective acknowledgement and attribution— even so, these are not subjective conditions; the simply make up the content of the Gospel, salvation as a text. Since that faith (as fides quae creditur) is so far nothing but a self-negation, our identity remains a universal one; we are a nothing that is indistinguishable from (human) being. Justification is universal, as it was when determined under “God’s mercy;” only now this universalism is even more explicitly not the particular possession of individuals. There is here even less room than before for affirming the salvation of all particular individuals; neither could an individual claim to possess and own a salvation to the exclusion of any other individual. This faith as negative-universalism is not yet the fullness of faith, but it is an important moment of it. Faith at this stage, pictured to be lacking any conceptual place for ownership, is something like what Calvin judges as one-sided in the following passage:
There are very many who so conceive God’s mercy that they receive almost no consolation from it. They are constrained with miserable anxi- ety at the same time as they are in doubt whether he will be merciful to them because they confine that very kindness of which they seem utterly persuaded within too narrow limits. For among themselves they ponder that it is indeed great and abundant, shed upon many, available and
80 Humility is important for our justification, but Calvin clearly defines it strictly negatively, rather than as a positive virtue. See III.xii.6: “Humility is not some seemly behavior whereby you yield a hair of your right to the Lord, as those who do not act haughtily or insult others are called humble in the sight of men, although they rely upon some con- sciousness of excellence. Rather, this humility is an unfeigned submission of our heart, stricken down in earnest of its own misery and want.” Then in xii.7: “The heart cannot be opened to receive his mercy unless it be utterly empty of all opinion of its own worth.” Finally, xii.9: “prepared to share the fruit of God’s mercy is he who has emptied himself….”
ready for all; but that it is uncertain whether it will even come to them, or rather, whether they will come to it. This reasoning, when it stops in mid- course, is only half [dimidia].81
The first step to completing this faith is to incorporate the positive righteous- ness of Christ as fulfilling for us the place of the one who is loved by God.
The Imputation of Christ’s Righteousness The whole narrative of Jesus Christ, which cannot be reduced to a singular conceptual claim, does not stop arbitrarily at the cross and our negation in Christ, but in fact includes the resurrection and our reaffirmation in Christ. In this way, the gospel includes these two distinguishable moments in a textual unity. I see the complementarity of the two sides to be represented when Calvin makes the transition from the theology of the cross to the theology of the resurrection:82
Accordingly even if we have in his death the complete fulfillment of salvation [solidum salutis complementum]—for through it we are rec- onciled to God, his righteous judgment is satisfied, the curse is removed [sublata(!)], and the penalty paid in full—nevertheless, we are said to “have been born anew to a living hope” not through his death but “through his resurrection.”…Therefore, we divide [partimur] the sub- stance [materiam] of our salvation between Christ’s death and resur- rection as follows: through his death, sin was wiped out and death extinguished; through his resurrection, righteousness was restored and life raised up, so that—thanks to his resurrection—his death manifested its power and efficacy in us.83
81 III.ii.15. The passage is only a partial fit, since it betrays a sense that at least some particu- lar individuals will or have received faith; we are not ready to conceive of that. 82 In turning to the resurrection, Calvin signals the “incompleteness” of accounting for jus- tification only through the cross: “For since only weakness appeared in the cross, death, and burial of Christ, faith must leap over all these things [transilienda sunt illa omnia fidei] to attain its full strength.” III.xvi.13 “Leaping across” is an arresting phrase to describe, in effect, the dialectical transition from Christ’s sacrificial appeasement to the imputation of Christ’s righteousness. 83 II.xvi.13, translation altered. Note how Christ’s salvific death works on universals (death, sin), not particular individuals. Inexplicably, Battles fails to translate the introduction to the sentence: “Proinde tametsi….” (os 3, 499). The result grants the appearance of too much completeness to the death.
The beginning and end of this passage confirms that the passivity of Christ corresponds to our negative liberation (removal of the curse). To advance to a “more complete” account that can include the shape of our active subjectivity, however, one must pass on to Christ’s positive activity. Concomitantly, the pri- mary active subject of the account passes from being the Father to Jesus Christ, hence it is his rising again and his victory over death. The resurrection is essen- tial to this transition; it represents the preservation of Christ’s human form after his self-negation, the continuity of his narrated personhood beyond his reduction to the Word of pardon, and the making available to us his benefits beyond his finitude and death. Thus while Christ’s death contains the principle of our self-negation, with the emphasis on its completed action, his resurrec- tion contains the principle of our self-recovery and new life, with the emphasis on manifesting “power and efficacy in us.” Through the resurrection Christ established likewise the potential for ownership, that is, for justification (still centered on his death) to really becomes ours; moreover, Christ’s resurrection also provides the transition to the possibility of our sanctification. But holding sanctification in abeyance for now, our new life made possible by Christ is still comprehended under faith: “So the victory of our faith over death lies in his resurrection alone.”84 Faith rests in the death, which is not devoid of power, but faith acquires “power and efficacy” particularly in the resurrection: “Not that faith, supported by his death, should waver, but that the power of God, which guards [or “keeps,” custodit] us under faith, is especially revealed in the resur- rection itself.” The category of power and potential is an important addition to this account. Thus far the account has described the truth of what justification is in its objectivity. Now, however, justification is seen as a potential for us; while remaining focused on its objectivity in Christ, the account can look to an open future of actualization. Nonetheless, the future potency has hardly taken cen- ter stage. The power of God “keeps us under faith”—we are not yet directed to works; and the power revealed in the resurrection still refers back to the com- pleted action of Jesus’ death. Prior to becoming the principle of our justification in faith (and sanctifica- tion), Christ’s resurrection affirms and ratifies the active obedience that consti- tuted his ministry and work. For Calvin, this active obedience is a significant aspect of Christ’s effecting salvation:
84 Also from II.xvi.13. What Calvin means here by “death” is not immediately clear. Since he only at the end of this section mentions with surprising brevity how Christ’s resurrection from the dead assures our own resurrection, it seems safe to conclude that “death” here means our life apart from God.
Now someone asks, How has Christ abolished sin, banished the separa- tion between us and God, and acquired righteousness to render God favorable and kindly toward us? To this we can in general reply that he has achieved this for us by the whole course of his obedience (II.xvi.5, emphasis added).
But, continuing on, this active obedience cannot be separated from his suffer- ing and death: “Yet to define the way of salvation more exactly, Scripture ascribes this as peculiar and proper to Christ’s death.”85 Again, any attempt to separate activity and passivity is belied by the reality that the active obedience is most complete when it has become its opposite, the passive weakness on the cross: “But when we say that grace was imparted to us by the merit of Christ, we mean this: by his blood we were cleansed, and his death was an expiation for our sins.”86 On the cross the active obedience is sublated, as it were, into the form of passive suffering. That this sublation also preserves the distinct place of active obedience I infer from the way Calvin reacts to Osiander’s doctrine, at least as Calvin understood it. Against the doctrine of “essential righteousness” attributed to Osiander, Calvin must defend the imputation of righteousness in justification as distinct from an impartation of essential righteousness, which Calvin rele- gates to sanctification. Secondly, Calvin must also preserve the importance of Christ’s humanity for our redemption, something that concerns us presently.87 According to Calvin’s reading of Osiander, that Christ has been given as righ- teousness means “not a righteousness of man but of God. Now he…obviously deprives Christ’s human nature of the office of justifying” (III.xi.10). Calvin, for his part, stresses above all else that the righteousness by which we are justified does not refer to our own righteousness.88 Rather:
85 Cf. II.xvi.5: “…the so-called ‘Apostles’ Creed’ passes at once in the best order from the birth of Christ to his death and resurrection, wherein the whole of perfect salvation consists. Yet the remainder of the obedience that he manifested in his life in not excluded.” 86 II.xvii.4. The context is Socinus’ challenge to the idea that Christ merited salvation. Calvin upholds the idea that Christ merited salvation, but not without God’s prior approval: “Apart from God’s good pleasure Christ could not merit anything” (II.xvii.1). I have tried to make sense of this conjunction of free grace and merit by distinguishing God’s mercy from Christ’s work. 87 It is interesting to note that Osiander, on Calvin’s construal, denies both the passive aspect of our justification and the humanly active aspect of Christ’s role in justification. 88 III.xi.2. Cf. xi.9: “Every schoolboy should know that God’s righteousness is to be under- stood as that righteousness which is approved of God….”
To “justify” means nothing else than to acquit of guilt him who was accused, as if his innocence were confirmed. Therefore, since God justi- fies us by the intercession of Christ, he absolves us not by the confirma- tion of our own innocence but by the imputation of righteousness, so that we who are not righteous in ourselves may be reckoned as such in Christ (xi.3, emphasis added).
It may have been easier for Calvin to make his point if he had adopted my structure by which God’s mercy has a clear logical precedence to Christ’s medi- ation.89 As it is, his rebuff to Osiander must be made with some subtlety. Referring to Christ as a “lower remedy,” Calvin declares that he might agree with the content of Osiander’s doctrine,90 but must disagree with what I would term the lack of a properly dialectical reference to Christ:91
For even though God alone is the source of righteousness, and we are righteous only by participation in him, yet, because we have been estranged from his righteousness by unhappy disagreement,92 we must have recourse to this lower remedy that Christ may justify us by the power of his death and resurrection (xi.8).
We receive from Christ, then, the righteousness of being accepted by God; this is precisely the cancellation of the absolute standard. Yet Christ’s human medi- ation of this righteousness is crucial: “The matter both of righteousness and salvation resides in his flesh; not that as mere man he justifies or quickens by himself, but because it pleased God to reveal in the Mediator what was hidden
89 Some of Calvin’s statements sound as if they validate my order: “God alone justifies; then we transfer this same function to Christ because he was given to us for righteousness” (III.xi.7). 90 As seen in Chapter 2 above, Calvin does not deny that a real union with Christ is impor- tant (III.xi.10) and that the work of justification “is the common task of the Father and the Holy Spirit” (xi.9). The real disagreement consists in Osiander’s misunderstanding of the “spiritual bond” of the union, and obscuring that aspect of justification that is “peculiar to the person of the Mediator” (xi.8). 91 That I interpret the disagreement to concern, in a sense, form and not content in no way lessons the seriousness of the disagreement; rather, it is a testament that, for Calvin, in what context and to what ramifications a claim is made are more important than the isolated claim itself. Indeed, Calvin sees very serious practical consequences for Osiander’s doctrine of justification, especially with regards to our peace of conscience (xi.11). 92 This “unhappy disagreement [infoelici dissidio]” is a highly unusual and obscure phrase for Calvin to use, as well as the “inferius remedium.”
We must seek from Christ what the law would give if anyone could fulfill it; or, what is the same thing, that we obtain through Christ’s grace what God promised in the law for our works: “He who will do these things, will
93 “But even though we should grant that God was made righteousness for us, how will this harmonize with what Paul interposes: that Christ was made righteousness by God? This is surely peculiar to the person of the Mediator, which, even though it contains in it the divine nature, still has its own proper designation by which the Mediator is distinguished from the Father and the Spirit” (III.xi.8). Battles’ translation is rather free here; cf. os IV, 189. 94 As already quoted, he states that it is “because it pleased God…,” and because of the “unhappy disagreement.” 95 Calvin’s argument, occasioned by Socinus’ questions, against the idea that talk of Christ’s “‘merit’…obscures God’s grace” in II.xvii is too complex to cover here. See Willis, “Influence of Socinus,” which shows the subtlety of Calvin’s Scotistic heritage on this issue. With the appropriate dialectics, my hope would be to bridge the gap between the distinction of divine and human in Calvin and the tendency toward concursus in Socinus, who “saw less sharply than Calvin the separation between God’s ways and thoughts and human ways and thoughts” (ibid., 238). 96 III.xi.23: “And we…hide under the precious purity of our first-born brother, Christ, so that we may be attested righteous in God’s sight.”
live in them.”…For if righteousness consists in the observance of the law, who will deny that Christ merited favor for us when, by taking that burden upon himself, he reconciled us to God as if we had kept the law? (II.xvii.5)
Christ’s righteous fulfilling of the law demonstrates the potential for human beings to perform genuinely righteous acts. Once again, however, the power we gain from Christ “arises solely from the fact that the Son of God was crucified as the price of our righteousness.”97 Christ is not yet a model for our own active and righteous lives. Indeed, Christ’s specific, righteous activity is unique to his office as the one and only sacrifice of appeasement to the Father.98 In this place we may never be placed; here there can be no imitatio Christi.99 The stress must be placed on the imputation of Christ’s righteousness, which still is not ours. Rather, Christ’s righteousness is directed back to the Father for the purpose of satisfying God’s judgment, no matter how much benefit this may eventually be to us. While this sublation of Christ’s activity back into God’s mercy ensures that the two sides (the forgiveness of sins and the imputation of Christ’s righteous- ness) are not separated, it also tends to threaten their distinction. Here I take issue with Calvin. If the sacrifice on the cross exhausts the significance of Jesus’ active obedience, then, besides obscuring the very real role played by human agents in his death, the cross becomes nothing but a test: “[Jesus] stood to submit to judgment. Not, indeed, without a struggle; for he had taken upon himself our weakness, and in this way the obedience that he had shown to his Father had to be tested!”100 Yet if one is to call the cross a “test,” the impli- cation is that God has set up an arbitrary goal that concerns only God’s own satisfaction—moreover, a “test” makes the entire salvation through Jesus contingent. As I said before, I prefer to distinguish the presentation of God’s mercy from the role of Christ in reconciling mercy and wrath. In this way, God may be said to be fundamentally determined to mercy, but we need to have that mercy revealed in dialectical unity with God’s wrath. I am more in agreement with Calvin when he preserves, against Osiander, a distinct place for the significance of Christ’s human righteousness. In that way
97 II.xvii.5, continued from the above quote. 98 “He had been appointed to appease God’s wrath with his sacrifice, and to blot out our transgressions with his obedience” (II.xvii.1). 99 See Wallace, Christian Life, 42. Calvin also can assert, “But the Lord did many things which he did not intend as examples for us” (IV.xix.29). 100 II.xvi.5. Notice that Christ’s taking on of human nature itself seems to be part of the test, perhaps reflecting Philippians 2:5ff.
But there is a far different feeling of full assurance that in the Scriptures is always attributed to faith. It is this which puts beyond doubt God’s goodness clearly manifested for us. But that cannot happen without our truly feeling its sweetness and experiencing it in ourselves. For this rea- son, the apostle derives confidence from faith, and from confidence, in turn, boldness…. There is no right faith except when we dare with tran- quil hearts to stand in God’s sight. This boldness arises only out of a sure confidence in divine benevolence and salvation. This is so true that the word “faith” is very often used for confidence (III.ii.15).
101 II.xv. It seems to me that Calvin’s understanding of the prophetic office is not concerned with Christ’s righteous actions, but rather with Christ’s making known God’s justifying grace in “perfect doctrine.” Furthermore, as I argued in Chapter 2, Calvin relies on the Law, not Christ’s active ministry, to provide a detailed pattern for righteousness. 102 II.xv.5. Stadtland, Rechtfertigung, 141–43, correlates the priestly office with justification and the kingly with sanctification. 103 I.xv.4. What is more striking, however, is the total absence in the Institutes of details about Christ’s life and ministry that are directly used as a guide to sanctification. Calvin has no interest in asking “what would [or did] Jesus do?”
Christ’s meritorious righteousness provides us with a holy pride of being justly loved by God—however this new identity be only imputed to us, not imparted; “as if” and not really possessed; in our place and not in us. While particularized in Christ, this love is still universal. To the oddly nega- tive universal salvation posited while considering Christ’s death, the account can add that all humanity is not only absolved of sin but regarded as righteous by God. Calvin would never accept this conclusion bluntly stated; neither do I put it forth as a complete statement, yet it has its place. As the account turns more toward our embrace of Christ in confidence, and so to our own subjective experience of faith, I will draw on some passages from the Institutes to elabo- rate the subjective quality of faith and thereby to draw distinctions between the elect and the reprobate—a move precisely opposed to universalism. If the dialectic that this chapter has traced were indeed of a precisely Hegelian shape, then the scope of its movement, from forgiveness mediated through Christ’s atonement to righteousness imputed through Christ, would represent a “progression” whereby we were first negated but then reaffirmed— our negation being left behind. Our identity with Christ would be absolute; our subjectivity, completely sublated in Christ’s objective-subjectivity—in Hegel’s terms, an identity in-and-for-itself. If all this were true, our sanctification would be included in our justification. Such a unity, which I take up in the next chapter, would leave behind the forensic side of Calvin’s soteriology for a mys- tical union; the centrality of the cross would give way to the triumph of the Spirit. Indeed, without a strong account of our particular sinfulness, there is nothing to prevent the imputed righteousness from being imparted and sub- stantial. Such an account of our own sin, which will force a departure from the Hegelian mode, is also in store for the next chapter, which considers accounts of our particular subjectivity.
Conclusion
Most broadly considered, this theography of justification was tasked with rec- onciling the finite with the infinite: the infinity of God’s absolute standard of righteousness on one hand, and the finitude of the conditions of our owner- ship on the other. In the foregoing account, I have creatively restructured the material found in the Institutes, particularly pertaining to the Christological reconciliation of God and humanity, into several dialectical moments. First, the account was entirely objective and focused on God, bypassing the absolute standard by presenting the singular claim of God’s mercy. This simple affirma- tion is the principle of all of salvation, yet like Hegel’s Universal Concept, it has
104 SL, 842. 105 Among the more mysterious and intriguing uses of mirror images is that found in II.vii.2, where Calvin calls Christ “a double mirror.”
106 Cf. Derrida, Dissemination, 54: “Mallarmé’s Book issues from The Book [the Bible]…. [But] it escapes it beyond return, no longer sends it back its image, no longer constitutes an object finished and posed, reposing in the bookcase of a bibliotèque.”
Faith without works justifies, although this needs prudence and a sound interpretation; for this proposition, that faith without works justifies, is true and yet false, according to the different senses that it bears.1
This chapter is the most complex of the three constructive chapters, for it most intensively deals simultaneously with Hegel, Derrida, and Calvin. Later on, for instance, Derrida’s critical repetition of Hegel will itself be repeated in a re- reading of Calvin. The result is a text of severe hermeneutical complexity and density. No doubt I have not made my argument as accessible as I might, but the nature of the argument to a large extent determines its difficulty. Aside from carrying out a complicated reading of Hegel and Derrida, this chapter delves into the principal soteriological question: the relation between justifi- cation and sanctification. This question is explored in three parts. In the first, the Hegelian model found in the Logic and adopted by Chapter 4 to explicate justification is extended so as to include sanctification and subjectivity. “Transition One,” then, posits the unity of justification and sanctification in Christ. “Transition Two” marks a radical shift away from the Hegelian model by exploring how Calvin’s use of the term “experience” may be given a Derridean interpretation. Here sanctification is posited to be something quite different from justification, rendering a singular comprehension impossible. Yet Calvin’s soteriology does not entirely support this logic, either. “Transition Three,” then, follows Calvin’s attempts to conceive the relation between sanctification and justification in terms of expression and cause-effect, which I correlate to Hegel’s treatment of these concepts. The limitations of this construal of the relation point the account toward the next phase of the soteriological dialectic, to be pursued in Chapter 6. Taken together, these three sections provide a structure that holds together the diversity of ways that justification and sanctification can be related, as found in the soteriology of Calvin and others. Yet, as I said, this chapter also makes an argument about the relation of Hegel and Derrida. This relation is considered here by way of a concern for
1 Calvin, cr 40:439. Quoted by Leith, Christian Life, 98.
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Transition One: The Identity of Justification and Sanctification in Christ
The most obvious and tempting manner in which to proceed, having investi- gated the objective nature of justification in Christ, would be to discuss faith as the subjective, anthropological basis for the union with Christ. For many inter- preters of Calvin, it seems as though he begins Book III with a discussion of faith in order to make the transition from “objective” to “subjective” soteriol- ogy, from Christ’s work to our own union with Christ. As Calvin says in III.i.1:
…as long as Christ remains outside of us, and we are separated from him, all that he has suffered and done for the salvation of the human race remains useless and of no value for us. Therefore, to share with us what he has received from the Father, he had to become ours and dwell within us…. It is true that we obtain this by faith.
2 I could say much more here about whether a Calvin-inspired soteriology should speak from a position of sovereignty or out of a posture of accommodation to human capacity. Both notes can be found in Calvin.
Yet if faith now becomes the medium of transition from the “objective” to the “subjective,” a certain danger presents itself. Faith could be seen as having too constitutive a role in determining our salvation; salvation would then depend on something about us or even something we do.3 A better reading of Calvin addresses this danger: while faith figures prominently into the beginning of Book III, its more proper starting point is with the Holy Spirit. Hence the above quote continues:
It is true that we obtain this [union with Christ] by faith. Yet since we see that not all indiscriminately embrace that communion with Christ which is offered through the gospel, reason itself teaches us to climb higher and to examine into the secret energy of the Spirit, by which we come to enjoy Christ and all his benefits.
In reading Calvin, then, it would be a mistake to understand Book III as pre- senting the anthropological correlate to Christocentric presentation in Book II. Book III remains theological, but focusing on the Holy Spirit working in us. Yet it is difficult for Calvin not to immediately raise the question—to broach, indeed, the “secret”—as to why some receive the Spirit, and hence faith, and others do not. According to the recto ordo docendi, this question is put off until III.xxi on predestination, apparently the pathway by which we would “climb higher” than Christ alone, as “reason itself teaches us.” Yet Calvin does not intend to discuss straight away the gift of the Spirit as though it were indepen- dent of God’s grace in Christ. There is a sense in which the Spirit, on the one hand, refers us back immediately to the work of Christ: “The Holy Spirit is the bond by which Christ effectively unites us to himself” (III.i.1, emphasis added); yet in a different way, the Spirit is apportioned by God separately from Christ’s work, according to the secret plan of God.4 For the sake of a smooth transition, one that maximizes connection and continuity, the account should at this point maintain the close bond between Spirit and Christ. Too much talk about faith or even the Spirit could lead the account to depart from the objectivity of Christ in order to discuss subjectivity, as if there were no inherent relation between these two sides. The first possibil- ity to be explored must be that the union with Christ is Christ’s own doing; in other words, it is conceivable that nothing particular to ourselves, including our secret election by God, is needed to account for salvation.
3 For Calvin, relying on ourselves imperils the certainty of salvation we ought to enjoy (see e.g. III.xix.2). 4 Most interpreters minimize this aspect of the Spirit; Milner, Church, 198ff, is an exception.
Though it departs somewhat from Calvin’s order, I first investigate the immediate union of the human person with Christ, rather than the union mediated by the Spirit and faith. In this way both sanctification and the subjec- tive side of salvation are introduced by extending the mode of singularity from Chapter 4, displaying sanctification in a Christocentric unity with justification. Sanctification is considered as the immediate subjective reflection of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The soteriological account thereby, for now, holds in abeyance the differential aspects of sanctification—meaning that differences between justification and sanctification, Christ and Spirit, subjectivity and objectivity, and faith and works will remain “suspended” in Christ and will appear more as “not separated” than “distinguished.” This dialectical moment of soteriology is by no means dominant in Calvin’s text, but we shall find traces of it therein that are otherwise difficult to explain and appreciate fully. My procedure will also identify and offer a constructive interpretation of confusing passages where Calvin seems unable to express what he wants to say. The main shift that is needed to extend the account to include sanctifica- tion and subjectivity is to question the predominance seen in Chapter 4 of Christ’s death over his resurrected life. The unity of that chapter was held in Christ’s death, which both expressed the mercy of God and also sublated, as was said, his active obedience into his passive sacrifice. Yet one can question why Calvin should prioritize the death of Christ; on this question would also seem to hang the issue of why justification should not give way to sanctifica- tion, as Christ’s death gives way to his resurrection. After all, if Christ has shown God to be propitious, even eternally so, then the significance of God’s wrath is a matter of the past for Christians as well as all humanity. Why should we not direct ourselves to the future and toward living into our righteousness, our sins having been “blotted out”? Historical context aside, the briefest answer is that Calvin recognizes that sin remains in us as an active problem that must be dealt with specifically. Therefore, mortification, which is a participation in Christ’s death, is as essential to our sanctification as is vivification; this pair will be addressed in Chapter 6. The seriousness of sin, if not simply a groundless pessimism, is a reflection of the absolute standard of God’s righteousness, a standard preserved in the form of Christ’s atonement. Calvin is by no means one-sided in favoring Christ’s death. He can describe our salvation by emphasizing our active righteousness and deemphasizing the seriousness of sin. Thus in III.xix.5, he describes the justified as “sons” who, having been “freed from this severe requirement of the law,” are not afraid to offer “incomplete and half-done and even defective works” (III.xix.5); in this case it is as if the absolute standard has been permanently revoked. Yet in another, otherwise similar discussion, this acceptance by the “kindly Father” of
“these works reckoned good as if they lacked nothing,” is interrupted by the brute fact of sin:
But because the godly, encompassed with mortal flesh, are still sinners, and their good works are as yet incomplete and redolent of the vices of the flesh, [God] can be propitious neither to the former nor to the latter unless he embrace them in Christ rather than in themselves (III.xvii.5).
