Calvin: Saint or Sinner? Some Notes

---I did not invent the topic. It was a congress of papers at a Castle in Holland in 2009. One should thank the Editor for bringing it together, Herman J. Selderhuis. And of course the scholars researching on the topics.

---Let us start where we should as a Seventh-day Adventist

“For nearly thirty years Calvin labored at Geneva, first to establish there a church adhering to the morality of the Bible, and then for the advancement of the Reformation throughout Europe. His course as a public leader was not faultless, nor were his doctrines free from error. But he was instrumental in promulgating truths that were of special importance in his time, in maintaining the principles of Protestantism against the fast-returning tide of popery, and in promoting in the reformed churches simplicity and purity of life, in place of the pride and corruption fostered under the Romish teaching. “ Ellen White, Great Controversy page 236.

---One sentence, but she knew some more things. She just did not elaborate on it in her dealing with the Great Reformer, John Calvin who was used by God.

---But the Congress delved deeper into the errors. They did it in 2009.

---They were celebrating 500 years of Calvin. And what better way to do it, they thought, than to scratch around in his life and works.

---And they did.

---Here is the table of Contents of the Congress:

---“Calvin: Saint or Sinner?” The issue was in this paper, they cannot focus on Calvin as sinner, even though that is a problem, for they need to point out that he is a saint. But that is also a problem for there was no comparison between Calvin and Catholic saints.

---Theodore Beza and Nicolas Colladon and Antoine de la Faye wrote biographies of Calvin but they wanted to glorify him amid criticism. Some were talking of a Calvin-cult.

---One of the seven Capital sins of Calvin, a paper by a certain Max Engammare, is that he was aware of his weakness of his pride. That is not really a problem because if you know your weakness, you are halfway solving it, provided you repent and confess before God. Correct?

---Geneva where Calvin worked a long time had the myth of a non-saint. It was the paper of Isabelle Graessle.

---He was a weak man with lots of illnesses, Olivier Millet presented.

---Calvin thought of himself as a prophet on the basis of Deuteronomy 18:14-22 “There will always be prophets”. So he saw himself as one of the ones in always. It was the paper of Jon Balserak. Ellen White never called herself a prophetess. She said herself.

---In Exegesis, Calvin was influenced by Catholic Tradition and by the Allegorization hermeneutics of Origen of Alexandria. This was one of the problems namely how to separate Calvin from the Catholic theology since he borrowed so much from Augustine and the other Church Fathers.

--- John L. Thompson stated at the congress that Calvin was a reformer of exegesis, the Origenic way, yet stayed much closer to Catholic traditional exegesis than is often thought.

---According to John Thompson, Calvin wanted to listen to the Catholic tradition of the Church, but from the conviction that much of earlier Catholic exegesis did not do justice to what God had said (see the summary of the Editor Herman J. Selderhuis).

---He kept Sunday instituted by the Catholic Church, they claim. He baptized infant method and fight for that method against the Anabaptists who baptized adult. The debate started already in 1526 in general but Calvin was only converted in 1531-1535. He believed in original sin like Augustine.  

---So the question should be asked: Is Calvin just a spiritual Reformer, since he still clings to Catholic doctrines in many ways? Elsie Ann McKee did a paper on this.

---Let us rephrase it: Question: Is Calvin the Reformer of Spirituality rather than Doctrine? Thompson went into this. Not good news for those who want to see him clear and clean. Ellen White said, “not without error”. These Calvinists are just echoeing what she already said around 1900 and 1911. One hundred years before the congress.
---Volker Leppin read a paper to compare Calvin’s Institutes with Middle Age Catholic Theology. Hello.

---In Anthropology, the congress found that Calvin takes a position between Luther and Erasmus. It was the paper of Anthony N. S. Lane.

---Christian Link exposed the problems with the Predestination Doctrine of Calvin. “Not without some errors” Ellen White said in Great Controversy page 236.

---Kees van der Kooi went into the Christology of Calvin and this paper will be of importance to Adventists, especially on the Nature of Christ. Did He take human nature before or after the fall essentially? Big dialectics because of this. Severe implications and bulldozing of important texts from the Bible, depending which view is taken. Before the Fall is anthropological/experiential. After the Fall is biblical fundamental. Easy to choose, is it not. Especially if you are an Adventist.  

---Calvin was known to be without patience dealing with heretics. Is it “Holy Terror or Pastoral Care?” Scott Manetsch looked at Church Discipline in Calvin’s Geneva, 1542-1596.

---If someone was a heretic, Calvin would not think twice to use the stake to burn him/her. He said that in his letters that are also online.

Source: See especially the letter of Calvin to Madame de Cany (at footnote 363) in Chapter CCXCII of Letters of John Calvin, Volume I by Jean Calvin | Project Gutenberg https://www.gutenberg.org/files/45463/45463-h/45463-h.htm

In January 1552 from Geneva John Calvin wrote to Madame de Cany saying that if someone did not escape, he would have burnt him at the stake. “And I assure you, Madame, that had he not so soon escaped, I should, by way of discharging my duty, have done my best to bring him to the stake”. Crossing Calvin’s line can bring you to Calvin’s stake of fire to be burnt. Hello. “Not without some errors” Ellen White said. Correct?

---Calvin was intolerant of difference with him. Evidence is in his letters also about Servetus (burnt at stake), Gentili, and Jerome Bolsec (exile).

---If this Congress did something to add to our knowledge of Calvin, it is to elaborate and list the errors that Ellen White did not mention but just briefly in one breath mentioned.

---Amazing, is it not? Calvin was 26 years younger than Martin Luther.

Source: Herman J. Selderhuis (Editor), Calvin: Saint or Sinner? In Spatmittelalter, Humanismus, Reformation: Studies in the Late Middle Ages, Humanism and the Reformation herausgegeben von Berndt Hamm (Erlangen) in Verbindung mit Amy Nelson Burnett (Lincoln, NE), Johannes Helmrath (Berlin) Volker Leppin (Jena), Heinz Schilling (Berlin).Mohr Siebeck, 2010,reissued 2019.
https://www.mohrsiebeck.com/uploads/tx_sgpublisher/produkte/leseproben/9783161503399.pdf