5. Du calvinisme à l'orthodoxie réformée - Calvinism on its way to Reformed Orthodoxy

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Calvin - Histoire et réception d'une Réforme

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University of Geneva

Calvin - Histoire et réception d'une Réforme

61 notes

Course in French with English subtitles -- Ce cours introduit à la vie et à la pensée du réformateur Jean Calvin (1509-1564) ainsi qu’à son influence sur le monde moderne et contemporain. La démarche proposée se veut critique, il ne s’agit ni de canoniser ni de condamner Calvin, mais de comprendre sa pensée avec toute la distance requise et d’en analyser les enjeux. Au cours de la première semaine, nous explorerons les principales étapes de la vie de Calvin. Les semaines 2 et 3 seront consacrées à l’étude de sa pensée théologique et de son éthique. Enfin, lors des semaines 4 et 5, nous nous interrogerons sur la diffusion du calvinisme dans le monde et la pertinence actuelle de la pensée de Calvin. -- This course is an introduction to the life and thought of the reformer John Calvin (1509-1564) and to his influence on the modern and contemporary world. The approach we develop is critical: we intend neither to canonize nor to condemn Calvin or his thought. Our goal, rather, is to avoid any rash evaluation in order to understand his thought and analyze the issues at stake in it. During five weeks, we will explore together the life and work of the Reformer. During the first week, we will study the main aspects of Calvin’s life. Weeks 2 and 3 will focus on his theology and his ethics. During the last two weeks (weeks 4 and 5), we will ponder how Calvinism became a worldwide phenomenon and ask ourselves what kind of relevance Calvin’s thought may still have today.

À partir de la leçon

La diffusion du calvinisme - The spread of calvinism

Le calvinisme a connu une diffusion internationale très rapide et très variée, d’abord en Europe puis, au fil des siècles, sur tous les continents. Il faut distinguer deux plans de cette diffusion et réception du calvinisme : l’impact des idées de Calvin sur les Églises, sur le christianisme, et l’influence, plus difficile à étudier car plus diffuse, des idées de Calvin ou des idées qui se réclament de Calvin, dans toutes sortes de champs de la réalité humaine (arts, philosophie, culture). L’objectif principal de ce troisième module est d’offrir une large vision de l’héritage calvinien et calviniste à partir de 1564, en Europe et au-delà.</p> <p>Calvinism spread internationally very rapidly and in quite diverse ways, first in Europe and then, in the course of time, on all continents. It is important to distinguish two aspects of this spread: the impact of Calvin's ideas on the Churches, on Christianity, on the one hand, and on the other the more diffuse influence of Calvin's ideas (or of ideas which claim to come from him) in all kinds of areas of our world (the arts, philosophy, culture, and so forth). The main objective of module 3 is to present a broad spectrum of the Calvinist (or Calvinian) legacy, from 1564 onwards, in Europe and beyond.

5. Du calvinisme à l'orthodoxie réformée - Calvinism on its way to Reformed Orthodoxy12:01

6. De l’orthodoxie aux Lumières - From Orthodoxy to the Enlightenment9:28

Rencontrer les enseignants

Christophe Chalamet
Professeur de théologie systématique
Faculté de théologie
François Dermange
Professeur d'éthique
Faculté de théologie
Michel Grandjean
Professeur d'histoire du christianisme
Faculté de théologie
Sarah Nicolet
Collaboratrice scientifique
Faculté de théologie

Calvin History and Reception of a Reformation

What of theology after Calvin? You sometimes hear about Reformed orthodoxy, or Reformed scholasticism -- what does this mean?

That's what we're going to explore in this video sequence. To do so, we'll have to go back to the Reformation's very origins.

The Reformation was built on an intuition: we are saved by the grace of God alone ("sola gratia");

by faith alone ("sola fide"); by scripture alone ("sola scriptura");

and at the center of it all is Christ alone ("solus Christus").

But here's the thing: proclaiming and spreading the Reformation required more than simply repeating these slogans.

Very early on, then, the need was felt to write theological texts.

First Melanchthon, with the "Loci Communes" (Common Themes), in 1521.

Then Calvin with his Institutes of the Christian Religion, first published in 1536.

From then on, theology developed in a systematic manner.

To define faith meant to specify the entire set of issues concerning faith.

This was done through theological treatises, as well as catechisms and confessions of faith.

There were quite a few catechisms, starting with the one written by Calvin himself, as you recall, in Geneva in 1541.

There were also numerous confessions of faith, such as the Confession of Faith of the Reformed Churches of France (1559),

commonly known, though somewhat inaccurately, as the "Confession of La Rochelle" owing to its approval by the National Synod of La Rochelle in 1570.

One of the Reformation's major catechisms, however,

which addresses all of the issues surrounding the "right faith"

-- i.e., orthodoxy --, was not authored by Calvin.

It was published in Heidelberg, in the Palatinate, by theologians commissioned by the Elector Palatine Frederick III,

who had himself turned from Lutheranism to the Calvinist faith.

We don't know who exactly authored this catechism,

the records having disappeared during the Thirty Years' War.

It may have been Zacharias Ursinus, but it doesn't matter much.

In the 20th century, the Heidelberg Catechism was referred to by Karl Barth as a brilliant re-establishment of the substance of the Reformation.

It is in three parts.

First part: the misery of man. We are all corrupt, says the Heidelberg Catechism, to the point of being incapable of any good whatsoever and inclined towards evil.

Part Two: the deliverance of Man. Though by our own actions we deserve eternal punishment, God wants justice to be done and sends Christ as

mediator. This part of the catechism covers faith, Christ and the sacraments.

