Richard Muller argues that there has been a seismic shift in our understanding of the Reformed tradition in the light of revisionist scholarship on Calvin and Reformed orthodoxy.[1] The older ‘Calvin against the Calvinists’ thesis has been outmoded and replaced by the insights of revisionist historians who argue for a broader continuity between Calvin and the Calvinists who followed in his footsteps.[2] Muller argues for a contextualised and historical study of Calvin’s theology, rather than a reading of his theology through Barthian or even Schleiermacherian perspectives.[3] The aim of the historian should not be to consider Calvin’s contemporary relevance to theological debates in the twentieth or twenty-first centuries, but to understand his contribution to the emergence and development of a Reformed tradition known in the older literature as Calvinism, but perhaps better served by the term Reformed orthodoxy. In other words, the aim of the revisionist approach associated with Richard Muller is to read Calvin and his successors historically. According to Muller, ‘A clever theologian can accommodate Calvin to nearly any agenda; a faithful theologian – and a good historian – will seek to listen to Calvin, not to use him’.[4]
The first and most obvious point to make by way of introduction is that Calvin was not the only Reformed theologian of the early modern period. There were many other contemporary or near-contemporary theologians working alongside of Calvin such as Huldrych Zwingli (1484–1531), Heinrich Bullinger (1504–75), Peter Martyr Vermigli (1499–1562), Theodore Beza (1519–1605), Katharina Schutz Zell (1497/8–1562), Thomas Cranmer (1489–1556), and Richard Hooker (1554–1600).[5] A comparison of these dates with Calvin’s life (1509–64) illustrates just how diverse the Reformed tradition was in terms of its key thinkers and exponents – and this is only the tip of the iceberg. This paper will explore approaches to Calvin and his theology within their proper historical context and will especially consider the development of a theological tradition post-Calvin or ‘after Calvin’ in both its continental and British contexts.
The Unaccommodated Calvin
According to Richard Muller, Calvin is crying out to be read historically within his early sixteenth-century context. Dogmatic accommodations of Calvin’s life and ministry are at best misleading and at worst downright false. This has been particularly true of Barthian and Schleiermacherian interpretations of Calvin and his successors and has also influenced evangelical schools of thought via the work of R. T. Kendall and Alan C. Clifford.[6] Questions concerning the extent of the atonement or the doctrine of ‘limited atonement’, for example, are profoundly anachronistic when applied to Calvin since these issues were not raised until much later in Reformed theology, especially after the Synod of Dort (1618/19). Calvin’s intention and method focused generally on the exposition of Scripture in his commentaries and sermons, and this was ‘coupled [together] with the elicitation of theological loci from the text and the gathering of these loci together with the important dogmatic disputationes of Calvin’s time into the form of a basic instruction or institutio in theology’.[7] Scholasticism in Calvin is a question of relation and disjunction. ‘Calvin’s theology – whether from the perspective of its methods or from the perspective of its contents – did not arise in a sixteenth-century vacuum’.[8] Though Calvin was deeply influenced by Renaissance and humanistic models of thought, he nonetheless interacted – sometimes critically, sometimes approvingly – with his medieval and scholastic forebearers. Scholasticism is something of a dirty word among academics today – which is odd, since it arguably describes their profession. According to Richard Muller, ‘The Latin adjective scholasticus translates, quite simply, not as “scholastic” in any highly technical or restrictive sense, but as “academic” – with all the positive and negative connotations that we today find in the word’.[9] Scholastic theology did not refer to any particular body of divinity or set of doctrines, but to academic theology – particularly in terms of its methodology – as it was often practiced in various schools and universities throughout early modern Europe.
With respect to the emergence of a distinctly Reformed appropriation of scholastic methodology, Francois Wendel correctly argued that Calvin’s immensely successful Institutes of the Christian Religion was ‘indubitably one of the causes of the very rapid rise of a Calvinistic orthodoxy’.[10] In other words, Calvin was one of the theologians responsible for shaping Calvinistic or Reformed orthodoxy in its early stages and for setting the trajectory for future scholarship in early modern Europe. Far from there being radical disjunction between Calvin and the Calvinists who followed him, there was actually considerable unity of method, content, and purpose. According to Muller, the clarity of the Institutes’ ‘disputative style was surely also one of the roots of Reformed orthodoxy and, inasmuch as it carried the scholastic model forward into the realm of humanist rhetoric, [was] also one of the sources of the renewed and modified scholastic forms that emerged in the era of early orthodoxy’.[11] In other words, rather than discontinuity and disjunction between Calvin and the Calvinists, there was broad continuity and shared theological perspectives which the era of Reformed orthodoxy would go on to develop and refine.
