The Many Faces of John Calvin
The Historiography of Calvin's Political
Thought over Five Centuries
Gregory Johnson • Saint
Louis University • Fall 1998
Between 1536 and 1538 and again from 1541 until his death in 1564, John Calvin led efforts to reform the church in Geneva. Yet Calvin never limited his theological commentary to ecclesiastical affairs. While never holding civil office, Calvin was called to testify at the trial of Michael Servetus, the Spanish unitarian hunted for heresy by the Roman Inquisition, who escaped to Geneva where he found himself being burned alive for the same heresies in 1553. Geneva saw social reforms under Calvin's supervision, and Calvin included a chapter on civil government in his 1536 Institutes of the Christian Religion, a chapter that would remain almost unchanged through his final 1559 edition. Yet over the past five centuries, scholars with differing assumptions, methodologies, and values have interpreted Calvin's political thought in many different ways. The first part of this paper will discuss a number of these different approaches to Calvin's political thought, while the latter part of this paper will attempt to assess these different approaches in light of some presuppositions that lie behind the many different interpretations.
PART I: The Many Faces of
Calvin
Historians and thinkers[1] through the ages have painted very different pictures of Calvin, asking different questions of Calvin, weighing evidence in different ways, working with different presuppositions and different agendas. Some of these interpretations of Calvin's political thought are very similar, yet with slightly different concerns and nuances, while others are very much at variance, perhaps even mutually exclusive—at least from the perspectives of many of these authors.[2] How have thinkers understood the political Calvin?[3]
1.
Calvin the Master: The Earliest
History of Calvin
The first attempt at a history of Calvin was written the year of his death, 1564, by his friend and fellow reformer Theodore de Beza, translated into English that same year as The Historie of the life and death of Maister Iohn Calvin.[4] The English printer insists that his goal was not to publish Beza's work as a "Hystorie, but [o]nely for a Preface to the Commentaries of the saide Calvin uppon the Booke of Iosue," suggesting that the present work's mere fifty-one pages is barely suggestive of a true history due to its brevity.[5] Beza states his own intentions at the outset, "And therefore also mine intent hath not bene to recommende [Calvin] by thys Testimonie, (for what needeth it?) but rather to lament more... of the death of him, which hath bene as a father... to mee."[6] Qualified to write Calvin's story because of his personal contact with the reformer (his "father"), Beza states that the mourning of the Master is purpose of this tiny book.
Beza's "history" presents a brief account of the life of Calvin, but its focus is primarily on Calvin's work to reform the church, his theological disputes, his dealings with heretics, his biblical exposition, his Institutes, and his preaching. Again, Calvin's life as Master of the Reformed church is in view here. Calvin's political thought and life come into Beza's history only insofar as they demonstrate Calvin's endless work of reforming the church; the state plays no independent role in Beza's account. Calvin mentions the Magistrate, for example, in connection with the Anabaptists, who often opposed Calvin, but Beza's point is that Calvin never resorted to the state to discipline the Anabaptists, instead driving them from Geneva by his sheer power of persuasion, which Beza further interprets as evidence of Calvin's self-control. "The Anabaptists can beare witnesse, who shortlye after the beginning of [Calvin's] Ministerie in thys Churche, to wit the yere. 1536. that he could so wel and happily behave himselfe in open disputation without the helpe of the Magistrate, that immediately trace of them was bitterly destroyed in this Church."[7] This destruction, Beza marvels, is more than other churches, in Germany or elsewhere, are able to say, where Anabaptists continue as a menace to the church, suppressed only by resort to violence.[8] Politics are a concern for Beza only where church reform is the issue.
And Beza's historiography of the burning of Servetus demonstrates something of the framework within which he understands Calvin's political activities. Beza writes:
And an other time, to wit the yeare of the Lord. 1553. Michel Servet a Spaniard of cursed memory, happened to come, who was not a man, but rather, an horrible Monstre, compounded of the auncient and new heresies, and above all an erecrable blasphemer against the Trinitie, and namely against the Eternitie of the Sonne of God: This same beyng come to thys towne, and apprehended by the Magistrate bicause of hys blasphemies, hee was here so substancially encountred, that he had no defence but a certaine untamed obstinancie, by reason whereof by the suft judgemet of God and man, hee ended by the punnishment of fyre, his wicked life and blasphemies which he had vomited, both by mouthe & writing by the space of thirty yeares & more.[9]
Theology here provides the framework within which Beza understands events. The memory of Servetus is "cursed" because of his unorthodox theology. His theological convictions are "vomit." Servetus is a "monster," not a man. His denial of the doctrine of the Trinity is not merely a disagreement with the church, but a crime against God—God being a person and a central figure within Beza's history. History is not merely an account of relations among men, but also of vertical relationships in which human beings interact with God himself. Servetus's burning was the will of God, as well as man, a just and worthy punishment due to Servetus's own obstinate heart against God.
Calvin is seen as Master in more than a merely official manner as leader of the Reformation. He is also understood as Master in a spiritual sense of one particularly endowed and used by Almighty God, a man whom devils desired to destroy, but could not overthrow, one whose enemies were servants of Satan and enemies of God.[10] Calvin had no enemy, Beza explains, except those who were first and foremost enemies of God. "Also he maye lawfully affirme (and all those who have knowen [Calvin] will be good and lawfull witnesses) that [Calvin] had never enemie, which in assayling of him made not warre against God."[11] Human witnesses, who knew Calvin and were present with him, can testify to the truthfulness of this historical assessment. And the truth of this assessment, Beza insists more than once, is able to stand in a court of law. A theological interpretation of events is at the heart of Beza's history, but a theological interpretation which Beza is certain provides for a both true and defensible account.