This facticity of sin, which has yet to be considered, refers God’s graciousness back to the mediation of Christ, and hence to the centrality of his death. As I read Calvin, this recourse to Christ’s mediation, without which God cannot properly be propitious, confirms the preservation of the absolute standard. Thus, the centrality of Christ’s death restrains sanctification from leaving behind justification; the two are held in a dynamic tension that will be investigated further in Chapter 6. Yet at this point in my account, in which the particularity of sin has yet to appear, there is no reason not to equally emphasize that we are not only forgiven in Christ, but are imputed righteousness in him. One possible meaning of this that arguably appears in Calvin from time to time is that our sanctification is immediate and complete in Christ, in the same way our justification is immediate and complete in Christ. Justification and sanctification here find their seamless unity in the person of Christ. What does it mean for us, for the subjectivity of salvation, that Christ is our sanctification? According to one interpretation, as exemplified by Ronald Wallace, the church has been sanctified once-for-all in Christ’s consecration to God. Yet our participation in that sanctification depends on our union with Christ, which is accomplished by the Holy Spirit and the gift of faith.5 So according to Wallace, there seems to be a sanctification of Christ that, relative to us, is clearly objective. Does this mean that we then receive the gift of sanc- tification subjectively along with the gift of justification when we are united with Christ? Is it like the way we receive not only a healthy purgative but also fortifying nutrition by eating whole grains? The analogy sounds absurd; yet sometimes the “union with Christ” is couched in such a way that the “benefits”
5 See Wallace, Christian Life, vi, 12, 17–27. One confusing matter here is that Wallace grounds the close unity of justification and sanctification in Christ, and thus we must receive both through union with Christ. Nonetheless, he recognizes that the manner in which they come to us is quite different, as justification comes at once and sanctification comes only gradually (ibid., 14). Does this mean that the union also happens both at once and gradually? Or are there then two different unions?
is given us to be our righteousness. He alone is well founded in Christ who has perfect righteousness in himself: since the apostle does not say that He was sent to help us attain righteousness but himself to be our righteousness [1 Cor. 1:30].
He develops the same thought in the following Section 6:
Believers have Christ abiding in them [I John 3:24], through whom they may cleave to God; Sharers in his life, they sit with him in the heavenly places [Eph. 2:6]; “They are translated into the Kingdom of God” [Col. 1:13] and attain salvation—and innumerable like passages. For they do not mean that by faith in Christ there comes to us the capacity either to pro- cure righteousness or only to acquire salvation, but that both are given to us. Therefore, as soon as you become engrafted into Christ through faith, you are made a son of God, an heir of heaven, a partaker in righteousness, a possessor of life; and…you obtain not the opportunity to gain merit but all the merits of Christ, for they are communicated to you.
6 Calvin talks about the two benefits in III.xvi.1. See Canlis, Calvin’s Ladder, 110–11; she sees a “tension” here in Calvin which she blames on Calvin’s failure to employ sufficiently a partici- pationist soteriology.
There is the real possibility of a union with Christ, which Calvin even describes as “mystical,”
so that Christ, having been made ours, makes us sharers with him in the gifts with which he has been endowed. We do not, therefore, contemplate him outside ourselves from afar in order that his righteousness may be imputed to us but because we put on Christ and are engrafted into his body—in short, because he deigns to make us one with him. For this reason, we glory that we have a fellowship of righteousness with him.7
In these passages, Calvin has moved beyond any obvious sense of imputation as entirely extra nos. They suggest the possibility that we immediately receive Christ’s righteousness and sanctification in the same sense as we receive his justification. This immediate union of justification and sanctification is the best way to make sense of the many passages in which Calvin says that we are “at once [simul]” justified and sanctified.8 The key, again, is that we look to Christ not only for our justification but for our sanctification as well. Yet how would this work? Essentially, it would mean that Christ is our true self, both for justification and sanctification. In Christ, we are both reconciled with God and are, in some true sense of “to be,” righteous and obedient servants.9 There would have to be a sense in which in seeing Christ, we see our true selves. Building on hints from Calvin, I offer here three theories of the immediate union of justification and sanctification in Christ. The first theory continues the theme of seeing by suggesting an analogy of beauty. On some accounts, beauty has the property of immediately uniting subject and object, such that seeing becomes in itself transformative.10 The analogy is suggested when Calvin relates faith to love:
7 III.xi.10. Note how he describes the union both as our putting on Christ and Christ’s mak- ing us one with him. This passage occurs in the heart of the controversy with Osiander. It must be remembered that this blending of imputation with impartation is a concession to Osiander; most of Calvin’s arguments against Osiander begin with this kind of one- sided concession that is then, as it were, dialectically corrected. 8 See esp. III.xvi.1, where Calvin refers again to I Cor. 1:30 and says “Therefore Christ justifies no one whom he does not at the same time sanctify.” See also III.iii.19, III.ii.8, III.xi.6, and III.xiv.9. Contrast II.ix.3. 9 Again, positing this position is just to follow closely upon the two sides of Christ’s mediation in Chapter 4, now emphasizing his righteous obedience equally with his passive sacrifice. 10 See Gadamer, Truth and Method, 477–91; Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord, vol. 1 (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1982).
But how can the mind be aroused to taste the divine goodness without at the same time being wholly kindled to love God in return? For truly, that abundant sweetness which God has stored up for those who fear him cannot be known without at the same time powerfully moving us. And once anyone has been moved by it, it utterly ravishes him and draws him to itself.11
It is not clear exactly what is being tasted or sensed in this passage. What is clear is that there is an immediate reaction of affect and even self-loss in response to the divine goodness. While this could be explained by reference to an anthropology of affectivity, a possibility to be revisited in Transition Three below, here it is better to think of it as God’s goodness and beauty causing a loss of self and a unity with the perceiver. Just by perceiving the goodness of what God has done in Christ, we are taken up into God and out of ourselves. This represents a kind of faith that is at once also love, both of these being wholly engendered by the object perceived. In looking to Christ and not ourselves, we not only negate ourselves but also become absorbed by the beauty we see. Thus, in the same place Calvin asserts the affectivity of faith, he also adds:
Since faith embraces Christ, as offered to us by the Father—that is, since he is offered not only for righteousness, forgiveness of sins, and peace, but also for sanctification [again, I Cor. 1:30]…—without a doubt, no one can duly know him without at the same time apprehending the sanctifica- tion of the Spirit (III.ii.8, emphasis added).
In this embracing of Christ by a perceiving that goes beyond external knowing, we grasp a possibility of sanctification extra nos and in Christ. Thus far the effecting of this perceiving can only be attributed to the beauty of Christ. There is a second possible theory for discussing the immediate relation of justification to sanctification, namely, through re-conceiving the imputation of Christ’s righteousness. Imputation as developed in Chapter 4 stressed that what is imputed is not ours; imputation thus involves a displacement of our- selves by Christ. But Calvin occasionally suggests the possibility that the impu- tation of righteousness is immediately also an impartation, or that imputation itself makes us righteous. This possibility suggests itself when Calvin elaborates on his definition of justification as “the remission of sins and the imputation of Christ’s righteousness” in III.xi.21. Here there seems to be some kind of synthesis
11 III.ii.41. The analogy here is to sensuous beauty, but interestingly, to taste in particular. Note also the strong, threefold emphasis on simultaneity.
Thus, him who he receives into union with himself the Lord is said to justify, because he cannot receive him into grace nor join him to himself unless he turns him from a sinner into a righteous man [quin ex peccatore iustum faciat]. We add that this is done through forgiveness of sins…. Those whom God embraces are made righteous [fieri iustus] solely by the fact that they are purified when their spots are washed away by forgive- ness of sins. Consequently, such righteousness can be called, in a word, “remission of sins.”
Forgiveness here appears as a making-righteous. There is an immediate unity or reflection (in Hegel’s sense) of the two sides into each other: “Each one [righteousness and reconciliation] is reciprocally contained in the other” (III.xi.22). Furthermore, “The apostle [in Acts 13] so connects forgiveness of sins with righteousness that he shows them to be exactly the same.” No real explanation of this connection or synthesis is forthcoming.12 What is clear is that Calvin maintains that we are righteous outside of ourselves:
It is evident that we are justified before God solely by the intercession of Christ’s righteousness. This is equivalent to saying that man is not righteous in himself [non in seipso iustum esse] but because the righteousness of Christ is communicated to him by imputation [cum illo communicatur]— something worth carefully noting. Indeed, that frivolous notion disap- pears, that man is justified by faith because by Christ’s righteousness he shares in the Spirit of God, by whom he is rendered righteous (III.xi.23).
12 It is hard to imagine an explanation that would not, again, involve an anthropological theory about, say, how grace provokes gratitude which is itself transformative. Explanations of this sort are prevalent today, but I am trying to avoid them for now. See for example Bruce McCormack, “What’s at Stake in the Current Debates Over Justification?” in Mark Husbands and Daniel J. Treier, eds., Justification: What’s at Stake in the Current Debates (Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 2004).
The opponent here appears to be Lombard’s notion that the substantial pres- ence of the Holy Spirit in us allows us to love righteously.13 Calvin’s rebuttal is that it is unnecessary to advert to a substantial righteousness from the Spirit, because in Christ we have our righteousness. For this point he cites Paul: “‘He who knew not sin was made the atoning sacrifice of sin for us so that we might be made the righteousness of God in him’.” The dense argument is confusingly followed by a blending of imputation and impartation:
You see that our righteousness is not in us but in Christ, that we possess it only because we are partakers in Christ; indeed, with him we possess all its riches. And this does not contradict what he teaches elsewhere, that sin has been condemned for sin in Christ’s flesh that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us. The only fulfillment he alludes to is that which we obtain through imputation. For in such a way does the Lord Christ share his righteousness with us that, in some wonderful manner, he pours into us enough of his power to meet the judgment of God.
I have already noted the confusing mix of concepts and metaphors in this passage; here imputation sounds like a conveying of a sufficient amount of a substance. It should be noted that, in the same context, it is Christ’s active obedience that is stressed: “The obedience of Christ is reckoned to us as if it were our own.” Without, to repeat, interposing anthropological theories, the best formula- tion of this second theory within the trajectory of this soteriological account is that imputation in fact tells us what we truly are. The very notion of imputation previously traded on a contrast between what we are declared to be by God and what we “really” are, implying that imputation is “as if” in contrast to “in fact.”14 But if we have been declared righteous in Christ, what is to prevent us from
13 “It has indeed been said above and shown by sacred authorities, that the Holy Spirit is the Love of the Father and the Son, by which They love one another and us. Moreover, it must be added to these, that the very same Holy Spirit is the Love or Charity, by which we love God and neighbor. When this Charity is so great in us, that it makes us love God and neigh- bor, the Holy Spirit is then said to be sent and/or to be given to us; and he who loves the very love, by which he loves (his) neighbor, in this very (thing) loves God, because Love itself is God, that is, the Holy Spirit.” Peter Lombard, The Four Books of the Sentences, Book 1, Distinction 17, Part 1, Chapter 1. My thanks to Brother Alexis Bugnolo, who made the trans- lation available on line at http://www.franciscan-archive.org/lombardus/opera/ls1-17.html. 14 That is why some recognition of and description of faith was necessary in Chapter 4, and in particular, an understanding of faith that was a simple negation of the self and the principle of ownership.
We experience such participation in him that, although we are still fool- ish in ourselves, he is our righteousness; while we are unclear, he is our purity; while we are weak, while we are unarmed and exposed to Satan, yet ours is the power which has been given him in heaven and on earth…; while we still bear about with us the body of death, he is yet our life. In brief, because all his things are ours and we have all things in him, in us there is nothing [in nobis nihil]. Upon this foundation, I say, we must be built if we would grow into a holy temple to the Lord (III.xv.5).
15 This solution does not hold for most of the passages in Calvin cited above, because Calvin introduces sin before turning to justification. 16 This theme is prevalent in Luther’s Lectures on Genesis in Jaroslav Pelikan, ed. Luther’s Works vol 1, (St. Louis: Concordia, 1958), e.g., 197.
The final sentence shows that Calvin is directing us toward sanctification. Despite casting us in antithesis to Christ, he resolves this passage into having all in Christ and being nothing in ourselves. In a similar vein, our sanctification as self-denial (III.vii–viii) involves a forgetting and negating of ourselves:
We are consecrated and dedicated to God in order that we may there- after think, speak, meditate, and do, nothing except to his glory…. We are not our own: let us therefore forget ourselves and all that is ours…. The Christian philosophy bids reason give way to, submit and subject itself to, the Holy Spirit so that the man himself may no longer live but hear Christ living and reigning within him…This is also evidence of great progress: that, almost forgetful of ourselves, surely subordinating our self-concern, we try faithfully to devote our zeal to God and his commandments.17
Frankly, other passages supporting this theory are scant in number.18 Especially because his discussion is polemically directed against works righteousness and scholastic attempts to delineate a human contribution to salvation, the true being in Christ is usually contrasted with a strong assertion not of our nothing- ness, but our active, sinful, rebellious nature. However, Calvin consistently advises that we “fix our eyes and minds on Christ alone” (II.xvi.3); arguably, the point is that, our conscience being troubled by our sin, we must look for noth- ing in ourselves on which to base our salvation. Though scantly supported in Calvin, the formulation that we have all things in Christ, being nothing in ourselves, represents an important concept of the immediate identity of justification and sanctification. As I interpret it, the effect of this formulation is to neither assert nor deny anything about our being insofar as it is outside of Christ; being equivalent to nothing, whatever is out- side of Christ is simply irrelevant to the truth of our being, which is wholly contained in the revealed being of Christ. As a result, this moment stands in continuity with both the simple cancellation of sin and ownership in Chapter 4, as well as its looking solely to Christ for our salvation. But whereas faith showed up in Chapter 4 strictly as a negation of oneself, the consequence of Christ taking my place, here there is less or perhaps no emphasis on self- negation. Faith is rather our whole, positive being insofar as we are in the living
17 Culled from III.vii.1–2; emphasis added. 18 “We are prepared to be reduced to nothing so that God may live and reign in us,” Calvin’s Commentary on Matthew, as cited by Venema, Accepted and Renewed, 120.
Christ.19 Outside of faith, we are nothing; and this nothing simply does not enter into the soteriological account. In this way, Christ is indeed wholly sover- eign over our salvation; for if salvation depends on either our self-negation, or on our self-consciousness of sin and concomitant humility, then how can we be sure we have ever negated ourselves sufficiently?20 I have redoubled the claim of Chapter 4 that the self has no role in salvation, for it is now said to be nothing (neither sin nor righteousness) outside of Christ. At the same time, it is everything in Christ, for Christ is as much righteous obe- dience and the restored and fulfilled image of God as he is the self-negating revealer of or pointer to God’s mercy. Our salvation is union with Christ; to be more precise, we are insofar as we are this union. What is entirely absent from this third theory of our immediate justification and sanctification is any self-reflective awareness. Indeed, within the parameters of this theory, any self- reflective awareness of ourselves as sinners, in substantial opposition to God, shows a lack of faith in God’s pronouncing us righteous and questions God’s sovereignty. With justification and sanctification as completed events deter- mined objectively and apart from us, we are left to be wholly lost and absorbed in Christ’s righteousness, and nothing besides. More so than Calvin, Karl Barth presents a soteriology that bears a certain resemblance to this moment. I Corinthians 1:30 plays an enormous role in Barth’s soteriology.21 Barth sees sanctification no less than justification as com- pleted and existing in Christ: “The sanctification of man which has taken place in this One [Jesus] is their sanctification. But originally and properly it is the sanctification of Him and not of them.” Indeed, Barth explicitly criticizes Calvin for not recognizing the objective sanctification of all humanity in Christ
19 Despite Calvin’s assertion against Osiander that “faith…is ignorantly confused with Christ,” the strong and immediate union of faith with Christ is not necessarily against Calvin’s teachings. The problem is when this identity is seen to give faith itself a constitu- tive role in salvation: “For if faith justified of itself or through some intrinsic power…it would effect this only in part” (III.xi.7). At this point in the account, I am not looking at faith as an anthropological phenomenon, but solely as an ontological being-in-Christ. 20 This is a typical argument of Calvin whose validity should not be taken for granted. It assumes that human beings act only relatively and by degrees. Perhaps it assumes an Aristotelian anthropology, e.g., that we are always an organic mix of act and potential. Perhaps it assumes the sinful limits of our “flesh.” God, in contrast, alone acts absolutely and categorically. I suspect that something like the “absolute standard” has been smug- gled into this argument, i.e., we could never sufficiently negate ourselves according to the divine standard of judgment. Only God can meet God’s own judgment. 21 See Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, [cd] G.W. Bromiley and T.F. Torrance eds. (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1936–1969), IV.2, 268 (excursus), 515 (excursus).
We must recognize that everything actual is only in so far as it possesses the Idea and expresses it. It is not merely that the object, the objective and subjective world in general, ought to be congruous with the Idea, but they are themselves the congruence of Concept and reality; the reality that does not correspond to the Concept is mere Appearance [Erscheinung], the subjective, contingent, capricious element that is not the truth…. What anything actual is supposed in truth to be, if its Concept is not in it and if its objectivity does not correspond to its Concept at all, it is impossible to say; for it would be nothing.24
Applying Hegel to soteriology, the Idea is Christ. All reality is in him. He is the complete reflection of the Father, and the Spirit (of Christ) brings all things back to Christ. Objectivity exists in-and-for-itself in him. Therefore, Christ is our true being. We are indeed identified with Christ. But the qualifier persists, that we are nothing in ourselves. Whatever we are apart from Christ remains outside of the account. Or rather, it enters the account only to immediately vanish from the account. We have been sublated into Christ without remain- der, or with a remainder that is nothing. This application of Hegel also makes possible a resolution of the conun- drum that I raised in Chapter 1 concerning how to interpret Calvin. There I sug- gested that one can postulate in Calvin two coexisting versions of soteriology: a forensic version and a union-with-Christ version. What the account has arrived at is something of a synthesis of these two versions by presenting a
22 cd IV.2, 520. 23 The most clear statement to the contrary, given amid qualifications, is on cd IV.2, 596: “In this sense, and on all these presuppositions, we must say of man’s sanctification that it already takes place here and now in works which are really good….” 24 Logic, 756.
25 Logic, 398 and 400. 26 “Faith may be said to play its part in justification by insisting that it does not justify, attrib- uting all to Christ,” McGrath, Iustitia Dei, 256.
Osiander, faith is not Christ; but neither is faith itself a thing.27 Understood as Essence, faith is the proper concept to name our being at once in Christ and nothing in ourselves, as well as our being united with Christ without being identical to Christ.28 For Hegel, Essence cannot attain to a stable account of itself until it becomes the Concept. Similarly, faith can be easily mistaken for a substantial account of the self until Christ (the “material cause”) is shown to be its sub- stance. Above I connected Christ to the Idea, so that one is either in the Idea or is nothing; the Idea judges or discerns reality. But the Idea for Hegel is not static and eternal in the Platonic sense; rather, it dynamically becomes its own other in self-estrangement and externality. This notion of the Idea is par- ticularly amenable to (and probably influenced by) Christology. Christ is our true being even when we do not reflect Christ in faith; hence Christ is the image of God in which we have been created and which remains in us despite our fallenness. Similarly, Christ is not simply a self-substantial being; Christ is “for us” and embraces universal human being on the cross. Like the Absolute Idea, then, Christ has being “in-and-for-self”: He is himself by embracing all others. Faith is an affirmative self-negation into Christ because first of all, before our creation, Christ included our being into himself. The self-negation at the heart of faith, by which we are taken up into relation with Christ, is itself a reflection of Christ’s own openness to all humanity. In summary, the account of our subjectivity as faith-in-Christ forms a completed circle; but it simply excludes any consideration of what we immediately are. It remains only to fill out these Hegelian observations in more substantially theological terms. The soteriological account has arrived at the unio mystica, which Calvin indeed describes with the circularity of the in-and-for-self: “Christ, having been made ours, makes us sharers with him in the gifts with which he has been endowed” (III.xi.10). These gifts include justification and sanctification in immediate union. The mystical union seems to have passed beyond the self- negation of faith to the pure being of Christ: “He deigns to make us one with him. For this reason, we glory that we have fellowship of righteousness with him”
27 III.xi.7. Calvin calls it a vessel, which is a good metaphor for essential being with negation at its core. 28 Barth better represents this moment: “In an abstract, subjective selfhood, apart from Christ, we none of us exist as those who move and are obedient to God, and therefore we cannot really know ourselves as such…. A true knowledge of ourselves as such, and there- fore of our Christian actuality, stands or falls for all of us with our knowledge of Jesus Christ. In Him we are hidden from ourselves,” etc. cd IV.2, 271.
(III.xi.19) Yet there is no substantial union with God as Osiander would have it, for we are not immediately united with the divine substance (III.xi.8-10). At the conclusion of Chapter 4, Christ was sublated into the Word, into the Gospel. The Word is mediated to us by the Spirit; but the Spirit in this account is noth- ing but the Spirit of Christ, whose sole function, indeed its very being, is to transmit the power of the Gospel. The Spirit takes us up into the Word; the Word of Christ—Gospel and Christ are also one—mediates to us the Father’s absolute standard of righteousness. Suspended in Christ, the absolute righ- teousness of God is shown as Christ’s fulfillment of righteousness, which is at the same time open and inclusive of all. At this point, the Gospel should be considered all-determinative of reality. We read the Gospel or hear it preached, and the Gospel determines our being as faith. It does this of its own power; no other explanatory principle is neces- sary. We hear and obey, or we do not. If not, or insofar as we do not, we are nothing. But there is no basis for a self-reflective comparison of our being as such with Christ’s. We could never stop to take measure of ourselves, or anyone else for that matter, to see if we have fully measured up to Christ. Indeed, to do so would be necessarily to cease being in Christ and to return to our own empty being. No longer simply the redeemer of sinners, Christ has become the principle (“in principio erat Verbum”) and very Idea of being. The shift is significant. No longer is Christ confronting a being foreign to himself and redeeming it from outside; that idea of the sinner as the not-Christ was implicitly in effect in Chapter 4, even if simultaneously overcome by his death. Yet now the self opposed to Christ has indeed vanished into Christ. Christ is the truth of even all being, and outside of Christ there is ultimately nothing. In other words, the difference between Creation and Redemption collapses. Christ is the one through whom “all things came into being” (John 1:3) and for whom “all things have been created” (Colossians 1:16). Indeed, at the far end of this dialectic lies a Christomonism in which the distinction between the Creation and God’s own being as Trinity is undermined.29 In other words, the immanent and eco- nomic Trinity appear to be fused. Both express the same concept: God gener- ates a perfect other who expresses God’s image, and these form a perfect unity
29 By this point, of course, we have departed far from Calvin’s teachings, at least as expressed against Osiander, where Calvin maintains the distinctiveness of Christ as Mediator, guar- anteed by Christ’s human nature: “Even though [Christ’s person] contains in it the divine nature, still [it] has its own proper designation by which the Mediator is distinguished from the Father and the Spirit” (III.xi.8). For Osiander, on the other hand, there is a fine line between Creation and Incarnation (see Stadtland, Rechtfertigung, 98).
30 The continuity of creation and redemption can be found in Luther and more profoundly in Maximus Confessor. 31 Recall that in Hegel, the “practical Idea” is wholly sublated into the Absolute Idea.
Transition Two: Essential Différance and the Interruption of the Unity of Soteriology by Experience
The grace of justification is not separated from regeneration, although they are things distinct. But because it is well known by experience [expe- rientia] that the traces of sin always remain in the righteous, to be justi- fied must be different by far [longe aliter] from their being reformed into newness of life.33
32 Barth, cd IV.1, 548. 33 III.xi.11 (os iv, 193), translation altered, emphasis added.
This interruption marks what turns out to be the midpoint of the soteriological account that seemed to have reached its closure. So far, the account has dis- played a consummately Hegelian form, such that differences and oppositions are gathered up into rich, inclusive unities: sacrifice into mercy, sin into grace, Jesus into Gospel, self into Word, Spirit into Son, works into faith, practice into logos, and, most pertinently, sanctification into justification. This adoption of Hegelianism has been appropriate in as much as the Reformation finds in jus- tification the unifying concept of Christian theology. In justification the mani- fold of Scriptures and tradition, Christian social and liturgical practice, and individual faith and spirituality permit themselves to be reduced and synthe- sized into theory. Yet now the self-sated theory of justification must be inter- rupted, just when it had reached its completion. While the first transition from justification to sanctification was characterized by unity and simultaneity, now the account, prompted by Calvin’s text, must consider the possibility of a radi- cally interruptive and disruptive transition. From here on, the sufficiency of the academic text, insofar as its very being is theory, will be disputed; these pages will no longer aim to present salvation, but document how salvation remains in process and, in several ways, unassimilable to the academic text, even while salvation may be indicated therein. With this shift, sanctification will come into its own as the true other of justification; but in the same pro- cess, sanctification will show itself to be that which cannot “come into its own” after the pattern of justification. The interruption is prompted by noting the curious meaning of “experientia” in a text where Calvin refers to experience in order to infer the difference between justification and sanctification, a difference for which this theogra- phy has not yet accounted. The passage cited above occurs in response to Osiander’s doctrine of “two-fold” righteousness, as Calvin perceives it. Osiander’s doctrine is materially not so different from the soteriology of Transition One, being a kind of synthesis of both “free pardon” and the holiness we have in Christ, “not in so far as he, by expiating the sins as Priest, appeased the Father on our behalf, but as he is eternal God and life.”34 As was seen in Chapter 1, Calvin does not at all points dismiss the content of Osiander’s doctrines, but insists that their form is faulty, and this makes all the difference.35 In this case, what Calvin sees Osiander to be losing is the distinctness of the imputed side
34 Calvin discusses two-fold righteousness in III.xi.6. Notice that Transition One, like Osiander, made the move from Christ’s humanity to Christ’s divinity. 35 Thus Calvin begins Section 11 by conceding that “this doctrine—even though it were not so pestilent… —ought rightly be unsavory for intelligent and pious readers.” Cf. the beginning of III.xi.6.
36 The turn to experience happens again shortly thereafter, in so many words, when Calvin insists that the diversity between being declared righteous and being really righteous is stated by Paul in Rom. 8 and “is sufficiently known [satis nota est, cf. the first occurrence: ‘experientia plus satis notum est’, os iv, 194], and so familiar to all the saints….” 37 See the review of scholarship in William A. Wright, “Negative Experience in Calvin’s Institutes and its Systematic Consequences” Journal of Religion 93:1 (2013), 41ff. 38 See for instance III.ii.17, 33. See also Wright, “Negative Experience,” 49–51. 39 There is a happy coincidence here of the theme of the “trace” in both this text and much of Derrida’s work.
