Is the Reformation Over? John Calvin, Roman Catholicism, and Contemporary Ecumenical Conversations
Is the Reformation over? At first blush, this question would appear to be a rather peculiar one to ask. Of course the Reformation is over—if by that term we mean the particular constellation of religious, political, and social events in sixteenth-century Europe that led to the division of Western Christendom and the renewal of early modern Christianity. In recent years, however, the question “Is the Reformation over?” has served as a placeholder for a different set of issues, addressing the nature of contemporary Roman Catholicism and its relation to historic Protestantism. The issues are complex and controversial: To what degree has the Roman Catholic Church after the Second Vatican Council effectively redressed the central theological and religious concerns posed by sixteenth-century Protestant leaders such as Martin Luther or John Calvin? Has the historic agreement reached between the Catholic Church and the Lutheran World Federation in 1999—known as the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (JDDJ)—successfully pacified the centuries-long controversy over the doctrine of justification by faith alone? 2 And irrespective of real theological differences, is it strategic and wise for Christians in the Western world to continue to divide over matters of doctrine in the face of radical Islam and rampant secularism?
Moreover, some contemporary evangelicals outside historic Protestant churches may wonder if the question “Is the Reformation over?” holds any relevance for them at all. Should evangelicals remain wedded to theological constructions framed by religious controversies that occurred nearly 500 years ago?
In 2005, evangelical historian Mark Noll and free-lance Christian author Carolyn Nystrom addressed these issues in a book entitled (appropriately enough) Is the Reformation Over? 3 In this highly acclaimed work, Noll and Nystrom survey the history of Catholic-Protestant controversies in North America over the past three centuries. The authors call particular attention to the seismic shift in evangelical attitudes toward Roman Catholics since the Second Vatican Council. In recent years, they note, much of the historic mistrust and antagonism between evangelicals and Catholics has been set aside for a new spirit of cooperation and mutual support. Today evangelical Protestants in the United States make common cause with their Catholic neighbors on a variety of important political and social issues. At the same time, a sizeable number of evangelicals admire Catholic leaders such as Pope John Paul II and Mother Theresa, and they look to traditional works of Catholic spirituality and modern Catholic devotional literature for inspiration and spiritual nourishment. In addition to these shifting popular attitudes, Noll and Nystrom point to the sustained ecumenical dialogues between Catholic and evangelical scholars over the past fifteen years—known collectively as Evangelicals and Catholics Together (ECT)—as evidence of substantive theological rapprochement between the two religious camps. The most impressive fruit of these unofficial dialogues, the authors believe, is the agreement on the Protestant doctrine of justification by faith alone as formulated at ECT II4.
Should we conclude, then, that the Reformation is over? For Noll and Nystrom, the answer is “No” and “Yes.” No, the Reformation is not over in the sense that important theological differences continue to divide American evangelicals and Roman Catholics—most notably their conflicting understandings of the Church, the primacy of the Pope, and the Marian doctrines. On the other hand, Noll and Nystrom believe that ecumenical accords such as ECT II and JDDJ signal that the Reformation divide over justification has been successfully bridged. The authors, thus, conclude, “If it is true . . . that iustificatio articulis stantis vel cadentis ecclesiae (justification is the article on which the church stands or falls), then the Reformation is over.”5
Noll and Nystrom’s book Is the Reformation Over? has garnered both praise and criticism. The evangelical periodical Christianity Today awarded the book “honorable mention” in its 2006 book awards. Evangelical leader J. I. Packer praised the book for its “superb theological journalism.” 6
Other scholars have been far less positive. While acknowledging the book’s usefulness as a historical survey of Catholic-Protestant relationships, several reviewers (including myself) question the quality of theological analysis and dispute the accuracy of a number of the book’s conclusions.7
One thing is clear, however: Noll and Nystrom’s book has been read widely, and it has played a not insignificant role in shaping American evangelicals’ perceptions of contemporary Roman Catholicism. A good example of this is seen in the case of Francis Beckwith, former president of the Evangelical Theological Society. When Beckwith, announced his decision to convert back to the Roman Catholic Church in 2006, one of the factors he listed that influenced his decision was reading the book Is the Reformation Over?8
Because of the limitations of space and the range of my own expertise, I will explore the question “Is the Reformation over?” from a slightly unconventional angle. Instead of examining Catholic theological formulations since Vatican II or describing ecumenical conversations of the past four decades or reviewing relevant material in the authoritative Catholic Catechism (rev. 1994), this essay focuses on the fundamental religious and theological concerns of one Protestant reformer, John Calvin, as he engaged Catholic opponents between 1539 and 1549. Several words of explanation are in order.
