Calvin. History and Reception of a Reformation Week 2. Calvin's Thought Sequence 1. Calvin and the Bible Welcome to the second week of our course, "John Calvin, History and Reception of a Reformation." We will be focusing on John Calvin's theology, beginning with a first sequence on Calvin and the Bible. Calvin's first position in Geneva was not as a pastor, doctor of theology, or professor, but as a reader of the Holy Scripture at the Collège de Rive, in a convent from
which the Franciscans had recently been expelled. Throughout his life, his pastoral ministry would revolve around the interpretation and predication of the Biblical message. Almost half of Calvin's body of work consists of his sermons... ... thousands and thousands of sermons, which equal in volume his dogmatic treatises (such as "The Institution of the Christian Religion"),
his commentaries on the Bible and his correspondence.
A massive source of material indeed. How does he view the Bible? First and foremost, he highlights the Bible's usefulness. Calvin writes: "The Bible is not given to us in order to satisfy our foolish curiosity,
or to serve our own ambitions. It is useful, says St Paul; how?
It instructs us in sound doctrine, it consoles us, it urges us and makes us perfect in every good work. Let us then use it for this purpose. If you ask in what this whole edification consists which we are to receive thereby, in a word, it is a question of
learning to place our trust in God and to walk in fear of God." A very interesting and rich passage, from which we learn that the Bible, according to Calvin, is a useful book. Useful in terms of living a good life, as he understands it: a life defined by trust in God and reverence towards God. The word "fear," in this context, is to be understood as reverence rather than as "being scared". Elsewhere, he writes: "For our wisdom ought to be nothing else than to embrace
with humble teachableness, and at least without finding fault,
whatever is taught in Sacred Scripture." Here we have the second major feature of Calvin's outlook concerning the Bible: while it is useful, serving a concrete purpose -- that of living a good life, a life of trust in God, of fear of God, of reverence towards God --
Calvin also insists that Scripture be taken as a whole, rather than singling out
specific passages or Books. This is a defining feature of Calvin's thought: everything in Scripture is useful and must therefore be taught. Nothing must be ignored or removed. For Calvin, the Bible has but one content: in all respects and from beginning to end, its content is God's covenant and God's Word -- his Word being Jesus Christ. Calvin's theology is nourished by the New Testament, of course, but also by the Old Testament. To him, the transition from the Old Testament to the New Testament is not a transition from deficiency to fullness. Nor is it a transition from one reality to another. Rather, it is the transition from one reality, as given to us, to the same reality given to us differently. In terms of substance, then, there is no change or difference between the Old and the New Testament. This is very different from the notions held by many of our contemporaries, for whom the Old Testament signifies certain things, a certain vision of God perhaps
-- one who is jealous, etc. -- whereas the New Testament shows us (for example) a God of love. Calvin's view is totally at odds with such a notion. For him, there is a highly substantial and important continuity between the two Testaments. When Christ is referred to as the "end of the Law" (here Calvin uses Paul's phrase), this is to be understood, first and foremost, as referring to the Law's ultimate purpose. In French, indeed, the word "fin" (end) has two meanings: it can refer to the termination of a thing,
but it can also mean "purpose" or "objective." In Calvin's interpretation of Christ as the "end of the Law," he takes the word "end" to mean "purpose", "goal". The entire Old Testament, then, is already pointing towards Christ and towards the New Testament. Here we have a difference between Calvin and Luther -- the other great Reformer of the 16th century -- who perhaps has a greater tendency
to oppose the Testaments to one another or, at the very least, to distinguish between them. For Calvin, the Law -- the Torah, the Old Testament -- points towards Christ, who fulfils the Law but does not revoke it. We see, then, how important the unity of the Bible's message, in its very substance, is to Calvin. The Reformed Tradition, following in Calvin's footsteps, has sustained this sense of continuity. It has been nourished by the Old Testament, which it continues
to hold in the highest esteem. In the French-speaking world, Reformed Protestants -- i.e., Protestants who identify with the Calvinist tradition -- often give their children Biblical names taken from the Old Testament. Gideon, Abraham, Rebecca, Elijah, Sarah... these are (or were) popular first names among Reformed Protestants. This is how Calvin himself expresses what I've been trying to explain: "Yet I do not restrict faith to the Gospel without confessing that what sufficed for building it [the Law] up had been handed down by Moses and the prophets.
