Michael L. Czapkay

McGrath Tutorial

Paper 7 (Calvin)

March 1, 1993

The relationship between the reformers and their medieval predecessors has been well documented in reformation scholarship since the late 1960's. In the discussion which follows I will consider one of the areas of Reformed doctrine, specifically in the theology of John Calvin, where there exists a clear continuity between the reformation and medieval theology.

A consideration of Calvin's view on the atonement will reveal the influence of medieval theology. Some have maintained this but have sought it in the satisfaction, substitution, and judicial aspects of the soteriology of St. Anselm. Although there are some parallels here, I will argue for a different medieval influence. Calvin's doctrine of the atonement reveals a later medieval influence in the theology of the via moderna. We find in Calvin the philosophical voluntarism essential to the contingency of the relation between God and the world (and hence God's freedom), and consequently, the relative (as opposed to absolute) necessity of the atonement and the grounding of Christ's merit in divine acceptance and the good pleasure of God. In this paper, I will consider the continuity between Calvin and the later medieval tradition represented by John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham.

Calvin, like Luther before him, stressed the interdependence of the person and work of Christ. Calvin warns that though a correct view of the person of the redeemer may be necessary to sound doctrine, it is equally necessary that we properly understand his work as the God-man. The fact that Catholic theologians could uphold the person of Christ while neglecting the his glorious work goes to show either the inconsistency of these theologians or the impossibility of deducing the entirety of Christ's work from a mere consideration of his person. For Calvin, I think there is a need to begin with the proper presuppositions for the work of the redeemer, and this is to be found in his doctrine of sin--considered shortly before his exposition of the redemptive work of Jesus Christ.

According to Calvin, man is a fallen being. The first man, having been created in a state of original righteousness, fell from that state by an act of rebellion against God's commandment. Adam's sin ruined his entire posterity, the corruption and guilt being transferred to all the human race by his one act. "Adam," he says, "implicating us in his ruin, destroyed us with himself" (II, i, 1). "Original sin," Calvin defines as, "a hereditary depravity and corruption of our nature, diffused into all parts of the soul, which first makes us liable to God's wrath. then also brings forth in us the works which Scripture calls `the works of the flesh'" (II, i, 8). Calvin considers original sin not only to consist in the lack of original righteousness but a positive perversion within the entire soul which is the spring of every evil deed. We lack the good and are filled with evil. As a result of this corruption, mankind is justly "condemned" and "convicted" before God. I think we can adequately summarize man's fallen condition in four terms: guilt, pollution, power, and penalty. Man is polluted by sin, under its power, guilty before God, and subject to the penalty for violating God's law.

Man is, then, in need of submission to God as sovereign by virtue of his status as the creature under the rule of the Creator, deliverance from the sinful state into which he has fallen (and from which rebellion, death, and alienation from God follows), and a message which sets forth the way back to God, the way of salvation. Accordingly, the offices of the savior are three-fold: prophet, priest, and king. As prophet, Christ is anointed to declare the gospel, to reveal the Word of God for salvation, a word that could not be known except God choose to reveal it. As king, Christ is the Father's vice-regent, ushering in a spiritual kingdom, which receives its power from God's more general rule over creation. Most, importantly, as priest, Christ offers himself as sacrifice for the sin's of man. It is this aspect of the redemptive work of Christ in his office as priest to which I now turn.

Calvin's view of the sacrifice is the atonement. As priest, Christ effects the atonement, that is to say, the AT-ONE-MENT, the reconciliation between God and man. In his doctrine of man and sin, Calvin has made it clear that man is sinner, he lacks the original righteousness with which he was created and which is required for a right relationship with God. The breaking of God's law severs the relationship between God and man. God is angry with man because of sin, and his anger must be appeased. Therefore, the role of the mediator is to reconcile God to man. First, by his sacrifice of death Christ blots out our guilt and makes satisfaction for our sins (III, xv, 6). "Since there is a perpetual and irreconcilable disagreement between righteousness and unrighteousness, so long as we remain sinners he cannot receive us completely" (III, xvi, 3). Calvin speaks of Christ as the second Adam who has rendered obedience to the Father, for "man, who by his disobedience had become lost, should by way of remedy counter it with obedience, satisfy God's judgment, and pay the penalties for sin" (III, xii, 3). Positively, Christ has "acquired righteousness to render" to restore us to God's favor. "By his obedience," Calvin says, "Christ truly acquired and merited grace for us with the Father," for "as by the sin of Adam we were estranged from God and destined to perish, so by Christ's obedience we are received into favor as righteous" (III, xvii, 3).

