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Is It Fitting for Calvinists to Adopt the Theology of a Man, and One Who Murdered Servetus?
Ligonier Ministries ^ | May 2009 | R.C. Sproul

Posted on 08/19/2018 12:48:40 PM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege

As my friend Doug Phillips has pointed out, this year has brought, in the providence of God, a strange confluence of anniversaries. The two men who have had the greatest impact on these United States may well be, on the one hand, Charles Darwin, and on the other John Calvin. Darwin was born two hundred years ago this year, Calvin five hundred years ago. Our perspective on each of these men will serve as a potent bell-weather for our perspectives on a whole host of issues. In the culture wars most of our enemies will celebrate the birth of Darwin and mourn the birth of Calvin. Our side, on the other hand, will have many Calvin fans, and precious few friends of Darwin. Many of us who give thanks to God for the ministry of John Calvin will be gathering together to celebrate his influence and the influence of the Reformation at Vision Forum’s Reformation 500 event this summer in Boston. I will have the opportunity to speak to Calvin’s influence in giving the western world, and especially these United States a truly free economy. You can read up on that event here.

That said, in answer to the question, of course it would be wrong to adopt a theology of a man. Those who accuse Calvinists of doing so, however, expose their own historical ignorance. Calvinists are not followers of Calvin. Neither are they followers of a theology created by Calvin. Instead we are they who embrace a system of thought that has a long and honored history in the church. If our theology derived from any lone man, and it didn’t, that man would be Saint Augustine , whom Calvin quoted more than any other scholar. Our tradition includes the Puritans, and the Pilgrims, the Dutch Reformed church, the Scottish Kirk that blossomed under John Knox. It includes the German Reformed church and the French Huguenots. Calvinism existed before Calvin and it thrives now five hundred years after his birth. Ours is the theology of the Reformation.

Which still is reason enough in some people’s minds to reject it. Some point out the all too painful reality that in some instances the power of the sword was used during the time of the Reformation to “settle” theological disputes. Servetus was indeed put to death in Geneva , the town where Calvin served, and put to death not for what we would today consider crimes, but for propagating heresy. More broadly still the Reformed during the time of the Reformation believed it fitting to wage literal war against theological opponents on both ends of the spectrum. They warred with Rome , and together with Rome warred against the Anabaptists. My spiritual fathers took up carnal weapons in their quest to make known the reign of Christ over all things. I believe they were wrong to do so, horribly, horribly wrong.

The willingness to use the power of the state in this kind of context was, in my judgment, both grievous error, and terribly common error. It was, in fact, evidence of an insufficient Reformation. Our spiritual fathers sadly here followed in the footsteps of their immediate fathers, Rome herself. The Anabaptists, though they erred and continue to err in denying the fittingness of Christians to wage just war, rightly understood that war was not the right means to persuade those either outside the kingdom, or even occupying a different corner of the kingdom. In a similar manner, Calvin erred, in my judgment, in not urging the city fathers of Geneva against the execution of Servetus. (Remember, however, that however muddied their conception of appropriate spheres of authority, it was the civil government, over which Calvin had no authority, that condemned Servetus.) Calvin murdered no one. He did have a deficient understanding of the appropriate limits of state power.

We would be wise to remember that all our heroes save one had feet of clay. As we this year celebrate the 500th birthday of Calvin, let us not fall into a hagiography that he himself would not approve, turning heroes into sinless saints. Let us not, on the other hand, however, succumb to revisionist history that would turn heroes into monsters. Let us give thanks for that Biblical theology that we sometimes call Calvinism, and give thanks for Calvin.


TOPICS: History; Religion & Culture; Religion & Politics
KEYWORDS: abuse; augustine; calvin; calvinism; catholic; geneva; johncalvin; protestant
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To: ConservativeDude

Today’s Germans are a sad shadow of their old selves. They are not protected by race or religion or land. Generally, all they want is to off themselves as a people.

The eagerness of liberal jews to tag the ancestors of today’s Germans with curses is the flip side of White Privilege — the latest curse the blacks have placed on whites ancestors.

Of course there is always a way out of the curse for blacks. Reparations. More money for blacks. Just as you’ll hear liberal jews talk about more reparations for jews killed in the holocaust.

But its never enough. No payment will be enough.

in the meantime moslems pour into europe and america because the religion and culture that made europe and america great is in tatters.

