The Humanity of John Calvin

1999 | Gregory Edward Reynolds

[Vernon]

You're not saying this is a revisionist history of the "most Christian man of his age," are you brother Maynard?

Why certainly not! It's...it's...well, it's just another view of history.

[HarleyD]

Great article on Calvin.

While John Calvin did play a role in Michael Servetus dead, he was not by far the only one. Everyone was out to get him including the RCC. It's a little disingenuious to ascribed Michael Servetus dead solely to Calvin.

Contrary to what the end of the article states, Michael Servetus works eventually became the foundation for the Unitarian Universal "Church".

Below is an excerpt from a very lengthy article. If you're interested in more info the web site is

http://www.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/michaelservetus.html

In 1538 Servetus, as Villeneuve, got into trouble with the faculty of medicine, the Parlement of Paris, and the Inquisition for mixing astrology with medicine. Although he was acquitted by the Inquisition, the Parlement ruled that his published self-defense was to be confiscated and he was to desist from the practice of astrology. Servetus left Paris shortly thereafter, perhaps without a degree, to practice medicine in the area of Lyons. Around 1540 he became the personal physician of Pierre Palmier, Archbishop of Vienne.

During his twelve-year residence in Vienne, living as the inoffensive Doctor of Medicine, Michel de Villeneuve, Servetus was busy in his spare time preparing his major theological treatise, Christianismi Restitutio (The Restoration of Christianity). He also began, in 1546, a fateful secret correspondence with his old acquaintance, John Calvin. By this time Calvin, author of Institutio Christianae Religionis (Institutions of Christian Religion), 1536, and pastor and chief reformer of Geneva, was the most prestigious figure in the Reform branch of Protestantism.


John Calvin
Calvin's theology had included little mention of the trinitarian nature of the godhead until, in 1537, another reformer, Pierre Caroli, accused him of being an Arian. Although cleared by a synod at Lausanne, Calvin was afterwards on his guard and determined to deal severely with deviations in this area of orthodoxy. The subject, associated with unpleasant memories, was distasteful to him. Servetus, surely aware of Calvin's previous lack of clarity on the subject, bombarded him with letters insisting on unorthodox conceptions more radical than those he had presented a decade and more ago. Calvin replied with increasing impatience and asperity. Servetus sent Calvin a manuscript of his yet unpublished Restitutio. Calvin reciprocated by sending a copy of the Institutio. Servetus returned it with abusive annotations. On the day Calvin broke off the correspondence, he wrote to his colleague, Guillaume Farel, that should Servetus ever come to Geneva, "if my authority is of any avail I will not suffer him to get out alive."

When Servetus published the Restitutio in early 1553 he sent an advance copy to Geneva. The printed text included thirty of his letters to Calvin. Soon afterward, at Calvin's behest, the identity of "Villeneuve" was betrayed to the Catholic Inquisition in Vienne. After his arrest and interrogation Servetus managed to escape from the prison. On his way, perhaps, to northern Italy where, he believed, there were people receptive to his writings, he made his way across the border to Geneva. Recognized at a Geneva church service, he was arrested and tried for heresy by Protestant authorities.

The secular officials were unable to establish that Servetus was an immoral disturber of the public peace. Nevertheless, he made damaging theological statements in the course of a written debate with Calvin. The Council of Geneva, after receiving the advice of churches in four other Swiss cities, convicted Servetus of antitrinitarianism and opposition to child baptism. Calvin asked that Servetus be mercifully beheaded. The Council insisted he should be burned at the stake.

Spectators were impressed by the tenacity of Servetus' faith. Perishing in the flames, he is said to have cried out, "O Jesus, Son of the Eternal God, have pity on me!" Farel, who witnessed the execution, observed that Servetus, defiant to the last, might have been saved had he but called upon "Jesus, the Eternal Son." A few months later Servetus was again executed, this time in effigy, by the Catholic Inquisition in France.

Many Protestants approved the Genevan sentence. Others, especially in Basel, were not so sure that heretics ought to be put to death. In answer to critics, Calvin quickly put together and published, in 1554, a justification, Defensio orthodoxae fidei, contra prodigiosos errores Michaelis Serveti Hispani (Defense of Orthodox Faith against the Prodigious Errors of the Spaniard Michael Servetus). He argued that to spare Servetus would have been to endanger the souls of many. In the same year Calvin was answered by Sebastian Castellio, in Contra libellum Calvini (Against Calvin's Booklet). Castellio declared that "to kill a man is not to protect a doctrine; it is but to kill a man. When the Genevans killed Servetus, they did not defend a doctrine; they but killed a man." He said that "if Servetus had wished to kill Calvin, the Magistrate would properly have defended Calvin. But when Servetus fought with reasons and writings, he should have been repulsed by reasons and writings."