Several themes suggest themselves in this account. Sin is itself is thought of here in both personal and legal terms. Sin is legal since it is a transgression of law which renders all the world guilty before God. Calvin emphasizes the legal nature of Christ's atonement by drawing attention to the legal circumstances of Christ's death as one condemned before Pontius Pilate. Christ is at once innocent and guilty--innocent in himself but guilty by virtue of being burdened with the sins of others. It is here that Calvin stresses the substitutionary nature of Christ's atonement. Christ died in the place of sinners, who are "represented in Christ" (III, xvi, 5). We must remember the nature of our acquittal Calvin tells us, that it is grounded in "substitution," for "the guilt that held us liable for punishment has been transferred to the head of the Son of God" (III, xvi, 5). Moreover, the sinner is represented in Christ, not only in his sufferings in payment for the penalty of sin (so-called passive obedience to use the words of later calvinists) but also in the positive rendering obedience and righteousness to God to make the sinner favorable before God (active obedience). It is important to appreciate at this point a theme which becomes systematically articulated in later Calvinism, namely the notion of federal headship. Adam did not sin as a mere individual. He was both the natural and federal head of humanity. As such, his act of rebellion had natural consequences for his posterity (the impartation of a sinful nature) and legal consequences (the imputation of sin and guilt). Likewise, Christ did not live in obedience and suffer as a mere individual, for as the second Adam he was the legal representative or federal head of redeemed humanity, obtaining that redemption for them by representing them in his person, paying the penalty for disobedience for them as well as meriting the righteousness which is required to make men acceptable in God's sight.

Mixed with the legal theme are of course several other themes. The sacrificial theme is woven within the web of legal redemption, as is the notion of the Redeemer as Victor over the powers of sin, death, and the devil. And Calvin, despite the judicial stress, does not conceive of the work of satisfaction in impersonal terms, though guilt and condemnation is incurred by virtue of disobedience to law. Man's guilt is coram Deo, before God as the author of law. And sin, as a transgression of the law is no mere transgression of law, but it is a breaking a covenant relation between God and man. It is personal in nature. It is sin against a personal God. It has severed a relationship. It cannot but be considered in the most personal terms. How fitting then that God should choose to redeem men in the person of his Son, to Himself become man "to save His people from their sin."

It has been argued that the judicial and substitutionary view of Christ's atonement which we find in Calvin may be found in St. Anselm's Cur Deus Homo?, thereby suggesting a possible influence medieval influence on Calvin's thought.

In Cur Deus Homo, Anselm attempts to present a rational argument for the incarnation based upon man's need for redemption. According to Anselm, sin is the failure to give God what is due to Him, namely, obedience of the will. This is man's righteousness and the honor he owes the Creator. Sin is, thus, interpreted as a kind of robbery: "He who does not return to God this honor due to Him, takes away from God what is His own and dishonors God; and this is sin" (I, xi). As a consequence of this, man's relationship with God is severed. But God's justice prohibits God from merely forgiving man and clearing the record, for such an act would involve an injustice on God's part inasmuch as this would entail no difference between the guilty and innocent. It would mean, for instance, that man who is unjust would be more just than the angels who did not sin. God can't simply forgive man. He must be true to Himself. Payment is required for an offence to be forgiven. "So also everyone who sins must pay back the honor which he ha stolen from God; and this is the satisfaction which every sinner must make to God" (I, xi). Therefore, honor must be paid back to God or punishment must follow, for God must render to each person his due.

Hence, there is a need for satisfaction--a returning of the honor due to God and in such a way that we make up for what we have deprived God of in the first place. But man is not in the position to make satisfaction, for even if he could do what is right he could never make up for what was owed to God before but not given to Him. Man is both finite and impotent because of sin and cannot make satisfaction of himself. In book one of Cur Deus Homo Anselm sets up the dilemma. Man is in an impossible situation because he owes a debt he cannot pay. God is in an impossible situation since he cannot be compassionate without demanding satisfaction for the forgiveness of sins. Divine iustus requires satisfaction. God must become man to provide satisfaction. He must be man, for man owes the debt. He must be God because only God can pay the debt. The God-man willingly gives himself up to death--the supreme act of paying honor to God by which he merits salvation for others.

It is essentially correct to see parallels between Anselm's legal and substitutionary terminology. However, the differences between Anselm and Calvin are more abundant than their similarities.

