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What can we learn from John Calvin By Alister McGrath

the title I've been given this afternoon is, What Can We Learn from John Calvin?
Now, I answered that question really last night, so I guess that the title really ought to be, What More Can We Learn from John Calvin? And that is indeed what I'm going to be talking about.
But I was very struck by Bruce's address before the break, where he talked about this whole live business about the problem of leaving space for questions. And it reminded me of a story I heard, and sorry I'll tell you this because it's quite a good story, of the professor and the chauffeur.
And this is the professor who has to go around the city every night for two weeks and give a lecture. Okay, so he's giving the same lecture every night, and this driver of his would come, he'd drive into the venue, he'd sit at the back of a hall, wait for the lecture, then drive the guy home. And he heard the same lecture 12 nights running. And he said to the professor after, I know that lecture so well I could give it, you know, I'm pretty well word perfect.
So the professor said, all right, tomorrow we'll change places. I'll drive you, you give a lecture.
And so in the evening, up went the chauffeur dressed the professor up to the platform with
the professor sitting at the back dressed the driver. And he gave this lecture, and he was
right, you know, he gave it more or less word perfect. And the audience was very impressed
indeed. But there was one difference, you see, between the driver and the professor.
The driver spoke more quickly. And the result was, when he gave the talk, the man who was
organizing the conference said, well, we seem to have some types of questions.
So he said, well, we might ask a question. And somebody asked a question, and it was,
you know, it was a killer. And the driver stared the man in the face of that question,
said, that's such a stupid question. Even my driver at the back could answer that.
So there we are.
Right, well, that's the end of the fun.
I'll talk now about some more things Calvin has to say to us. And I think some of these are
actually quite important, because last night, really, in many ways, I was trying to explain
the way in which Calvin had a big impact. And I think in thinking about this afternoon's agenda,
I have really been thinking about the ways in which Calvin can help anybody who's engaged in
ministry. So I've had that kind of agenda to the back of my mind in thinking about Calvin today.
And I think the first thing I want to do is to focus in on the theme of God's sovereignty.
Because, as you all know, that is very, very important for Calvin. And it does seem to me
that it's actually very important for anybody who's engaged in ministry. I think, first of all,
the theme of God's sovereignty is saying this. It's saying that you, in the end, aren't in control.
Things don't depend on you. In other words, that there are some things which you're being asked
to get on with and do well. But in the end, it's God who's in control. The idea of God calling us
to do certain things carries with it this very important assumption that God Himself
is involved as well. That we aren't on our own. I think that's a very important corrective to
purely humanist or secular ways of thinking about things. Where we see everything landing on our
shoulders. In other words, we're on our own. We've got to do everything by ourselves. We are the guy
who makes things happen. It's entirely up to us. And we feel incredibly burdened by that sense of
responsibility. And what Calvin is saying is that you aren't on your own. God has called you. God's
equipping you. God will support you. And to give an indication of the kind of area where I think
this is very important, I'd like to focus in on the whole area of preaching. Preaching.
Let me tell you what Calvin says and then I will just try to unpack the way in which it's relevant
to us. Calvin, as you all probably know, has a very strong doctrine of election. Some people
are going to be saved, some are not. And you as a preacher do not determine who is saved and who is
not. That's not your job. Calvin rather bases himself very much, for example, in Mark chapter 4,
the parable of the sower. In other words, some seed will grow, some will wither. And in many ways what
Calvin is saying is this. The preacher is not one who causes faith. Not one who causes unbelief
either. But rather is like a catalyst by which the faith of the elect is strengthened and the
unbelief of those who do not believe is likewise confirmed. In other words, you aren't causing
things. You are simply playing your part in the process of which God causes things to be happening.
God is the one who's in control. You are simply part of the process by which things happen.
So see, Calvin is saying to you, you do not need to go on a guilt trip if you preach the gospel
and find that it's not being as effective as you'd like. Because in the end it is God's gospel
and you are simply being asked to preach the gospel faithfully and well. But what happens
once you've done that really is God's affair. And so Calvin in effect is saying there's both
a challenge there and an assurance. The challenge is to preach well, to realize how important the
thing preaching is, and to really make sure that you handle your preaching faithfully and
responsibly. But the assurance, and it's a very important assurance, is that what actually happens
as a result of your preaching is something that you don't actually need to worry about.
