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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Calvin's Institutes. Why are they a big deal?
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Gamaliel
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# 812
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Posted
A while back Jengie Jon challenged me to read Calvin's Institutes rather than relying on the snippets I knew.
I have taken her up on this challenge. I'm a fair way through although must confess, I'm not finding it a scintillating read. That said, neither is much Patristic material nor the work of the Medieval Schoolmen nor the Puritans nor ...
I don't want this to develop into a 'let's knock Calvin thread' but I have to say, so far I've been very underwhelmed.
What I've picked up is:
- He doesn't like 'Papists' (there's a surprise).
- He doesn't agree with iconography (again, no surprise).
- He seems to take a very 'realised' view of divine providence. If you fall among thieves and get knocked on the head then you had it coming because it was God's will ...
Ok, I'm exaggerating a bit.
Most of it seems to be standard Trinitarian theology that most conservatively theological Christians of all tradations wouldn't take exception to ... unless they had a particular axe to grind.
The over-riding impression I'm getting though, is 'So what? Why is this such a big deal?'
Am I alone it that?
Here's a guy who spent a lifetime revising and revisiting a set of 'Institutes' and for what reason and with what effect?
I don't get it.
I don't see why it's such a big deal.
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chris stiles
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# 12641
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
The over-riding impression I'm getting though, is 'So what? Why is this such a big deal?'
Am I alone it that?
Here's a guy who spent a lifetime revising and revisiting a set of 'Institutes' and for what reason and with what effect?
P'haps the reason you have that impression is specifically because it was so influential?
I've also read that it had a big impact on the formation of the French language, but can't comment on the veracity or otherwise of that claim.
[ 03. November 2016, 10:48: Message edited by: chris stiles ]
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Steve Langton
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# 17601
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Posted
Obviously when they were fresh and new the Institutes were a very big deal because there was basically nothing like them around.
You should also bear in mind that the Institutes grew over the years to fill out some points and answer various objections raised by opponents. The first edition was quite slim; the final version perhaps just a bit obese - the fault is less with Calvin and more with those whose objections he had to answer.
If you're a fairly well-read modern evangelical you'll find the Institutes contain a lot of familiar stuff - because the later writers you've read ultimately trace back to the Institutes....
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
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# 76
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Posted
And yet for all that he could be a right bastard:
quote:
Whoever shall maintain that wrong is done to heretics and blasphemers in punishing them makes himself an accomplice in their crime and guilty as they are. There is no question here of man's authority; it is God who speaks, and clear it is what law he will have kept in the church, even to the end of the world. Wherefore does he demand of us a so extreme severity, if not to show us that due honor is not paid him, so long as we set not his service above every human consideration, so that we spare not kin, nor blood of any, and forget all humanity when the matter is to combat for His glory
Would not sound out of place coming from ISIL.
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Nick Tamen
Ship's Wayfaring Fool
# 15164
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Posted
Gamaliel, I would suggest that one reason the Institutes are a big deal now is that they are the horse's mouth, as it were. (Cue jokes about other parts of a horse's anatomy.)
Calvin is one of those figures, and Calvinism is one of those -isms, about which much is said and written, and over which many tulip petals are torn. When the "let's knock Calvin" threads start (as they seem to do with some regularity on the ship), some of us think there is value in looking at what Calvin actually wrote—particularly the Institutes and the French Confession—as opposed to the accretions that have glommed on to Calvin thanks to some of his spiritual descendants (including those gathered at Dort).
In other words, the Institutes can help to distinguish Calvin from a sometimes amorphous "Calvinism."
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Gamaliel
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# 812
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Posted
Yes, I get all of that Nick but I have to say that for all that I'm underwhelmed to the point of disappointment at the standard and quality of his arguments - he proof-texts as clumsily as some contemporary evangelicals and I'm sure most of us here could drive a coach and horses through some of his arguments on theodicy - although that charge could be levelled at most Christian apologists including Lewis and Chesterton.
For the most part, much of what Calvin seems to be saying isn't only compatible with much of contemporary evangelicalism but also Roman Catholicism too - in the sense of Venn Diagram overlaps.
Which is fair enough.
No, what I'm struggling with is why the Institutes are seen as such a big deal when Roman Catholicism too has its systematic theology, although in its Tridentine form, of course, this developed in reaction to challenge from the Reformers. Perhaps I've answered my own question there. No Reformation, no Counter-Reformation ...