First, Calvin's notion of satisfaction is not Anselmian in nature. Anselm did not mean by satisfaction anything like a vicarious suffering or the notion of Christ as enduring suffering as a penalty for sin. But this is precisely the notion of satisfaction which abounds in Calvin (and to a certain extent in patristic theology). Calvin's view is one of "penal" substitution. Christ's atonement consists not only in a rendering to God what is due to Him, obedience and righteousness, but also in paying the penalty for the transgression of the law, the penalty for the failure on the part of men to render what is due to God. Secondly, Anselm restricts the redemptive work of Christ to his passion. Only the death of Christ attained merit for human salvation. But as Timothy George has pointed out, in Calvin the "salvific efficacy of the atonement was not limited to Christ's death" (Theology of the Reformers, p. 222). All of Christ's life has salvific value in Calvin. Thirdly, although Calvin uses a good deal of legal terminology in speaking of the work of Christ, another theme is the redeemer as Victor over the powers of death, sin, and the devil. "It was his task to swallow up death. Who but the Life could do this? It was his task to conquer sin. Who but very righteousness could do this? It was his task to rout the powers of the world and air. Who but a power higher than the world and air could do this?" (II, xii, 2).

One of the more interesting differences between Calvin and Anselm rests on the question of the necessity of the incarnation and atonement. For Anselm, the incarnation was necessary for man's salvation. The absolute ontological necessity for the incarnation enables Anselm to argue deductively in answer to the question Cur Deus Homo? But Calvin rejects the absolute necessity of the incarnation and atonement (See George, p. 221, and R.S. Franks, The Work of Christ, p. 338).

Calvin writes: "If someone asks why this [the incarnation] is necessary, there is no simple (to use the common expression) or absolute necessity. Rather it stemmed from a heavenly decree, on which men's salvation depended" (Institutes, III, xii, 1). Speaking of the passion of Christ, Calvin said, "God was well able to rescue us from the unfathomable depths of death in another fashion, but he willed to display the treasures of his infinite goodness when he spared not his only Son" (Ioannis Calvini opera supersunt omnia, 46, col. 833). The incarnation and atonement are necessary only in so far as they fall under the decree of God, what Calvin calls relative necessity (see Institutes, I, xvi, 9). We should properly understand Calvin here as affirming, not that if God freely determines of to save sinners, it is necessary that he save them through incarnation and atonement (this would mean that God was not free to create a world in which fallen men were redeemed in some other fashion), but rather that even having determined to save men, God could have done so by some other means. The incarnation and atonement was not necessary even if God had determined to save men.

At this point, it is necessary to consider a far more plausible medieval influence on Calvin's thought, that of the via moderna. The possibility of this influence can be first seen in Calvin's rejection of the absolute necessity of the incarnation and atonement. This move parallels the later medieval tradition, specifically that of the later Franciscan theologians and the via moderna school--represented by theologians such as Duns Scotus and William of Ockham.

A distinction, not made by Anselm, but essential within the theological systems of the later Franciscan Order and the via moderna, was made between the two powers of God. God's absolute power was his ability to bring about any logically possible states of affairs when he created the present world. However, though there were many possible worlds that God could have actualized in creation, he chose to create the one which he did in fact create. This act of creation was entirely free and God was under no constraints other than the law of non-contradiction. However, having created the world, God is now bound by his own will to act according to what he has actualized and willed to come about within the created order. In addition, then, to God's absolute power, there is his ordained power. There are therefore, two possible types of necessity: a necessity relative to God's ordained power (necessity of consequence) and one with respect to his absolute power (necessity of the consequent). Scotus and Ockham both claimed that there is no necessity upon God in the latter sense, that God's actions vis-a-vis the world are necessary only in the sense that he must act according to his will. There is no law extrinsic to God to which he must conform. Hence, God is free but reliable, for he binds Himself by His eternal decree.

In Duns Scotus we find a clear articulation of this with respect to the redemptive work of Christ. According to Scotus, the contingency of the relation between God and the world must be upheld, which is to say that God must be understood as entirely free. With respect to the work of Christ, Scotus takes issue with what he see to be the four fundamental points that underlie Anselm's Cur Deus Homo? (1) That it was necessary man should be redeemed. (2) That he could not be redeemed without satisfaction. (3) That satisfaction must be made by the God-man. (4) That the best way was by the passion of Christ. Scotus argues that the only kind of necessity that attaches to the satisfaction of Christ is a necessity of consequence. Necessarily, if God has determined to redeem man through the death of Christ, then Christ must die. But both the antecedent and consequent here are contingent. God could have well decided to save men through the work of an angel, Adam, or an ass, if he had decided to save anyone at all. Hence, Anselm's propositions are basically false, resting upon the imposition of absolute necessity upon God rather than construing necessity as that which follows upon God's will and decree. (See R.S. Franks, The Work of Christ, pp. 247-250).

Calvin at times disavows association with the medieval idea of potentia Dei absoluta vs. potentia Dei ordinata, though in practice he seems to follow it himself at other times, and sometimes even commends the distinction. "Whence again we see that distinctions concerning relative necessity and absolute necessity, likewise of consequent and consequence, were not recklessly invented in schools, when God subjected to fragility the bones of his Son, which he had exempted from being broken, and thus restricted to the necessity of his own plan what could have happened naturally" (I, xvi, 9). His language shows that he was quite aware of the language and the conceptual distinctions of the Scholastics, and employed them himself when he saw it appropriate.