1. I am convinced that before we answer the question “Is the Reformation over?” we must first clearly define the nature of the Protestant Reformation, or more precisely, the primary theological convictions that set Protestant churchmen at odds with the late medieval Church. If contemporary ecumenical dialogues are to be conducted with historical integrity, they must take seriously the substantial theological and religious disagreements that caused ecclesial division in the first place.
2. Why John Calvin? Admittedly, it is hazardous to present one sixteenth-century reformer as representative of a religious movement as complex and variegated as the “Protestant Reformation.” Nevertheless, Calvin was recognized in his own day as one of the most insightful and articulate Protestant theologians who rigorously engaged and critiqued Roman Catholic theology. 9 Though few magisterial reformers endorsed all of Calvin’s conclusions, documentary evidence indicates theologians such as Martin Luther, Philip Melanchthon, Martin Bucer, and Pierre Viret did read and approve of the general substance of Calvin’s argument against his Catholic opponents.
3. Finally, I have chosen to focus my analysis on a select number of Calvin’s writings from 1539 to 1549, a decade (as we shall see) when Calvin was intensively engaged in defending the Protestant cause against papal and imperial threats. Several of these treatises are relatively unknown, yet they provide important insights into the reasons that Calvin believed that religious reformation was necessary to preserve the Christian gospel and protect the purity of Christ’s Church.
This essay proceeds as follows: §1 briefly surveys Calvin’s engagement with Roman Catholic opponents from 1539 to 1549. §2 highlights important theological themes found in Calvin’s writings of this period that shed light on his distinctive priorities and theological concerns as they relate to Catholic theology and practice. §3 concludes with five brief observations drawn from Calvin’s theological writings that seem particularly relevant for contemporary ecumenical discussions between evangelical Protestants and Catholics.
1. A Decade of Debate: Calvin and Catholicism, 1539–1549
John Calvin is frequently remembered as the author of the Institutes and the writer of biblical commentaries. He is less well-known for the several dozen polemical writings that periodically issued from his pen during his career. For Calvin, defending Christian truth in print was a crucial dimension of his vocation as pastor and doctor of the church: “I would be a real coward if I saw God’s truth being attacked and remained quiet without a sound,” he once commented.10
A survey of Calvin’s polemical writings over the course of his career reveals a definite pattern: during the late 1530s and throughout the 1540s, his opponents more often than not were Roman Catholics, such as Louis Du Tillet, Jacob Sadoleto, Albert Pighius, Pope Paul III, and the Council of Trent. By contrast, during the 1550s, Calvin’s literary battles shifted to engaging Protestant opponents, such as the Lutheran pastor Joachim Westphal and the reformed scholar Sebastian Castellio. We begin with a brief survey of Calvin’s most important writings against Catholic opponents during the decade from 1539 to 1549.
Calvin’s first major polemical writing against Catholicism was thrust upon him. In 1539, Calvin was in the city of Strasbourg, serving as minister of the French congregation under the tutelage of the seasoned reformer Martin Bucer. Calvin had been expelled from Geneva the previous year, and he was still licking his wounds from the humiliating treatment he had received from the city council. With Calvin’s departure, the progress of reform had gone rather badly in Geneva, and Catholic authorities had seized upon the opportunity by enlisting Cardinal Jacob Sadoleto to write an open letter to Geneva’s citizens in order to woo them back to the Mother Church. With no one to answer Sadoleto, Geneva’s city council appealed to Calvin for help. That Calvin agreed to do this says a lot about his character and his sense of Christian duty. Calvin wrote his response to Sadoleto in six days in August of 1539.11
In this long epistle, Calvin defends the Genevan reformation as well as his own ministry as a reformer. He articulates the Protestant doctrine of justification by faith, the nature of the Church, and a reformed understanding of the sacraments. Calvin’s primary argument is that true Christianity is founded upon the Word of God, not the pronouncements and traditions of men. Calvin and the Protestants were not destroying the true Church, but seeking to restore it according to Scriptures, following the pattern of the ancient Church. Calvin comments,
During Calvin’s three year sojourn in Strasbourg, Martin Bucer introduced him to the broader world of inter-confessional dialogue. In 1540–41, Bucer persuaded Calvin to accompany him to a series of religious colloquies at Haguenau, Worms, and finally Regensburg, aimed at achieving religious concord between Protestants and Catholics. “They are dragging me to Regensburg although I do not want to go at all,” Calvin complained.” 13 At Regensburg, Protestant theologians (such as Philip Melanchthon and Martin Bucer) and Catholic moderates (such as Gasparo Contarini, Johannes Gropper, and Johann Eck) tentatively agreed on key doctrines that divided them, including original sin, free will, and justification. 14 As a theological advisor, Calvin watched from the sidelines. He found the articulation of justification in Article 5 to be satisfactory, although somewhat vague. Writing to Guillaume Farel, Calvin reported:
In the end, both Martin Luther and the pope rejected the Regensburg Agreement—including the article on justification. Long before this, Calvin had given up hope for true reconciliation with the Roman Catholic Church and returned to Strasbourg. For the remainder of his career, Calvin was of the opinion that healing the breach between Rome and the Protestant churches was all but impossible.16
In the years following Calvin’s return to Geneva in 1541, he engaged Catholic opponents on a variety of fronts. In 1543, he wrote a sharp satirical work against the popular Catholic practice of venerating religious relics. Honoring the physical remains of martyrs and saints is not only foolish and superstitious, Calvin argued, but nothing short of idolatrous because it transfers to physical objects the worship and praise that belong to the living God alone.17
In the same year, Calvin offered a more substantial critique of Roman Catholic theology and practice in a long treatise entitled On the Necessity of Reforming the Church. 18 This work is addressed to Emperor Charles V, who had announced an Imperial Diet to be held at Speyer early in 1543.
