Calvin, Calvinism, and Philosophy:

A Prolusion

CHARLES PARTEE
On Robert Browning's theory that one's reach sho uld exceed his grasp- this essay
is an attempt to identify the theological essence of Calvinism . His torica lly, of course,
the term "Calvinism" has been used to describe a particular fami ly of Protestant
people, but the bewildering variety of their relations to their progenitor (even for those
who so regarded John Ca lvin) makes the subject immensely difficult and finally
extremely specul ative. Still the attempt to locate Ca lvini sm's centra l dogma has been
made before and may be made yet again, in spite of the strictures of scho lars who
argue that it cannot be done. T he nature of the case is such that it cannot be
conclusive, but hopefully it may at least be suggestive both for understanding the
sixteenth century and the twentieth.

I. Philosophy and Theology

That theology occupied a centra l place in th e sixteen th century is evident. It is

not, perhaps, quite so obvious what theology is and how it is related to philosophy.
Modern views include theology as an attempt to protect mystery (Barth); theology as
eristic (Brunner); and theology as providing ultimate answers (Tillich). Leaving aside
the question whether religion breaks in from the outside or breaks out from the inside,
sure ly we can say that the primary religious impulse , if not deeper, is much broader
than the theological response. Presumably many people are ab le to cherish a re ligion
without assuming or accepting a clear and definite theologica l position . Theology,
then, may also be taken as the product of thinkers who seek to articulate this basic
impulse both for their own benefit and for that of others and a lso to interpret it- since
theological formu lation creates a certain dynamic of its own as it unfolds. To this
point we shall return later.
Christianity is a religion which has produced many theological systems which
have used various materials for their elucidation. Most theologies have been related
conscious ly to ph ilosophy. Some have utilized philosophical insights extens ively;
others to a lesser degree , but for all the intent of using philosophy, normatively if not
always descriptively, is for education rather than proclamation. That is to say, philo-
sophical insights are not the objects of adoration but instruments for the articulation
of it. And philosophies may be considered effective to the extent that they clarify the
primary material without controlling or misrepresenting it. On this topic Gilson
rightly observes, "It is important. .. to be forewarned against an almost inevitable
error of perspective. The very attempt to discern the philosophical elements which
theologians have used in their work throws these elements into an exaggerated rel ief

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with res pect to th e very th eo logies from which th ey are taken. For th e Fat hers of th e
C hur ch , neither th e truth of the fait h, nor the dogma defining it , depended in any way
o n philosophy."1 Gil son goes too fa r in assert ing that defining dogma does not depend
on philosophy. Defi niti on (logos, givi ng a reasonable acco unt) had been a basic fea-
ture of philosophical me thod since Plato and became an essentia l part of the C hri stian
attempt to "love the Lord you r God with a ll your mind" (Mk. 12.30).
W ith certa in notable exceptions, the first Protestant Reformers preferred to use
P la to rather than Ar isto tl e fo r the purpose of ex plica tion of the fa ith . At least in
appeal ing to the consens us of the early Christ ian centuries, t hey we re a ffirming a
relatively undogmatic Platonism instead of the more sop hi sticated sc ho lasti c usage of
Ar istotle. Hilary Armstrong is correct in believing that" ... the Platonic trad iti on has
a lways re main ed th e most open of a ll the g reat philosophie s, to ideas from outside ,
not o nl y from other philosophies, but from science a nd theology [while] th e influe nce
of Aristot le a lways seems to lead to attempts at closed a nd exc lu sive systematiza-
tion .. . " l St ill , as Boas remarks, it is stra nge that " (b]ot h the anc ients a nd ea rl y C hri s-
ti a ns looked to (Plato] as the source of th eir doctr in es, as if their consiste ncy with hi s
dialogues wo uld give ad ded proof of their doctrines. T hi s is th e more curious amo ng
the early Fa th ers with their theory of a praeparatio evangelica ... for one might think
th at the Source of a ll lig ht would produce His revelation without the he lp of heathen
thinkers."J If G il son is correc t in hi s main point then Boas is wro ng in assert ing that
P lato was used as a "so urce" in a strict sense . T he chi ef purpose of citing pagan
philosophers was to show how mu ch of th e truth God had revea led to th e natural li ght
of reason, but a dmittedly this was often done with suc h ent husiasm that Plato or some
other philo so phe r co uld be considered a "so ur ce" in some se nse. St ill , even if the
interpre ta tion of the theological use of philo sop hy for artic ulation is not always true in
genera l, it seems to hold for Ca lvin in particular.