2.
Calvin the Guide: The Followers
of John Calvin
Many of Calvin's theological descendants[12] made much use of his political thought, even where their later political convictions would differ from the Genevan reformer. John Knox in England and Scotland, Huguenots in France, and the Puritans who beheaded Charles I—all would make use of Calvin's teaching on the state.[13] Yet all of these later Calvinists would find easier grounds upon which to resist "ungodly" monarchs than had Calvin, who himself counseled obedience, even to wicked kings. Calvin serves as a guide, but not a final authority. This later Calvinist scholarship looks to Calvin, not in his own right, but as an interpreter of the authoritative Scripture.
Indeed, while one can see heavy influence from Calvin in the writings of Beza, Knox, and the English Puritans, only rarely do these men seem to credit Calvin directly, preferring rather to ground their convictions in specific biblical texts.[14] This paucity of references to Calvin is itself significant. For many of Calvin's followers, Calvin plays a role in summarizing and explicating the Bible, and it is only here that his political thought becomes significant. Calvin is not perceived as an "authority" in the fullest sense of the term, but rather as a guide for those who share Calvin's discourse of biblical authority. Indeed, it may be suggested that this shared discourse between Calvin and his followers (a shared discourse of biblical authority with shared theological categories) is precisely the reason Calvin receives so little mention among those very authors most indebted to him. These authors look at the Bible in much the same way Calvin looked at the Bible, finding direction within an often similar intellectual framework.
3.
Calvin, St. John of Geneva
Still others see in Calvin more than a guide, rather an inspiration. Calvin becomes a hero, a saint, even a prophet of the Most High God. W.K. Tweedie understands Calvin in almost prophetic terms, as a man called of God to purify both church and state of Romish errors. Indeed, Beza perceives the entire Reformation era in eschatological terms to be an age wrought with divine purpose. He writes:
Amid these [sixteenth century] struggles, in which errors, grown venerable by their long duration, were to be assailed and overthrown, and higher and purer principles developed, there appeared in mighty quarters of Europe men of mighty minds, gifted by God for their era, and prepared for all that their troubled age called on them either to endure or do.[15]
God raised up the reformers, but most especially Calvin, to teach the world that "the real welfare of the nations was identified with the dethroning of the Man of Sin [re: the pope]—the abolition of the system which, as the mystery of iniquity, is stamped with the curse of Almighty God."[16] Calvin is seen as a "sufferer for righteousness' sake" whose tribulation was predicted by Christ the Master, and who proved himself to belong, not to this world, but to the age to come.[17] Thus a hagiographic account of Calvin feeds, not merely the mind, but the soul.
4.
Calvin, the Real Calvin, Now Objectively Understood
Another type of Calvin historiography, particularly prevalent in the nineteenth century but found both before and since, posits itself as an authoritative, final and thoroughly objective interpretation of the Reformer's political thought. It may seem ironic to current scholars that W.K. Tweedie claims this absolute objectivity. Tweedie, for example, laments, "Much ignorance still prevails regarding the true history and character of [Servetus's] trial." Unlike those whose histories are "dictated by avowed hostility to Calvin," or who simply did not have access to all of the "documentary evidence," Tweedie suggests that his own study is "impartial," clearly based upon documents which had been previously unpublished, and presented in its "true, that is historical, light, divested at once of the exaggerations of ignorance and the bitterness of partisanship."[18]
Yet, unlike with Tweedie, many who take this objectivist approach attempt to isolate Calvin's political thought from his theology. In the first line of John Calvin: The Statesman, Richard Taylor Stevenson begins his study of Calvin's political views by divorcing these views from Calvin's theological system (even though Calvin himself explicates his political views only within his theological works!). Stevenson begins, "As a system of theology Calvinism has no place in this volume." But he continues, "As a mighty force in the organization of... political disciplines it will demand fair if not full treatment.... John Calvin interests us far more than his doctrine of predestination." And Stevenson adds, "The most permanent contributions of Calvin's genius lay less in the line of theology than of statesmanship."[19]
5.
Calvin the Revolutionary
A number of scholars took up this secularization of Calvin in the modern era, fitting the Reformer into a key juncture in their secularized eschatology. It is ironic, for example, to hear one such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau singing Calvin's praises. Yet Rousseau, a fellow Genevan, identifies the spirit of Calvin as the spirit of liberty against tyrants. In his 1762 The Social Contract, while the separation of Calvin's political thought from his theology is evident, Rousseau nevertheless writes:
Those who think of Calvin only as a theologian know very little of the full extent of his genius. Our wise edicts, in the framing of which he played a large part, do him no less honour than his Institutes. Whatever changes time may bring to our religious observances, so long as the love of country and of liberty is a living reality with us, the memory of that great man will be held in veneration.[20]
Indeed, conservative critics of the French Revolution blamed Calvin for the overthrow of the French monarchy, laying at the reformer's feet the guilt over the beheading of Louis XVI.[21] Still, other more recent scholars have tended to question linking Calvin too strongly with revolutionary thought.[22]
6.
