John Calvin&

His Ideas:

February 2013

28 needed

Background:

• He was a thinker among the post-Luther generation of reformers.

• French by birth and a lawyer by training

• In Geneva, he helped establish a new form of church government that gave power to individual congregations of believers

• Institutes of the Christian Religion was first written to gain acceptance for Protestantism in France

Knowledge of God Involves Trust & Reverence:

• What is God? Men who post this question are merely toying with idle speculation. It is far better for us to inquire, “What is his nature?” and to know what is consistent with his nature. Rather our knowledge should serve first to teach us fear and reverence.

• Secondly, with it as our guide and teacher, we should learn to seek every good from him, and having received it, to credit it to his account.

• For how can the thought of God penetrate your mind without your realizing immediately that, since you are his handiwork, you have been made over and bound to his command by right of creation, that you owe your life to him?

• There are innumerable evidences both in heaven and on earth that declare God’s wonderful wisdom; not only those more well-known matters for the closer observation of which astronomy, medicine, and all natural science are intended…

• …But also those which thrust themselves upon the sight of even the most untutored and ignorant persons, so that they cannot open their eyes without being compelled to witness them….

• Even the common folk and the most untutored, who have been taught only by the aid of their eyes, cannot be unaware of the excellence of divine art, for it reveals itself in the many and yet distinct and well-ordered variety of the heavenly host

Superstition:• Experience teaches that the seed of religion

has been divinely planted in all men. But barely one man in a hundred can be found who nourishes in his own heart what he has conceived; and not even one in whom it matures, much less bears fruit in its season.

• Now some lose themselves in their own superstition, while others of their own evil intention revolt from God, yet all fall away from the true knowledge of him.

• As a result, no real piety remains in the world. But as to my statement that some in error slip into superstition, I do not mean by this that their ingenuousness (or childlike simplicity) should free them from blame. For the blindness under which they labor is almost always mixed with proud vanity and obstinacy (stubbornness).

• Indeed, vanity joined with pride can be detected in the fact that, in seeking God, miserable men do not rise above themselves as they should, but measure him by the yardstick of their own carnal stupidity, and neglect sound investigation; thus out of curiosity they fly off into empty speculations.

• They do not therefore apprehend God as he offers himself, but imagine him as they have fashioned him in their own presumption. When this gulf opens, in whatever direction they move their feet, they cannot but plunge headlong into ruin.

• Indeed, whatever they afterward attempt by way of worship or service of God, they cannot bring as tribute to him, for they are worshiping not God but a figment and a dream of their own heart.

• From this it follows that their stupidity is not excusable, since it is caused not only by vain curiosity but by an inordinate desire to know more than is fitting, joined with a false confidence.

Questions:

• 1. What was Calvin’s goal in writing the Institutes of the Christian Religion ?

• 2. How can we know God?• 3. According to Calvin, how does “man” view

the world – through what two lenses?

Catechism:

• First published in 1540, it was designed as a simple statement of the Church’s doctrine.

• Before formal admission to the congregation, children memorized (?) the answers to the minister’s questions and proved that they understood the essentials of Calvinist theology.

• On the next several slides is part of the Catechism that the worshipers of Calvin would need to know the answers to be admitted into the congregation

M = Minister & C = Child:• M: What is the Church?• C: The body and society of believers, whom God

has predestinated unto eternal life

• M: Is this article necessary to be believed?• C: Yes, truly, unless we would render the death

of Christ without effect, and account all that we have said, for nothing. For this is the sole purpose of all, that there should be a Church…

• M: But why do you call the Church Holy?• C: Because those whom God elects, he justifies, and

purifies in holiness and innocence of life, to make his glory shine forth in them. And this is what Paul means, when he says, that Christ sanctified the Church, which he redeemed, that it might be glorious and pure from every spot.

• M: Can this Church be otherwise known, that as it is discerned by Faith?

• C: There is indeed a visible Church of God, which he has designated to us by certain signs and tokens; but we now treat expressly of the congregation of those, whom he has elected to salvation.

• M: What article follows next?• C: I believe the forgiveness of sins• M: What does the word forgiveness signify?• C: That God, by his gratuitous goodness, will pardon

and remit the sins of believers, so that they shall neither come into judgment, nor have punishment exacted of them.

• M: What benefit arises to us from this Faith, when we have once obtained it?

• C: It justifies us before God, and by this justification makes us heirs of eternal life.

• Sola Fide

• M: In what manner then do you say that we are justified by Faith?

• C: When by a sure confidence of heart, we embrace the promises of the gospel, then we obtain possession of this righteousness…

• M: Must we then conclude, that the good works of believers are useless?

• C: No, for God has promised a reward to them, both in this world and in the life to come. But this reward proceeds from the gratuitous love of God as from a fountain; as he first embraces us as sons; and then by blotting out the remembrance of our sins, he follows with his favor those things which we do.

• M: But can that righteousness be separated from good works; so that he who has that may be destitute of these?

• C: This cannot be done. For to believe in Christ is to receive him as he offers himself to us. Now he not only promises to us deliverance from death, and reconciliation with God, but at the same time also, the grace of the Holy Spirit, by which we are regenerated in newness of life. It is necessary that these things be united together, unless we would divide Christ from himself.

• M: It follows from this, that Faith is the root, from which all good works originate; and cannot, by any means, make us slothful about them.

• C: It is true: And therefore the whole doctrine of the gospel is contained in these two points, Faith and Repentance.

• M: What is Repentance?• C: It is a hatred of sin and a love of righteousness,

proceeding from the fear of God, leading us to a denial and mortification of the flesh, so that we may give up ourselves to be governed by the Holy Spirit, and perform all the actions of our lives in obedience to the will of God….

Questions:

• 1. Calvin is a firm believer in By the Word of God Alone – we call this?

• 2. Calvin also believes and teachers By Faith Alone ?

• 3. Could you, based on part of the Catechism that you see today become a Calvinist?