Category: Church History

Leave Resolutions Behind

On December 29, 2021

New Year’s resolutions are almost universally unpopular, and with good reason. They rely on willpower, which is as reliable as the microchip supply chain at this moment. Our wills are weak. Ironically enough, New Year’s resolutions are associated with the American Reformed theologian Jonathan Edwards, who came up with 70 strenuous, laborious resolutions. Edwards is not my favorite theologian for quite a number of reasons, but you can add this one near the top of the list.

So, for example, Edwards begins with this preface:

Being sensible that I am unable to do anything without God’s help, I do humbly entreat him by his grace to enable me to keep these Resolutions, so far as they are agreeable to his will, for Christ’s sake.
Remember to read over these Resolutions once a week.

Ok, right. Like I’m going to read my resolutions every week. I bet that would last until week three. But notice also that, for an ostensibly Reformed theologian, Edwards has a high estimation of what he can accomplish, albeit with God’s help. Despite the appeal to grace, Edwards ends up with as strenuous a view of the Christian life as any monk or ascetic. So his first resolution:

Resolved, that I will do whatsoever I think to be most to God’s glory, and my own good, profit and pleasure, in the whole of my duration, without any consideration of the time, whether now, or never so many myriads of ages hence. Resolved to do whatever I think to be my duty, and most for the good and advantage of mankind in general. Resolved to do this, whatever difficulties I meet with, how many and how great soever.

There’s nothing wrong with this resolution, and it’s admirable. But again, it is a resolution to be strenuous at all times. It’s a far cry from John Calvin’s description of the Christian life, which he often described as two steps forward and one step back. And some of Edwards’s resolutions are simply grim, austere, and rigorous. They portray a view of the Christian life as a burdensome chore. A few examples:

10. Resolved, when I feel pain, to think of the pains of martyrdom, and of hell.

Well, that’s lovely. Is this to deny the reality of one’s pain? To minimize the need for grief and lament? I have a suspicion that it is, at least among Edwards’s modern admirers.

15. Resolved, never to suffer the least motions of anger to irrational beings.

I grant that this is a good one. Quite a good one, in fact. Never get angry at animals or inanimate objects.

38. Resolved, never to speak anything that is ridiculous, or matter of laughter on the Lord’s Day.

No humor, no lightheartedness on the Lord’s Day. Purely a human tradition and a false form of works-righteousness in which God is not honored in the least, but in which the Lord’s Day is made miserable.

In any case, there are 70 of these resolutions. Many of them are excellent, most are fine, some, like the last one I cited, are dubious. But my point is, we usually cannot even keep one resolution, whether it be about diet, gym attendance, social media addiction, you name it. Instead, someone recommended to me that I think about what I should leave behind in 2021, things I do not want to bring with me into 2022. So here are some ideas that a person recommended to me today.

Leave behind excuses for not doing what you know you need to do.
Leave behind your failure to understand your own worth as a person created in the image of God and uniquely gifted.
Leave behind all guilt for taking care of yourself, for nurturing your soul, exercising your body, getting enough sleep.
Leave behind working to excess, and taking on too much, and over-committing.
Leave behind self-doubt. Sure, you’re not perfect, but neither do you have to be.
Leave behind postponing things to the last minute, which generates stress.
Leave behind the tendency to remain silent when you are unhappy or disagree.
Leave behind the all-or-nothing approach to your projects. Leave behind perfectionism, in other words.
Leave behind your habit of negative thinking. Pessimism. For me, this means that I say to myself, “I know that I will get beyond my grief and pain, and I will thrive again,” instead of what I actually said today: “I’ll try.” Do, or do not. There is no try.
Leave behind your excessive concern about what people think of you. That is, regarding external, trivial things. Your looks, your height, your weight, your job.
Leave behind what some call the “Sunday Scaries.” I did not make that up; I would try to think of something better. But in any case, this is when you spend your whole weekend worrying about the next week’s work.
Leave behind living in the past. The future is ahead of you; receive it with gratitude.
Leave behind your imposter syndrome. This one is hard.
Leave behind your inability to say “no.” And also, your inability to be told “no.”
Leave behind the pressure to look a certain way. I imagine this could take various forms, from your clothes, to your hair, your makeup, your weight, or to keep up some kind of façade.
Leave behind your guilt about the list of things you have not managed to accomplish. You are not a machine, and the sum total of your life is not the number of completed projects.
Leave behind pointless debates. Ouch. This applies particularly to social media. Yeah, this one also hits the mark. I love how some people never engage the trolls or the extremists, or when they do, it is in such a calm manner.

So, there are some things that you might be better off leaving behind in 2021. Next I hope to reflect on what to bring into 2022.

Calvin: Refugee and Pilgrim

By Raymond Blacketer

On February 12, 2021

In Books, Christian Life, Church History, Pilgrimage

Calvin’s Self-Identity as Pilgrim

John Calvin, born Jean Cauvin, was a Frenchman who spent most of his life outside of France. He was forced to flee his native country because of his involvement with the rebellion against the Roman Catholic church, the Reformation. Scholars have commented on how Calvin’s experience as an exile, as a refugee, shaped him as a theologian and pastor. And as an exile and refugee, Calvin embraced the age-old Christian image of the Christian life as a pilgrimage.

Bruce Gordon, in his excellent biography of Calvin, writes about how this experience of exile was formative for Calvin.

From his earliest Christian writings the young Frenchman described the Christian life with metaphors of journeying and pilgrimage. The imagery was as old as the ancient books of the Hebrew Bible, but Calvin’s brilliance lay in his ability to infuse old traditions with new life. Conversion, he believed, was the beginning point of a journey, not its conclusion. Whether speaking in terms of mental anguish or of sudden conversion he sought to explain how God had acted to change his life and put him on a new course, to send him out in a different direction.

BRUCE GORDON, CALVIN, 34

This experience of exile from France, his homeland, and from the Roman Catholic form of the faith, the faith of his childhood—both of which must have been traumatic—comes out in his first theological writing, Psychopannychia. The title, loosely translated, means “soul sleep,” and refers to the doctrine that the soul dies with the body and is resurrected at death. It was taught by the Avignon Pope John XXII and later condemned as a heresy. In Calvin’s day, the doctrine was revived by some Anabaptists, but also, more importantly, by Michael Servetus, who also denied the doctrine of the Trinity. Calvin wrote this treatise in 1534, but did not publish it right away, instead publishing his summary of the Protestant faith, The Institutes of the Christian Religion. For Calvin, the pilgrimage that is the Christian life ends with the vision of God, even before the resurrection of the body at the last day. This is not a novel or unusual doctrine; it was also the teaching of the church catholic, with only occasional exceptions, such as in the case of Pope John XXII. To deny that, Calvin believed, was to deny the clear teaching of Scripture and to deny the true Christian hope.