Comprising more than one hundred pages in the Latin original, this treatise describes in detail the myriad of errors of Roman Catholic teaching on worship, salvation, the sacraments, and church leadership, showing the ways that false doctrine translated into religious practices that were abusive, superstitious, and even pagan. Given the church’s desperate condition, Calvin urges the emperor to undertake the cause of religious reformation in the German lands by summoning a religious council. This was the emperor’s responsibility; this was God’s command: “[T]he church should be restored to true order, and its most corrupt condition reformed, according to the strict standards of the gospel.” Calvin’s treatise On the Necessity of Reforming the Church19, which went through eight editions in the half century that followed, was read with approval by Martin Luther, Philip Melanchthon, and Martin Bucer. 20 There is no evidence that Emperor Charles V ever saw it or read it.
By the time that Pope Paul III finally convened a General Church Council at Trent in December 1545, the window of opportunity for religious reconciliation between Catholics and Protestants had closed. In the first phase of the Council, which met in eight sessions from 1545 to 1547, the roughly forty clergymen in attendance addressed and rejected central doctrines of the Protestants. The council condemned the doctrines of sola scriptura and justification by faith alone. At the same time, it reaffirmed the Roman Church’s traditional teachings on original sin, baptism, the Mass, penance, purgatory, the priority of the Vulgate and the authority of Apocryphal books.21
The first phase of Trent had scarcely concluded before Calvin’s friends were urging him to respond. By the end of 1547, Calvin had rushed to publication a printed version of the Acts of the Council of Trent, with his Antidote that answered Catholic arguments point by point. 22 Calvin’s theological analysis in the Antidote is incisive, even as his tone is sharp and sometimes abusive. Calvin ridicules the notion that the Catholic Council is infallible: the forty clergymen in attendance were drawn from the “dregs” of the church; they are a bunch of “garrulous and audacious monks, some of whom hunt after mitres, and others after cardinals’ hats.” Consequently, “[t]he proclamation of the Council is entitled to no more weight than the cry of an auctioneer.” 23 The Catholics at Trent boast of their “specious reformation” (speciosa reformatio) but refuse to address the myriad of problems in the Church. Calvin summarizes Protestant grievances as follows:
The final major treatise that Calvin wrote against Catholic opponents appeared in 1549 under the title The Adultero-German Interim. 25 Like the Antidote, Calvin wrote it in response to a specific confessional crisis. After more than two decades of empty threats, Emperor Charles V finally found the political opportunity in 1547 to wage war against the Lutheran princes who made up the Schmalkaldic League. On April 23, 1547, imperial forces won a stunning victory at Mühlenberg over Johann Friedrich, the Elector of Saxony. Over the next months, Charles imposed on Lutheran territories and cities the so-called Augsburg Interim, a temporary religious settlement that required Protestants to subscribe to a moderate statement of Catholic doctrine which, among other things, recognized the existence of married clergy and allowed laity to receive communion in both kinds.26
Several Protestant reformers, most notably Philip Melanchthon, were willing to accommodate themselves to this uncomfortable arrangement. Calvin, by contrast, was horrified and soon published the text of the Interim with a lengthy commentary on each doctrinal point. Calvin’s Adultero-German Interim represents one of the clearest and most comprehensive statements of what he believed to be the fundamental doctrines dividing Catholics and Protestants. Its popularity in the sixteenth century is attested by the fact that it reappeared in ten editions during the following two decades.