And the third part focuses on Man's gratitude: having been delivered from our misery -- wholly unmeritoriously, according to the Heidelberg Catechism -- we are called to do good works.

Thus Part Three deals with the law.

The Heidelberg Catechism, however, does not address the issue of predestination,

which would so occupy the minds of the entire following generation.

Reformation churches were attacked on the institutional level, but also intellectually and theologically.

These attacks were numerous before, during and after the Council of Trent, held between 1545 and 1563 (with interruptions).

A book by Cardinal Robert Bellarmine entitled Disputationes de controversiis christianae fidei adversus huius temporis haereticos

("Disputations about the Controversies of the Christian Faith Against the Heretics of this Time") exemplifies these attacks.

It was published around 1586-1589. I mention it today because

no fewer than 200 texts were written, some by Lutherans, some by Calvinists,

in rebuttal of Cardinal Bellarmine.

But to refute someone means to enter their province,

and Cardinal Bellarmine's province was that of scholasticism.

Reformed Protestants and Lutherans alike, in higher and higher numbers,

entered the world of scholasticism -- even before the publication, in fact, of Bellarmine's Disputationes.

This is paradoxical, in a sense, because Reformed theology

thus took on the form, in many respects, of medieval scholasticism.

Yet humanism had mocked scholasticism, advocating a return to the sources through attentive study of the ancient texts;

Calvin himself had criticized scholasticism in the harshest of terms.

In his commentary on First Timothy, Calvin wrote:

"(...) for what else was the scholastic theology than a huge chaos of empty and useless speculations?"

Why then did Reformed Protestants adopt this form of scholasticism? As I was saying, because you must respond to your opponents in their own province.

And so Aristotle, whose philosophy Luther believed he'd disposed of once and for all in the years 1517-1520, made an unexpected comeback.

In a way, this was an attempt to create a new form, a Reformed scholasticism; to adopt the traditional medieval form while blending it

as it were, with the foundation of Reformed theology.

The theologians who followed Calvin thus produced huge theological treatises addressing every issue in theology, question by question.

At the heart of these issues was one that proved decisive because Protestants could not come to a consensus among themselves: the question of predestination.

The 1559 Confession of La Rochelle, which I mentioned earlier, said:

"We believe that from this corruption and general condemnation in which all human beings are plunged, God, according to his eternal and immutable counsel, calls those whom He has chosen by His goodness."

God in His eternal counsel -- in other words, the decision He has made for all eternity.

In 1566, a Swiss confession of faith known as the Second Helvetic Confession made the following declaration:

"From eternity God has freely, and of His mere grace, without any respect to human beings, predestinated or elected the saints whom He wills to save in Christ."

From eternity God has elected the saints whom He wills to save in Jesus Christ.

Thirty years of very lively debate... Most of it, in fact, took place in Holland.

Holland was home to one theologian in particular who expertly wielded all the weapons of scholasticism: Jacobus Arminius (1560-1609).

He criticized the notion of double predestination, arguing that it cannot be held that God, before even creating the world,

chose salvation for some and, therefore, eternal damnation for the remainder.

Arminius was opposed by a number of theologians, including Franciscus Gomarus, born in 1565.

Gomarus insisted on the fact that God decided to save some, and therefore condemn the rest, before our

first parents, Adam and Eve, had even taken a bite of the apple of sin.

The technical name of this doctrine is Supralapsarianism (or Antelapsarianism), meaning that

God's decision is considered to antedate our first parent's original sin.

The question was debated and resolved, at least temporarily, during an international Reformed Synod held in Dordrecht in the years 1618-1619.

This Synod defined orthodoxy against the position held by Arminius and the Arminians (also called the Remonstrants).

Yet this would not put an end to the debate and throughout the 17th century, the issue of predestination continued to occupy the minds of Reformed theologians.

The question for us is how to interpret Reformed scholasticism as a whole.

Is it a betrayal of the Reformation's core intuition, or should it be seen, to the contrary, as a way of giving it a new language while remaining faithful to it?

Recent historiography can help us answer this question.

The work of Heiko Oberman, a major historian of the Reformation who did a lot of research in the United States,

reveals that Calvin owed a lot more to medieval scholastic theology than previously believed.

The rise of a Reformed scholasticism after Calvin, therefore, does not imply any fundamental internal divide.

That being said, these debates were held strictly among theological specialists. They were always in Latin.

Such attempts by Reformed orthodoxy to establish comprehensive theological systems seem very foreign to us today, particularly as relates to the issue of predestination.

We shouldn't be too quick to judge, though -- these theologians believed in the slogan "sola scriptura" (by the Bible alone), and they often

quoted a verse from Ephesians (1:4): "For He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world."

This is the foundation of Franciscus Gomarus' position.

Furthermore, when it is said that God has predestined us for all eternity,

isn't this in a sense the corollary of justification by

faith? If salvation is given to us by God

independently of our own actions, this decision could very well have been made

prior to our existence or even prior to His creation of heaven and earth.

These debates, as I've mentioned, continued to rage.

In the next sequence, Professor Cristina Pitassi will

give you an overview of Reformed orthodoxy, then describe the gradual transition

from orthodoxy to 18th century theology in the context of the Enlightenment.

And in a later sequence, which you'll see next week,

Professor Christophe Chalamet

will come back to the issue of predestination, which remained a thorn in the side of

the Calvinist tradition well into the 20th century.

We've reached the end of today's sequence. Thank you for your attention.

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