Welcome back to the series of lectures on Western Civilization.
We talked about the Protestant Reformation, and then we talked about Martin Luther specifically.
I want to take a few minutes today and talk about John Calvin.
Calvin thrived in the middle of the 16th century.
He’s the sort of second generation of the Protestant Reformers following Luther, and
I guess you could say that Calvin sort of solidifies some of the gains made by the Reformation.
Trained as a lawyer in France, he had to flee to Switzerland; his Protestantism was not
looked upon favorably by the French monarch, who was – of course – Catholic.
He wrote one of the sort of foundational texts of Protestantism, The Institutes of the Christian
Religion, and you can Google it and take a look at it online.
It’s actually pretty interesting.
Calvin creates – in Switzerland, in Geneva – something close to a theocracy, I suppose
you would call it, that is a state that is heavily informed by religion.
The modern Iranian state that our American politicians love to complain about, the fundamentalist
Islamic state in Tehran is a theocracy, where state is heavily informed by faith.
In fact, faith probably comes before the state in a theocracy.
At any rate, Calvin was a virtual dictator in Geneva, and the penalties for straying
from the orthodoxy could be severe.
I’ve read that people could be executed for praising the pope; any sort of outward
signs of joy or suspect, singing and dancing, or signs of Satan’s presence.
I heard a historian talk about an acronym that sort of sums up Calvin’s theology.
So let me try it with you, and see if this works.
The acronym is TULIP, T-U-L-I-P.
T, total depravity – Man is beyond redemption.
U, unconditional election – According to Calvin, God has already made a choice as to
your salvation or to your eternal damnation, and you have no role to play.
You are either elected for salvation or you are not.
L, limited atonement – For whom did Christ die?
Was it for you, or not?
I, irresistible grace for the elect – Grace is not a reward for conduct.
It is strictly a choice made by God.
And then finally, P, persistence in grace – Grace can’t be lost; it can’t be rejected;
it can’t be gained, by the elect; it is God’s sovereignty entirely.
This sounds like a God that is omniscient in additional to being omnipotent.
If your fate is already set, then how should we behave here on Earth?
Can you alter your fate?
Is everything preordained?
These are questions that Calvinism sort of begs to be answered.
So let me give you some, sort of summarize some of the tenets of Calvinist thought.
All people are predestined to salvation, or to damnation.
And again, it’s entirely up to God.
What we do here is irrelevant.
All is decided by God.
That is, good works are account for nothing.
God’s sovereignty is absolute, so we have no control over our fate.
This begs the question, why not throw your hands up; eat; drink; and be merry, since
you have, since your fate is entirely in the hands of God; why not do as you please?
To fight off the possibility of Hedonism, this casting away of all restraint, Calvin
taught that there were signs of election.
In other words, there were signs within you that you are among God’s elect.
Now in order to demonstrate your own personal belief that you are indeed among God’s elect,
presumably you would begin to behave in a particular way – going to church; being
a righteous person; being an openly fair person in business and personal relations.
So in other words, you act as if you know that you are among the elect.
If you act in a disrespectful and illegal manner, then that would obviously show that
you are not among God’s elect.
Some of you have probably been exposed to Calvinism, whether you realize it or not.
In American literature, we have a very famous Puritan divine.
His name was Jonathan Edwards and one of his sermons – this took place in Massachusetts
in the 18th century – one of Jonathan Edwards’ sermons, it’s quite famous, you find it
in literary anthologies.
And again, if you have not read this, or didn’t read it in high school, you’ll probably
get a chance to read it in your college American Lit class.
The sermon is called, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, and it perfectly illustrates
the basic tenets of Calvinism as practiced here in the New World, in the English colonies.
I’m just going to read a couple of excerpts here, so you can get a taste of this.
Quote – There is nothing that keeps wicked men at any moment out of hell but the mere
pleasure of God.
– Again, referring to God’s sovereignty and our complete helplessness.
By the mere pleasure of God, I mean His sovereign pleasure, his arbitrary will, restrained by
no obligation, hindered by no manner of difficulty.
– So you can see Edwards is putting into effect here the sort of the foundational ideas
of Calvinism.
He continues, quote – He is not only able to cast wicked men into hell, but He can most
easily do it.
Sometimes an earthly prince meets with a great deal of difficulty to subdue a rebel that
has found means to fortify himself, and has made himself strong by the number of his followers.
But it is not so with God, there’s no fortress that is any defense against the power of God.
Though hand join in hand, and vast multitudes of God’s enemies combine and associate themselves,
they’re easily broken into pieces.
They are as great heaps of light chaff before the whirlwind or large quantities of dry stubble
before the devouring flames.
– These are wonderful metaphors; you could read this lecture as a study in metaphorical
language alone and profit from it.
Further – They are now objects of that very same anger and wrath of God that is expressed
in the torments of hell, and the reason why they do not go down to hell at each moment
is not because God in whose power they are, is not then very angry with them, as angry
as He is with many of those miserable creatures that now lie tormented in hell.
The wrath that God burns against them, their damnation does not slumber; the pit is prepared,
the fire is ready made.
The furnace is now hot, ready to receive them.
Flames do now rage and glow.
– It’s pretty fabulous language, if macabre, to say the least.
One other quote here from Edwards, and then I’ll end this horror story.
Quote – The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or
some loathsome insect, over the fire.
He abhors you and is dreadfully provoked by your behavior.
His wrath toward you burns like fire.
He looks upon you as worthy of nothing else but to be cast into the fire.
He is of pure eyes, then to bear to have you in his sight.
You are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes than the most hateful and venomous
serpent is in ours.
– Calvinism in the New World.
I’m going to stop there with John Calvin, and in our final lecture on the Reformation,
we’ll talk about the Catholic Counter Reformation.
Thank you.