Now I think it's just important again to make this point. There are many preachers who feel that
the success of their preaching needs to be judged by the number of people who converted,
or a number of people who feel better after the sermon. But of course Calvin makes the point that
certainly the purpose of preaching in some cases is to affirm people or bring them to faith.
But maybe in other cases it is actually to say, I don't accept Christianity and actually your sermon
has helped me see why. Because in many ways that has to be done. You see, you could preach a
wonderful sermon in which you describe Christianity as in effect something like a sugar coated pill
that makes life dead easy, really rather enjoyable, and you know will make you wealthy and rich,
and invite them to become Christians. And they'll respond, and they'll be very impressed by your
sermon. But that's not the way things are. And Calvin in effect is saying you preach the gospel
faithfully and responsibly, putting everything you've got into it. But you sleep easy at night,
because what happens next really is over to God. And certainly as a preacher I do find that's very
helpful, because certainly the temptation for me is just to lie awake every night worrying about
what the impact of preaching is. We are being challenged to put everything we've got into our
preaching. There's no excuse that we rely on God's sovereignty to preach bad sermons and say, well of
course God can cope with anything really because he's all powerful. I think that God's nut problems
are us adding to them like that. But I think there is this element of a limitation on our part.
We have our part to play here, but the greater part is God's. I think that limitation of
responsibility there is actually very very helpful. Let's move on now. I look at another area where I
think Calvin is helpful, and this is the whole area of apologetics. Apologetics. And what I want
to look at in particular is Calvin's doctrine of the natural knowledge of God. Calvin is quite clear
that the true knowledge of God only comes through scripture. But nevertheless he's very interested
in the question of what can be known of God through nature, and the particular role that
this knowledge actually has. And Calvin develops the following approach, and I'll take you through
it, and you'll see the way in which it can be very useful in your own apologetic preaching.
Calvin makes the point that God is the creator of the world. In other words, it is his creation.
And though forward, nevertheless, it is still able to point to him. So Calvin makes the point
that really there are two areas in which we can have some kind of natural knowledge of God.
First of all, we have the whole area of creation. And you may remember last night I made the point
that Calvin actually at one point almost expresses envy about people like
medical people and astronomers who have the privilege that he didn't have of being able
to study nature at first hand. Because they are learning something of the wisdom of God
by looking at the wonder of his creation. And what Calvin is saying is that it's very, very easy,
in fact, Calvin almost suggests that virtually everybody has this knowledge. It's very easy
to know that there is a God, or at least have a deep sense that there is someone behind the world
by looking at the world. And Calvin, for example, talks about the wonders of a star-studded sky
at night. So Calvin there is saying this is a real valid knowledge of God. Sure, it's not a
saving knowledge of God, nor is it a full knowledge of God, because there is so much
that's yet to come. But nevertheless, it's pointing in the right direction. And we'll
see what he does with that in a minute. And on the other hand, if that's a sort of objective
knowledge of God, and knowledge of God seen from outside, Calvin's also talking about a second
type of natural knowledge of God. And that is almost a sort of feeling type knowledge,
that there is a sense of divinity, a sense of divinity within people. In other words,
that subjectively there are many people who have a feeling that there is a God out there somewhere.
That's a subjective feeling as opposed to objectively looking at the world. But Calvin
is saying whether you look inside you or outside you, there are things there which point you towards
God. In neither case is the knowledge saving. In neither case is the knowledge full. But of course,
it's pointing in a certain direction. And then Calvin says now, having noticed that,
let's move on and look at Scripture, and notice something very significant. And that is that
Scripture confirms what can be known of God through nature. But it makes it clearer,
and it takes it further. In other words, Scripture says yes, there is a God. Yes, there is a Creator
God. And it states that far more clearly than nature could. For example, if you look at a
beautiful night sky, you'd say there is a God. If you look at people suffering from cancer,
which is part of nature, you might say, I wonder if there is God. It is unclear. But Calvin is saying
Scripture clarifies this by making it clear that there is a God. In other words, it builds on that.
You can appeal to people and say, look at this world. Doesn't it make you think there is a God?
I mean, you probably have to say a lot more than that, but that's the gist of what you'd say.
And that is what the Christian Bible says. It confirms that point, and then it moves you on,
and says more than that. It says that this God, who we can see in creation, is a God who makes
himself known, and who wonderfully makes himself available through Jesus Christ. In other words,
you're building on this. So really, Calvin is saying there's a natural sequence here.
You look at nature and you say there's something there. Scripture comes in and says there sure is,
and you can know it and move on to a full saving knowledge of God by attending to God's revelation
in Scripture. So Calvin there is kind of describing a sequence, moving from nature to Scripture,
from Scripture to the idea of salvation in Christ. And Calvin's point is you can use that as a way
in to the preaching of the Gospel. Now of course in one way, Calvin and all 16th century reformers
are weak by today's standards, because they do not address one central issue which is of major
importance to the modern church. And the issue is evangelism. Now I'm not saying that Calvin is
an irrelevance for evangelism, because it's so clear his theology is helpful as we evangelize.
But Calvin himself does not address evangelism, because he was working in a settled Christian
context, and really his task was to reform rather than evangelize. For example, when Calvin looked
at his native France, what he saw there was a form of Christianity which was not reformed,
and therefore his central agenda was to reform. But for us of course the issue of evangelism
is of major importance, and I think Calvin helps us here. He helps us because of this emphasis on
God's sovereignty. You know, we may feel overwhelmed by the task that we face in evangelism,
but Calvin would say to us, if God is on your side, if God is assisting you by his grace,
then you and God together make a majority. So there's a reassurance there. And also Calvin
helps us work out at least one strategy for dealing with evangelism, and that is building
what you'll know through nature, and then moving them on gradually to a saving knowledge of God
in Christ. And that seems to me to be something quite helpful in today's situation.
Let me move on from there, if I may, and look at another point.
I talked last night about the importance of theology, and in many ways the point I was
making simply is that Christianity is not simply about experience, but also about understanding.
I think now I'd like to reinforce that point and expand on it.
The first issue I'd like to look at is, what is theology? What is theology? And Calvin answers
that question at the very opening of the 1559 edition of the Institutes. He makes the point that
all true wisdom that we possess consists in a knowledge of God and knowledge of ourselves.
In other words, know God, know yourself. Those two central themes are almost like pillars
on which Calvin constructs his theology. And Calvin makes the point that theology is,
as the word suggests, about true knowledge of God as it is made known through Scripture.
And those of you here last night will remember that I made the point that for Calvin, theology
must concern itself to explain what is there in Scripture, and be very, very careful about not
rushing off into speculation which goes way beyond what Scripture says. There are several
points in the Institutes which you may have come across in your reading where Calvin really said
something like this, I don't want to say any more on this because I would then go beyond what
Scripture says. I think that there's a real sense of responsibility and integrity there, that very
often when we go beyond Scripture, we actually lose sight of some very important Scriptural themes.
It always seems to me that there is a real problem about systematic theology.
I tell this to somebody who enjoys systematic theology, so this is a friendly criticism of
theology. But it does seem to me that in many ways theology is like a superstructure erected
on a base of Scripture. In other words, it's like a building whose foundations are Scripture.
And the bigger that building gets, the further you get away from the biblical base. And that really
is one of my concerns about systematic theology. Sometimes you get the impression that some very
sophisticated theological systems are being constructed, but every time you build and add
something on, you're actually getting further away from the biblical base. And in many ways
what Calvin is trying to encourage us to do is to stay as close to Scripture as possible.
And that I think is a very very healthy corrective. I am saying that we should take time and trouble
to really think hard about what the implications of what Scripture is saying really are.
But the more sophisticated your theology, the danger, I'm afraid, is that you get further
and further away from Scripture itself. Let me give you one example of a situation where
it's clear that theology went wrong. I'm going to look at one theory of the Atonement.
All I'm going to do is just show you how it began by being very close to Scripture,
and then kind of got further and further away. Those who are interested, this is what's called
the must-trap theory of the Atonement, which you find in the writings of Gregory the Great.
