[five reasons to thank God for john calvin]

Today is the five-hundredth birthday of Reformation pastor and theologian John Calvin. I can think of at least five reasons to thank God for his life and ministry:

5. In the political sphere, Calvin argued for limited government.

I, for my part, am far from denying that the form which greatly surpasses the others is aristocracy, either pure or modified by popular government, not indeed in itself, but because it very rarely happens that kings so rule themselves as never to dissent from what is just and right, or are possessed of so much acuteness and prudence as always to see correctly. Owing, therefore, to the vices or defects of men, it is safer and more tolerable when several bear rule, that they may thus mutually assist, instruct, and admonish each other, and should any one be disposed to go too far, the others are censors and masters to curb his excess. This has already been proved by experience, and confirmed also by the authority of the Lord himself, when he established an aristocracy bordering on popular government among the Israelites, keeping them under that as the best form, until he exhibited an image of the Messiah in David. Institutes, IV.20.viii

4. By writing the Institutes of the Christian Religion, Calvin systematized the teaching of the Reformation. He left us a great example of writing theology that is relentlessly Biblical, not speculative.

3. Calvin’s commentaries on Scripture continue to provide a wealth of insight to students of God’s Word.

2. Calvin’s Geneva gave refuge to English-speaking Protestants during the reign of “bloody Mary.” With the help of Calvin, his successor Theodore Beza, and the Scottish reformer John Knox, these scholars produced the Geneva Bible, the most important translation of the Bible in English before the King James. The Geneva Bible also included many annotations, making it the first “study Bible” of sorts. Bruce Metzger writes,

For about three-quarters of a century the Geneva version was the household Bible of a large section of English-speaking Protestantism. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth I alone, seventy editions of it were published. About 150 editions, either of the whole Bible or of the New Testament alone, were printed between 1560 and 1644…In England the Geneva Bible was the version used by Shakespeare, by John Bunyan, by the men of Cromwell’s army, and was brought to America by the Pilgrims and other early settlers, many of whom would have nothing to do with the more “modern” King James version of 1611…In short, it was chiefly owing to the dissemination of copies of the Geneva version of 1560 that a sturdy and articulate Protestantism was created in Britain, a Protestantism which made a permanent impact upon Anglo-American culture.

1. Calvin points us incessantly, in his life and work, to the glory of God. John Piper writes,

“to set before [man], as the prime motive of his existence, zeal to illustrate the glory of God”. I think this would be a fitting banner over all of John Calvin’s life and work – zeal to illustrate the glory of God. The essential meaning of John Calvin’s life and preaching is that he recovered and embodied a passion for the absolute reality and majesty of God.

[reformational politics redux]

As election night draws to a close, I’ve got politics of a less practical, more philosophical/theological sort on the brain. I thought I’d repost this from last year: the conclusion of a research paper I wrote last year, “Toward an Evangelical Politics: Abraham Kuyper, Francis Schaeffer, and Beyond.”

A Five-Point Proposal, Being a Starting Point for a Reformational/Evangelical Politics:

Theonomy: An Evangelical politics must embrace theonomy in its understanding of law. Abraham Kuyper calls for a subjective theonomy in the Lectures: “God’s Word must rule, but in the sphere of the state only through the conscience of the persons invested with authority.” (“Politics” 104) However, in our post-Christian culture there is very little of God’s Word in anyone’s conscience, let alone the politicians’. The “hard theonomy” of the Christian Reconstructionists, wherein the Old Testament law is adopted as the law of the land with its prescribed punishments, except where specifically superceded by the New Testament, seems to stray too far in the other direction. It smacks of theocracy. (Rogers) Francis Schaeffer’s “soft theonomy” has the constitutional law of the land resting consciously on Scripture as an unchanging standard of justice and right. This position maintains the Evangelical tension between the absolute authority of Scripture and the separation of church and state. It is also in line with the teaching of John Calvin himself. In his Institutes of the Christian Religion, Calvin calls the idea of rule by the totality of the Mosaic Law “perilous and seditious,” but he affirms that the law of the land must rest on the “moral law,” which he boils down to the principles of charity and equity. The eternal standard of the moral law prevents destructive sociological law:
“But if it is true that each nation has been left at liberty to enact the laws which it judges to be beneficial, still these are always to be tested by the rule of charity, so that while they vary in form, they must proceed on the same principle. Those barbarous and savage laws, for instance, which conferred honour on thieves, allowed the promiscuous intercourse of the sexes, and other things even fouler and more absurd, I do not think entitled to be considered as laws, since they are not only altogether abhorrent to justice, but to humanity and civilised life.” (Institutes 910)
Under this conception, justice, ethics, morality, and religious conviction are inseparable. Evangelicals have the right and duty to continue to push for legislation on ‘moral’ issues like abortion and gay rights as the highest priority, because they undermine the very foundation of state authority, which rests in just law.