40 See “Violence and Metaphysics: an Essay on the Thought of Emmanuel Levinas,” in Derrida, Writing and Difference, 83, where Derrida says of Levinas’ attempt to resist the Greek logos by a “messianic eschatology”: “It seeks to be understood from within a recourse to experience itself. Experience itself and that which is most irreducible within experience: the passage and departure toward the other….” See also ibid., 95. 41 Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, 353. 42 Ibid., 357.
I have attempted to distinguish différance…from Hegelian difference, and have done so precisely at the point at which Hegel, in the greater Logic, determines difference as contradiction only in order to resolve it, to interiorize it, to lift it up…into the self-presence of an onto-theological or onto-teleological synthesis.
Derrida sees a constriction of diversity within this dialectical movement.45 According to Thompson, différance functions as a quasi-transcendental that makes possible both “irrational” diversity and speculative, dialectical opposi tion,46 the latter being the driving motor of Hegel’s dialectic. Yet différance is not a third to these, but operates “‘between’” them.47 It does so through a “simulated repetition” of Hegel’s dialectical movement, but in such a way that the remains (“reste”) of the irrational diversity are made apparent. In general,
43 Kevin Thompson, “Hegelian Dialectic and the Quasi-Transcendental in Glas” in ed. Stuart Barnett, ed., Hegel after Derrida (London: Routledge, 1998), 239–59. I argued that Derrida’s critiques of Hegel falsely assume an ontological pan-logism; Hegel, I believe, is better understood when one attends to the genre of the Logic. Thompson, however, assumes pan-logism and generally accepts Derrida’s reading of Hegel uncritically. Secondly, the problems Thompson sees in Derrida’s repetition of “diversity” may be a simple result of Thompson’s attempt to analyze the “formal” concept behind différance. In doing so, he assumes much about the categories of form and content that is critically implicated by Derrida’s ideas (for one, form can be seen as spiritualized-interiorized content). These weaknesses limit the usefulness of an otherwise cogent and helpful article. 44 Derrida, Positions, 44. 45 Thompson “Hegelian Dialectic,” 240 (see also footnote 8), 242, 258. 46 One can also refer to these two sides as abstract and determinate negation, respectively. 47 Thompson, “Hegelian Dialectic,” 242.
Différance then may never be capable of being thought otherwise than as an intrinsic opposition and, as such, always already constrained by the telos of Geist’s Beisichselßstsein [sic]. The ‘profound affinity’ between deconstruction and speculative philosophy may finally prove inescap- able and their relation insoluble.48
Thompson’s version of Derrida’s strategic repetition of Hegel is particularly useful and adaptable for my present purposes, namely, to free up the soterio- logical account for appreciating sanctification in its own right or in its differ- ence from justification. The problem Derrida points us toward, as modified by my correlation of différance and Concept in Chapter 3, is that the diversity of concepts through which the Logic progresses remains only dubiously pre- served in the final moment of the Absolute Idea, which is both an intelligible synthesis of its own as well as the “method” by which the total diversity of concepts was shown to be necessary. Derrida helps to show that there is an incompatibility between the Idea as purely ideal and the Idea as a principle for a more material text. Hegel is driven to force difference into a strong hierarchy and to tame it within the dialectic of the Absolute Idea, most likely because of his commitment to the ideology of Wissenschaft. As I argued in Chapter 3, however, the Logic can also be read in a way that is friendlier to difference; in the following I in effect do so by repeating the moments of difference within the concepts of Essence, while resisting their teleology towards Concept. By using these stalling tactics, I mean to show that the many relations of difference remain valid in their diversity and that each deserves its own place in the account. That is, Essential differences deserve their own textual expression—such I find in Calvin’s diverse ways of writing the relation of jus- tification and sanctification—and even extra-textual enactment, rather than serving as a mere preface to the Concept. For this reason, I have deliberately begun my theography of salvation with justification as the Concept, and only afterward do I now remember/interiorize (erinnern) the differences between justification and sanctification. As I do so, the exposition of justification and
48 Ibid., 259.
49 This phrase is indebted to a similar one used by Hegel in the Phenomenology, “tarrying with the negative.” See Raphael Foshay, “‘Tarrying with the Negative’,” Heythrop Journal 43:3 (2002): 295–310. For Foshay, the most succinct meaning of this Hegelian phrase is “a need to pass into and through separation” (ibid., 302). By “tarrying with Essence,” I mean to dally with Hegel’s passing into and through separation in the Logic’s section on Essence, and so question whether he does not pass through too quickly. In doing so, I believe I agree with Foshay’s critical appropriation of Derrida and Bataille’s “one-sided” attack on Hegel: “It would be arguably more consistent, if one were truly to tarry with the negative, to remain even more persistently than Hegel with the dialectical interplay of positive and negative….” (ibid., 306).
50 To be sure, experience is ambiguous for Calvin, having both negative and positive effects. While I begin with negative experience, the ambiguity of experience will in fact help fore- stall the sublation of particularity (back) into Christ. 51 See his interesting comments on the relationship between the two testaments, Law, and Gospel in II.ix.2, where he grants that the gospel is found in the Old Testament, but the New Testament contains it in “a higher sense”; and in II.ix.4, where Calvin argues that “the gospel did not supplant the entire law so as to bring about a different way of salvation.” 52 See II.vii.3–5.
53 II.vii.2; III.xvii.6. 54 III.xii.1. I noted in Chapter 1 that this chapter seems to deal with repentance as if preced- ing the acceptance of grace—all the more odd, coming in the middle of the doctrine of justification! Yet in my schema, this regression to the position of a sinner seeking grace makes sense, precisely following a strong statement of imputation. The slightest turn away from Christ and towards oneself results in despair and loss of assurance. At this stage, the believer is caught in an endless cycle of having assurance in Christ but fear and dread when looking to oneself. While this kind of dialectic cycle may be what is implied in III.xii, Calvin directly refutes this picture of salvation in III.ii.24. 55 See Chapter 4. 56 II.viii.3, emphasis added. The context makes this passage a clear case of the “first use.” 57 “Therefore, if righteousness is sought from the law we will in vain bring forward one work or another, but unceasing obedience to the law in necessary” (III.xiv.10); “The keeping of each commandment is a part of righteousness; provided that in the remaining parts the whole sum of righteousness is contained” (III.xvii.7).
58 Known mostly by common lore, this image can be found in Luthers Werke, 54:111. 59 See Chapter 4. 60 Luther of course also allowed for partim iustus, partim peccator. See George Hunsinger, “A Tale of Two Simultaneities: Justification and Sanctification in Calvin and Barth” Zeitschrift fur Dialektische Theologie 18: 3 (2002), 325.
Calvin does not entirely exclude this moment:
For since no perfection can come to us so long as we are clothed in this flesh, and the law moreover announces death and judgment to all who do not maintain perfect righteousness in works, it will always have grounds for accusing and condemning us unless, on the contrary, God’s mercy counters it, and by continual forgiveness of sins repeatedly acquits us.61
Here and elsewhere, Calvin’s account of the regenerate seems to revert occa- sionally and unsystematically to the process of coming to grace through the first use of the law.62 Yet Calvin seems uncomfortable with this Lutheran moment. An alternative to the Law-Gospel dialectic that has become typical of modern evangelical theology conceives justification as a one-time, subjec- tively experienced event of conversion, thereby decisively marking the end of the first use of the law. Calvin prefigures this alternative by occasionally speak- ing of justification as though it were a singular conversion. In other cases, while he avers that sin remains in believers, Calvin sometimes attempts to distin- guish “vestiges of sin” remaining in believers as opposed to the sin that rules over unbelievers (III.iii.11); this implies a change of state that could never again regress to the beginning of the law-justification dialectic. My architectonic configuration accommodates this inconsistency by allowing the possibility, prompted by experience, of a short-circuit regress from the process of law-guided self-examination to sole dependence on God’s mercy alone and the imputation of Christ’s righteousness. This moment marks a slight progression: it halts the triumphant march of the Absolute union with Christ by placing that union in an alternating dialectic with its opposite—one’s own sin. In this way it turns the account back to the purely extra nos salvation of Chapter 4. Yet no real new content is added to soteriology, only a more dynamic form. The additional effect is to complicate the reconcili- ation offered in Transition One of the forensic and union with Christ models. In Transition One I offered a version of the union with Christ that included the forensic within it. Experience now turns back that union with Christ toward
61 III.xiv.10, emphasis added. See also III.xiv.11: “We must have this blessedness [i.e., forgive- ness of transgressions] not just once but must hold to it throughout life.” 62 Especially when permitting a strong distinction between justification and sanctification as in III.xi.11, Calvin insists that justification remains always equally necessary: “For God so begins [sanctification] in his elect, and progresses it gradually, and sometimes slowly, throughout life, that they are always liable to the judgment of death before his tribunal.”
Whenever we look to Christ, they confess that we find full occasion for good hope in him. But because we are always unworthy of all those benefits which are offered to us in Christ, they would have us waver and hesitate at the sight of our unworthiness. In brief, they so set conscience between hope and fear that it alternates from one to the other intermittently and by turns. …But what kind of confidence will that be, which now and again yields to despair? If, they say, you contemplate Christ, there is sure salvation: if you turn back to your- self, there is sure damnation. …As if we ought to think of Christ, standing afar off and not rather dwelling in us! For we await salvation from him not because he appears to us afar off, but because he makes us, engrafted into his body, participants not only in all his benefits but also in himself…. Christ is not outside of us but dwells within us (III.ii.24).
The possibility, or indeed necessity, of Christ’s particularity uniting with ours, and especially of our gaining a sense of temporal continuity in our salvation (all Christ’s actions here are in the present tense) that was excluded under justification extra nos, will be vital to the rest of the account, and will define the struggle to reclaim true ownership of salvation. It is thus incumbent upon my account to explore this sense of Christ dwelling within us. This dwelling within appears to be different from the union with Christ of Transition One. On my reading, Calvin’s theology includes two quite different relations of Christ and believer, indicated by disparate metaphors: “Our righ- teousness is not in us but in Christ,” on one hand, and “Christ dwells within us” on the other. In fact, I find in Calvin at least three distinguishable forms of union with Christ: the union in which we are outside of ourselves, the dwelling
63 See Pitkin, Pure Eyes, 38. Manfred K. Bahmann, “Calvin’s Controversy with Certain ‘Half- Papists’,” Hartford Quarterly 5 (1965): 27–41, puts forth a hypothesis that the unidentified opponent in this passage is Osiander and his disciples. I consider his conclusion to be far from established.
To share with us what [Christ] has received from the Father, he had to become ours and to dwell within us…. For, as I have said, all that he pos- sesses is nothing to us until we grow into one with him. It is true that we obtain this by faith (III.i.1, translation altered).
Defining faith as Christ’s being metaphorically inside us allows Calvin to establish a definite location in us, as it were, by means of which ownership of salvation can be re-established: “To have faith is to strengthen the mind with constant assurance and perfected confidence, to have a place to rest and plant your foot” (III.xiii.3). Faith as interiority creates a space for a circumscribed sense of self that can be the bearer of positive experience of God.66
64 David Willis-Watkins, “The Unio Mystica and the Assurance of Faith According to Calvin” in Calvin: Erbe und Auftrag (Kampen, Netherlands: Kok Pharos Publishing, 1991), 78–79, distinguishes between “two levels” of the union with Christ. The first is Christ’s union with human nature in the incarnation; the second, dependent on the first, is the “particu- lar union with Christ with believers” through the Holy Spirit. The distinction is apt, though the language of “levels of union,” upon reflection, appears to employ a mixed and perhaps incoherent metaphor. I think it is appropriate to go even further into a three-fold distinction, for the union with believers exists in two dimensions, as it were: it is both a present accomplishment and an eschatological process. I must reaffirm my previous point, that while the union with Christ provides a convenient handle on Calvin’s complex theology, it can be misused by interpreters to paper over important distinctions. 65 While the latter two also seem quite different, Calvin can place them side by side, as he does in III.i.1. 66 Thus Calvin can say that God is “angry at vices” but “merciful and kindly disposed to” a person. i.e., God can love the self but not the external aspects of the self . See also III.ii.12.
But to designate interiority as the seat of Christ’s presence brings with it a new problematic. Hegel’s Logic treats extensively the Essential relation of Inner and Outer, showing that one can only be understood in dialectical rela- tion with the other, and that this relation is unstable and capable of surprising reversals. Thus we find that the self that has so far been unified is now marked by internal opposition. Positive experience of Christ within, interiorized into faith, has as its polar opposite the Flesh. The Flesh re-collects the remaining sin of negative experience and projects it into the Outer of the self; in thus way Calvin adopts the Pauline duality of Flesh and Spirit.67 To see the self as a dia- lectic between Flesh and Spirit makes a more robust and complex account of ownership possible and helps forestall the collapse back into justification extra nos—but only at the expense of dividing our very being between interior spirit and exterior flesh. In fact, though, Calvin refers much more to one side of the Pauline polarity, “Flesh,” than to “Spirit.”68 Perhaps this discrepancy exists because, aware of the challenge of the spiritualists, Calvin preferred speaking of being “in Christ” rather than “in the Spirit.” Regardless, the most significant distinction Calvin makes between flesh and spirit occurs in the context of faith, when Calvin dis- cusses the struggles of faith: “In order to understand this, it is necessary to return to that division of flesh and spirit which we have mentioned elsewhere. It most clearly reveals itself at this point [quae in hac parte lucidissime se pro- fert]” (III.ii.8). Being the very organ of interiority, “the godly heart feels in itself a division [divisionem] because it…partly rests [recumbit] upon the promise of the gospel, partly trembles at the evidence of its own iniquity.” As revealed by this “evidence,”69 i.e., experience,70 the cause of this division is the imper- fection of faith within this life. Calvin proceeds to discuss at length the strug- gles of faith; I shall put off this subject until Chapter 6. However, here he asserts,
67 “Experience obviously teaches us that until we put of the flesh we attain less than we should like” (III.ii.4). See also Krusche, Wirken, 282–84, Stadtland, Rechtfertigung, 212. 68 Calvin picks up the distinction in II.ii.27 and II.iii.1. The context here is his doctrine of sin. “Believers constantly feel in themselves the conflict between flesh and spirit” (ii.27). Calvin asserts that Flesh is what we have from our sinful nature; “We have nothing of the Spirit, however, except through regeneration” (iii.1). Otherwise, anthropological mentions of spirit are far outnumbered by those of flesh. Cf. III.iii.9–14, where the Spirit-Flesh dis- tinction is muted, perhaps because of Calvin’s polemics against the spiritualists (III.iii.14). 69 “Testimonio.” Recall that Calvin raised the problem of the struggle of faith in the section previous (III.ii.17) by admitting that “believers experience something far different.” 70 “Experience” appears here under slightly different terms: “Especially when it comes to reality itself, every man’s wavering uncovers hidden weakness.”
But if in the believing mind certainty is mixed with doubt, do we not always come back to this, that faith does not rest [constet] in a certain and clear knowledge, but only in an obscure and confused knowledge of the divine will toward us? Not at all. For even if we are distracted by vari- ous thoughts, we are not on that account completely divorced [divel- limur] from faith…. Faith ultimately triumphs over those difficulties which besiege and seem to imperil it.71
As Calvin explains in ii.19, despite the ignorance that at least initially envelops faith, “the mind is not hindered from enjoying a clear knowledge of the divine will toward itself. For what it discerns comprises the first and principal parts of faith.”72 Faith, that is, is complete even in its incipiency. Therefore justification by faith is not imperiled, even though both our faith and our regeneration remain imper- fect in this life, in the flesh. While being honest to the exigencies of life, Calvin wants to avoid a scenario in which the believer must waver between assurance and doubt. Sanctification, however, is quite the opposite on this score: it never attains to the sort of completion that could serve as a reliable source of confi- dence before God’s judgment.73 Faith and sanctification are different, therefore, even though both are part of ourselves, and both are given to us by the Spirit. While the opposition of faith and flesh allows a richer description of human involvement in salvation, for Calvin there is no sense in which faith can be credited simply and directly to a human being (III.i.4). Spirit and self are not distinct principles in human action; nor is anthropology now taking over the account after theology has done its work.74 Thus Calvin invokes the Spirit to differentiate true faith from what only appears to be faith.75 Additionally, the Spirit accounts for the penetration of faith from the brain to the heart, and
71 III.ii.18, emphasis added. I left out additional bare rejoinders that make no real argument. 72 See also Stuermann, Faith, 241. 73 III.xi.11, and also xi.17: “When the Spirit of God forms us to such love, why is it not for us a cause of righteousness, except that even in the saints it is imperfect, and for that reason merits no reward of itself?” 74 See Butin, Trinitarian, Chapter 6; Krusche, Wirken, 280. 75 See III.ii.8: “They would have faith to be an assent by which any despiser of God may receive what is offered from Scripture. But first they ought to have seen whether every man attains faith through his own effort, or whether through it the Holy Spirit is witness to his adoption.”
76 III.ii.8. It seems to me that when Calvin invokes the Spirit in III.i–ii, he often exaggerates in a one-sided way the role of the Spirit at the expense of the Word, as when claiming through Paul that “faith itself has no other source than the Spirit [fidem ipsam non aliunde prodire quam a Spiritu]” (III.i.4; os iv, 5) or, “Without the illumination of the Holy Spirit, the Word can do nothing.” It is no wonder that some interpreters over-emphasize the subjective union with Christ at the expense of our objective justification. It must be borne in mind that Calvin is writing polemically against two opponents. He emphasizes the Spirit against the Scholastic understanding of faith as assent; but against the Spiritualists, he absolutely yokes faith to the Word, as in III.ii.6: “The same Word is the basis [basis] whereby faith is supported and sustained; if it turns away from the Word, it falls.” On Calvin’s response to fides informis, see Pitkin, What Pure Eyes Could See, 28–29, 136–38. 77 For instance, Calvin tries to secure true faith from momentary faith: “If God truly shows his grace, this fact is forever established” (III.ii.11). In fact, this is a theological claim that admits of no empirical validation. Rather than serving as a test of present experience, this claim only serves as a rule for explaining how faith that turned out to be momentary was not the fullness of faith, by theological definition.
Faith is something omnipotent, and that its power is inestimable and infinite; for it attributes glory to God, which is the highest thing that can be attributed to Him…. It consummates the Deity; and if I may put it this way, it is the creator of the Deity, not in the substance of God but in us.80
Luther’s praise of the qualities of faith make it sound like what saves is faith, rather than God’s mercy:
When, however, God sees that we consider him truthful and by the faith of our heart pay him the great honor which is due him, he does us that great honor of considering us truthful and righteous for the sake of our faith. Faith works truth and righteousness by giving God what belongs to him. Therefore God in turn glorifies our righteousness.81
These passages in Luther, at once fascinating and disturbing, deserve separate attention. Luther gives us hints at what is distinctly virtuous about worship
78 III.ii.21. Jürgen Moltmann, Prädestination und Perseveranz: Geschichte und Bedeutung der Reformierten Lehre “de Perseverantia Sanctorum” (Neukirchen: Kreis Moers, Neukirchener Verlag, 1961), 56–58, puts this passage in the context of Calvin’s doctrine of perseverance. 79 III.ii.13; see also III.ii.30. 80 Luther, Luther’s Works, v. 26 (Lectures on Galatians 1535, Chapters 1–4), 227. 81 Luther, “The Freedom of a Christian,” in ed. John Dillenberger, Martin Luther: Selections from his Writings (New York: Doubleday, 1961), 60.
82 Calvin certainly values worship as an end in itself: “God will to be freely worshipped, freely loved. That worshipper, I say, he approves who, when all hope of receiving reward has been cut off, still ceases not to serve him” (III.xvi.2). See also the distinction between the two tables of the Law, II.vii. 83 I advert to Luther because the reality of faith, and what it accomplishes in itself, needs greater development than Calvin can provide. Without giving faith its own moment, the account of salvation remains constricted to Christ’s work and obedience. One way to bridge the gap would be to examine Christ as the exemplar of human faith. Calvin fails to fully explore the “merit” of Christ in this way (III.xvii). Yet Calvin’s virtue is in keeping Christ’s merit in tension with God’s free mercy. 84 III.ii.15. See Pitkin, Pure Eyes, 30–31, for the development of this aspect of faith between 1536 and 1539. 85 Recall that Calvin nominates faith as the “formal cause” of salvation (III.xiv.17). 86 III.ii.17. Cf. Pitkin, Pure Eyes, 140, which places the latter passage about faith in the context of Calvin’s exegesis of the Psalms. 87 Against the challenge that Calvin’s Christology makes grace universal, Calvin tellingly replies: “When we say that Christ was made man that he might make us children of God, this expression does not extend to all men. For faith intervenes [quia fides media interpo- nitur], to engraft us spiritually into the body of Christ” (II.xiii.2).
88 In II.xvi.1, it is necessary to look to Christ’s sacrifice “to gain a sufficient and stable support for our faith,” for “no one can descend into himself…without feeling God’s wrath….” Contrast this with the passages about seeing Christ within oneself. 89 See III.xi.11, and III.xiii.5: “[Confidence (fiducia)] does not take place through the gift of regeneration, which, as it is always imperfect in this flesh, so contains in itself manifold grounds for doubt.” Cf. III.ii.38: “If we should have to judge from our works how the Lord feels about us, for my part [‘equidem’—that’s experience!], I grant that we can in no way attain it by conjecture. But since faith ought to correspond to a simple a free promise, no place for doubting is left.” 90 This possibility is especially similar to the second explanation of the immediate union with Christ (see above), that the believer can respond to Christ immediately with a transformed life. The difference is that now an interior space has been identified that is distinct from the entirety of a transformed life. The wisdom of this new moment is that a specifically inner transformation is more easily isolated from the forces and structures of sin all around us. 91 The immediacy of faith seems to be more of the mind; its depth and transformative power, more of the heart. Cf.: “It is harder for the heart to be furnished with assurance than for the mind to be endowed with thought” (III.ii.36).
The Différance of Sanctification The whole self that was united with Christ (or otherwise was nothing) in Transition One is now divided into faith and Flesh. This same movement of reflection has laid the groundwork for the distinguishing of justification and sanctification, these two having previously been held in immediate union. The inner self (the “heart”) has been identified as that aspect of our being in which justification is immediately secured. The soteriological account has thereby explored the meaning and appropriateness of justification by faith. Justification for Calvin must yield certainty, and that means presence and immediacy. Sanctification, to the contrary, must concern exteriority, the Flesh, and deferral rather than immediacy; as a result, sanctification cannot yield certainty. This simple distinction of justification from sanctification shows the two-fold effect typical of Essential relations in Hegel. The interiorization of justification and its differentiation from sanctification, on one hand, secures justification and gives it a stable form. Distinguishing justification from what it is not makes it easier to identify. On the other hand, the sole sufficiency of justification is called into question by the “supplementary” effect of
92 According to Pitkin, Chapter 1 (esp. 31–32), Calvin’s own development of the concept of faith went from a Lutheran-influenced fiducia to Calvin’s mature emphasis on cognitio. I would speculate that the inner-theological reason for the shift is to further secure justi- fication from the vagaries of one’s subjective disposition. 93 The inner transformation of the believer will be touched on in Transition Three (below). Note that the more justification becomes specified as being “by faith,” the more it resem- bles sanctification. Thus the full development of this “fusion” belongs to Chapter 6. For now, the interiorization of faith has implied something like an immediate process, by which what was extra nos is reflected to the interior. The light metaphor is apt, for light is a natural phenomenon that nonetheless acts immediately and instantaneously. Still, the account of this immediate action and transformation has to be here left to the hidden work of the Holy Spirit, acting according to God’s secret election—yielding, unfortu- nately, no great intelligibility.
94 Derrida’s main discussion of “supplement” is found in Derrida, On Grammatology, 144ff. Typical of Derrida, the discussion there centers on writing and speech. 95 Derrida’s image of a machine that foils the Hegelian dialectic may here be of some use: “What Hegel…could never think is a machine that would work” (mp, 107). Sanctification is in some ways a mechanistic process of works, as opposed to the self-reflectiveness of faith; in other ways sanctification is an organic growth from faith. I shall show that sanc- tification resists being either the same as or different from justification.
All the godly ought to aspire to this goal, that they may one day appear spotless and blameless before God’s face. But because even the best and most excellent plan of the present life is only a progression, we shall arrive at that goal only when, having put off this sinful flesh, we cleave wholly to the Lord (III.xvii.15, emphasis added).
Similarly: “We shall never be able to win victory until, filled with the Spirit, we cast off all weakness of our flesh” (III.xx.46, emphasis added). This negative, inferential eschatology stands in contrast to a somewhat more positive refer- ence to eschatology that occurs when Calvin discusses faith as a dialectic of present realization and future promise:
[Servetus] pretends that by faith in the gospel we share in the fulfillment of all the promises. As if there were no difference between us and Christ! I just declared that Christ left unfinished nothing of the sum total of our salva- tion. But it is wrong to assume from this that we already possess the bene- fits imparted by him…. Although, therefore, Christ offers us in the gospel a present fullness of spiritual benefits, the enjoyment thereof ever lies hid- den under the guardianship of hope, until, having put off corruptible flesh, we be transfigured in the glory of him who goes before us (II.ix.3).
From our possession of faith, we infer that we do have something already and now, but experience reminds us that we do not have completion: “The Lord by deferring his promises often holds our minds in suspense longer than we would wish” (III.ii.42, emphasis added). Hope, then, may be interpreted to have a curi- ously “supplemental” relationship (in Derrida’s sense) to the faith that has been tempered by experience: hope both “sustains faith to the final goal” and “restrains faith that it may not fall headlong from too much haste” (III.ii.42). There is no absolute difference between faith and hope (III.ii.43). Faith is not simply a present possession; but were it nothing but an anticipation, faith would be indistinguishable from hope. From this I conclude that the difference between our present state and our ultimate goal is not defined only negatively
96 Cf. IV.xv.11, where it sounds as though the goal really is defined just as the death of the Flesh: “Let them rather think that they are still on the way…until they reach their desti nation, that is, the final death of the flesh, which shall be accomplished in the close of this mortal life” (emphasis added). 97 Faith as the positive inference of an eschatological process will be taken up in Chapter 6. 98 Cf. the discussion of the simul in Chapter 1. 99 For example, the meditation on the judgment seat (III.xii) is a means to bring the believer right now before the final judgment. 100 Krusche, Wirken, 281. 101 See ibid., 229: “Die den Glauben erzeugende Geistwirksamkeit geschieht indessen zugleich mit der Predigt…, wobei freilich sogleich zu bedenken ist, daß dieses ‘simul’ ein göttliches Zugleich ist, nicht mit der Stoppuhr zu bestimmendes.”
