Calvin. History and Reception of a Reformation Week 3. Calvin's Ethics Sequence 6. The risks of Calvin's model: moralism and theocracy I am coming to you, once again, from the bell tower of Saint-Peter cathedral, from which the entire city can be seen. In our last sequence, I mentioned some of the extraordinary men and women whose very lives and actions were embodiments of Calvin's ethic. Yet there are aspects of Calvin's ethic that are more ambiguous, and perhaps disconcerting. The first risk associated with it is a tendency towards moralism. At the center of Calvin's ethical system is the Law -- one's duty to constantly act in ways that reflect God's justice, God's love, God's holiness. Yet this is in reality an impossibility for man. And when one is left to one's own devices in trying to carry out a vision that is so ambitious as to be unrealistic, then it is fair to say that this ethic quickly becomes very burdensome. Particularly because there is no confessional and little acceptance of human fallibility. Calvin often cited the famous verse from Luke, "To whom much is given, from him much shall be required." Many Protestants genuinely seeking to follow Calvin's teaching have found it to be a very heavy burden to carry. In the absence of a confessional, Calvinism provides no place, no mechanism by which one may can be exonerated from one's responsibility. Before God, one must carry this load, a load that is almost impossible to bear. The tendency towards moralism has also been a source of difficulty for many Reformed Protestants because of the fact that Calvin sometimes -- not always -- seems to
imply that one's salvation depends on what one does. In principle, the Protestant faith declares that works play no part whatsoever in salvation, which is given exclusively through God's grace, through God's promise. In that case, what does one who acts ethically, in accordance with duty, have the right to expect? In several instances, Calvin claims that such a person will be rewarded, yet without clarifying in what such a reward might consist. This has led to much confusion and served to reintroduce within Protestant and Calvinist circles the feeling that works do, in fact, matter more than salvation as obtained directly
through faith in Christ. Another danger associated with Calvin's ethical system, and which has nothing to do with moralism, is political in nature. As I've said, Calvin can rightfully be considered one of the fathers of modern democracy, particularly insofar as he places the rule of law above the power of the government and
insists that the magistrature be elected. Yet whenever Calvin broaches the political (more or less directly), his convictions seem to change. For example, in a 1551 letter addressed to Henry VIII's son Edward VI (England's first monarch raised as a Protestant, but who died too young to actually reign), he enjoins the young prince to become the next Josiah, that is, a king who discovers the Book of the Law, then seeks to put it in practice under his reign. All of a sudden, the distinction that Calvin has so carefully made between the earthly and the heavenly, between the command of the Creator and
that of the Holy Spirit, dissipates -- and it becomes clear that the political sphere is necessary in order to enact the religious principles that Calvin advocated in social life. A similar scenario unfolded at the very end of Calvin's life, when he dedicated to Henry IV -- who, though still a child at the time, was to become king of Navarre and later king of France -- his
commentary on the five books of Moses, an extremely voluminous and dense work (which has not been reprinted in French since Calvin's death in 1564), in which he details specific political consequences for each of
the commands. Here again, the distinction between the earthly and the heavenly seems to evaporate, and it becomes clear that the political is required not only to enforce natural law, but also
to apply the divine law given to man through revelation. In particular, the political sphere must be able to track down and punish atheists, who (as everyone in the 16th century agreed) undermine the social order, as well as heretics. Thus Calvin, very harshly, recommends the death penalty for adulterers, siding in this respect with Julius Caesar over Jesus Christ, who was ostensibly much too lenient on the issue for Calvin's taste. What we see here, then, is a different side of Calvin: very harsh and inflexible, and at the same time quite ambiguous in his relationship to the political. Though this side of Calvin, who never acceded to power (thankfully), remained essentially theoretical, it nonetheless tends to lessen, for some, the appeal of his ethical system as
a whole. There is one last point we must cover: Calvin's interpretation of the Christian life. One of Calvin's overarching goals is to restore the Gospel in its simplicity and purity, to do away with the excessive and superfluous interpretations injected by theologians. Yet Calvin himself is also interpreting the text, and his interpretations are not always among the most self-evident. We see this, for instance, in his theory of predestination and double predestination, but also in the harshness and severity with which he, at times, interprets Scripture. There is also the issue of discipline. Under normal circumstances, Christians are left to the freedom of their own conscience, and there are numerous passages in which Calvin evokes this freedom. Calvin believed, however, that the Gospel must not only be preached, but heard. In order for it to be heard, the Church must impose a framework that presents a single, consistent interpretation of Scripture for all of society. My daughter came home from high school one day and reported that, in a class on Calvin's ethics, she learned that he prohibited games, dancing, colorful clothing, and all sorts of similar things
-- in other words, anything that a girl of 16 or 17 might enjoy -- and wondered how her own father could possibly study such an abhorrent character. And indeed, though it may not be the most interesting aspect of Calvin, there is a lot of truth to such a description of him. In a sense, this side of Calvin is understandable: after all, if his purpose was to avoid luxury and superfluous spending, to avoid distraction, and to basically turn the entire city into one big convent
(which is not that far-fetched a characterization of Calvin's ethic), all of this was in the name of the Gospel, of a desire for radicality, of concern for the poor. Nonetheless, this side of Calvin remains, for the most part, austere and joyless. Even in the numerous passages where he evokes the joy and happiness of the early Christians, you find yourself wishing he would, just once, allow himself to laugh freely and uninhibitedly. The fact that it's easier to imagine him with a haggard grin does have a tendency to
lessen the power of his ethical message.