Uncompromised principles: An Evangelical politics must be principled, not pragmatic. This is a direct result of embracing a theonomic concept of law. A denial of Scriptural authority is concomitant to denying legislative goals that are directly based on God’s moral law. According to J. Budziszewski, the confession of biblical authority is the theological distinctive of Evangelicals. (“Evangelicals” 20) So a move like Pat Robertson’s endorsement of Rudy Giuliani effectively forfeits one’s status as an Evangelical.

Limited Sovereignty: An Evangelical politics must limit the sovereignty of the state by proclaiming the ultimate sovereignty of God and recognizing sovereignty within individual spheres. Proclaiming the ultimate sovereignty of God ensures that Evangelicals know the basic presupposition on which their politics is founded and creates a bottom line past which subjection to the state is no longer good or right. (Schaeffer, Manifesto 126-127) It seems from the Genesis account that Scripture recognizes at least four spheres, with separate sovereignties implied by the separate institutions of society (Gen. 1:26-28), family (Gen. 2:23-24), church (Gen. 4:26), and state (Gen. 9:5-6). Applying this principle would require the government to retract its authoritative position in areas like education, as in the Department of Education and the No Child Left Behind Act. Schaeffer writes, “[I]f the United States is to move back toward the original Reformation basis, this would mean severely limiting the scope of Federal State authority.” (Manifesto 114) In fact, it would mean a very nearly libertarian conception of federal authority. Evangelicals should seek constitutional amendments specifically delineating societal spheres and denying the state sovereignty therein. Evangelicals must also determine how the sphere sovereignty doctrine would apply on an international level. It precludes ceding state sovereignty to international organizations like the U.N. and prohibits an interventionist foreign policy, both as violations of the sovereignty of individual nations.

Identification with Christian heritage: An Evangelical politics must make explicit the historically demonstrable connection between Reformation Christianity and liberty. Both Kuyper and Schaeffer go to great lengths to show the direct correlation between the degree of ‘reformation’ and the degree of freedom in Northern Europe and the United States. Kuyper locates the democratizing effects of Calvinism in its Presbyterian polity (“Religion” 63) and doctrine of unconditional election. (“Art” 166) Evangelicals should point unbelievers to the oppressive public squares of France and Turkey as ample proof that secular humanism does not lead to freedom, but tyranny. Even those who do not share the Christian worldview should welcome, rather than abhor, a Christian state because a Christian state alone provides a stable guarantee of freedom. An Evangelical politics must not compel belief or establish a state church, but it must of necessity preserve freedom of expression in the public square to maintain evangelistic efforts. (Schaeffer, Manifesto 136-137).

Plan for action: An Evangelical politics must provide a comprehensive strategy for achieving its goals on all fronts. Recognizing that Evangelicals are in a battle of opposing total worldviews, the fight must be taken to every sphere of life. Ethical personal living, raising strong families, theologically-informed art and science, petition, litigation, civil disobedience, running for political office, proposing legislation, production in every academic field—all of these must be practiced if Evangelicals take Kuyper and Schaeffer’s worldview theory seriously. Unfortunately, this is where neither Kuyper, nor Schaeffer, nor this paper can take us any further. Delineating strict action in these spheres would rise above a foundation and begin to define a total Evangelical politics, even a comprehensive Christian philosophy—a monumental work that waits for another scholar and another day.
“When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth…” John 16:13

Sources:

Budziszewski, J. “Evangelicals in the Public Square,” in Evangelicals in the Public Square, Budziszewski, et al. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006.

Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion, tr. Henry Beveridge. Grand Rapids: Christian Classics Ethereal Library. 2002. <http://www.ccel.org/download.html?
url=/ccel/calvin/institutes.pdf>
Kuyper, Abraham. Lectures on Calvinism. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1943.

Rogers, Jay. “Van Tillian Presuppositional Theonomic Ethics.” The Forerunner. Accessed December 5, 2007. <http://forerunner.com/forerunner/X0518_vantil.html>

Schaeffer, Francis. A Christian Manifesto. Westchester: Crossway. 1981.

[notes toward a theory of art]

Metaphysics Chart:
(in other words, a chart representing what is)

Creation // God
||
The World // Man
||
Nature // Culture

[wolf // dog]

[forest // park]

[landscape // landscaping, landscape painting]

Where “// ” represents an antithesis,  “||” represents a subdivision, and what is in brackets “[]” is a concrete example. In sentence form:
Whatever is not God is Creation; whatever in Creation is not Man is The World; whatever in The World is not Culture is Nature. God is distinguished from Creation by His aseity and its contingency; Man is distinguished from The World by the imago Dei; Culture is distinguished from Nature by Man’s creative action upon the stuff of Nature.

I believe this consideration of what exists undermines “Art” as an ontological category. To divide artifacts of Culture into “Art” and “Non-art” is a spurious distinction. The artist and the engineer are both culture-makers, and airplanes may have beauty just as sculptures may have function. The Aesthetic is rather a hermeneutical-ethical aspect, a set of lenses through which we perceive an object to determine a specific meaning and value. Every piece of culture, from a rubbish bin to the Mona Lisa, has an aesthetic meaning and value, but some objects have more aesthetic value than others. Aesthetic meaning and value are based on the criteria of harmony (relation of parts to whole and form to content) and surprise (or nuance). For these criteria I am indebted to Herman Dooyeweerd’s Theory of Modal Aspects in his New Critique of Theoretical Thought, and I am generally indebted to Henry Van Til for his Calvinistic Concept of Culture.

[the five points of politics]

I recently wrote a research paper for a class in religion and politics entitled “Toward an Evangelical Politics: Abraham Kuyper, Francis Schaeffer, and Beyond.” The worldview theory of Kuyper and Schaeffer really helped me toward defining my own political philosophy. What follows is the final section of my paper, the personal conclusions I drew. And as a good Calvinist, I offer it in five points, with an acronym you might recognize…

Theonomy: An Evangelical politics must embrace theonomy in its understanding of law. Abraham Kuyper calls for a subjective theonomy in the Lectures: “God’s Word must rule, but in the sphere of the state only through the conscience of the persons invested with authority.” (“Politics” 104) However, in our post-Christian culture there is very little of God’s Word in anyone’s conscience, let alone the politicians’. The “hard theonomy” of the Christian Reconstructionists, wherein the Old Testament law is adopted as the law of the land with its prescribed punishments, except where specifically superceded by the New Testament, seems to stray too far in the other direction. It smacks of theocracy. (Rogers) Francis Schaeffer’s “soft theonomy” has the constitutional law of the land resting consciously on Scripture as an unchanging standard of justice and right. This position maintains the Evangelical tension between the absolute authority of Scripture and the separation of church and state. It is also in line with the teaching of John Calvin himself. In his Institutes of the Christian Religion, Calvin calls the idea of rule by the totality of the Mosaic Law “perilous and seditious,” but he affirms that the law of the land must rest on the “moral law,” which he boils down to the principles of charity and equity. The eternal standard of the moral law prevents destructive sociological law:
“But if it is true that each nation has been left at liberty to enact the laws which it judges to be beneficial, still these are always to be tested by the rule of charity, so that while they vary in form, they must proceed on the same principle. Those barbarous and savage laws, for instance, which conferred honour on thieves, allowed the promiscuous intercourse of the sexes, and other things even fouler and more absurd, I do not think entitled to be considered as laws, since they are not only altogether abhorrent to justice, but to humanity and civilised life.” (Institutes 910)
Under this conception, justice, ethics, morality, and religious conviction are inseparable. Evangelicals have the right and duty to continue to push for legislation on ‘moral’ issues like abortion and gay rights as the highest priority, because they undermine the very foundation of state authority, which rests in just law.

