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CALVINISM A UNIFIED, ALL-COMPREHENSIVE
SYSTEM OF THOUGHT
The significance
of John Calvin for the modern era is vividly described in these
words: “The sixteenth was a great century. It was the century
of Raphael and Michelangelo, of Spenser and Shakespeare, of
Erasmus and Rabelais, of Copernicus and Galileo, of Luther and
Calvin. Of all the figures that gave greatness to this century,
none left a more lasting heritage than Calvin.1 To
the investigation of the heritage of Calvin, the following pages
are devoted.
Calvinism is the name applied to the system
of thought which has come down to us from John Calvin. He is
recognized as the chief exponent of that system, although he
is not the originator of the ideas set forth in it. The theological
views of Calvin, together with those of the other great leaders
of the Protestant Reformation, are known to be a revival of
Augustinianism, which in its turn was only a revival of the
teachings of St. Paul centuries previous. But it was Calvin
who, for modern times, first gave the presentation of these
views in systematic form and with the specific application which
since his day has become known to us as Calvinism.
These teachings constitute a unity. Calvinism
is not the mere aggregate of opinions, the sum total of ideas,
held by Calvin and Calvinists, but it is an organic whole with
one fundamental principle as the common root. It is not always
or necessarily the case that the views of a group constitute
a unity. The views of the Roman Catholic Church prior to the
time of their great organizer, Thomas Aquinas (1227-1274), or
officially prior to the Council of Trent (1545-1563), did not
form a unity but lay scattered among the declarations of church
councils and papal decrees, and contained numerous conflicting
elements. Likewise, the political views of the Republican Party
or of the Democratic Party do not comprise a unity. However,
the system derived from John Calvin can claim such distinction.
Calvinism does not restrict itself to theology;
but it is an all-comprehensive system of thought, including
within its scope views on politics, society, science, and art
as well as theology. It presents a view of life and of the universe
as a whole, a world- and life-view. In fact, it has even been
described as one of the few basic systems of thought that have
ever been offered to man. James Orr limits the basic philosophic
systems of the world to the low number of twelve, and considers
all other philosophic systems to be modifications of these.
Abraham Kuyper reduces the number of basic systems of thought
to only four, of which Calvinism is accounted as one.
THE FUNDAMENTAL
PRINCIPLE OF CALVINISM
Each unified system of thought is governed
by an inherent fundamental principle or principles. This is
also true of Calvinism. Beginning in the early nineteenth century,
scholars, representing various schools of opinion, made a study
to determine the genius of the Calvinistic movement.2
Among these were scholars who had no eye for the organic unity
within the system itself. They satisfied themselves with discovering
some dominant trait which, in their estimation, set off Calvinism
from other systems of thought. Thus, some characterized Calvinism
as a religious system in which the spirit of democracy and the
passion for liberty was the distinguishing trait. This spirit
was thought to have been derived from the liberty-loving Swiss
among whom Calvinism arose. Others who had an eye for the legal
aspects of the movement and the note of authority, found in
these the cardinal trait, and attributed it to the legal training
of Calvin. Others considered the dominating characteristic to
be the marvelous order and system which is peculiar to Calvinism.
This was supposed to be due to Calvin’s French temper of mind.
Like the noted French military generals, he possessed the singular
ability to marshal a stupendous array of facts, to organize
and to mold them into one vast system. Others thought the prime
factor of Calvinism to be its thorough break with the Scholasticism
of the Middle Ages, thus considering Calvin an advanced religious
liberal. This trait was attributed to the humanistic training
of his youth.
While these suggestions do contain grains
of truth and do point to some marked feature in the system,
none of them merits the distinction to be designated the dominant
characteristic of Calvinism, much less its fundamental principle.