II. Calvin, Ca lvini sm, and Phi lo sophy

Co nce rnin g the inter preta tion of Ca lvin a nd philosophy th ere are tw o opposing
tendencies . The o ld e r position argues th at Ca lvin created a philosophy while the more
recent view ma inta ins that Ca lvin had little interest in philosophy. The first tendency
is represented by the so-ca lled Ca lvini stic philosophers and trad itional "Ca lvini sm"
which rega rd s Ca lvin's doctrine of the sove reig nty of God , not ind eed as developing
but , as c lea rl y sugges tin g the development of a world view based on necessary ded uc-
ti o ns from that principle such as predestination. T he latter tendency is represented by
the Barthian interprete rs of Ca lvin and a lso by philosophers of religion such as
C ha rl eswort h who writes , "The interests of the Reformers , Luth er a nd Ca lvin , are
exclusively th eologica l, a nd they are content to make their theological points abo ut
revelation and faith and to leave philosophy to cope with them as best it ca n."4 The
focus of this mooted point in Ca lvin's text is what he meant by the term "Chri stian
philosophy." According to th e Ca lvini sti c phil osop hers, Ca lvin produced, or indica ted ,
a perennial philosophy, whil e accordi ng to the Barthians, "Christ ian philosophy" is

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equated with Christ ian th eology, and little attention is devoted to Ca lvin's relation to
philosophy.
In my book on Calvin and classical philosophy, I attempted to moderate these
interpretations by considering Calvin 's explicit citations of the class ica l philosophers
as a paradigm for answering the broader question of his relation to philosophy. I did
not try to deal with the more problematic question of unconscious philosophical influ-
ences or affinities. I am sti ll not prepared to do so, but I believe that the Calvinistic
philosophers cla im too much for Calvin and philosophy and the Barthians claim too
little.
I take it that the recent st udies on Calvinism by Brian Armstrong,5 John Bray, 6
John Donnelly, 7 and others are asserting that most, or much of what passes for Calvin-
ism and Calvinistic philosophy is at best only tangentially related to Calvin's own
thought. My own research comes to the same conclusion from the other direction , that
is, from the exposition of Calvin himself. By way of definition, Calvini stic orthodoxy
ha s produced a theological system which is based on deductions from a first principle
which is considered to be revealed or implicit in Scripture (regarded as infa llible and
amenable to propositional-truth formulations), and exalting the reason of the re -
deemed person to almost eq ual stand in g with faith as trust in God, so that speculative
and metaphysical thought becomes a necessary component of Christian theology. It is
obvious, with the "Calvinists" and aga inst the Barthians, that Calvin does use philos-
op hy, but it is equall y clear, with the Barthians and against the "Ca lvinists," that
Ca lvin does not have a systematic interest in using philosophy as the basis for
theology. s
Taken a ltogether, then , there seems to be a growing consensus that Calvin's
thought needs to be freed of the confines of "Calvinism" and the so-called Calvinist ic
philosophy. This means that we must read Ca lvin afresh without the presuppositions
which bound our predecessors and many of our contemporaries. A number of scholars
have contented themselves with rescuing Ca lvin from the obloquy of Calvinistic
orthodoxy, and, while this historical revision is a worthy and useful effort, by itself it
is only preliminary to a reconstruction of theology which was a lso the goal of the
sixteenth century reformers .

