It is unfortunate
that a great body of the scientific discussion which, since Max Goebel ("Die
religiose Eigenthumlichkeit der lutherischen und der reformirten Kirchen,"
Bonn, 1837) first clearly posited the problem, has been carried on somewhat
vigorously with a view to determining the fundamental principle
of Calvinism, has sought particularly to bring out its contrast with some
other theological tendency, commonly with the sister Protestant tendency
of Lutheranism. Undoubtedly somewhat different spirits inform Calvinism
and Lutheranism. And undoubtedly the distinguishing spirit of Calvinism
is rooted not in some extraneous circumstance of its antecedents or origin
-- as, for example, Zwingli's tendency to intellectualism, or the superior
humanistic culture and predilections of Zwingli and Calvin, or the democratic
instincts of the Swiss, or the radical rationalism of the Reformed leaders
as distinguished from the merely modified traditionalism of the Lutherans
-- but in its formative principle. But it is misleading to find the formative
principle of either type of Protestantism in its difference from the other;
they have infinitely more in common than in distinction. And certainly nothing
could be more misleading than to represent them (as is often done) as owing
their differences to their more pure embodiment respectively of the principle
of predestination and that of justification by faith. The doctrine of predestination
is not the formative principle of Calvinism, the root from which it springs.
It is one of its logical consequences, one of the branches which it has
inevitably thrown out. It has been firmly embraced and consistently proclaimed
by Calvinists because it is an implicate of theism, is directly given in
the religious consciousness, and is an absolutely essential element in evangelical
religion, without which its central truth of complete dependence upon the
free mercy of a saving God can not be maintained. And so little is it a
peculiarity of the Reformed theology, that it underlay and gave its form
and power to the whole Reformation movement; which was, as from the spiritual
point of view, a great revival of religion, so, from the doctrinal point
of view, a great revival of Augustinianism. There was accordingly no difference
among the Reformers on this point: Luther and Melanchthon and the compromising
Butzer were no less jealous for absolute predestination than Zwingli and
Calvin. Even Zwingli could not surpass Luther in sharp and unqualified assertion
of it: and it was not Calvin but Melanchthon who
gave it a formal place in his primary scientific statement of the elements
of the Protestant faith (cf. Schaff, "Creeds," i. 1877, p. 451;
E. F. Karl Miller, "Symbolik," Erlangen and Leipzig, 1896, p.
75; C. J. Niemijer, "De Strijd over de Leer der Praedestinatie in de
IXde Eeuw," Groningen, 1889, p. 21; H. Voigt, "Fundamentaldogmatik,"
Gotha, 1874, pp. 469-470). Just as little can the doctrine of justification
by faith be represented as specifically Lutheran. Not merely has it from
the beginning been a substantial element in the Reformed faith, but it is
only among the Reformed that it has retained or can retain its purity, free
from the tendency to become a doctrine of justification on account of faith
(cf. E. Bohl, "Von der Rechtfertigung durch den Glauben," Leipzig,
1890). Here, too, the difference between the two types of Protestantism
is one of degree, not of kind (cf. C. P. Krauth, "The Conservative
Reformation and its Theology," Philadelphia, 1872). Lutheranism, the
product of a poignant sense of sin, born from the throes of a guilt-burdened
soul which can not be stilled until it finds peace in God's decree of justification,
is apt to rest in this peace; while Calvinism, the product of an overwhelming
vision of God, born from the reflection in the heart of man of the majesty
of a God who will not give His glory to another, can not pause until it
places the scheme of salvation itself in relation to a complete world-view,
in which it becomes subsidiary to the glory of the Lord God Almighty. Calvinism
asks with Lutheranism, indeed, that most poignant of all questions, What
shall I do to be saved? and answers it as Lutheranism answers it. But the
great question which presses upon it is, How shall God be glorified? It
is the contemplation of God and zeal for His honor which in it draws out
the emotions and absorbs endeavor; and the end of human as of all other
existence, of salvation as of all other attainment, is to it the glory of
the Lord of all. Full justice is done in it to the scheme of redemption
and the experience of salvation, because full justice is done in it to religion
itself which underlies these elements of it. It begins, it centers, it ends
with the vision of God in His glory: and it sets itself before all things
to render to God His rights in every sphere of life- activity.