William Hastie calls such suggestions “conjectures of ingenious
thinkers inadequately acquainted with the conditions of the
problem, rather than scientific conclusions derived from a full
and exhaustive examination of the available material.”3
Those who have made exhaustive study of the problem will agree
with R. Seeberg that “this humanistically trained Frenchman
was above all an evangelical Christian, and his whole world-view
in the end was determined by his evangelical spirit.”4
The fundamental principle, if anywhere, lies
precisely in the field of the evangelical doctrines of the Calvinists
and in these doctrines conceived not as mere abstractions, but
as living, vital truths which motivated and dominated the whole
of their lives. We may safely say that the fundamental principle
concerns the doctrine of God. However scientific investigators
may describe the fundamental principle of Calvinism, they are
quite agreed with the philosopher W. Dilthey that the theological
viewpoint is characteristic of the entire Calvinistic movement
for the first one hundred and fifty years, that the Calvinist
of that time was always placing God at the center of his thoughts.5
An examination of the Calvinistic Confessions, especially those
of early Reformation times, or of the works of Calvin will supply
ample evidence of this.6
The central thought of Calvinism is, therefore,
the great thought of God. Someone has remarked: “Just as the
Methodist places in the foreground the idea of the salvation
of sinners, the Baptist—the mystery of regeneration, the Lutheran
— justification by faith, the Moravian — the wounds of Christ,
the Greek Catholic — the mysticism of the Holy Spirit, and the
Romanist — the catholicity of the church, so the Calvinist is
always placing in the foreground the thought of God.”7
The Calvinist does not start out with some interest of man;
for example, his conversion or his justification, but has as
his informing thought always: How will God come to His rights!
He seeks to realize as his ruling concept in life the truth
of Scripture: “Of Him , and through Him, and to Him are all
things. To whom be glory forever.”8
On this point there is widespread unanimity
among the investigators. It is only when they proceed to express
this idea in a definite formula that disagreements arise. Some
have suggested that the attribute of God’s self-existence (aseitas),
as the most basic attribute we know in God, should be considered
the fundamental principle of Calvinism. It is questionable whether
the fundamental principle can be so stated; for it is not something
in God, some specific attribute, that is basic to the system,
but God Himself. Moreover, the term “self-existence” does not
express God’s relation to the world outside of Him, at least
not directly; and, therefore, can hardly be designated as the
formative principle of a world-view which is to express this
relation. God would be self-existent even if there were no world.
Some term is needed which will express the relationship in which
God stands to His created universe. The term which seems to
indicate this relationship best and is adopted by many, is “the
absolute sovereignty of God”, or more specifically stated “the
absolute sovereignty of God in the natural and the moral spheres.”
The sense in which the term “sovereignty
of God” is used needs to be well understood if it is to be safeguarded
against gross misunderstanding. To the popular mind the term
is likely to suggest that the Calvinist views God as a mere
royal Ruler or Master who lays down the law to His creatures,
and that the spirit of love in God and His grace and similar
attributes are to be dissociated from the idea of His sovereignty.
It is not a surprise that some scholars like A. Ritschl who
have so interpreted the Calvinistic idea of the sovereignty
of God suggest that the sovereignty of God is an inadequate
fundamental principle for religion and that it ought to be superseded
by the idea of the love of God. But certainly no good Calvinist
would ever subscribe to such a limited view of God’s sovereignty.
Sovereignty is not even considered an attribute in God but a
prerogative. What the Calvinist has in mind when he speaks of
the sovereignty of God is something far broader than the idea
that God is the Promulgator and Defender of the moral and physical
laws of the universe. According to the Calvinist, God is not
only the supreme Lawgiver and Ruler; but God is supreme also
in the realm of truth, in science, and in art quite as much
as in the realm of morals, in the dissemination of His love
and grace and all His gifts as well as in the administration
of the laws which men are to live by or which operate in nature.
