John Calvin is classified as a great theologian. Let’s see what he is, as a theologian and as a man:
John Calvin was born in 1509. He had tremendous influence
on the founding and growth of America, yet he never set foot here. In fact, he
was a Frenchman, living in Switzerland, and died 43 years before the founding
of Jamestown, the first colony established here. He is considered to be a
great theologian, but he went to a famous French university and took courses to
be a lawyer. He never studied religion beyond the basics at the
university.
While there, he was fascinated with the Greco-Roman philosophy
of Stoicism. Stoicism was the dominant belief system of educated Romans
at the peak of their empire, around BC 50-AD 200. It’s not a “religion,”
per se, but it does teach anti-Christian values, and our earliest Church
fathers spoke against it frequently. It teaches that everything in the
universe is predestined, and each of us has been given a role to play by
fate. We had no choice in that determination. According
to them, our goal in life is: don’t complain–just play our role
well. Regarding adversities, we should rise above excessive emotion, and
accept with resignation what fate has assigned to us. In 1532 Calvin put
together a commentary on Seneca, the leading Stoic in Rome. His
commentary had a twist—he tied together (?) the philosophy of Stoicism and the
teachings of Christ.
In 1534 he became a French Protestant Reformer, at the peak of
Luther’s popularity in Germany. Because the Catholics were hunting down
Reformers, Calvin fled to Geneva, Switzerland, which became ruled by
Protestants. The leaders of Geneva were impressed with Calvin’s
keen mind and energy, and made him the leader of the Reformation there.
He began “improving” on Luther’s doctrine, and came to
believe that he (Calvin) was selected by God to bring God’s church
back to his idea of “correct” doctrine. His greatest attribute was a
singular confidence—and a massive ego. To quote him: “I know, beyond
doubt, that what I write is coming from God.” He was determined not to
equivocate, or change, his doctrine as he had seen Luther do over the
years. We’ll see, later on, where that takes him.
Let’s discuss Calvin’s doctrine. In 1536 he wrote
the first edition of “The Institutes of Christian Religion.” He expanded
it in later editions—but didn’t change what it taught. Its
most-publicized aspect was its teaching on predestination. According to
Calvin, before God ever created the earth, He predetermined that Adam would
fall, and all of his descendants would inherit his sin and guilt. God placed
all Adam’s descendants all through history in two categories: God chose
the “elect,” before they were even born, amounting to a very small portion of
mankind, to be given eternal life in heaven. And thereby He effectively
chose everyone else to be tormented forever in hell– because he believed
Mankind would never choose God on his own. This doctrine is also known as
“double predestination,” since with only two groups on Judgement Day,
automatically those who aren’t selected in one group fall into the other.
Now keep in mind two things: (1) nobody can change these two
elections; these were pre-ordained before you were born. (2) God’s
selection was completely arbitrary—done without regard to any works, good or
bad, or how we live our lives. Any faith in God that you have is only
because He arbitrarily gave it to you. A person’s lack of faith would be
simply because God didn’t select that person to receive it—that person was thus
predestined for hell.
Does this doctrine sound like it reflects God’s personality to
you?
You would think that few people would accept this philosophy as
Christian, because it really makes God manipulative and arbitrary. But,
more importantly, it doesn’t line up with God’s personality in the Bible.
But people grabbed onto the nice collateral idea that Calvin threw in: the
elect can know beyond doubt that they are the elect. Calvin also taught that you
cannot possibly lose your salvation–you can be eternally secure. So
he got a huge following—at least, from those who felt like “the elect.” Not so
much from those who perceived themselves as non-elect. I am not sure about the
missionary possibilities here, either; they could pervert it to: why try to
change people’s minds into accepting Christ, if God had determined that their
decision and destination was fixed already?
Another aspect of his theology was, he didn’t see the difference
between Christ’s moral teachings and the Old Testament Law. Thus, he felt
that cities should be governed by theocratic law, like Israel was once—although
such governing failed in Israel. Old Testament Law should rule. He
decided infant baptism of all was mandatory, to keep the infant, if it
died, from going to Hell (even though that was not a specific Biblical
doctrine). The Anabaptists, who believed in believer’s baptism (as does
Scripture), were thus heretical, to Calvin. His approach to them?