According to Muller, ‘Calvin’s Institutes is a theological system’.[12] Arguments that Calvin was not a systematic theologian are simply nonsense. The organisation of Calvin’s Institutes reveals a deeply systematic and theological mindset. His Institutes, particularly in its developments between 1536 and 1559 broadly follows the Apostles’ Creed in terms of structure and draws heavily on St. Paul’s epistle to the Romans. The final edition of the Institutes is structured around the four creedal topics of God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, and the Church. There are also elements of the catechetical models such as Calvin’s teaching on the decalogue, the Lord’s Prayer, and the sacraments and a distinctively Pauline structure emerges as Calvin considers the topics of sin, law, grace, predestination, good works, civil authority, and Christian liberty. The overarching structure is still committed to Calvin’s thesis that all divinity may be subsumed under the knowledge of God and of ourselves.
Another problem within the scholarly literature on Calvinism is the tendency to consider the Institutes apart from the rest of Calvin’s theological output. Muller argues that this approach is mistaken since Calvin’s sermons and commentaries are fundamental to understanding him both as a theologian and exegete. ‘Not only, therefore, does the text of the Institutes, taken by itself, offer a partial view of Calvin’s thought; it offers only a partial picture of Calvin’s theological project. In order for any given point in Calvin’s theology to be understood in its proper context, one must examine all of Calvin’s chosen forms of expression’ – i.e., his sermons, commentaries, tracts, and letters – in addition to the Institutes.[13] According to Muller, the majority of the Scriptural citations found in modern twentieth-century editions of the Institutes are not found in any original editions from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Scholars should not depend solely upon these editions of the Institutes for their research but should go back to the originals in proper Renaissance fashion and consult Calvin’s exegetical work in his commentaries and sermons as a point of comparison with the Institutes.
In terms of theological discussion in the Institutes, the concepts of fides (faith) and cognitio (knowledge) in relation to the problem of the intellect and will have generated considerable scholarly interest, especially via R. T. Kendall’s thesis as previously mentioned. It would certainly be correct to say that Calvin could not conceive of faith apart from knowledge, but it would be wrong to suggest that Calvin considered faith to consist solely or even primarily in knowledge as Kendall suggests. According to Muller, ‘Calvin insisted that faith not only was a matter of “believing God” but consisted also in “believing in God” … Indeed, he could define faith as a “firm and solid confidence of the heart” as distinct from a mere knowledge lodged in the “brain”’.[14] According to Muller, R. T. Kendall’s thesis that Calvin’s view of faith was distinguished by its emphasis on the intellect rather than the will as in the voluntarism of English Puritanism is fundamentally flawed. The idea that the English Puritans emphasised faith as an exclusive act of the will rather than of the intellect is also misleading – and simply not true. Though Calvin does speak of faith as being an act of the intellect, he also considers faith in relation to the human will and affections. To suggest otherwise is to create a false dichotomy not original to Calvin’s thought between the mind and the heart. In fact, Muller describes Calvin’s view as a form of ‘soteriological voluntarism’ – suggesting that he primarily considers faith in relation to the will, especially when it comes to the doctrine of salvation.[15] Muller cites Calvin at length on this issue:
In this matter, the Scholastics go completely astray, who in considering faith identify it with a bare and simple assent (assensum) arising out of knowledge (notitia), and leave out confidence and assurance of the heart (cordis fiducia et securitate) … how very dull men are to perceive the mysteries of God; partly because they do not have regard to that firm and steadfast constancy of heart which is the chief part of faith.[16]
In other words, faith belongs to the will and affections as much as it does to the intellect. It is a warm embrace of the heart. Calvin affirms the standard scholastic perspective – despite his berating of scholastics in above quotation – that the soul is divided into two faculties: intellect and will (which includes the affections). These two faculties include the entire soul. The Gospel, according to Calvin, ‘is not indeed a doctrine of the tongue, but of life; nor is it, like other disciplines, apprehended by the memory and understanding alone, but it is received only when it is possessed by the entire soul and finds a seat and a refuge in the most profound affection of the heart’.[17] This leans decisively towards a voluntarist position, without excluding the intellect altogether. Faith is a matter of the heart or the whole person: mind, will, and affections.