Again, Gordon writes about Calvin’s Psychopannychia:

In this meditation on the Bible Calvin set out a theme that he would continue to develop throughout his life—the Christian life as a pilgrimage through the world towards eternity.

BRUCE GORDON, CALVIN, 44

Calvin looked to the passage in Hebrews 11:8-12 where Abraham receives the promises of God and, exiled from his homeland of Ur, lives as a pilgrim and wayfarer, never seeing the fulfillment of the promises the Lord made to him. Calvin writes in Psychopannychia:

The Apostle speaks of Abraham and his descendants who inhabited a foreign land among strangers, not only as exiles, certainly as aliens, barely keeping a roof over their bodies in lowly shanties. This was in obedience to God’s command that he gave to Abraham, that he should leave his land and his relations. God had promised them what he had not yet shown them. Therefore, they welcomed the promises from a distance and died in the confident faith that one day God would make good on his promises. In keeping with that faith, they confessed that they had no permanent residence on the earth and that there was a homeland for them beyond the earth that they longed for, namely, in heaven.

CALVIN, PSYCHOPANNYCHIA, CO 5:218 (MY TRANSLATION)

Looking ahead to being in the presence of his Savior after this life, Calvin compares it to the Israelites entering the promised land, and the holy city of Jerusalem. In this, Calvin reflects the tradition of Christian spirituality that sees Jerusalem as the symbol of unhindered fellowship with God, as depicted in Revelation 21:10.

Thus, the souls of the saints, which have escaped the hands of the enemy, are at peace after death. They exist in sumptuousness, of which it is said, “They will go from abundance to abundance.” But when the Heavenly Jerusalem has risen up in her glory, and Christ, the true Solomon, the Prince of Peace, sits in his exalted judgment seat, the true Israelites will reign with their king.

CALVIN, PSYCHOPANNYCHIA, CO 5:214 (MY TRANSLATION)

But it’s very important to note that the traditional, Christian view of pilgrimage is not a journey of self-discovery. Nor is it a search for an unknown God. Nor is it a solitary, self-focused enterprise; there are companions on the journey. Fleming Rutledge brought up this potential objection with me when I was posting about the topic of spiritual pilgrimage in connection with Lisa Deam’s beautiful new book, 3000 Miles to Jesus. The warning is well-taken, given the individualistic focus of modern Western spirituality and its tendency to create one’s own reality and to focus on our own achievements rather than on what God has done for us. 3000 Miles to Jesus describes a very different activity, one centered on Christ and what he has already done for us. She addresses this head-on:

Focusing on our destination sounds distinctly countercultural today. Often, when it comes to pilgrimage, we hear sayings like “It’s the journey that matters” or “The search is the meaning.” Yet this viewpoint would have been unimaginable for medieval pilgrims. Sometimes we forget that, historically, a pilgrimage almost always had an endpoint. The pilgrim arrived! The goal was attained! The journey was completed! Yes, the act of travel might itself have been transformational, but it led pilgrims to a single destination the way a well-shot arrow hits its mark.

LISA DEAM, 3000 MILES TO JESUS, 35

Rutledge pointed out that what is most important is Jesus’ journey to us. Indeed it is, and Lisa Deam writes about just that fact, that Jesus came to us to draw us to himself:

But how will the pilgrim get there? How will she survive the turbulent waters? How will any of us? “So that we might also have the means to go,” writes Augustine, “the one we were longing to go to came here from there. And what did he make? A wooden raft for us to cross the sea on.” A raft might seem a bit rickety for the raging sea, but Augustine explains: “For no one can cross the sea of this world unless carried over it on the cross of Christ.”

LISA DEAM, 3000 MILES TO JESUS, 110-111

In his day, Calvin repudiated the practice of pilgrimages as a means to earn merit by one’s own exertions. But the biblical theme of the Christian life or the life of the church as a pilgrimage is dear to him, just as it was to many throughout the history of Christian thought. Not a pilgrimage of self-discovery. Not a pilgrimage to accrue merits. Not a pilgrimage to make oneself worthy. It is the journey through this world, this life, to our true home, and to our Lord, who made the pilgrimage from heaven to earth to be our Savior. As such, the Christian life is not a pilgrimage of works, but a pilgrimage of grace. Not a journey of self-justification, but of the Spirit’s sanctification.

Along the way, we have practices to help us on this lifelong trek. Lisa Deam writes of the practice of prayer, for example:

“For prayer is its own pilgrimage and a mountainous way. It transforms us into travelers who walk a steep and winding path. When we pause to pray or meditate, we leave behind our surroundings in the outer world, with its unceasing clamor, and journey to what Saint Bonaventure called the interior Jerusalem—that place deep within where Jesus awaits. In its own way, the inner road to Jerusalem is as demanding as the physical quest of the Alps.”

LISA DEAM, 3000 MILES TO JESUS, 80

Pilgrimage in Calvin’s Institutes

As I work on a new translation of Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion, the image of pilgrimage and its related themes show up frequently. So, for example, Calvin interprets the Old Testament promises to Abraham as ultimately pointing to the New Jerusalem:

We see that all these things [the promises to the patriarchs] do not properly apply to the land of our pilgrimage, or to the earthly Jerusalem, but to the true homeland of the faithful and that heavenly city in which the Lord has decreed blessing and life forever.

CALVIN, INSTITUTES, 2.11.2

The Holy Spirit sustains us in our journey, one in which we might feel like “the walking dead,” spiritual zombies, so to speak:

For the same reason [the Spirit] is called “the pledge and seal” of our inheritance (2 Cor. 1:22) because, as we are making pilgrimage in the world and are like dead people, from heaven he makes us alive in such a way that we are certain that our salvation is secure in God’s dependable protection.

CALVIN, INSTITUTES, 3.1.3

We can get distracted from our destination, tempted to take a permanent detour to enjoy pleasures and diversions along the way. But Calvin urges us to meditate on that future life, to stay focused on the goal:

On the contrary, Christ teaches us to continue as pilgrims in the world so that we will not lose or be deprived of our heavenly inheritance.