Nearly all copies of Servetus' magnum opus, Christianismi Restitutio, were destroyed by the authorities. Only three have survived. Its peculiar, unorthodox trinitarian theology, which made Servetus a hunted man in nearly every country in Western Europe, cannot be summarized simply. Unitarian scholar Earle Morse Wilbur, who translated De Trinitatis Erroribus, found the Restitutio less to his liking and passed over coming to terms with it. John Godbey, a Unitarian Universalist scholar of the Reformation, wrote that "most persons lack sufficient understanding of his views to make defensible statements about him."

Servetus rejected the doctrine of original sin and the entire theory of salvation based upon it, including the doctrines of Christ's dual nature and the vicarious atonement effected by his death. He believed Jesus had one nature, at once fully human and divine, and that Jesus was not another being of the godhead separate from the Father, but God come to earth. Other human beings, touched by Christian grace, could overcome sin and themselves become progressively divine. He thought of the trinity as manifesting an "economy" of the forms of activity which God could bring into play. Christ did not always exist. Once but a shadow, he had been brought to substantial existence when God needed to exercise that form of activity. In some future time he would no longer be a distinct mode of divine expression. Servetus called the crude and popular conception of the trinity, considerably less subtle than his own, "a three headed Cerberus." (In Greek mythology Cerberus is a three-headed dog-like creature of the underworld.)

Servetus did not believe people are totally depraved, as Calvin's theology supposed. He thought all people, even non-Christians, susceptible to or capable of improvement and justification. He did not restrict the benefits of faith to a few recipients of God's parsimonious dispensation of grace, as did Calvin's doctrine of the elect. Rather, grace abounds and human beings need only the intelligence and free will, which all human beings possess, to grasp it. Nor did Servetus describe, as did Calvin, an infinite chasm between the divine and mortal worlds. He conceived the divine and material realms to be a continuum of more and less divine entities. He held that God was present in and constitutive of all creation. This feature of Servetus' theology was especially obnoxious to Calvin. At the Geneva trial he asked Servetus, "What, wretch! If one stamps the floor would one say that one stamped on your God?"

Calvin asked if the devil was part of God. Servetus laughed and replied, "Can you doubt it? This is my fundamental principle that all things are a part and portion of God and the nature of things is the substantial spirit of God."

The devil was an important factor in Servetian theology. Servetus was a dualist. He thought God and the devil were engaged in a great cosmic battle. The fate of humanity was just a small skirmish in salvation history. He charged orthodox trinitarians with creating their doctrine of the trinity, not to describe God, but to puff themselves up as central to God's concern. Because they defined God to suit their own purposes, he called them atheists.

Servetus' demonology included the notion that the devil had created the papacy as an effective countermeasure to Christ's coming to earth. Through the popes the devil had taken over the church. Infant baptism was a diabolic rite, instituted by Satan, who in ancient days had presided over pagan infant sacrifices. He calculated that the Archangel Michael would soon come to bring deliverance and the end of the world, probably in 1585.

Dualism, millenarianism, and modal trinitarianism are not elements of the Servetian legacy which Unitarian Universalists today celebrate. Nor were they affirmed by those of Servetus' contemporaries most in sympathy with his thought, the Italians—later known as Socinians—who developed and spread an early form of Unitarianism in Poland. They took heart from some aspects of Servetus' doctrine and ignored or rejected the rest. Nevertheless, although Michael Servetus has now no real disciples and never had any, his pioneering life and the tragedy of his death did inaugurate, in a sense, the history of modern liberal religion.

[RobbyS]

It is easier for me to relate to a theologian who is an where he is Luther or Calvin or Zwingli, because remains Catholic in many respects. Of course, it is easiet to see precisely where Luther breaks away personally,because Calvin tells us little about his conversion. On the other hand, as I read the Institutes I know he has in mind some concrete things than a theologian who was never Catholic probably never even knew about. As a minor point, when he is talking about religious statues, he would start with the abuses rather than with the "2nd Commandment."proceeding from the particular rather than from the general rule.

[RobbyS]

"where he is Luther or Calvin or Zwingli, because remains Catholic"

I meant to write " an exCatholic whether the person is Luther, Calvin or Zwingli"

[Vernon]

While John Calvin did play a role in Michael Servetus dead, he was not by far the only one.

I agree. It was a very troubling time and the Church of Jesus Christ is still struggling with the fall out. I wonder if Jesus doesn't weep when He sees the divisions in the Body of Christ. Indeed His prayer that "...they may be one..." seems to have fallen on deaf ears. That is not to blame anyone - there is more than enough blame to go around.

[P-Marlowe]

Why certainly not! It's...it's...well, it's just another view of history.

Like another view through these, eh?:

[HarleyD]

Honestly, I'm flabbergasted some people cannot objectively study history. Perhaps this article is more positive but there must be some truth to it. Even the Universal Church gave Calvin more credit than what you and Vernon seem to give him.