After Calvin
In his study of Post-Reformation Protestantism – After Calvin: Studies in the Development of a Theological Tradition (2003) – Richard Muller argues that the scholarly literature prior to the 1970s tended ‘to pose the Reformation against Protestant orthodoxy or, in the phraseology then common to the discussion, “Calvin against the Calvinists”.[18] It was argued in the older scholarship that Calvin, the humanist scholar, would have been opposed to the developments towards a stricter Aristotelian and scholastic approach to Reformed theology. However, this idea of discontinuity between Calvin and the Calvinists who followed is vigorously opposed by Muller who argues persuasively that Calvin was simply one of many Reformed theologians during the sixteenth century (and so should not be considered as a representative of the whole Reformed tradition anyway) and that the Calvinists who followed in his footsteps shared a broad commitment to Reformed orthodoxy with Calvin, rather than deviating from his original theological perspectives. Richard Muller correctly points out that ‘Calvin was not the sole arbiter of Reformed confessional identity in his own lifetime – and he ought not to be arbitrarily selected as the arbiter of what was Reformed in the generations following his death … It is historically inaccurate to identify the later generations in a strict sense as “Calvinists” and it is quite useless to measure them against Calvin as if he were the standard of orthodoxy’.[19] While some scholars continue to find uses for term ‘Calvinism’, it is perhaps more accurate to speak of a broad Reformed tradition rather than some monolithic Calvinist entity – a tradition that allowed for considerable diversity in theological method and perspective as evidenced by the flourishing of Reformed orthodoxy after Calvin.
Muller argues for a careful definition of terms with respect to scholasticism and Reformed orthodoxy. These terms have often been used pejoratively by the older scholarship – described as a “rigid” or “dead” orthodoxy and as a “dry” or “arid” scholasticism. Muller argues that such an approach to definition is deeply misleading. Scholasticism, far from being a dirty word, refers to the academic method adopted by Reformed theologians for the purposes of teaching or writing and orthodoxy taken at face value simply means ‘right teaching’. Scholasticism has sometimes been erroneously viewed as teaching a particular philosophy such as Aristotelianism which results in a certain ‘strict’ kind of predestinarian theology. This is simply false when one considers the diversity found among scholars who adapt a scholastic methodology. As Richard Muller points out,
When we move from Anslem [1033/4 – 1109], to Lombard [c. 1096–1160], Aquinas [1225–74], Scotus [c. 1265/66–1308], and Ockham [c. 1287–1347], on to Protestant “scholastics” such as Beza [1519–1605], Jerome Zanchi [1516–90], Martin Chemnitz [1522–86], Johann Gerhard [1582–1637], Polanus [1561–1610], Arminius [1560–1609], Perkins [1558–1602], Francis Turretin [1623–1687], and Mastricht [1630–1706], we encounter not identity of theological result or philosophical perspective, but enormous diversity – Augustinians, Aristotelians, monergists, synergists, philosophical realists, nominalists, and so forth.[20]
In other words, there is no peculiar content behind a scholastic approach, it is rather simply a method or way of doing theology which poses questions: Does it exist? (An sit?) What is it? (Quid sit?) Of what sort is it? (Qualis sit?). In this way, theology is enabled to progress from existence to essence and essential properties.[21] Muller is also careful to point out that the application of a particular scholastic method does not necessarily imply theological determinism as some have suggested or the view that a theological system as a whole can be deduced from a particular view of the divine decrees. In fact, according to Muller, ‘We can state categorically, that orthodox Reformed theology of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries never proposed predestination or any other doctrine as a central dogma or deductive first principle’.[22] The point Muller is trying to make is that the use of a scholastic method does not imply any particular theological perspective. Scholasticism simply refers to the standard academic methodologies of the early modern period, rather than to any definite form of theology.
