Well I will have to see what the prof wants...but I dont believe in "accidents" and I do think that this continuing dialogue this summer will be a base for a study on Calvinism/Arminism in some way. Actually, something that might be awfully interesting is a study of the roots of conflict between Arminians and Calvinists. Beza was Calvin's successor and Arminius was his student. That's interesting. Calvin did not formulate the TULIP. Nor did Arminius issue the challenge against Calvin's theology: his followers did nine years after he died. And the TULIP as such, was unknown to Calvin and was created by the response of the Dutch Reformed Church to the followers of the deceased Arminius. Further, of the five doctrines of the classic TULIP, some modern Calvinists are only four-pointers and claim that Calvin didn't really affirm Limited Atonement (they're wrong!). We call the four-point Calvinists "Amyrauldians" after Amyruut (another Frenchman!) who held only four of the five points but did not do so on exactly the same grounds as do modern "Amyrauldians". Amyraut, something of an enemy to modern five-pointers, actually was trying to defend Calvinism but ended up weakening it and now has to carry the badge of shame attached to his name by five-pointers. This all has to do with differences in Reformed theology and the infralapsarian/supralapsarian debate. And Amyraut's views were modified by Pajon (yep, French) into "congruism". And, interestingly enough, there is are certain aspects of this very debate that delineate the theologies of redemption among Lutherans, Arminians, and (you guessed it)
Wesleyans. By the way, this is still very much a hot theological topic in all these groups. And there is no perfect answer to the question. Interesting to know the roots of theological controversy in the Reformation that affects Wesleyans to this day, especially Nazarenes who are the most visible remnant of Wesley's real teachings (we'll just ignore any claim the Methodists make to Wesley's teachings). Oh, yeah, and don't think that all this French theological controversy left the church of Rome untouched. They're still trying to stamp out the fires that spread from France from this one. A really superb summary of this in the context of
Subjective Soteriology is available from the Genevan Institute for Reformed Studies. This page, heavy reading, is really superb at delineating the technical differences between all these Reformed distinctives. I think it is not too harsh or unfair and makes the arguments of five-pointers from historical scholarship.
Calvin and Arminius did not actually lead either side in the battle to which their names have been given as adversaries. One wonders what their real reaction to all of this might have been. There is real truth in it when doc and some other Calvinists say that they follow the doctrines of grace which they trace to Augustine through Calvin and, more recently, Spurgeon.
So a historical paper on
that subject might be pretty interesting. Does modern four-point or five-point Calvinism
really fully represent the religious thought of Jean Chauvin of Geneva? I suspect not. Calvin saw scripture as an integrated whole and so much of what he did was to safeguard the Reformation. Unlike Luther, who really sought only to reform the Roman hierarchy and re-establish Augustine's predestinarian views, Calvin was the first real Protestant and saw that the full teaching of the scripture were not compatible with the doctrines of Rome and never would be. This is something that all non-Catholics should be able to recognize about Calvin. He
was the real father of the Reformation, not Luther. To pluck out those five doctrines (the TULIP) and say that these were what Calvin really stood for misstates or rather understates the case. And, to some extent, the same might be true of Arminius. We "Calvinists" accuse him of a return to Rome's doctrine and an embrace of the Council of Trent's position. But exactly how did he envision that his theology should be practically applied? Was he really
no more than a theological ecumenizer for Rome? Maybe. Maybe not.
I think that over the centuries, we've lost sight of the real Calvin and perhaps even the real Arminius.
Look at that table above again where Johnson differentiates Wesley from other "Arminians". He is noting that Wesley was not as fully Arminian as other Arminians because he upheld the Reformation's doctrine of justification by faith. Not all the Arminians were so inclined. So one must ask: what was the influence that held him to the Reformed position on justification? Was Whitefield an influence here? For that matter, how was it that Whitefield and Wesley, despite that bitter and unfortunate dispute, held each other in such regard?
Another sidenote to Geneva and to Calvin and Beza and their associates is the story of the Protestant bibles. Erasmus, a dissident Roman Catholic priest and the greatest scholar in Europe, used the Greek texts of the Eastern church (not Roman) to assemble the Textus Receptus, the majority text, discarding as corrupt the texts used by Rome. Luther used this text to create the Lutheran bible and, incidentally, virtually created the modern standardized German language. The same thing happened later when the English language was standardized by the influence of the King James. But Geneva played a special role. They produced the Geneva Bible which contained the anti-monarchical and pro-republican views of Calvin in the margins. Also produced in Geneva were some other Bibles including a famous French version (can't recall the name) and an Italian version (the Diodati). All using the Textus Receptus, a translation so opposed by Rome that the Jesuits were actually founded to combat its influence in Europe. In response to the Geneva bible, they produced the first modern Catholic bible in English, the Jesuit bible, which modeled as closely as possible the magnificent language of the King James. King James had the Authorized produced largely because he wanted a pure text
without footnotes. Now, King James wasn't necessarily totally opposed to study helps or commentary and was himself a very devout man. But he was certainly opposed to Calvin's anti-monarchical and pro-republican views found in the margins of the Geneva bible, a version that became very popular in England. During this period, the Jesuits continued to make their Jesuit bible (the forerunner of the Douay) closer and closer to the Authorized because they wished to hold onto as many Roman Catholic Englishmen as they could and very strongly desired to be able to use the emerging English world empire as a missionary outlet, much as they had used the Spanish and the Portugese. In the meantime, the republican seeds planted in England by the Calvin's seditious Geneva bible were sprouting. The Puritans and others were leaving for America, carrying their Geneva bibles. And up until the time of the American revolution, there was still in the American colonies a very substantial presence of the pro-republic/anti-monarch Geneva bible. It particularly stirred the pro-republican sentiments among the early Presbyterians and other Calvinists. As Uriel would point out, all but one of the colonels in the Revolutionary army was a stout Presby. And it's been pretty well established that the entire Declaration of Independence was lifted almost verbatim from a stunning letter from a pro-republican Presby church. I am sure you can see by now why Uriel is so proud of his historic Presbyterians.
I could really go on here much further, noting how the decline in Calvinism and the rise of easy-believerism marked as well a decline in real liberty and the rise of the sort of federalism that most here at FR utterly oppose. But I'll stop short of calling Mr. Lincoln a dictator and an enemy of American liberty. However, one can readily see that Calvin had an influence that has gone far far beyond the TULIP. Probably beyond what even he could have imagined. And we forget that very often on these threads. And we forget that the story of the Bible really is the story of Western (i.e. Christian) civilization. The battle for the Bible is absolutely central to any real understanding of history, something well hidden by modern historians when they write the pap we call history textbooks for the consumption of the little sheeple in the public schools.
It's very interesting to think about. Quite often, these conventional labels we assign to historical figures does them an injustice and hides what their own priorities were. I just think the whole thing is fascinating.
Perhaps you understand now why doc doesn't lay a real strong claim to Calvin and why Jerry, while not rejecting the Calvinist label, sometimes prefers to call himself a "grace man", and why I often enclose the words "Calvinism" and "Calvinist" in quotes.
We should really flatter Uriel and beg him to post all of the material he has on this stuff in one single unified post and include his newer anabaptist information as well. It's really fascinating.