102 “He receives his own into life by his mercy alone. Yet, since he leads them into possession of it through the race of good works in order to fulfill his own work in them…, it is no wonder of they are said to be crowned according to their works….” (III.xviii1). 103 One finds scarcely any mention of works in the discussion of repentance (III.iii-xix); rather, Calvin discusses works exclusively after III.xi. This again makes more dubious what some commentators find to be a striking feature of Calvin’s structure, his discussing sanctification before justification. 104 III.xi.18; but cf. III.xvi.1: “Having admitted that faith and good works must cleave together, we still lodge justification in faith, not in works.”
Faith is passive; works are active (III.xiii.5). Conversely, faith is the center of our intellectual acts of identification, ascription, and crediting; works are purely for being done, not for reflecting back upon how we understand our relation to God.105 Yet this difference between faith and works, once again, does not lead to an equal emphasis on works and faith, as if they were two equal sides of a dialectical opposition. Rather, Calvin, reflecting his own dialectical logic, can say that “we are justified not without works yet not through works.”106 It cer- tainly is not the case that we receive justification in Christ so that we can per- form works “under our own power” (III.xv.5); in that case, sanctification through works would supersede justification by faith. By resisting in each case a simple opposition (or separation) of justification and sanctification, these assertions of difference in eschatology and temporal- ity, imputation versus impartation and possession, law versus gospel, and faith versus works provide a peculiar kind of clarification of the difference of justifi- cation and sanctification. Taking on one side the form of Essential difference, all of these oppositions allow justification by faith to be all the more identified and separated out. Justification occurs in the now and not in a process, through imputation and not possession, in response to the gospel and apart from the law, and in the interiority of faith and not in the exteriority of works. Justification appears all the more as itself once experience culls out what justification is not; otherwise put, justification is reflected into itself by its negative relation to sanctification. Yet the same reflection-into-self does not apply to sanctifica- tion. In each case the side corresponding to sanctification is either not present or is in some sense excluded from the account of salvation. As a process, sanc- tification is not entirely excluded from the present nor does it reside there; nor is sanctification possessed even if possession is its mode of being; nor does it fulfill the law apart from the gospel; nor is it to be located in works to the exclu- sion of faith. Sanctification defers coming into its own, at least within a textual presence. This strange imbalance between justification and sanctification is to me dis- cernable when Calvin clarifies the difference between justification and sancti- fication in terms of their different roles or functions:
Removing [Sublata(!)], then, mention of law, and laying aside all consid- eration of works, we should, when justification is being discussed [agitur], embrace God’s mercy alone, turn our attention from ourselves, and look
105 Complications to this distinction will, again, be taken up in Chapter 6. 106 III.xvi.1. This phrase is an interesting logical specification of the “distinct but not separated.”
only to Christ. For there the question is not how we may become righ- teous but how, being unrighteous and unworthy, we may be reckoned righteous. If consciences wish to attain any certainty in this matter, they ought to give no place to the law. [¶] Nor can any man rightly infer from this that the law is superfluous for believers, since it does not stop teach- ing and exhorting and urging them to good, even though before God’s judgment seat it has no place in their consciences. For, inasmuch as [ut] these two things are very different, we must rightly and conscientiously distinguish them. The whole life of Christians ought to be a sort of [quaedam] practice of godliness, for we have been called to sanctifica- tion. Here it is the function [officium] of the law, by warning men of their duty, to arouse them to a zeal for holiness and innocence. But where con- sciences are worried how to render God favorable, what they will reply, and with what assurance they will stand should they be called to his judg- ment, there we are not to reckon107 what the law requires, but Christ alone, who surpasses all perfection of the law, must be set forth as righ- teousness (III.xix.2, emphasis added).
In the context of my argument, this passage suggests that, to speak loosely, it is only justification that is concerned with distinguishing itself from sanctifi- cation; sanctification is not itself interested in being distinct. Sanctification simply issues from the inexhaustible ought, formulated by the law and encom- passing our “whole life.” Sanctification, so to speak, is too busy striving actively toward the law’s perfection to be concerned with self-reflection. Indeed, it ceases to be itself precisely when it collects itself for presentation in works righteousness, when it attempts to reflect its activity back upon the person of the actor. But justification, inherently a “discussion” and discourse, a matter of the conscience and self-identity, needs to withdraw itself from sanctification, to collect itself into presence before God. Luther’s theology typically exemplifies the self-deferring quality of sanctifi- cation; hence, sanctification sometimes fails to appear in Luther as a topic. Sanctification is supposed, by his account, to be spontaneous, free—i.e., thoughtless, unaccountable. It is simply an afterthought to justification, with- out parameters, forms, or categories of its own. One could say that sanctifica- tion differs differently from justification. Rather than asserting itself as the opposite of justification, sanctification demurs entering into the account of
107 The word here is subduco, which, like aufheben and “suspend,” means both “to draw up from under, raise” and “remove.” The French version supports the English translation as “reckon.”
108 This particularization that escapes the text is common to both sanctification and the interiorization of faith into the heart. Both must happen in or to us, personally. But faith is an inward reflection of the righteousness completed and fulfilled by Christ, the center of which is Christ’s inimitable appeasing death. Since interior faith proceeds from this accomplished work of Christ, it is on one side conceivable by the text, unlike sanctification.
109 I believe the development in question is, on one hand, anti-Hegelian, because sanctifica- tion cannot appear as such in the account. Thus the account could never capture it in a single concept; that non-appearing is different than capturing it in a concept that fails and then develops, as does Essence. On the other hand, this development is not like the ever-changing strategy of deconstruction, whose name of “différance” must be continu- ally reinvented, even though the same thing seems to be said each time. Rather, sanctifi- cation must develop its truly different sides. Even while it cannot as such appear in the account, sanctification in this account is not statically the same in its non-appearance. 110 See Logic, 499ff. 111 In other words, it is an easy mistake to go from connecting works to faith to making faith depend on works (the syllogismus practicus).
112 “The whole life of Christians ought to be a sort of practice of godliness” (III.xix.2). See also the first Absolute Relation between justification and sanctification, below. 113 Notice that as Whole and Part or Inner and Outer, the relation of justification and sancti- fication is effected by “external reflection”—the account is comparing them. As Cause and Effect, the relation is something that justification is doing to sanctification. The con- cepts are becoming more powerful, but at the same time the account is losing control of the proceedings.
Transition Three: Justification as Foundation of Sanctification
The concepts of Essence have a constitutional dilemma. While they are relational, they are either too driven by self-negativity, so that one side of the relation will lose itself in its other, or too self-assertive (like concepts of Being), so that one supervenes upon the other. This dilemma drives Essence toward the Concept with its subjectivity, whereby the universal freely relates itself to the particular and finds itself there. Teleologically drawn toward the Concept, the concepts of Essence strive to become both free (self-moving) and mutual. Toward the end of Essence, this goal is coming into view. Mutuality of relation is seen in the Essential Relation of Inner and Outer, but the freedom of self-relation to the other is lacking. The same is still true when Hegel comes to Substance and Accidents. Cause and Effect, however, show a quasi-subjective impetus to relation, but they lack mutuality, at least initially. The final moment overcomes these cumulative shortcomings with Reciprocity, which marks the transition from Essence to Concept. It is important to penetrate the trappings of these logical terms to see what is at stake for the Hegelian account. Hegel wants to hold together and finally synthesize the self-subsistency of Being with the relationality of Essence; in other words, he wants both a true self and a full relation to the other. The Concept is purported to accomplish this synthesis. What the synthesis of self and other in Concept also secures, however, is the principle by which Hegel’s text can unify a diversity within itself. In contrast, the concepts of Essence that begin with a given difference, as between Whole and Part, do not provide a singular principle to account for the difference. If Essential relations were the best the Logic could do, it would fail to hold together as a presuppositionless, complete whole that accounts for all difference within itself. Only the Concept can serve as the singular principle that supports the whole text of the Logic in all its diversity. An entire text is encompassed in the single word. Through the critical lens of Derrida, however, the Hegelian Concept appears to favor self-sameness over otherness; Derrida, in contrast, favors the assertion of difference to the reductions to selfhood and word. Still, Derrida does not attempt to fight Hegel on an entirely different plane, say, of action instead of
Three Types of “Absolute Relation” between Justification and Sanctification Justification and sanctification are not for Calvin simply diverse and unrelated, as the account has shown; Stadtland contrasts Calvin’s organic relation of the two with their “side-by-side (nebeneinander)” relation in Melanchthon.114 Yet I do not think that this organic connection is as unitary and clear in Calvin as some commentators suggest. Indeed, my argument, broadly speaking, is that the relation between justification and sanctification must necessarily be diversely described and evades any reduction to a singular concept. To demon- strate this, I have culled out three possible configurations of the positive rela- tion between justification and sanctification, based on Calvin’s texts, the interpretations of commentators, and Hegelian logic. Prior to these three, there is one additional possibility in Calvin that deserves consideration, although it does not merit the name “Absolute Relation.” This way interprets the reception of both justification and sanctification as a sacra- mental power that results in the mystical union with Christ. The notion of a mystical union with Christ that brings us these two benefits occurs in several places in the Institutes.115 How can Christ, who holds justification and sanctifi- cation in himself, be conceived to dwell within, such that we receive not only the interior power of justifying faith but also the transformative power of sanc- tification? One way to explain this is to resort to sacramental metaphors of imbibing Christ, partaking of Christ, or participating in Christ. Christ is meta- phorically taken to be a substance that enters oneself and has an effect in the same way that food or medicine does: “Salvation rests for us [not only] in [Christ’s] death and resurrection, but also that, by true partaking of him, his life passes into us and is made ours—just as bread when taken as food imparts vigor to the body” (IV.xvii.5). Of course, it is not just like eating bread, for faith is required, as is the working of the Holy Spirit.116 Conversely, the Word can also be conceived under the same metaphor, as having a quasi-alimentary effect.117
114 See Chapter 1. 115 See III.xi.10, where it is connected with Osiander’s doctrine of the Lord’s supper, and III.xiv.9. 116 The relation of the physical elements to what they signify is too complicated to enter into here. 117 “Faith needs the Word as much as fruit needs the living root of a tree” (III.ii.31).
Unfortunately, the metaphorical partaking does not allow much further explanation. Calvin concedes that the way the sacrament unifies us with Christ is “by nature incomprehensible” (IV.xvii.1). By Hegel’s standards, this explanation hardly rises to the level of a concept. Even Calvin himself is too rationalistic to fully embrace the effectiveness of the sacrament apart from the Word.118 Yet the fact that sacramental metaphors are irreducible to a Hegelian concept could be an important signal of another “remains” being left out of this account. That is, Calvin’s acknowledgement of a role for a sacramental efficacy that resists conceptual explanation suggests the inadequacy of the concept for understanding the richness of Christian life. To be sure, the meta- phors of liturgy cannot be reduced to univocal meanings, nor analyzable into dialectical moments. While a weakness as regards conceptuality, this multiva- lency allows the metaphors to work on several levels at once, which is appro- priate to the hidden work of the Spirit in sanctification. These “remains” again support the contention that our particular justification and sanctification can- not be reduced to a concept as can justification extra nos. Moreover, even jus- tification by the process of interiorization in faith is aided by sacramental mediation. Moving on, the first Absolute Relation proper is a genuine explanation of a causal sort.119 In brief, justification by faith causes sanctification by removing the curse that had hindered our natural goodness. Suggestions that justifica- tion thus frees us to pursue sanctification can be found in Calvin:
But if, freed from this severe requirement of the law, or rather from the entire rigor of the law, they hear themselves called with fatherly gentle- ness by God, they will cheerfully and with great eagerness answer, and follow his leading (III.xix.5).
The connection drawn between justification and sanctification by John Leith in his interpretation of Calvin fits into this explanation:
118 See esp. IV.xiv.14–16. 119 Whether justification and sanctification are causally linked is a long-standing question among Calvin scholars. The most controversial issue is whether sanctification in any way causes justification. Venema, Accepted and Renewed, 172–75, considers Calvin’s indica- tions of sanctification as an “effect” or even “inferior cause” of justification. My treatment of this issue is enriched by the subtle conceptuality of cause and effect available in Hegel. See also Stuermann, Faith, 106, on the relation of fides to fiducia: “Fides and fiducia are neither independent nor equivalent, but they stand in the relation of cause and effect.”
Justification provides the true foundation or the fertile soil out of which the true Christian life grows. Calvin regarded the confidence which comes from the experience of justification by faith alone as the only pos- sible basis for real sanctification. As long as human being are engaged in a tense and frantic search for salvation and standing before God, the moral life is impossible. Confidence before God is the indispensable milieu for the Christian life.120
Leith also cites Willy Lüttge in support:
From the strength of faith, from the forgiveness of sins experienced in faith, and from the new position of man before God thus created—i.e., from the freedom and joyful certainty of being a child of God—springs, by itself, ethical striving. This is very often overlooked in characterizing Calvin. In this there lives, even though he coins different formulas, the original strength of the Lutheran conception.121
If justification as liberation is worked out consistently, it implies a return to a state prior to the enslavement in sin. The intractable sinfulness of the flesh has no place here. Lüttge’s reference to Luther can be expanded by certain inter- pretations of Luther in this direction, as by Mark Mattes:
Nature does not need perfecting by grace such that we could climb to a higher level on the heavenly ladder. Rather, nature needs liberation from human incurvation. Thereby it is freed so that it can work in harmony with God’s moment-by-moment creativity. It is the message of the cross that liberates nature and allows creation to be restored.122
Justification, as already seen, is the simple cancellation of the absolute stan- dard. It is furthermore presumed here that guilt, dread, and fear are the princi- pal causes of sin. Once we realize that the true standard of God’s judgment is a relative adequacy, we will not hesitate to do good. This first form of absolute relation in fact presents no inner connection between justification and sanctification. Justification is pictured strictly nega- tively, as the cancellation of the curse, the negation of negation. It “frees”
120 Leith, Christian Life, 97. 121 Ibid., 96. Cited from Willy Lüttge, Die Rechtfertigungslehre Calvins und ihre Bedeutung für seine Frömmigkeit (Berlin: Reuther & Reichard, 1909), 84. 122 Mattes, Justification, 188.
123 Experience is at least acknowledged under Christian freedom when it comes to trying to fulfill the law perfectly: “For even though they love God deeply and with sincere affection of heart, they have a great part of their heart and soul still occupied with fleshly desires, by which they are drawn back and prevented from hastening forward to God. Indeed, they struggle with much effort, but the flesh partly weakens their powers, partly draws them to itself” (III.xix.4). 124 Mattes, Justification, 187.
connection.125 Instead of safeguarding the importance of justification, this lack of connection may in fact diminish it. In an appropriately Hegelian fashion, the second Absolute Relation of justification and sanctification stands in antithesis to the first one. In this case, justification, as accomplished by Christ, provides the positive model for sanc- tification as repentance: “Scripture shows that God the Father, as he has recon- ciled us to himself in his Christ, has in him stamped for us the likeness to which he would have us conform.”126 In contrast to a “moral philosophy” that would have us, in a fashion similar to the first Absolute Relation, “live in accordance with nature,” Calvin affirms that the way of Scripture connects our active life to the supernatural elements of justification: Scripture “enjoins us to refer our life to God”; it teaches that we have “degenerated from the true origin and condi- tion of our creation”; and “it also adds that Christ, through whom we return into favor with God, has been set before us as an example, whose pattern [for- mam] we ought to express in this life.” Specifically, it is the self-abnegation of Christ that serves as the “target” and “goal…toward which we should strive and struggle” (III.vi.5). Yet this is not a struggle with the world; the struggle is directed inward, toward the integrity of the interior,127 not toward the expansiveness of the exterior. In this respect sanctification thoroughly reflects the interiority of jus- tification. In the first Absolute Relation, justification is something completed in the knowledge of God’s mercy through the objectivity of the cross; interior- ity cancels itself to free us for exteriority. Now, however, the very model of understanding and truth shifts to include a mimesis, a becoming of the self like unto the object. Thus Calvin says of the Gospel: “For it is a doctrine not of the tongue but of life. It is not apprehended by the understanding and memory alone, as other disciplines are, but it is received only when it possesses the whole soul, and finds a seat and resting place in the inmost affection of the heart” (III.vi.4). Sanctification, in a sense, is the deeply interior reflection of the negativity of justification, i.e., that aspect of justification that entails a loss of self. The Christian desires to have “Christ living and reigning within him,” but this is Christ as dying to God. Christ’s life is summarized in the cross, and now we are invited and even required to participate in and imitate Christ’s self- abnegation. Far from living naturally, and beyond obedience to the law, what Christ shows is a “more explicit plan” according to which believers are to
125 This moment was prefigured by the forensic version of soteriology sketched in Chapter 2. 126 III.vi.3, emphasis added. 127 “[God] everywhere commends integrity as the chief part of worshipping him” (III.vi.5). See Wallace, Christian Life, 30f.
present themselves “as a living sacrifice” so that we are “consecrated and dedi- cated” to God alone—sanctified in the sense of “given to” (III.vii.1). Precisely the opposite to being liberated by justification to be ourselves, the main point here is that “we are not our own…. Conversely, we are God’s: let us therefore live for him and die for him.” One meaning of “bearing Christ’s cross” is the furthering of self-renunciation. In this case, the cross works hand-in-hand with “experience” to deepen our sense of dependence on God:
He can best restrain [our] arrogance when he proves to us by experience not only the great incapacity but also the frailty under which we labor…. Overturning that good opinion which we falsely entertain concerning our own strength, and unmasking our hypocrisy, which affords us delight, the cross strikes at our perilous confidence in the flesh (III.viii.2–3, emphasis added).
The negativity that previously was contained within justification, suspended by Christ’s once-for-all sacrifice, now spills over into sanctification—first as striving toward inward purity, then as self-sacrifice and self-renunciation, and finally as bearing all sufferings as Fatherly chastisement: “In short, whatever happens, because he will know it ordained of God, he will undergo it with a peaceful and grateful mind so as not obstinately to resist the command of him into whose power he once for all surrendered himself…” (III.vii.10). At this point where sanctification (as repentance) has become about bearing suffer- ings, the initial striving has been so overtaken by negativity that sanctification is entirely passive; it is mortification without vivification. From a different angle, sanctification on this view is similar to Hegel’s Idea of the True as opposed to the Practical Idea, in that the purpose is only to accept reality, rather than transform it.128 The cross here means bearing all sufferings as God’s will for our good. In repeating Christ’s obedience unto the cross, sanctification functions as testimony, as the expression of the inward faithful obedience, much as Accidents express Substance. Note the following welter of terms relating to expression:
The Lord also has another purpose for afflicting his people: to test their patience and to instruct them to obedience. Not that they can manifest any other obedience to him save what he has given them. But it so pleases
128 See Logic, 783–823. It is also here that Calvin is most dangerously entangled in ontotheol- ogy, i.e., by attempting to secure a hidden rationality for all occurrences.
him by unmistakable proofs to make manifest and clear the graces which he has conferred upon the saints, that they may not lie idle, hidden within. Therefore, by bringing into the open the power and constancy to forbear, with which he has endowed his servants, he is said to test their patience (III.viii.4, emphasis added).
A passage more in opposition to the first Absolute Relation, in which sponta- neous action arose freely and for its own sake, could hardly be imagined. All activity for its own sake has dropped out; sanctification has instead become the expression and proof of faith as faithfulness. Of course, if, as I argued in Chapter 4, the idea of God testing Christ was difficult enough, God’s testing us by visiting suffering upon us will seem even more suspect. Furthermore, in finding salvific value in our sufferings, Calvin comes close to saying that Christ’s sufferings were not sufficient and must be augmented by our own.129 What is more, sanctification has now been so closely connected to justifica- tion that it threatens to become a condition for justification: “For we have been adopted as sons by the Lord with this one condition: that our lives express Christ, the bond of our adoption” (III.vi.3, emphasis added). Accepting the Gospel now must be done with the “whole soul,” seemingly in contradiction with a previous view that faith is effective and complete even in the “least drop” or “first and principal parts” (III.ii.19). To turn a question that Calvin lobs at his opponents against Calvin himself, if justification requires the complete- ness of our striving, how could we not then lose confidence in it? There is also another way that this explanation threatens to undo itself. In general Calvin resists the idea that repentance means, according to the scholastic formula, doing “what is within you [in se est]”;130 but in passages expressing this abso- lute relation, Calvin can hardly help using the same formula: “Nay, we must rather take care as much as we are able [quantum in nobis est] to pour out our whole heart in the Lord’s presence….”131 “Let each one of us, then, proceed according to the measure of his puny capacity [pro facultatulae suae modo] and set out upon the journey we have begun” (III.vi.5, emphasis added). It seems that sanctification under this explanation is so burdened by a constant
129 See Wallace, Christian Life, 43, 74. 130 “If they say that we must do what is in us, we are always brought back to the same point. For when will anyone dare assure himself that he has applied all of his powers to lament his sins?” (III.iv.2). 131 III.iv.18, emphasis added. Calvin adds that even so, we must confess that still more sins remain to be confessed.
132 See III.iii.15. 133 Here through a rational but partially anti-Hegelian logic I have confirmed Bourdieu’s insight about the “logic of practice.”
To explain, the freedom and self-subsistence of justification is grounded in the free mercy of God, which always has precedence over our response. Yet as the active aspect of sanctification is taken more seriously, the relationship between justification and sanctification is pushed toward reciprocity, such that one may talk of giving back to God. Humanity sanctified no longer must have a relationship limited to “absolute dependence,” but instead may become co-workers with God—friends instead of debtors. This is precisely the case for Christ himself, and thus one possible resolution of the dialectic is the synthesis of justification and sanctification in Christ, who, as seen in Transition One, is a third term to unite the other two objectively, extra nos. By this movement, one would expect justification to be swallowed up in Christ’s sanctification of all humanity. Yet two things hold back this sublation. One is that, according to the Gospel, Christ in fact ends as a sinner or as one punished for sin by God. The other is that “experience” resists our identifying with Christ and so demands our own particular sanctification. Keeping in mind these distinctly soteriological remarks, I turn to Hegel’s discussion of Cause and Effect for guidance on taking justification as a cause of sanctification. One way that Hegel determines cause and effect is through a “content.”134 In this case, cause and effect are nominally different expressions of the same content; for example, water is the common content in the claim “rain is the cause of wetness.” Similarly, God’s love could justly be said to be the content of both justification and sanctification. Justification would be the reception of God’s love by us, and sanctification would be our giving it to oth- ers or back to God. It is hard to see why, paralleling Hegel’s dialectic, this rela- tionship would not collapse into a mutual love between humanity and God, and so love in fact becomes the universal cause of all (love might even be the causa sui of God within the Trinity). As such, this form of Absolute Relation threatens to knock the account back into the very first moment of God’s Goodness in Chapter 4. To be sure, the differential moments of Christ’s media- tion as well as the particularizing knowledge of experience could both easily be overwhelmed by the “play of love with itself.”135 Hegel’s treatment of Cause and Effect goes from their submergence in the unity of a content to the Reciprocity of cause and effect. In this case, cause is not conceived mechanistically as an action on a passive effect, but cause lets
134 See Chapter 3. 135 Hegel, Phenomenology, ¶19 (10): “Thus the life of God and divine cognition may well be spoken of as a disporting of Love with itself; but this idea sinks into mere edification, and even insipidity, if it lacks the seriousness, the suffering, the patience, and the labour of the negative.”
136 This language is taken from J.N. Findlay, Hegel: A Reexamination (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1958), 218. 137 See esp. III.ii.8.
138 III.xviii.8, III.xi.17. See also II.vii.5. One could reply to Calvin that faith is also commanded by God’s law. 139 “It follows that faith can in now wise be separated from a pio affectu” (III.ii.8). 140 Love “flourishes forever, while the use of faith continues only for a time” (III.xviii.8).
They can even be used to judge interiority: Calvin can regard works not done from sincere feeling to be evidence of the constrained obedience of the repro- bate under the guidance of the second use of the law,141 and so are not part of salvation proper. In sum, love is necessary as the interior principle of works in order to make them acceptable to God and identifiable as salvific. So far, then, love mediates between justification and sanctification by being a principle common to faith and works. We cannot feel love (to God first, then humanity) without our hearts first being freed by justification in faith; and we cannot do love (to people, so as to be approved by God) without love in our hearts. Faith will be reflected in love as feeling; and only acts done from feeling “count as” loving. But one can go still further with the reciprocity of justification and sanctifi- cation in love. Besides being a shared principle, love also mediates justification and sanctification themselves, and so establishes an even more inclusive unity. First, our own justification can become the principle of what typically falls under sanctification—our loving acts to others:
The Lord commands all men without exception “to do good.” Yet the great part of them are most unworthy if they be judged by their own merit. But here Scripture helps in the best way when it teaches that we are not to consider [what] men merit of themselves [ex seipsis] but to look upon the image of God in all men, to which we owe all honor and love (III.vii.6).