5. SOTERIOLOGY OF
CALVINISM
One of the consequences
flowing from this fundamental attitude of Calvinistic feeling and thought
is the high supernaturalism which informs alike its religious consciousness
and its doctrinal construction. Calvinism would not be badly defined, indeed,
as the tendency which is determined to do justice to the immediately supernatural,
as in the first, so also in the second creation. The strength and purity
of its belief in the supernatural Fact (which is God) saves it from all
embarrassment in the face of the supernatural act (which is miracle). In
everything which enters into the process of redemption it is impelled by
the force of its first principle to place the initiative in God. A supernatural
revelation, in which God makes known to man His will and His purposes of
grace; a supernatural record of this revelation in a supernaturally given
book, in which God gives His revelation permanency and extension - such
things are to the Calvinist almost matters of course. And, above all, he
can but insist with the utmost strenuousness on the immediate supernaturalness
of the actual work of redemption itself, and that no less in its application
than in its impetration. Thus it comes about that the doctrine of monergistic
regeneration -- or as it was phrased by the older theologians, of "irresistible
grace" or "effectual calling" -- is the hinge of the Calvinistic
soteriology, and lies much more deeply embedded in the system than the doctrine
of predestination itself which is popularly looked upon as its hall-mark.
Indeed, the soteriological significance of predestination to the Calvinist
consists in the safeguard it affords to monergistic regeneration -- to purely
supernatural salvation. What lies at the heart of his soteriology is the
absolute exclusion of the creaturely element in the initiation of the saving
process, that so the pure grace of God may be magnified. Only so could he
express his sense of man's complete dependence as sinner on the free mercy
of a saving God; or extrude the evil leaven of Synergism (q.v.) by which,
as he clearly sees, God is robbed of His glory and man is encouraged to
think that he owes to some power, some act of choice, some initiative of
his own, his participation in that salvation which is in reality all of
grace. There is accordingly nothing against which Calvinism sets its face
with more firmness than every form and degree of autosoterism. Above everything
else, it is determined that God, in His Son Jesus Christ, acting through
the Holy Spirit whom He has sent, shall be recognized as our veritable Saviour.
To it sinful man stands in need not of inducements or assistance to save
himself, but of actual saving; and Jesus Christ has come not to advise,
or urge, or induce, or aid him to save himself, but to save him. This is
the root of Calvinistic soteriology; and it is because this deep sense of
human helplessness and this profound consciousness of indebtedness for all
that enters into salvation to the free grace of God is the root of its soteriology
that to it the doctrine of election becomes the cor cordis of the Gospel.
He who knows that it is God who has chosen him and not he who has chosen
God, and that he owes his entire salvation in all its processes and in every
one of its stages to this choice of God, would be an ingrate indeed if he
gave not the glory of his salvation solely to the inexplicable elective
love of God.
6. CONSISTENT DEVELOPMENT
OF CALVINISM
Historically the Reformed
theology finds its origin in the reforming movement begun in Switzerland
under the leadership of Zwingli (1516). Its fundamental principles are already
present in Zwingli's teaching, though it was not until Calvin's profound
and penetrating genius was called to their exposition that they took their
ultimate form or received systematic development. From Switzerland Calvinism
spread outward to France, and along the Rhine through Germany to Holland,
eastward to Bohemia and Hungary, and westward, across the Channel, to Great
Britain. In this broad expansion through so many lands its voice was raised
in a multitude of confessions; and in the course of the four hundred years
which have elapsed since its first formulation, it has been expounded in
a vast body of dogmatic treatises.
Its development has naturally been much richer and far more many-sided than
that of the sister system of Lutheranism in its more confined and homogeneous
environment; and yet it has retained its distinctive character and preserved
its fundamental features with marvelous consistency throughout its entire
history. It may be possible to distinguish among the Reformed confessions,
between those which bear more and those which bear less strongly the stamp
of Calvin's personal influence; and they part into two broad classes, according
as they were composed before or after the Arminian defection (ca. 1618)
and demanded sharper definitions on the points of controversy raised by
that movement (see " Arminius, Jacobus, and Arminianism"; "Remonstrants").
A few of them written on German soil also bear traces of the influence of
Lutheran conceptions. And, of course, no more among the Reformed than elsewhere
have all the professed expounders of the system of doctrine been true to
the faith they professed to expound. Nevertheless, it is precisely the same
system of truth which is embodied in all the great historic Reformed confessions;
it matters not whether the document emanates from Zurich or Bern or Basel
or Geneva, whether it sums up the Swiss development as in the second Helvetic
Confession, or publishes the faith of the National Reformed Churches of
France, or Scotland, or Holland, or the Palatinate, or Hungary, Poland,
Bohemia, or England; or republishes the established Reformed doctrine in
opposition to new contradictions, as in the Canons of Dort (in which the
entire Reformed world concurred), or the Westminster Confession (to which
the whole of Puritan Britain gave its assent), or the Swiss Form of Consent
(which represents the mature judgment of Switzerland upon the recently proposed
novelties of doctrine). And despite the inevitable variety of individual
points of view, as well as the unavoidable differences in ability, learning,
grasp, in the multitude of writers who have sought to expound the Reformed
faith through these four centuries -- and the grave departures from that
faith made here and there among them -- the great stream of Reformed dogmatics
has flowed essentially unsullied,
straight from its origin in Zwingli and Calvin to its debouchure, say, in
Chalmers and Cunningham and Crawford, in Hodge and Thornwell and Shedd.
