Calvin. History and Reception of a Reformation Week 3. Calvin's Ethics Sequence 5. Advantages of the model: an ethic of responsibility What you are seeing is the bell tower of Saint-Peter cathedral, one of the city's high points, and a place from which can be seen both the beauty of nature and the city's expanse. Geneva, without Calvin's influence, would no doubt have remained a small provincial town. This is an ideal place from which to explore the positive sides of Calvin's ethic as well as its more ambiguous aspects, and assess its influence on social life, on the lives of actual people -- those who
deliberately chose to follow Calvin, but also those who were unknowingly affected by his influence. When we look at the more luminous aspects of Calvin's ethical thought, we immediately realize how similar it is to ours. Unlike other ethical systems, Calvin's does not base itself on external considerations or assumptions; it does not attempt to establish, in the name of reason (assumed to be shared by all), the things
that each individual must think and do. Instead, it preserves the sovereignty of each person's conscience, which must determine for itself how to interpret God's command, God's Law -- a Law that one accesses first in one's
conscience, then through revelation if one is a Jew or a Christian. The positive aspect of this ethic is freedom -- one's freedom to choose one's own way and one's responsibility to learn to use one's freedom. The notion of responsibility does not appear anywhere in Calvin's writings; it was first ascribed to his thought towards the end of the 18th century. Nonetheless, responsibility is probably the best concept to encompass or define Calvin's ethic. It does not claim that all people should be equal, but asserts that, regardless of one's situation, everyone is responsible. Responsible, first, for oneself and one's actions. One cannot deflect responsibility for one's deeds onto another; one must assume one's responsibility and one must assume
the consequences of one's actions. Beyond self-responsibility, however, Calvin also declares people to be responsible towards others, and in particular towards those who depend on them and whom they must not abuse as if, as Calvin
puts it, they were slaves. Calvin gives numerous practical examples of this: those who depend on others, for instance, should not have to live in inhuman conditions. The test, for Calvin, is how much one pays one's cleaning lady: is she paid only the salary prescribed by law or custom, or does her employer put himself in her shoes and ask himself whether she can live acceptably, rather than poorly, on what she earns? Justice, then, is the first key to responsibility: justice understood as the ability to put oneself in someone else's place and ascertain whether they can live with dignity. Yet justice is not enough. Calvin always correlates justice to love -- a love that is never mandatory, is always inventive, and forever requires a deeper justice. It is not enough, however, to simply act in the name of love. Love must find its translation, its realization, in social life in the institutions of justice. Thus there is a dialectic of sorts between love and justice in Calvin's thought: love serves as a critique of justice, and particularly of justice's tendency towards excessive
narrowness, towards overly quid pro quo or strictly utilitarian dynamics. In short, love denounces the limitations of justice. At the same time, justice is the concrete social manifestation of love. From where we stand, we can see a number of houses, and if we were to dig a little deeper, we would discover, within their walls, the lives of many men and women who have sought
to apply Calvin's ethic to their lives, who have looked for ways to implement its ideals
in the life of their communities. We might, for instance, come across the home of Jean-Gabriel Eynard, who spent a large part of his considerable fortune funding the Greek war of independence. Others, like Jean-Jacques de Sellon, contributed much of their wealth to the struggle to abolish slavery. Others still, like Henri Dunant, contributed to the founding of the Red Cross. And there are countless examples of other unassuming, humble souls who, on a smaller scale perhaps, sought ways to translate the ideal of love into social justice. Another good example comes to us from France, where, towards the middle of the 19th century, Reformed leaders in Mulhouse took a stand against child labor. At the time, children under the age of 5 were employed in the weaving industry. The Protestant industrials realized that for them to unilaterally stop using children in their mills
would only benefit the competition. So, using their considerable influence and financial resources, they succeeded in changing the French legislation. Having accomplished that goal, they became convinced of the need for international legislation banning child labor. Thus they helped lay the foundations for the International Labor Organization (ILO), whose headquarters are to this day located in Geneva. There are innumerable stories of similar men and women who have sought to translate, to convert -- practically, concretely, humanly, socially -- the responsibility entailed by the
Calvinistic ideal of love in the form of justice. Another central element of Calvin's ethic is the Law. As we've seen, the Law allows for different interpretations. It can be understood, when viewed through the lens of one's conscience, as natural law, an ancestor of sorts to the notion of human rights. Or it can be defined as a positive requirement, that is, not just a series of prohibitions, but an obligation to put oneself in one's neighbor's shoes and seek out ways to help him. The Law, then, is multifaceted. This is another major strength of Calvin's model, which endeavors to express the Law systematically, not by trying to attribute multiple intentions to God -- God's will, from the beginning
of time to this very day, remains one and the same -- but by showing that God's will allows for
different possible interpretations. Today, this ethical requirement has lost none of its power. When we look at the major issues confronting our world today, I am convinced that simply embracing the Golden Rule would lead to much positive change, not only in terms
of globalization, but also as regards basic human and social relationships. This ethic, because of its very simplicity -- not treating others in ways that you would not want to be treated or, better yet, doing unto others as you would have done unto you --
remains as relevant as ever. In conclusion: one of the greatest strengths of Calvin's ethical model is the tension it creates between radicality -- the radicality of obeying God's command, of following
Christ and, for the Christian, of following Christ all the way into his passion -- and practicality -- the emphasis on rooting the ethical in everyday life. Calvin's ethic also features another dialectic, between universality -- its message is meant for all people -- and particularity -- the particular message to Christians and Jews,
i.e., those who are aware of God's command in its most radical form. In this sense, being a Christian does not mean following a different ethic than other human beings, but rather giving it a deeper meaning, not by exposing oneself to acting unjustly, but
by always seeking out ways to be even more just. The image associated with Calvin's model -- that of the honest, sober, hard-working, down-to-earth, humanistic Protestant --, along with its fundamental themes of responsibility
and individuality, is perhaps the aspect of his ethic that has best stood the test of time.