CALVIN, INSTITUTES, 3.7.3

We can use and enjoy God’s early gifts, but we are also called to recognize that we do not live for these things; they are provisions for the journey:

Through his Word, the Lord prescribes this measure [for the use of earthly goods] when he teaches that the present life is like a pilgrimage for his people in which they are making their way toward the heavenly kingdom.

CALVIN, INSTITUTES, 3.10.1

Contrary to the late medieval idea of striving to become deserving and anxiously trying to accrue merit with God, Calvin describes the Christian life as a pilgrimage of sanctification. It arises out of gratitude for the justification we have received in Christ.

In the same way, if we have died with Christ (as suits his members) we must seek the things that are above and be pilgrims in the world, that we may aspire to heaven where our treasure is.

CALVIN, INSTITUTES, 3.16.2

The journey is not one of drudgery, Calvin says, but one in which we experience joy because of our salvation in Christ:

The sole and perfect happiness is known to us—even in this earthly pilgrimage. But this happiness sets our hearts afire more and more each day to desire it until it satisfies us with its full fruition.

CALVIN, INSTITUTES, 3.25.2

Finally, Calvin rejects asceticism, and he thinks it an act of ingratitude to reject what he sees as the Lord’s gifts, his supplies, provisions, and aids for the journey. He numbers the civil government among these gifts, and so he denies the teaching of the Anabaptists that the civil government is irredeemable and to be repudiated by Christians:

But if it is the will of God that we make pilgrimage upon the earth while we aspire to our true country, and if that same pilgrimage requires the use of such aids [as the civil government], then those who take this away from people deprive them of their own humanity.

CALVIN, INSTITUTES, 4.20.2

Sin has made us exiles from our true home. We are refugees from the Garden. But Christ, who made pilgrimage from heaven to earth for us (Phil. 2:5-11), guides us by his Word and Spirit, in the company of our fellow travelers, toward the New Jerusalem.

The Mystery of the Golden Mouth, or, The Case of the Dubious Reference

By Raymond Blacketer

On September 21, 2018

In Church History, Institutes of the Christian Religion, John Calvin, Theology, Translating

Sherlock Holmes making deductions in his mind palace about John Chrystostom

Historical research is punctuated by mysteries great and small. I solved a micro-mystery today. It was The Case of the Dubious Reference, or The Mystery of the Golden Mouth. “Golden Mouth” (Chrysostomos, Greek: ὁ Χρυσόστομος) was a title given to the preacher and Bishop by the name of John (St. John Chrysostom, c. 349-407) who preached in Antioch and was consecrated Archbishop of Constantinople. He was called “the golden mouth” because of his gift for preaching. Centuries earlier, a Greek philosopher and orator had also been honored with that title, Dio Chrysostom.

John Calvin often cites John Chrysostom, both positively and negatively. When it came to biblical interpretation, Chrysostom was one of his favorites, because his exegesis tended to be more literal than some other church fathers who preferred to find allegories all through the biblical text. But Calvin was rather unhappy with Chrysostom’s theology of grace and human free will. Chrysostom frequently emphasizes human efforts and virtue in salvation and asserts that grace has to be merited, and that salvation is a cooperative effort between God and sinners. This was not uncommon in the early church, before the controversy between Augustine and Pelagius. By contrast, Calvin was quite critical of Augustine’s exegesis, because he was quite prone to this kind of spiritual interpretation, which Calvin found fanciful and speculative, particularly because medieval Roman Catholic theology used this kind of spiritual exegesis to justify doctrines that the Reformers rejected. But Augustine was Calvin’s favorite when it came to the doctrines of grace, the bondage of the will to sin, and a divine predestination not based on foreseen merit.

Now for the mystery. Calvin cites Chrysostom several times in his Institutes of the Christian Religion, 2.2.4, when he is talking about the capacities of the human will after humanity’s fall into sin. These references originated in the second Latin revision of the Institutes from 1539. This is a topic on which he thinks Chrysostom is quite wrong, and it’s not just because he doesn’t understand Chrysostom’s homiletical context.[note] Pace an otherwise interesting article by György Papp, “Aspects of Calvin’s use of Chrysostom-Quotations Concerning the Free Will,” in Herman J. Selderhuis and Arnold Huijgen, eds., Calvinus Pastor Ecclesiae: Papers of the Eleventh International Congress on Calvin Research (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2016), 423-433). Papp underestimates Chrysostom’s emphasis on human striving, effort, and virtue, and he does not take into account the fact that rejecting late medieval semi-Pelagianism was a central doctrinal concern of the Reformation. [/note] Calvin cites three statements from Chrysostom’s Homiliae in Genesim (Homilies in Genesis) and gives references for the first and third of these citations.[note]Opera Selecta 3: 245, McNeill-Battles ed., 1: 259.[/note] Footnoting was random and capricious in those wicked and dark days of the sixteenth century. The editors of the Opera Selecta (Karl Barth’s brother Peter and two other Barthian scholars, Wilhelm Niesel and Dora Scheuner) identify the second reference as In Gen. hom. 25.7. This is wrong.

The first clue that this is a mistake is that Calvin introduces the next citation with the words “Dixerat autem prius,” “He had previously said”–Autem here is basically a comma; ignore it–and then Calvin cites a passage from In Gen. hom. 53.2. So one would expect that the previous citation would occur after that sentence in homily 53.2. I don’t blame the editors; it can be exceptionally hard to figure out Calvin’s references, and he is prone to mistakes in citations, particularly biblical citations. But still, I am surprised that they did not look for something that occurs after the third citation.

One of the difficulties is that there are a number of Latin translations of Chrysostom that are and were available. Calvin’s Latin does not appear verbatim in the Latin translation that was included in the 19th-century edition thrown together by J-P Migne, the Patrologia Graeca. But Calvin can also paraphrase a passage or alter it to fit the grammar and syntax of his writing. Calvin’s citation or paraphrase reads: Item, Sicut nisi gratia Dei adiuti, nihil unquam possumus recte agere: ita nisi quod nostrum est attulerimus, non poterimus supernum acquirere favorem. (“Further, he says that, just as we cannot ever do anything correctly apart from the grace of God, in the same way, unless we bring what is our own, we will not be able to obtain favor from above.”) You will not find those exact words in the Patrologia Graeca.

Nevertheless, I persisted.

Because you have to be somewhat obsessive in this field. Just enough to enable you to make discoveries, but just short of needing to be institutionalized.