And whatever you may think of John Calvin would that make his theology wrong? Be careful how you answer that. Remember, they crucified Christ for what He said.

[BibChr]

LOL, it isn't like the deadly dogma of Rome is hidden in a casket on an island in the Saratoga Sea!

Dan

[P-Marlowe]

The secular officials were unable to establish that Servetus was an immoral disturber of the public peace. Nevertheless, he made damaging theological statements in the course of a written debate with Calvin. The Council of Geneva, after receiving the advice of churches in four other Swiss cities, convicted Servetus of antitrinitarianism and opposition to child baptism. Calvin asked that Servetus be mercifully beheaded. The Council insisted he should be burned at the stake.

There are many members of the GRPL who think that Servetus was convicted of treason and crimes against the state. Of course if he had, he would have been beheaded (which was the punishment for treason). Instead, as the author points out, he was convicted of antitrinitarianism and opposition to child baptism. I dare say that most of the Baptist members of the GRPL would have been equally guilty of that "heresy", eh?

The fact remains that Servetus was found guilty of heresy. He was burned at the stake, which was the approved punishment for heresy. Let's not pretend that Calvin's Geneva was punishing him for Civil unrest or treason against the state. No. It was heresy and Calvin was his chief accuser. This "most Christian man of his age" has the blood of Michael Sevetus on his hands.

This is the downside to rigid theology and marriage of the church and the state. I dare say that this is the legacy of state sponsored Theologians. I dare say that most Christian bricklayers and stone masons and tailors and milk maids in Geneva in the 16th century went to Church every Sunday to worship Christ and did not go to their graves with the blood of heretics on their hands.

This was the unique province and legacy of self assured theologians who had the power of the state to enforce fealty to their peculiar doctrines.

[Vernon]

Read Post #25.

[P-Marlowe]

Even the Universal Church gave Calvin more credit than what you and Vernon seem to give him.

So if I state that he was not the "most Christian man of his age" that I am dissing him? Well if so, then we must have had some pretty miserable excuses for Christians back in 1550, didn't we?

Wouldn't you think that there was a bricklayer out there who just might have been a little closer to God than your beloved Calvin? Don't you think that perhaps there was a bell ringer who might have been a little closer to God than your beloved Calvin?

He was not the most Christian man of his age. He might have been the smartest theologian, but Jesus thought very little of smart theologians when he was walking the earth. I think he thought more of laborers and those who got their hands dirty and bloody with their own blood and sweat than those who got their hands dirty with the blood of people with whom they theologically disagreed.

[connectthedots]

While John Calvin did play a role in Michael Servetus dead, he was not by far the only one.

Anyone who thinks John Calvin could not have prevented the murder of Servetus is either uninformed or is being intellectually dishonest.

Could the Jews have had Christ crucified without the approval of Pilate? I don't think so.

[HarleyD]

Let me say one more thing to everyone and then I'm going to go bed and read.

It is one thing to study and disagree with a person's theology. It is quite another to try to tear apart the character of a godly man. While I may disagree with Wesley's theology and I have argued against some of his theological interpretations I would NEVER presume to attack Wesley himself.

If Wesley and Calvin believed in the Lord Jesus for the remission of their sins then they are children of God, with the full priviledges and honors associated with knowing God. We as God's people should respect that regardless of what we feel about their theology. God does NOT look favorably on those who defame His chosen-even by other Christians.

"He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous, Both of them alike are an abomination to the Lord." Prov 17:15

[connectthedots]

I would hardly call the Unitarian Universal "Church" a credible source.

[HarleyD]

If you would have read my post carefully you would have seen that the RCC was ready to burn him at the stake as well.

The article states Calvin tried to get them to behead him (a more merciful execution) but the council say no and burned him at the stake. Calvin must not have had that much pull if he couldn't even get them to change the method of execution.

[Vernon]

Read Post #25.

[HarleyD]

Neither would I. But then again they seemed more balanced about the circumstances surrounding the death of their founder than the CD-ROM Webster's Concise Interactive Encyclopedia.

[connectthedots]

The trial of Servetus was initiated by Calvin through one of his surrogates, so how can you state that the RCC wanted Servetus burned at the stake and that Calvin preferred beheading.

Do you simply assume that the author of this article is unbiased? If you do, you are naive. Servetus was not the only person for whose death Calvin was largely responsible.

[HarleyD]

From post 22:

"Calvin asked that Servetus be mercifully beheaded. The Council insisted he should be burned at the stake."

"A few months later Servetus was again executed, this time in effigy, by the Catholic Inquisition in France."

[Corin Stormhands]

"I believe Calvin was a great instrument of God; and that he was a wise and pious man. But I cannot but advise those who love his memory to let Servetus alone."
- John Wesley