In Calvin’s mind, there was no room for compromise. To do so, would be to mix Christ and Baal, indeed, to settle for “half of Christ.” 27 In order he treats justification by faith, confession of guilt and penance, the nature of the true Church, the authority of Scripture, papal primacy, the Catholic sacraments, intercession of the saints, fasting, celibacy, and ceremonies. On all these points, Calvin is clear: any doctrinal accommodation is impious, indeed sacrilegious. Certainly Christian unity and the peace of the Churches is desirable. But Protestants must reject all “terms of peace which mingle the figments of men with the pure truth of God.”28
Calvin concludes his treatise by calling German Protestants to die, rather than sign the Augsburg Interim: “The time now demands that the faith which we have hitherto professed with the tongue and pen shall be sealed with our blood. . . . For an idol is set up, not to deform the external appearance of the sanctuary, but to defile and destroy the whole sanctity of the Church, to overthrow the entire worship of God, and leave nothing in our religion unpolluted.” 29 Clearly, Calvin was not attempting to build bridges with his Catholic opponents, but to expose the church of Rome as a false church that had fundamentally destroyed the Christian gospel.
To detail each of the theological concerns articulated in Calvin’s writings against Catholic opponents from 1539 to 1549 would require an essay much longer than the present one. This section highlights only some of the most important or suggestive elements of Calvin’s argument against Roman Catholicism.
Throughout his Catholic writings, Calvin emphasized that the Word of God, the Scripture, must serve as the norma normans, the determinative authority within Christ’s Church. The Word of God, states Calvin, “is like the Lydian stone, by which [the Church] tests all doctrines.” Indeed, “all controversies should be decided by thy Word.” 30 In his letter to Sadoleto, Calvin insists that the Church of Christ must be governed by both Word and Spirit: “seeing how dangerous it would be to boast of the Spirit without the Word, [our Lord] declared that the Church is indeed governed by the Holy Spirit, but in order that that government might not be vague and unstable, he annexed it to the Word.” 31
In Calvin’s eyes, one of the chief failures of the medieval church was that it had neglected the divine Scriptures. Scarcely one bishop in a hundred was willing or able to preach. 32Lay people were encouraged to venerate the Sacred Text, but they were not taught its message. In a rare auto-biographical comment in his Letter to Sadoleto, Calvin recalls his own experience:
Calvin believed that the consequences of such neglect were devastating. Once deprived of God’s Word, ignorant common people were victimized by the corrupt traditions of the medieval church and succumbed to pernicious errors, falsehoods, and superstition. 34 By contrast, one of the most important achievements of the Protestant Reformation, Calvin asserts, is to make the Word of God available to the people of God, whether through preaching, vernacular translations of the Scripture, or biblical commentaries. Calvin boasts, we “have thrown more light upon the Scriptures than all the doctors who have appeared under the Papacy since its commencement.”35
Calvin’s most detailed treatment of the authority of Scripture is found in the Antidote, his commentary on the early sessions of the Council of Trent. Here Calvin rehearses and rejects the four main conclusions that the Tridentine fathers made relative to the Scriptures: (1) Scripture and church tradition share equal authority in determining matters of doctrine; (2) the Apocryphal books are authentic Scripture; (3) the Latin Vulgate constitutes the authoritative version of the Church; and (4) the magisterium alone has the right to interpret Scripture.
To concede these points, Calvin argues, is to capitulate everything to the Catholics. For if one places the church’s oral traditions on equal footing with Scripture, then “whatever [doctrines] they produce, if supported by no authority of Scripture, will be classed among the traditions, which they insist should have the same authority as the Law and the Prophets.” 36 The same thing pertains to the exclusive privilege of interpretation. If the Roman magisterium is granted exclusive authority to interpret holy writ, then the papists will prove whatever they wish out of Scripture, turning God’s Word into a “wax nose.”37
Calvin does acknowledge, however, the dangers of allowing private individuals to interpret the Scripture for themselves in every circumstance. Certainly, most biblical texts are clear, and everyone may correctly interpret them. But for a passage that is more obscure or difficult, it is “inappropriate [indignum] to refer it to the private will of man” alone. In such instances, he believes, a company of godly teachers well-versed in the Scriptures ought to undertake such interpretation: “in the case of an obscure passage, when it is doubtful what sense ought to be adopted, there is no better way of arriving at the true meaning than for pious doctors to make common inquiry, by engaging in religious discussion.” 38 For Calvin, then, Christian lay people are responsible to study and interpret the Word of God, but on difficult matters, they must submit to the judgment of godly leaders with special training in the biblical text.
For the rest, see:
http://thegospelcoalition.org/themelios/article/is_the_reformation_over_john_calvin_roman_catholicism_and_contemporary
Moreover, some contemporary evangelicals outside historic Protestant churches may wonder if the question “Is the Reformation over?” holds any relevance for them at all. Should evangelicals remain wedded to theological constructions framed by religious controversies that occurred nearly 500 years ago?
