There’s not been a post on John Calvin
on Helm’s Deep for some time. So here goes.
Do you ever review what you’ve come to
think about a particular matter? I’ve been taking a brief reprise on what I have come to think, little
by little, about Calvin and natural
theology. Like many I
initially imbibed a view of
Calvin that was fideistic. That is, it allowed little or no place for the
reason and the senses in the way that Calvin commended the Christian faith, and
everything or almost everything to the will. I opined that according to Calvin becoming converted was first and
foremost a response brought about by a regenerated will. The intellect and the
senses have a place in understanding the faith once it has been received, but the heavy lifting - becoming a Christian - is
brought about by the secret work of the Spirit on the heart.
But now I realise that to skip the place of senses and reason and evidence is to neglect much of the first chapters of the Institutes, and half of what scholars call the two-fold character of the knowledge of God. That is, the first half, in which is situated Calvin’s attitude to natural theology; the created order and human nature. And with this neglect was another, that of what Calvin thought Paul was doing in his preaching in Lystra and Athens. (Acts 14 and 17)
But now I realise that to skip the place of senses and reason and evidence is to neglect much of the first chapters of the Institutes, and half of what scholars call the two-fold character of the knowledge of God. That is, the first half, in which is situated Calvin’s attitude to natural theology; the created order and human nature. And with this neglect was another, that of what Calvin thought Paul was doing in his preaching in Lystra and Athens. (Acts 14 and 17)
Creation, and then redemption
What do these neglected or misinterpreted chapters of the Institutes say? They say that nature witnesses to God, that this witness is recognised really but not fully or immaculately by the reason, the senses and the conscience of the human race. Particularly the conscience, perhaps. Even the public atheist cannot silence the witness of his conscience. Further, that given these witnesses is planted in the human, the race is therefore culpable, accountable. Consider the titles of some of the chapters in Book I: ‘The Knowledge of God Naturally Implanted in the Human Mind’ (I.3); ‘The Knowledge of God Stifled or Corrupted, Ignorantly or Maliciously’ (I.4); ‘The Knowledge of God Conspicuous in the Creation, and Continual Government of the World’ (1.5). Only then, with these positions in place, does Calvin introduce special revelation, the Scripture.
What do these neglected or misinterpreted chapters of the Institutes say? They say that nature witnesses to God, that this witness is recognised really but not fully or immaculately by the reason, the senses and the conscience of the human race. Particularly the conscience, perhaps. Even the public atheist cannot silence the witness of his conscience. Further, that given these witnesses is planted in the human, the race is therefore culpable, accountable. Consider the titles of some of the chapters in Book I: ‘The Knowledge of God Naturally Implanted in the Human Mind’ (I.3); ‘The Knowledge of God Stifled or Corrupted, Ignorantly or Maliciously’ (I.4); ‘The Knowledge of God Conspicuous in the Creation, and Continual Government of the World’ (1.5). Only then, with these positions in place, does Calvin introduce special revelation, the Scripture.
I now see that for Calvin the order matters.
He does not start with Scripture, ‘presupposing’ as some would have it. Instead, he
starts with the human race, made in the image of God and then fallen, in God’s
creation. Grace, particular grace, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,
presupposes nature, human nature, the natural order.
Or take Calvin’s expression ‘common
proofs’ in Inst. I.6.I The
opening paragraph of this chapter is a transition from the treatment of nature
in previous chapters to Calvin’s presentation of Scripture. ‘Common proofs’ is
Calvin’s term for the regard of those factors which ‘mirror’ his Deity in nature. It is
suggestive of proofs of the existence of God of a broadly cosmological
character that people discussed then, as
they do now, testifying from the wonders of nature, including human nature. There is no reason
to think he means formal proofs such those offered by Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologiae, but to considerations that have some
persuasive force in the minds of people. Calvin says that such common proofs
God are of some use, but that they need supplementing (Calvin’s word) ‘by the
addition of his word’. Not antithesis between nature and the word of redeeming grace, or ‘dichotomy’,
but coherence. Remember what Calvin
understood Paul to be doing when preaching to Gentiles in Lystra and Athens.
