Fallen and Flawed

This post, while biographic of Calvin, retains the standard op-ed character of the blog. I.e., there are no references cited, no footnotes. So I respond in kind, offering my observations rather than historical specifics. Demian said:

Nothing was more important to Calvin than to secure the triumph and influence of the doctrines and disciplines found in the Bible over every man’s life–whether public or private.

Thus, he was not only critical and rigorous of his own life, but critical and rigorous of others also.

I believe this is true, but in reverse order, the latter statement being foundational to the former. It is, as Demian points out, natural and common for one who is hard on himself to also be hard (often seemingly harder) on others. Hence Calvin’s desire to impose restrictions on his society sprang from his intense desire to, first, restrict himself to conduct in thought, word, and deed which mortified his natural tendencies and gave glory to God. From this, his longing that in all things Christ should be preeminent, came his efforts to cleanse his community of all ungodliness.

We know from his extensive writings that Calvin knew that to impose regulation is not to establish godliness– that, in fact, the opposite order is the only true working model. But being human, a sinner, even a redeemed sinner, he remained imperfect– in the process of being perfected, to be certain, but never to fully arrive at that goal until the day of his own personal resurrection and glorification. Being then yet imperfect, he was not above erring at times in the attempt to set things aright before God’s time had fully come.

Calvin never actually held any public office except that of chief minister of Geneva, so was never in a position to dictate policy, but only to teach and preach and write about his views (which were strongly opposed by many of his fellow citizens).
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Having said all that, I go on to Demian’s four questions:

Where am I being critical and rigorous on myself and others…and is it necessary?

Whom am I being unmerciful to?

What people–whether an individual or group–am I snubbing?

Is there anyone–including myself–who I’m withholding grace from?

…to each of which I append the phrase, “and why?” Rather than address these questions separately [as we each MUST when asking them of ourself], for purposes of this comment I will classify them all together:

These issues are, as in the matter stated above of being hard on self/being hard on others, progressive (or regressive) from self-oriented attitudes to others-oriented thinking. “Is it necessary?” will surely bring an answer of “No” from the honest believer. Then “Why” do I do it? At this point we enter the maze of self-deception.

I am as honest with you as I am with myself– and it took me years to get to this point. But I am not always honest with myself. Why? Because I am as honest with myself as I am with God, and to be completely open with God is to be undone. Our God is a consuming fire– if I expose my hidden parts before Him, He will blast me with the fierce white light of His holiness until there is nothing of my vile, unholy self left! Being fundamentally self-serving and self-defensive since birth, I find this prospect horrifying.

Still, finding and confessing myself to be critical, merciless, haughty, mean, and ungracious toward myself and others, I am forced at the very least to pray for God’s help, asking that He grant me wisdom in addressing these flaws in my character. Ultimately I will see in each circumstance that my destruction (after the flesh) is a part of His exaltation (in the Spirit), and that I will know no peace, rest, comfort and joy until I approach Him in absolute honesty, confessing my wrongheadedness as sin, allowing Him to root it out of me and cleanse me. Only then can He establish me in righteousness, to live and walk about and exist in Him.

I realize I’m trying to state a book’s worth in a blog comment, so I’ll wrap this up by joining Demian in urging every reader to seriously ask the above four questions of yourself but, more importantly, ask them of God: does this describe me, my attitudes, my perspective, my behavior? And, why is it so? Jesus, the Great Physician, can excise the cancers from our souls and restore us to perfect health. Will we be cooperative patients? It is those who disobey the Doctor’s orders who bear the greater scars…

Demian,

I think I understand where your heart is on this one, and the four questions often reveal extremely horrible answers in my own life. Unfortunately, if someone without knowledge of the history and controversies surrounding the life of John Calvin, this article seems almost like a Calvin “hit-piece” without any outside references to historical accounts.

I have seen several historical accounts of John Calvin which sound like two different men were being described and, unfortunately, due to the biases and time involved, we will never know the truth in this life.

I certainly agree that Calvin comes off as very severe at times, but without outside references in this post, your statements about Calvin, to some, might give the impression that you are ignoring the questions that are the true thrust of this post when it comes to Calvin.

This is the curse of writing sometimes, the nuance (I hate that word after all the political silliness that has used it) of verbal speech can be lost in written speech. I have a horrible time with this.

Eric, so your saying the tone is Calvin-bashing without the full vision of the man? Not sure I entirely agree…but then again, I’m not an objective observer, so I’ll trust you own this one. Thanks for speaking up.

Demian, not “is” Calvin-bashing, but may easily be so perceived. I’m with Eric on this, but chose to deal with it less directly (more cowardly on my part?), above. My first impression upon reading the Calvin part of your post was that it painted him a villain, even though I could not believe that to be your intention.

The self-examining questions are excellent, but what we stand to learn from them is not that we can avoid making mistakes, but that Calvin and all before him and since have been sinners. Those who have been redeemed by the shed blood of the Lamb of God are still not the Lamb Himself and, if for no other reason than to establish His distinctiveness, remain imperfect in this life, only able to point us toward Him who knew no sin. Calvin could not and does not save lost sinners, nor shall we. As we press on toward the mark of the high calling, we must see that that mark is in Christ Jesus and Him alone.

al,

You beat me to my clarification. I wan not stating that the article “was” Calvin-bashing, just, like al stated, at first read it seemed to place him in the light of a villain.

Mind you, I am not a scholar on the history of John Calvin, but I have done some peeking into why there seems to be such a strong dislike/hatred of the man in some areas of Christianity (to a degree that Luther and his tirades against the Jews seem to be given a free pass).

Beyond Calvin’s views on man’s part in salvation (no need to open this can of worms unless everyone wants to), most of the animosity seems to come from the “Servetus Affair”.

From any account, this is a convoluted story. When you take a broad look across several biographies you see John Calvin as anywhere from a gleefully, cackling, demonic, bloodthirsty self-styled Avenger of God, hell-bent on rooting out and killing anything even remotely questionable compared to his theology; to a man who’s heart bled for Servetus, and pleaded with him to repent from his heresy, or at least allow Calvin to seek a quicker, more humane form of execution.

With as many biased disciples/fans of Calvin (past and present) and foes/detractors (past and present), we cannot know what the truth was in this affair.

The main point of your post really is the four questions you pose, that we should ask of ourselves. My addendum was just that I think cited references to Calvin’s severity would have been helpful to those unfamiliar with the history of Calvin, to strongly show grace and mercy to a highly controversial figure in the Reformation’s past.

I am whole-heartedly with al in that we must remember that we all carry the name of your blog… Fallen and Flawed. We seem to hero worship the theologians of the past, instead of remembering that they were just as sinful as we are and that it is good to esteem teachers of the Word, but there is only one teacher worthy of hero worship. And I certainly look forward to the day when I see Him face-to-face and we will not have to concern ourselves with differences in opinions between brethren.

The problems with historical accounts of Calvin are quite similar to the historical accounts of the Puritans. How many people, especially in the church, only know the Puritans as a bunch of dower, anal-retentive, quick to judge and burn those with even a slight difference of opinion on Scripture, holier-than-thou kill-joys? Their history is much, much more than what is normally portrayed.