In 2005, evangelical historian Mark Noll and free-lance Christian author Carolyn Nystrom addressed these issues in a book entitled (appropriately enough) Is the Reformation Over? 3 In this highly acclaimed work, Noll and Nystrom survey the history of Catholic-Protestant controversies in North America over the past three centuries. The authors call particular attention to the seismic shift in evangelical attitudes toward Roman Catholics since the Second Vatican Council. In recent years, they note, much of the historic mistrust and antagonism between evangelicals and Catholics has been set aside for a new spirit of cooperation and mutual support. Today evangelical Protestants in the United States make common cause with their Catholic neighbors on a variety of important political and social issues. At the same time, a sizeable number of evangelicals admire Catholic leaders such as Pope John Paul II and Mother Theresa, and they look to traditional works of Catholic spirituality and modern Catholic devotional literature for inspiration and spiritual nourishment. In addition to these shifting popular attitudes, Noll and Nystrom point to the sustained ecumenical dialogues between Catholic and evangelical scholars over the past fifteen years—known collectively as Evangelicals and Catholics Together (ECT)—as evidence of substantive theological rapprochement between the two religious camps. The most impressive fruit of these unofficial dialogues, the authors believe, is the agreement on the Protestant doctrine of justification by faith alone as formulated at ECT II4.
Should we conclude, then, that the Reformation is over? For Noll and Nystrom, the answer is “No” and “Yes.” No, the Reformation is not over in the sense that important theological differences continue to divide American evangelicals and Roman Catholics—most notably their conflicting understandings of the Church, the primacy of the Pope, and the Marian doctrines. On the other hand, Noll and Nystrom believe that ecumenical accords such as ECT II and JDDJ signal that the Reformation divide over justification has been successfully bridged. The authors, thus, conclude, “If it is true . . . that iustificatio articulis stantis vel cadentis ecclesiae (justification is the article on which the church stands or falls), then the Reformation is over.”5
Noll and Nystrom’s book Is the Reformation Over? has garnered both praise and criticism. The evangelical periodical Christianity Today awarded the book “honorable mention” in its 2006 book awards. Evangelical leader J. I. Packer praised the book for its “superb theological journalism.” 6
Other scholars have been far less positive. While acknowledging the book’s usefulness as a historical survey of Catholic-Protestant relationships, several reviewers (including myself) question the quality of theological analysis and dispute the accuracy of a number of the book’s conclusions.7
One thing is clear, however: Noll and Nystrom’s book has been read widely, and it has played a not insignificant role in shaping American evangelicals’ perceptions of contemporary Roman Catholicism. A good example of this is seen in the case of Francis Beckwith, former president of the Evangelical Theological Society. When Beckwith, announced his decision to convert back to the Roman Catholic Church in 2006, one of the factors he listed that influenced his decision was reading the book Is the Reformation Over?8
Because of the limitations of space and the range of my own expertise, I will explore the question “Is the Reformation over?” from a slightly unconventional angle. Instead of examining Catholic theological formulations since Vatican II or describing ecumenical conversations of the past four decades or reviewing relevant material in the authoritative Catholic Catechism (rev. 1994), this essay focuses on the fundamental religious and theological concerns of one Protestant reformer, John Calvin, as he engaged Catholic opponents between 1539 and 1549. Several words of explanation are in order.
1. I am convinced that before we answer the question “Is the Reformation over?” we must first clearly define the nature of the Protestant Reformation, or more precisely, the primary theological convictions that set Protestant churchmen at odds with the late medieval Church. If contemporary ecumenical dialogues are to be conducted with historical integrity, they must take seriously the substantial theological and religious disagreements that caused ecclesial division in the first place.
2. Why John Calvin? Admittedly, it is hazardous to present one sixteenth-century reformer as representative of a religious movement as complex and variegated as the “Protestant Reformation.” Nevertheless, Calvin was recognized in his own day as one of the most insightful and articulate Protestant theologians who rigorously engaged and critiqued Roman Catholic theology. 9 Though few magisterial reformers endorsed all of Calvin’s conclusions, documentary evidence indicates theologians such as Martin Luther, Philip Melanchthon, Martin Bucer, and Pierre Viret did read and approve of the general substance of Calvin’s argument against his Catholic opponents.
3. Finally, I have chosen to focus my analysis on a select number of Calvin’s writings from 1539 to 1549, a decade (as we shall see) when Calvin was intensively engaged in defending the Protestant cause against papal and imperial threats. Several of these treatises are relatively unknown, yet they provide important insights into the reasons that Calvin believed that religious reformation was necessary to preserve the Christian gospel and protect the purity of Christ’s Church.