Confessionalism
This has a knock on-effect upon the
nature of Reformed Confessionalism. There are those who are firm
confessionalists, prepared to dot the ‘i’s and cross the ’t’s of its wording,
yet have inhaled the vapours of the ‘presuppositionalism’ of Cornelius Van Til,
or even the ‘Nein’ of Karl Barth, to any theological appeals to nature. But it
can’t be done. At least it can’t be consistently done. Because the great
Reformed Confessions, such as the Westminster Confession, inhabit the same
climate of thought as Calvin’s. There is the witness of conscience, the
universal religiosity of the human race, the recognition of the elements of
natural law in society, and so on. The continued working of these factors in a
fallen word is the result of the goodness and grace of God. So this is rightly
said to be the result of common grace. But ‘common grace’ does not supplant the
supposed ‘dichotomy of nature and grace’ that the medieval world allegedly foundered
on. ‘Common grace’ is not the name of a new category. It is simply the
theological term for why, following the Fall, things are not as bad as they
could be. ‘Common grace’ is a two-word answer to that question, or as Calvin
puts it later on in the Institutes,
such common grace is due to the non-regenerating influence of the Holy Spirit.
As also in this passage from his Commentary on Genesis:
Let us then know, that the sons of Cain, though deprived of the Spirit of regeneration, were yet endued with gifts of no despicable kind; just as the experience of all ages teaches us how widely the rays of divine light have shone on unbelieving nations, for the benefit of the present life; and we see, at the present time, that the excellent gifts of the Spirit are diffused through the whole human race. Moreover liberal arts and sciences have descended to us from the heathen. We are, indeed, compelled to acknowledge that we have received astronomy, and the other parts of philosophy, medicine, and the order of civil government, from them. (Genesis 4.20)
If we ask, ‘Why are things not
as bad as they may be?’ the answer is a list of factors including the operation
of conscience, reason, the natural order, human talents, and so on. If we ask
what keeps such things from becoming inoperative, the answer is ‘common grace’. The Lord in his goodness sustains the world, provdiding daily evidence of his goodness. Or to think anthropologically for a moment, it is the fact that the imago dei in its wider sense has in the goodness
of God survived the fall.
With this in mind reflect a little on the Confession.
There are a number of references to natural law and its epistemic effects there, as well as significant statements regarding the
interaction between nature and grace. The opening words of the Confession Ch.1,
‘Of the Holy Scripture’, are ‘Although the light of nature….’, XIX.VI. II That is, this light provides to
all people rudimentary evidence that God exists, reflecting Romans 1.19-20. In Ch. XIX, II and III it is stated
that the law given to Adam, is a perfect law of righteousness, the moral law.
The natural law is the replication of the moral law. According to Ch. XXI, ‘Of
Religious Worship, and the Sabbath Day’ it is a deliverance of the law of nature ‘that, in general, a due proportion of
time set apart for the worship of God’. (VII). And so on. Where is the chapter on 'presuppositionalism'?
Nature and grace and the 'system of doctrine'
Furthermore, the historic Reformed
position on the relation between nature and grace, that grace builds on nature
and does not supplant it, is hardly in the league of crossing t’s and dotting
i’s. It is part and parcel of the ‘system of doctrine’ of that Confession (and
of course its sister or daughter confessions, the Savoy Declaration of 1658 and
the Baptist Confession of 1689). It is integral to the ‘system of doctrine’ that
these documents hold in common.
I do not think that it is possible
intelligently to adhere to the Confession without adhering to these sentiments
about natural law and so forth. They are not simply 17th century packaging that we can discard
and replace with ‘presuppositionalism’ which is as much twentieth-century
American invention as are transistors and Salk vaccine. It seems odd in the
extreme – don’t you think? – that there are places which take the same name as
the Westminster Confession but which require adherence to a way of thought that
subverts important parts of that document.
[By the way, For those interested in historical theology, and particularly the
theology of the Reformed Orthodox, the Junius Institute [http://www.juniusinstitute.org/] has a programme of
Colloquia. The latest to be streamed is a lecture by Richard Muller on William
Ames and divine ideas. Follow the recording at:
[For those interested in historical theology, and particularly the theology of the Reformed Orthodox, the Junius Institute [http://www.juniusinstitute.org/] has a programme of Colloquia. The latest to be streamed is a lecture by Richard Muller on William Ames and divine ideas. Follow the recording at:
