Eyes of Faith 4.

A. Life and Career. Second generation Reformer, born in 1509 in northern France, 26 years younger than Luther. Aimed at priestood, studied from 14 at University of Paris, where Sorbonne condemned Luther’s writings in 1521. Studied civil law, but when father died, aimed to become a classical scholar. 1532-4 impressed by Luther’s teachings, had sudden conversion experience. Highly critical of abuses in French Catholic Church, where reform would not be imposed from above, as by princes in Germany, so early Protestants (known as ) had less united support, and suffered royal persecution. For them Calvin and Geneva would be viewed as a shining light, offering religious asylum. 1541 Calvin invited back to Geneva, commissioned to revise city laws, and aimed at bringing everyone under the discipline of the church as a godly people. Daily sermons in cathedral, but bitter resentment at this French immigrant, and bitter criticisms from “Libertines” (mild reformers). Laid down ranks of ministry with Ecclesiastical Ordinances, with power for the weekly Consistory of pastors and elders to discipline members and excommunicate. Wanted a theocracy administered by clergy (every sin declared a crime). B. Geneva. Calvin trying to make the republic of Geneva strongly disciplined as the pattern for a visible “City of God” in Europe, concerned also for the Reformed minority in France. (founder of Calvinist Church of Scotland 1560) worked for a time with Calvin, and called Geneva “the most perfect school of Christ that there was in earth since the days of the Apostles.” Died Geneva 1564, aged 54, exhausted by preaching and writing and tuberculosis. C. “The Institutes of the Christian Religion”. Calvin saw need for systematic statement of evangelical theology, based on Scripture and defending it against Catholic criticisms. Became “a classical statement of Protestant theology” (McNeill, l), and the training manual for those entering the Reformed ministry. Final expanded edition 1559. A Protestant parallel to Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae. Trinitarian in focus. Rich in biblical awareness, in familiarity with the Fathers and classical writers, in knowledge of the Scholastics, and in awareness of the moves of the Papists, always with a continual spiritual and pastoral aim. Develops central tenets of faith alone, grace alone, scripture alone; strongly Augustinian. D. The Divine Majesty. Central to Calvin's thought: profound sense of the infinite majesty of God and of his absolute and inscrutable power. “God’s will is so much the highest rule of righteousness that whatever he wills, by the very fact that he wills it, must be considered righteous. When, therefore, one asks why God has so done, we must reply: because he has willed it. But if you proceed further to ask why he has so willed, you are seeking something greater and higher than God’s will, which cannot be found.” (3,23,2). However, “whatever he requires of us (because he can require only what is right) we must obey out of natural obligation” (2,8,2). E. Justification plus Sanctification. “Christ justifies no one whom he does not at the same time sanctify…those whom he illumines by his wisdom, he redeems; those whom he redeems he justifies; those whom he justifies, he sanctifies” (3.16.1) Inner growth and daily progress: ‘Christ was given to us by God’s generosity, to be grasped and possessed by us in faith. By partaking of him, we principally receive a double grace: namely, that being reconciled to God through Christ’s blamelessness, we may have in heaven instead of a Judge a gracious Father; and secondly, that sanctified by Christ’s spirit we may cultivate blamelessness and purity of life’, 3.11.1. “No one shall set out so inauspiciously as not daily to make some headway, though it be slight”(3.6.5). F. Hence the moral law. Calvin got the three “uses” of the law (II, chap 7) from Melanchthon and Bucer, not Luther. Stressed the third. ‘Let us survey briefly the function and use of what is called the “moral Law”. Now, so far as I understand it, it consists of three parts’ (6): One: To condemn us, a “mirror” to sin, “an occasion for sin and death” (7) “naked and empty-handed, they flee to his mercy” (8) [main use for Luther, but “accidental” for Calvin]. Two. To protect community and deter evildoers by fear of punishment, “partially broken in”(10) by “bridle” (11). “The third and principal use” of the law is to “profit” believers in two ways: (i) to learn more thoroughly the will of God and confirm their understanding of it. Daily instruction enables us to “make fresh progress towards a purer knowledge of the divine will” (12); (ii) to be exhorted and strengthened to obedience, “like a whip to an idle and balky ass’”, “a constant sting” (12); law no longer frightens and confounds (14). “This very written law is but a witness of natural law, a witness which quite often arouses our memory and instils in us the things we had not sufficiently learnt, when natural law was teaching us within” (cf II.8.1). Every sin is a deadly sin: “In every transgression of the divinely commanded law, God’s authority is set aside. Do they deem it a small matter to violate his majesty in anything?…let the children of God hold that all sin is mortal. For it is a rebellion against the will of God, which of necessity provokes God’s wrath, and it is a violation of the law, upon which God’s judgment is pronounced without exception” (2,8,59). G. . Paul. “So then he has mercy on whomsoever he chooses, and he hardens the heart of whomsoever he chooses … What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience the objects of wrath that are made for destruction; and what if he has done so in order to make known the riches of his glory for the objects of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory” (Rom 9. 