And this theory is very much concerned with the theme of God's victory through the death
and resurrection of Jesus. That's clearly a very biblical theme. And to begin with, the theory
seems very very biblical. Christ's death and resurrection give us a victory over things like
death and sin and Satan. So the question is, in what way does Christ's death and resurrection
achieve this victory? For example, how does Christ's death and resurrection represent
a victory over Satan? Now it's still on fairly biblical ground, but the question being asked
is beginning to point you in other directions. Here's Gregory the Great's answer. Well, we read
in Genesis that humanity sinned, that it rebelled against God. And as a result of its rebellion
against God, it fell under the authority of Satan. Now I'm just going to talk you through
the theory, and at some point you'll all feel this is just, you know, becoming absurd. All
humanity was under the authority of Satan, and therefore God wanted to regain authority
over humanity, but he couldn't do it, because humanity was now justly under the authority of
Satan on account of sin. So there is no way which God could actually prize humanity free
from the authority of Satan. So therefore God devised a scheme which would allow him to do this.
He decided he would send into the world somebody who looked like a fallen sinful man like the rest
of us, but who wasn't. In other words, Jesus Christ. And so Satan saw Jesus come into the
world and thought, here is someone who is a sinner like the rest, I will claim authority over him.
But of course he was sinless, and so Satan overstepped his authority, and as a result
he forfeited his authority over humanity. And the official, called the mousetrap, refers to the fact
that the humanity of Christ was the bait, and the divinity of Christ was the trap, which eventually
ensnared Satan. And that theory was very popular in the 6th century. Now you can see that as I
described it to you, you'll begin to say, well, where did that come from? Where'd that idea come
from? In other words, it just goes further and further and further away from Scripture.
I'm not going to press this point, but nevertheless it's an important point.
That's what happens all the time, that we just end up with an increasingly sophisticated and refined
system, and they end up taking us further and further away from Scripture. In one sense,
the Reformation asserted the priority of Scripture over theology. You must always go straight back
to Scripture, and base everything you say on it. If an idea derives from somewhere outside
Scripture, then you have to ask some very big questions about where it's coming from.
In many ways, one of the things that happened in 20th century history which brings this point home
particularly powerfully, is what happened in Germany during the 1930s. And many of you will
know that what happened in Germany during the 1930s was that the Nazis came to power and
basically imposed Nazi ideas on the church. And a number of German liberal theologians were very
happy to take these ideas on board. And writers like Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, men in
the Reform tradition, were adamant that if the church accepts ideas which come from outside
Scripture, then in the end the church will simply become enslaved to these ideas. And some of you
will know the famous Bauman Declaration of 1934, which said that the church is subject only to God's
revelation in Christ in Scripture, and owes obedience to no one and nothing else. And I
think it's a very important point, because it's very, very easy to be misled by ideas that have
the ascendancy in culture, whereas in fact we need to stay close to Scripture if we're going to avoid
that kind of enslavement. So, Calvin's first point then is theology really is about the exposition
of Scripture. That I think is a very healthy corrective to some modern ideas, where you begin
from first principles or from cultural values. But Calvin also sees theology as being the servant
of the church. And again, this is a theme which I'll deal with in my last lecture, where I talk
about the Reformation and the modern church. I think it's a very significant issue. But the
central question you need to ask is, why do we do theology? What's the point in it? I mean, some of
you may be asking that question more often than others, I don't know. But Calvin is quite clear
that theology is there to serve the church through preaching and teaching. It's not a master,
it's a servant. And you have this very definite emphasis that the purpose of theology is to build
up the people of God, to give them this deep assurance concerning the foundations of faith,
and to enable them to understand better what it is they actually believe. And you may remember that
quote I gave you last night from the German writer Karl Hall, that Calvinist knows what he believes
and why he believes it. And that actually is a very considerable strength. Today there is a
battleground of ideas. And the people who are going to win are those who know what their
strengths are, and why they believe those distinctive ideas. And I think it's particularly
important for those of you in a Presbyterian tradition, where you have this long and valuable
tradition of intellectual excellence, that you let your people know why it is you believe certain
things and what the reasons are, so they can defend those reasons in today's culture.
And finally of course, Calvin's point about scripture points us also in one more direction.