Effectively, we are to regard other people in the same way God has looked upon us in justification—in the position of judge but motivated by love, discounting merit of the other in himself and instead imputing the righteousness of the imago. The image of God “cancels [inductis] and effaces [obliteratis] their transgressions, and with its beauty and dignity allures us to love and embrace them.” This amounts to acting toward others by means of the forgiveness of sins and the imputation of righteousness. In contrast to the first Absolute Relation, where justification cancels itself to make way for sanctification, here the exact shape of justification is carried over into sanctification. On the other side, mortification—which was the principle of the second Absolute Relation, where it worked toward our self-abnegation in imitation of Christ142—finds its completion in the sincerity of felt love for others by which
141 See II.vii.10. 142 III.vii is “The Sum of the Christian Life: The Denial of Ourselves.” In III.vii.4–7, Calvin develops how self-renunciation relates to our love of neighbor. The entire section effec- tively links mortification to love of neighbor and, immediately following, love of God.
than to show a cheerful countenance and to render their duties pleasing with friendly words. First, they must put themselves in the place of him whom they see in need of their assistance, and pity his ill fortune as if they themselves experienced it and bore it, so that they may be impelled by a feeling of mercy and humaneness to go to his aid just as to their own (III.vii.7).
The self-abnegation that was at issue in the second Absolute Relation finds its goal not in repeating the suffering of Christ for one’s sins, but in empathetic suffering so as to fulfill love for those who suffer. Self-abnegation does not end in passivity, as it did in bearing the cross, but nor does it pass over into its oppo- site and issue in the greatest quantity of acts and works possible. Rather, it aims at a quality of loving act that involves the totality of one’s passion.143 In the first case, in which we love others by the principle of justification, extra nos justification has become the basis for our external dealings with oth- ers; sanctification involves, so to speak, our justification of others by our acts of love. In the second case, in which a willingness to suffer empowers empathetic love, the self-negativity that was our internalization of Christ’s cross has been transformed into a principle of utmost integrity between inner feeling and outer work. Just as the concepts of Cause and Effect and Substance and Accidents become sublated into Reciprocity, so justification as the cause of sanctification and sanctification as the expression of justification are finding a reciprocal integration. Yet these passages do not take the account back (or forward) into the subla- tion of our subjectivity into Christ-as-Concept, as the Hegelian scheme would have it. The forms of Essential Relation have been “lifted” from Hegel, but not without being permeated by the un-Hegelian negativity of experience. Insinuating itself into Hegel-like concepts, experience resists the transition from the conceptual reciprocity of these Absolute Relations into their higher,
143 This moment could provide a much-needed reprieve from the dominance of quantitative thinking, which has much in common with works-righteousness. Without this counter- movement, acts of intense and sincere Christian love are likely to be neglected for those acts which affect the “greatest number.”
144 Put otherwise, Calvin has written into his theology a universal rule to determine whether the performance of our salvation is legitimate.
145 Curiously, Derrida has pushed this boundary, without any given justification, with regards to Hegel in Glas. There he clearly is quoting Hegel’s texts, but without providing reference information. 146 See Chapter 4 (“What kind of Book is Calvin’s Institutes?”) of Randall C. Zachman, John Calvin as Teacher, Pastor, and Theologian: the Shape of His Writings and Thought (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006).
147 As noted before, Derrida, Positions, 43–44, reconciles himself to the fact that elucidating his relation to Hegel is “interminable.”
Now, “the fear of the Lord”…although one, yet derives from a double meaning [gemino tamen ex sensu emanat]. For God has in his own right the reverence of a father and of a lord…. The Lord, through the prophet, calls “honor” that obedience which is rendered to him as Father. He calls “fear” the service that is done to him as Lord. “A son,” he says, “honors his father; a servant, his lord. If, then, I am a father, where is my honor? If I am a Lord, where is my fear?” [Mal. 1:6]. However he may distinguish them, you see how he fuses together the two terms [Utcunque autem distin- guat, vides ut confundat utrunque simul]. Therefore, let the fear of the Lord be for us a reverence compounded [mixta] of honor and fear.1
The Concept is the interfusion [Durchdringung] of these moments, namely, qualitative and original being is such only as a positing, only as a return-into-self, and this pure reflection-into-self is a sheer becoming- other or determinateness which, consequently, is no less an infinite, self- relating determinateness.2
Chapter 4 presented justification considered alone, by way of a dialectic between the mercy of the Father and the life and death of Jesus Christ. The gospel,3 which Chapter 4 attempted to present, is fulfilled in writing by virtue
1 III.ii.26 (os IV, 36–37). The emphasized sentence articulates beautifully the logic of this entire chapter. The Latin even more than the English translation shows how distinction is immediately (simul) joined with intermixing (confundere). The “utrunque” further empha- sizes the reciprocal relationship of Father-honor and Lord-fear. The specific content of the passage will be discussed below. 2 SL, 601 (wl II, 240). Durchdringung, a quite unusual term for Hegel, has been somewhat mis- leadingly translated as “interfusion.” In fact, the word connotes a slightly more forceful sense of permeation and penetration, though this sense is not inimical to the logic of this chapter. 3 As a reminder, by “gospel” I do not mean the extant documents known as the four gospels, but an ideal theological construction that exists whenever the gospels are correctly interpreted. My particular concept of Gospel has a weak basis in Calvin. According to Brian Gerrish, Calvin pri- marily understands the whole Bible to be the Word of God. Yet Gerrish notes that Calvin in III.ii restricts the Word of God to the promises made in Christ. See Brian A. Gerrish, “The Word of God and the Words of Scripture: Luther and Calvin on Biblical Authority,” in The Old Protestantism and the New: Essays on the Reformation Heritage (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1982), 62–64.
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4 The notion of double writing is also found in Derrida, most dramatically in Glas. Also relevant is his deconstructive reading of constative and performative speech in “University without Condition.”
I am able to follow Calvin in detail and suggest an inner logic that makes productive use of seemingly odd textual detail that other approaches ignore. The general two-fold movement can be fairly represented as follows: in mortification, the declarative-categorical dimension (justification) is becom- ing organic and processual; in vivification, the organic-practical dimension (sanctification) is becoming theorized, specified, and determinate. Thus, I define mortification as a process of growth in the interiority and selfhood that is the site of justification. Under this generalized “mortification” I treat the growth of faith, predestination (via perseverance), the use of works to confirm justification, and mortification proper. Vivification I define as the structuring of exteriority or activity by specific judgments, thus interfusing the domain of sanctification with the categories of justification. After describ- ing vivification proper, which starts from sanctification in the simplest sense, I identify homologous structures in the doctrine of “double justification,” as the justification of works is often called, as well as in the third use of the law. While mortification in effect introduces elements of sanctification into the ruled interiority of justification, vivification appropriates the categories that justification applied to the self while effectively carrying salvation away from the self, and away from the union with Christ identified with the self. Hence, work and community become the material of vivification, and pre- scription comes to predominate over the “already” of description of salvation in Christ. Throughout, I continue the thread of the reinscription of the absolute standard and ownership, principles that have been continually reconfigured from the start of the account. Furthermore, I complicate the “sheer” distinc- tions drawn in Chapter 5 between faith and works, law and gospel, the pres- ent and the eschaton, imputed and imparted righteousness, and event and process. These previously simple distinctions are shown to undergo a certain movement of interfusion. One particular fruit of these various conceptual shifts is that the concept of selfhood will undergo development and refining through the course of this chapter. So far, the self has first been conceived completely extra nos and in Christ; later, the self was split between the inte- riority of faith, where our justification is relocated, and the exteriority of Flesh, to be transformed in an endless process of sanctification. The final part of Chapter 5 developed some connections (“Absolute Relations”) between these two sides of the self, with priority ceded to the self as justified in faith. These incipient connections are further developed here according to a struc- ture of mutual interfusion, as faith becomes a process of gathering one’s whole life together, and as external works acquire definition and purpose in themselves.
I Mortification: Justification Becoming Sanctified
However we are redeemed by Christ, until we are engrafted by the calling of the Father, we are both the heirs of darkness and death and the enemies of God (III.xiv.6).
Union with Christ as Engrafting In Chapter 5, I posited three forms of union with Christ found in Calvin, though sometimes confusingly intermingled. The first, union with Christ extra nos, was sufficiently treated in Transition One. The second, Christ’s dwelling within us, was covered in Transitions Two and Three under the interiorization of faith. The remaining third form, engrafting into Christ, is treated here, and will be seen to mediate the other two in a certain fashion. Engrafting best conceptual- izes the union with Christ as a process. While the extra nos union excludes our own subjectivity, and the dwelling-union establishes our innermost subjectiv- ity, union as engrafting implies a becoming of the self through the two moments of mortification and vivification. Through the engrafting, there is both an uprooting of one’s identity (mortification)5 and the living out of a new identity (vivification). Mortification has negation at its core (as self-loss), and it incor- porates the positive acquisition of selfhood as it develops. Vivification, as I treat it, runs in the opposite direction, beginning with the positive (pure, self-less life) and incorporating the negativity of differentiation as it develops. What is missing from these two sides is the definitive conferral of identity in Christ as an event; this determination of identity remains the province of the previous chapters, for this chapter is primarily about the processes of sanctification. Given this lack of determination, the analysis of engrafting into these two over- lapping moments must also confess the artificiality of their distinction from one another; rather, the value of this distinction lies in its didactic and edifying effects. The following treatment of engrafting will emphasize first the negative aspect of mortification, but this is not to be separated in practice from the posi- tive aspect of vivification. Furthermore, both mortification and vivification contain positive and negative elements, rendering this diction of positive and negative useful at best but not decisive.
5 For instance, Calvin reads a certain negativity into engrafting in II.iii.9, interpreting John 15:5 (“I am the vine, you are the branches…”): “Now Christ simply means that we are dry and worthless wood when we are separated from him, for apart from him we have no ability to do good, as elsewhere he also says: ‘Every tree which my Father has not planted will be uprooted’.” He calls “silly subtlety” the attempt by Catholic opponents to interpret the engrafting meta- phor so to signify our potential as already containing sap and the power to bear fruit.
The union as Christ as a dwelling within advanced the account by including the reality of the believer’s selfhood, so that the justification that Christ accom- plished extra nos was reflected inside of us as heart-felt faith. Yet this “reflec- tion” was immediate and inexplicable, in at least two ways. First, apposite to the notion of reflection, Calvin uses metaphors of light: “For the soul, illumined by him, takes on a new keenness, as it were, to contemplate the heavenly mys- teries, whose splendor had previously blinded it. And man’s understanding, thus beamed by the light of the Holy Spirit, then at last truly begins to taste those things which belong to the Kingdom of God….”6 There is no further explanation as to how this metaphorical illumination or beaming happens. Second, the explanation of the inner dwelling involves the “secret work” of the Holy Spirit and the inexplicable election of the Father; in other words, this dimension of salvation is not open to public investigation. As a particular reflection into the “depths of our hearts,” the reality of interior faith remains personal, particular, and hence outside of the objectivity of the soteriological account. Sometimes Calvin associates the illumination into the depths of the heart with growth7 and engrafting: “To sum up: Christ, when he illumines us into faith by the power of his Spirit, at the same time so engrafts us into his body that we become partakers of every good” (III.ii.35). The connection of illumination and growth makes some sense; metaphors of light are easily asso- ciated with botanic metaphors of growth. Faith is like a plant growing— silently, imperceptibly, invisibly—in response to the sun’s rays. But properly speaking, engrafting is, so I would argue, a metaphor that is dis- tinct from Christ’s dwelling within or faith’s invisible growth in the heart. The engrafting into Christ is a metaphor that synthesizes the botanic with purposeful acts of culture; the result is an agricultural metaphor.8 Engrafting involves cut- ting, thus tying it distantly to the forensic: incision, decision, judgment. Therein lies its element of negation, though inseparable from the organic element of growth. In sum, we do not grow together with Christ without, so to speak, being cut off from our past life. Understood this way, the metaphor of engrafting con- tains quite aptly both mortification and vivification. While the immediate, posi- tive growth was treated in Transitions One and Two, the cultivated growth of faith will here be treated with special attention to its element of negation.
6 III.ii.34. See also ii.33–36 and i.4. Metaphors of light also dominate III.ii.19, where Calvin is at pains to explain how faith can be complete even when “wrapped up in much ignorance.” 7 “The Spirit is not only the initiator of faith, but increases it by degrees, until by it he leads us to the Kingdom of Heaven” (III.ii.33). 8 This shows up also in sanctification: “Sanctified by Christ’s spirit we may cultivate blamelessness and purity of life” (III.xi.1).
First to be noted is that faith does not grow seamlessly, but encounters a struggle with experience.9 Here I consider a number of lessons that Calvin draws from experience: faith is limited by the flesh; true faith is hardly distin- guishable from false faith; and faith is always confronted with doubt and rarely at peace.10 It is not our most buoyant moments of faith that reveal these challenges to us. Not Christ’s immediate illumination in moments of self- transcendence, but rather experience is the mode of knowledge for the day-to- day struggles of faith. “Faith” in this latter sense means not an event, but a lifelong process that is inclusive of both the events of self-transcendence and the periods of doubt and ambivalence. In the totality of the soteriological account, “faith” must take on both senses, both as transcendent event (treated in Transition One) and continuing struggle. As the latter, faith includes strug- gles with doubt and temptation.11 All the distinctions by which Calvin expli- cates faith play out across this difference between two senses of faith.
True and False Faith Theography, now taking up a mediating position between theory and practice, can propose a hopefully clearer understanding of Calvin’s distinction of true and false faith. If faith was taken to be an immediate, inner knowledge of the objective mercy of God in Christ, as was the case in Chapter 5, then perhaps no outward, phenomenal mark would be available to distinguish between true faith and the faith of the reprobate, who are “sometimes affected by almost the same feeling as the elect, so that even in their own judgment they do not in any way differ from the elect.”12 That is, faith as the inward reflection of being-in- Christ is fundamentally universal and has nothing to do with any visible,
9 I already noted in Chapter 5 the passages where Calvin disrupts the self-evidence of faith by experience: III.ii.4, 11, 12, 17, 37. 10 Refer again to Stuermann, Faith, 234–58; Pitkin, Pure Eyes, 31–32, 139–42. See Willis, “Influence of Socinus,” 238–41, for an account of how the relevant sections of this Institutes that are dedicated to these problems arose in response to Socinus. All authors emphasize that Calvin’s sometimes contorted explications are largely driven by his need to make sense of difficult Scriptural passages. 11 Here I will attempt to provide a structure that can optimally reconcile Calvin’s statements that, on one hand, oppose faith and doubt (III.ii.7), and on the other hand, declare that faith without doubt is inconceivable (III.ii.17). See Stuermann, Faith, 112–18. He cites a passage from Calvin’s Commentary on Mark (9:24) that emphasizes God’s mercifully reck- oning partial faith as full faith. In other words, Calvin’s distinction between faith as tran- scendence and struggle depends on God’s mercy revealed through Christ. See also ibid., 240ff. 12 III.ii.11. See Pitkin, Pure Eyes, 138–39.
external quality of the believer that would distinguish him from the nonbe- liever; otherwise the completeness and certainty of faith could be called into question. Faith in this regard has no substantial being in the self, and so the self was seen to be Essential or self-negating. Yet now the account has advanced to the point of prospectively discussing the being of faith as a form of life. The theography of faith does not only iden- tify a form of exocentric selfhood and then the innermost quality of belief, but provides a guiding sense of what the optimal life of salvation will look like.13 In particular, true faith will be strong, continuous, and life-transforming.14 Nothing about a given individual believer is thereby decided; salvation is not denied to those whose experience does not match the description. Yet opti- mally conceived, faith is expansive into one’s continuing life experience. I do believe that Calvin sometimes errs in his confidence that he can find phenom- enological or empirical ways to distinguish true from false faith,15 and to this end he often prematurely imposes the categories of election upon justifica- tion.16 The logic of this theography has no place for his most strenuous attempts to use election in this way. Yet he can be read at places to be proposing some- thing more modest:
The reprobate never receive anything but confused awareness of grace, so that they grasp a shadow rather than the firm body [solidum corpus] of it. For the Spirit, strictly speaking [proprie], seals forgiveness of sins in the elect alone, so that they apply it by special faith to their own use. Yet the reprobate are justly said [Merito tamen dicuntur] to believe that God is merciful [probitium] to them, for they receive the gift of reconciliation,
13 I do not say “ought to look like,” for that would imply a condition on justification. 14 Cf. Willis, “Influence of Socinus,” 240: “Part of the God-given assurance of faith is the con- tinual testing and movement to repentance God saves for the elect by which they are assured that God has not abandoned them to the false security and fleshly confidence to which they would otherwise incline.” See also Pitkin, Pure Eyes, 139: “The assurance of faith thus seems intimately tied to the experience of doubt and affliction…. True confi- dence manifests itself in the struggle with doubt, whereas the reprobate only persist in their deluded overconfidence.” The picture in Calvin is complex. I am trying to maintain coherence by dealing first with the issue of temporary vs. permanent faith. What Willis and Pitkin are referring to will play into the sections below on right and wrong fear, par- ticularly with regards to the “descriptive use” of fear. 15 “What sort of faith is it that distinguishes the children of God from the unbelievers…” (III.ii.13). 16 For example, see Calvin’s use of election to secure the distinction between true and false faith in III.ii.12. The implication is that one’s election is manifest in one’s life.
although confusedly and not distinctly enough. Not that they are partakers of the same faith or regeneration with the children of God, but because they seem, under a cloak of hypocrisy, to have a beginning of faith in common with the latter. And I do not deny that God illumines their minds enough for them to recognize his grace; but he so distinguishes [ita distinguit] that awareness from the proper17 testimony he gives to the elect that they do not attain the full effect and fruition thereof.... He only manifests to them his mercy for the time being [praesentem].... For nothing prevents God from illuminating some with a temporary18 aware- ness of his grace, which afterward vanishes (III.ii.11).
The passage vacillates between making qualitative and quantitative distinc- tions between the faith of the elect and that of the reprobate. Some clarity can be achieved here through my dialectical structure. First of all, the parameters of this chapter prohibit an absolute rule being laid down in writing to distin- guish the saved from the damned.19 Indeed, in my scheme any such rule is out of the question, since the simple being of salvation was determined by Christ for all, universally. Nonetheless, there is a meaningful distinction to be made between those whose faith only exists in a moment of presence (praesentem) and those whose faith takes on temporal continuity and development and thereby the substance required to direct one’s life. In the case of the former, their faith simply did not continue and develop, for whatever reason—per- haps they even knowingly rejected the call to conform their lives to faith out of an allegiance to “the world.” A benefit of the complex dialectic of salvation developed here is that it provides guidance as to how soteriology can in one sense say that all are saved even despite themselves, and yet some are, so to speak, more saved than others. Both sides are necessary, although the respec- tive kinds of discourse involved differ, and not only the content of the judg- ments that are made. Of course, experience shows not only that the reprobate sometimes have a faith that is merely temporary, but that even the abiding faith of the elect is not
17 “Peculiari.” I altered the translation from “exclusive.” 18 Again, “praesenti.” I altered the translation from “momentary,” which should probably be reserved for “brevissime.” 19 That is, the text, being here prospective and practical, is able to avoid the dilemma of the last chapter, where attempts to rule on the relationship between justification and sancti- fication were caught between either presenting the complete reality of salvation in the text, and so obviating its completion in practice, or merely indicating what ought to be the case, thus creating a condition for the validity of justification.
Right Fear, Wrong Fear, Fear as Fear and Honor The simplest way to appropriate Calvin’s treatment of right fear21 into my account is to see it as a reinscription of the absolute standard. Fittingly, “expe- rience” makes an early appearance, though firmly rooted in Scriptural passages on fear: “Here [the Psalmist] fitly joins the boldness of faith that rests upon God’s mercy with the reverent fear that we must experience whenever we come into the presence of God’s majesty, and by its splendor understand how great is our own filthiness.”22 The absolute standard, working through experience, has been crucial to setting the infinite eschatological horizon of sanctification. In that way, the difference was preserved between the imputed righteousness we have in Christ through faith and whatever real righteousness we attain in sanctification. What is different now is that the absolute standard, through the concept of fear, is being introduced side-by-side with faith and justification, precisely in the midst of the place it had previously been suspended, for faith had meant unadulterated certainty. Now certainty and fear are interfused: “Nothing prevents believers from being afraid and at the same time possessing the surest consolation” (III.ii.23). Within my theography, this shift represents a definite change of logic, method, and conception of the self. Recall that Calvin derived his initial defini- tion of faith by paring down the totality of the Word of God according to what gives us confidence in God’s mercy: “We ask only what faith finds in the Word of the Lord upon which to lean and rest” (III.ii.7). Fear of God was thus excluded from faith by definition. Yet now Calvin is guiding or inviting believers to hold faith and fear at the same time. Previously, then, faith was said rightly to center on God’s mercy, and thereby faith could be generative of love, as argued in
20 “He alone is truly a believer who…lays hold on an undoubted expectation of salvation” III. ii.16. 21 III.ii.22–27. See Stuermann, 243–50, on faith and fear in Calvin. 22 III.ii.23, emphasis added. Notice the inference made from God’s “splendor” to “our own filthiness.”
Transition Three. The general movement of the Absolute Relations began with the simple and certain unity of the self through the interiority of faith—this being necessary to ground the subjective certainty of salvation—and pro- ceeded outward to the exterior in loving acts and feelings. But now faith and fear are being played off one another in the midst of interiority.23 That same interior self may now be recast as a dialectical process. Still, what Calvin sketches in terms of faith and fear is no simple two-sided dialectic, as in the “Lutheran” dialectic between law and faith covered in Transition Two. Rather, Calvin’s discussion, driven both by his response to Scholastic distinctions and Biblical passages, is fractured by several overlap- ping distinctions that introduce beyond-binary complexity. There is right fear and wrong fear, or “free and voluntary fear” as opposed to “servile fear” (III. ii.27). There is also fear as “the honor of the Father” and “the fear of the Lord,” as spelled out in the epigraph at the beginning of this chapter; both of these latter two, however, seem to fall under right fear. These various distinctions display a certain givenness, first of all; that is, Calvin does not begin with a discussion of the essence of fear itself, but assumes scriptural distinctions between kinds of fear. Secondly, the distinctions are inherently practical, so that right and wrong fears can only be distinguished by their effects in the life of believers: “For it is one thing”—note the givenness—“to restrain presump- tion, which sometimes creeps upon the saints from the vestiges of the flesh, in order that it may not play the wanton in vain confidence. It is another thing so to dishearten the conscience with fear that it cannot rest with full assurance in God’s mercy.”24 Right fear helps reform the self; wrong fear undermines our confidence in God. Yet the way this distinction works in explicating our salva- tion is clearly different from, for example, the distinction between faith and works. “Fear” as such is not fixed and defined in the text, as I read Calvin, but it is known by its effects in practice. But neither is its truth deferred entirely to practice, for the text does offer some guidance and specification. Enter the distinction between honor and fear, spelled out in the opening epigraph, which, charitably understood, further dislocates the logocentric desire for conceptually clear binary distinctions. Now what was called “right
23 This holding together of faith and fear is not unusual in the Institutes, but is in line with Calvin’s overall goal to inculcate piety, which is “faith so joined with an earnest fear of God” (I.ii.2.). 24 III.ii.22. Just preceding this quote, Calvin had explained that fear is found not only in nonbelievers, but can inhabit the “elect and believers.” The practical nature of his dis- course is evident: “This [fact] will cause no discomfiture.” Cf. the interpretation of this passage in Venema, Accepted and Renewed, 117.
For not only does piety beget reverence toward God, but the very sweet- ness and delightfulness of grace so fills a man who is cast down in himself with fear, and at the same time with admiration, that he depends upon God and humbly submits himself to his power (III.ii.23).
Secondly, however, it seems that the believer (in the Flesh) also genuinely fears God as Lord:
Such is the wanton desire of our flesh to sin without restraint—in order to check it by every means we must at once seize upon this thought: that the Lord, under whose power we live, abhors all iniquity. And they who, by living wickedly, provoke his wrath against themselves will not escape his vengeance (III.ii.26).
This side of fear clearly does imperil the confidence of justification. The believer is invited to imaginatively project herself as one who is outside salvation: “[Paul] warns [the Ephesians] to think on the wrath of the Lord, prepared for the impious, on account of those wicked deeds which he had recounted, lest they themselves also should wish to experience it.”25 The use of fear-as-fear is best understood as an attempt to out-strategize the “stratagems of the flesh”26 by using “the bridle of self-control” (III.ii.23). Ideally, of course, the “honor” of God, arising in response to God’s mercy and righteousness, ought to be sufficient
25 III.ii.27, emphasis added. Cf. III.ii.22, “…believers, considering that the examples of divine wrath executed upon the ungodly as warnings to them, take special care not to provoke God’s wrath against them by the same offenses….” 26 The phrase is from III.iii.14; cf. “stratagems of temptation” in III.ii.36.
27 See Pitkin, Pure Eyes, 161: “In the final edition of the Institutes Calvin appears to integrate his concern with certainty with his interest to uphold the reality of doubt in an interesting way. Further attention to these discussions might be able to determine whether this final presentation of faith in 1559 reinforces or undermines Calvin’s insistence on the certainty of faith.” 28 “But [Solomon] means that fear which renders us more cautious—not the kind that afflicts us and causes us to fall—while the mind confused in itself recovers itself in God, cast down in itself is raised up in him…” (III.ii.23).
29 Within Lutheran circles, Vitor Westhelle has questioned the one-sided abstraction of sin that results from a theology of justification, particularly as pertains to its tendency to neutralize the significant political distinctions between oppressor and oppressed. See Vitor Westhelle, “Luther and Liberation” Dialog 25 (1986): 51–58. 30 However, his discussion of election in III.xxi.5–7 contains a nuance of levels or kinds of election, both corporate and individual.
is not outside us but dwells within us. Not only does he cleave to us by an indivisible bond of fellowship, but with a wonderful communion, day by day, he grows more and more into one body with us, until he becomes completely one with us (III.ii.24).