I know Calvin gets a bad press here at times and I've contributed to that occasionally.
I don't doubt his historical significance, but so far in reading his Institutes I don't see much evidence of innovative or even lateral thinking. He simply comes across as a late mediaeval/Renaissance Schoolman with a bit of a thing about Divine Providence.
Why the fuss?
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Let us with a gladsome mind
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Beeswax Altar
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# 11644
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Posted
quote:
originally posted by Gamaliel:
Am I alone it that?
No, your view of the Institutes is the one shared by the vast majority of Christians who have ever lived. For Roman Catholics and the Orthodox, John Calvin is a heretic. High Church Anglicans aren't big on Calvin. Lutherans, Methodists, and all other Arminians reject much of what makes Calvin's theology distinct. Reformed Christians take Calvin seriously. Most Baptists don't accept everything Calvin said. The average Presbyterian in the United States would be insulted if you accused them of believing much of what Calvin wrote in the Institutes. Who does that leave?
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Nick Tamen
Ship's Wayfaring Fool
# 15164
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
The average Presbyterian in the United States would be insulted if you accused them of believing much of what Calvin wrote in the Institutes.
I might agree if "much" were replaced with "some." Otherwise, this seems to me to be another example of reducing Calvin to predestination/double predestination. Calvinistic understandings of ecclesiology, the sacraments, and even the bedrock understanding of the sovereignty of God, for example, are found throughout and still influence American Presbyterianism. They may not always be understood exactly how Calvin understood them, but as you said, we Reformed take him seriously.
Gamaliel, I'm not sure what else to say. Jengie jon can likely shed more light, but I'm not familiar with too many Reformed-types who extol the Institutes because they are brilliant or better than anything else, though there are specific spots that some may find particularly good. I don't even know many who who extol them because they are persuasive. The Institutes, of course, have no confessional status anywhere in the Reformed world.
The value is that they are source material; they are what Calvin wrote rather than what others have written or said about him. (And since he worked on and edited them throughout his life, they give a sense of the development of his thought.). They are cited to show what Calvin actually said and to show how what he said fit together into the bigger picture as he saw it.
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Augustine the Aleut
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# 1472
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Posted
I can comment on the French; it is clear and readable, but the sentence structure sometimes goes on a bit. It's really very formal, and academic in its style of presentation-- you can see the disputation structure at play, with an intent to destroy opposing arguments. There were a few sentences in the chapter on oaths which I had to diagram. If you're working with an edition which puts in lots of "s"s which are now omitted, it takes a bit of gear-switching to manage.
If you have to produce a very formal text, or if you're drafting legislation, his use of verbs has a nice, precise, feel. If you're trying to communicate to a modern audience, his combination of polemic and formality would not work at all.
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Gamaliel
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# 812
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Posted
If I remember rightly, Nick Taken, Jengie Jon challenged me to read the Institutes partly because she thought it'd make me appreciate Calvin's more 'human' side and appreciate his charm, glittering wit and intelligence ...
Well, yes, he was intelligent, I'll grant that ...
Of course, none of us are going to read Calvin for the jokes ...
More seriously, I'm not trying to have a 'go' at the broader Reformed tradition which you, Chris Stiles and others here represent, not am I under the impression that the Institutes are somehow 'canonical' for Presbyterians and others.
I think there is something in the suggestion that more general elements of Calvin's approach and legacy are so much part of the wall-paper of Protestantism that it takes some effort to focus on them - we're so used to them.
Don't get me wrong. I'm glad Jengie Jon challenged me to read them but I can't see I've come across anything that's either made me sit up nor which has challenged my impression that Jean Calvin was anything other than a very earnest and serious individual. I'm not sure I'd rush to invite him to a party.
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Arethosemyfeet
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# 17047
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Who does that leave?
The Wee Wee Frees? And their remaining fellow travellers in the Kirk.
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Fr Weber
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# 13472
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
Obviously when they were fresh and new the Institutes were a very big deal because there was basically nothing like them around.
Except for the Summa, the works of Duns Scotus, Grosseteste, St John of Damascus, Radbertus, William of Ockham, and all those other guys.
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Gamaliel
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# 812
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Posted
Indeed, Fr Weber. Which is partly my point.
What did Calvin bring to the party that wasn't there already and why should we be so interested in him today?
