Theology of John Calvin, The

The Theology of John Calvin. By Karl Barth. Translated by Geoffrey W. Bromiley. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1995. xxiv + 424 pages. Originally published as Die Theologie Calvins in 1922, the present study is the text of Karl Earth's lectures that year on the theology of John Calvin, as honorary Professor of Reformed Theology at Gottingen, a staunchly Lutheran center of Lower Saxony. The 36-year-old Swiss pastor analyzed Calvin's role as the most European Reformer among the Germanic theologians Erasmus, Luther, Bucer, Zwingli, and Melanchthon, along with others who shaped the first two Protestant generations. His description of Calvin's unremitting emphasis on glorifying God as the center of every theological question, including predestination, social ethics, and life eternal, lends itself to a book as interesting on Barth as on the Reformation. The translator's preface explains that the eighty year old lectures are "outdated, incomplete and rather formless," in terms of Calvin scholarship, but reading Barth's commentary is intriguing and liberating still. Details about Calvin's theology on the Church Dogmatics of Barth's later years might have changed, as did new editions of his Epistle to the Romans. Nevertheless, his thesis is fascinating on the Reformation as both a continuity and break with the Middle Ages, Luther's provincialism regarding social ethics, and how Calvin sought to define the scriptural faith held in common by all the Reformers in spite of their disastrous root differences and political failure.

Barth avoids modern theoretical and psychological descriptions of Calvin's thought and circumstances, typical of nineteenth and early twentieth century scholars. His appreciation of Calvin's style of argumentation and intransigence is an attempt to understand Calvin's faith in the historical context and religious conflicts of his life. The lectures do not constitute a full biography or a theological accounting of the passing years from his family's Catholic benefice in Noyon, through schooling in Paris, to the early writing of Psychopannychia and the Institutes, expulsion from Geneva, refuge in French-speaking Switzerland and Strasbourg, and finally return and ministry in Geneva. They deal with themes important in the creation of the Reformed branch of Protestantism. The decisive years in Strasbourg (1538-1541) are abruptly foreshortened, and recall to Geneva and reconciliation are omitted. The lectures end with the German colloquies of Frankfurt, Hagenau, Worms, and Regensburg, which he attended with Martin Bucer and Melanchthon, and with Earth's assessment of the issues involved and Calvin's superior theological and political acumen.

This book consists of two parts. Part 1 is entitled Presuppositions, in preparation for placing Calvin in the immensely confused and conflictive setting of the early decades of sixteenth century Catholic Europe. This represents one quarter of the book. The first section is "Reformation and the Middle Ages," with subheadings Connection, Contrast, and Common Features. Barth shows his knack for articulating different and opposing tendencies of religious thought and practice which arose under the impact of the emerging humanist culture, and his statement of paradoxes showing their intermingling and dependence. Essentially liberating, the relation between the old and the new produced a time of political ambivalence and spiritual crisis.

A second preliminary section is simply called "Calvin, Luther, and Zwingli," with 20, 13, and 24 pages, respectively. "The great critical problem of the Reformation," Barth says, was how to relate the new knowledge of God and faith to the world. Ethics was fundamental to all three, but the urban rational humanism of Zwingli and Calvin was more adequate than Luther's mystical hold on the old traditions for forming "a new Christian sociology."

Part 2 is called Life of Calvin, but as the translator indicates, it is not a complete biography. Three major sections are "Early Years, 1509-1536," "First Genevan Stay," and "Strassburg [sic] Stay, 15381541." The first is essentially a discussion of Calvin's writings of the period. Psychopannychia, preceding the Institutes but unpublished until 1542, is set in the context of Calvin's apologetic against a mystical, quietistic spirituality attributed to the so-called Anabaptists. Barm sees a crucial concern of the young theological humanist in the question of the times about the state of the soul after death, in expectation of the general resurrection of the ecumenical creeds. Rejection of scholastic doctrines of limbo and purgatory, in the light of scripture, led would-be reformers to speculation disavowing the eternal life of the soul predestined to glorify and serve God unceasingly. Barth sees this as critical to Calvin's lifelong theological position. A publication from Eerdmans in 2000 is a rare study of this early writing: The Starting Point of Calvin's Theology, by George H. Tavard.

An important section (pages 157-226) is a study of 27-year-old Calvin's need to systematize evangelical theology. The 1536 Institutes shows the influences of Luther, Erasmus, Bucer, and Zwingli as Calvin brought together and synthesized a contribution to the fundamental doctrinal principles of biblical reform. Earth's skill in dialectical formulation of conflicting theological positions leads him to show Calvin's critique and integration of antithetical views of the Saxon, Alsatian, and German-Swiss Reformers. "He can contend against the one side in the name of the other because both are reconciled in him. Etc." Knowledge of God and Man, Sacraments, Church, False Sacraments, and Christian Liberty give structure to the study. Of special interest in Earth's description of Calvin's focus on eschatology, the Eucharistie resolution, and discipline in church and society. With regard to Calvin's scorn for Roman Catholicism, he writes, "In reading all this, we don't really know whether to laugh or to cry, to go along with the powerful attacks or to hold somewhat aloof from them" (191).

Under "First Genevan Study," Barth expends nearly the whole of his lectures, making a projected Life of Calvin incomplete. He describes the religious indecision, turmoil, and political vulnerability of the City in such a way that the real-life social crisis of all Western Europe becomes vivid. he explains the Reformation program of Calvin and William Farel, its boldness in reform of church order, catechism, and confession, binding on every citizen. The internal political conflicts, essentially French, were suffered in the shadow of the Duke and Archbishop of Savoy, Francis I in Versailles, and aggressive Protestant magistrates of Bern. Detailed explanations are given of the disputations and synods of 1537/38 in Lausanne, Bern, and Zurich, in which the evangelical orthodoxy of Calvin and Farel was questioned and the destiny of Genevan independence took shape. Upon being expelled from the city, Calvin became the concern of every major Protestant center, so that "no less a figure than Martin Bucer of Strassburg [sic] had a mind to go personally to Geneva to reinstate Farel and Calvin" (377).

The story ends with a brief one-page reminder that Calvin spent three years in Strasbourg until 1541 as pastor to French refugees, published a "much altered edition" of the Institutes in 1539, wrote more specifically on the Lord's Supper, and shaped later forms of liturgy and congregational life published after his return to Geneva in 1542. (Barth fails to indicate the debt Calvinism owes to the liturgical practice and disciplined community observed and shared by young John Calvin with the city officials and ministers of resolutely Protestant Strasbourg of those years.) It was in Strasbourg that Calvin found a wife!

Calvin also wrote a commentary on Romans in 1539, which Barth calls "a distinctive combination of historical and pneumatic exegesis" (392). Ethical concern for glorifying God is established on the authority of the Bible. Barth takes pains to describe Calvin's participation in four critical German colloquies, where he was hoping the Reformers would achieve Protestant unity and political parity in the Holy Roman Empire, but he departed in disillusionment. Barth shows his theological superiority and internationalism in comparison with other delegates. Correspondence by Calvin with Cardinal Sadolet, bishop of Carpentras near Avignon, who tries to convince the council of Geneva to remain with the Roman Catholic Church closes the lectures.

Indexes of subjects, names, and scripture references are useful in making this engaging survey excellent theological reading.

William J. Nottingham

Christian Theological Seminary

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