I searched Chrysostom’s homilies on Genesis for something that sounded similar, and which occurred after homily 53, section 2. Fortunately, I found something rather similar at the very end of homily 58, except that it refers to obtaining God’s help rather than his favor.[note]Sicut enim nisi illo subsidio fruamur, nihil umquam possumus recte agere: ita nisi quod nostrum est attulerimus, non poterimus auxilium obtinere. [/note] This could be a simple matter of a different translation, however.

Greek text in de Montfaucon’s edition

I checked the passage in the 19th-century edition of Calvin’s works that the Opera Selecta editors used, edited by Bernard de Montfaucon (1655-1741) who invented the science of paleography. in the process I learned that the Latin translation in de Montfaucon’s edition is the one “borrowed” by the prolific plagiarist Jacques-Paul Migne’s Patrologia Graeca.[note]See Sancti patris nostri Joannis Chrysostomi opera omnia quae exstant, ed. Bernard de Montfaucon, 13 vols. (Paris: Gaume Fratres, 1834-1838), 4: 658-659; Migne, Patrologia Graeca 54: 513. [/note]

But there was more. During my investigations, I ran across some fascinating recent work by Drs. Jeannette Kreijkes on Calvin’s use of Chrysostom. She is writing a dissertation on this topic at the University of Groningen. She has refuted the common assumption that Calvin only used one edition of Chrysostom’s works, the Latin translation published in Paris in 1536 by Claude Chevallon, which does not include Chrysostom’s Greek.[note]Jeannette Kreijkes, “Calvin’s Use of the Chevallon Edition of Chrysostom’s Opera Omnia: The Relationship between the Marked Sections and Calvin’s Writings,” Church History and Religious Culture 96.3 (2016): 237–265. She refutes some of the main arguments in Alexandre Ganoczy and Klaus Müller, Calvins handschriftliche Annotationen zu Chrysostomus: Ein Beitrag zur Hermeneutik Calvins (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1981), and in W. Ian P. Hazlett, “Calvin’s Latin Preface to his Proposed French Edition of Chrysostom’s Homilies: Translation and Commentary,” in. James Kirk, ed., Humanism and Reform: The Church in Europe, England, and Scotland, 1400-1643 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991), 129-150.[/note] I had a very good conversation with her as well, and I learned from her something about the various editions that were available during Calvin’s day. She also has access to the 1536 Chevallon edition, which is nowhere online and quite hard to find. How does Chevallon’s translation of the passage read?

Eureka!

Chevallon’s edition is much closer to Calvin’s citation, and in fact, the latter part is identical.[note]“Sicut autem nisi illam habeamus, nihil unquam possumus recte agere possumus, nisi superna gratia adiuti. Sicut autem nisi illam habeamus, nihil unquam possumus recte agere: ita nisi quod nostrum attulerimus, non poterimus supernum acquirere favorem.” Divi Ioannis Chrysostomi Archiepiscopi Constantinopolitani Opera, 5 vols. (Paris: Claude Chevallon, 1536), 1: fol. 118 v^o. [/note] Does this prove that Calvin was using the Chevallon edition? Not at all.

Johannes Oecolampadius and his rather square beard.

Some scholars tend to assume that Calvin used the Chevallon edition throughout his career. When I first found that the Chevallon edition corresponded to Calvin’s citation, that was my first thought as well. But the Chevallon edition is identical in this passage to the translations found in editions prepared by Oecolampadius [note]Divi Ioannis Chrysostomi… in totum Geneseos librum Homiliae, trans. Johannes Oecolampadius (Basel: A. Cratander, 1523), fol. 169 v^o .[/note] in 1523 and Erasmus[note] D. Ioannis Chrysostomi archiepiscopi Constantinopolitani opera quae hactenus versa sunt omnia, etc. ed. Desiderius Erasmus, 5 vols. (Basel: Froben, 1530), 5: 307. [/note] in 1530.

But I think it was Oecolampadius. Why? Because immediately afterward, Calvin cites Chrystostom’s Genesis homilies again, this time In Gen. hom. 53.2. [note]Patrologia Graeca 54: 466).[/note] Except that Calvin’s marginal reference does not indicate homily 53, but homily 52. And the homily that the other editions number as 53, Oecolampadius numbers as 52, because, for some reason, he omits the first homily that the others include and enumerate as homily 1. But that’s a mystery for another day. It is possible that there was another edition that numbered the homilies the same way that I have not found, or that Calvin simply made an error, but my detective instincts do not lean that way. For now, I think Oecolampadius is the prime suspect, and at the very least he should be handcuffed, read his rights, and hauled down to the station for further questioning.

Solving these little micro-mysteries is very satisfying; who doesn’t enjoy a good mystery? (My favorite mystery writer is Lyndsay Faye, whose mysteries are set in the 19th century). And along the way, I met a fellow historical detective, Jeannette Kreijkes, who is a formidable Calvin scholar, to whom I owe much of what I found and learned on this case.

Comments on An Introduction to Christian Theology, chapter 7

By Raymond Blacketer

On March 2, 2017

In Church History, Reformed Theology, Theological Education, Theology

For my HT502 class, Fuller Theological Seminary. Click below for the document.

Comments on ICT Chapter 7

This textbook has a very nice cover, which just proves the old adage: Don’t judge a book by its cover. This tome is seriously flawed and outdated. It evidences a lack of understanding of, and sympathy with, the premodern Christian intellectual tradition. It perpetuates a number of myths, including the Hellenization thesis, and the myth that biblical anthropology is monistic. And it is plagued by dubious doctrinal choices. The central problem is that the book is primarily an apologia for Moltmannian theology, including a social trinitarianism (and a subtle undercurrent of panentheism) that functions as a controlling theme throughout the text. A pretty book, but not a good one, in my judgment, particularly when it comes to historical theology. And modern theology. And it certainly is not confessionally Reformed, despite the fact that the authors are all professors at Calvin College, and have signed the Covenant for Officebearers. Did I mention that it has a nice cover?

ict-cover

Getting Calvin Wrong

By Raymond Blacketer

On July 1, 2016

In Church History, Institutes of the Christian Religion, John Calvin, Reformed Theology, Theology

In an academic book written by leading scholars, one does not expect to find egregious errors. But one finds them nonetheless. I was privileged to attend the 2009 international Calvin conference in Geneva, commemorating the 500th birthday of the Genevan Reformer John Calvin. (Calvin himself was a no-show. Same thing happened when I visited John Knox’s house in Edinburgh in 1989. He wasn’t home).

Anyway, Irena Backus and Philip Benedict edited a collection of the keynote addresses that came out of that conference. Calvin and his Influence, 1509-2009 (Oxford University Press, 2011. Pp. 336+xiii). You can get it for $115 on Amazon.com in hardcover. You might opt for the paperback after you read this. Or for looking at the decent essays in the library. And there are many. Even the introduction is fantastic, except where it is deplorable.

You can read my complete review here. As I was trying to describe Calvin’s doctrine of predestination in 1000 words for Christian History magazine (an impossible task, by the way), I was recently reminded of the following unbelievable comment, made by the editors in the introduction to this volume. It still astounds me:

“While [Calvin] stresses election to salvation but not to damnation in his controversy with Bolsec, he prefers in his Institutes of 1559 to emphasize God’s prescience: God elects to salvation those whom he foresees will be true believers, which implies that he also foresees the others as unbelievers and condemns them. … In the Institutes (3,19-25; 4,18-20), he asserts that God foresees who will believe and elects or condemns as a function of this” (p. 13).

If you have a theological education, you can pause here and catch your breath.

Calvin, first of all, does not teach “election to damnation,” because election by definition refers to God’s choice to save. “Election to damnation” is therefore nonsense, and indicates a lack of familiarity with basic Reformed theology. What the authors have in mind, of course, is reprobation, which is the opposite of election. But they clearly do not understand either election or reprobation, as will be seen below. Moreover, the editors of this volume, who are indeed leading Reformation scholars, project onto Calvin the view of Jacob Arminius and his followers, the Remonstrants, who based election on God’s foreknowledge of a person’s faith. This view does not exist until the early 17th century. Calvin, however, opposed the idea, common in one trajectory of late medieval thought, that God elects those in whom he foresees merit, albeit grace-assisted merit, congruent merits, to be precise. Third, these scholars assume that reprobation is the same thing as condemnation, which demonstrates again that they do not know the first thing about Reformed theology. Their goal is to present a more accurate picture of Calvin and to dispel caricatures, but in fact they are part of the problem.

There is a footnote to the authors’ statement that reads: “OS I: 88-90.” OS refers to the Opera Selecta, a five-volume collection of Calvin’s works considered most important by its editor, Peter Barth (Karl Barth’s younger brother). But this reference does not point to the 1559 Institutes of the Christian Religion; it points to the 1536 first edition of the Institutes and its very brief and rudimentary treatment of predestination, in which Calvin makes no mention of foreknowledge. Calvin’s mature comments on predestination in the 1559 Institutes actually appear in OS IV: 368-432. Setting aside this serious error, it’s safe to say that Calvin never says what these leading Reformation scholars say he does, because he clearly, frequently, and consistently teaches the opposite. So, for example, in his 1559 Institutes, 3.21.5, Calvin writes:

“The predestination by which God adopts some to the hope of life, and adjudges others to eternal death, no man who would be thought pious ventures simply to deny; but it is greatly caviled at, especially by those who make prescience its cause. We, indeed, ascribe both prescience and predestination to God; but we say, that it is absurd to make the latter subordinate to the former.” (Citations from the Beveridge trans.)

Or a bit later, in 3.22.1:

“If election precedes that divine grace by which we are made fit to obtain immortal life, what can God find in us to induce him to elect us?”

And further in 3.22.2:

“If you say that he foresaw they would be holy, and therefore elected them, you invert the order of Paul. … In the additional statement that they were elected that they might be holy, the apostle openly refutes the error of those who deduce election from prescience, since he declares that whatever virtue appears in men is the result of election. Then, if a higher cause is asked, Paul answers that God so predestined, and predestined according to the good pleasure of his will. By these words, he overturns all the grounds of election which men imagine to exist in themselves.”

And further yet in 3.22.3:

“We have already shown that the additional words, ‘that we might be holy,’ remove every doubt. If you say that he foresaw they would be holy, and therefore elected them, you invert the order of Paul. You may, therefore, safely infer, If he elected us that we might be holy, he did not elect us because he foresaw that we would be holy. …

And how can it be consistently said, that things derived from election are the cause of election? … Assuredly divine grace would not deserve all the praise of election, were not election gratuitous; and it would not be gratuitous did God in electing any individual pay regard to his future works.”

And yet again in 3.22.4:

“The question considered is the origin and cause of election. The advocates of foreknowledge insist that it is to be found in the virtues and vices of men. For they take the short and easy method of asserting, that God showed in the person of Jacob, that he elects those who are worthy of his grace; and in the person of Esau, that he rejects those whom he foresees to be unworthy.”

Théodore de Bèze

To add clichéd insult to this injury, the introduction goes on to claim that Theodore Beza’s Tabula Praedestinationis (or, more properly, his Summa Totius Christianismi, 1555) “presented election and reprobation in diagram form as exactly symmetrical in God’s mind, both constituting a part of his eternal decree.”

Nope.

Yes, election and reprobation are both part of the eternal decree, but they are not “exactly symmetrical.” The opponents of Calvin and Beza would make that charge, but without grounds. Does this look exactly symmetrical to you?

I didn’t think so.

The important non-symmetry between election and reprobation is this: Election is God’s decision to bestow a completely undeserved and unmerited salvation to certain individuals. Reprobation, however, is the divine decision to give sinners exactly what they deserve and merit. Moreover, even if you can’t read Latin, you can see that the lines are not exactly symmetrical. In the matter of calling, for example, God’s call to repent and believe is effective in the elect, but in the reprobate there are two possibilities: some never hear the summons to believe the good news, while others hear but experience a voluntary hardening (induratio spontanea) of their hearts. People are saved because of election and the salvation that ensues because of election, but sinners are not condemned because of they are reprobate. They are condemned because they freely sin and rebel against God. The later Canons of Dordt make this even more clear and explicit than Beza, but the distinction was definitely there in less refined form. (The Canons reject the false charge that the Reformed churches teach “that in the same manner in which election is the source and cause of faith and good works, reprobation is the cause of unbelief and ungodliness.” Conclusion: Rejection of False Accusations).

Which just goes to show that academics don’t know everything. Even the best of them. And sometimes they don’t even know the basics of theology. And anyone who presumes to study a theologian (like Calvin) should know the basics of theology.