It is a happy thing for liberal jews to curse the germans. but is the death of Germany and western civilization a good thing for Israel. Is the death of western civlization good for diaspora jews.

nor am I conflating germany with western civilization. Why not? Because the same curse seems to have settled on england france Italy spain the low countries and much of scandenavia.

they have all decided that the curse of history is too great—so they are rolling over and dying as people.

This is a victory for liberal jews. yes?

Will it be good for Israel when europe becomes eurabia and america goes moslem? That’s the current trend of things. The home for jews for almost 100 years has been the democrat party. Jewish liberal ideology was powerful on american campuses in the first decades after WWII. Now zionists are unwelcome in the democrat party and on American campuses.

Israel maintains their own borders but the borders behind which shelter diaspora jews—are not maintained by jews.

Liberal jews just don’t understand that when they curse western civilization — they weaken the boundaries that they shelter behind.

Who floods in? Guess.

Moslems.

they have only one itching desire: to destroy and subjugate christians and jews.

There is some law of unintended consequences at work here. But it is what it is.


41 posted on 08/19/2018 5:18:05 PM PDT by ckilmer (q e)
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To: OKSooner
Who was he, other than obviously a heretic, and what did he do or say to piss them off so?

Antitrinitarian, and obnoxious about it.

42 posted on 08/19/2018 5:22:04 PM PDT by Lee N. Field (Come, behold the works of the LORD, how he has brought desolations on the earth.)
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To: metmom
I guess what with all the heat being thrown at the Catholic church this week, it’s no surprise someone is trying to deflect the attention.

Indeed. And they leave out one thing we may leave a unfaithful church for another conservative evangelical fellowship without loss of grace, but they cannot leave theirs without being in schism or being considered worse than that.

43 posted on 08/19/2018 5:38:51 PM PDT by daniel1212 (Trust the risen Lord Jesus to save you as a damned and destitute sinner + be baptized + follow Him)
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To: OKSooner

Servetus apparently denied the Trinity
of God which put himself on the “Hit”
List of both Catholics and Reformers.
The Reformers caught him after he escaped
the Catholics and they smoked Servetus.
Calvin was stuck in the middle, sort of.


44 posted on 08/19/2018 5:39:40 PM PDT by Big Red Badger (UNSCANABLE in an IDIOCRACY)
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To: Lee N. Field; Big Red Badger
OK thanks.

How did one ever learn anything before FR?

45 posted on 08/19/2018 5:43:41 PM PDT by OKSooner (Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE): The 1200 pound gorilla...)
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To: OKSooner

It really is a “Go to Source.”

You Betcha!


46 posted on 08/19/2018 5:46:05 PM PDT by Big Red Badger (UNSCANABLE in an IDIOCRACY)
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To: LukeL
If this statement is true then it follow that if we choose Christ we have done something to earn our salvation.

BINGO!!! We cannot make a choice. Joh 6:44  No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. 

Verses like these are litered throughout John and Romans. In fact I could never understand these books until I came to the understanding that God does the choosing.

This is a very hard thing for most people to accept. Yet if you ask ANY true Christian for their testimony it will contain "I was going off the deep end BUT God...." In the end every true believer will acknowledge it was God who brought them to a saving knowledge of Christ. Test it out on yourself. I know it was God who brought me to a saving knowledge in Him. I only prayed a prayer AFTER I realized I was a sinner in need of a Savior.

I would suggest you read the Westminster Confession of Faith which is the foundation of Protestant beliefs. The London Baptist Confession of Faith created a few years earlier is virtually the same.

47 posted on 08/19/2018 6:06:26 PM PDT by HarleyD
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To: Claud

You have to read them in order to understanding Augustine Christian evolution. Once Augustine understood that it was by grace he was saved, he recalled some of his works to be burned. This is written in the final writings of Augustine.

Augustine came to understand that we are saved by grace and grace alone. He championed this through the Council of Orange decrees to fight against Pelagius and Semi-Pelagius. The Council of Trent has ignored the Council of Orange’s decrees favoring a Semi-Pelagius view (though they will deny it). The synergistic view of the Council of Trent all but ignores the early church father’s writings.

Shall I point you to some passages in the Catholic Encyclopedia that states the church fathers were mistaken, didn’t fully understand, etc.?