18-23). Central idea. Absolute and unquestionable greatness of God’s divine majesty and power. He mercifully and mysteriously “elects” (chooses) some, and pre-destines them to grace and salvation, while he disregards others and abandons them. Augustine. “from this condemned beginning, God makes both ‘vessels of wrath destined for dishonour’, and also ‘vessels of mercy destined for honour’…To the former he gives their due, by way of punishment; on the latter he bestows the undeserved gift of grace”, City of God, 15.21. Aquinas. “As predestination is part of providence with regard to those who are divinely ordained to eternal salvation, reprobation is part of providence with regard to those who fall short of this end “ (ST 1.23.3). Predestination shows God’s mercy, reprobation God’s justice (1.23.5 ad 3). Calvin. “We call predestination God’s eternal decree, by which he compacted with himself what he willed to become of each man. For all are not created in equal condition; rather, eternal life is foreordained for some [=the elect], eternal damnation for others [=the reprobate]. Therefore, as any man has been created to one or other of these ends, we speak of man as predestined to life or to death” (3.21.5). “When it is said that God hardens or shows mercy to whom he wills (Rom 9.18), men are warned by this to seek no cause outside his will” (3.22.11). Reprobation is a “dreadful decree” (3.23.7) yet clearly taught in the Bible. H. Double predestination. Council of Trent, Decree on Justification, canon 17: “If anyone says that the grace of justification is attained only by those who are predestined to life, but that all the others who are called, are indeed called, but do not receive grace, insofar as they are predestined by God’s power to evil; let them be anathema” (DS 1567). Catholic Catechism. “God predestines no one to go to hell; for this, a wilful turning away from God (a mortal sin) is necessary, and persistence in it until the end” 1037. Arguments against: “God our Saviour, who desires everyone to be saved” (1 Tim 2:3-4). Universalism (all are saved in fact; Origen 3rd c); Biblical occasionalism, portraying God as cause of everything, humans just the occasion of his actions; by “middle knowledge” (scientia media) God knows what we would do ( futuribles) and decides accordingly (Molina); Analogy of being: Human freedom is a created participation of God’s freedom, not diminishing it in inverse proportionality; Predestination/reprobation an instance of divine providence: “But rational creatures are outstandingly sharers in divine providence, in taking foresight for themselves and for others” (Aquinas, ST 1.2. 91, 2). Shares decision-making, enabling us to do so freely. I. Calvin and the Church. “The problem now was not the overthrow of a papacy, but the construction of new modes of power…What was needed was the authority of a rightly called and purified ministry…Calvin believed that in organizing the church at Geneva he must organize it in imitation of the primitive Church and thereby reassert the independence of the Church and the divine authority of its ministers” (Chadwick 83). This requires “the Word of God preached purely and listened to, and the sacraments administered according to the institution of Christ” (4.1.9): Baptism (including to infants) and frequent Lord’s Supper, where Christ is specially but mysteriously present (not by transubstantiation).The invisible Church of God’s elect is known only to God, not the same as the visible Church, which contains many “hypocrites”, or reprobates. J. . Calvin’s international influence spread from Geneva as haven in Europe, through Switzerland, France, England (Cranmer, Marian exiles, Elizabeth’s opponents, , influencing North American colonies), Scotland (Knox), Netherlands (and South Africa). Based on simple Reformed biblical preaching of Word and Spirit, and strong discipline, focusing on the progressive unity of the Old and New Testam-ents under the sovereign inscrutable majesty of God. Catholic and Lutheran criticism focused on double predestination, leading to defensiveness. “Five Points of Calvinism” [TULIP]. “Calvinism places an emphasis upon this doctrine [double predestination] which is largely lacking in Calvin’s thought” McGrath, 209. Calvinist beliefs summarised in the (1618) against dissident Arminians (supporting human will), later claimed as: (of fallen nature); Unconditional election (no merits); (only for elect); (cannot be refused); Preservation of the saints (once elect). Signs of election. For Calvin, good works are not the cause of salvation, but as one pursues one’s “calling” in society, they are the grounds of assurance of salvation. “The grace of good works…demonstrates that the spirit of adoption has been given to us” (3.14.8). Hence “the Protestant (Puritan) work ethic”, to prove to oneself and to others that one belongs to the elect. John Wesley: “For religion must necessarily produce both industry and frugality, and these cannot but produce riches” (McGrath, 245). Hence Max Weber’s thesis of The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1904): the Calvinist work ethic is conducive to capitalism; it results in accumulation of wealth, not to spend indulgently, but to invest. K. Some reading. J. Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. J. T. McNeill, Louisville, Westminster, 2 vols., 1960 (2011); E. McGrath, A Life of John Calvin, Blackwell, 1990; P. Helm, Calvin. A Guide for the Perplexed, T & T Clark, 2008; O. Chadwick, The Reformation, Pelican, 1985; D. MacCulloch, A History of , Penguin, 2010; J. J. Murray, John Knox, Darlington, EP, 2011; C. Methuen, Luther and Calvin: Religious Revolutionaries, Lion, Oxford, 2011.