The Calvinist believes that God does not act arbitrarily either
in the dissemination of His gifts or in His providential control
of man and nature. Order is heaven’s first law. The realm of
truth and of love, the scientific and the moral world, as well
as the world of nature, is subject to law and order. The Calvinist
observes in the universe created by God and maintained by His
Providence a beautiful system of law, order and harmony, apparent
in the realm of nature and that of grace, in the intellectual
and moral life of men, in the distribution of all good — an
all-pervasive system, all of God’s making. In this distribution
and administration of all things, God remains supreme. “Of Him,
and through Him, and to Him are all things.”
When the term “sovereignty of God” is, accordingly,
Understood, not as a mere legalistic phrase indicative of God
as the supreme Legislator and the One who has created the laws
of nature, but in the more pregnant sense just described, there
is nothing against the usage of the term to indicate thereby
the fundamental principle of Calvinism. On the contrary, it
would seem that it is then precisely the term to designate the
absolute supremacy of God in all things, and is, therefore,
exactly the term to be used when we wish to construct a system
with God at the center. This is precisely what the Calvinist
has in mind when he employs the term. As the great Calvinist
B. B. Warfield has expressed it: “From these things shine out
upon us the formative principle of Calvinism. The Calvinist
is the man who sees God behind all phenomena and in all that
occurs recognizes the hand of God, working out His will; who
makes the attitude of the soul to God in prayer its permanent
attitude in all its life-activities; and who casts himself on
the grace of God alone, excluding every trace of dependence
on self from the whole work of his salvation.”9 The
same author in another place asserts that the fundamental principle
of Calvinism “lies in a profound apprehension of God in His
majesty, with the inevitably accompanying poignant realization
of the exact relation sustained to Him by the creature as such,
and particularly by the sinful creature. . . The Calvinist is
the man who has seen God, and who, having seen God in His glory,
is filled on the one hand with a sense of his own unworthiness
to stand in God’s sight as a creature, and much more as a sinner,
and on the other with adoring wonder that nevertheless this
God is a God Who receives sinners. He who believes in God without
reserve, and is determined that God shall be God to him, in
all his thinking, feeling, willing — in the entire compass of
his life-activities, intellectual, moral, spiritual — throughout
all his individual, social, religious relations — is by the
force of the strictest of all logic which presides over the
outworking of principles into thought and life, by the very
necessity of the case, a Calvinisim”10
FALLACIOUS
STATEMENTS OF THE FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE
With this description in mind it is easy
to detect the fallacies in certain formulations of the fundamental
principle of Calvinism. No statement of it is adequate which
limits the supremacy of God in any way to certain spheres or
to certain activities. It is a notable error to make of the
doctrine of election or predestination the fundamental principle.
A popular notion that a Calvinist is a man who believes that
God in a fatalistic way has decreed where man is to live in
eternity must be dismissed immediately. As Charles Hodge has
pointed out, the Calvinistic doctrine of predestination and
fatalism agree in only one point: “Both assume absolute certainty
in the sequence of all events. But they differ in the ground
of this certainty, the nature of the influence by which
it is secured, the ends contemplated, and the effects
on the reason and the conscience of men.”11
But even if we properly interpret predestination
as the Calvinist would have us understand it, even so predestination
could not be the fundamental principle of Calvinism. This is
true for a variety of reasons. Predestination always concerns
itself with man, with what is to become of him. It is not anything
that may or may not happen to man that is fundamental to the
Calvinist; but it is the thought of the divine Being, His majesty,
His greatness that primarily interests him. Furthermore, predestination
treats only of God’s activities with fallen man, and leaves
oñt of consideration God’s dealings with original man
in the state of rectitude. It also limits God’s activities to
the world of moral beings, to men, and says nothing, at least
not directly, about God’s relationship to the world of nature.
The Calvinist can know of no such limitation of the thought
of God. He must place the idea of God in the foreground everywhere.
From a theoretical point of view it is evident, therefore, that
predestination cannot be considered the fundamental principle
of Calvinism.