This essay proceeds as follows: §1 briefly surveys Calvin’s engagement with Roman Catholic opponents from 1539 to 1549. §2 highlights important theological themes found in Calvin’s writings of this period that shed light on his distinctive priorities and theological concerns as they relate to Catholic theology and practice. §3 concludes with five brief observations drawn from Calvin’s theological writings that seem particularly relevant for contemporary ecumenical discussions between evangelical Protestants and Catholics.
1. A Decade of Debate: Calvin and Catholicism, 1539–1549
John Calvin is frequently remembered as the author of the Institutes and the writer of biblical commentaries. He is less well-known for the several dozen polemical writings that periodically issued from his pen during his career. For Calvin, defending Christian truth in print was a crucial dimension of his vocation as pastor and doctor of the church: “I would be a real coward if I saw God’s truth being attacked and remained quiet without a sound,” he once commented.10
A survey of Calvin’s polemical writings over the course of his career reveals a definite pattern: during the late 1530s and throughout the 1540s, his opponents more often than not were Roman Catholics, such as Louis Du Tillet, Jacob Sadoleto, Albert Pighius, Pope Paul III, and the Council of Trent. By contrast, during the 1550s, Calvin’s literary battles shifted to engaging Protestant opponents, such as the Lutheran pastor Joachim Westphal and the reformed scholar Sebastian Castellio. We begin with a brief survey of Calvin’s most important writings against Catholic opponents during the decade from 1539 to 1549.
Calvin’s first major polemical writing against Catholicism was thrust upon him. In 1539, Calvin was in the city of Strasbourg, serving as minister of the French congregation under the tutelage of the seasoned reformer Martin Bucer. Calvin had been expelled from Geneva the previous year, and he was still licking his wounds from the humiliating treatment he had received from the city council. With Calvin’s departure, the progress of reform had gone rather badly in Geneva, and Catholic authorities had seized upon the opportunity by enlisting Cardinal Jacob Sadoleto to write an open letter to Geneva’s citizens in order to woo them back to the Mother Church. With no one to answer Sadoleto, Geneva’s city council appealed to Calvin for help. That Calvin agreed to do this says a lot about his character and his sense of Christian duty. Calvin wrote his response to Sadoleto in six days in August of 1539.11
In this long epistle, Calvin defends the Genevan reformation as well as his own ministry as a reformer. He articulates the Protestant doctrine of justification by faith, the nature of the Church, and a reformed understanding of the sacraments. Calvin’s primary argument is that true Christianity is founded upon the Word of God, not the pronouncements and traditions of men. Calvin and the Protestants were not destroying the true Church, but seeking to restore it according to Scriptures, following the pattern of the ancient Church. Calvin comments,
You know, Sadoleto, . . . not only that our agreement with antiquity is far closer than yours, but that all we have attempted has been to renew the ancient form of the Church, which, at first sullied and distorted by illiterate men of indifferent character, was after-award flagitiously mangled and almost destroyed by the Roman Pontiff and his faction.12
During Calvin’s three year sojourn in Strasbourg, Martin Bucer introduced him to the broader world of inter-confessional dialogue. In 1540–41, Bucer persuaded Calvin to accompany him to a series of religious colloquies at Haguenau, Worms, and finally Regensburg, aimed at achieving religious concord between Protestants and Catholics. “They are dragging me to Regensburg although I do not want to go at all,” Calvin complained.” 13 At Regensburg, Protestant theologians (such as Philip Melanchthon and Martin Bucer) and Catholic moderates (such as Gasparo Contarini, Johannes Gropper, and Johann Eck) tentatively agreed on key doctrines that divided them, including original sin, free will, and justification. 14 As a theological advisor, Calvin watched from the sidelines. He found the articulation of justification in Article 5 to be satisfactory, although somewhat vague. Writing to Guillaume Farel, Calvin reported:
You will be astonished . . . that our opponents have yielded so much, when you read the extracted copy. . . . Our friends have thus retained also the substance of the true doctrine. . . . [Y]ou will desire, I know, a more distinct explication and statement of the doctrine [of justification], and in that respect, you shall find me in complete agreement with yourself. However, if you consider with what kind of men we have to agree upon this doctrine, you will acknowledge that much has been accomplished.15
In the end, both Martin Luther and the pope rejected the Regensburg Agreement—including the article on justification. Long before this, Calvin had given up hope for true reconciliation with the Roman Catholic Church and returned to Strasbourg. For the remainder of his career, Calvin was of the opinion that healing the breach between Rome and the Protestant churches was all but impossible.16
In the years following Calvin’s return to Geneva in 1541, he engaged Catholic opponents on a variety of fronts. In 1543, he wrote a sharp satirical work against the popular Catholic practice of venerating religious relics. Honoring the physical remains of martyrs and saints is not only foolish and superstitious, Calvin argued, but nothing short of idolatrous because it transfers to physical objects the worship and praise that belong to the living God alone.17
In the same year, Calvin offered a more substantial critique of Roman Catholic theology and practice in a long treatise entitled On the Necessity of Reforming the Church. 18 This work is addressed to Emperor Charles V, who had announced an Imperial Diet to be held at Speyer early in 1543.