Torture them, get them to recant. To get their children saved–according
to him. (Keep in mind----the Anabaptists were Christians, his brothers.) But
they need to accept the truth; he judged them. (Luther had the same
attitude in Germany, but less passionate about pursuing it).
In Calvin’s Institutes, it further spells out that every nation
should be governed only by the elect. The job of civic government was to
protect the true faith, and regulate the lives of its citizens so they follow
God’s law. If anybody were asked who the elect were, they most likely
would have said the richer people. It was widely assumed that their riches
meant God loved them. But--even the
non-elect had to “toe the line” in following the laws.
Keep in mind: America’s Calvinists, the Puritans, followed what
he said in the Institutes. If the nation does what was right, God would prosper
it. If the nation was experiencing military or economic decline, or
natural disaster, it must be that God was punishing that nation for something
they’re doing wrong.
To discuss further on the laws, these rules were applied more in
Geneva, but far less in the United States: In Geneva, the state mandated that
church attendance was for all, and the city elders’ job includes observing
carefully the private lives of all its attendees to make sure they were living
in bounds with God’s Law. They would even ask their neighbors about them to
find out how someone behaved. The church could excommunicate those who strayed,
and then the state also would punish them. The worst punishment for the
worst sins being hanging, burning, or even drawn and quartered.
Membership on the church rolls was limited to the
elect. To keep non-elects out of membership, anyone who claimed
they were the elect had to give a detailed testimony to the church
demonstrating that they believed all of Calvin’s teaching, and that they had a
conversion period in their lives—they usually related to the church how it took
many years for that conversion to reach salvation levels. A lot of their
personal lives thus becomes known by all. Keep in mind, the New Testament
procedure in the book of Acts was, if you had a conversion, it might be
instantaneous upon preaching, and you repented—and you got baptized. The
baptism was the public announcement of your salvation—not a public detailed and
verbal confession as Calvin demanded.
Further, God has assigned you a vocation in life. Your job
is to excel in it, since you were serving God. (This idea is one of the
foundations of a very successful economic Capitalism.) Wealth and
prosperity were signs of God’s approval of your efforts—you were more likely
the elect. Poverty is an indication of God’s judgment. (How do you
line this up with Jesus’ statement, “Blessed are the poor”? And what
about His scathing rebukes of the rich?)
Geneva, Switzerland, a hundred years before America, under
Calvin, was a dream come true for his followers—but a reign of terror for
everybody else. They really had a religious police-state.
In one year after taking charge of the elders, and having
considerable influence in the magistrates, the secular face of the law, he drew
up a Genevan catechism, the accepted doctrine. They had to promise to
receive it as the one, the only true doctrine. Anyone who failed to do so
was banished from the city. If that happened, the city’s fathers took
over the homes that they were forced to leave behind. Very profitable for
them. Anybody guilty of even the smallest infraction would be reported.
They even interrogated children about their parents. Calvin made many
enemies, but smashed every instance of dissent. He was so confident in
his correctness, that he didn’t believe in showing any mercy to
“heretics”—defined as those who had a different item in their theology than
his. People were regularly tortured, imprisoned or exiled, who dared to
differ. There were some executions. In 1546, Jacques Gruet, not a
threat to Calvin, who simply criticized him in private papers, was (by secular
law) hideously tortured until he “confessed”—and then he was
beheaded! When it appeared, later, that Calvin had more
opposition, he requested the city council to declare that only his Institutes
were “the pure doctrine of the gospel” and “could not be criticized by any
citizen.” They agreed.
His huge ego reached its most grotesque result in the
Michael Servetus case. Servetus was a gifted and well-known Spanish Renaissance
man, but he questioned the Trinity, the infant baptism, and
predestination. Calvin thought he would do Servetus a favor, he felt, by
sending him a copy of the Institutes to straighten him out. Servetus
had the “audacity” to annotate a critique of the Institutes, and sent it
back. This began a flurry of arrogant letter-writings back and
forth. Finally Calvin said in a letter to another friend, “Servetus might
come here…if he comes here, and my authority is worth anything, I will never
permit him to depart alive.” There never was a doubt about Calvin’s
authority—no imprisonment, no exile, no torture or beheading went without his
consent. He was called “the pope of Geneva.” Servetus made the
mistake of naively wandering in town (I think he had a big ego too). He
was arrested, but figured he could meet Calvin face to face and debate their
differences. Calvin himself prepared the 38 criminal counts against
Servetus, at least one of which was “insulting Calvin’s authority.”