III. Prolusion: The Use and Limitations of Calvin Today

If then there is general agreeme nt that Calvin's theolo gy is not heavily indebted to
any one philosophy, what does this res ult contribute to the theological task today?
First, it means that we need not, a nd should not, read Calvin through the eyes of the
Ca lvi nistic scho lastics. Thus having set aside Protestant orthodoxy as an epoch which
has lost its credibility tod ay, a second possibility is to look at Calvin through Barthian
spectacles as a theologian of the Word and therefore as a contemporary resource.
However, thi s view is not without its own difficulties . I would like to mention two .
F irst, it is doubtful that Ca lvin is as Barthian as so me of Calvin's interpre ters seem t o
think. Second, even if he were, it wo uld not greatly matter unless Barthian theology is
to be accepted as the shibboleth.

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 I would like to suggest that, apart from the satisfacti on of ant iqu arian accuracy;
the ma in purpose of reading and reading about great thinkers of the past is to appro-
priate their thoughts for our own era. Since theological modes go out of style ra ther
quickly when they are decked out in philo sophica l garments which are no longer
fas hionable, I suspect that part of Calvin's rehabi litat ion today is not due to our
grea ter historical integrity , but the conviction held consciously or unconsciously that
his theology, relatively devoid of obviously outd ated philosophica l conceptions, is
considered useful as a way of expressing Christianity in a secular world . At least, I
think I find that purpose a t work in my own st ud y.
Is it not true that many of us have a vested in terest in champio ning Ca lvin's
open ness to humanistic influ ences because it is analogo us to our own openness to
sec ular impulses? Those who · find the perennial philosophy in Ca lvin's thought
obviously do not have the same concern to assert this dimension of his thought. But to
some of us, or at least to me , t he study of Ca lvin seems to be a helpful tool forged in
the hono ra ble past but flexible enough to be of use in the present .
I believe, however, that the grea test limita ti ons to the use of Calvin today are in
just those places which in th e past have been considered strengths, that is, the a reas of
philosophy a nd Scripture. As already remarked, Calvin is relatively fre e of philos-
ophy, but that evidently entails tha t he provides theology with no concrete di rec tions
for dealing with the philosophical sce ne tod ay. Among the Barthians this fact was
co nsidered a n asset rather than a li ability, but this conclusion was based on the con-
viction that Calvin should be viewed as a theologian of the Word. In that case modern
scientific study of the Bible in the last 200 years must give self-critica l pause to all who
ass ume that they can simply a nd easily read the Scripture in the frame of reference
within which it was written or on the basis of what was known in the sixteenth
century. 9
We must admit that Calvin li ved a nd worked before the effect of both the great
inte llectua l revolutions with which we must deal, tha t is to say, th e scientific revo lu-
tion of the sixteent h a nd seventeenth centuries and the revoluti on in hi storica l method
of the nineteenth ce ntu ry. Ca lvin, indeed , made a distinction betwee n Scriptu re and
tradition, but he was not a wa re of the force of tradition within Scripture, i.e., the
modern critical study of the Bible. Thus unless one wishes to deny the results of this
resea rch, he cannot acce pt Ca lvin as a n infallible guid e to Scripture. Calvin's exegesis
of the biblica l text must be put into a nother context. In short, Ca lvin's use of philoso-
phy in his own time was suggestive, but hardly definitive for ours . Moreover, his com-
ments on Scripture, while still important, can scarce ly be acce pted today unrefi ned .
Nevertheless, it d oes seem to me that we can a ppreciate unreservedly Calvin's
timebound but powerful explica tion of a religious impulse wh ich many of us may still
fi nd a ttrac tive. And here we return to the first sec tion of this paper. Doubtless reli -
gio us lo ya lties may be explained in a number of ways. Although the causes are com-
plex, birth , inertia, and convictio n play varying parts. Theologians deal wi th the intel-
lectua l components of religious loya lties. However, rea l intellectual abi lity is limited to
a minority of religious ad herents. Thus religious distinctiveness is only partly an in tel-