7. VARIETIES OF CALVINISM
It is true an attempt
has been made to distinguish two types of Reformed teaching from the beginning;
a more radical type developed under the influence of the peculiar teachings
of Calvin, and a (so-called) more moderate type, chiefly propagating itself
in Germany, which exhibits rather the influence, as was at first said (Hofstede
de Groot, Ebrard, Heppe), of Melanchthon, or, in its more recent statement
(Gooszen), of Bullinger. In all that concerns the essence of Calvinism,
however, there was no difference between Bullinger and Calvin, German and
Swiss: the Heidelberg Catechism is no doubt a catechism and not a confession,
but in its presuppositions and inculcations it is as purely Calvinistic
as the Genevan Catechism or the catechisms of the Westminster Assembly.
Nor was the substance of doctrine touched by the peculiarities of method
which marked such schools as the so-called Scholastics (showing themselves
already in Zanchius, d. 1590, and culminating in theologians like Alsted,
d. 1638, and Voetius, d. 1676); or by the special modes of statement which
were developed by such schools as the so-called Federalists (e.g., Cocceius,
d. 1669, Burman, d. 1679, Wittsius, d. 1708; cf. Diestel, "Studien
zur Foderaltheologie," in Jahrbucher fur deutsche Theologie, x. 1865,
pp. 209-276; G. Vos, "De Verbondsleer in de Gereformeerde Theologie,"
Grand Rapids, 1891; W. Hastie, "The Theology of the Reformed Church,"
Edinburgh, 1904, pp. 189-210). The first serious defection from the fundamental
conceptions of the Reformed system came with the rise of Arminianism in
the early years of the seventeenth century (Arminius, Uytenbogaert, Episcopius,
Limborch, Curcellaeus); and the Arminian party was quickly sloughed off
under the condemnation of the whole Reformed world. The five points of its
" Remonstrance" against the Calvinistic system (see "Remonstrants")
were met by the reassertion of the
fundamental doctrines of absolute predestination, particular redemption,
total depravity, irresistible grace, and the perseverance. of the saints
(Canons of the Synod of Dort). The first important modification of the Calvinistic
system which has retained a position within its limits was made in the middle
of the seventeenth century by the professors of the French school at Saumur,
and is hence called Salmurianism; otherwise Amyraldism, or hypothetical
universalism (Cameron, d. 1625, Amyraut, d. 1664, Placaeus, d. 1655, Testardus,
d. ca. 1650; see "Amyraut, Moise"). This modification also received
the condemnation of the contemporary Reformed world, which reasserted with
emphasis the importance of the doctrine that Christ actually saves by His
spirit all for whom He offers the sacrifice of His blood (e.g., Westminster
Confession, Swiss Form of Consent).
8. SUPRALAPSARIANISM
AND INFRALAPSARIANISM
If " varieties
of Calvinism " are to be spoken of with reference to anything more
than details, of importance in themselves no doubt, but of little significance
for the systematic development of the type of doctrine, there seem not more
than three which require mention: supralapsarianism, infralapsarianism,
and what may perhaps be called in this reference, postredemptionism; all
of which (as indeed their very names import) take their start from a fundamental
agreement in the principles which govern the system. The difference between
these various tendencies of thought within the limits of the system turns
on the place given by each to the decree of election, in the logical ordering
of the " decrees of God." The supralapsarians suppose that election
underlies the decree of the fall itself ; and conceive the decree of the
fall as a means for carrying out the decree of election. The infralapsarians,
on the other hand, consider that election presupposes the decree of the
fall, and hold, therefore, that in electing some to life God has mankind
as a massa perditionis in mind. The extent of the difference
between these parties is often, indeed usually, grossly exaggerated: and
even historians of repute are found representing infralapsarianism as involving,
or at least permitting, denial that the fall has a place in the decree of
God at all: as if election could be postposited in the ordo decretorum to
the dedecree of the fall, while it was doubted whether there were any decree
of the fall; or as if indeed God could be held to conceive men, in His electing
decree, as fallen, without by that very act fixing the presupposed fall
in His eternal decree. In point of fact there is and can be no difference
among Calvinists as to the inclusion of the fall in the decree of God: to
doubt this inclusion is to place oneself at once at variance with the fundamental
Calvinistic principle which conceives all that comes to pass teleologically
and ascribes everything that actually occurs ultimately to the will of God.