Debating the Descensus

By Raymond Blacketer

On October 2, 2015

In Biblical Interpretation, Church History, Creeds and Confessions, Reformed Theology, Theology

On October 2, 2015, I had a discussion with Western Seminary students, hosted by Prof. Todd Billings, about the phrase in the Apostles’ Creed, traditionally called the descensus. It is the phrase: “He descended into hell.” At the end of the 1990s,

The Harrowing of Hell. Medieval illustration, including Hellmouth. Not the same Hellmouth as featured in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

someone in the Reformed Church of Australia (now the Christian Reformed Churches of Australia) lodged a gravamen (a complaint against a confessional statement) regarding this phrase. The Australian church body considered numerous changes, but wisely submitted the matter to other Reformed churches for review and input. The CRCNA formed a study committee, which gave its final report at the 2000 Synod. The report, which was largely authored by my PhD mentor Richard A. Muller, is an excellent example of solid historical, theological, exegetical, and ecclesiastical analysis. You can read the report here: Descensus report Agenda 2000.

The arguments for deleting or altering the phrase are astounding. They presume that “hell” only means the place or state of eternal punishment. In modern usage, that meaning is dominant. However, its usage in the creed can mean either the place or state of punishment (gehenna) or, more commonly, the rather more neutral realm of the dead (hades, or in Hebrew thought, sheol).

Others state rather confidently that when Christ utters “It is finished,” the work of redemption is complete and therefore there is no more to do. This is clearly false. The work of redemption is absolutely not finished (at least) until the resurrection of Jesus. His resurrection is his victory over death. Moreover, the intercession of Christ still continues, as the book of Hebrews makes clear, and the final judgment, where those in Christ will be declared not guilty, is still to come. And redemption applied is the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit. So one must be rather cautious about what “It is finished” means. Clearly it has to be limited to Christ’s suffering on the cross.

The original complaint to the Reformed Churches in Australia was apparently operating on the assumption that Jesus physically went to hell. That would be a new doctrine never heard of in the church, since the church has always confessed that Jesus’ physical body remained in the tomb.

Some who are considered evangelical leaders reject the descent into hell phrase in the creed, apparently unaware that by doing so they separate themselves from orthodox, universal Christian faith. John Piper, who considers himself Reformed, rejects the doctrine without much analysis. This is ironic, since no Reformed church would recognize as Reformed anyone who rejects an article of an ecumenical creed. He also refers to himself as a “Calvinist,” but Calvin would not recognize as a kindred spirit anyone who rejected this or any other article of the creed (let alone anyone who rejected infant baptism, as Piper does). Piper seems unconcerned that he separated himself from the universal church when he omits that article of the ecumenical creed; creeds are not a smorgasbord where one takes what one likes and leaves the rest. Wayne Grudem (whose theological positions are similar to Piper’s) also rejects the doctrine, also on mistaken grounds. Both put themselves perilously near the fringe of orthodox Christian faith by doing so. Neither seem to understand this. I suspect this has something to do with an overly rigid sense of sola scriptura, and a lack of understanding of how the Reformers honored universal Christian tradition as embodied in the creeds, as well as how they found more than adequate biblical grounds for the descensus. They also seem to care little about the effect such a selective recitation of the creed would have upon ecumenical relations.

Reading the 2000 report will save anyone who wants to study this issue from a multitude of theological sins.

The Seed of Religion, The Christian Religion, and Religion as a Ruse

By Raymond Blacketer

On July 21, 2009

In Church History, Institutes of the Christian Religion, John Calvin, Religion

I’m reading Calvin’s Institutes, a new translation of the 1541 French edition, for a book review for Calvin Theological Journal. It’s a good opportunity to re-read the Institutes in a different form than the one I read in college a few decades ago. I just came across Calvin’s discussion, in the early pages of the first chapter, of the “seed of religion,” that sense of the divine that is in all people, no matter what their culture or civilization may be. All people are religious, Calvin says. And it’s a good reminder that “religion” is not a bad word, contrary to what we hear from many Christian writers, as well as many non-Christian writers. Religion really means: a person’s sense or perspective on the big picture. Religion has to do with what’s ultimately important in life, and in your life. Religion has to do with what drives you in life, what life is about, what life is for, what life means. For many, religion is about having a good life, avoiding pain, and trying to be as prosperous as possible, and trying not to hurt anyone in the process. For some, religion is about pretending you’re not religious, and claiming, instead, to be “spiritual.” For others, their religion is a profound faith in science and technology, together with the hope that humanity will evolve and progress and just get better and better. (It’s a good idea for those whose religion is scientific progress to avoid the reading of history, otherwise they might have a crisis of faith). I heard recently of a new science cult which adamantly denies that it is a religious movement, even as its followers zealously promote its utopian view of the future where humans and machines will merge. Sounds like evangelism to me. Sounds like a vision of heaven…or hell.

The Christian Religion, as Calvin rightly and boldly calls our faith, finds the meaning of human life in the story of God the Creator, who is also God the Savior in Jesus Christ, and God the Healer and Restorer, the Holy Spirit. This is the story of God who draws his broken and rebellious people, his runaway sons and daughters, back into relationship with him. “Religion” should never be contrasted with “relationship,” as popular Christian authors constantly do, pretending that they’ve actually solved some kind of problem, or said something profound. The catchphrase “personal relationship with Jesus” is too vague, too individualistic, to small to sustain the weight of what God is really doing in the world. He is transforming the whole creation in Christ. He is reconciling the world to himself. Of course he does this by transforming individual hearts and souls and lives, but he always does this in community. Richard Mouw of Fuller Seminary recently wrote an article for Christianity Today about the proper balance between the individual and the community in Christian consciousness. While liberal churches ignore individual conversion and transformation, Evangelical churches focus far too exclusively on the individual. He writes, “We evangelicals never downplay the importance of individuals—as individuals—coming to a saving faith in Jesus Christ. We never say that an individual’s very personal relationship to God is not important. What we do say is that individual salvation is not enough.”

Then Calvin says something that suprised me. I’m sure I read it many years ago, but I had forgotten. Calvin speaks of the universal sense of divinity, the awareness that there is a God in all people. Then he writes, “That is why it is false to say (as some do) that religion was long ago contrived by the art and clever ruse of a few people, in order to control the naive populace in decency even though the ones who were urging others to honor God had no idea of the divine. I certainly admit that some delicate and deceitful people among the pagans have forged many things in religion to make naive people afraid and cause them scruples, so that they would be more obedient and easier to order around; but they would not have succeeded in this if people’s spirits had not first been fixed on the firm persuasion that there is a God. From that source came the whole inclination to believe what was said about religion.” (Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1541 French Edition, tr. Elsie McKee, p. 26). Calvin wrote this 300 years before Karl Marx claimed that religion was just a tool used by the powerful to control the weak. Calvin, by contrast, says that while religion might be misused in this way, such abuse of religion does not explain the universal prevalence of religion. Marxism itself was a secularized religion, complete with its own world-view, values, and vision of a utopian socialist future. Its interesting that 500 years after Calvin’s birth, the same issues are being debated. Today we have Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins touting a new atheism, and a return to “reason,” without the slightest clue that their “new” atheism is really quite old, and–even more embarrasing–it is itself a religion, a view of how things should be, an argument about the meaning of life (or lack thereof). Not only that, but their arguments against belief in God can’t even hold enough water to spawn a newly-evolved life form. Disbelief takes just as much faith as belief; the atheist is just as religious as the believer.

