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“It's a Miracle of God That There Is Any Common Weal among Us”: Unfaithfulness and Disorder in John Calvin's Political Thought

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Derek S. Jeffreys
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Extract

Disorder is a constant theme in John Calvin's political work. Calvin describes politics as a chaotic arena, precariously held together by contending forces. However, few who write on Calvin recognize how disorder shapes his political reflections. Calvin analyzes disorder by tracing it to unfaithfulness, the failure to acknowledge God's goodness. Created in the image of God, human beings reject divine goodness ungratefully, plunging themselves into sin. In leaders, this unfaithfulness produces pride and mistrust which create conflict within and among political communities. In groups, unfaithfulness spawns cruelty, leading violent mobs to kill the innocent and denigrate the image of God. By exploring mob and political violence, Calvin draws attention to those forces sustaining order. Natural sensibilities, conscience, and divine providence restrain the worst excesses in human beings.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 62 , Issue 1 , Winter 2000 , pp. 107 - 130
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 2000

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References

1 Lovin, Robin, Reinhold Niebuhr and Christian Realism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tinder, Glenn, The Political Meaning of Christianity: An Interpretation (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989).Google Scholar

2 Calvin's account of the imago dei has evoked enormous controversy, some of which was precipitated by the famous Barth-Brunner dispute over natural theology. Much of this debate involves issues that are not essential for understanding Calvin's political thought. For a full treatment of them, see Torrance, T. F., Calvin's Doctrine of Man (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1957)Google Scholar; Niesel, Wilhelm, The Theology of Calvin (Philadelphia: Westminister Press, 1956)Google Scholar; Parker, T. H. L., Calvin's Doctrine of the Knowledge of God (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1969)Google Scholar; Cairns, David, The Image of God in Man, intro. Jenkins, David E. (London: SCM Press, 1973)Google Scholar; and Engel, Mary Potter, John Calvin's Perspectival Anthropology (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1988).Google Scholar

3 In this article, I bypass a full discussion of all of the details of Calvin's presentation. Calvin presents the imago dei systematically in two places, the Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. McNeill, John and trans.Battles, Ford Lewis, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: Westminister Press, 1960), I, 15, 3Google Scholar, and his commentary on Genesis 1:26 (Commentaries on the First Book of Moses Called Genesis, trans. King, John [Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1984])Google Scholar. For an excellent account of the controversies surrounding this presentation, see Engel, Calvin's Perspectival Anthropology.

4 All references to Calvin's biblical commentaries will be to the English translations produced by the Calvin Translation Society, published by Baker House Books.

5 Initially, Calvin provides a detailed description of the faculties of the soul, engaging philosophers like Plato. However, he finally settles on understanding and will as the primary elements of the soul. For Calvin's full discussion of the understanding, see Institutes, I, xv, 4–7.Google Scholar

6 Calvin does not depart from thinkers like Thomas Aquinas, who develop a similar conception of the relationship between understanding and will. His departure occurs when he discusses the effect of sin on our faculties. For an excellent contemporary philosophical engagement with Calvin's theological anthropology, which compares it to the work of medieval thinkers, see Hoitenga, Dewey J., John Calvin and the Will: A Critique and Corrective (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker House Books, 1997).Google Scholar

7 For example, see Institutes, I, xv, 4, II, xii, 6Google Scholar. Torrance pays particular attention to this image of a mirror, arguing that Calvin “always thinks of the imago in terms of a mirror” (Torrance, , Calvin's Doctrine of Man, p. 36)Google Scholar. For criticisms of Torrance's discussion, see Gerrish, Brian A.Grace and Gratitude: The Eucharistic Theology of John Calvin (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1993), p. 43n.100Google Scholar and Engel, , Calvin's Perspectival Anthropology, pp. 50–54.Google Scholar

8 Theologians in the Reformed Tradition have developed the idea of perception and misperception extensively. For one example, see H. Richard Niebuhr's famous essay, “The Center of Value” in Radical Monotheism and Western Culture: With Supplementary Essays (New York: Harper and Row, 1960).Google Scholar

9 Brian Gerrish notes how Calvin often discusses God using the image of a “fountain of goodness” (Grace and Gratitude, chap. 2).