The categories of unity that Calvin evokes in this passage, seeing that he is talk- ing about both Christ’s immediate, inward dwelling as well as the invisible organic growth within us, do not fit with the “engrafting” logic of this soterio- logical moment. But that this soteriological moment need not present itself in a self-consistent text is precisely the point. In practice, the judgments of this chapter do not stand alone but must be integrated with what has come before. This logic of “interfusion” has no problem following Calvin when he contra- dicts himself, as he continues: “Yet I do not deny what I stated above: that cer- tain interruptions of faith occasionally occur…so in the thick darkness of temptations its light is snuffed out.”31 The manifest contradiction of placing these statements side-by-side, rather than separating them into distinct tex- tual locations (loci), effectively if not intentionally deconstructs any attempt to secure some definitively true judgment in the text, referring soteriology instead to its need to make practical judgments in particular contexts. In response to the critique of Calvin’s use of fear, then, Calvin may be deliberately allowing the teaching office of the church to ignore aspects of his doctrine of fear under some circumstances. A true soteriology does not always and universally require the practice of fear alongside of faith. The effect of the doctrine of right fear is to integrate the absolute standard into justification by faith, where it was initially suspended. One use of this standard, which I have been discussing and defending, is to question the ade- quacy of that faith in light of certain other sinful beliefs and practices. This prescriptive use “shakes the sluggishness of their flesh.” Its negative quality is
31 See also Willis-Watkins, “The Unio Mystica and the Assurance of Faith,” 80.
Faith and Perseverance This positive, reassuring use of “right fear” leads directly to a further specification or differentiation of faith through the concept of perseverance. The general program of this section on mortification is to write about faith as neither strictly an ecstatic event (being in Christ) nor a stable interiority. Faith is also an event-encompassing process. In that light I have just been interpreting Calvin’s dialectic of faith and fear. As a dialectical process involving right fear, faith takes on the shape of an interchange between affirmation and negation. It is not so different from the dialectic between faith and the first use of the law, as described in Chapter 5. The main difference is that for right fear, works are not the primary target of negation; rather, it is the inner self that is subject to negation. Moreover, the writing of right fear is twofold, as both admonishing prescription and comforting description; thus besides placing faith in a dialec- tic with its other, the doctrine of right fear also positively teaches that faith includes its other within itself. Now the account turns to perseverance.32 Perseverance means at least that faith will continue through hardships, through (per-) that which is “severe.” Perseverance in the first place elaborates the description of faith so that it is understood as an organic process, and not only a dialectical reality. At the same time, perseverance seems to delineate a quality that is distinct from faith. Stated paradoxically: true faith perseveres; but perseverance supplements faith. The two concepts of perseverance are only artificially treated separately. As for the first: “[Believers] sometimes become dumb as if their faith had been laid low; yet they do not fail or turn their backs, but persevere in their struggle”
32 See Moltmann, Prädestination und Perseveranz; G.C. Berkouwer, Faith and Perseverance (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1958), 75–80.
(III.ii.17). This meaning of perseverance continues naturally from the distinc- tion between false faith and true faith, which Calvin also distinguishes as “tran- sitory faith and living and permanent faith” (III.ii.12). Perseverance is itself an effect or quality of true faith: “[Faith] strives against every burden and raises itself upward” (III.ii.17). Calvin argues explicitly against a Catholic view that “knowledge of final perseverance remains in suspense”: “How absurd it is that the certainty of faith be limited to some point of time, when by its very nature it looks to a future immortality after this life is over!” (III.ii.40). In this sense, perseverance is a kind of fruit of faith, an inner strength in the possession of the believer by virtue of having accepted Christ’s assurance into her heart as a present gift that extends into the future.33 In other words, faith as an interior quality given by God causes its own perseverance, for justifying faith gives one knowledge of God’s eternal determination in Christ. It may be noted, however, that Calvin never invokes negative experience in his description of this organic side of perseverance. Taking experience into account, as one eventually must, one could turn this description around to distinguish true faith from false, tem- porary faith, as I have shown; e.g., experience shows that only true faith perse- veres. Attempts to do so create a problem with how to apply this distinction, because there seems to be no simple way phenomenally to discriminate tem- porary faith from false faith in the present. So the descriptive distinction of true, persevering faith from false, temporary faith could undermine the cer- tainty of faith as a present, experienced reality. To counter this danger, perseverance may be described otherwise— prescriptively as opposed to descriptively. While perseverance is important in Calvin’s doctrine of election, to which I will turn next, I here focus on the extensive discussion of perseverance in II.iii, which is largely concerned to refute the doctrine of the freedom of the will. Calvin refutes not only the sim- ple Pelagianism that says we can will the good by our own power, but also the more subtle version, formulated principally by Lombard through an interpre- tation of Augustine on “co-operating grace,” that understands God’s initial jus- tifying grace to free the heart to will the good on its own power.34 To begin,
33 Calvin claims that Paul counts perseverance among “those benefits which come to all believers in common from faith” (III.ii.40). 34 “He does not move the will in such a manner as has been taught and believed for many ages—that it is afterward in our own choice to obey or resist the motion—but by dispos- ing it efficaciously” (II.iii.10). It should be noted that the Lombardian view is not so differ- ent from the first “Absolute Relation” of justification and sanctification that I proposed in Chapter 5. Both views stress that grace frees us to pursue righteousness under our own power, in some sense.
Calvin, voicing agreement with “the better scholastics,” affirms that the initial movement of salvation is by grace alone: “God begins his good work in us, therefore, by arousing love and desire and zeal for righteousness in our hearts” (II.iii.6). This work of “bending, forming, and directing our hearts” is clearly the work of the Spirit in unity with the Word, acting through the interiority of faith. In contrast to the first meaning of perseverance in which faith included perseverance in itself or led of itself to perseverance, here Calvin distinguishes his doctrine from the Lombardian view by treating perseverance as an addi- tional act of God on top of faith: “He completes his work, moreover, by con- firming us to perseverance.” The conundrum is that Calvin’s teaching seems to contradict what he taught elsewhere, that perseverance is given in faith. Yet the contradiction is not so simple, and as such demands closer attention. Through careful scrutiny of his teaching in II.iii.11, I believe that a very subtle principle of theological discourse is at stake, precisely because the current sub- ject centers on the will and freedom, and hence doctrine here occupies the paradoxical space of a theory of action. Calvin’s rejection of co-operative grace is nuanced, and not because he is afraid to disagree with Augustine. First, he gives a synopsis of the problem:
Perseverance would, without a doubt, be accounted God’s free gift if a most wicked error did not prevail that it is distributed according to men’s merit, in so far as each man shows himself receptive to the first grace…. There is here a twofold error. For besides teaching that our gratefulness for the first grace and our lawful use of it are rewarded by subsequent gifts, they add also that grace does not work in us by itself, but is only a co-worker with us.
The first error is not directly refuted by Calvin, but he lays down two grammati- cal rules, as it were, on what to avoid when speaking of obedience that merits further grace: “(1) not to say that lawful use of the first grace is rewarded by later graces, as if man by his own effort rendered God’s grace effective; or (2) so to think of the reward as to cease to consider it of God’s free grace.” Note that the problems arise with regard to how the reward of grace is spoken of and conceived. In short, they arise when the notion of reward is understood not only in a descriptive but also an ascriptive way, such that attribution is made to humanity (rule 1). If any attribution is made, it should be made to God (rule 2). Calvin immediately grants a legitimate use of reward, but he states it in what I might call the prescriptive mood: “I grant that believers are to expect this blessing of God: that the better use they have made of the prior graces, the more may the following graces be thereafter increased.” Calvin then defends
Augustine on co-operating grace by interpreting him to be only describing various forms of grace, and not attributing anything to humanity: “He is not dividing [grace] between God and us…but is rather making note of the multi- plying of grace.” Calvin himself proposes a charitable interpretation of his opponents’ use of co-operation that teaches us something about the dialectics of his thinking:
If they mean that after we have by the Lord’s power once for all been brought to obey righteousness, we go forward by our own power and are inclined to follow the action of grace, I do not gainsay it [nihil reclamo]. For it is very certain that where God’s grace reigns, there is readiness to obey it…. Yet if they mean that man has in himself the power to work in partnership with God’s grace, they are most wretchedly deluding themselves.
It should be a bit surprising that Calvin would be suddenly flexible on this issue, for he is generally vehement in combating claims of free will, even after grace. Without trying to completely explain Calvin’s own thinking on this mat- ter, I believe I can offer a workable interpretation by distinguishing between the dialectical moments in which each of the claims he considers—one acceptable, the other detestable—fits in the overall scheme of soteriology I have proposed, especially when one considers the differing functions of the theological text appropriate to each moment. First, consider that the claim that Calvin does not “gainsay,” itself a construal of what the Lombardian camp could be saying, is very similar to the first Absolute Relation between justifica- tion and sanctification considered in Chapter 5. There justification was seen to free our natural goodness from our fear of God so as to pursue good works for their own sake. This explanation made sense as a possibility to be embraced in action. Acting on this possibility is different from claiming that our good nature is itself a cause of salvation, alongside of grace. In other words, the first Absolute Relation was not interested in ascribing goodness to the human, even though it tacitly assumed the possibility of a good nature. But since, as an explanation, it began with justification, the ascription of goodness naturally led back to God’s action in Christ. The second claim, which Calvin rejects, dif- fers principally on this point. That is, in making the second claim, scholastic theology sought to translate the freedom that Chapter 5 conceived as a possi- bility in front of the text (in Ricoeur’s sense) into a universal property declared by the text and so contained within the text. Surely, both claims materially agree that justification frees us for good works. But they differ in form, particu- larly in the way the text in the first invites possibilities for action, but in the
35 Indeed, the danger was noted in Chapter 5 that the Absolute Relations could be inter- preted as making necessary claims to truth, rather than suggesting possibilities for action. One can now see that the Absolute Relations were straining toward the mediating language of this chapter that interfuses explanation (truth claims) with prescription (pos- sibilities for action).
36 J.J. Steencamp, “A Review of the Concept of Progress in Calvin’s Institutes,” in Calvin: Erbe und Auftrag (Kampen, Netherlands: Kok Pharos Publishing, 1991), 75, notes what seems to be the same dialectical tension: “It is clear that some tension remains between the indica- tive and the imperative of progressing faith.”
Election and Predestination: A Limited Retrieval A confident, doctrinaire assertion of double predestination threatens to supervene upon the universal nature of salvation in Christ with which this account began; Christ’s atonement then applies only to those who are elect. Soteriology then would become stuck in an Essential relation: salvation could only be understood with reference to its opposite, damnation; both stand as equally eternal principles. The only unifying principle available would be the inscrutable will of the absolute God: logocentric in form, irra- tional (begreiflos) in content. Yet while the seeds of this disastrous turn taken by some of Calvin’s follow- ers can be found in his theology, Calvin’s doctrine of election does not unam- biguously take that shape, thanks to the diversity present in his description of it and to his placing election decisively at the end of his soteriology. My alter- native exploits the diversity found in Calvin’s texts on election to restructure the doctrine and place it within the trajectory that has been traced so far. Election therefore becomes meaningful as part of the expansion of justifica- tion in Christ and the particularization of salvation beyond its universal form of being in Christ; as such, it fits well under the rubric of mortification as “jus- tification becoming sanctified.” Happily, Calvin can articulate election simply as an affirmation that our salvation extra nos in Christ is real and permanent, with eternal significance. Salvation is not a contingent fact that allows for pondering over what could have been the case (although he thinks along these lines elsewhere); if our salvation is in Christ it is necessary and indubitable. As such, the doctrine of election follows directly from faith in Christ and thus has as its sole basis justi- fication by faith in Christ. Thus, the content of election is no different from having faith, a faith that (in the descriptive sense) perseveres of itself until the end: “Christ does not allow any of those whom he has once for all engrafted into his body to perish” (III.xxii.7). Even more strongly:
Those whom God has adopted as his sons are said to have been chosen not in themselves, but in his Christ; for unless he could love them in him, he could not honor them with the inheritance of the Kingdom if they had not previously become partakers of him. But if we have been chosen in him, we shall not find assurance of our election in ourselves; and not even in God the Father, if we conceive him as severed from his Son. Christ, then, is the mirror wherein we must, and without self-deception may, contemplate our own election (III.xxiv.5).
In this sense, the doctrine of election affirms our particularity but at the same time cancels the self-reflective turn. There is a kind of immediate return here
37 “We are taught by this very experience that call and faith are of little account unless per- severance be added; and this does not happen to all” (III.xxiv.6; the context mitigates the force of this sentence). As he has done elsewhere, Calvin tries to assert that those who fall away from faith did not have the “sure establishment of election which I bid believers seek from the word of the gospel” (III.xxiv.7). Thereafter, he commends believers to a “quiet reliance upon the Lord’s promise.” A little later, he returns to the “special call” by
inward illumination, now admitting that some partake of it for only a time. Calvin seems con- fused and unsure about how to resolve the problem posed by the insufficiency of the inward, immediate call. See the critical comments by Shepherd, Nature and Function of Faith, 92. 38 That is of course a Hegelian gloss on Calvin’s argument: “But it is false to say that election takes effect only after we have embraced the gospel, and takes its validity from this.” 39 In III.xxiv.15–17, he honestly confronts the challenge posed by universalist passages, but with unwarranted confidence in his explanatory power: “God is said to have ordained from eternity those whom he wills to vent his wrath. Yet he announces salvation to all men indiscriminately. I maintain that these statements agree perfectly with each other.” In effect, he goes on to give priority to the first claim over the second. 40 Joe Jones, A Grammar of Christian Faith: Systematic Explorations in Christian Life and Doctrine (Lanham, md: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2002), 709–24, has insightfully discerned the deleterious effects of assertions of “dual destiny.” Yet I hope that my dialec- tical interrelation of universalism and dual-destiny does better justice to Scripture, tradi- tion, and experience than Jones’ theoretical, single-destiny universalism.
Election, then, can first describe that optimal life of faith, whereby one’s whole life in its particularity, from womb to deathbed, is encompassed by God’s saving action. Election provides this more robust description of faith because it operates with the category of individuals taken as particular wholes—in Hegel’s terms, as Qualities and not just Essential beings whose entire truth is in Christ. As in the Logic, there is a place in this soteriology for describing indi- viduals in this way, though it has an inferior and secondary (indeed, tertiary) place. Yet here is where soteriology can do justice to the real experience of those whose whole lives show God’s election, and by contrast, those shown by unflinching experience to be utterly lost. The obvious danger of such a descrip- tion of a total life of faith is that those whose lives do not live up to it will think themselves outside of God’s grace entirely; this danger reinforces the impor- tance of the initial description of election in Christ and not in ourselves. In quite another direction from that richer, particularized description of faith, election can also function as a means for broadening our ascription of salvation to God. Aside from looking solely to Christ’s work, in election we look for God working through the Spirit and through the mysteries of destiny assigned by the Father. Here I depart somewhat from Calvin’s intention. Calvin all too happily consigns some to perdition, and is content if those so chosen by God are said to have only themselves to blame. Yet election frees us from hav- ing to assign not only merit to those who believe but also blame to those who do not. In this sense, election takes over the universality of Christ’s salvation and interfuses it with the honest differences that experience forces us to draw between those who embrace salvation and those who neglect it. Thus all des- tinies are ascribed to God’s election; the “nothing” that was posited outside Christ is now viewed as the mysterious dark side of God’s glory. As Calvin puts it: Election invites us to wonder at the “incomprehensible plan that the angels adore” by which God is glorified even by those who do not receive salvation.41 By the same token, election all the more prevents us from ascribing salvation to merit or to our works.42 To be sure, there is a way to include the merit of works in the soteriological account, as I shall show. But as a text of ascription, i.e., a text making truth claims in itself, theology should ascribe goodness only to God. Yet if freedom is also ascribed to God through election,43 soteriology
41 III.xxiii.1. This view, however, becomes untenable in my opinion when one assumes that those outside salvation are justly destined to eternal punishment. 42 III.xxii.2, 3; see also III.xxiv.9. 43 “The very inequality of his grace proves that it is free” (III.xxi.6). Of course, Calvin’s con- cept of “freedom” here carries many questionable presuppositions. See Shepherd, Nature and Function of Faith, 90.
Works and Sanctification as Witness to Justification The connection between election and sanctification leads to Calvin’s positive doctrine of works, the total scope of which will be spread out through the next several sections. Investing works with the function of witnessing to salvation marks a change in direction, but not necessarily a complete abandonment of justification by faith. While faith is primarily about interiority, Calvin also per- mits faith, in a secondary way, to be confirmed and strengthened through attending to works as a reflection of faith. Doing so involves leaving behind the security, expressed in Chapter 5, of the absolute functional distinction between faith and works. Calvin’s general rule is that only faith, by being a pure reception of Christ’s imputed righteousness, could provide the completion of
44 III.xxiii.12, emphasis added. The context is Calvin’s refutation of the charge that election breeds libertinism.
I therefore admit that what the Lord has promised in his law to the keep- ers of righteousness and holiness is paid to the works of believers, but in this repayment we must always consider the reason that wins favor for these works. [¶] Now we see that there are three reasons. The first is: God, having turned his gaze from his servants’ works, which always deserve reproof rather than praise, embraces his servants in Christ, and with faith alone intervening, reconciles them to himself without the help of works. The second is: of his own fatherly generosity and loving-kindness, and without considering their worth, he raises works to this place of honor, so that he attributes some value to them. The third is: He receives these very
45 Commenting on Isaiah 33:15, that the ones who are saved will be “‘He who does righteous- ness’,” Calvin comments: “It is not the foundation by which believers stand firm before God that is described but the means whereby our most merciful Father introduces them into his fellowship, and protects and strengthens them therein” (III.xvii.6).
works with pardon, not imputing the imperfection with which they are all so corrupted that they would otherwise be reckoned as sins rather than virtues.46
Calvin’s refusal to separate these reasons is what distinguishes his teaching from the “Sophists”47 and their teaching of “accepting grace”: “Of the three causes of God’s liberality, then, which make the works of believers acceptable, [the ‘Sophists’] noted only one, and suppressed two—and the chief ones at that!”48 These three reasons cannot be taken in abstraction from each other, save the first one, which is simply the doctrine of justification in Christ by faith apart from works. The second reason is a bit vague, but I will interpret it presently to mean the use of works to uphold our certainty of salvation. The third reason shall be treated below under vivification as Calvin’s doctrine of “double justifi- cation.” Given the inseparability of these three “reasons,” the teachings on works to be covered in the remaining sections of this chapter, in the first place, must likewise not be separated from each other. These reasons, that is, do not have the form of self-subsistent claims. More fundamentally, the positive teachings on works may not be separated from justification by faith alone. I take Calvin’s refusal to separate the reasons to mean that doctrine concerning the place of works must be held together within the practiced totality of the Christian life and has its truth in making practical judgments. The text that explicates Calvin’s doctrine on works must be mindful not to settle into self-contained and univer- sal truth claims. It will be helpful to remember that the various doctrines to be explicated distinctly here are found mixed together in Calvin’s Institutes.
46 III.xvii.3. He seems to make the same point in III.xviii.5, but there the editing over the editions was so choppy as to leave nothing but confusion: “We must always remember that God ‘accepts’ believers by reason of works only because he is their source and gra- ciously, by way of adding to his liberality, deigns also to show ‘acceptance’ toward the good works he has himself bestowed.” 47 McNeill and Battles’ footnote identifies Bonaventure and de Castro as Calvin’s targets here. In general, the problem seems to be a covenant theology that would confirm in an un-dialectical way God’s will to accept works. 48 Calvin distinguished himself explicitly from the doctrine of “accepting grace” on two occasions: III.xiv.12 and III.xvii.15. “Accepting grace” is the teaching that works are accepted by God’s mercy—identical to Calvin’s doctrine of “double justification,” exam- ined under vivification below. Yet the problem with the opponents’ views, as I see it, is again a matter of form. They allow the concept of God’s accepting works as such to be separated from God’s accepting the sinner in faith: “‘Accepting grace’, as they call it, is nothing else that [God’s] free goodness, with which the Father embraces us in Christ when he clothes us with the innocence of Christ and accepts it as ours…” (III.xiv.12).
The first side of the positive doctrine of works to be discussed, then, con- cerns attending to works in order to verify the presence of saving faith. This teaching begins at III.vi.1, where Calvin explicitly connects regeneration to confirmation of adoption: “The object of regeneration…is to manifest in the life of believers a harmony and agreement between God’s righteousness and their obedience, and thus to confirm the adoption that they have received as sons.”49 In the chapter that follows, however, the main motivation for the Christian life is gratitude toward Christ.50 The theme of confirming adoption shows up again, amidst qualification, in III.xiv.18: “The Christian mind may not be turned back to the merit of works as to a help toward salvation but should rely wholly on the free promise of righteousness. But we do not forbid him from undergirding and strengthening this faith by signs of the divine benevo- lence to him.” This applies especially to “the grace of good works, which shows that the Spirit of adoption has been given to us.” Works are only to be so used “a posteriori.”51 “For if [believers] begin to judge [the promise] by good works, nothing will be more uncertain or feeble” (III.xiv.19). Most of the effort here is spent in qualifying the use of works, rather than advancing it. In III.xviii Calvin provides more substance by way of interpreting scriptural passages that speak of God’s repaying works. Calvin explains: “[God] receives his own into life by mercy alone. Yet, since he leads them into possession of it through the race of good works in order to fulfill his own work in them accord- ing to the order that he has laid down, it is no wonder if they are said to be crowned according to their own works…” (III.xviii.1, emphasis added). The notion of possession is key here, for it indicates we are achieving in our works what I have called “ownership” of our calling. There is, in other words, a pro- gression by way of works from the bare certainty of salvation, based on an inner faith in the promise, toward the fulfillment of the promise in our total flesh- and-spirit redemption. This interesting theme is continued in section three:
Still, the Lord does not trick or mock us when he says that he will reward works with what he had given free [sic] before works. He wills that we be trained through good works to meditate upon the presentation or frui- tion, so to speak, of those things which he has promised, and to hasten
49 Emphasis added. The verb confirmo can mean “strengthen” as much as or more so than “cor- roborate.” This ambiguity is not necessarily detrimental to the argument of this chapter. 50 See III.vi.3. In my reconstruction, the immediate reflection of gratitude to Christ in a Christian’s holiness of life has been covered already in Chapter 5, Transitions One and Three. 51 III.xiv.19; see also Stadtland, Rechtfertigung, 204.
through them to seek the blessed hope held out to us in heaven. Hence the fruit of the promises is duly assigned to works, which bring us to the ripeness of that fruit.
We see firstly in our own works signs of election. Given what I’ve said about election, I prefer to interpret this passage to mean that everything good a believer accomplishes testifies to the totality of her life being taken up into God. Yet Calvin is saying that works are not only signs, but, according to a more organic metaphor, fruits of the promise. That is to say, God has promised us real righteousness, and works are the visibility (“presentation”) of that promise coming true, even while they train us also to look toward the future (“the ripe- ness of that fruit”?). Our election is not just about the certainty of knowing one is saved, but is also about acting out that salvation through works. Curiously, though, the smoothness and continuity implied by the organic metaphor of fruits is thereafter soon countered by a sharply negative note: The whole purpose of the approval of the worthiness of our works by this sort of promise “is to restrain our pride, to humble us, cast us down, and utterly crush us” (III.xviii.4). My account must now address the seemingly odd feature of Calvin’s teaching on works that I have suppressed so far, according to which attending to our works does not simply yield an increased confidence of faith. Nor does it lead only to the opposite conclusion, an awareness of the sinful remains of the Flesh (recall Transition Two). In addition to these, attending to works performs a function closely aligned with mortification. Here we must turn back to and reincorporate, or interfuse, the third reason why works are accept- able to God: “[God] receives these very works with pardon, not imputing the imperfection with which they are all so corrupted that they would otherwise be reckoned as sins rather than virtues.” The result is that works—our self- expression in activity—increase the quantity of our life that receives pardon by God; in effect, works increase our sin and so also our justification. To paraphrase Luther, one could interpret Calvin to be saying, “Work boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly for he is victorious over sin, death, and the world.” Calvin in fact often places the emphasis on the pardon that works receive:
A work begins to be acceptable only when it is undertaken with pardon. Now whence does this pardon arise, save that God contemplates us and our all in Christ? Therefore, as we ourselves, when we have been engrafted in Christ, are righteous in God’s sight because our iniquities are covered by Christ’s sinlessness, so our works are righteous and are thus regarded because whatever fault is otherwise in them is buried in Christ’s purity, and is not charged to our account (III.xvii.10, emphasis added).
Attending to works in relation to faith, then, interfuses two distinct operations:
Scripture humbles us more and at the same time lifts us up [erigit]. For besides forbidding us to glory in works, because they are God’s free gifts, it teaches us at the same time that they are ever defiled with some foul dregs so that if they are weighed according to the standard of his judgment they cannot satisfy God; but lest we become discour- aged, Scripture teaches that our works are pleasing only through par- don (III.xviii.5).
This passage concisely reiterates the “three reasons” that structure Calvin’s whole positive teaching on works. In effect, works increase our sense of depen- dence on justification in Christ alone, and this use of works is suspended between disregarding works altogether and deepening our inward conscious- ness of the particular sins pardoned in Christ. Odd as it may seem, Calvin gives priority to the use of works in order to humble us, placing this use above the use of works to confirm our adoption. Indeed, this latter use seems in the above passage to be a concession to human need for positive assurance.52
Mortification Proper in Two Forms Some aspects of mortification have been reviewed already in Transition Three under the second “Absolute Relation.” These will be recalled only in order to fulfill my promise in Chapter 5 to place mortification in its proper doctrinal form. The use of works to expand the sin covered by Christ is isomorphic to what I am calling mortification proper. The main difference between mortifi- cation proper and the use of works to expand our justification by faith is that the latter begins from the present and moves forward, especially by way of our continuing and constant action. That is, we may always look forward to receiv- ing pardon in Christ for our corrupted works. In this way, this use of works shares the forward-looking orientation of perseverance and election, even if it emphasizes the element of negation within the progression. With mortifica- tion proper, on the other hand, the general motion is to begin with the present consciousness of being forgiven in Christ and to move backward in our con- sciousness, remembering and specifying all the past sins and the present sinful selfhood that have been universally swallowed up in Christ’s sacrifice. Mortification is an important supplement to the movement of engrafting that has held sway so far. While everything up until now has worked to gather
52 Stadtland, Rechtfertigung, 173 gives voice to both the capacity and incapacity of works to contribute to our certainty of salvation.