If we examine the Calvinistic Confessions,
especially the earlier ones, those drafted by Calvin or under
his influence, or The Institutes of Calvin, we shall
soon discover that predestination is not the fundamental principle.
In some of these Confessions the thought of predestination is
not even as much as mentioned, in others it is only cited in
passing. In The Institutes the doctrine of predestination
is treated not as the basis of the system, but as a conclusion
rather than as a premise, in the soteriological section. It
was only when the Biblical doctrine of predestination was attacked
by Pighuis that Calvin felt constrained to come to its defense
in his treatises on “A Defense of the Secret Providence of God”
and “The Eternal Predestination of God.” Rather than call predestination
the fundamental principle, it is more accurate to assert that
predestination is a logical conclusion of Calvinism, or as E.
Doumergue phrases it, the keystone rather than the foundation
of the system.12 When once you have adopted the view
that God shall be God in the full sweep of His many relationships
to His creatures, you will arrive at predestination as a very
logical conclusion. All limitations of God’s decree regarding
man restrict God’s supremacy and infringe upon His majesty.
The glory of God is another definition of
the fundamental principle which has been proposed. It is a definition
which is popular with the masses in Calvinistic circles. Calvinism
has been defined as that system in which God is most highly
glorified and man is most deeply abased. There is a very vital
truth in this assertion. The Calvinist does make it an all-
embracing purpose to glorify God in all walks of life. Nevertheless,
as a definition that statement places too great limitation upon
the activity of God. The Calvinist is not only interested in
including God in the purposes of life — living for His glory
but God is his first thought also when he thinks of the origin
and providential control of all things. The purposive statement,
the glory of God, is not sufficiently inclusive to be denominated
the fundamental principle of Calvinism.
Some who have manifested deep concern for
the responsibility of man and have feared that the emphasis
on God’s activity would crowd out the responsibility of man
have proposed as the fundamental principle the combined thought
of God’s sovereign decree and the responsibility of man, since
they saw in Calvinism an emphasis upon both factors. It is undoubtedly
true that Calvinism does stress human responsibility to a very
high degree. But again it would not be according to the genius
of the Calvinist to place God’s sovereign decree and man’s responsibility,
or any other aspect of man, on a level. God is to the Calvinist
the first and last word, the primary thought always. God’s sovereign
decree and man’s responsibility do present themselves to the
human mind as an apparent contradiction, an antinomy, a paradox,
something which the mind of man fails to solve. This paradox,
like the one of God’s transcendence and His immanence, or spirit
and matter, the Calvinist readily adopts, even though he cannot
solve it. However, he adopts this paradox, not because he holds
to two coequal fundamental principles, God’s sovereignty and
the freedom and responsibility of man, but just because he wants
to let God be God. He discovers that God in His written Word
has stressed the responsibility of man, and that He is in no
wise accountable for the sin of man, even though He is Ruler
of all. It is just because the Calvinist would let God be God,
that is, the final Authority for his thinking, even when his
own logic fails to give an adequate account of things, that
he accepts the full responsibility of man, as God has informed
him in His Word. The sovereignty of God, it will then be seen,
is a prior thought to the responsibility of man.
Several other proposals have been made to
designate the fundamental principle of Calvinism which need
not be given special consideration here. No statement of the
fundamental principle will be adequate which does not do full
justice to the thought of God as the basic and central thought
of Calvinism, since such a thought is by common consent its
essence.
THE SYSTEM
BASED UPON THIS FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE
With the sovereignty of God in the natural
and the moral spheres as fundamental principle the Calvinist
has built up his whole system. It involves widespread implications
for the views which the Calvinist entertains regarding theology,
politics, sociology, science and art, in fact the whole of life,
as succeeding chapters will disclose.