48 posted on 08/19/2018 6:15:43 PM PDT by HarleyD
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To: CondoleezzaProtege
Is It Fitting for Calvinists to Adopt the Theology of a Man, and One Who Murdered Servetus?

Darned good question!!


Is it Fitting for Catholics to Adopt the Theology of men who have displayed such Christian lives??


 


Pope Stephen VI (896–897), who had his predecessor Pope Formosus exhumed, tried, de-fingered, briefly reburied, and thrown in the Tiber.[1]

Pope John XII (955–964), who gave land to a mistress, murdered several people, and was killed by a man who caught him in bed with his wife.

Pope Benedict IX (1032–1044, 1045, 1047–1048), who "sold" the Papacy

Pope Boniface VIII (1294–1303), who is lampooned in Dante's Divine Comedy

Pope Urban VI (1378–1389), who complained that he did not hear enough screaming when Cardinals who had conspired against him were tortured.[2]

Pope Alexander VI (1492–1503), a Borgia, who was guilty of nepotism and whose unattended corpse swelled until it could barely fit in a coffin.[3]

Pope Leo X (1513–1521), a spendthrift member of the Medici family who once spent 1/7 of his predecessors' reserves on a single ceremony[4]

Pope Clement VII (1523–1534), also a Medici, whose power-politicking with France, Spain, and Germany got Rome sacked.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bad_Popes

49 posted on 08/19/2018 6:17:07 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: CondoleezzaProtege
Saint Augustine? The Catholic?! Shouldn't he get some of the credit for our nation's foundations?

Heck!

He can't even get Catholics on the right interpretation of SCRIPTURE!!


 

As regards the oft-quoted Mt. 16:18 (And less understood)
 
 
 

Augustine, sermon:

"Christ, you see, built his Church not on a man but on Peter's confession. What is Peter's confession? 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.' There's the rock for you, there's the foundation, there's where the Church has been built, which the gates of the underworld cannot conquer.John Rotelle, O.S.A., Ed., The Works of Saint Augustine , © 1993 New City Press, Sermons, Vol III/6, Sermon 229P.1, p. 327

 

Augustine, sermon:

Upon this rock, said the Lord, I will build my Church. Upon this confession, upon this that you said, 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,' I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not conquer her (Mt. 16:18). John Rotelle, Ed., The Works of Saint Augustine (New Rochelle: New City, 1993) Sermons, Volume III/7, Sermon 236A.3, p. 48.

 

Augustine, sermon:

For petra (rock) is not derived from Peter, but Peter from petra; just as Christ is not called so from the Christian, but the Christian from Christ. For on this very account the Lord said, 'On this rock will I build my Church,' because Peter had said, 'Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.' On this rock, therefore, He said, which thou hast confessed, I will build my Church. For the Rock (Petra) was Christ; and on this foundation was Peter himself built. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Christ Jesus. The Church, therefore, which is founded in Christ received from Him the keys of the kingdom of heaven in the person of Peter, that is to say, the power of binding and loosing sins. For what the Church is essentially in Christ, such representatively is Peter in the rock (petra); and in this representation Christ is to be understood as the Rock, Peter as the Church. — Augustine Tractate CXXIV; Philip Schaff, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: First Series, Volume VII Tractate CXXIV (http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf107.iii.cxxv.html)

 

Augustine, sermon:

And Peter, one speaking for the rest of them, one for all, said, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God (Mt 16:15-16)...And I tell you: you are Peter; because I am the rock, you are Rocky, Peter-I mean, rock doesn't come from Rocky, but Rocky from rock, just as Christ doesn't come from Christian, but Christian from Christ; and upon this rock I will build my Church (Mt 16:17-18); not upon Peter, or Rocky, which is what you are, but upon the rock which you have confessed. I will build my Church though; I will build you, because in this answer of yours you represent the Church. — John Rotelle, O.S.A. Ed., The Works of Saint Augustine (New Rochelle: New City Press, 1993), Sermons, Volume III/7, Sermon 270.2, p. 289

 

Augustine, sermon:

Peter had already said to him, 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.' He had already heard, 'Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona, because flesh and blood did not reveal it to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of the underworld shall not conquer her' (Mt 16:16-18)...Christ himself was the rock, while Peter, Rocky, was only named from the rock. That's why the rock rose again, to make Peter solid and strong; because Peter would have perished, if the rock hadn't lived. — John Rotelle, Ed., The Works of Saint Augustine (New Rochelle: New City, 1993) Sermons, Volume III/7, Sermon 244.1, p. 95