Did he add or restore anything that wasn't already there or was that done to those who followed him, whether at Dort, Westminster or all stations beyond?
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Fr Weber
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# 13472
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Posted
The Institutes is the first specifically Reformed work of systematics. That's what makes it a big deal. Even though Hodge was probably better organized and more thorough!
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balaam
Making an ass of myself
# 4543
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
What did Calvin bring to the party that wasn't there already and why should we be so interested in him today?
A pastoral perspective?
Calvin's theology was based on problems he found pastorally. Why, when presented with the Gospel, do some respond and others not.
The premise that God is sovereign and his will is done I'd agree with, the conclusion that God chooses some to be damned, not so much.
But Calvin spent his time on the ground getting his hands dirty, not postulating from an ivory tower. For that, at least, I commend him.
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Gamaliel
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# 812
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Posted
Sure, there is that, but so far I haven't pick up a great deal of pastoral concern from the Institutes although I don't doubt Calvin had that.
But I think Fr Weber nails it. The big deal comes from its importance within the development of Reformed systematics.
It's not as if there weren't existing attempts within Catholic theology though.
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chris stiles
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# 12641
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Fr Weber:
Except for the Summa, the works of Duns Scotus, Grosseteste, St John of Damascus, Radbertus, William of Ockham, and all those other guys.
I think that's a valid criticism to the claim of complete uniqueness in content. The Institutes are much less philosophical/metaphysical in style than most of the works you mention though (can't speak to Grosseteste)
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Fr Weber
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# 13472
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Posted
Calvin's systematics is more legal in nature than the Scholastics'. Possibly a reflection of his training as a lawyer? But similarly concerned with an orderly laying-out of the Christian faith, from first principles outward.
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Augustine the Aleut:
I can comment on the French; it is clear and readable, but the sentence structure sometimes goes on a bit.
... although that is true of a lot of French writing of the period.
AIUI, its significance for the French language is that up till that point, systematic theology of that kind would have been written in Latin; the Institutes were therefore a statement that French was just as as good as Latin.
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Steve Langton
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# 17601
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Posted
OK, nothing like the Institutes from a distinctively Protestant/Reformed viewpoint. Unlike some earlier Protestants Calvin made an effort to present a 'rounded' view of the faith including the common ground with the RC/Orthodox tradition - the 'institution' of Christianity as a whole, not just Protestantism, though definitely from a Protestant position.
Predestination/Providence was not of course a purely Calvinist position - even before Calvin Luther had written "The Bondage of the Will" in answer to Erasmus. The point of predestination for both Luther and Calvin was not to establish a mechanistic determinism, but to turn the focus away from a Church which effectively claimed to determine your destiny and direct sinners to a God who was the real ultimate arbiter.
As for Karl's quote that;
quote:
Whoever shall maintain that wrong is done to heretics and blasphemers in punishing them makes himself an accomplice in their crime and guilty as they are. There is no question here of man's authority; it is God who speaks, and clear it is what law he will have kept in the church, even to the end of the world. Wherefore does he demand of us a so extreme severity, if not to show us that due honor is not paid him, so long as we set not his service above every human consideration, so that we spare not kin, nor blood of any, and forget all humanity when the matter is to combat for His glory
I'd regard that as Calvin's one big error - and at the same time understandable inasmuch as he came along in the second generation of Reform, by which time MOST of the Reform movement had drawn back from any idea of separating church and state and was operating with a state church paradigm. In that context 'the church' means the state and its inhabitants and there isn't an 'outside world' to eject heretics into, and it is taken for granted it is the state's job to punish heresy. Note the point that
quote:
it is God who speaks, and clear it is what law he will have kept in the church, even to the end of the world
Calvin is right there - God doesn't want heresy in the Church; but if church and state are conceived as co-extensive....?
With separation of church and state, and so a 'non-conformist' church, it is possible to conceive putting a heretic out of the church without killing him - without that separation, it looks logical to put the heretic out of both state and church simultaneously by physical death.
Calvin got that wrong; and Karl is right, what's going on there is exactly the same way of thinking as ISIL etc. Calvin should have known better - but then so should all Protestants, from Luther to the CofE, who got that wrong and continued to get it wrong long after Calvin.
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Kaplan Corday
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# 16119
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Posted
I read right trough the Institutes a few years ago, and it was bloody hard work.
