RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Calvinism
merely EasJk from the beginning been a substantial element mine Reformed faith, but it is only among the Reformed that it has retained or can retain its purity, free from the tendency to becjmie a doctrine of justification on account of faithj(cf. E. Bohl, Von der Rechtfertigung durch den Glauben, Amsterdam, 1890). Here, too, the difference between the two types of Protestantism is one of degree, not of kind (cf. C. P. Krauth, The Conservative Reformation, Philadelphia, 1872). Lutheranism, the product of a poignant sense of sin, born from the throes of a guilt-burdened soul which can not be stilled until it finds peace in God's decree of justification, is apt to rest in this peace; while Calvinism, the product of an overwhelming vision of God, born from the reflection in the heart of man of the majesty of a God who will not give his\ glory to another, can not pause until it places the scheme of salvation itself in relation to a complete world-view, in which it becomes subsidiary to the glory of the Lord God Almighty. Calvinism askjpvith Lutheranism, indeed/jthat most poignant of all questions, What shall I do to be saved? and answers it as Lutheranism answers iti But the great question which presses upon it is, How shall God be glorified? It is the contemplation of God and zeal for his honor which in it draws out the emotions and absorbs endeavor; and the end of human as of all other existence, of salvation as of all other attainment, is to it the glory of the Lord of all. Full justice is done in it to the scheme of redemption and the experience of salvation, because full justice is done in it to religion itself which underlies these elements of it. It begins, it centers, it ends with the vision of God in his glory: and it sets itself before all things to render to God his rights in every sphere of life-activity.
One of the consequences flowing from this fundamental attitude of Calvinistic feeling and thought is the high supernaturalism which informs alike its religious consciousness and its doctrinal construction. Calvinism would not be badly defined, indeed, as the tendency which is determined to do justice to the immediately supernatural, as in the first, so also in the second creation. LThe strength and purity of its belief in the supernatural Fact (which is God) saves it from all embarrassment in the face of the supernatural act (which is miracle). In everything which enters into the process of redemption it is impelled by the force of jts first principle to place the initiative in GodA A supernatural revelation, in which God makes ^known to man his will and his purposes of grace; a supernatural record of this revelation in a supernaturally given book, in which God gives his revelation permanency and extension — such things are to the Calvinist almost matters of course.] 5- Soteri- And, above all, he can but insist with ology of the utmost strenuousness on the Calvinism, immediate supernaturalness of the actual work of redemption itself, and that nojess in its application than in its impetration. [Thus it comes about that the doctrine oljmonergistrc regeneration — oras it was phrased^ hy the older theologians, of '/irresistible grace " ", or "effectual calling "—is the-binge of the Cal-~
vinistic soteriology, and lies much more deeply embedded in the system than the doctrine of predestination itself which is popularly looked upon as its hall-marEj Indeed, the soteriological significance of predestination to the Calvinist consists in the safeguard it affords to monergistic regeneration — to purely supernatural salvation. .What lies at the heart of his soteriology is the absolute exclusion of the creaturely element in the initiation of the saving process, that so the pure grace of God may be magnified/ (Dnly so could he express his sense of men's complete dependence as sinners on the free mercy of a saving Godj^ or extrude the evil leaven of Synergism (q.v.) by which, as he clearly sees, God is robbed of his glory and man is encouraged to think that he owes to some power, some act of choice, some initiative of his own, his participation in that salvation which is in reality all of grace. There is accordingly nothing against which Calvinism sets its face with more firmness than every form and, degree of autosoterism. Above everything else, it is determined that God, in his Son Jesus Christ, acting through the Holy Spirit whom he has sent, shall be recognized as our veritable Savior. To it sinful man stands in need not of inducements or assistance to save himself, but of actual saving; and Jesus Christ has come not to advise, or urge, or induce, or aid him to save himself, but to save him. This is the root of Calvinistic soteriology; and it is because this deep sense of human helplessness and this profound consciousness of indebtedness for all that enters into salvation to the free grace of God is the root of its soteriology that to it the doctrine foL election becomes the cor cordis of the GospelJ^ (He who knows that it is God who has chosen him and not he who has chosen God, and that he owes his entire salvation in all its processes and in every one of its stages to this choice of God, would be an ingrate indeed if he gave not the glory of his salvation solely to the inexplicable elective love of God.\
(Historically the Reformed theology finds its origin in the reforming movement begun in Switzerland under the leadership of Zwingli (1516). Its fundamental principles are already present in Zwingli's teaching, though it was not until Calvin's profound and penetrating genius was called to their exposition that they took their ultimate form or received systematic development.! From Switzerland Calvinism spread outward to France, and along the Rhine through Germany to Holland, eastward to Bohemia and Hungary, and westward, across the Channel, to Great Britain. In this broad expansion through so many lands its voice was raised in a multitude of confessions; and in the course of the four hundred years which have elapsed since its first formulation, Ht has been expounded in a vast body of dogmatic 6. Consist- treatises.,; Its development has natent Devel- urally been much richer and far more opment of many-sided than that of the sister Calvinism, system of Lutheranism in its more confined and homogeneous environment; and yet it has retained its distinctive character and preserved its fundamental features with
■Calvinism