In many ways what Calvin is saying is that theology is biblical theology. But of course
the question then becomes, how are we enabled to wrestle with scripture? And Calvin in many ways
saw the importance of this question and gave us, or built upon existing things,
in giving us two very important resources, the expository sermon and the biblical commentary.
And you're probably aware for example of the enormous importance of expository preaching
to Calvin, for example preaching through the book of Deuteronomy in I think it's 500 sermons,
something like that. I'm not encouraging you to do that, but I am encouraging you to do
what Calvin was doing in more general terms, which is to make the riches of scripture available
through expository preaching. Calvin's basic point is, people need help to understand scripture.
For example, Calvin's institute was conceived as a way of helping people to understand scripture.
And Calvin is quite clear that the preacher has this enormous privilege of being able to
help people make sense of scripture and benefit from what it's saying. So there's a very important
theme there. Preaching is based on scripture opening up its riches to your congregations.
And secondly, the biblical commentary, because Calvin again makes the point people need help,
and several of his commentaries, especially the commentary on Romans, are concerned to enable
people to appreciate the riches of scripture even more. And there you can see Calvin in effect
saying we go to scripture and we give people all the help they can get. Of course, Calvin sees this
principle of helping people at work in God's own revelation. One of the central themes of Calvin's
doctrine of revelation is what he calls the principle of accommodation. Accommodation.
And the argument that Calvin gives us is enormously helpful because it gives us a model
for preaching. Calvin argues like this. When God reveals himself to us, he reveals himself in such
a way that takes account of our limitations. The phrase that Calvin uses is this. God accommodates
himself to our ability. The word accommodate there meaning, you know, adjust yourself to.
In other words, God does not need to do this in terms of who he is, but he knows that we have
difficulties in understanding him and therefore adjusts to suit us. And the model that Calvin
offers is that of a very skilled public speaker. The speaker knows his audience and although he
might use, if I put like this, very high powered language to one group of people, that would just
lose another group, so he has to adjust to the abilities and the language of that group. Calvin,
for example, gives the example of a nurse who would use grown-up language when talking to an
adult, but when talking to a baby will use kind of baby language. Now the point that Calvin is making
is that we find all kinds of things, but of course from our standpoint, I think there is a very
important model there, and that is to imitate God in terms of the way we preach. If God came down to
where we are in Jesus Christ, then we really are under obligation to do exactly the same thing
in our preaching. Really to take account of who we're preaching to, the kind of things they can
cope with, and make sure that our preaching really does take account of people's limitations.
But there's another point about scripture that I'd like to mention very briefly.
I want you to think of preaching like this, and again you'll see the very strongly Calvinist
background I'm using. Preaching is about using our words to take people back to the word of God
in scripture, to take people back to the word of God in Christ. For Calvin, as you probably know,
scripture is about Christ. In many ways Calvin is echoing Luther's emphasis here.
Luther said that scripture is the manger in which Christ is laid. Scripture is the manger
in which Christ is laid. And for Calvin and Luther, scripture points us back to Christ,
which is its ultimate goal. So again, I want you to think of this, our words leading to the word
of scripture, word of God in scripture, leading to the word of God in Christ. Because that helps us
understand some mistakes we can make. Because first of all when you're preaching, you may focus
on your words, making sure that you use really eloquent ways of speaking. And certainly in many
American seminaries, as some of you may know, the preaching classes are primarily concerned
with simply getting you to speak well. In other words, preaching classes equals elocution
lessons. There is far more to preaching than that. It's not just about our words, although
our words matter. If you end up focusing simply on the words we use, concentrating on your techniques
of preaching, on the way you express yourself, on your the hand gestures, I use my hands a lot
in speaking as you can see, and then you're missing something very important. Your words have to point
to something. So they take us then to scripture, the word of God in scripture.
And again for Calvin, that is enormously important that preaching points us to scripture
and to the divine truth that we find there. But it is too easy simply to explain
what a particular biblical passage is saying, and somehow to miss the fact that it's pointing
to Christ. You could very easily give a powerful sermon on, for example, Isaiah chapter 7 or Isaiah
chapter 10, which is talking about the the political situation in which Jerusalem found
itself at this time, and the significance of the prophet's words in that situation.
