RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Calvin Calvinism
translation of the commentaries, his Institutes, and his Tracts relating to the Reformation, by H. Beveridge, published by the Calvin Translation Society, 52 vols., Edinburgh, 1844-55. The fullest collection of Calvin's letters is in the Berlin edition. In 1854 in Paris Jules Bonnet published a collection, and this has been translated, volumes i., ii., by D. Constable, Edinburgh, 1855-57; volumes iii., iv., by M. R. Gilchrist, Philadelphia, 1858. The four volumes are now published by the Presbyterian Board of Publication, Philadelphia. The letters to correspondents living in French-speaking lands are given in their original Latin or French with careful and scholarly annotations by A. L. Herminjard (d. 1900) in the nine volumes of his Correspondance des reformateurs dans les pays de langue francaise, 1512-44, Geneva, 1866-97. The first letter of Calvin's is no. 310 in vol. ii., 2d ed., 1878.
For the life of Calvin the original source is the sketch by his friend and coadjutor Theodore Beza, Geneva, 1564, 2d ed., Lausanne, 1575; edited by Neander, Berlin, 1841, Eng. transl., by H. Beveridge, in Tracts relating to the Reformation, in the Calvin Society translation, vol. i., Edinburgh, 1844. Much information comes out incidentally in his correspondence.
Modern lives of Calvin, derived from independent study of the works and other sources, which can be commended are those by T. H. Dyer, London, 1850; F. Bungener, 2 vols., Paris, 1862-63, Eng. transl., Edinburgh, 1803; E. Stahelin, 2 vols., Elberfeld, 1863; F. W. Kampschulte, ed. W. Goetz, 2 vols., Leipsic, 1899; P. Schaff, Christian Church, vii. 257-844; E. Doumergue, Lausanne, 1899 sqq. (to be in five volumes, of which the second appeared in 1902 and the third in 1905, a life-work, aims at being exhaustive, is illustrated by numerous reproductions of old drawings, plans, pictures, etc., and hundreds of special sketches by H. Armand-Delilee); A. M. Fairbairn, in The Cambridge Modern History, vol. ii., The Reformation, chap, xi., pp. 342-376, New York, 1904; by W. Walker, in the Heroes of the Reformation Series, New York, 1906; and by A. Bossert, Paris, 1906. Mention should also be made of the material on Calvin and French church history generally constantly appearing in Paris in the Bulletin de la societe de Vhistoire du protestantisme francais, under the editorship of the learned Nathanael Weiss, secretary of the Society.
CALVINISM.
Meaning and Uses of the Consistent Development of Term (§ 1). Calvinism (§ 6).
Fundamental Principle (§ 2). Varieties of Calvinism (§ 7).
Relation to Other Systems Supralapsarianism and Infra- (§ 3). lapsarianism (§ 8).
Calvinism and Lutheranism Postredemptionism (§ 9).
(§ 4). Present Fortunes of Calvin-
Soteriology of Calvinism (§5). ism (§ 10).
^Calvinism is an ambiguous term in so far as it is currently employed! in two or three senses, closely related indeed, and passing insensibly into one another, but of varying latitudes of connotation. QSometimes it designates merely the individual teaching of John Calvin. Sometimes it designates, more broadly, the doctrinal system confessed by that^body of Protestant Churches known historically,! in distinction from the Lutheran Churches, as " the Reformed Churches " (see Protestantism); ibut also quite commonly called " the Calvinistic Churches" because the greatest scieni. Meaning tific exposition of their faith in the and Uses of Reformation age, and perhaps the the Term, most influential of any age, was given by John Calvin. (Sometimes it designates, more broadly still, the entire body of conceptions, theological, ethical, philosophical, social, political, which, under the influence of the master mind of John Calvin, raised itself to dominance in the Protestant lands of the post-Reformation age, and has left a permanent mark not only upon the
thought of mankind, but upon the life-history of men, the social order of civilized peoples, and even the political organization of States. In the present /article, the term will be taken, for obvious reasons,, /in the second of these senses. Fortunately this; is also its central sense; and there is little danger that its other connotations will fall out of mind while attention is concentrated upon this.
On the one hand, , John Calvin, though always looked upon by the Reformed Churches as an exponent rather than as the creator of their doctrinal system, has nevertheless been both reverenced as one of their founders, and deferred to as that particular one of their founders to whose formative hand and systematizing talent their doctrinal system has perhaps owed most. In any exposition of the Reformed theology, therefore, the teaching of John Calvin must always take a high, and, indeed, determinative place. On the other hand, although'Ci^vinisnjiJhas dug a channel through which not merely flows a stream of theological thought, but also surges a great wave of human life — filling the h@<jrt with fresh ideals and conceptions which have revolutionized the conditions of existence — yet its/fountain-head lies in its theological system; or rather, to be perfectly exact, one step behind even that, in its religious consciousness. For the roots of Calvinism are planted in a specific religious attitude, out of which is unfolded first a particular theology, from which springs on the one hand a special church organization, and on the other a social order, involving a given political arrangement. The whole outworking of Calvinism in life is thus but the efflorescence of its fundamental religious consciousness, which finds its scientific statement in its theological system. '
[The exact formulation of the fundamental principle of Calvinism j has indeed taxed the acumen of a long series of thinkers for the last hundred years (e.g., Ullmann, Semisch, Hagenbach, Ebrard, Herzog, Schweizer, Baur, Schneckenburger, Guder, Schenkel, Schoberlein, Stahl, Hundeshagen; for a discussion of the several views cf. H. Voigt, Fundamentaldogmatik, Gotha, 1874, pp. 397-480; W Hastie, The Theology of the Reformed Church in its Fundamental Principles, Edinburgh, 1904, pp. 129-177). .Perhaps the simplest statement of it is the best: that it lies in a profound apprehension of God in his majesty, with the inevitably accompanying poignant realization of the exact nature of the relation sustained to him by the creature as such, and particularly by the sinful creature. He who believes in God without reserve, and is determined that God shall be 2. Funda- God to him in all his thinking, feeling, mental willing — in the entire compass of his Principle, life-activities, intellectual, moral, spiritual, throughout all his individual, social, religious relations — is, by the forie of that strictest of all logic which presides ovei- the outworking of principles into thought and life, by the very necessity of the case, a Calvinist. In Calvinism, then, objectively speaking, theism comes to its rights; subjectively speaking, the religious relation attains its purity; soteriologically speak-
Calvinism