But […] a fuller manifestation of Christ has been revealed in the Gospel." What Calvin is saying here is that Moses and the Prophets had already given us everything that was needed to build up the Law. Nothing was lacking. Yet, according to Calvin, the New Testament provides us with a clearer, more easily understood, and fuller -- to use his own word -- manifestation of the Gospel. For Calvin, therefore, everything in Scripture matters; everything in Scripture is useful. And Calvin wrote commentary on virtually every single Book of the Bible. He wrote commentary, as it were, on the entire New Testament with the exception of the book of Revelation, the very last book of the Bible. When it comes to Calvin and the Bible, there is another major theme that we must absolutely talk about:
the question of the inspiration of Scripture. Here we must be careful not to project subsequent theological debates onto Calvin's ideas. The question of the inspiration of Scripture has been a recurring source of debate and conflict within the Protestant tradition, with some arguing for a literal or verbal interpretation, while
others have defended a more liberal approach, questioning the idea of inspiration. Again, let us not project such debates into the 16th Century. These debates belong to a later time. Fundamentalism, by definition, is a reaction to modernity. Without modernity, there is no such thing as fundamentalism. Calvin, on the other hand, is still premodern. It's important to always keep this in mind: Calvin is not a modern thinker. Perhaps it may be said that, in his own way, he is a precursor of modernity -- but he is not modern. In Calvin's view, Scripture is indeed inspired. He is very clear on this point. The Holy Spirit inspired the authors of the Bible. The Spirit breathed life -- and continues to breathe life -- through the Word. This does not mean that everything in the Bible, down to the very iotas of the Greek text or smallest details of the Hebrew, is factually correct. What pertains to salvation, however, is true. This is what matters to Calvin. There is no extreme literalism, then, in Calvin's thought (as Henri Clavier pointed out as early as 1936). Calvin is aware of the discrepancies, or differences, that appear in the Bible; for example, between the three synoptic gospels. Yet these differences must not obscure the fundamental consensus that exists among the three synoptic gospels -- Matthew, Mark and Luke. "There is a remarkable agreement among them on the main points," writes Calvin in his "Commentary on the Harmony of the Synoptic Gospels" (1555). ... and this despite the variations in terms of geography and chronology. The main point, for Calvin, is that the biblical Word means nothing without the Spirit to make it come alive and seal it in the heart of the believer. This is the "inner witness of the Holy Spirit", which is something we will cover in a later sequence devoted to pneumatology
(the study of the Holy Spirit). The written Word is never to be considered independently from the agency of the Holy Spirit, which gives life to it. Calvin writes: "we say that the Word itself, however it be imparted to us,
is like a mirror in which faith may contemplate God. It is because it is inspired by the Spirit of God that Scripture can serve as a mirror." Once again, Calvin highlights the usefulness of Scripture -- just as a mirror is a useful tool for contemplate something. Calvin is not interested in the question of the inspiration of Scripture as such, but only insofar as it helps establish Scripture's authority, validity, and usefulness. His approach to the question of inspiration has a functional dimension. Inspiration does not consist in a word-by-word transcription by biblical authors of a message given to them. Rather, it is the guarantee of a consciencious transmission -- one that is faithful, reliable, obedient -- of the Word they have received. The Word is something in which we can trust and confide. When Calvin writes about the Holy Spirit dictacting the content of the biblical message, he is not referring to any kind of word-by-word dictation; rather, he is using
an image, that of a testimony, a gift placed by God in the hearts of the Bible's authors. The biblical author does not speak by and from himself, but is an instrument of the Holy Spirit. This is Calvin's view as regards the question of inspiration. How can we explain references, in Scripture, to the "hands" of God, to God's "mouth"... but also to God's "anger" and "burning fury"? How may we explain the presence of such anthropomorphisms,
projections of human characteristics onto something -- God -- that is not human? Calvin's answer to this question is very clear -- and important. It pervades all of his thought, and thus it is crucial that we understand it. It has to do with the concept of divine accommodation, that is, the manner in which God adapts his communication to human understanding. Patristic theologians (the early Fathers of the Church during its first centuries of existence; in essence, some of the early Christian theologians) used the term "allegory" to explain notions such as the anger of God, etc. In other words, although the text has a literal meaning, it also has a deeper and hidden meaning -- its true spiritual meaning. Calvin does not like this interpretation. To him, the text has a literal meaning and this is the meaning that counts. So Calvin is not a proponent of allegorical exegesis. Calvin's answer to the question -- why the "mouth" of God, the "hand" of God, the "back" of God, etc.? -- is that God, in the context of his written Word, his Scriptural message,
accommodates himself to our understanding, that God places himself on the level
of human intelligence. We will come back to this idea in later sequences, as it is an important theme in Calvin's thought. God does not change his mind. God is not affected by anger. For Calvin, we are dealing with an analogy (Latin: similitudinem), an analogy between those things that belong to the human realm -- anger, jealousy, the various parts of the body, the passions -- and what is truly divine.
Analogy implies that there is both similarity and difference
between the things being compared. And it is this difference of which me must not lose sight. By using the concept of divine accommodation, Calvin is seeking to defend the biblical text. There is an apologetic dimension, a desire to defend, in this approach. The Bible makes use of analogy and metaphor, and we should interpret it accordingly. So when the Bible speaks crudely, simplistically or coarsely, this is only so that it may reach us according to our own simple and coarse level of understanding.
Yet beyond this apologetic approach, this desire to defend Scripture,
there is another aspect as well: a pedagogical aspect. In other words, when God puts himself on our level, God does so in order for us to understand something important about God. We've taken a look at some of the central features of Calvin's views regarding Scripture: - its usefulness: the fact that everything in Scripture is useful and must be taught and understood, if possible; - inspiration: Calvin rejects the idea of literal inspiration down to the smallest details, yet, at the same time, biblical authors do not speak by and for themselves.
Rather, the Holy Spirit speaks through them. - finally, the joint importance of the external aspect of the biblical text as well as its internal spiritual aspect: the same Spirit that inspired the authors of the Bible must inspire
those who read it. We will return to this theme in a future sequence devoted to the Holy Spirit.