For, before the mind of the sinner inclines to repentance, it must be aroused by thinking upon divine judgment. When this thought is deeply and thoroughly fixed in mind—that God will someday mount his judg- ment seat to demand a reckoning of all words and deeds—it will not per- mit the miserable man to rest nor to breathe freely even for a moment without stirring him continually to reflect upon another mode of life whereby he may be able to stand firm in that judgment (III.iii.7).
Recall also that Chapter 2 showed Calvin’s doctrine of sanctification to be characterized by a dual-emphasis on both human striving and the action of the Holy Spirit. The action of the Holy Spirit takes over when the account comes to mortification as description. But within the emphasis on human effort, i.e., mortification as prescription, one finds in Calvin a further distinc- tion between two goals of mortification as repentance. The first goal is to
When God offers forgiveness of sins, he usually [fere] requires repentance [resipiscentiam] of us in turn, implying [innuens] that his mercy ought to be a cause for men to repent…. Yet we must note that this condition [con- ditionem] is not so laid down as if our repentance were the basis of our deserving pardon… (III.iii.20, emphasis added).
Rather, this condition “indicates what direction men should proceed if they wish to obtain grace.” The “condition” prescribes how to achieve ownership of salvation. In this regard, then, the action belongs to the believer, for the Holy Spirit does not properly reign while the flesh is alive: “The life of a Christian man is a continual effort and exercise in the mortification of the flesh, till it is utterly slain, and God’s spirit reigns in us.” To some extent, this taking ownership of the negation of sin involves repent- ing past sins; to this end, “the Spirit, while he urges us to repentance, often recalls us now to the individual precepts of the law, now to the duties of the Second Table.”53 This seems to return us to the first use of the law, and its static dialectic of law and gospel, already covered in Transition Two. Yet Calvin in III.iii adverts to this use of the law only “briefly,” putting it off until III.vi-x.54 More central here are the self and heart rather than sins as particular actions: “In other passages the Spirit has first condemned uncleanness in the very
53 III.iii.16. Note that the Spirit here is not doing anything for us; it is just telling us (prescribing) what to do. 54 See footnote 32 found on Institutes, 609.
55 The progressive nature of this placing-in-antithesis and its productive, sanctification- directed, strategic outcome are what distinguish this moment from the static law-gospel antithesis of Transition Two. 56 III.iii.15. The translation is not the issue, for the Latin is straightforward: “quo enim severi- ores in nos sumus, et acriore censura quaestionem habemus de peccatis nostris, eo debe- mus sperare magis propitium ac misericordem Deum” (os IV, 72).
Just as mortification is threatening to come unmoored from the faith from which it began, the prescription to mortify the self reaches its limit. That is, for soteriology to prescribe mortification is to risk in practice driving believers to despair: “Yet we must remember to exercise restraint, lest sorrow engulf us. For nothing more readily happens to fearful consciences than falling into despair.”57 The prescription of mortification must thus redirect the despairing reader to the description of our already accomplished salvation in Christ: “If you take thought upon yourselves in your humility, take thought likewise upon the Lord in his goodness.”58 The tension that builds in our mortification as the remem- brance of sins threatens to overwhelm us is relieved (cf. Derrida’s relever) by Christ’s death. Still, before yielding to this relief, Calvin leaves the reader with a useful rule: “That fear cannot, indeed, be too great which ends in humility, and does not depart from the hope for pardon.” Mortification as prescription departs from and is resolved back into Christ’s death; clearly it is something distinct from Christ’s death itself. The same is not true for mortification as description. Mortification as description repeats mor- tification as covered under the second Absolute Relation of justification and sanctification in Transition Three. There as here, mortification is considered as the self-effectuation of Christ’s death in us, so that justification through Christ’s death passes over on its own accord into the effacing of the Flesh in the believer. Rather than preserving the self of flesh through a process of peniten- tial memory in prescribed mortification, mortification as description is a pro- cess of “the destruction of the whole flesh”; we must be “brought to naught” (III.iii.8). That is the same as “to forget our previous nature.”59 It may be con- nected, therefore, with what Calvin outside the Institutes distinguishes as the “outer death” as opposed to the “inner death” that falls more under mortifica- tion as prescription.60 This mortification, even as the “outer death,” is decidedly
57 III.iii.15. It is fitting that the prescriber here address the reader in the first person plural “we.” The writer of soteriology (Calvin) here shows his personal solidarity with believers, rather than speaking as if from a detached position of impersonal moral demand (“thou shalt”). 58 Ibid. Calvin is here quoting Bernard. 59 “The very word ‘mortification’ warns us how difficult it is to forget our previous nature” (III.iii.8). 60 See Wallace, Christian Life, 51–53. What I have explicated under mortification as prescrip- tion probably fits better with what Wallace treats as “self-examination” (225–28). The “inner death” corresponds to a kind of undifferentiated repentance that includes the two mortifications I have developed. Based on the way the interfused distinctions work, it is not so important that Calvin’s various teachings all line up according to a single two-fold distinction.
It is for a very good reason that the apostle enumerates seven causes, effects, or parts in his description of repentance. They are earnestness or carefulness, excuse, indignation, fear, longing, zeal, and avenging. It should not seem absurd that I dare not determine whether they ought to be accounted causes or effects, for either is debatable…. But because, leaving out those questions, we can understand what Paul means, we shall be content with a simple explanation (III.iii.15, emphasis added).
Rather than settling on an explanation in terms of cause and effect or part and whole, Calvin here provides the “simple explanation” of presenting an unre- solved diversity of modes of repentance. This is all we need to understand from Paul in order to be able to act. Here Calvin perfectly captures the sense I am striving after when I talk about the interfusion of justification and sanctifica- tion corresponding to a text form that mediates the inside of explanation and the outside of action, or description and prescription.
II Vivification: Sanctification Becoming Justified
There is no unified formula for summing up what “sanctification becoming justified” means in the forms covered below, but two basic senses are included: first, sanctification progresses from being a response to justifying grace that is immediate and subjective to being an intersubjective praxis that is specified and textually mediated, thereby becoming more like justification by incorpo- rating some determinateness and forensic qualities. Second, sanctification here comes into its own by drawing soteriology beyond the confines of the self and into the realms of works for their own sake and principles of community; in this quite opposite respect, sanctification is “justified” by being affirmed in its difference from justification. The double writing remains in effect, though its forms will shift. What is to be found here is neither a simple synthesis of justification and sanctification, nor the fixing of their difference. As I did for mortification, I have assembled several loci from Calvin, utiliz- ing “vivification” in a broader sense than Calvin does. Mortification concerned matters of selfhood (viz., faith, certainty, and self-discipline), aligning it closely with justification; but these were opened to process, dynamics, and growth, all
61 Indeed, they are written as a “synecdoche”: Death mentioned alone carries with it the meaning of the resurrection, and “the same synecdoche applies to the word ‘resurrection’: whenever it is mentioned separately from death, we are to understand it as including what has to do especially with his death” (II.xvi.13).
Vivification Proper and Its Properties
We are not only invited through the example of the living Christ to strive after newness of life; but we are taught that we are reborn into righteous- ness through his power (II.xvi.13).
Without excluding prescription (Christ as an example for our striving), vivification proper begins in the mode of describing the reality of participating in Christ’s living power. While mortification recapitulated the second Absolute Relation between justification and sanctification, vivification revives the first Absolute Relation, leav- ing the negativity of mortification behind for sanctification as a pure practice of holiness outside of all textual specification and determination. Vivification proper is the Christian life outside of all self-reflection and self-consciousness. As some- thing to be lived, it can hardly be described and specified textually. Moreover, vivification is barely addressed directly and described only discretely by Calvin, so interfused is it with mortification, which is highly self-reflective and determinate. Vivification happens by participation in Christ, and so can be described in Book II as simply the effect of the resurrection, closely connected with Christ’s death: “Through his resurrection, righteousness was restored and life raised up, so that…his death manifested its power and efficacy in us” (II.xvi.13). When in III.iii Calvin describes mortification and vivification with regard to their effects in us, he has much more to say about repentance and mortification than vivifi- cation proper.62 He first rejects an interpretation of vivification, apparently belonging to Bucer, that amounts to a psychological explanation that is per- haps too subjectively oriented: “Vivification as the happiness that the mind receives after its perturbation and fear have been quieted.” Calvin’s alternative explanation is one sentence: “It means, rather, the desire to live in a holy and devoted manner, a desire arising from rebirth; as if it were said [quasi diceretur] that man dies to himself that he may begin to live to God.” Vivification here
62 According to the index, for instance, mortification occurs in 12 sections, as against the five for vivification (Institutes, 1683,1709). See also Barth, cd IV.2, 575.
designate the renewal by the fruits that follow from it—namely, righ- teousness, judgment, and mercy. That comes to pass when the Spirit of God so imbues our souls, steeped in his holiness, with both new thoughts and feelings, that they can be rightly considered new.
Thus far, vivification is the work of the Spirit. Yet Calvin continues in Section 9: “Both things [mortification and vivification] happen to us by participation in Christ.” How this participation works is left unexplained. But Calvin continues with a significant point: “If we share in his resurrection, through it we are raised up into newness of life to correspond with the righteousness of God.” Vivification is specified as “correspondence” with the real righteousness of God, i.e., genuine holiness, not only imputed righteousness. This is not posited as super-human but associated with a restoration of original human nature. But that is about as much of vivification as can be isolated and determined in abstraction. If Calvin is not inclined to treat vivification separately, he does allow his double writing of mortification and vivification to bend toward the latter, signaled by a terminological shift: “I interpret repentance as regenera- tion, whose sole end [scopus] is to restore in us the image of God….”63 Repentance, which in the above account of mortification showed up as a
63 III.iii.9. Notice how Calvin avoids describing regeneration into existence. He does not define it as “the restoration of the image,” but says only that is has its end in restoring the image. The Latin, in fact, defines it through a double negative: “regenerationem, cuius non alius est scopus nisi ut imago Dei…in nobis reformetur” (os IV, 63).
Sanctification Becoming Justified in the Justification of Works Works pertain to sanctification, not justification.64 How surprising, then, to find Calvin declaring:
We shall concede not only a partial righteousness in works, as our adversaries themselves hold, but also that it is approved by God as if it were whole and perfect…. A work begins to be acceptable only when it is undertaken with pardon. Now whence does this pardon arise, save that God contemplates us and our all [nos et nostra omnia] in Christ? Therefore, as we ourselves when we have been engrafted in Christ, are righteous in God’s sight because our iniquities are covered by Christ’s sin- lessness, so our works are righteous and are thus regarded because what- ever fault is otherwise in them is buried in Christ’s purity, and is not charged to our account. Accordingly, we can deservedly say that by faith alone not only we ourselves but our works as well are justified (III.xvii.10, emphasis added).
The passage deserves careful commentary. First of all, it is not as though works are here gaining a salvific status that is strictly independent of justification by faith. In the above passage, works are connected to the personal unity of salva- tion through Calvin’s reference to both Christ and faith. Nonetheless, Calvin genuinely surprises the reader in this section. Whereas he normally rejects the very concept of “works righteousness” because one cannot hold both faith righteousness and works righteousness, here he sees them to be in a certain sense complementary:
They cannot deny that justification of faith is the beginning, foundation, cause, proof, and substance of works righteousness…. [I]f works righteous- ness, whatever its character be finally reckoned, depends upon the justifica- tion of faith, the latter is by this not only not diminished but actually strengthened, while thereby its power shines forth even stronger (III.xvii.9).
Now, it must be conceded at once that the main point to Calvin’s argument is to defend the integrity of justification by faith from being mixed with works righteousness. Furthermore, he is battling with opponents about the interpre- tation of Biblical verses that call for works or assigns merit to works.65
64 Recall III.xi.18: “Works do not enter the account of faith but must be utterly separated.” 65 “You can in no way make the Scriptural passages agree unless you recognize a double acceptance of man before God” (III.xvii.4).
Oddly enough, it is Calvin’s demand that works be separated from justification (by faith)66 that allows him to grant works more than the “partial righteous- ness” his opponents seek; rather, he avers that God “accepts them as if they were perfectly pure.”67 In the section on “Works as Witness to Justification” I took my departure from Calvin’s three reasons by which God approved of works. The first reason was simply that we are justified by faith alone; this most central reason is not superseded by the next two. The second was that God attributes some value to works; this I explicated above as the use of works to support the confidence of faith and election. Now I come to the third: “He receives these very works [ea ipsa] with pardon, not imputing the imperfec- tion with which they are all so corrupted that they would otherwise be reckoned as sins rather than virtues” (III.xvii.3). Works have already been par- ticularized as sins in Transition Two. Now, at the risk of performing a mislead- ing abstraction, the soteriological account must consider them as virtues in themselves. This move acquires additional significance when understood in the context of this theography. Rather than supporting the self-certainty of faith, as was the case above with mortification, works can now supersede, or rather “infra-sede,” the salvation of the self through faith.68 What is the significance of the justification of works? Calvin leaves this undeveloped; most of his argument concerns securing justification by faith. I believe that his favoring of justification by faith such that it obscures other dimensions of salvation is another sign of his restriction of salvation to the category of the individual, as also indicated by his strong adherence to elec- tion. Against Calvin’s tendency, I see the significance of the justification of works to lie in finding specificity of salvation apart from the self and selfhood. We do not have to evaluate works only as either sins in themselves or reflec- tions of a faithful interiority. We can thus attend more seriously to the particu- lar actions we pursue. Salvation is also composed of these. A particular work, as for instance when an otherwise undistinguished Christian speaks out against injustice in her community, can be seen as acts of God without sacrific- ing the honesty of evaluating them as flawed by intention, execution,
66 “Justification is withdrawn from works” (III.xvii.1). 67 III.xv.4. In what precedes this sentence, it is clear that the absolute standard has been suspended: “Because he examines our works according to his tenderness, not his supreme right….” Interfusing the suspension of the absolute standard into sanctification is another permutation of the interfusion of justification and sanctification. 68 Vivification as regeneration included our correspondence to God’s righteousness through the restored form of the imago dei. That is, God recognizes God’s self in our self. But now, God recognizes Godself in our works, as it were, necessarily: “For the Lord cannot fail to love and embrace the good things that he works in them through his Spirit” (III.xvii.5).
Sanctification Justified in the Third Use of the Law The course of this theography has covered, first, the abrogation of the Law under justification by grace alone. Thereafter, once experience permitted a turn to subjective particularity, the “first use of the Law” was recovered, even though the law according to this use immediately drives the believer back to justification in Christ. Now my theography comes to the third use of the law. While the “third use” of the law is perhaps not as original to Calvin as has often been thought,69 nevertheless the way he sets it within his “order of teaching” provides a unique opportunity for reinterpreting this doctrine within an encompassing structure. The theme of the Law has seen several permutations thus far. Recall that Chapter 5 attempted to account for the structural and textual differences between Law and Gospel. I argued that the Law differed from the Gospel by its allowing the dialectical moments that the Gospel holds together to be
69 It has been a commonplace of reformation studies that Calvin’s distinctive teaching of the “third use” of the Law distinguishes his theology from Luther’s. This is said despite the fact that Calvin owes the inspiration for his teaching to Melanchthon; furthermore, Luther may have had his own version of a third use. See, for instance, Gerhard Ebeling, “On the Doctrine of the Triplex Usus Legis in the Theology of the Reformation” in Word and Faith (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1963), 62–78.
The third and principal use…finds its place among believers in whose hearts the Spirit of God already lives and reigns. For even though they have the law written and engraved upon their hearts…, that is, …they long to obey God, they still profit by the Law in two ways. [¶] Here is the best instrument for them to learn more thoroughly each day the nature of the Lord’s will to which they aspire, and to confirm them in the understand- ing of it…. Again, because we need not only teaching but also exhorta- tion, the servant of God will also avail himself of this benefit of the law: by frequent meditation upon it be aroused to obedience, be strengthened in it, and be drawn back from the slippery path of transgression.
The logic of interfusion, which develops initial distinctions into finer points, can be discerned in this passage. To begin, the third use is said to be for those whose regeneration would seem to be complete (“the Spirit of God already lives and reigns”). Even for such people, the Law according to its “first benefit” helps inform their well-intentioned, law-engraved hearts as to the specifics of the Lord’s will. Yet with the “second benefit,” according to which the Law func- tions as a goad, “experience” makes an appearance, and the initial positing of complete regeneration is undone:
The saints must press on [by using the Law]: for, however eagerly they may in accordance with the Spirit strive toward God’s righteousness, the listless flesh always so burdens them that they do not proceed with due readiness. The law is to the flesh like a whip to an idle and balky ass, to arouse it to work. Even for a spiritual man not yet free of the weight of the flesh the law remains a constant sting that will not let him stand still.
While the first benefit (of the third use) seemed so clearly distinguished from the first use of the Law, since that use precedes sanctification, this second ben- efit brings us back much closer to the first use and is even barely distinguish- able from it. It is just as curious that in the section that follows (II.viii, a lengthy explication of the ten commandments), the distinction between first and third use is not mentioned. Indeed, Calvin would seem to be reading the ten com- mandments simultaneously according to their first and third use.70 In any event, the third use of the law presents at least two distinct configura- tions or “benefits” that require further reconstruction. The first is to bring determination and accountability to what is understood as God’s will. Previously, as in the first Absolute Relation of justification and sanctification, or the reduction of soteriology to love in the third Absolute Relation, I por- trayed sanctification as free from the law, and so thoughtless and spontaneous. While love was essential, the location of sanctification was fundamentally individualistic. By contrast, the third use of the law suggests a highly social location of sanctification. Sanctification through the third use is concerned not with interiority but with exterior acts, or better, with socially interpreted and coordinated exterior acts. The law can do this by giving sanctification a written form that makes a claim to interpret God’s will collectively for all believers. Furthermore, the Scriptural form of the Law anchors practice to the continuing traditioning process of the church. The law structures and univer- salizes Christian obedience, extending through time and history. Of course, the law cannot by itself standardize Christian practice without an open process of collective interpretation that applies the law here and now. Calvin recognizes the complexity of this process in his doctrine of Christian freedom.71 Still, the situation would be unimaginably different if each Christian were expected to decide what counts as holy conduct spontaneously and sui generis. The recog- nition of the law is thus tantamount to institutionalizing vivification within social structures.
70 II.viii.3: when studying the Law, we “descend into ourselves” to find our powers of righ- teousness “utterly nonexistent.” Clearly, this sounds like the first use. But cf. viii.51: “Now it will not be difficult to decide the purpose of the whole law: the fulfillment of righteous- ness to form human life to the archetype of divine purity.” Then viii.57: “To be Christians under the law of grace does not mean to wander unbridled outside the law, but to be engrafted in Christ, by whose grace we are free of the curse of the law, and by whose Spirit we have the law engraved upon our hearts.” For want of an evident methodology in Calvin’s interpretation of the commandments, I would posit some kind of logic of interfu- sion at work here. 71 III.xix.7ff. Cf. III.x.
Yet if it is to be done without violence, institutionalizing sanctification pre- supposes the good will of participants, i.e., both the genuineness of their seek- ing after common action and their willingness to act once the direction has been decided. The social use of the law, that is, presupposes and requires its individual use. Thus I return to Calvin’s “second benefit.” In this second benefit, the law is also a goad, and works in tandem with “right fear.” Against the incon- stancy of our resolve, the law makes consistent and objective demands to be holy that are more difficult to ignore than the “law written on our hearts.” The law, that is, calls us to responsibility. This individual, introspective use of the law could easily lead us back guilt and to a confession of weakness. Thus the third use (according to its “second benefit”) easily reverts to the first use of the law (for repentance). Between the introspective and socially cooperative uses of law are possibilities for interpersonal accountability and confession. Thus the possibilities for the use of the law in community are endlessly complex. Despite these complexities, what the third use contributes to the account of soteriology is a structure to specify and coordinate sanctification, both personally and communally. Sanctification has become amenable to eth- ics, i.e., consistent, content-specific principles of action; one need no longer consign sanctification to only exterior works and interior motivations—“good fruit from good trees.” Sanctification becomes amenable to the kind of textual practices dear to academic theology, in which individuals discourse about the proper interpretation of classic texts to arrive at ethical principles. In this regard, the practice of the church can incorporate the practices of academic theology. But such integration is not without qualification, for this social use of the law does not supersede its other uses, of which Calvin affirms many. I have only made, for instance, superficial and implicit connections between sanctifi- cation and Calvin’s very cautious recovery of Scripture’s promise in the law to reward works.72 More importantly, the third use does not leave behind the introspective concerns of justification. The pursuit of community-specific ethical action can easily degenerate into a collective or individual self- righteousness, or today, into ideological enclaves. To check this tendency, the third use should revert, occasionally or continually, to the first use of the law, and thence to justification by faith in Christ. The distinction between first and third use remains usefully fluid and only relative, which is appropriate to the real but pragmatically limited distinctions and judgments typical of the logic of interfusion.
72 See, e.g., III.xvii.3.
To end this theography of Calvin’s soteriology by turning to the life of the community is appropriate, not only because it points forward to Book IV, the section of the Institutes that I have hardly touched on. More significantly, I have dwelt too much on the role of the self in soteriology. In doing so, I have perpetuated with only a few challenges the individualist bias of Protestant the- ology that has mostly held sway into the modern era. Yet while Luther arguably began the Reformation out of his own quest to secure a sense of self before God, the pluriform logic of justification works as easily against fixing and securing the self as it does preserving it. The logic I have explicated here can just as well extend into a soteriology beyond the self, one putting communal categories to the fore; that direction has already been indicated in the final two loci. This dialectical logic of soteriology could therefore underwrite the conclu- sion reached by Clark Williamson, for instance, that we are in a post-justification age in which the modern concerns of the self give way to the more sanctifica- tion-oriented matters of the justice of life in community.73
Conclusion: Interfused Textuality in Relation to the Previous Chapters
The specific loci and subjects of this chapter have been diverse, and the texture of the writing has been inevitably—indeed, intentionally—complex. This complexity, including the reflexivity that has attended it, works against the proclaimed commitment to practical theology of this chapter. To be sure, we have remained within the architectonics of academia’s dome, its echo cham- ber. By turning to practical theology yet within a more complex theography, I mean in some sense to defer to Calvin’s practical theology beyond my own hyper-theoretical text, but not uncritically, and not because his practical theol- ogy is any less theoretically sophisticated than the previous stages of the account. Indeed, I have attempted to bring out the implicit theoretical struc- ture behind Calvin’s practical texts, a structure that he wisely felt no need to make explicit. Thus Calvin’s texts of practical theology remain embedded in my own text that is reflexively sparring with Hegel and Derrida about textual- ity and truth. The result is hardly of immediate use to the practice of Christian communities. In displaying Calvin’s implicit structure with lavish explicitness, I have allowed the dialectical analysis of mortification and the early moments of
73 Clark Williamson, “Theology and Forms of Confession in the Disciples of Christ,” Encounter, vol. 41 (Winter, 1980), 65.
74 See, e.g., “Signature Event Context,” in Derrida, ed., Margins.
Summing up what has transpired in the foregoing chapters is no easy matter, not least because an abbreviation of what has been incompletely prosecuted results in something doubly unmoored. A summary that renders its own short- falls transparent is called for. Thus, with only a partial review of contemporary theology, I have set out a new agenda for academic theology, calling for a heightened reflexivity about academic theological writing. Such writing should structure itself to reflect an ambivalence toward academic theology, seeking to respect our institutional hosts by showing diligence in conforming to aca- demic canons while also being mindful that we are wayfarers; theology is at home, insofar as it can be in this world, not in the academy but among the people of God. To negotiate the potentially contradictory demands of this approach to theological writing, I have made a precipitous entry into philoso- phies that offer a comprehensive, architectonic theory of difference in general and that are reflexively cognizant of the implications such theories pose for academic writing. I have offered no comprehensive survey of such philoso- phies, but have contented myself with Hegel and Derrida, who arguably repre- sent opposite extremes. My choice commits me already to both too little and not enough, for analyzing even these two figures entails accountability to a plethora of interpretive options and controversies, but I have tread only lightly into this morass. To cap off my mounting deficits, I have hastily sketched a theory of Christian doctrine, in all its vastness, that conceives it as a friendly partner to this problematizing of academic theological writing, and I sought to instantiate this theory with an highly constructive interpretation of Calvin’s doctrine(s) of justification and sanctification, limiting my sources to the Institutes, and not even in its entirety. So much comprehensiveness, so little comprehension! On top of it all, I have tried to sum up this sprawling program in one word, and a neologism at that: theography. I take no comfort in inventive language, but only in this: the danger I have opened myself up to, the vulnerabilities under which this program labors, can be accepted and made sense of by the very difference between justification and sanctification on which I have labored. That is, the peril I have exposed myself to can be articulated this way: how can any claim to truth sustain itself and rest content amid the Absolute Standard of academic rigor? How must it give way to a process of negation, purification, and perfection? If this rephrasing enables the problematic of justification and
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Chapter 4 on justification alone formed a completion in itself; it alone stands alone. It permitted a certain reduction to the form of Universal Concept: goodness, mercy, that “God is a loving father.” As such the truth of salvation appeared in the most concentrated written form, even the singularity of the word. Yet the universal relationality of these forms left their meaning and applicability highly indeterminate. Introducing Christ as the mediator fixed God’s mercy into a determinate human shape. The effect was to forestall the application or reference of God’s mercy outside the text, either directly to the reader or to humanity as a concrete totality; instead, that mercy is bent back into the text, which is now expanded from a bare concept into the rudiments of the gospel narrative: the atoning death of Christ as the fulfillment of his obedience. Introducing the rudiments of the gospel is not strictly necessary to a complete account of salvation; “mercy” in effect says it all. Yet adverting to Christ has the practical effect of correlating human obedience, indeed perfect obedience, to God’s mercy without making that obedience a condition for mercy, and so without truly deferring to practice. Even further, the resurrection reclaims Jesus’ perfect obedience so that his righteousness can be imputed to humanity; the result is that humanity is not only the recipient of God’s mercy, but all human beings in Christ—though not as such—are servants and friends of God. Yet the fundamental determination of justification is concluded with the death of Jesus. That Christ’s obedience ends in atoning death was taken to mean that human righteousness effectively negates or sublates itself before divine mercy. The rudimentary gospel therefore returns or reduces itself to the simple self-determination of God to be merciful. It may seem that the gospel narrative of Jesus is, in Hegel’s terms, merely a Vorstellung (pictorial represen- tation) of the Begriff (concept). Yet what the gospel as presented in Chapter 4 has done is to supplant or sublate the subjectivity of the reader into the objec- tivity of the text of mercy. Chapter 4, once more, stands alone. Abstracted from the particularities of soteriology, its content is simply the transcendent source of the justification of universal being, of anything and everything. It is a singular explanation of all reality—all exists because of God’s goodness and mercy. More particularly, it is a singular explanation of the existence of all that is different from God, thus of difference as such. (To be sure, the chapter did not offer further explanation into the nature of God’s goodness in relation to observable goodness; if such were possible, it would be the subject for a doctrine of God or theological ontology.) While its content is the transcendent source of difference, it makes definite and determinate claims in a finite text. Insofar as the gospel concludes with the death of Christ, it has brought the transcendent mercy of God into determinate and therefore writable form. Chapter 4 is therefore not only a
1 Recall that Derrida coined the term differánce to play on both static differing and active deferring. 2 That this self-diremption works in two contradictory directions, one of which resists textual enclosure, is only one reason why the result is not a conferring on Scripture perfection or certainly inerrancy.