Calvin the Father of Democracy
As hinted at above, Calvin becomes for many historians the father of democracy, a seed or starting point of a developing democratic system that would only later blossom into the liberal western democracies of the modern era. Emil Doumergue argues along this line, proposing that modern democracies were founded on the belief that a sovereign God undergirds and gives authority to a (conditionally) sovereign populace.[23] Calvin is thus a founder of modern democracy, in that his belief that the state was under a sovereign God was a constituent part of this equation. Marc-Edouard Chenevière, by contrast, rejects this proposal—not because he rejects the modernist grand narrative of developing liberty, but because he sees Calvin as an exception to that narrative.[24] Rather, Chenevière sees a narrative of developing modernity beginning with Thomas Aquinas and leading to an ever more autonomous Reason, finally divorced from theological concern. Calvin then, according to Chenevière, stands against the tide of this modern narrative, and is not, therefore, a father of modern democracies. Josef Bohatec, similarly objecting to the trend to see Calvin as a father of democracy, argues that Calvin preferred aristocracy to either democracy or monarchy.[25]
Douglas Kelly, while more reserved than many who take this developmental approach, nevertheless sees Calvin exerting a major influence upon the liberal tradition in Western government, tracing his influence in Geneva, Huguenot France, Scotland under John Knox, Puritan England, and colonial America.[26] Kelly, however, does not divorce Calvin's political theory from his theological system, limiting his investigation primarily to sixteenth and seventeenth century figures who shared Calvin's theological discourse and noting how practical implications of Calvinism were secularized in the eighteenth century, divorced from the theological system under which they first emerged.[27]
7.
Calvin, Baseball & Apple Pie:
The Founder of America
In a distinctly American setting, Calvin became the Founder of America and guardian of the American way of life. As America has become a symbol of liberty, so too Calvin, as a symbol for liberty, becomes a symbol for America. Emphasizing the role Calvinist churches in New England played in the promotion of democratic government, education, and culture, this line of scholarship sees in Calvin's political thought (and implicit in his ecclesiastical thought) the beginnings of the American way of life as handed down by Calvin's Puritan followers.
In his popular and very political 1994 devotional book What if Jesus had Never been Born? D. James Kennedy quotes the German historian Von Ranke, saying, "John Calvin was the virtual founder of America."[28] He cites the French historian Merle d'Aubigne saying much the same thing; not only Americans have seen Calvin as a significant figure in the shaping of America. And Kennedy continues to reference the nineteenth century American historian George Bancroft who gave to Calvin the exclusive name "the father of America."[29]
Kennedy stands in a long line of historiography that sees a direct link between Calvin and America. Stevenson had argued the same thesis in 1909, himself also quoting Von Ranke and Bancroft. And the Calvinist apologist Loraine Boettner in his 1932 classic The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination would quote from these same historians—Von Ranke, Merle d'Aubigne and Bancroft—at length, choosing the same brief quotes, in his polemical attempt to demonstrate the practical implications of Calvinism upon society.[30]
8.
Calvin, the Guardian of Apartheid
In a South African context, geographically isolated from Europe and America, and in the hands of the ruling, white Boers and their conservative Dutch Reformed Church, Calvin and his political and theological system became a justification for the practice of apartheid, the separation of races.[31] Drawing not on themes of liberty, but rather on themes of order and of submission to governing authorities, this brand of scholarship sought to preserve the societal order in South Africa, albeit a racist order, within a diverse and potentially explosive political and cultural environment. Reading Calvin through the theologian and former Dutch Prime Minister Abraham Kuyper, these South African Calvinists sought to develop a comprehensive Calvinist social order in which each sphere of society—church, state, industry, education, the arts—functioned independently, yet always under the authority of Scripture.[32] Indeed, the student of Calvin is shocked by the sheer vastness of Afrikaner research on Calvin, and most particularly on his political thought.[33] Still, virtually none of this literature has been translated into English, and the relative obscurity of Afrikaans has provided for a relative paucity of works outside South Africa that study this historiographical approach.
9.
Calvin, the Father of laissez-faire Capitalism
While Karl Marx in Das Kapital argued that the origins of modern capitalism were to be found in the sixteenth century, Max Weber's classic The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism seeks to link Calvin directly to capitalism, particularly through his Puritan descendants.[34] Ernst Troeltsch follows Weber with a more particularly historical articulation of this thesis.[35] Noting the unusual growth of capitalism among nations with a Calvinist heritage, Weber argues that this growth could only have happened in a context in which a whole people are stamped with a desire for economic gain beyond subsistence, a kind of broad, culture-wide imprint that only religion can provide. Weber thus speculates that Calvinism must be responsible for the development of capitalism in Europe and America, noting Calvin's identification of work as a religious activity, a divine calling intertwined with concerns of eternal significance. Weber's thesis is generally discredited by historians in the latter half of the twentieth century, although it remains an object of debate in a more limited form.[36]
10.
Calvin, the Social Liberal & Humanist
Yet another approach to Calvin's political thought has focused on concrete social reforms instituted under Calvin's leadership in Geneva. William C. Innes's 1983 volume Social Concern in Calvin's Geneva is an example, beginning with a summary of pre-Reformation social care that stands as a backdrop against which Calvin's improvements read like a New Deal, Geneva-style.[37] The dignity of man is stressed as the theological foundation for the programs, with Calvin's system of poor relief, hospital construction and reform, new prisons, new food policies and consumer protection laws, the reception of refugees, as well as the rise of guilds and industry all taking center stage within a narrative of social progress and decisive governmental action.[38]
11.