Orthodoxy refers to the desire for right teaching or correct theology. As Muller points out, ‘The Reformers themselves were concerned with right teaching and it was they who produced the basic confessional documents of Protestantism’.[23] Calvin would not have opposed the emergence of orthodoxy, in fact, he actively encouraged it. His writings – particularly the Institutes of the Christian Religion – are crucial documents in the codification of Reformed theology. Those who followed Calvin saw themselves as working within this broad-church Reformed orthodoxy. ‘The institutionalised orthodoxy of the later generations laboured to preserve the confessions of the Reformation as the foundational documents of the Protestant churches’.[24] The term ‘orthodoxy’ is used in a broader sense than the term ‘scholasticism’. Where scholasticism refers to a particular method of disputative theology, orthodoxy refers to the quest for right teaching across all works of theology – including confessional, catechetical, and exegetical documents. In this sense, a document such as the Westminster Confession of Faith is orthodox, but not scholastic. Scholasticism refers to a particular method used in technical, disputative, and elenctic theology. Orthodoxy determines whether or not a teaching is theologically correct and in accordance with Scripture. ‘The doctrinal stance is prior to the method: the method elaborates on and defends the doctrinal stance’.[25] In fact, the doctrinal stance is determined by an Augustinian exegesis of the New Testament documents, especially Paul’s letter to the Romans and the Gospel of John, rather than on the scholastic method of Aristotle which was always viewed as ancillary to Scripture.
The sources of Reformed theology in the seventeenth century may be grouped into five broad categories: Holy Scripture, the ancient creeds and confessions of the Reformed Churches, the writings of the Church Fathers, the medieval doctors and Reformed theologians, and the philosophical tradition, particularly Christian Aristotelianism. Theodore Beza is a key example of Protestant devotion to careful exegetical, linguistic, and textual criticism of Holy Scripture, particularly his Annotationes in Novum Testamentum. According to Richard Muller, ‘Beza examined the best codices of the day and then proceeded to analyse the critically emended Greek text over and against the extant translations – notably the Vulgate, Erasmus, and even Calvin – in order to argue his own conclusions and produce a superior Latin translation … [and] he offered a running annotation on the text’.[26] Contrary to common arguments that Reformed scholastic thinkers like Beza were more dogmatically orientated than Scripturally minded, Beza shows that devotion to the text of Scripture was a key aspect of his work – and that in a thoroughly humanist fashion. This should not be taken as implying that Reformed scholastics used private interpretation over the Church tradition. On the contrary, they believed that their exegesis and theology was broadly consistent with the great tradition of the church – particularly the ecumenical councils and creedal documents (such as the Nicene and Athanasian creeds), the writings of the Church Fathers (particularly Athanasius and Augustine), and the “sounder” medieval doctors like Anselm of Canterbury, Peter Lombard, and Thomas Aquinas – with room for disagreement on some issues, especially in soteriology.
In terms of logic and philosophy, many Reformed theologians drew upon a Christianized Aristotle via Thomas Aquinas. It was also true that many English Puritans adopted the approach of a modified Aristotelianism via Petrus Ramus and process of bifurcation in theology or the habit of dividing things into two aspects or points, though they were suspicious of the new developments in philosophy in the direction of the rationalist approaches of Cartesianism and Spinozism. Though a philosophical methodology was important to orthodox Reformed theologians, so too was praxis or the application of theology to life. According to Richard Muller, ‘We see this movement from doctrine to practical “use” quite consistently in Puritan sermons and it stood as a formal aspect of theological system in the major works of Wilhelmus à Brakel and Petrus van Mastricht’.[27] In other words, sound theology would lead to sound or wholesome living in terms of the practical uses of theology or its application to everyday living. For example, according to the Puritan theologian William Ames (1576–1633], ‘Theology is the doctrine or teaching of living to God … Men live to God when they live in accord with the will of God, to the glory of God, and with God working in them’.[28] Contrary to the idea that Reformed orthodoxy consisted in making endless theological or philosophical distinctions, Reformed theology was generally seen as a practical discipline though not without polemical aspects as seen for example in the elenctic theology of Francis Turretin. In terms methodology overall, the locus method was particularly important for defining the key topics within theology such as the doctrine of God (theology proper), Christ (Christology), the church (ecclesiology), or last things (eschatology). Such an approach to theology ensured thoroughness and comprehensive discussion of the key themes arising in Scripture and the history of Christian doctrine, rather than any attempt to eschew practical application.