Servetus did not have the right to an attorney, since as Calvin said, he could
“lie without one.” At trial he was not allowed to explain or defend any
of his points. He was sentenced to be burned at the stake alive. He
was chained to a stake. The authorities then piled wood around him, half
of which were green (which takes longer to burn, prolonging the agony of
suffering). The crowd watched in fascination. Keep in mind:
Calvin, by his position and by consenting, was guilty, in our courts, of
conspiracy to murder. This was similar to David’s crime on Uriah (II
Samuel 11:14-17)—yet in the Bible it was just as bad as murder–it was called murder
in II Samuel 12:9.
Unlike David, though, Calvin was unrepentant. Several
months later he opined that he was “indifferent” to the hand-wringers who would
want him to be apologetic. Those who got weak when it comes to
justice for blasphemers were guilty themselves, he wrote.
In 1556 many in opposition had a demonstration against
him. They were arrested and sentenced to death. This death sentence
was the grisliest to date—they were drawn and quartered. This was the
epitome of the cruelest punishment possible. Most countries of the time
reserved it for the greatest crimes, like treason. But to most of the
elect Genevans, the worst crime was disagreeing with Calvin’s “words from God.”
They were first hung in such a way that their neck would not be
broken. They just hung there, strangling. They were still alive
when they would be cut down, then cut open at the waist and all their entrails
pulled out and burned in front of their eyes. Then they were finally
beheaded.
So, here’s the big question: was the murderer Calvin a Christian?
Based on Scripture, as I point out in other blogs, that means, did he follow
Christ’s commandments and abide in Him (I John 3:24)? The Bible has
several lists of those sins that will guarantee hell, unless there is
repentance, such as Revelation 21:8:
But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable,
murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have
their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the
second death.”
Unless he repented at the end, I do not believe he was a
Christian; I believe he ended up unsaved. No one could consent to these
unimaginable things and claim they “love the brethren” and love God, which
believers must do (I John 4:8).
Now the bigger question: Are you a follower of Calvin’s
predestination theology? Most American congregations who call themselves
“Christian” actually are–their denomination doctrine says so–but, here’s the
secret—most congregants don’t know its church doctrines, or the details of predestination
theology, or its author, Calvin. Nor do I believe that he got his
doctrine from God, as he claimed. How am I so sure? Scripture says we will know
people by their works. Jesus says so in Matthew 7:15-17:
“Beware of false prophets, who come to
you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. 16 You will
know them by their fruits… every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree
bears bad fruit.
If, as I have charged, Calvin was a party to
murder, was that a good work or a bad work? No fair dismissing it because
“violence was a part of the culture then.” But there were many who lived then
who refused to be violent, even in a position of losing their own life. If he
was murderous TWICE, (and more so if he influenced the ruling magistrates of Geneva, part of the
grisly killing of demonstrants), and was part of a culture that had no privacy
among those perceived as “non-elect;” and if they prosecuted poor people and
ran them out of town and took their homes--would that be enough evidence of evil
to seriously consider that he was unsaved? I believe so.
What are those people called in Matthew 7:15
above? FALSE PROPHETS.
I have no doubt that many congregants who know nothing of all
this, but participate in a church with this dogma, are really Christian.
But when you think about it, do you really agree that people are
predestined to hell by God, by random selection, not based on any of their
works or faith? Is that what God is to you?
But, here’s the biggest question–can the theology of clearly an
unsaved man, fairly called a FALSE PROPHET, be accurate? Can the
theology of an unsaved man get you to heaven? If this is the doctrine
that your church teaches from the pulpit on soteriology (how to get saved),
they are LEADING YOU DOWN THE WRONG PATH. Their pastor may not know; he’s spewing
the same stuff he heard in seminary. If he were given the logical (and social) outcomes
of the theology clearly, he probably wouldn’t believe it either.
Think about that.
Acknowledgements: David Bercot, CD, “Geneva.”
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