Calvin, the Theonomist
Back on the American scene, a tiny school of thought has arisen within conservative Reformed circles known as Christian reconstructionism, or dominion theology, or simply theonomy.[39] Among the most conservative elements in the "religious right," theonomists seek to bring all of life and society, and particularly government, into strict conformity with the Mosaic legal code, arguing that all laws embody someone's values, and that America's laws must embody God's values, not man's. Rejecting Calvin's notion of a God-given and universally accessible natural law as "heretical nonsense,"[40] these Calvinists see Calvin's discussion of civil government in his Institutes as embodying pagan influences not in line with the Mosaic law—pagan influences, they argue, that are not present in Calvin's sermons and commentaries. Theonomists thus see the Institutes as an inconsistency in Calvin needing to be remedied. At this point, theonomists construct a different system of government from Calvin's exegesis of Old Testament texts, a system differing from Calvin's own, concluding from his sermons and commentaries that Calvin was, in fact, a theonomist.[41] Thus Calvin is the champion of the most conservative wing of the American religious right.
12.
Calvin the Environmentalist
At the opposite end of the political spectrum, Calvin has also been interpreted as a champion of ecological activism. In his unpublished paper and future book, "The World as a Theatre of God's Glory: Spirituality & Ecology in the Reformed Tradition," Beeline Lane presents Calvin as an environmentalist.[42] While there is an implicit attempt to ground the present day environmental movement in an historical precedent, Lane does not approach Calvin with regard to an authoritative biblical text (unlike John Knox, or most theologians in the Reformed tradition); Lane's primary concern is for the environment, Calvin and the Bible are incidental.[43]
Examining the ecological significance of worship within Calvin and his followers, Lane argues that praise, or wonder, is instrumental in maintaining God's creation, a proposal which, he suggests, has historical precedent in John Calvin's notion of the created world as a Theatre of God's Glory. Within this Theatre, all creatures—non-human as well as human—participate with God in the delight over God's creation, maintaining God's glory and sustaining the world. Bio-diversity is therefore a theological necessity. Before concluding with a personal account of what he calls "shared praise with a group of Ozark pine trees," Lane mines Calvin for themes which may be put to use for his environmental cause.[44] Here a "green" agenda drives a new interrogation of Calvin, asking not so much what the reformer said about the environment, but rather what in Calvin may be of use in advancing an environmental agenda. Thus the full corpus of Calvin's writing is pressed into service for the sake of contemporary political thought.[45]
13.
Calvin the Despot, Calvin the Image
In a recent article in Church History, Thomas J. Davis analyzes the image of John Calvin as found in nineteenth century American history textbooks, an image not of liberty but of intolerance.[46] Davis writes, "The name 'John Calvin' and the movement associated with him, Calvinism, serve as rhetorical negatives in the popular language of American culture." He adds, "The word 'Calvin' seems to be shorthand for a range of negative thoughts and feelings in the American cultural consciousness."[47] Demonstrating that the foundation for this negative image of Calvin was laid in nineteenth century school books, Davis deconstructs this anti-Calvin discourse, analyzing the societal purposes that this discursive construction served, as a symbol for what Americans were defining as un-American. Again, Davis explains:
This negativity [toward Calvin] had a purpose, and by looking at that purpose one can lay bare how history textbook writers, working within a strongly Protestant culture, sought to reshape the past and use its icons in order to create usable interpretive symbols for the contemporary situation. Calvin became, in the hands of many nineteenth-century history textbook writers, a symbolic and rhetorical foil that embodied the antithesis of what these writers viewed as the greatness of human beings in general and of Americans in particular.[48]
Indeed, Davis's approach in itself suggests another face of Calvin: Calvin the Image. With a thoroughly postmodern twist, a door has been opened for historians to analyze the Genevan reformer, not merely as an historical figure in his own right, but as an image within the historical discourse of historians themselves, divorced as the image often is from the actual historical figure.
14. Calvin, the Schizophrenic
As has probably become evident by this point in this paper, thinkers and historians have proposed very different constructions of John Calvin's political thought. This has led a number of scholars to describe Calvin as a contradictory figure whose thought was inconsistent with itself. Calvin is thus a schizophrenic of sorts, manifesting a split personality, lover of liberty on the one hand, heretic-burner on the other. Calvin is seen calling on royal subjects to honor the king with submission and obedience, only to lace his own biblical commentaries with criticisms of the self-seeking wickedness of kings.
Significant Calvin scholars such as John T. McNeill and Winthrop Hudson have tended toward this generalization, isolating seemingly divergent strands within Calvin's political thought, then suggesting or outright identifying an inconsistency within Calvin.[49] This conclusion of a "schizophrenic" Calvin seems implicit as well in a collection of essays titled Calvin and Calvinism: Sources for Democracy? The collection pits one scholar against another, always arguing opposing sides to every issue, the implicit conclusion being that the Genevan reformer's political thought is contradictory.[50] But this approach to the study of Calvin leaves one wondering whether the contradiction is in Calvin himself, or whether the contradiction is rather in modern readers of Calvin, who often isolate various of Calvin's themes from their larger theological system, making a contradiction where for Calvin none may have existed.[51]
The split personality which others have suggested has been expanded most recently by William J. Bouwsma, who constructs just such a contradictory Calvin in his highly acclaimed 1988 work John Calvin: A 16th Century Portrait.[52] Perhaps the reigning biography in current scholarship, Bouwsma's Calvin is torn by a deeply seated anxiety, itself flowing from an internal tension between two contradictory worldviews. On the one side of Calvin's mind lies an allegiance to the past, with its theology, while on the other side of Calvin's mind lies an "opening" of humanism, with its embrace of freedom. These two poles (really two worldviews?) are seen as contradictory, leaving one again with a schizophrenic Genevan reformer.