10 Ibid., pp. 42–43.

11 Institutes, II, i, 4Google Scholar. Calvin presupposes that at some point in history, human beings fell from an ideal condition. This fall makes all human beings unfaithful as birth. Naturally, any contemporary retrieval of Calvin's understanding of sin must come to terms with this aspect of his thought. For his full discussion of the fall, see Institutes, II, i, 8–19Google Scholar and his commentaries on Genesis 3:16–17 and Romans 5:12 (Commentary on the Epistle of Paul to the Romans, ed. and trans. Owen, John [Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1984).Google Scholar

12 Gerrish, Brian A., The Old Protestantism and the New: Essays on the Reformation Heritage (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), p. 156Google Scholar. I am following Gerrish in interpreting unfaithfulness as the ungrateful repudiation of God's Word, see, The Old Protestantism and the New, pp. 155–59, and Grace and Gratitude, pp. 46–49.

13 For example, in the Calvin Society's translation of the Genesis commentary, the translators translate “per infidelitatem” as “unbelief” (3:6). In the Institutes, Ford Lewis Battles uses the term “unfaithfulness,” and I will follow his translation.

14 Calvin discusses the bondage of the will extensively, yet in many ways, he simply assumed its truth, focusing more attention on the noetic effect of sin. I owe this point to conversations with Susan Schreiner. For Calvin's discussion of the bondage of the will, see the Institutes, ii, 2.

15 Gerrish makes this point well; “We can certainly distinguish three stages here—faith, confidence, boldness—but faith can no more be separated from confidence than heat or light can be taken away from the sun” (Gerrish, , Grace and Gratitude, p. 64)Google Scholar. For Calvin's very careful account of faith, see the Institutes, III, ii.

16 A key source for such discussions is Calvin's Sermons from Job, trans. Nixon, Leroy (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1952)Google Scholar, given later in his life. In a brilliant sermon on Job 31:1–4, entitled “Does not God Count my Steps?” he links perverted images, inward acts, delight and external action. All references to this text will be to Nixon's translation.

17 See Calvin's commentary on Psalm 85:4–6 for a discussion of pride as a “malady” (Commentary on the Book of the Psalms, trans. Anderson, James, 4 vols.[Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1984)Google Scholar. Calvin uses the words pride and self-love interchangeably.

18 All references to the Sermons on Second Samuel in the text are to the Kelly, Douglas translation (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1992).Google Scholar

19 All references in the rest of this paragraph are to the Institutes, IV, xx, 6.Google Scholar

20 Calvin develops this point extensively in his commentary on Romans 13:1–3. For an excellent analysis of how he uses this text, see Steinmetz, David C., Calvin in Context (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995).Google Scholar

21 For other references to how political power must image divine power, see Sermons from Job, 31:9–15Google Scholar, Sermons on the Epistle to the Ephesians, trans. Golding, Arthur (Edinburgh: Banner of Trut Trust, 1975)Google Scholar, Ephesians 5: 28–30, Psalms 28, 72, and Romans, 13:1–3.

22 The maxim is from Augustine's City of God, bk. 4, chap. 4. Harro Hopfl observes how Calvin misquotes Augustine by adding “great” to Augustine's dictum that “kingdoms are great robberies.” Calvin was particularly concerned about how large kingdoms create greater opportunity for sin (Höpfl, , The Christian Polity of John Calvin [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982], p. 166).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

23 Bouwsma, William J., John Calvin: A Sixteenth Century Portrait (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988)Google Scholar, chap. 13, and Höpfl, Christian Polity, pp. 160–71, discuss how Calvin abhors tyranny.

24 Höpfl, , Christian Polity, pp.163; 168–71.Google Scholar

25 For example, King David was polygamous because he had the “customary attitude of princes that they ought to be privileged to do wrong above everyone else. They want to be as far above the rank of human beings as is possible for them” (Sermons on Second Samuel, 5: 13–21,207).Google Scholar

26 Calvin, , Commentaries on the Book of the Prophet Daniel, trans. Myers, Thomas (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1984).Google Scholar

27 The theme of the slavery of kings appears in Calvin's earliest work, his Commentary on Seneca's “De Clementia, ed. and trans. Battles, Ford Lewis and Hugo, AndréMalan (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1969)Google Scholar. However, at this early stage of his career, Calvin does not discuss unfaithfulness. Instead, he echoes anicent political philosophers like Plato, who describe how the passions of tyrants destory their capacity to rule (56–58/143–45,88/215).

28 öopfl notes how Calvin denounces the conduct of the nobility frequently, and views the courts of princes as “nests of ambition, hypocrisy, flattery and servility” (Christian Polity, p. 162). Bouwsma discusses Calvin's disdain for advisors and nobility (Calvin, pp. 54–56). In his Genesis commentary, Calvin describes the “giants” before the Flood as the first nobility of the world which, “raised itself on high, by pouring contempt and disgrace on others” (Genesis 6:4). For further negative references to the nobility and the advisors of princes, see Sermons on Second Samuel, pp. 422,444, Genesis, 12: 16Google Scholar, and Psalm 31.