That would be a good exposition of a text, but it would not point the reader or the hearer on
to Christ. Because in the end, preaching is something which leads us on to Jesus Christ.
And Calvin I think gives us a model for helping us to concentrate our preaching.
Our words matter, but there's more to it than that. Our words point us to scripture, and that's
important as well. But then also we must make sure that Christ shines through what we say in terms
of our preaching. And finally, Calvin gives us a model for helping us make sense of the church.
I guess that many of us every now and then find ourselves reduced to despair,
because we look around the church that we belong to or that we pastor, and we think, you know,
oh dear, you know, this is the bride of Christ. You know, you begin to get quite worried,
because you feel that somehow there's a great disparity between the church as you see it,
and the vision of the church you find, for example, in the New Testament. Calvin, I think,
does help us with a framework to make sense of that situation. In fact, what Calvin is saying
is this. We have to draw a distinction between the church as we see it, the empirical church,
the visible church, and the church as it will be when God has finished with it. And in many ways,
Calvin, like Augustine, is basing himself on Matthew chapter 13, the parable of the tares in
the wheat. In other words, there is a field in which wheat is growing, and in the midst of wheat
there is weeds. But God does not separate wheat and weeds now, because to do so might be to damage
the wheat, and therefore there'll be a separation at the end of the final judgment when the wheat
and the weeds will be separated out. Calvin's point is that as we see the church now,
it is a mixed body. But one day, God will purify the church and will, if I can put it like this,
remove all the dross, purify it, eventually leading to this vision of the church as the pure body of
Christ. And for Calvin, this is the invisible church, the church which God will have finished with.
And therefore, Calvin in many ways is saying that we mustn't despair at the present state of the
church. The church is affected by human sin, whether we like it or not. There are people in
the church that we may have the gravest of doubts about. You may say, well, why not chuck these
people out? Why not just say they aren't Christians and get rid of them? But of course, for Calvin,
that is just not possible. Only God knows who are Christians and who are not, and we cannot
put ourselves in God's position. And our task, therefore, is to preach the gospel faithfully
and effectively, indicating what the gospel is and what kind of response the gospel merits,
knowing that in the end we cannot say that this person is a Christian, but this person is not.
God overrides there. We need to respect that. But what we can do is have this deep sense of
confidence that even though as we look around our churches we do feel that there is, you know,
a lot of cause for concern there, that in the end God is going to purify and renew that church.
And that, I think, is a very encouraging thing to take away from us.
So I talked a bit more about what more we can learn from Calvin, but I think in many ways I
want to end simply by reiterating one thing that I said last night, and as that Calvin sets before
us this agenda of reformation as a continuous process. Calvin is not saying the reformation
took place in the 16th century and we can leave it there. In many ways what Calvin is saying to us
is that reformation is an ongoing process in which we always examine our lives, our beliefs,
and our structures, and ask, are we sure we've got them right? He isn't saying you have to change,
you have to change, you have to change again. It's not a recipe for instability. He is just saying
there is no room for complacency. We've got to take the trouble to keep checking things out.
If things are fine you leave them, but if things need to be changed because you've got out of line
with the word of God, then there's a real need to start bringing the process of reformation
back into play. I talk a bit more about Calvin when I talk about our vision for the church
right at the end of the lecture series, but that seems to me to at least put our finger
on some things where Calvin continues to give us a sense of direction and sense of purpose.
Let me end there and give you a chance to ask any questions. Let's take about 10 minutes of
questions and then you can go and brave the traffic. Yes please.
I have a question for you last night.
What makes the study of the picture on large scale, what's the problem with it and how much
that gives you to Calvin, and how it gives more of him to the later Calvin than it gives him?