9. POSTREDEMPTIONISM
Accordingly even the
postredemptionists (that is to say the Salmurians or Amyraldians) find no
difficulty at this point. Their peculiarity consists in insisting that election
succeeds, in the order of thought, not merely the decree of the fall but
that of redemption as well, taking the term redemption here in the narrower
sense of the impetration of redemption by Christ. They thus suppose that
in His electing decree God conceived man not merely as fallen but as already
redeemed. This involves a modified doctrine of the atonement from which
the party has received the name of Hypothetical Universalism, holding as
it does that Christ died to make satisfaction for the sins of all men without
exception if -- if, that is, they believe: but that, foreseeing that none
would believe, God elected some to be granted faith through the effectual
operation of the Holy Spirit. The indifferent standing of the postredemptionists
in historical Calvinism is indicated by the treatment accorded it in the
historical confessions. It alone of the " varieties of Calvinism "
here mentioned has been made the object of formal confessional condemnation;
and it received condemnation in every important Reformed
confession written after its development. There are, it is true, no supralapsarian
confessions: many, however, leave the questions which divide supralapsarian
and infralapsarian wholly to one side and thus avoid pronouncing for either;
and none is polemically directed against supralapsarianism. On the other
hand, not only does no confession close the door to infralapsarianism, but
a considerable number explicitly teach infralapsarianism which thus emerges
as the typical form of Calvinism. That, despite its confessional condemnation,
postredemptionism has remained a recognized form of Calvinism and has worked
out a history for itself in the Calvinistic Churches (especially in America)
may be taken as evidence that its advocates, while departing, in some important
particulars, from typical Calvinism, have nevertheless remained, in the
main, true to the fundamental postulates of the system. There is another
variety of postredemptionism, however, of which this can scarcely be said.
This variety, which became dominant among the New England Congregationalist
churches about the second third of the nineteenth century (e.g., N. W. Taylor,
d. 1858; C. G. Finney, d. 1875; E. A. Park, d. 1900; see "New England
Theology"), attempted, much after the manner of the "Congruists"
of the Church of Rome, to unite a Pelagian doctrine of the will with the
Calvinistic doctrine of absolute predestination. The result was, of course,
to destroy the Calvinistic doctrine of "irresistible grace," and
as the Calvinistic doctrine of the "satisfaction of Christ" was
also set aside in favor of the Grotian or governmental theory of atonement,
little was left of Calvinism except the bare doctrine of predestination.
Perhaps it is not strange, therefore, that this "improved Calvinism"
has crumbled away and given place to newer and explicitly anti- Calvinistic
constructions of doctrine (cf. Williston Walker, in AJT, April, 1906, pp.
204 sqq.).
10. PRESENT FORTUNES
OF CALVINISM
It must be confessed
that the fortunes of Calvinism in general are not at present at their flood.
In America, to be sure, the
controversies of the earlier half of the nineteenth century compacted a
body of Calvinistic thought which gives way but slowly: and the influence
of the great theologians who adorned the Churches during that period is
still felt (especially Charles Hodge, 1797-1878, Robert J. Breckinridge,
1800-1871, James H. Thornwell, 1812-1862, Henry B. Smith, 1815- 1877, W.
G. T. Shedd, 1820-1894, Robert L. Dabney, 1820-1898, Archibald Alexander
Hodge, 1823-1886). And in Holland recent years have seen a notable revival
of the Reformed consciousness, especially among the adherents of the Free
Churches, which has been felt as widely as Dutch influence extends, and
which is at present represented in Abraham Kuyper and Herman Bavinck, by
a theologian of genius and a theologian of erudition worthy of the best
Reformed traditions. But it is probable that few " Calvinists without
reserve " exist at the moment in Frenchspeaking lands: and those who
exist in lands of German speech and Eastern Europe appear to owe their inspiration
directly to the teaching of Kohlbrugge. Even in Scotland there has been
a remarkable decline in strictness of construction ever since the days of
William Cunningham and Thomas J. Crawford (cf. W. Hastie, "The Theology
of the Reformed Church," Edinburgh, 1904, p. 228). Nevertheless, it
may be contended that the future, as the past, of Christianity itself is
bound up with the fortunes of Calvinism. The system of doctrine founded
on the idea of God which has been explicated by Calvinism, strikingly remarks
W. Hastie ("Theology as Science," Glasgow, 1899, pp. 97-98), "is
the only system in which the whole order of the world is brought into a
rational unity with the doctrine of grace. . . . It is only with such a
universal conception of God, established in a living way, that we can face,
with hope of complete conquest, all the spiritual dangers and terrors of
our time. . . . But it is deep enough and large enough and divine enough,
rightly understood, to confront them and do battle with them all in vindication
of the Creator, Preserver, and Governor of the world, and of the Justice
and Love of the Divine Personality.