29 See Bouwsma, Calvin; and Schreiner, Susan E., The Theater of His Glory: Nature and Natural Order in the Thought of John Calvin (Durham, NC: The Labyrinth Press, 1991)Google Scholar and Where Shall Wisdom Be Found? Calvin's Exegesis of Job from Medieval and Modern Perspectives (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994).Google Scholar

30 In the preface to his Psalms commentary, Calvin calls the Psalms “An Anatomy of all parts of the soul.” This is a rich resource for considering a variety of affective states.

31 Bouwsma, , Calvin, p. p. 39Google Scholar. A number of twentieth-century theologians also make this distinction, using anxiety as a central part of their understanding of sin. Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tlllich are perhaps the most famous thinkers who discuss anxiety.

32 See Genesis 3: 19, Psalm 90: 3–5.

33 See Genesis 7:11, 9:2.

34 See the famous passage in tine Institutes, I, xvii, 10, where Calvin asks: “must not man be most miserable, since, but half alive in life, he weakly draws his anxious and languid breath, as if he had a sword perpetually hanging over his neck?”

35 Although Calvin sometimes uses this image to describe the incomprehensibility of God's being, he uses it primarily in a negative sense. Bouwsma also describes how Calvin uses the image of a “labyrinth” to express anxiety over how distorted knowledge isolates human beings from God. The labyrinth signifies the insecurity about how the mind constricts the human person in a self-centered alienation from God. Through their own sinfulness, human beings trap themselves in a dark prison. For Calvin, the labyrinth has “claustrophobic overtones” (Bouwsma, Calvin, p. 47). The wandering human imagination leads the mind away from God, suffocating, crushing, constricting and compressing it.

36 For one of Calvin's discussions about anxiety about order, see Psalm 90:2.

37 Calvin discusses prudence extensively. For some examples, see his Sermons on Second Samuel, pp. 50–51, 297–305, 416–28; Sermons on Ephesians, 4:23–26Google Scholar, 5:15–18, and Genesis 40.

38 Sermons on Second Samuel, pp. 446–460. This is one of several sermons in the Sermons on Second Samuel in which Calvin discusses justice and war. In recent work on the just war tradition, no one that I am aware of has discussed them. Most commentators restrict their discussion to the Institutes XX, xx, 11–12. For two examples, see Miller, Richard B., Interpretations of Coflict: Ethics, Pacifism, and the Just-War Tradition (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1991Google Scholar) and Cahill, Lisa Sowle, Love Your Enemies: Discipleship, Pacifism, and Just War Theory (Minneapolis MN: Fprtress, 1993Google Scholar), excellent works on the just war tradition which neglest Calvin's sermons on war

39 In this section, I am indebted to Robert Jervis' excellent work on perception and misperception in international politics, see Jervis, Robert, Perception and Misperception in International Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976).Google Scholar

40 Of course, the literature on deterrence is vast, most of it a product of the Cold War. I have found two works particularly helpful: Jervis, Perception and Misperception and Mearsheimer, John J., Conventional Deterrence (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1982).Google Scholar

41 This explanation is familiar to students of international relations. Often, it is studied under the rubric of the “security dilemma.” Jervis discusses it extensively, describing how events spiral out of the control of political actors, see (Jervis, , Perception and Misperception, chap. 3).Google Scholar Modern game theory has developed the idea of a security dilemma extensively, using devices such as the “prisoner's dilemma.” For an excellent discussion of the “prisoner's dilemma” see Hardin, Russell, Moraifi within the Limits of Reason (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988).Google Scholar

42 Höpfl, , Christian Polity, p. 157.Google Scholar

43 Bouwsma, Calvin, chaps. 2 and 3.

44 Calvin, , Commentary on Seneca's “De dementia,” pp. 5–6,26–27.Google Scholar

45 For other references to our common nature, see Sermons from Job, 31: 9–15Google Scholar, Psalm 15, and Sermons on Ephesians, 5: 28–30Google Scholar. For an excellent discussion of this idea in Calvin, see Wolterstorff, Nicholas, “Suffering Love,” in Philosophy and Christian Faith, ed. Morris, Thomas (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 1983).Google Scholar

46 The narrative of Jesus' trial raises complex questions about Calvin's attitudes toward Jews. For a discussion of these issues, see Robinson, Jack Hughes, Calvin and the Jews (New York: P. Lang, 1992).Google Scholar

47 All references in this paragraph are to Matthew 27:22.For other references to the instability of the people, see Acts 17:8–9 and 21:30.