Calvin and His Influence, Geneva

By Raymond Blacketer

On May 28, 2009

In Church History, Geneva, John Calvin, Reformed Theology

The international Calvin Conference in this anniversary year is the probably the biggest academic event I will attend in my lifetime.

I had the opportunity to meet Calvin scholars from France and Swtizerland whom I had known only by their academic writings. Like Olivier Millet, who specializes in Calvin’s rhetoric (how he uses language), Irena Backus from the University of Geneva, and Marilynne Robinson, author of Gilead and Calvin afficionado. Meeting Marilynne was a distinct pleasure. She gave a talk on Calvinism’s influence on New England literary scions, and she also hear my paper and made insightful comments.

And I saw old friends and colleagues again, persons who I see once in a few years, or in a decade. And there were books to buy. I restrained myself. Mostly.

Being in Geneva was a great experience, walking the streets where Calvin walked, though it seems he rarely left his room. We heard a talk entitled “Calvin the Workaholic” that described his grueling, even self-destructive daily routine, which included only one meal a day, working in bed before rising, etc. It was particularly interesting to see the cathedral St. Pierre, the largest church in Geneva, where Calvin frequently preached. There was his pulpit, from which he proclaimed the Word of God in a way that had not been done for centuries in the Christian churches, and with a perspective that had never been heard before in any church, since Calvin was at the vanguard of a new movement of reforming the church, bringing it back to the teachings of Scripture as mediated through the best of the early church fathers, as Calvin assessed them, and especially St. Augustine. Beside the pulpit stood his chair, in which he would have rested his frail and sickly body before the hour-long sermon. Nearby was the Museum of the Reformation, with all kinds of interesting artifacts from the life of Calvin and the Reformation, including books by the Reformers, portraits, Calvin’s cup, letters written in Calvin’s own handwriting, a doodling sketch of Calvin by a student—probably the only portrait of the reformer that was made “live,” that is, with Calvin actually present to the “artist.” There were interactive stations that attempted to convey a day in the life of Calvin: working before rising, going to consistory and rebuking a woman for dancing, burning Servetus—normal routine pastor stuff. Of course, Calvin didn’t personally burn Servetus, but he bore a lot of responsibility for the heretic’s execution, and suffered a great deal of personal anxiety and lasting damage to his reputation as a result. My friend Joy Kleinstuber, who specialized in that topic, gave a paper describing Calvin’s involvement in this notorious event. Comparing the trial records of Servetus with Calvin’s published defense of his actions in the Servetus case, she concludes that Calvin was not honest in his presentation of the facts. It’s disappointing to hear that, especially given the topic of my paper, on Calvin’s insistence that one must always tell the truth.

My hotel was near the Madeleine Church, where Calvin also preached at times, between streets named Hell and Purgatory! There are all kinds of special exhibits and events right now in Geneva to commemorate Calvin’s work there and the Reformation, but little real understanding or embracing of what he was really about. There seems to be a feeling that Calvin was somehow all about freedom or something vague like that. There is a Calvinus beer that is served around the city, though it is sweet and Belgian-like, which doesn’t really reflect its namesake. A beer named after Calvin should be bold, robust, with a bit of bite to it, and a lingering aftertaste.

Aside from these historical references, the city displays precious little remaining Calvinist influence. But I was only there for a few days, so that’s just an impression that I have. There is plenty of wealth in Geneva: expensive jewelry stores, Rolex watches, Montblanc pens, fashions by Louis Vuitton and Lacoste; I saw numerous exotic automobiles: Rolls-Royce, Maserati, Ferrari, Lamborghini. Who needs God when you’re living in the lap of luxury and prosperity?

My session went well, and my paper was improved by listening to and interacting with other speakers. I appreciated Marilynne Robinson’s presence and her comments. My paper, which was on Calvin’s views on lying (he says you can never lie under any circumstances, even to save a life or to thwart murderous persecutors), ended with a reference to Dutch Reformed believers who did not follow Calvin’s advice, and who instead lied to save Jews and help Dutch men escape from Nazi work camps or the Wehrmacht. She pointed out that whether or not they followed Calvin on this point or not, it was still their Calvinistic spiritual formation that motivated them to do the right thing, even in the face of consequences that could include imprisonment and even death.

Post tenebras lux, “After shadows, light,” is the motto of Geneva, referring to the protestant reformation, which the city embraced in 1536. Now the light that shines there is the gleam of capitalism, the shine of diamonds, the glitter of gold, the sheen of luxury. But for those who want to see evidences of that former light, they are there. The Library of Geneva had a great exhibition called “Post Tenebras…Liber,” after darkness…a book. There I saw all of Calvin’s books printed in his lifetime, many more portraits, including a very famous one of Calvin himself, and artifacts from Jean-Jacques Rousseau. I also wandered around to the site of the original Calvin College, which is undergoing renovations, but is apparently still used as a facility for the University of Geneva, founded by Calvin in 1559, and this year celebrating its 450^th anniversary.

This part of Switzerland, which I have never before visited, is quite beautiful, both in terms of landscape (the Alps, especially) and the architecture. After three days I was just beginning to get familiar with the city, and which bus to take from the old city, where my hotel was, and the conference center (Bus #5), and now I’m off again, this time, to Germany, to visit an academic friends who studies Philip Melanchthon, Martin Luther’s right-hand man, and a dialogue-partner with Calvin. I’m just hoping I can figure out all the train connections, after twenty years of not speaking German, and 44 years of not speaking French. Whoa! I just passed a medieval castle on the way to Basel, Switzerland. Cool. The train glides by fields of wheat, and other crops I can’t identify, because they’re European and metric. I do see vineyards. Lots of them. Another castle, a wee one, a little citadel. A massive river to my right. This is the land of history and fairy tales. And cheese. I forgot to mention the cheese.