It's not hard to sympathise with Gamaliel's "What's the big deal?" response, but it had a huge impact in its era, so it represents just another of the past's's challenges to our imagination.
What were the circumstances, what was (were) the prevailing worldview(s) at the time, that made an event, or a person or a piece of writing, so significant?
We find Thomas Carlyle, John Ruskin and Herbert Spencer unreadable today, but they were revered by the Victorians, and there must have been reasons for that.
The alternative to exercising historical imagination is some sort of chronological snobbery, or Whig theory of history, which dismisses most of our predecessors as stupid, immoral, or REALLY dull and boring.
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Gamaliel
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# 812
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Posted
I'd agree with that, Kaplan. I'm not saying that Calvin is irrelevant or insignificant. One could say that a measure of his influence is shown here in the way that some posters appear to regard his emphases as default ones, other than the particular aspects they may personally take issue with ...
I'd also add that just as it'd be wrong in a Whiggish view of history sense to dismiss influential thinkers and writers from the past as dull and boring by our own standards, it's equally not a smart thing to do to reduce those they might be reacting against to cardboard cut-out ciphers.
I've not got to any systematic outline of ecclesiology in the Institutes yet, but when I do I suspect it won't be quite as individualistic as a particular poster has implied here.
As for concerns about Providence and predestination predating Calvin, of course they did. Arguably, all Luther and Calvin were doing were taking elements that existed in late mediaeval Western theology and stretching them a few notches further.
That's one of the reasons the Christian East has always been suspicious of Luther and Calvin, because they don't share the same Scholastic mindset and presuppositions.
But that's another story.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
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fletcher christian
Mutinous Seadog
# 13919
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Posted
I might have missed it, but I would have thought the social aspect was the most important thing about Calvin, in terms of the ordering of society and family life, all of which is borne out of his theology. But the theology on its own is fairly standard reformed fayre of the time, just well organised and repeated.
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Staretz Silouan
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Ok, I've not come across any family/domestic references in the Institutes so far but I'd be interested as and when I come across them ...
I wouldn't dismiss some of the comments on this thread that have drawn attention to the development of individualism and so on ... the transition to a more modern rather than medieval sensibility ...
However, I think the issues aren't as clear-cut as some Protestant polemic might suggest.
Sure, the whole thing came in reaction to the Indulgences and abuses of the late-medieval Papacy but I think it's a stretch to suggest that it represent a shift from the Church as the final arbiter of people's eternal destiny to God Himself ...
I mean, I've seen plenty of medieval Italian Hell's Mouth frescoes where monks, friars, cardinals and even Popes are depicted among those falling into the Abyss ...
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
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fletcher christian
Mutinous Seadog
# 13919
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Posted
Absolutely not, the elders were to be given considerable power. The social and family aspects are to do with being a shepherd in times of need....to put it nicely. It is still about exercising authority as a church and in many ways you could argue that the social system and church governance outlined in the Institutes is something of a mirror image of the Vatican today, but it's that concept of the complete and absolute sovereignty of God that leaks through into everything coupled with developing notions of personal responsibility in faith and practice. The trouble is that Calvinism develops quite quickly afterwards and develops in quite a different and distinct way that some argue is not what The Institutes are nor an accurate reflection of what Calvin thought or hoped for. Some go further to call it a perversion.
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'God is love insaturable, love impossible to describe'
Staretz Silouan
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
... What were the circumstances, what was (were) the prevailing worldview(s) at the time, that made an event, or a person or a piece of writing, so significant?
We find Thomas Carlyle, John Ruskin and Herbert Spencer unreadable today, but they were revered by the Victorians, and there must have been reasons for that. ...
That's a profoundly interesting question in its own right.
quote:
"If you ask someone to give you change, he philosophizes about the begotten and the unbegotten. If you say to an attendant: Is my bath ready, he will tell you that the Son was made out of nothing." (Gregory of Nyssa)
What is that brings people in the street in C4 Constantinople almost to blows on this important but to most ordinary people in every era since, somewhat arcane issue? Why did people in the early C20 get so steamed up about whether a proportion of their rates might be supporting church schools that they were prepared to withhold them and be imprisoned? How is it that people in different times found Calvin, Thomas Carlyle, John Ruskin or Herbert Spencer so inspirational, when we don't? In the 1920s, Michael Arlen's novel The Green Hat seems to have scratched people where they itched, excited them. It is difficult for a modern reader to see why. I could pose the same question of the impenetrable but more recent rhetoric of Herbert Marcuse, if it wasn't that there probably still are people who find it inspirational.
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Fr Weber
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# 13472
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Posted
I think it's important to remember that at the time Calvin was writing there was no popular concept of the right to freedom of conscience. You were free to believe the truth, or suffer the consequences.
Religion was a totalizing force in every realm, and Calvin's Geneva was no different.
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
Enoch wrote:
quote:
I could pose the same question of the impenetrable but more recent rhetoric of Herbert Marcuse, if it wasn't that there probably still are people who find it inspirational.
You can count me among those who find Marcuse inspirational, and I don't just mean the 1960s American New Left stuff.
Not that I take Freudianism all that seriously, but if you do want to think within its parameters, even just as a mental experiment, something like Eros And Civiliation is an interesting exploration of its implications.
And the earler writings on Hegal, seeking to exonerate him from the charge of being the ideological precursor to fascism, are interesting as well.
And I do have to disagree with the statement that he is "impenetrable". There are some philosophers that could be applied to(Hello Derrida!), but Marcuse isn't one of them. You do kind of have to pay close attention to what he's saying, though, you can't just breeze through it like you could with, say, the popular essays of Bertrand Russell.
[ 04. November 2016, 19:55: Message edited by: Stetson ]
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
He doesn't turn up a lot in Orthodox theological or sociological or psychological writing. Neither Calvin nor the Institutes. They're not a big deal to us.
[ 04. November 2016, 23:02: Message edited by: mousethief ]
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Evangeline
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# 7002
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
quote:
originally posted by Gamaliel:
Am I alone it that?
No, your view of the Institutes is the one shared by the vast majority of Christians who have ever lived. For Roman Catholics and the Orthodox, John Calvin is a heretic. High Church Anglicans aren't big on Calvin. Lutherans, Methodists, and all other Arminians reject much of what makes Calvin's theology distinct. Reformed Christians take Calvin seriously. Most Baptists don't accept everything Calvin said. The average Presbyterian in the United States would be insulted if you accused them of believing much of what Calvin wrote in the Institutes. Who does that leave?
I can answer that categorically, Sydney Anglicans.
They love Calvin sick. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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Gamaliel
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# 812
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Posted
That's partly what I'm getting at, Mousethief and Evangeline.
Calvin's a big deal if you stand in line with a Reformed tradition that was influenced by him, or which warped his original ideas, depending on how you interpret these things.
He's much less so as soon as you step away from that tradition.
I know that's a truism, but perhaps worth stating nevertheless.
I'm still struggling a bit trying to understand what was so radical or appealing about the Institutes in their own day - given that everything I've read in them so far (other than the iconoclasm) fits with what I know of Western Catholic thought and theology - only with the providential elements arguably ratcheted up a few degrees.
I suppose I'm answering my own question there as they don't so much as represent a departure as a development of certain emphases already apparent in late-medieval Western theology.
Same with Luther. Only I'm told by some that Luther was actually more innovative.
I would imagine that the appeal lay in the clarity and logic which Calvin applies. The Institutes aren't scintillating but they aren't a difficult read.
They'd also, I suspect, appeal to the governors of emerging city/nation states on the one hand or those like the later Puritans and the various radical reformed groups who were out to create theocracies based on ideas of 'purer' forms of church ...
So that would also explain the signicance of the Institutes within that constituency.4
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Let us with a gladsome mind
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Nick Tamen
Ship's Wayfaring Fool
# 15164
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
That's partly what I'm getting at, Mousethief and Evangeline.
Calvin's a big deal if you stand in line with a Reformed tradition that was influenced by him, or which warped his original ideas, depending on how you interpret these things.
He's much less so as soon as you step away from that tradition.
I know that's a truism, but perhaps worth stating nevertheless.
Sure, but it's a truism that extends beyond Calvin. Examples could be found in any tradition of Christianity, and perhaps particularly any tradition of post-Reformation western Christianity—Cranmer, Luther, Wesley, Loyola....
quote:
I suppose I'm answering my own question there as they don't so much as represent a departure as a development of certain emphases already apparent in late-medieval Western theology.
I think that's right.
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The first thing God says to Moses is, "Take off your shoes." We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know. — Anne Lamott
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fletcher christian
Mutinous Seadog
# 13919
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Posted
Posted by Gam:
quote:
They'd also, I suspect, appeal to the governors of emerging city/nation states on the one hand or those like the later Puritans and the various radical reformed groups who were out to create theocracies based on ideas of 'purer' forms of church ...
That is what I would understand the nub of it to be. If you consider that Medieval society had specifically defined roles that everyone could inhabit. Everyone knew what their role was, who they were and what their position in society would be and in most cases throughout Europe the church was at the top of that pile. The work of faith was essentially done to a large degree by the intercessory/intermediary activity of the priest, acting on behalf of the church. To put it crudely; you paid your money and got a little more store up for salvation. Calvin's ideas of society change all of this into a new radical understanding of governance. Calvin posits that it is God who is at the top of the pile and he removes the power of the 'trappings' of the church in this intercessory/intermediary role. The priests are replaced with elders who become a kind of moral and religious guardian; advising on the structures of family life, ethical decisions and in shepherding the people away from evil. It moves the authority of the church away from only a few select priests to a host of elders. The elders don't stay chained to an altar, but instead take an active role in society. Part of this comes again from the notion of the absolute sovereignty of God, and from the desire to remove what the reformers and puritans would have considered to be the 'superstitious' elements of religious belief and practice. Elders would have had a role in education, in hospital care, in political governance etc, etc. Theoretically at least, an elder could be anyone in good standing with the community and wasn't dependent upon a role they occupied in society, peerage of any kind or any kind of 'hocus pocus' that they would have accused the priesthood of indulging in. So the concept isn't that the church governs and ultimately controls society right down to the level of personal salvation, but instead society itself becomes an example of God's kingdom so long as it is infused with the values of Christianity found in the scriptures. That is still a very, very powerful notion within many, many reformed traditions today with much theology still being written on it.
I am conscious that I've put this rather simply, but neither did I want to have to write reams. It is a crude way of putting it, but I think it's a relatively accurate understanding. The difficulty is in things being so very different today and that Calvinism is such a different beast from Calvin that it's almost impossible to marry the two. Threads of the original concepts still survive and do still have a very significant influence on a lot of theology today.
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
BTW he's not a heretic according to the Orthodox Church. The word is very specifically defined to mean a person who is a member of the EOC then starts preaching heresy. (Someone who introduces a new heresy is a heresiarch, fwiw.)
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
I found that post helpful, fletcher christian. A question -
It's a matter of record that an elevated sense of the impending eschaton pervaded later Puritan thought. The City on the Hill was not just to be an exemplar, but would be rather more than that. Was that present in Calvin's thinking, or was it just that Calvin's scheme of things proved highly amenable to it later on?
(PS - I'm not sure that describing the earlier situation of the church being at the top of the pile does justice to what was a rather more differentiated state of affairs. But it's not germane to this argument.)
[ 05. November 2016, 13:09: Message edited by: Honest Ron Bacardi ]
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Anglo-Cthulhic
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fletcher christian
Mutinous Seadog
# 13919
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Posted
As far as I remember - and the memory of studying this stuff frighteningly moves with each passing year further into the realm of the distant past rather than the near past - the whole 'kingdom of God' type theology that the likes of Moltmann would write about (being both about a new heaven and a new earth) isn't actually in Calvin's theology; at least, not in the Institutes. The emphasis for Calvin is very much on a new heaven, despite the notions of social reform and new social structures his thinking brings about. There is a peculiar disconnect between the theology and the practice, but perhaps that can be put down to the messiness of a movement.
Of the greater scope Puritans, I cannot speak. I avoided them wherever possible and did Calvin's Institutes under duress because I found the lure of Moltmann irresistible and you really have to know Calvin to read Moltmann....sadly. I feel I must come clean; I'm really not a fan of Calvin and I strongly suspect he's one of those reformers who starts the flame that ignites the fire of 'bibliolatry' later, which would become such a massive problem for Protestantism and especially for its more minor sects.
quote:
(PS - I'm not sure that describing the earlier situation of the church being at the top of the pile does justice to what was a rather more differentiated state of affairs. But it's not germane to this argument.)
Guilty as charged, but I was trying to save space.
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Staretz Silouan
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Evangeline
Shipmate
# 7002
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Posted
I first studied Calvin as an undergraduate Economics student at the University of Sydney. Calvinism and the Protestant work ethic was a big deal, laid the foundation for capitalism and the industrial revolution according to Max Weber
So Calvin's ideas were certainly hugely influential not just on Protestantism but on the whole world, that is if you agree with Weber and I certainly think he has a point.