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lectual matter. I would like to hazard the generalization that Reformed theology
emphasizes in a distinctive way a religious response which is articulated and inter-
preted but not created by its theologians . This response is signa li zed by the phrase
"union with Christ."10 Of course, the doctrine of union with Christ is not unknown to
Christians belonging to other fami lies of believers, but it seems to me that this convic-
tion is the heart, or close to the heart, of Reformed theology. If this generalization is
too sweeping, the union with Christ is, at least a remarkably important doctrine in
such early Reformed thinkers as Fare!, Calvin , and Peter Martyr.
Fare! writes that all who believe are united and incorporated into the body of
Christ, a union which restores us to a more noble state than that which obtained
before the sin of Adam. 11 That is to say, through Jesus Christ one is not only freed
and absolved but incorporated into Jesus and united by true faith to him. 12 "The
Churc h of Jesus Christ is the holy congregation of the faithful who through real faith
are united and inco rporated into Jesus Christ. .. " 13 Moreover, according to McLel-
land, "There is no doubt that (the] doctrine of union with Christ is the dynamic of
Peter Martyr's theology." And he suggests that "(t]he implications of this basic
Reformed doctrine for all theology are staggering .... " 14 Calvin says, "I declare that it
is only after we possess Christ himself that we share in the benefits of Christ . And I
further maintain that he is possessed not only when we believe that he was sacrificed
for us, but when he dwells in us, when he is one with us , when we are members of his
flesh , in short, when we become united in one life and substance, in a manner of
speaking, with him."15
In a general way the union with Christ was treated in the medieval period as part
of mysticism . The charge is often made that the Reformers were hostile to mysticism,
but Max Weber claims that "(t]he highest religious experience which the Lutheran
faith strives to attain, especially as it developed in the seventeenth century, is the unio
mystica with the deity." Weber believes this aspect of religion wa s repudiated by the
Reformed Church from the beginning. 16 Whether in fact the Reformers in genera l or
the Calvinists in particular opposed mysticism and in what sense, Calvin seems to have
understood the union with Christ in the ontological terms of Greek patristic thought
rather than the imitation of Christ in the mystical terms of medieval thought. Dietrich
Ritschl asserts that "Calvin of all Western theologians seems to come closest to ... a
concept of the work of Christ which culminates in the affirmation that God in Christ
has taken man into his possession." 17
Calvin's doctrine of the union with Christ is explicated in Book III of the Insti-
tutes in terms of faith, regeneration , and justification and concludes with the exposi-
tion of eternal election. is If the doctrine of union with Christ occupies the place I am
assigning to it- then it is understandable that predestination came to be seen, by
synecdoche, as the central dogma of Reformed Christianity. The evaluation of predes-
tination as central is incorrect in that predestination is only one aspect of the more
fundamental conception of the union with Christ , but the view is correct in that pre-
destination is an essential aspect. Since Calvin's exposition of faith, regeneration, and
justification was considered by Protestants as somewhat less polemical, hi s view of

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predestination became the chief focus of debate and therefore defense.
In conclusion , one cannot claim that Calvin or Calvini sts lield or advanced the
doctrine of union with Christ as centra l in the sense of a clear and distinct principle
from which the remainder of their theology could be deduced, but one can suggest and
accept its centra lity to the extent that, as a heuristic device , this doctrine is found
useful as a standpoint from which Calvinistic thought and li fe is illuminated. In some
such way one must account for the impetus which Ca lvin gave toward a particular
understanding of the Christian life as dealing with God in all things. The value of
Ca lvin , then, is not, I think , as the creator of Calvinistic philosophy- however
conceived - nor as a theologian of the Word - however understood . Calvin's enduring
importance is as a theologian, perhaps the theologian of a certain tradition. That is to
say, Ca lvin represents a religious response which a number of Christ ians have been
ab le to identify with without always being ab le .to identify.