Uncompromised principles: An Evangelical politics must be principled, not pragmatic. This is a direct result of embracing a theonomic concept of law. A denial of Scriptural authority is concomitant to denying legislative goals that are directly based on God’s moral law. According to J. Budziszewski, the confession of biblical authority is the theological distinctive of Evangelicals. (“Evangelicals” 20) So a move like Pat Robertson’s endorsement of Rudy Giuliani effectively forfeits one’s status as an Evangelical.

Limited Sovereignty: An Evangelical politics must limit the sovereignty of the state by proclaiming the ultimate sovereignty of God and recognizing sovereignty within individual spheres. Proclaiming the ultimate sovereignty of God ensures that Evangelicals know the basic presupposition on which their politics is founded and creates a bottom line past which subjection to the state is no longer good or right. (Schaeffer, Manifesto 126-127) It seems from the Genesis account that Scripture recognizes at least four spheres, with separate sovereignties implied by the separate institutions of society (Gen. 1:26-28), family (Gen. 2:23-24), church (Gen. 4:26), and state (Gen. 9:5-6). Applying this principle would require the government to retract its authoritative position in areas like education, as in the Department of Education and the No Child Left Behind Act. Schaeffer writes, “[I]f the United States is to move back toward the original Reformation basis, this would mean severely limiting the scope of Federal State authority.” (Manifesto 114) In fact, it would mean a very nearly libertarian conception of federal authority. Evangelicals should seek constitutional amendments specifically delineating societal spheres and denying the state sovereignty therein. Evangelicals must also determine how the sphere sovereignty doctrine would apply on an international level. It precludes ceding state sovereignty to international organizations like the U.N. and prohibits an interventionist foreign policy, both as violations of the sovereignty of individual nations.

Identification with Christian heritage: An Evangelical politics must make explicit the historically demonstrable connection between Reformation Christianity and liberty. Both Kuyper and Schaeffer go to great lengths to show the direct correlation between the degree of ‘reformation’ and the degree of freedom in Northern Europe and the United States. Kuyper locates the democratizing effects of Calvinism in its Presbyterian polity (“Religion” 63) and doctrine of unconditional election. (“Art” 166) Evangelicals should point unbelievers to the oppressive public squares of France and Turkey as ample proof that secular humanism does not lead to freedom, but tyranny. Even those who do not share the Christian worldview should welcome, rather than abhor, a Christian state because a Christian state alone provides a stable guarantee of freedom. An Evangelical politics must not compel belief or establish a state church, but it must of necessity preserve freedom of expression in the public square to maintain evangelistic efforts. (Schaeffer, Manifesto 136-137).

Plan for action: An Evangelical politics must provide a comprehensive strategy for achieving its goals on all fronts. Recognizing that Evangelicals are in a battle of opposing total worldviews, the fight must be taken to every sphere of life. Ethical personal living, raising strong families, theologically-informed art and science, petition, litigation, civil disobedience, running for political office, proposing legislation, production in every academic field—all of these must be practiced if Evangelicals take Kuyper and Schaeffer’s worldview theory seriously. Unfortunately, this is where neither Kuyper, nor Schaeffer, nor this paper can take us any further. Delineating strict action in these spheres would rise above a foundation and begin to define a total Evangelical politics, even a comprehensive Christian philosophy—a monumental work that waits for another scholar and another day.
“When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth…” John 16:13
Sources:

Budziszewski, J. “Evangelicals in the Public Square,” in Evangelicals in the Public Square, Budziszewski, et al. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006.

Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion, tr. Henry Beveridge. Grand Rapids: Christian Classics Ethereal Library. 2002. <http://www.ccel.org/download.html?
url=/ccel/calvin/institutes.pdf>
Kuyper, Abraham. Lectures on Calvinism. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1943.

Rogers, Jay. “Van Tillian Presuppositional Theonomic Ethics.” The Forerunner. Accessed December 5, 2007. <http://forerunner.com/forerunner/X0518_vantil.html>

Schaeffer, Francis. A Christian Manifesto. Westchester: Crossway. 1981.