This short Youtube video from the School of Life gives you the general idea,
Capitalism and the Protestant Ethic
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Steve Langton
Shipmate
# 17601
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Posted
by fletcher Christian;
quote:
I strongly suspect he's one of those reformers who starts the flame that ignites the fire of 'bibliolatry' later, which would become such a massive problem for Protestantism and especially for its more minor sects.
Bibliolatry
The accusation levelled against Christians who want to take seriously the actual teachings of Jesus and the apostles, as recorded in the NT, by those who for assorted dubious reasons prefer to make up the faith to suit themselves....
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Nick Tamen
Ship's Wayfaring Fool
# 15164
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
by fletcher Christian;
quote:
I strongly suspect he's one of those reformers who starts the flame that ignites the fire of 'bibliolatry' later, which would become such a massive problem for Protestantism and especially for its more minor sects.
Bibliolatry
The accusation levelled against Christians who want to take seriously the actual teachings of Jesus and the apostles, as recorded in the NT, by those who for assorted dubious reasons prefer to make up the faith to suit themselves....
In my experience, those whom you appear to describe as wanting to make up the faith to suit themselves often tend to take Scripture more seriously than those who claim to simply follow the clear teachings of Jesus and the apostles. YMMV.
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The first thing God says to Moses is, "Take off your shoes." We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know. — Anne Lamott
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Steve Langton
Shipmate
# 17601
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Posted
by Nick Tamen;
quote:
In my experience, those whom you appear to describe as wanting to make up the faith to suit themselves often tend to take Scripture more seriously than those who claim to simply follow the clear teachings of Jesus and the apostles. YMMV.
Hmmm.... So the person I once heard quoting words attributed to Jesus, and commenting "Would our Jesus have said that?" was taking the Scripture seriously?? Likewise a recent example where I was told Jesus, on the basis of a very questionable view of the Incarnation, was 'mistaken' in His interpretation of an OT text (that is, as God incarnate, His own words!)...!!
I'm quite happy with people who take the Bible seriously but either somewhat more or somewhat less literally than I do myself. Like Calvin in my experience of him, I am not a 'dumb wooden literalist'. But there are more than just a few examples where the Scripture is simply flouted and not taken seriously at all....
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
by Nick Tamen;
quote:
In my experience, those whom you appear to describe as wanting to make up the faith to suit themselves often tend to take Scripture more seriously than those who claim to simply follow the clear teachings of Jesus and the apostles. YMMV.
Hmmm.... So the person I once heard quoting words attributed to Jesus, and commenting "Would our Jesus have said that?" was taking the Scripture seriously?? Likewise a recent example where I was told Jesus, on the basis of a very questionable view of the Incarnation, was 'mistaken' in His interpretation of an OT text (that is, as God incarnate, His own words!)...!!
I'm quite happy with people who take the Bible seriously but either somewhat more or somewhat less literally than I do myself. Like Calvin in my experience of him, I am not a 'dumb wooden literalist'. But there are more than just a few examples where the Scripture is simply flouted and not taken seriously at all....
I'm sorry, but only on a dumb wooden literalist reading are those examples of not taking the Scriptures seriously.
The scriptures contradict themselves. The only way to read a coherent narrative out of them is to wrestle with the contradictions and decide how to parse them. If this verse says X, while the overall message of the scriptures says not X, and we decide that this verse must somehow be wrong, or our interpretation of it as saying X wrong, then we are precisely taking the Scriptures seriously, not flouting them. People who don't take the Scriptures seriously don't try to find ways to interpret them, or wrestle with the contradictions.
People who don't know them well enough to know that there are contradictions, or who refuse to believe that there are contradictions despite the evidence, are the ones who don't take the Scriptures seriously.
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Nick Tamen
Ship's Wayfaring Fool
# 15164
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
But there are more than just a few examples where the Scripture is simply flouted and not taken seriously at all....
Of course. But that doesn't mean at all that the idea of bibliolatry is meaningless or simply a charge leveled by those who want to make the faith up.
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The first thing God says to Moses is, "Take off your shoes." We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know. — Anne Lamott
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
Bibliolatry
The accusation levelled against Christians who want to take seriously the actual teachings of Jesus and the apostles, as recorded in the NT, by those who for assorted dubious reasons prefer to make up the faith to suit themselves....