I'd like to broaden that now in the context of how much is our view of Calvin and I think
it's all right in the later Calvin. Yes, well I think it's quite a complicated question. I
probably have to give an answer that should be a lot longer, but I think it's fair to say that
even for Calvin this is a real issue. It's certainly true that later Calvinism placed
an increasing emphasis on the importance of the sovereignty of God and that the Arminian debate
really heightened that, but the emphasis is already there in Calvin and Calvin is quite clear
that the sovereignty of God is very good news because it reminds us of our place. It stops us
getting false ideas about our own importance and reminds us that in the end God's in control
and it also reassures us of God's wisdom and righteousness. We may not understand,
but we can trust. I think that's a very, very important point to make and Calvin certainly
does make the point that there are things that will puzzle us because we don't understand them,
but nonetheless that doesn't give us reason to call God's goodness or God's sovereign into
question. So in many ways we're dealing with something that's already there in Calvin even
as early as 1536. I think that if I put like this as Calvin discusses it more and more,
he begins to open up more and more questions. So for example in 1536 we have a discussion of
providence. Then from 1539 onwards this becomes more complex. So he divides into two God's
providence in creation and his providence in redemption. So he begins to address two
quite separate themes here, but still sees them as expressions of God's sovereignty.
So it's there in Calvin even at that stage. Yes please.
Is Calvin believed in common grace?
Well I think the answer is yes, although of course he doesn't use that terminology.
And in saying that I think he did. I mean I think I need to be careful to make a point that this
doesn't mean that Calvin would believe or accept each and every aspect of a later doctrine of
common grace, but certainly at least some of the basic ideas are there. To give you one example,
I talked about Calvin on the natural knowledge of God. And in one sense that's the basis for
doctrine of common grace. He is saying that by God's grace something can be known with him,
even without special revelation. So there's something there. And of course Calvin echoes
the ideas you find in Matthew's gospel, that God makes his son to shine on the righteous and the
unrighteous, that kind of thing. So Calvin is quite prepared to allow that God's goodness
benefits those who are not among the elect. But of course he immediately qualifies that
by making it quite clear that the elect do have certain privileges. And so I think that
certainly at least the basic features of doctrine of common grace seem to be there in Calvin,
even of later writers would want to expand on that a bit more. At the back please.
Q. Calvin is a friend of the theologian of Pharisees, but it always seems to me that
when I read Calvin on the sacrament, particularly with the doctrine of presence of Christ in the
Lord's Supper, I quite easily understand you. Would you like to comment on what Calvin thinks
of that presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper? A. Yes I will, and I'll also comment on the point
you make, if I may. I think you're right, that it is notoriously difficult to make sense of what
Calvin is saying there, partly I think because Calvin is very conscious of the debate between
Luther and Zwingli. I think it's very helpful just to bear in mind as you read that section
of the Institutes that Calvin is aware that he is treading on a very sensitive area where
the Reformation had been broken in two back in 1529 over the debate between Luther and Zwingli
over exactly that issue. And so in many ways Calvin is being extremely, and in fact some would
say excessively diplomatic at that point. He's trying to say some good things in Luther's
direction, he's trying to say some good things in Zwingli's direction, and that inevitably means
that it's not simply what Calvin thinks, but what Calvin is trying to say to soothe people on two
different sides. So that's one of the reasons why there's a lack of clarity there, because Calvin
is trying to to be very very diplomatic at a critical juncture. Having said that, I mean I think
it seems to me that what Calvin is saying is something like this. In the first place
he is saying that the sign and the thing which it signifies need to be distinguished.
Now that seems to separate them off from Luther, where the two seem to be very very close together
indeed. On the other hand, he is quite clear that it is not good enough to say that the sacraments
are simply signs and nothing else. So that separates them off from Zwingli. So he is actually saying,
you know, I don't think Luther's quite right, though of course I respect him, and I don't think
Zwingli's quite right, although of course I respect him as well. So the unclarity there is diplomacy.
Then he says, well what do I think? And this is where I think I'm getting him right, but of course
it's again it's not that clear. He seems to be saying something like this,
while I am distinguishing the sign and the thing which it signifies, I am not separating them.
In other words, although you can draw a notional distinction between them, in reality you can't
separate them, because where one is, the other is as well. Now the difficulty is understanding that.