 

Augustine, sermon:

...because on this rock, he said, I will build my Church, and the gates of the underworld shall not overcome it (Mt. 16:18). Now the rock was Christ (1 Cor. 10:4). Was it Paul that was crucified for you? Hold on to these texts, love these texts, repeat them in a fraternal and peaceful manner. — John Rotelle, Ed., The Works of Saint Augustine (New Rochelle: New City Press, 1995), Sermons, Volume III/10, Sermon 358.5, p. 193

 

Augustine, Psalm LXI:

Let us call to mind the Gospel: 'Upon this Rock I will build My Church.' Therefore She crieth from the ends of the earth, whom He hath willed to build upon a Rock. But in order that the Church might be builded upon the Rock, who was made the Rock? Hear Paul saying: 'But the Rock was Christ.' On Him therefore builded we have been. — Philip Schaff, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956), Volume VIII, Saint Augustin, Exposition on the Book of Psalms, Psalm LXI.3, p. 249. (http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf108.ii.LXI.html)

 

Augustine, in “Retractions,”

In a passage in this book, I said about the Apostle Peter: 'On him as on a rock the Church was built.'...But I know that very frequently at a later time, I so explained what the Lord said: 'Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church,' that it be understood as built upon Him whom Peter confessed saying: 'Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God,' and so Peter, called after this rock, represented the person of the Church which is built upon this rock, and has received 'the keys of the kingdom of heaven.' For, 'Thou art Peter' and not 'Thou art the rock' was said to him. But 'the rock was Christ,' in confessing whom, as also the whole Church confesses, Simon was called Peter. But let the reader decide which of these two opinions is the more probable. — The Fathers of the Church (Washington D.C., Catholic University, 1968), Saint Augustine, The Retractations Chapter 20.1:.

 

50 posted on 08/19/2018 6:19:44 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Claud
This is what St. Augustine taught; this is the Catholic and Apostolic faith.

I think I just postred some of his teachings.

We are on the same track.

51 posted on 08/19/2018 6:21:19 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Colofornian

We Prots will go for the shiny object every time!


Is It Fitting for Catholics to disrespect their Pope?

A man who was elected by men, led of the Holy Spirit??

52 posted on 08/19/2018 6:23:43 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: daniel1212

<h1How DARE you bring Catholic history into a thread designed to get Prots in a tizzy?


53 posted on 08/19/2018 6:24:41 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: CommerceComet

Ya think?

It makes a good; if temporary; distraction from the ills that has befallen the Catholic world lately.


54 posted on 08/19/2018 6:26:48 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: OKSooner

It’s usually the TRUTH that will do that.


55 posted on 08/19/2018 6:27:56 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: ckilmer
in the meantime moslems pour into europe and america because the religion and culture that made europe and america great is in tatters.

It sure looks that way from certain veiwpoints; but I'm willing to bet that there is at least 7,000...

56 posted on 08/19/2018 6:29:44 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: OKSooner

Uh...

...the hard way.


57 posted on 08/19/2018 6:30:29 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Elsie

maybe. but nature abhors a vacuum.


58 posted on 08/19/2018 6:38:47 PM PDT by ckilmer (q e)
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To: Elsie
Elsie you prove my point. The Catholic Church has been around quite some while and weathered through way worse storms. Among them being the Reformation. (Which was a good thing too.) - But scandal especially in the hierarchy is nothing new. Is it in any government? Of any human institution?

The point is: Christianity didn't just begin in the year 1500 with the Protestant Reformers, who themselves were quite tainted with scandal and sin- as their OWN theology attests to: total depravity! Right?

God knows who His people are whether in Catholic or Protestant contexts. :)

59 posted on 08/19/2018 7:46:33 PM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
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To: CondoleezzaProtege

That is a ridiculous statement. If you are Catholic and think Protestants can’t be saved. You don’t know any. If you are Protestant and think Catholics can’t be saved, you don’t know any.
Christ can overcome our worldly understandings.


60 posted on 08/19/2018 10:00:28 PM PDT by vpintheak (Freedom is not equality; and equality is not freedom!)
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