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An Inquiry into the Meaning of Law in the Thought of John Calvin
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 February 2009
Though at first it seems quite simple and straightforward and though he devotes hundreds of pages to its exposition, Calvin's idea of law is subtle and elusive. He, like Luther, stresses the Protestant principle of justification by grace alone, but not a few interpreters have seen him as the severest of legalists who finally relegates grace to the position of being merely a means to works righteousness. It is undoubtedly pretentious to try to put law in its ‘true’ meaning and context in Calvin's schema. This paper must therefore be regarded as simply an exploratory effort in that direction.
Since Calvin was himself a competent student of the secular law, a fruitful method for investigating this problem would be to inquire into the character of the legal studies that formed such an important part of his background. How did he regard the Roman Law which had been shaping European civilisation for several centuries? To what extent was he influenced by Greek versions of the Natural Law which had been so important to Thomas Aquinas? In the English language we make the word ‘law’ (like ‘love’) carry, somewhat promiscuously, nuances of meaning that the more analytical languages of Latin and Greek distinguish. The tools of Philology and History may be necessary for a definitive examination of Calvin's concept of law.
page 248 note 1 Institutes (Beveridge translation), Book IV, chap. xx, sect. 16.
page 248 note 2 ibid., Book II, chap. viii, sect. 6.
page 248 note 3 cf. Sumtna Theologica, I–II, Q, 90–96.
page 249 note 1 Institutes, Book II, chap. viii, sect. 1.
page 249 note 2 See especially Commentary on Romans and Harmony of the Pentateuch as well as Book II, chap. vii, of Institutes.
page 250 note 1 All quotes in this paragraph are from Book II, chap. vii, of Institutes.
page 250 note 2 Stoicism as well as Hebraicism emphasises the Will of God which gives Law its force and righteousness. Stoicism also has a doctrine of Providence which it takes as seriously as Calvin. However, Stoicism's pantheism and resignation and Hebraicism's emphasis upon revealed Law and affirmation in obedience show Calvin's affinities with the Jews rather than the Stoics. See also infra.
page 251 note 1 Institutes, Book II, chap. vii, sect. 13.
page 251 note 2 ibid., Book II, chap. viii, sect. 5.
page 251 note 3 cf. The Divine Imperative, p. 142, where Brunner writes: ‘It is true that the Lex itself is not what God wills, but it is absolutely controlled by the Divine Command. In spite of the element of compulsion which it contains, the Lex forms part of the way in which God, at present, preserves life in the created order tainted by sin; it is His way of giving us life, and especially life with one another.’ Italics mine. See also infra ‘The Law and Man’.
page 251 note 4 cf. Institutes, Book I, chap. vi.
page 251 note 5 ibid., Book I, chap. x, sect. 2.
page 252 note 1 See commentary on Acts 7.38 in Calvin's Commentaries (Haroutunian's translation), p. 103.
page 252 note 2 Institutes, Book I, chap. v, sect. 5.
page 253 note 1 cf. ibid., Book I, chap. iv, v.
page 253 note 2 ibid., Book I, chap. vi, sect. 2.
page 253 note 3 See infra, ‘The Law and the Gospel’.
page 253 note 4 Institutes, Book II, chap. viii, sect. 51.
page 254 note 1 ibid., Book I, chap. vi, sect. 4.
page 254 note 2 The Divine Imperative, p. 74.
page 254 note 3 I do not pretend to do justice to Brunner's rich and complex treatment of Law which shows great sympathies toward Calvin. In the uses of the Law Brunner sees Calvin to be a necessary corrective to Luther; in the nature of Law he sees Luther to be the necessary corrective to Calvin. It is the implications of the latter which I am concerned to call attention to. For another important treatment (in some ways similar to Brunner's) of the final opposition of Law and grace, see Reinhold Niebuhr's ‘Love and Law in Protestantism and Catholicism’ in Christian Realism and Political Problems. It is obvious that Niebuhr's affinities are also with Luther, so much so that he tends to distort Calvin's and Catholicism's views of the nature of law.
page 255 note 1 Brunner, in a note on the passage cited, quotes Kant's famous dictum, ‘For, so long as the Moral Law commands “Thou shalt become a better man”, the conclusion is inevitable “that thou canst”.’ (Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone, p. 60.)
page 255 note 2 Brunner, op. cit., op. 74.
page 256 note 1 cf. ‘Freedom of the Will’, ‘Religious Affections’, and ‘Doctrine of Original Sin’.
page 256 note 2 Calvin's successors on this point are Nietzsche and Sartre rather than Kant and Brunner. Focussing, like Calvin, on the meaning of freedom, existentialism tends to suggest that the true meaning of freedom's actualisation is that man almost necessarily has to be judged wrong by every moral standard. If the actualisation of freedom conforms in any respect to an external standard, freedom has been limited if not lost. In the context of the Christian faith it is not difficult to move from this existentialist insight to the notion of bondage to sin and self. See also Martin Buber's interpretation of ‘the meaning of that paradoxical myth of the two spirits’, in which the ‘wicked’ spirit ‘has to choose between the two affirmations: affirmation of himself and affirmation of the order, which has established and eternally establishes good and evil, the first as the affirmed and the second as the denied. If he affirms the order he must himself become “good”, and that means he must deny and overcome his present state of being. If he affirms himself he must deny and reverse the order.…’ The ‘choice of himself’ is, of course, ‘the lie against being’ for Buber. Good and Evil, ‘Images of Good and Evil’, Part III, iv, ‘The Second Stage’.
page 256 note 3 The interpretation of Calvin presented in this paragraph has been drawn from many places. The Commentary on Romans, however, has been most illuminating to me. See especially the expositions of Romans 6 and 7 and even more particularly 7.14, 16, 22, 23.
page 257 note 1 R. Niebuhr reflects the same ambiguous tendencies as Brunner. Perhaps these dangers are inherent in Lutheranism and neo-Lutheranism. The allusion here to Buber is quite intentional. Calvin and Buber share an existentialist and non-legalistic appropriation of the Old Testament.
page 257 note 2 cf. Institutes, Book I, chap. v, sect. 11. Even in commenting on Romans 7.22–23, Calvin asserts of the ‘law of the mind’ which Paul refers to, that it ‘undoubtedly means a principle rightly formed’ and therefore ‘it is evident that this passage is very absurdly applied to man not yet regenerated; for such, as Paul teaches us, are destitute of mind, inasmuch as their soul has become differentiated from reason’ (Commentary on Romans).
page 258 note 1 Institutes, Book I, chap. ix, sect. 3.
page 260 note 1 cf. Love, Power and Justice.
page 260 note 2 Institutes, Book I, chap. ix, sect. 3.
page 260 note 3 ibid., Book II, chap. v, sect. 15.
page 261 note 1 Paul Lehmann (‘The Foundation and Pattern of Christian Behaviour’ in Christian Faith and Social Action), T. F. Torrance (Calvin's Doctrine of Man, and Kingdom and Church), Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Ethics), and Paul Tillich (Love, Power and Justice, and Systematic Theologf, vol. ii), have all made significant efforts at breaking out of this pattern.
page 261 note 2 Institutes, Book III, chap. ii, sect. 7.
page 261 note 2 Commentary on Romans, Romans 1.5.