3 That is, the second moment asserts difference but not a mutual opposition; sanctification defers to justification. The phrase is intended to echo but also displace Derrida’s association of difference with (a different sense of) deferral.
John Calvin: Primary Works
Institutes of the Christian Religion. Edited by John T. McNeill. Translated by Ford Lewis Battles. 2 vols. Library of Christian Classics, vols. 20 and 21. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960. Ioannis Calvini Opera Selecta. Edited by Peter Barth and Wilhelm Niesel. 5 vols. Munich: Kaiser Verlag, 1926–52. Calvin, John and Jacopo Sadoleto. A Reformation Debate: Sadoleto’s Letter to the Genevans and Calvin’s Reply. Edited by John Olin. New York: Fordham University Press, 2000.
Calvin: Secondary Works
Armstrong, Brian. “Duplex cognitio Dei, Or? The Problem and Relation of Structure, Form and Purpose in Calvin’s Theology.” In Probing the Reformed Tradition: Historical Studies in Honor of Edward A. Dowey, Jr., edited by Elsie Anne McKee and Brian Armstrong. Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1989. Bahmann, Manfred K. “Calvin’s Controversy with Certain ‘Half-Papists’.” Hartford Quarterly 5 (1965), 27–41. Battles, Ford Lewis. “Calculus Fidei.” In Calvinus Ecclesiae Doctor. International Congress on Calvin Research. Kampen, Netherlands: J.H. Kok, 1979. Berkouwer, G.C. Faith and Perseverance. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1958. Billings, J. Todd. Calvin, Participation, and the Gift: The Activity of Believers in Union with Christ. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. ———. “John Calvin’s Soteriology: On the Multifaceted ‘Sum’ of the Gospel.” International Journal of Systematic Theology 11:4 (2009), 428–47. Boisset, Jean. “Justification et Sanctification chez Calvin.” In Calvinus Theologus: die Referate des Europaischen Kongresses fur Calvinforschung, 1974. Butin, Philip Walker. Revelation, Redemption, and Response: Calvin’s Trinitarian Under standing of the Divine-Human Relationship. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Canlis, Julie. Calvin’s Ladder: A Spiritual Theology of Ascent and Ascension. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010. Cruvellier, Jean. “La Theologie Calviniste et la Notion de Sanctification.” La revue refor mee 38:152 (1987), 2–12. De Kroon, Marijn. The Honour of God and Human Salvation. Translated by John Vriend and Lyle D. Bierma. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2001.
Dowey, Edward A. The Knowledge of God in Calvin’s Theology. Expanded edition. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994. Ebeling, Gerhard. Word and Faith. Translated by James Leitch. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1963. Fesko, J.V. Beyond Calvin: Union with Christ and Justification in Early Modern Reformed Theology (1517–1700). Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2012. Ganoczy, Alexandre. The Young Calvin. Translated by David Foxgrover and Wade Provo. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1987. Gerrish, B.A. “The Word of God and the Words of Scripture: Luther and Calvin on Biblical Authority.” In The Old Protestantism and the New: Essays on the Reformation Heritage. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1982a, 51–68. ———. “‘To the Unknown God’: Luther and Calvin on the Hiddenness of God.” In The Old Protestantism and the New: Essays on the Reformation Heritage. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1982b. Hunsinger, George. “A Tale of Two Simultaneities: Justification and Sanctification in Calvin and Barth.” Zeitschrift für Dialektische Theologie 18:3 (2002), 316–38. Jones, Serene. Calvin and the Rhetoric of Piety. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995. Krusche, Werner. Das Wirken des Heilige Geist nach Calvin. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1957. Leith, John H. John Calvin’s Doctrine of the Christian Life. Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1989. ———. “Calvin’s Theological Method and the Ambiguity of His Theology.” In Articles on Calvin and Calvinism: The Organizational Structure of Calvin’s Theology, vol. 7, edited by Richard Gamble. ny: Garland Publishing, Inc. 1992. Luther, Martin. Lectures on Genesis. In Luther’s Works, vol. 1, edited by Jaroslav Pelikan. St. Louis: Concordia, 1958. Marcel, Pierre. “The Relation between Justification and Sanctification in Calvin’s Thought.” Evangelical Quarterly 27 (1955), 132–45. Mattes, Mark C. The Role of Justification in Contemporary Theology. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004. McCormack, Bruce. “What’s at Stake in the Current Debates over Justification?” In Justification: What’s at Stake in the Current Debates, edited by Mark Husbands and Daniel J. Treier. Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 2004. McGrath, Alister E. Iustitia Dei: A History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification. Third Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Milner, Benjamin Charles Jr., Calvin’s Doctrine of the Church. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1970. Moltmann, Jürgen. Prädestination und Perseveranz: Geschichte und Bedeutung der Reformierten Lehre “de Perseverantia Sanctorum.” Neukirchen: Kreis Moers, Neukirchener Verlag, 1961.
Muller, Richard. The Unaccommodated Calvin: Studies in the Foundation of a Theological Tradition. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Niesel, Wilhelm. “Calvin wider Osianders Rechtfertigungslehre.” Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 46 (1927), 410–430. ———. The Theology of John Calvin. Translated by Harold Knight. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1956. Oberman, Heiko A. The Dawn of the Reformation: Essays in Late Medieval and Early Reformation Thought. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992. Ozment, Steven E., ed. The Reformation in Medieval Perspective. Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1971. Parker, T.H.L. Calvin: An Introduction to His Thought. Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1995. Partee, Charles. “Calvin and Experience.” Scottish Journal of Theology 26:1 (1973), 169–81. ———. “Calvin’s Central Dogma Again.” In Articles on Calvin and Calvinism: the Organizational Structure of Calvin’s Theology, vol. 7, edited by Richard Gamble. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc. 1992. Pitkin, Barbara. What Pure Eyes Could See: Calvin’s Doctrine of Faith in Its Exegetical Context. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. ———. “The Protestant Zeno.” Journal of Religion 84:3 (2004), 345–78. Schreiner, Susan. The Theater of His Glory : Nature and the Natural Order in the thought of John Calvin. Durham: Labyrinth Press, 1991. ———. Where Shall Wisdom Be Found? Calvin’s Exegesis of Job from Medieval and Modern Perspectives. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994. Schützeichel, Heribert. Die Glaubenstheologie Calvins. Beiträge zur Oekumenischen Theologie 9. Ed. Heinrich Fries. Munich: Max Hueber, 1972. Shepherd, Victor A. The Nature and Function of Faith in the Theology of John Calvin. nabpr Dissertation Series, no. 2. Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1983. Stadtland, Tjarko. Rechtfertigung und Heiligung bei Calvin. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1972. Steencamp, J.J. “A Review of the Concept of Progress in Calvin’s Institutes.” In Calvin: Erbe und Auftrag. Kampen, Netherlands: Kok Pharos Publishing, 1991. Steinmetz, David. Calvin in Context. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Stuermann, Walter E. A Critical Study of Calvin’s Concept of Faith. Ann Arbor: Edwards Brothers, 1952. Torrance, Thomas Forsyth. Calvin’s Doctrine of Man. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1957. Van Buren, Paul. Christ in Our Place: the Substitutionary Character of Calvin’s Doctrine of Reconciliation. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1957. Wallace, Ronald S. Calvin’s Doctrine of the Christian Life. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1959.
Wendel, François. Calvin: Origins and Development of His Religious Thought. Translated by Philip Mairet. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1963. Westhelle, Vitor. “Luther and Liberation.” Dialog 25 (1986), 51–58. Willis, E. David. “The Influence of Laelius Socinus on Calvin’s Doctrines of the Merits of Christ and the Assurance of Faith.” In Italian Reformation Studies in Honor of Laelius Socinus, edited by John A. Tedeschi. Florence: Felice le Monnier, 1965. ———. “Calvin’s Catholic Christology: The Function of the So-Called Extra Calvinisticum in Calvin’s Theology.” In Studies in Medieval and Reformation Thought, vol. 2, edited by Heiko A. Oberman. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1966. ———. “The Unio Mystica and the Assurance of Faith According to Calvin.” In Calvin: Erbe und Auftrag: Festschrift für Wilhelm Heinrich Neuser zum 65. Geburtstag, forward by Willem van ‘t Spijker. Kampen, Netherlands: Kok Pharos Publishing, 1991. Wright, William A. “Negative Experience in Calvin’s Institutes and its Systematic Consequences.” Journal of Religion 93:1 (2013), 41–59. Zachman, Randall C. John Calvin as Teacher, Pastor, and Theologian: The Shape of His Writings and Thought. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006.
Other Works Cited
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Coakley, Sarah. “What Does Chalcedon Solve and What Does It Not? Some Reflections on the Status and Meaning of the Chalcedonian ‘Definition’.” In The Incarnation: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Incarnation of the Son of God, edited by Steven Davis, Daniel Kendall, and Gerald O’Collins. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002: 143–163. Cohen, Tim, ed. Jacques Derrida and the Humanities: A Critical Reader. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Cone, James. God of the Oppressed. Revised edition. Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1997. Cutrofello, Andrew. “Derrida’s Deconstruction of the Ideal of Legitimation.” Man and World 23:2 (1990), 157–173. ———. “A Critique of Derrida’s Hegel Deconstruction: Speech, Phonetic Writing, and Hieroglyphic Script in Logic, Law, and Art.” Clio 20:2 (1991), 123–137. D’Costa, Gavin. Theology in the Public Square: Church, Academy, and Nation. London: Blackwell, 2005. De Boer, Karin. “Différance as Negativity: The Hegelian Remains of Derrida’s Philosophy.” In A Companion to Hegel, edited by Stephen Houlgate and Michael Baur. Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2011. Derrida, Jacques. Marges de la philosophie. Paris: Les editions de minuit, 1972. ———. Glas. Paris: Galilée, 1974. ———. Of Grammatology. Translated by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1976. ———. Writing and Difference. Translated by Alan Bass. University of Chicago, 1978. ———. Dissemination. Translated by Barbara Johnson. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1981a. ———. Positions. Translated by Alan Bass. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981b. ———. Margins of Philosophy. Translated by Alan Bass University of Chicago, 1982. ———. “Les antinomies de la discipline philosophique: Lettre preface.” In La Grève des philosophes: école et philosophie. Paris: Osiris, 1986a. ———. Glas. Translated by John P. LeaveyJr., and Richard Rand. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1986b. ———. Given Time: I. Counterfit Money. Translated by Peggy Kamuf. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992. ———. Deconstruction in a Nutshell. Edited with a commentary by John D. Caputo. New York: Fordham Universitty Press, 1997. ———. “The Future of the Profession or the University without Condition (Thanks to the ‘Humanities’, What Could Take Place Tomorrow).” In Jacques Derrida and the Humanities: A Critical Reader, edited by Tom Cohen. Cambridge: Cambridge Univer sity Press, 2001. ———. Who’s Afraid of Philosophy: Right to Philosophy I. Translated by Jan Plug. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002.
———. Paper Machine. Translated by Rachel Bowlby. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005. Desmond, William. “Hegel, Dialectic, and Deconstruction.” Philosophy & Rhetoric 18:4 (1985), 244–263. ———, ed. Hegel and His Critics: Philosophy in the Aftermath of Hegel. Albany: suny Press, 1989. Devaney, Sheila Greeve. Pragmatic Historicism: A Theology for the Twenty-First Century. Albany: suny Press, 2000. Di Giovanni, George, ed. Essays on Hegel’s Logic. Albany: suny Press, 1990. Dillenberger, John, ed. Martin Luther: Selections from His Writings. New York: Doubleday, 1961. Duquette, David. “Kant, Hegel, and Possibility of Speculative Logic.” In Essays on Hegel’s Logic, George di Giovanni, ed. Albany: suny Press, 1990. Engelhardt, H. Tristram Jr., and Terry Pinkard, eds. Hegel Reconsidered: Beyond Metaphysics and the Authoritarian State. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1994. Farley, Edward. Theologia: The Fragmentation and Unity of Theological Education. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983. Findlay, J.N. Hegel: A Reexamination. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1958. Foshay, Raphael. “ ‘Tarrying with the Negative’: Bataille and Derrida’s Reading of Negation in Hegel’s Phenomenology.” Heythrop Journal 43:3 (2002), 295–310. Frawley, William. Text and Epistemology. Norwood, nj: Ablex Publishing Co., 1987. Frei, Hans. The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative: A Study in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Biblical Hermeneutics. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974. ———. Types of Christian Theology. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992. Fulkerson, Mary McClintock. Changing the Subject: Women’s Discourses and Feminist Theology. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994. Gadamer, Hans Georg. Truth and Method. Second revised edition. Translation revised by Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall. New York: Crossroad, 1989. Galbraith, John Kenneth. The Affluent Society. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1958. Gasché, Rodolphe. The Tain of the Mirror: Derrida and the Philosophy of Reflection. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986. ———. Inventions of Difference. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994. Grafton, Anthony and Megan Williams. Christianity and the Transformation of the Book: Origen, Eusebius, and the Library at Caesarea. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006. Griffiths, Paul. Intellectual Appetite: A Theological Grammar. Washington: Catholic University Press, 2009. Hadot, Pierre. What is Ancient Philosophy? Translated by Michael Chase. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002.
Harris, Errol E. Formal, Transcendental, and Dialectical Thinking: Logic and Reality. Albany: suny Press, 1987. Hauerwas, Stanley. Sanctify Them in the Truth: Holiness Exemplified. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1998. ———. The State of the University: Academic Knowledges and the Knowledge of God. Malden, ma: Blackwell Publishing, 2007. Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. Phänomenologie des Geistes. Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1965. ———. Wissenschaft der Logik. Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1975. ———. Phenomenology of Spirit. Translated by A.V. Miller. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977. ———. The Encyclopaedia Logic, with the Zusätze. Translated by T.F. Geraets, W.A. Suchting, and H.S. Harris. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1991. ———. Hegel’s Science of Logic. Translated by A.V. Miller. New York: Humanity Books, 1999. Hodgson, Peter. God in History: Shapes of Freedom. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1989. Hogue, Michael. “After the Secular: Toward a Pragmatic Public Theology.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 78:2 (June 2010), 346–74. Howard, Thomas Albert. Protestant Theology and the Making of the Modern German University. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Inwood, Michael. A Hegel Dictionary. The Blackwell Philosopher Dictionaries. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1992. Isasi-Diaz, Ada Maria. En La Lucha/In the Struggle: Elaborating a Mujerista Theology. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2004. Johnson, Paul Owen. The Critique of Thought: A Re-examination of Hegel’s “Science of Logic.” Aldershot: Avebury, 1988. Jones, Joe. A Grammar of Christian Faith: Systematic Explorations in Christian Life and Doctrine. Lanham, md: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2002. Kainz, Howard. Paradox, Dialectic, and System: A Contemporary Reconstruction of the Hegelian Problematic. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1988. Kelly, J.N.D.. Early Christian Doctrines. London: Continuum, 1977. Kelsey, David. To Understand God Truly: What’s Theological about a Theological School. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1992. Kilby, Karen. “Is an Apophatic Trinitarianism Possible?” International Journal of Systematic Theology 12:1 (January 2010), 65–77. Kisner, Wendell. “Erinnerung, Retrait, Absolute Reflection: Hegel and Derrida.” Owl of Minerva 26:2 (1995), 171–186. Knitter, Paul F. No Other Name? A Critical Survey of Christian Attitudes Toward the World Religions. Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1985. Lindbeck, George. The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age, 25th Anniversary Edition. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2009.
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Ray, Darby. Deceiving the Devil: Atonement, Abuse, and Ransom. Cleveland: Pilgrim Press, 1998. Reid, Jeffrey. “Hegel and the State University: The University of Berlin and Its Founding Contradictions.” The Owl Of Minerva 32:1 (2000), 5–20. ———. Real Words: Language and System in Hegel. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007. Ricoeur, Paul. Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning. Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1976. ———. Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences. Translated and edited by John Thompson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981. Robbins, Bruce. “Comparative Cosmopolitanisms.” In Cosmopolitics: Thinking and Feeling beyond the Nation, edited by Pheng Cheah and Bruce Robbins. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998. Rorty, Richard. “Deconstruction and Circumvention.” Critical Inquiry 11:1 (1984), 1–23. Ruether, Rosemary Radford. Sexism and God-Talk: Toward a Feminist Theology. Boston: Beacon Press, 1983. Russon, John, “Reading Derrida in Hegel’s Understanding.” Research in Phenomenology 36 (2006), 181–200. Schreiter, Robert. Constructing Local Theologies. Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1985. Segundo, Juan Luis. The Liberation of Theology. Translated John Drury. Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1979. Smith, Wilfred Cantwell. Towards a World Theology: Faith and the Comparative History of Religion. Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1989. Stähler, Tanja. “Does Hegel Privilege Speech Over Writing? A Critique of Jacques Derrida.” International Journal of Philosophical Studies 11:2: 191–204. Stewart, Jon. The Hegel Myths and Legends. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1996. Stoner, James, Stanley Hauerwas, Paul Griffiths, and David B. Hart. “Theology as Knowledge: A Symposium.” First Things (May 2006), 21–27. Talbott, Thomas. The Inescapable Love of God. Parkland, fl: Universal Publishers, 1999. Taylor, Charles. Hegel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975. Taylor, Mark C. Erring: A Postmodern A/Theology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984. Tanner, Kathryn. Theories of Culture: A New Agenda for Theology. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997. ———. “Incarnation, Cross, and Sacrifice: A Feminist-Inspired Reappraisal.” Anglican Theological Review 86:1 (2004), 35–56. ———. Economy of Grace. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005. Tanner, Norman P., S.J., ed. Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, vol. 1. London: Sheed & Ward and Georgetown University Press, 1990.
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academic text & textuality ix, xi–xii, 1–4, 200, 202, 205, 209, 217–218, 11–14, 18, 30–34, 73, 89–91, 92–94, 225, 234, 239, 254, 257, 262–263, 111–121, 125–129, 136–38, 141–143, 256, 294, 315–316 259–261, 312–318 vivification 47, 50, 168, 191, 242, 244, 257, architectonic structure 6–7, 18–19, 36, 261, 263–264, 286, 290, 292, 294–299, 41–42, 85–87, 311–312, 317–318 302–304, 317 Armstrong, Brian 45 Canlis, Julie 76, 144, 193 Chalcedon, Council of 38–40, 67 bad faith viii, 4, 9–12, 18, 22, 31, 34 Charry, Ellen 35 Barth, Karl 55, 200–201, 206 Coakley, Sarah 36 Battles, Ford Lewis 45, 65, 177, 181, 286 contextual theology x, 26, 31, 33 Bauer, Ferdinand 37 Cutrofello, Andrew 114, 119–120 Biedermann, Alois 37 Billings, J. Todd 50, 77, 83, 144 D’Costa, Gavin 21–22 Bourdieu, Pierre 7, 12, 16, 18, 29, 32, 35–36, de Kroon, Marijn 56 89, 296 Derrida, Jacques 111–138, 211–213, 312 Burbidge, John 92, 97, 98 bad conscience 141, 148 différance 35, 105, 111–112, 129, Cady, Linell Elizabeth 27 134, 138, 141, 171, 211–212, 233, Calvin, John 237, 255 double grace 53, 63 greph 124, 129 double justification (justification of use in my project 111 works) 60, 300 description (defined) 260 engrafting 263 distinct but not separate 41–42, 75, 86, eschatology 227–229, 231, 315 88–89, 185, 317 experience 207 doctrine faith 48, 219, 265 as logic xiii, 5, 35 fear 268 dialectical interpretation 36 historical development of Institutes 45 eschatology xiii, 5, 38–40 issue of coherence 43, 72 soteriology xi–xii, 35, 42 justification and sanctification 62 Trinity xiii, 37 law 51–52, 82, 148–149, 164, 171, 181, Doumergue, Émile 79–81, 84–85 214–218, 234, 238, 242, 291, 302, 311 Dowey, Edward 45, 48, 156 love 246 mortification 47, 50, 76, 168, 191, 242, feminist theology x, 9, 24–25 244, 250, 257, 261, 263–264, 274, 280, Foshay, Raphael 213 288–294, 296–299, 301, 316 Frawley, William 12 perseverace 274 Frei, Hans 21 predestination/election 68, 75, 261, Fulkerson, Mary McClintock 24–25, 27 279–280 regeneration 51, 298 Gadamer, Hans Georg 210–211 repentance 48–51 Galbraith, John Kenneth 13 “right order of teaching” 45, 60, 73, 190 Gasché, Rodolphe 130 union with Christ 47–48, 52, 54, 66–67, Gerrish, Brian 258 71–74, 78, 86, 145, 148, 189–190, 192–193, Griffiths, Paul 22
Hadot, Pierre 15 McGrath, Alistair 35, 53, 60, 144, 202 Hart, David Bentley 22 Melanchthon, Phillip 45, 49, 78, 239, 281 Hauerwas, Stanley 21–22 Milbank, John 21–22 Hegel and Derrida, relation 7, 88–90, Miller-McLemore, Bonnie 28 129, 133, 138, 141, 237, 256–257, Muller, Richard 44–45, 49 311–312, 318 Hegel, G. W. F. 143, 148, 155, 157, 175, 187, Nicene Creed 38 205, 210–211, 220, 235–236, 254, 296–297, 312 Oberman, Heiko 74, 79, 152 Absolute Idea 110, 137–138, 201, 203, 212 Oden, Thomas 13 Cause and Effect 235–236, 246–247 Origen 38 Essence 202–203, 235 Osiander, Andreas 65, 179–180, 182, “formal relationality” 99–100, 103, 107, 110 202–203, 207 interiorization/Erinnerung 113, 210, 212, 219, 225–226, 238, 240, 254, 263, 272, Pannenberg, Wolfhart 19 281, 294 pedagogy 15–17, 27, 125 reflection 98, 103–104, 149, 191, 196, Petrella, Ivan 23 295, 314 Pinkard, Terry 92 sublation (Aufhebung) 101–102, 109–112, Pitkin, Barbara 80 116, 171, 210, 213, 230, 235, 246–247, prescription (defined) 260 251, 316 Heidegger, Martin ix, x, 112, 121, 130, reflexivity x, xi, 18, 22, 25, 27–29, 90, 97, 101, 140, 229 106, 307, 309 Howard, Thomas Albert 15, 16, 92, 94 Reid, Jeffrey 92, 94 Ricoeur, Paul 260, 277 Isasi-Diaz, Ada Maria 23–24 Rorty, Richard 140
Jones, Serene 45 Sadoleto, Jacopo 49 justification and sanctification scholastic ideology 11, 124, 133–134, 139, 311 paradoxical relationship xi, xiii, 5, 147 Schreiner, Susan 56, 76, 111 Stadtland, Tjarko 74, 78, 144, 239 Kelsey, David 16, 25 Stuermann, Walter 78–81, 85 Kilby, Karen 36 Kisner, Wendell 133 Tanner, Kathryn 25–26, 33 Krusche, Werner 64, 74, 78, 229 Taylor, Charles 96, 102 theography ix, x, 1–5, 7, 15, 17–20, 22–27, 29, Leavey, John 112, 118, 119, 120 33, 35–36, 42, 88–91, 111, 116, 125–128, liberation and liberation theology x, 3, 8, 147, 160, 164, 184, 189, 205–207, 209, 19–20, 22, 23–24, 29, 30, 31 211–212, 214, 237, 259–260, 265–266, Lindbeck, George 20–21 268, 272, 278–279, 284, 299, 301–302, Lombard, Peter 38 306, 309, 314–317 Lonergan, Bernard 36 survey of contemporary examples 17–29 Lumsden, Simon 135 theological loci 25, 35, 38–39, 41–42, Luther, Martin 43, 49, 160, 198, 214, 216, 45–46 223–224, 232, 241, 288, 306, 310 theology-discipline xii–xiv, 1–2, 17 Lüttge, Willy 78–81, 241 dual allegiance 2–3, 17, 33, 91 practical theology xii Maker, William 93 use of philosophy xi, xiv, 6, 34, 89, 141, McCumber, John 96, 98, 114, 136 187, 309
Thompson, Kevin 211–212 Vanhoozer, Kevin 36, 38 Tracy, David 19–20 Venema, Cornelis 47, 84, 94, 106, 107, 108, 202, 204, 261, 316, 354 universalism 156, 159, 161, 176, 184, 272 Wissenschaft (scholarly research) 15–16, University of Berlin 15–16 19–34, 90, 92, 97, 121, 125, 127, 212, 235, 312