Besides the fundamental principle there are
corollary principles which should be mentioned here, because
they are for the Calvinist axiomatic-principia, first principles
which underlie the whole system. Of special prominence is the
one, which is familiarly known to us as the formal principle
of the Protestant Reformation; namely, that God has given to
fallen man, besides the general revelation in nature, a special
revelation of Himself and of His works in the Bible as the Word
of God. Because this Bible, or rather God in the Bible, presents
to us a specific interpretation of God’s works in nature and
a special revelation of His redemptive works, it becomes for
the Calvinist the ultimate and binding source of information
concerning God and the world. This objective revelation man
accepts through a God-given faith.
The Bible, as revelation of God, teaches
the following facts of basic significance to the Calvinistic
system: that God, Who has revealed Himself in His Word, is Sovereign
over all things, and that God differs essentially from all things
created by Him; that as regards religion, or the relation of
God to His image-bearer, man, it holds this to be of the nature
of a covenant, and as such was already specially revealed to
original man in the state of righteousness; that the world today
does not exist in a pure state but is fallen in sin. Furthermore,
regarding the fallen world, the Bible maintains: that man is
totally depraved and that the world, over which God placed him
as ruler, exists today in a corrupt state as a result of sin;
that Death has come into the world as a punishment for sin;
and that the sovereign God has revealed his grace, which affects
both individual and social conditions, in the divinely given
Mediator, Jesus Christ.13 What hypotheses are to
a philosophic system, these facts derived from Scripture are
to the Calvinistic system; they underlie and control that system
in its many ramifications.
Notes
- Harkness, Georgia, John Calvin,
the Man and His Ethics, p. 258 (New York: Henry Holt
and Company, 1931).
- For a survey of the literature
on this subject, consult: Hastie, W. The Theology of
the Reformed Church in its Fundamental Principles (Edinburgh,
1904); Voigt, H., Fundamental Dogmatik (Gothal 1874);
Bauke, H., Die Probleme der Theologie Calvins (Alfred
Topelmann, Giessen, 1910); Meeter, H. H., The Fundamental
Principle of Calvinism (Grand Rapids, Mich.; Wm. B.
Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1930).
- Hastie, W., The Theology of
the Reformed Church in its Fundamental Principles, p.
142 (Edinburgh, 1904).
- Seeberg, Reinhold, Lehrbuch
der Dogmengeschichte Band IV 2 Halfte, pp. 558, 659.
- Dilthey, W., Die Glaubenslehre
der Reformation in Preuss. Jahrb. 1894, p. 80, quoted
by H. Bauke, op. cit., p 25.
- Meeter, H.H., The Fundamental
Principle of Calvinism (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B.
Eerdmans Publishing Co., pp. 51-55, 1930).
- Pressly, Mason W., Calvinism
and Science, Article in Ev. Repertoire, 1891, p. 662.
- Romans 11:36.
- Warfield, B. B, Calvin as a
Theologian and Calvinism Today, pp. 23, 24, Presbyterian
Board of Publication, Phila., 1909.
- Ibid, pp. 22, 23.
- Hodge, Chas., Systematic Theology,
Vol. I, p. 548 (London and Edinburgh, Thomas Nelson &
Sons, 1872).
- Doumergue, B., Jean Calvin,
Vol. IV, p. 857, quoted by Bauke, H., Die Problem. der
Theologie Calvins, p. 84 (Alfred Topelmann, Giessen,
1910).
- Bavinck, H. Christelijke Wetenschap
(Kainpen, Netherlands, L H. Kok, 1913) Gereformeerde
Dogmatiek, Vol. I, pp. 237, 309-310 (Kampen, Netherlands,
J. H. Bos, 1911); Vollenhoven, D. H., Th.,Het Calvinisme
en de Reformatie van de Wijsbegeerte, pp. 20, 21 (Amsterdam,
Netherlands, H. 3. Paris, 1933).
Author
Dr. H. Henry Meeter,
TH.D served for thirty years as Chairman of the Bible Department
at Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
This article was taken from The
Basic Ideas of Calvinism, Chapter
I, pp. 29-40 (Grand Rapids, Baker Book House, 1939).
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