48 As early as the Seneca commentary, Calvin notes how mobs “seize with unpremeditated rashness upon anything that presents itself to their giddy minds”(Calvin, , Commentary on Seneca's “De dementia,” pp. 5–6, 26–27).Google Scholar

49 Morgenthau, Hans J., Politics Among Nations, 6th ed., ed. Thompson, Kenneth W. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985).Google Scholar

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51 For other references to the idea that anarchy reigns when government is absent, see Sermons on Second Samuel, p. 125, and 1 Timothy 2:2–3. For another discussion of how some goodness exists in even the worst governments, see Sermons from Job, p. 273.

52 Good discussions of natural law include: Chenevière, Marc E., La Pensée politique de Calvin (Genève: Ed. Labor, 1937), pp. 29–90Google Scholar; Bohatec, Josef, Calvin das Recht (Feudigen in Westphilen, Buchdruckerei: G. M. B. HI, 1934)Google Scholar; Höpfl, Christian Polity, chaps. 8 and 9; Brunner, Emil, Moral Theology (London: Centenary Press, 1946)Google Scholar; Dowey, Edward, The Knowledge of God in Calvin's Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1994), chap 3Google Scholar; Little, David, “Calvin and the Prospects for a Christian Theory of Natural Law,” in Norm and Context in Christian Ethics, ed. Outka, Gene H. and Ramsey, Paul (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1968)Google Scholar; Dyck, Arthur, Rethinking Rights and Responsibilities: The Moral Bonds of Community (Cleveland, OH: The Pigrim Press, 1994)Google Scholar; and Schreiner, , Theater of His Glory, p. 79)Google Scholar. For Calvin's full discussion of conscience, see the Institutes, III, xv. For excellent treatments of the complexities of this topic, see Foxgrover, David, “John Calvin's Understanding of Conscience” (Ph.D. diss., Claremont Graduate School, 1978)Google Scholar and Bosco, David, “Conscience as Court and Worm: Calvin and the Three Elements of Conscience,” Journal of Religious Ethics 14 (1986): 331–55.Google Scholar

53 Susan Schreiner is an important exception, see (Schreiner, Theater of His Glory, chap. 4). In my treatment of conscience I am indebted to this work.

54 For other discussions of conscience and mobs, see Jonah 1:13, Genesis 34:7–30, and Genesis 33:4.

55 Some who discuss these issues include Torrance, Calvin's Doctrine of Man; Cairns, Image of God in Man; Engel, Calvin's Perspectival Anthropology; and Schreiner, Theater of His Glory.

56 For a full discussion of the image of God, see Calvin's commentary on Psalm 8. Claims about our naturally social nature appear early in his work, particularly in his Commentary on Seneca's “De dementia” (29/85,112/273). Calvin may be drawing on ancient philosophical sources to demonstrate that we are naturally social. However, beyond identifying Seneca, Cicero, and other Stoics as sources, it is difficult to determine precisely which thinkers he uses. For a discussion of these sources, see Partee, Charles, Calvin and Classical Philosophy (Leiden: E. J.Brill, 1977)Google Scholar, chap. 6 and Ganoczy, Alexandre, The Young Calvin, trans. Foxgrover, David and Provo, Wade (Philadelphia: Westminister Press, 1987)Google Scholar, part two.

57 In considering divine ordination of government, scholars focus on two topics, Calvin and theocracy and Calvin and the two kingdoms. For some of the vast literature focusing on whether Calvin is a “theocrat,” see Höpfl, , Christian Polity, pp. 184–187Google Scholar; Gamble, Richard, ed., Calvin's Thought on Economic and Social Issues and the Relationship between Church and State (New York: Garland Press, 1992), pp. 2–127Google Scholar; and Harkness, Georgia, John Calvin: The Man and His Ethics (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1931), pp. 221–48Google Scholar. For Calvin's presentation of the twokingdom distinction, see Institutes, III, xix, 15. For general discussions of how the two-kingdom distinction developed in the Reformation, see Allen, J. W., A History of Political Thought in the Sixteenth Century (London: Butler and Tanner, 1960)Google Scholar and Skinner, Quentin, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, vol. 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978).Google Scholar