The theological side of Calvin's mind, with its conservatism, was unable to resolve Calvin's anxiety, which Bouwsma implicitly links in part to Calvin's coldness toward his father. This conservative side of Calvin's mind is characterized by the intellect, and is coldly rationalistic, traditionalist, dogmatic and saturated with a harsh moralism, authoritarianism, clericalism, paranoia, fear of spontaneity, indeed obsession with order to the point of mis-advising persecuted French Protestants. The opposite side of Calvin's mind, the humanist side, is characterized by the heart, and had good things to say about beauty, wine, love of nature, the body, sexuality and marriage.[53] This side is flexible, creative, practical, and aware of its limits. This side was the strength Calvin drew upon to quiet his internal anxiety when the conservative side failed. This humanist Calvin was the revolutionary Calvin.
Granted, this comparison is argued from a distinct perspective, everything "bad" coming from the conservative side of Calvin's mind, everything "good" flowing from his humanism— there is an implicit value judgment within Bouwsma's work. The humanist Calvin is the good Calvin, the conservative Calvin is the bad Calvin. Indeed, Bouwsma spends most of his book constructing the humanist Calvin, spending only a small portion to deal with the theological and conservative Calvin, that small portion of the book serving more as a foil for the (preferred) humanist side of Calvin's mind. And this tension between the conservative and humanistic sides of Calvin's mind is a microcosm for Bouwsma of the tensions within sixteenth century Europe as a whole.
PART II: Modern, Pre-modern
& Postmodern Elements in Calvin Historiography
Thinkers and historians who have sought to assess the political thought of John Calvin cannot be neatly categorized as being modern, pre-modern, or postmodern in their approaches. While some, such as Rousseau, are clearly modern in their presuppositions, others are less clear. Some scholarship embodies elements of two or more of these "meta-historiographical approaches." The very terms modern, pre-modern and postmodern themselves are only helpful as generalizations that are useful only for the sake of classification, and then only with the realization of their inherent inadequacy. The goal of this paper has been more limited. Rather than attempting to identify each of the "many faces of Calvin" as modern, pre-modern or postmodern, the aim here is simply to assess various qualities within these "faces" as embodying elements of these three meta-historiographical schools.
1.
Modernist Elements in Calvin Historiography
Key modernist qualities in much Calvin historiography are a developmental model of history, a belief in these scholars' own objectivity, and a rejection (in practice, if not in theory) of theology. Calvin becomes the father of revolution, liberty, and democracy, not through an analysis of his own political thought as found within his own discourse, but by reading Calvin in light of a liberal democratic society that would envelop Europe centuries later. Calvin thus becomes an early link within the broad narrative of Western social evolution and secularist progress. Whatever in Calvin's thought is not maintained by this liberal democratic tradition (particularly the theologian's theology) is relegated to the value-laden category of insignificance.
This liberal, modernist master narrative (a secularized eschatology) leads to a very speculative methodology, one in which broad themes and generalizations concerning Calvin's political thought are viewed in isolation from the reformer's larger belief system (or discourse). These ideas are given a life of their own, apart from the discourse of a specific community. And certainly Max Weber's sociological speculation (with very little interaction with historical artifacts, texts or otherwise, as evidence) reflects a particular type of modernist methodology rarely found even among modernist historians. Truth within this modernist approach is objectively knowable, and it is known by having all the facts. And today's scholarship has all the facts, as W.K. Tweedie insists so forcefully—unlike yesterday's scholarship, which was biased and incomplete.
Even William J. Bouwsma, despite his postmodern-sounding analysis of presuppositions and worldviews, betrays fundamentally modernist commitments. Bouwsma's disjunction within Calvin's mind between a commitment to the past and an embrace of humanism sounds suspiciously like a more sophisticated presentation of the classic modernist narrative of progress, with its tension between the conservative (bad) and the liberal (good), between the theological (bad) and the humanistic (good), between the old order (bad) and the future (good). Bouwsma's thesis centers on this disjunction between the conservative and the liberal, and his discourse is laced throughout with implicit value judgments that suggest the liberal is better—or at the very least more satisfying for the anxious Calvin—than is the conservative.
And throughout his work, Bouwsma assumes he is able to get inside Calvin's mind, even if he is more mild in his psychoanalysis than, say, Suzanne Selinger was in her 1984 psychohistory Calvin against Himself.[54] Bouwsma presents to us the "real" Calvin, that is, the psychological Calvin. And this Calvin, Bouwsma argues, is a picture of the tensions of his era— more a representative of broad societal forces or mentalités than an integral figure in himself. All of this sounds more like a slightly Freudian twist on Structuralism than like a thorough-going postmodernism. Despite the praise Bouwsma's work received for providing a fresh, new portrait of Calvin, Bouwsma presents the same old modernist narrative of emerging liberty against a foil of conservatism, thus processing Calvin within the same classic, liberal master narrative. Bouwsma's novelty comes only in placing this battle between old and new within Calvin himself, rather than making the Reformer into a mascot for one side or another. Still, the same modernist value judgments are implicit as in so much earlier scholarship. Bouwsma is not unique in his narrative of liberty, only in making Calvin's mind a schizophrenic "snap shot" of that narrative in motion.
2.