Footnotes

I. Etienne Gilson, A History of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages (New

York: Random House, 1955), p. 93.
2. Hilary Armstrong, "Platonism," Prospect for Metaphysics, ed. by Ian Ramsey
(New York: Greenwood Press, 1961), pp. 96, 97.
3. George Boas, Rationalism in Greek Philosophy (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins
Press, 1961), p. 130.
4. M. J. Charlesworth, Philosophy of ReJigion: The Historic Approaches (New
York: Herder and Herder, 1972), p. 90.
5. Brian G. Armstrong, Calvinism and the Amyraut Heresy: Protestant Scholasti-
cism and Humanism in Seventeenth Cen tury France (Madison: University of
Wisconsin Press, 1969).
6. John S. Bray, Theodore Beza's Doctrine of Predestination (Nieuwkoop: De
Graaf, 1975).
7. John Patrick Donnell y, Calvinism and Scho/asticism in Vermig!i's Doctrine of
Man and Grace (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1976). See also his "Calvinist Thomism,"
Viator, 7 (1976), 441-55.
8. Charles Partee, Calvin and Classical Philosophy (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1977), pp.
18-22 and passim.
9. Cf. James Barr, Fundamentalism (Phi ladelphia: T he Westminster Press, 1978),
who argues, correctly, that Calvin and ea rly Ca lvini sm is pre-critical rather than
anti-critical (p. 175). Their stress on Scripture has a set of connections quite dif-
ferent from that found in mod~rn fundamentalism (p. 268). "Thus, the anti-critica l
aim of modern conservative evangelica l doctrine, an aim which is not only part of
that doctrine but is the supreme a nd overriding architectonic principle of it, is
quite absent from a person like Calvin" (p. 174). See a lso Jack B. Rogers and

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 Donald K. Mc Kim, The A uthority and Interpretation of the Bible: An Historical
Approach (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1979), pp. 89- 11 6. A lth o ugh the con-
clusion of these st udi es is much the same, the angle of approac h is different. From
the viewpoint of modern scientific biblical st udy, Barr arg ues that Ca lvin is not
opposed in principle to these developments, but indeed shows some openness in
this direction. From an hi storical point of view, Rogers and McKim oppose the
so-ca lled Ca lvini stic identification of Ca lvin as a support er of the fundamentalistic
interpretation of the Bible . In both cases the result is that Ca lvin 's 16th cen tury
positions may be instructive but not definitive for the 20th ce ntury .
10. This doctrine appears to be unnerving to some philosophers of religion. H. D .
Lewis, Philosophy of' Religion (London: Eng li sh Uni vers iti es Press, 1965), p. 229,
writes, "If the doctrine of the Holy Spirit , in the C hri st ian religion, meant that
God is to be ide nti fied in some respect with His creatures, it would contradict
what is basic in the Christian doctrine of God."
11. G uill aume Fare!, Le Sommaire, ed . by J. G . Baum (Geneva: Jules-Guillaume
Fick, 1867), p. 12.
12. Ibid., p. 73.
13. Ibid., p. 31.
14. Joseph C . Mclelland, The Visible Words of God: An Exposition of the Sacra-
mental Theology of Peter Marty r Vermigli (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1957),
p. 142.
15 . Comm . on I Cor. 11 . 24 ( Calvini Opera, 49, 487).
16. Max Weber, The Protestant Et hic and the Spirit of Capita lism, trans . by Talcott
Parsons (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1958), pp. 11 2, 11 3.
17. Dietrich Ritschl, Memory and Hope: An Inquiry Concerning th e Presence of'
Ch rist (New York: Macmillan, 1967), p . 98. Original emp hasis but sentences
rearranged.
18. For a fuller expositio n see Partee, Ca lvin and Classical Philosophy, pp. 87-90,
126- 145.

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