Comprising more than one hundred pages in the Latin original, this treatise describes in detail the myriad of errors of Roman Catholic teaching on worship, salvation, the sacraments, and church leadership, showing the ways that false doctrine translated into religious practices that were abusive, superstitious, and even pagan. Given the church’s desperate condition, Calvin urges the emperor to undertake the cause of religious reformation in the German lands by summoning a religious council. This was the emperor’s responsibility; this was God’s command: “[T]he church should be restored to true order, and its most corrupt condition reformed, according to the strict standards of the gospel.” Calvin’s treatise On the Necessity of Reforming the Church19, which went through eight editions in the half century that followed, was read with approval by Martin Luther, Philip Melanchthon, and Martin Bucer. 20 There is no evidence that Emperor Charles V ever saw it or read it.
By the time that Pope Paul III finally convened a General Church Council at Trent in December 1545, the window of opportunity for religious reconciliation between Catholics and Protestants had closed. In the first phase of the Council, which met in eight sessions from 1545 to 1547, the roughly forty clergymen in attendance addressed and rejected central doctrines of the Protestants. The council condemned the doctrines of sola scriptura and justification by faith alone. At the same time, it reaffirmed the Roman Church’s traditional teachings on original sin, baptism, the Mass, penance, purgatory, the priority of the Vulgate and the authority of Apocryphal books.21
The first phase of Trent had scarcely concluded before Calvin’s friends were urging him to respond. By the end of 1547, Calvin had rushed to publication a printed version of the Acts of the Council of Trent, with his Antidote that answered Catholic arguments point by point. 22 Calvin’s theological analysis in the Antidote is incisive, even as his tone is sharp and sometimes abusive. Calvin ridicules the notion that the Catholic Council is infallible: the forty clergymen in attendance were drawn from the “dregs” of the church; they are a bunch of “garrulous and audacious monks, some of whom hunt after mitres, and others after cardinals’ hats.” Consequently, “[t]he proclamation of the Council is entitled to no more weight than the cry of an auctioneer.” 23 The Catholics at Trent boast of their “specious reformation” (speciosa reformatio) but refuse to address the myriad of problems in the Church. Calvin summarizes Protestant grievances as follows:
We complain that the whole doctrine of godliness is adulterated by impious dogma; that the whole worship of God is vitiated by foul and disgraceful superstitions; that the pure institution of the sacraments has been supplanted by horrible sacrilege; that their use has been converted into a profane trafficking; that poor souls, which ought to have been ruled by the doctrine of Christ, are oppressed by cruel bondage; that nothing is seen in the Christian Church that is not deformed and debased; that the grace of Christ not only lies half-buried, but is partly torn to pieces, partly altogether extinguished. Calvin’s frustration and bitterness are palpable in the Antidote. Despite repeated calls for religious reform, the Council of Trent in Calvin’s view had done nothing but condemn the Protestants, reaffirm errant Catholic dogma, and tighten the yoke of tyranny over faithful Christian people.24
The final major treatise that Calvin wrote against Catholic opponents appeared in 1549 under the title The Adultero-German Interim. 25 Like the Antidote, Calvin wrote it in response to a specific confessional crisis. After more than two decades of empty threats, Emperor Charles V finally found the political opportunity in 1547 to wage war against the Lutheran princes who made up the Schmalkaldic League. On April 23, 1547, imperial forces won a stunning victory at Mühlenberg over Johann Friedrich, the Elector of Saxony. Over the next months, Charles imposed on Lutheran territories and cities the so-called Augsburg Interim, a temporary religious settlement that required Protestants to subscribe to a moderate statement of Catholic doctrine which, among other things, recognized the existence of married clergy and allowed laity to receive communion in both kinds.26
Several Protestant reformers, most notably Philip Melanchthon, were willing to accommodate themselves to this uncomfortable arrangement. Calvin, by contrast, was horrified and soon published the text of the Interim with a lengthy commentary on each doctrinal point. Calvin’s Adultero-German Interim represents one of the clearest and most comprehensive statements of what he believed to be the fundamental doctrines dividing Catholics and Protestants. Its popularity in the sixteenth century is attested by the fact that it reappeared in ten editions during the following two decades.