"Pre-modern" Elements in Calvin Historiography
While the term "pre-modern" is unfortunate, in that the approach is thus defined within a modernist discourse rather than in its own right, it seems doubly unfortunate since it implies a temporal order in which the assumptions categorized as "pre-modern" no longer exist. But the existence of theonomist research should demonstrate that pre-modern assumptions are "alive," even if perhaps not "well." Theonomists share more in common with Beza's historiography (with respect to questions of biblical authority and divine presence within history) than they do with most other scholarship within the twentieth century. Like Beza, they interpret events in light of an authoritative Bible—even if they differ from Beza, Calvin, and most of the Reformed tradition in their rejection of natural law. And like Beza, theonomists are convinced that God is on their side, or perhaps (more accurately from their perspective) that they are on God's side. A right and wrong interpretation exist, authorities demonstrate that this is so. Theological concerns are central to every debate; nothing can be truly understood without light from Heaven. Even W.K. Tweedie, with his modernist insistence upon his own "objectivity," could nevertheless insist that the Pope was stamped with the curse of Almighty God.
3.
Postmodern Elements in Calvin Historiography
There are some at least mildly postmodern elements in quite a bit of recent Calvin historiography—I think of the eclectic approach Beeline Lane takes to make of Calvin an environmentalist (even including a personal account of worship with Ozark pine trees), or of the sneer quotes a scholar like Susan Schreiner puts around the term "orthodox" in her work.[55] But at the same time, Lane seems more adept at assuming his own modernist myths of progress and universality than he is at deconstructing them, and Schreiner is too confident that her understanding is the "right" one to be confused with a genuine postmodernist. Even theonomy, with its thoroughly pre-modern authority structure, has a certain postmodern element in its recognition that all laws are value-laden. Of all the scholarship on Calvin's political thought, only Thomas J. Davis's deconstruction of the image of Calvin in nineteenth-century textbooks appears thoroughly postmodern in its assumptions and methodology.
Davis
uses unorthodox sources—school textbooks, popular histories—to deconstruct the
motives a group of historians had in presenting Calvin in a certain way. But it should be noted that Davis never asks
whether this nineteenth century image of Calvin was accurate. Conformity to reality, getting the facts
straight, stating what Calvin was "really" like—none of these
concerns are raised, even in a cursory manner or even in a footnote. Giving an accurate depiction of reality is
not the goal, only deconstructing how those in the past have constructed
realities with symbols manipulated to further their own ends. Davis exposes the (perhaps unconscious)
agenda behind nineteenth century historiography, but what is the motive behind
his own historiography? Did Calvin have
an objective existence within history?
Is this existence significant?
Or does Calvin exist only as a symbol within culturally conditioned
social discourses?[56]
Perhaps Davis best argues the thesis of this paper, since he demonstrates on a more limited but more thorough level the value-laden character of historiography, how a figure such as John Calvin can have many different—and perhaps contradictory—faces. I suggest that this variation is not necessarily because Calvin himself was confused or contradictory, but because of the conflicting biases different scholars bring to their research. The variation lies not in the fact that no one has sought to understand Calvin "in context," but rather that different scholarship has assumed different contexts—prior events, later events, humanistic ideas, Medieval scholasticism, biblical authority, cultural factors, theological paradigms, personal acquaintances and relationships, economic concerns. Context itself is a very nebulous concept. No human reading of Calvin prior to the Last Judgment will be free from subjectivity.
Different questions and issues, different assumptions about God's role in history, different methodologies, such as reading the past in light of the future, or isolating particular themes from their larger theological and intellectual framework, or treating Calvin's thought as a system, different values about what is and is not significant, different cultural or political situations, different views of authority—all of these concerns, far more than mere differences in sources of evidence, contribute to very different understandings of Calvin's political thought. Calvin himself has not changed since the sixteenth century, and no truly "new" sources of evidence have given us greater access to the man than had his very earliest followers. Calvin scholarship has changed—not because Calvin has changed—but because scholars have changed. The many faces of John Calvin more fundamentally reflect the many faces of the historians and thinkers who bring their own assumptions, methodologies, values, and even agendas to the historiographical task.
Calvin’s Political Thought:
An Exhaustive Bibliography
Aalders, W.
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Avis, P.D.L. "Moses and the Magistrate: A Study in the Rise of Protestant Legalism." Journal of Ecclesiastical History 26 (1975): 149-72.
Babel, Henry. Calvin, le pour et le contre. Geneva, 1976.
Bahnsen, Greg L. No Other Standard: Theonomy and its Critics. Tyler, TX: Institute for Biblical Economics, 1991.
Bakelants, Louis. "Les Rapports de l'humanisme et de la Réforme." Revue de l'Université de Bruxelles 18 (1965/6): 264-82.
Baker, J. Wayne. "Christian Discipline, Church and State, and Toleration: Bullinger, Calvin and Basel 1530-1555. Zwingliana 19 (1992): 35-48.
Barker, William S. "Theonomy, Pluralism, and the Bible." In Theonomy: A Reformed Critique, ed. William S. Barker & W. Robert Godfrey, 227-44. Grand Rapids, MI: Academie Books, 1990.
Bancroft, George. History of the Formation of the Constitution of the United States of America. New York: D. Appleton, 1882.
_______. History of the United States. Boston: Little, Brown. 1852-75.
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Baron, Hans. "Calvinist Republicanism and its Historical Roots." Church History 8 (1939): 30–42.
_______. Calvins Staatsanschauung und das konfessionelle Zeitalter. Munich: Oldenbourg, 1924.
Barth, Karl. Community, State, and Church: Three Essays. With an introduction by Will Herberg. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1960.
_______. The Theology of John Calvin. Translated by Geoffrey W. Bromiley. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1995.