Later Reformed theology clarifies that by saying it's an efficacious sign. You find that in Beyza
in 17 onwards really. But it seems to me that to make sense of Calvin, the most helpful
analogy is that of a photograph of somebody who matters a lot to you. In other words, a photograph
in one sense is a sign, but actually it's more than that, because the moment you look at it,
you know, it evokes the memory, the presence of the person you're thinking of. And Calvin seems
to be saying that although the bread and the wine for example are not equivalent to the body and
blood of Christ, there is a sense in which they do something or allow something to happen,
which in effect leads to the body and blood of Christ being either present or being present
mentally to the person who is thinking about them. So you can see that I'm agreeing with that
Calvin's teaching is in many ways not clear, and certainly I myself have difficulty in being clear
as to whether Calvin is saying the body and blood of Christ are there physically or just there
mentally, but certainly he's saying that he disagrees with Luther and Zingley,
and it's kind of a way of trying to navigate a middle course on the issue. Yes, please.
Yes, well, Calvin is clear that church discipline matters profoundly. I mean,
Calvin says there are two distinguishing marks of the church, the right preaching of the Gospel
and the right administration of the sacraments, and I guess you could say that that second point
does involve discipline at least in some way. But Calvin's colleague at Strasbourg, Martin Butzer,
actually made discipline a distinguishing feature of the church because he regarded it as being so
important. Now although Calvin doesn't say church discipline has to be there for there to be a true
Christian church, he nonetheless regards it as being of major importance. In effect, Calvin,
as you probably know, goes so far as to establish a church court to enforce discipline inside the
church, and will excommunicate people who do not correspond to the state of discipline that he
would expect inside a church. Now, excommunicate does not mean throw out of the church, it means
bar them for one communion service, which is slightly different from normal sense of the word.
But certainly for Calvin, discipline is a major theme, and if I could put it like this,
there is a sense in which practically, practically, the pastor for Calvin is a disciplinarian,
and that I think does just raise a number of difficult issues over exactly what the role of
the pastor is, because many of us would feel that while that is true, that there is more to it than
that. But certainly in practical terms that seems to be the practical outcome of what Calvin is
saying on the score, he is in effect saying that Christians are told what they should be doing,
and perhaps through sin they are unable or unwilling to live up to these standards,
but nevertheless, for the good of the church, discipline matters. Now, Calvin doesn't quite
go as far as Anabaptists, who would in effect make church discipline of major importance by,
for example, disbarring people who they felt were a bad influence, shunning them if necessary,
but certainly he is convinced that for the good of the Christian body as a whole, there needs to
be a way of laying down that certain styles of conduct are simply not acceptable, and enforcing
that within the church. While I'm just talking on this, I mean in practical terms, and this
sometimes has led churches with a Calvinist structure to be seen as a bit legalistic,
that is the negative side, but I think it's a very good thing to say, but in terms of the perception
of it, it does give the impression that we're dealing with law rather than gospel, that's the
negative side. Let's take one more, and it will end. Yes, please, sir.
Do I think the Reformers were wrong in maintaining a professional ministry?
Yes, I think, sorry, they're quite right, yes, I think that they felt that there was a continuing
need for exactly that. I mean, Luther, for example, is quite clear that everybody could do it in
theory, but he doesn't take the step that you and I might say should take them, and say we can do
without them. Luther is saying we need them, and I think his reason for this is not simply that he's
a tradition, it's not simply saying we've always had them, so let's keep them. I think that Luther
genuinely feels that in the New Testament, there are approaches to ministry which do point in that
direction, and Luther, I think, really is saying that we've got to try and mirror the New Testament
models, and therefore that in effect we keep professional ministers. Likewise, Calvin's a bit
more specific and tries to distinguish various levels of professional ministry, but the same
point is there. Today, I think we would probably not so much deny what the Reformers are saying,
but supplement it by saying that we accept the need for professional ministry for all kinds of
reasons, but nevertheless we want to try and rediscover the idea of the vocation of the laity.
For example, if I could just read you a passage from Ephesians, which I read in a different
context earlier, where Paul talks in Ephesians chapter 4 and verses 11 onwards like this,
his gifts were that some should be apostles, some prophets, some advances, some pastors,
and teachers, but actually there's no reason why laity shouldn't be apostles, advances, teachers,
and so on. And perhaps in our own day and age, while we continue to say professional ministry
is important, that we want to enable the laity to rediscover their ability to minister as well.
So I think it's more about a rediscovery of the minister of the laity than a denial of
professional ministry.