In Calvin’s mind, there was no room for compromise. To do so, would be to mix Christ and Baal, indeed, to settle for “half of Christ.” 27 In order he treats justification by faith, confession of guilt and penance, the nature of the true Church, the authority of Scripture, papal primacy, the Catholic sacraments, intercession of the saints, fasting, celibacy, and ceremonies. On all these points, Calvin is clear: any doctrinal accommodation is impious, indeed sacrilegious. Certainly Christian unity and the peace of the Churches is desirable. But Protestants must reject all “terms of peace which mingle the figments of men with the pure truth of God.”28
Calvin concludes his treatise by calling German Protestants to die, rather than sign the Augsburg Interim: “The time now demands that the faith which we have hitherto professed with the tongue and pen shall be sealed with our blood. . . . For an idol is set up, not to deform the external appearance of the sanctuary, but to defile and destroy the whole sanctity of the Church, to overthrow the entire worship of God, and leave nothing in our religion unpolluted.” 29 Clearly, Calvin was not attempting to build bridges with his Catholic opponents, but to expose the church of Rome as a false church that had fundamentally destroyed the Christian gospel.
2. Calvin’s Critique of Roman Catholicism
To detail each of the theological concerns articulated in Calvin’s writings against Catholic opponents from 1539 to 1549 would require an essay much longer than the present one. This section highlights only some of the most important or suggestive elements of Calvin’s argument against Roman Catholicism.
2.1. Scripture and Interpretation
Throughout his Catholic writings, Calvin emphasized that the Word of God, the Scripture, must serve as the norma normans, the determinative authority within Christ’s Church. The Word of God, states Calvin, “is like the Lydian stone, by which [the Church] tests all doctrines.” Indeed, “all controversies should be decided by thy Word.” 30 In his letter to Sadoleto, Calvin insists that the Church of Christ must be governed by both Word and Spirit: “seeing how dangerous it would be to boast of the Spirit without the Word, [our Lord] declared that the Church is indeed governed by the Holy Spirit, but in order that that government might not be vague and unstable, he annexed it to the Word.” 31
In Calvin’s eyes, one of the chief failures of the medieval church was that it had neglected the divine Scriptures. Scarcely one bishop in a hundred was willing or able to preach. 32Lay people were encouraged to venerate the Sacred Text, but they were not taught its message. In a rare auto-biographical comment in his Letter to Sadoleto, Calvin recalls his own experience:
I, O Lord, as I had been educated from a boy, always professed the Christian faith. But at first I had no other reason for my faith than that which then everywhere prevailed. Thy Word, which ought to have shone on all thy people like a lamp, was taken away, or at least suppressed as to us.33
Calvin believed that the consequences of such neglect were devastating. Once deprived of God’s Word, ignorant common people were victimized by the corrupt traditions of the medieval church and succumbed to pernicious errors, falsehoods, and superstition. 34 By contrast, one of the most important achievements of the Protestant Reformation, Calvin asserts, is to make the Word of God available to the people of God, whether through preaching, vernacular translations of the Scripture, or biblical commentaries. Calvin boasts, we “have thrown more light upon the Scriptures than all the doctors who have appeared under the Papacy since its commencement.”35
Calvin’s most detailed treatment of the authority of Scripture is found in the Antidote, his commentary on the early sessions of the Council of Trent. Here Calvin rehearses and rejects the four main conclusions that the Tridentine fathers made relative to the Scriptures: (1) Scripture and church tradition share equal authority in determining matters of doctrine; (2) the Apocryphal books are authentic Scripture; (3) the Latin Vulgate constitutes the authoritative version of the Church; and (4) the magisterium alone has the right to interpret Scripture.
To concede these points, Calvin argues, is to capitulate everything to the Catholics. For if one places the church’s oral traditions on equal footing with Scripture, then “whatever [doctrines] they produce, if supported by no authority of Scripture, will be classed among the traditions, which they insist should have the same authority as the Law and the Prophets.” 36 The same thing pertains to the exclusive privilege of interpretation. If the Roman magisterium is granted exclusive authority to interpret holy writ, then the papists will prove whatever they wish out of Scripture, turning God’s Word into a “wax nose.”37
Calvin does acknowledge, however, the dangers of allowing private individuals to interpret the Scripture for themselves in every circumstance. Certainly, most biblical texts are clear, and everyone may correctly interpret them. But for a passage that is more obscure or difficult, it is “inappropriate [indignum] to refer it to the private will of man” alone. In such instances, he believes, a company of godly teachers well-versed in the Scriptures ought to undertake such interpretation: “in the case of an obscure passage, when it is doubtful what sense ought to be adopted, there is no better way of arriving at the true meaning than for pious doctors to make common inquiry, by engaging in religious discussion.” 38 For Calvin, then, Christian lay people are responsible to study and interpret the Word of God, but on difficult matters, they must submit to the judgment of godly leaders with special training in the biblical text.
For the rest, see:
http://thegospelcoalition.org/themelios/article/is_the_reformation_over_john_calvin_roman_catholicism_and_contemporary
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