Barth, Peter. Calvins Lehre vom Staat als providentieller
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Benson, George. A Brief Account of Calvin's Burning of
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Beuns, J.
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_______. Studien zur Staatsanschauung Calvins mit
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Beza, Theodore de. A Discourse wrytten by M. Theodore de Beza,
conteyning in brief the Historie of the life and death of Maister Iohn Calvin,
with the Testament and laste will of the saide Calvin, and the Catalogue of his
Bookes that he hath made. Translated by I. S. London: Henry Denham, 1564.
Biéler, André.
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_______. L'homme et la femme dans la morale
calviniste. Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1963.
_______. The Social Humanism of Calvin. Translated by Paul T. Fuhrmann. Richmond, VA: John Knox Press, 1964.
Blaisdell, Charmarie J. "Calvin's and Loyola's Letters to Women: Politics and Spiritual Counsel in the Sixteenth Century." In Calviniana: Ideas and Influence of Jean Calvin, ed. Robert V. Schnucker, 235–53. Ann Arbor, MI: Edwards Brothers, 1988.
Boeke, Brandt B., ed. "Calvin's Doctrine of Civil Government." Studia Biblica et Theologica 11 (1981): 57-79.
Boettner, Loraine. The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination.
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Bohatec, Josef. Calvins Lehre von Staat und Kirche. Breslau: Marcus Verlag, 1937.
_______. Calvin und das Recht. Feudingen: Buchdruckerei und Verlagsanstalt, 1934.
_______. "Die Entbundenheit des Herrschers vom Gesetz in der Staatslehre Calvins." Zwingliana 6 (1935): 134-72.
_______. Zur Eigenart des "theokratischen" Gedankens bei Calvin. Neukirchen: Erziehungsverein, 1933.
Boisset, Jean. "La
Genève de Calvin et l'état des 'Lois'." Revue philisophique de la France (1959): 365-69.
_______. "La
Non-violence et la tradition réformée." Bulletin de la Société de l'Historie du Protestantisme Français 113
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Bolsec, Jerome-Hermes. Histoire de la vie, moeurs, actes, doctrine, constance et mort de Iean Calvin. Lyon: Scheuring, 1875.
Bosch, David J. "Afrikaner Civil Religion and the Current South African Crisis." Princeton Seminary Bulletin 7 (1986): 1-14.
Botha, S.J. "Die ouderling en die regeervergaderings in die Nederduitsch." Hervormde Teologiese Studies 46 (1990): 528-41.
Bouwsma, William J. John Calvin: A 16th Century Portrait. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.
Breen, Quirinus. John Calvin: A Study in French Humanism. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1931.
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Cadier, Jean. Calvin. Paris, 1966.
_______. Calvin, sa vie, son oeuvre, sa philosophie. Paris, 1967.
_______. "Le prétendu stoicisme de Calvin." Etudes Théologiques et Religioeuses 41 (1966): 217-26.
_______. "La Pensée politique de Calvin." Conscience et Liberté 6 (1973): 45-50.
Calvetti, Carla. La filosophia di Giovanni Calvino. Milan: Societa Editrice Vita e Pensiero, 1955.
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_______. "Le Droit de punir et le sens de la peine chez Calvin." Revue d'Histoire et de Philosophie Religieuses 54 (1974): 187-201.
Cardauns, Ludwig. Die Lehre vom Widerstandsrecht des Volkes gegen die rechtmäßige Obrigkeit im Luthertum und im Calvinismus. Bonn, 1903.
_______. La Pensée politique de Calvin. Geneva: Labor and Fides, 1937.
Choisy, Eugène. L'état chrétien calviniste à Genève au XVIme siecle. Geneva, 1909.
_______. L'état chrétien calviniste à Genève au temps de Théodor de Bèze. Geneva: Eggimann, 1902.
_______. Le théocratie à Genéve que temps de Calvin. Geneva, 1897.
Claparède, R. L'état et l'église a Genève au temps de Calvin et de Théodore de Bèze d'après deux ouvrages récents. Vals-les-Bains: Aberlen, 1937.
Collange, Jean-François. "Droit à la résistance et réformation." Revue d'Histoire et de Philosophie Religieuses 65 (1985): 245-55.
Cooper, John W. "The Outlines of Political Theology in the Protestant Reformation." Teaching Political Science 10 (1982): 43-51.
Cornelissen, A.J.M. Calvijn en Rousseau: een vergelijkende studie van beider staatsleer. Utrecht, 1931.
Cottret, Bernard. Calvin: Biographie. [Paris]: J.C. Lattès, 1995.
Curie, P. Étude des relations entre la notion calvinienne de l'église et la notion calvinienne de l'état. Paris, 1950.
Davis, Thomas J. "Images of Intolerance: John Calvin in Nineteenth-Century History Textbooks." Church History 65 (1996): 234-48.
Deaudon, J.V. Le develloppement de la notion de souverainete politique chez les calvinistes français de Jean Calvin à la Revolution Française. New York, 1939.
de Gruchy, John W. "Bonhoeffer, Calvinism and Christian Civil Disobedience in South Africa." Scottish Journal of Theology 34 (1981): 245-62.
_______. "The Revitalization of Calvinism in South Africa." Journal of Religious Ethics 14 (1986): 22-47.
de Gruchy, John W. and Charles Villa-Vicencio, ed. Apartheid is a Heresy. Cape Town: W. Philip, 1983.
Dekker, R. "John Calvin and Christian Citizenship." Church Observer 71 (1964): 6.