You really need to get a better dictionary.
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fletcher christian
Mutinous Seadog
# 13919
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Posted
Posted by Steve:
quote:
Bibliolatry
The accusation levelled against Christians who want to take seriously the actual teachings of Jesus and the apostles, as recorded in the NT, by those who for assorted dubious reasons prefer to make up the faith to suit themselves....
I know that term can be loaded in all sorts of ways and can also be a form insult, so let me clarify. If you look to some of the smaller, reformed Protestant sects today they are often embroiled in doctrinal argument and division, issues of governance, splits over issues relating to interpretation etc etc. In many respects this has been the scourge of the reformation movement in that it hasn't been a cohesive and united enterprise but rather an increasingly individualistic endeavour leading to an unprecedented fracturing of the church. Much of this comes from (and some would argue it comes entirely from) an attempt to unify the scriptures and distill it to a plain and simple meaning easily understood by the people and obvious in application. As it turns out, the easiest way to do this is to make scripture the ultimate authority in all matters of church governance, doctrinal regulation and ethical life, without realising the irony of placing something above God (of course, they were also arguing during the reformation that the church was already doing this with church structure and hierarchy). Now the argument runs that this is the word of God and from here we get into dead horse territory, so I will refrain from going further.
Calvin is not saying this in the Institutes, but there are elements of it which does set a trajectory for what will come later. It would not be right either to suggest that Calvin was alone in this; many of the reformers contribute to this eventual trajectory. The fascination and romance of the 'early Christian church' is much more powerfully felt I suspect, in our day than it would have ever been among the reformers. It may have influenced their thinking, but it wasn't the impetus that it seems to be today among those who wish reform had gone much further. So, I wasn't using the term in slander; more in laziness. I am certain they were genuine in their desires later to try and distill the scriptures in this way and perhaps they even saw it as a way of halting the infinite splintering of the reformed wing of the church, but unfortunately it has had quite the opposite effect with multiple competing truth claims and a lack of awareness of how they themselves are involved in the activity of interpretation.
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'God is love insaturable, love impossible to describe'
Staretz Silouan
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Steve Langton
Shipmate
# 17601
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Posted
by Mousethief;
quote:
You really need to get a better dictionary.
You may need a more subtle sense of humour....
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Steve Langton
Shipmate
# 17601
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Posted
Fletcher Christian;
I don't think I'm disagreeing with you really; but I did want to bring out the way that words like 'bibliolatry' are often tossed around as insults with little context and definition.
I don't see Scriptural authority as setting something above God, but rather as accepting God's authority conveyed through his Word. We don't in reality have any other solid or objective authority on what Christianity is supposed to be. And we do have the example of Jesus and the Apostles of clearly seeing the Word as authoritative....
So we need to negotiate the 'Scylla and Charybdis' between interpretation which is foolishly over-literalist, and interpretation which is not really interpretation but attempts to 'get round' Scripture to put our own preferences in place of it.
Calvin seems to me to have done pretty well in this area in his time....
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
by Mousethief;
quote:
You really need to get a better dictionary.
You may need a more subtle sense of humour....
Sorry but somebody flailing his opponents with sarcasm and/or scorn doesn't get the benefit of the doubt here.
[ 07. November 2016, 12:29: Message edited by: mousethief ]
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Thing is, Steve Langton, one could argue that there's a circular argument going on here ...
You regard Calvin as having done a pretty good of it in his time because, surprise, surprise, you are coming at Calvin from a broadly reformed (small r) direction ...
Someone else, less influenced by the Reformed or reformed tradition may come to a different conclusion.
Sure, we are all highly selective in terms of who we tend to listen to - for the Orthodox and the RCs the Fathers trump the Reformers of course ...
For highly Reformed people it's the other way around, even though they might claim that the Reformers stand in line with the Fathers ...
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Praise the Lord for He is kind.
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Sure, we are all highly selective in terms of who we tend to listen to - for the Orthodox and the RCs the Fathers trump the Reformers of course ...
Trump them? You can't trump a card that's not even in the deck.
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Nick Tamen
Ship's Wayfaring Fool
# 15164
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
For highly Reformed people it's the other way around ...
Just curious—who, or what, are "highly Reformed people"?
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The first thing God says to Moses is, "Take off your shoes." We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know. — Anne Lamott
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