As already mentioned, the older scholarship on Reformed orthodoxy tended to posit Calvin against the Calvinists as if the two were fundamentally at odds with each other – particularly in Barthian and neo-orthodox circles which tended to emphasise the “central dogma” thesis. Christ was assumed to be the central dogma in Calvin’s theology which was seen as broadly anticipating the theology of Barth and the dialectical school of theology, while Reformed orthodoxy and scholasticism were committed to and shaped by predestination as the central dogma. Muller argues that this approach is basically flawed and represents a case of reading back contemporary theological issues into the theology of the Reformers. Muller argues, by way of contrast, that the relationship between Calvin and the Calvinists who followed him is one of both continuities and discontinuities – and no neat formula accurately summarises this relationship. Broadly speaking, Calvin and the Calvinists who followed him were committed to a broad-church Reformed orthodoxy building on the insights of the Protestant Reformation, while also having their own idiosyncrasies and particular theological concerns relative to their own historical and theological contexts.
Muller makes the case that there is a parallel between medieval scholasticism and Reformed scholasticism – though the two are obviously not identical. He argues that scholasticism and Aristotelianism should not be understood solely as medieval phenomena, but also as influencing Reformation and post-Reformation theology. Definitions of scholasticism should be based on how medieval and Reformed theologians understood the term, rather than on how modern theologians have used the term in the polemics against Protestant orthodoxy. Scholasticism should be clearly distinguished from philosophical rationalism as they are not the same thing historically speaking. Individual Reformers and their respective individual works should not be seen as representing the Reformed tradition as a whole. For example, it would be wrong to see Calvin’s Institutes as representative of the entire Reformed tradition to the exclusion of other voices and developments during the Reformation and post-Reformation era. Calvin was simply one of many Reformed theologians during the Reformation and he should not be considered as the sole progenitor of the Reformed faith. There were many others besides Calvin such as Theodore Beza (1519–1605), Heinrich Bullinger (1504–75), Francis Turretin (1623–87), John Owen (1616–83), Richard Baxter (1615–91), William Perkins (1558–1602), and Wilhelmus à Brakel (1635–1711) – to name only a few. Modern theological developments as in the respective schools of Schleiermacher and Karl Barth should not be read back into the theology of the Reformers and the post-Reformation era. It is simply poor historical scholarship to read contemporary theological concerns into past. One’s presuppositions – in so far as possible – should not alter one’s interpretation of history. For example, it would be an anachronism of the highest order to read Barth’s Christocentric theology or his view of predestination back into the theology of the Reformers. Historians should strive to be as objective as possible and follow the sources wherever they may lead. The “central dogma” theories – particularly those of the neo-orthodox school – should be set aside.[29] Muller concludes his study of theological developments after Calvin by arguing that:
A legitimate and productive intellectual history of post-Reformation Protestantism must step past the self-indulgent theologism of the older historiography and cease to read the materials of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries through the lenses of marcotheological questions arising out of nineteenth, twentieth, and (now) twenty-first century dogmatic concerns.[30]
In other words, as part the revisionist trend in the light of Richard Muller’s research, the theology of the post-Reformation era should be thoroughly contextualised to its period – i.e. the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This period should not become the battleground for the contemporary concerns of armchair theologians but should be carefully studied by historical experts in the period. This is a significant and provocative call to history and highlights the importance of actual historians who specialise in this period.
Conclusion
By way of conclusion, several key points come to mind in the examination of Calvin, scholasticism, and Reformed orthodoxy. Calvin himself needs to be read historically and recognised as simply one of many Reformed theologians during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. He was by no means the sole arbiter of what constitutes the Reformed tradition in his own lifetime, let alone in the generations that followed him. Though he was deeply influenced by Renaissance and humanistic models of thought, Calvin nonetheless interacted critically with his medieval and scholastic forebearers. Scholasticism refers to a method or a way of doing theology, rather than any set of theological doctrines or beliefs. It refers to method, rather than content. Richard Muller squarely busts apart the myth of “Calvin against the Calvinists” and shows that there was a broad continuity between the theology of the Reformer and the scholastic theologians who followed in his footsteps. Orthodoxy simply refers to the idea of “right teaching” or “sound theology”. This was a concern of both of Calvin and the Reformed tradition generally. The principal desire of these theologians was to be faithful to Scripture, to the ecumenical creeds and councils of the church, and to their own Reformed confessions of faith. Neither orthodoxy nor scholasticism should be considered by the scholarly literature as dirty words – they simply refer to a method of doing sound theology. These points of a revisionist approach to Calvin and Calvinists need to be considered in any future scholarship on Calvin, scholasticism, Reformed orthodoxy, and English Calvinism.
