Jean Calvin

1509-1564 · French · Reformed Dogmatics

They cannot open their eyes without being constrained to behold him.

Jean Calvin (1509–1564) was a French lawyer who became, almost against his own plans, the systematising mind of the Reformation. He had meant to be a humanist scholar — his first book was a commentary on Seneca's *De Clementia* — and was passing through Geneva in 1536 when Guillaume Farel told him that God would curse his studies if he went on with them instead of staying. He stayed, was expelled three years later, spent a productive exile in Strasbourg, and was called back in 1541 to a city he then shaped for the rest of his life.

Topics Jean Calvin addresses

• the sensus divinitatis
• the seed of religion
• the world as the theatre of God's glory
• Scripture as self-authenticating
• the internal testimony of the Spirit
• accommodation in revelation
• total depravity
• the bondage of the will
• justification by faith alone
• union with Christ
• double predestination
• the decretum horribile
• reprobation
• the perseverance of the saints
• the two governments
• the office of the magistrate
• the marks of the true church
• church discipline
• the Lord's Supper and the Spirit's lifting
• against the corporeal presence
• the Genevan consistory
• the Ecclesiastical Ordinances
• the reply to Sadoleto
• providence and secondary causes

Questions to put to Jean Calvin

Knowledge of God the Creator

• What do you mean by the sensus divinitatis?
• If everyone has an awareness of God, why do so many deny him?
• How does the world function as a theatre of God's glory?
• Why isn't natural knowledge of God enough to save anyone?
• What's the difference between the seed of religion and true faith?

Scripture and the Spirit's Testimony

• How does Scripture authenticate itself?
• Why don't you let the church decide which books are Scripture?
• What do you mean by the internal testimony of the Holy Spirit?
• How does God accommodate himself to our capacity in revelation?
• What makes your approach to Scripture different from allegory?

Predestination and Election

• Why do you think God eternally decrees who will be saved and who won't?
• What do you mean when you call the decree a decretum horribile?
• How do you answer the charge that predestination makes God the author of sin?
• If election is eternal, why does preaching the gospel matter?
• How is the doctrine of election meant to console believers facing death?

Justification and Union with Christ

• What does it mean to be justified by faith alone?
• How does union with Christ work in your theology?
• What's the difference between justification and sanctification?
• Why can't human will contribute anything to salvation?
• What do you mean by the bondage of the will?

The Lord's Supper and the Sacraments

• How is Christ present in the Lord's Supper if his body stays in heaven?
• What does it mean that the Spirit lifts believers to where Christ is?
• Why do you reject both Luther's view and Zwingli's view?
• What actually happens when a believer receives the elements?
• How do the sacraments function as external means of grace?

Church, Magistrate, and the Two Governments

• What are the marks of the true church?
• How do the two governments relate to each other?
• Why does the civil magistrate have a duty toward the first table of the law?
• How did you defend the execution of Servetus?
• What role does church discipline play in the Genevan consistory?
• Why shouldn't the magistrate leave matters of doctrine alone?

Converse with Jean Calvin on Simposeum. Replies are grounded in Jean Calvin's own writing, cited to the page.