Dide, Auguste. Michel Servet et Calvin. Paris: Flammarion, 1900.
Diepenhorste, P.A. Calvijn en de Economie. Wageningen: Vada, 1904.
Dooyeweerd, H. Calvinisme en naturrecht. Amersfoort, 1928.
_______. Christelijke staatsidee. Rotterdam, 1936.
Douglass, E. Jane Dempsey. Women, Freedom, and Calvin. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1985.
Doumergue, Émile. Jean Calvin, les hommes et les choses de son temps. Lausanne: Georges Bridel, 1917.
_______. Les vraies origines de la democratie
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Dowey, Eduard A. "Calvin on Church and State." The Reformed and Presbyterian World 24 (1957): 244-57.
Duffield, Gervase E., ed. John Calvin. Appleford: Abingdon, 1966.
du Plessis, L.J. Die moderne staat. Stellenbosch, South Africa, 1941.
_______. "Die staatsteorie van Jean Calvin in verband met die wetenskap en staatspraktyk van sy tyd." Antirevolutionaire Staatkunde 6 (1932): 160-214, 413-467.
_______. "Kalvijn over die staatsconstitutie." Wagtoring 3 (1932): 11-18.
du Plessis, Lourens. M.
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Durand, J.J.F. Die wysgerige grondslae van die ius
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Eager, G. Boardman. "Calvin as a Civic and Social Influence." Review and Expositor 6 (1909): 550-61.
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Fitzpatrick, Shelia and Robert Gellately. "Introduction to the Practices of Denunciation in Modern European History." Journal of Modern History 68 (1996): 747-67.
Foster, Herbert Darling. "Calvin's Programme for a Puritan State in Geneva, 1536-1541. Harvard Theological Review (1908): 391-434.
_______. "The Political Theories of Calvinists Before the Puritan Exodus to America." American Historical Review 21 (1916), 481–503.
Frédéricq, Paul. "Le selfgovernment et le Calvinism." Journal de Genève 10 (1909).
Frei, Richard. "Kalvinismus und Kapitalismus: Eine Erörterung zum Problem 'Religion und Wirtschaft' an der Hand der Gründungsannalen der Neustadt Hanau von 1597." Hanauisches Magazin 6 (1927): 73-76.
Frere, W.H. and C.E. Douglas, ed. Puritan Manifestoes: A Study of the Origin of the Puritan Revolt. New York: Burt Franklin, 1972.
Friedensburg, W. "Der Calvinismus als politisches Prinzip in seinen geschichtlichen Wirkungen." Wartburg 8 (1909): 256-60.
Frohlich, Karlfried. Gottersreich, Welt und Kirche bei Calvin. Munich: Reinhardt, 1930.
Fuchs, Eric. "Providence and Politics: A Reflection on the Contemporary Relevance of the Political Ethics of John Calvin." Louvain Studies 10 (1985): 182–43.
_______. "La Tradition réformée face aux problèmes du pouvoir." Recheres de Science Religieuse 62 (1974): 243-58.
Fuhrmann, A. Il pensiero politico di Giovanni Calvino. Turin, 1933.
Fullerton, Kemper. "Calvinism and Capitalism." Harvard Theological Review 21 (1928): 163-95.
Gamble, Richard C. "The Christian and the Tryant: Beza and Knox on Political Resistance Theory." Westminster Theological Journal 46 (1984): 125–39.
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Gilmont, Jean-François. Jean Calvin et le livre imprime. Geneva: Droz, 1997.
Gingerich, Barbara Nelson. "Property and the Gospel: Two Reformation Perspectives." Mennonite Quarterly Review 59 (1985): 248-67.
Godfrey, W. Robert. "Calvin and Theonomy," In Theonomy: A Reformed Critique, ed. William S. Barker & W. Robert Godfrey, 299-314. Grand Rapids, MI: Academie Books, 1990.
Graham, W. Fred. "Calvin and the Political Order: An Analysis of Three Explanatory Essays." In Calviniana: Ideas and Influence of Jean Calvin, ed. Robert V. Schnucker, 51-62. Ann Arbor, MI: Edwards Brothers, 1988.
_______. The Constructive Revolutionary: John Calvin & His Socio-Economic Impact. Richmond, VA: John Knox Press, 1971.
_______, ed. Later Calvinism: International Perspectives. Kirksville, MO: Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers, 1994.
Grobmann, A. Das Naturrecht bei Luther und Calvin: Eine politische Untersuchung. Hamburg, 1935.
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_______, ed. Luther and Calvin on Secular Authority. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
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_______. "Democratic Freedom and Religious Faith in the Reformed Tradition." Church History 15 (1946): 177–94.
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_______. "Calvinism and Democracy: Some Political Implications of Debates on French Reformed Church Government, 1562–1672." American Historical Review 69 (1964): 393–401.
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_______. "Social Welfare in Calvin's Geneva." American Historical Review 76 (1971): 50–69.
_______, ed. Calvin and Calvinism: Sources for Democracy? Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath, 1970.
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_______. "Calvins Wort zur Eidesfrage." RKZ 92 (1951), 87.
_______. "Kirch und Staat nach Calvin." RKZ 69 (1919) 10-19.
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_______. Le Christianisme social de Jean Calvin. Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1953.
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[56]I am certainly not arguing that Davis denies Calvin's actual existence, or his significance, for that matter. I am simply raising questions that postmodern scholarship will need to answer if it is to give a constructive contribution once it has deconstructed the work of previous historians.