Bibliography
Clifford, Alan C., Atonement and Justification: English Evangelical Theology, 1640–1790: An Evaluation (Oxford, 1990).
Helm, Paul, Calvin and the Calvinists (Edinburgh, 1982).
Kendall, R. T., Calvin and English Calvinism to 1649 (Oxford, 1980).
Muller, Richard A., After Calvin: Studies in the Development of a Theological Tradition (Oxford, 2003).
Muller, Richard A., Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: The Rise and Development of Reformed Orthodoxy, ca. 1520–1725, 4 vols (Grand Rapids, MI; 2003).
Muller, Richard A., The Unaccommodated Calvin: Studies in the Foundation of a Theological System (Oxford, 2000).
Wendel, Francois, Calvin: The Origins and Development of his Religious Thought (New York, 1963).
[1] Several
scholars have contributed to this reappraisal in the scholarly literature besides
Richard Muller including Willem van Asselt, Olivier Fatio, Eef Dekker, Anton
Vos, Carl Trueman, Martin Klauber, Lyle Bierma, and several others.
[2] Richard
Muller, The Unaccommodated Calvin: Studies in the Foundation of a
Theological System (Oxford, 2000), vii.
[3] Muller, The
Unaccommodated Calvin, viii.
[4] Muller, The
Unaccommodated Calvin, p. 188. Emphasis my own.
[5] See
Carter Lindberg, The Reformation Theologians: An Introduction to Theology in
the Early Modern Period (Oxford, 2002), pp. 157–266.
[6] R. T.
Kendall, Calvin and English Calvinism to 1649 (Oxford, 1980); Alan C. Clifford,
Atonement and Justification: English Evangelical Theology, 1640–1790: An
Evaluation (Oxford, 1990). See also Paul Helm’s critique of Kendall’s
thesis: Calvin and the Calvinists (Edinburgh, 1982).
[7] Muller, The
Unaccommodated Calvin, p. 29.
[8] Muller, The
Unaccommodated Calvin, p. 39.
[9] Muller, The
Unaccommodated Calvin, p. 43.
[10] Cited in
Muller, The Unaccommodated Calvin, p. 77. See also Francois Wendel, Calvin:
The Origins and Development of his Religious Thought (New York, 1963), p.
122.
[11] Muller, The
Unaccommodated Calvin, p. 77.
[12] Muller, The
Unaccommodated Calvin, p. 101.
[13] Muller, The
Unaccommodated Calvin, pp. 157–58.
[14] Muller, The
Unaccommodated Calvin, p. 159. Emphasis my own.
[15] Muller, The
Unaccommodated Calvin, p. 166.
[16] Cited in Muller,
The Unaccommodated Calvin, p. 167.
[17] Cited in
Muller, The Unaccommodated Calvin, p. 169.
[18] Richard
A. Muller, After Calvin: Studies in the Development of a Theological
Tradition (Oxford, 2003), p 3.
[19] Muller, After
Calvin, p. 8.
[20] Muller, After
Calvin, p. 28.
[21] See
Muller, After Calvin, p. 28.
[22] Muller, After
Calvin, p. 28.
[23] Muller, After
Calvin, p. 33.
[24] Muller, After
Calvin, p. 33.
[25] Muller, After
Calvin, p. 36.
[26] Muller, After
Calvin, p. 50.
[27] Muller, After
Calvin, p. 57.
[28] William
Ames, The Marrow of Theology (Grand Rapids, MI, 1997), p. 77.
[29] The
points made in this paragraph and paragraph prior to this are drawn principally
from Richard Muller’s two chapters on ‘Calvin and the Calvinists’ in After
Calvin, pp. 63–102.
[30] Muller, After
Calvin, p. 191.