In the Thick of It

By Raymond Blacketer

On May 8, 2009

In Biblical Interpretation, Church History, John Calvin, Reformed Theology, Sabbatical, Writing

This first week of my sabbatical I have been up and down like a roller coaster, trying to get back into the rhythms of being a scholar. It has been a while (like a decade) and things have changed…older books available online, the ability to scan microfilm and microfiche into computer-readable pdf files. The paper is expected (by the Academics in Geneva) to be done on Wednesday and a copy sent to the chair of my session. This gives me a bit of anxiety, and I have had a number of days in the Library (in the H.H. Meeter Center for Calvin Studies) during which I read a lot, but wrote not a word. Today was one of those days.

As of tomorrow (Friday, May 8 ) I will have an office in the Meeter Center that will help somewhat.

Martin Bucer (1491-1551)

But last night I had an epiphany; things started coming together; an outline formed in my head, and now I should be able to start making progress. I have a new introduction, which opens up the topic with a the story of how one of the leading Protestant princes in Germany, Landgrave Philip of Hesse–a man on whom many Reformers pinned their hopes–threw a wrench into things by getting married. That’s isn’t so bad, except when you’re already married. He took on a second wife. Because Reformers like Martin Luther, Philip Melanchthon, and especially the leader of the Reformation in Strassburg, Martin Bucer, had pinned their hopes on this guy, it presented them with a real problem. Luther said, basically, “Lie. Tell a boldface lie. A whopper.” Bucer, however, advised the prince to tell a “holy lie,” like the kind of fibs Abraham and Rahab told. Calvin would have never given the prince this kind of advice. Calvin was not in the Landgrave’s inner circle (Calvin was, after all, French, not that he had any say in the matter), but if he had been, he never would have counseled any kind of lie, deception, or cover-up. He would have demanded that the Landgrave admit that his second marriage was null and void, give up his seventeen year old second bride, and remain contented with his first and legitimate wife.

Beginning

By Raymond Blacketer

On May 5, 2009

In Biblical Interpretation, Church History, John Calvin, Sabbatical, Translating

“Don’t Panic” said the cover of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I’m trying to remember that advice as I work on writing my paper for the Geneva Conference to be delivered bright and early on Wednesday morning, May 27. The fact that most people won’t be fully awake at that hour might give me some comfort, but apart from that, the fact that I have a mere three weeks before delivering the paper causes more than a few waves of panic in my heart. There is so much I need to read, digest, analyze, and translate…way too much. I need to relax, take a deep breath, and just start writing the main outlines of the paper, and fill in the blanks as I go along. My natural tendency toward perfectionism stands in the way of this method, but I have no other choice. Time is short. In fact, I really should be delivering a copy of my finished paper to the chair of the session by next Wednesday. Fat chance!

In any case, once begun is half done, so said someone. Someone who had no clue. Someone who obviously wasn’t an academic, because once one starts to research a topic, all sorts of information comes to the fore which one can then chase down, and that’s exactly what curious scholars like to do. I have no time to do that, so I have to force myself to leave those curious and inviting trails unexplored for the moment.

I have discovered a few things. One, that I can’t read Latin worth a hoot anymore, not that I ever could. It took me an entire day to read 350 words of Latin. Not only that, but I was reading it from a sermon that I said, in an article published some years ago, didn’t exist. It’s a very interesting sermon by Calvin on I Samuel 16. In verses 1-2, God tells Samuel to go and anoint David king over Israel instead of Saul. Samuel objects that Saul will kill him. The Lord says, tell him you’re going away to make a sacrifice. In other words, mislead Saul about what you are going to do. Or at least, don’t tell Saul the whole truth. I always wondered how Calvin would deal with that passage, and I wrote in an article that he never did…oops…he preached on this text, but I forgot about these particular sermons, in part because they were never translated into English, while the sermons on II Samuel were. There’s a lot of interesting stuff in this little snippet from the sermon, many fascinating, unexplored trails, but I have to stay on the main path: How does Calvin deal with acts of deception in the Old Testament–and even more challenging: how does he deal with apparent instances of God himself either deceiving or commanding someone to deceive?

Here’s the snippet:

“But here another question may be raised: How can God either command or permit the prophet to employ a charade (simulatio)? For certainly such pretense is a form of deception; yet God is most delighted in the truth. Should such pretending be seen as a trivial matter, given that God has permitted it? Here is the answer: Samuel was never given permission to lie, but only to dissimulate about what he wanted to do, but while still speaking the truth. And besides, there is a distinction between feigning and dissimulating. For the one who dissimulates conceals his purpose so it does not become public, whereas the one who feigns employs trickery and fraud in order to deceive someone, and this is not permitted to anyone. Dissimulation, on the other hand, that is, not revealing one’s intentions in full, can neither be condemned nor categorized as wrongdoing—unless of course the intention of such dissimulation is to deceive, in which case it is always to be censured. Neither is God taken in by such subtleties that so easily fool human beings. For this reason the dissimulator cannot be condemned in the human arena, although before God he may be guilty of deception, if his intention is to mislead. For example, if someone withholds information about his merchandise, namely that his goods are fake and counterfeit, he nonetheless cannot be proven guilty of deception, nor accused of having misrepresented one thing as something else—unless however he is dealing with a simple-minded person, who is unable to perceive the defect in the merchandise. In that case it is fraud, and before God it is considered an act of robbery. Thus we must always keep in mind the goal of one’s deliberations, and not get so stuck on the external appearance; and we should not employ sneakiness or subtleties, in which people in their wickedness have become accomplished experts, because they have no notion of what just and good; and God wants matters to be rightly judged according to what is fair and good, not by what is cunning and crafty.

Now then we must also consider what Samuel did. It is to be observed that he did not feign, but declared what was in fact the case: that he was going in order to make a sacrifice. Further, he did not mislead anyone, or deceive anyone; he did not use any sinister tricks, but submitted to God’s command. For it was not necessary for God’s purpose to be publically proclaimed, since for the time being God wished to keep it hidden. He desired that David’s anointing remain secret until the appropriate time when it should be made public. For this reason there is nothing reprehensible in the counsel that he followed that he should conceal the anointing under the pretext of a sacrifice, seeing that there was no deception behind it, and the end was good, nor did it amount to any fraud or deception. Rather God willed that the anointing of David be kept as a kind of secret deposit, as it were, and a kind of pledge to be diligently guarded. That, therefore, was the Lord’s counsel with respect to the anointing of David, which he accordingly did not want divulged by the prophet, but rather commanded to be concealed under the pretext of a sacrifice.” Sermon 58 on I Samuel, Opera Calvini 30:161-162, my translation, subject to improvement.