A side note is appropriate at this point. Many later Calvinists (Gill, Shedd, the Hodges, Dabney, and Berkhof) affirm the absolute necessity of the incarnation and atonement and hence side with Anselm. William Shedd argues that: "This necessity of an atonement is absolute, not relative. It is not made necessary by divine decision, in the sense that the divine decision might have been otherwise. It is not correct to say, that God might have saved man without a vicarious atonement had he been pleased to do so. For this is equivalent to saying, that God might have abolished the claims of law and justice had he been pleased to do so" (Dogmatic Theology, Vol. 2, pp. 436-437). Louis Berkhof distinguished between three views: that the atonement was not necessary (Scotus and Socinius), that it was relatively necessary (Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Zanchius and Twisse), and that it was absolutely necessary (Anselm, Voetius, Turretin, and Owen). Berkof himself argues for the absolute necessity of the atonement, though his reasons seem to better support the relative necessity of the atonement. He argues that God's justice and holiness require sin to be punished or satisfaction made. Dabney argues that the rejection of the necessity of the atonement is grounded in a denial of justice as an essential attribute of God (See his Systematic Theology, pp. 486-487)

The influence of the via moderna can also be seen in Calvin's view of the merit obtained by Christ for man. During the Middles Ages, theologians had debated the issue of the basis of human merits, and Christ's in particular (since he was God become man). Some argued that the value of a meritorious act was proportional to its value as a moral act, that the ratio meriti was in the act itself. The position of the later Franciscan and via moderna was that no such proportionality existed between moral acts and merit, that the ratio meriti of a moral act lay, not in the act itself, but in God's good pleasure to accept the moral act as possessing a certain value above and beyond what it possessed in itself. Hence, human merit was based upon a divine covenant in which God had determined to treat human acts as meritorious, though ex natura rei, they could not possess the power of the infusion of grace. Stephen Strehle, summarizing Scotus' position states: "The merit of Christ, as is true of all merit in general, has no specific reward that can be intrinsically exacted, but derives its worth as all else from the purpose for which God accepts it" (Calvinism, Federalism, and Scholasticism, p. 32). This voluntarism is also seen, perhaps in more acute fashion, in Ockham, for whom the ratio meriti is acceptatio Dei. In this manner, the will of God is conceived as the terminus a quo. God's determination is independent of any a priori commitments to other aspects of the divine nature, such as justice (cf. later Calvinist position above).

Curiously enough Calvin bases the merit of Christ in the will of God, denying that they possessed any intrinsic value.

What would move Calvin to adopt this position? It is most difficult to venture an answer which Calvin himself would have given, primarily because the question itself may well have been one which Calvin would have thought not profitable to ask in the first place, as it falls into the speculative. His professed distaste for Scholasticism explains in large part his antagonism towards the medieval distinction made above. However, Calvin, motivated by biblical theology, saw in Scripture the sovereignty of God. He also recognized on the basis of Scripture the influence of sin upon human mind and the tendency toward self-deception, leading him to caution his readers against equating human justice with divine justice. This can be seen in his treatment of the apparent arbitrariness of election and reprobation. Just when we are about to terminate everything in the will of God, there exists nevertheless a reason hidden in God. We simply do not access to it. We know more of what it is not, than what it is: the reason is intrinsic to God. Hence, even here the freedom of God is upheld by Calvin. Voluntarism may, therefore, be the most consist philosophical framework in which to understand the revelation given us in Scripture, of both the human condition and Christ's work of redemption.

At the same time, though, it should be emphasized that Calvin, though leaving open the possibility that God could have achieved human redemption in some other way, is content to rest with the contingent fact that after all God has chosen to actualize a world in which redemption is achieved by the incarnation and active and passive obedience of the God-man. The "why" Calvin is more than happy, much to the dismay of contemporary philosophical theologians, to leave unanswered. In the end, a good part of theology is recognizing the manhood of man and Godhood of God. This is most perspicuous in Calvin's view of the atonement, in which God becomes man to redeem man that man might once again be restored to God and reflect the image and glory of his Creator.

One final point should be mentioned in conclusion. The disparity between Calvin's view of the atonement and the view(s) of later Calvinists should give us pause. The voluntarism we have encountered in Calvin proves to be a crucial assumption for the system of Calvinism developed subsequent to the life and work of Calvin himself. As Steven Strehle has pointed out, the Scholastic view of the will of God which, in its most extreme forms, is the determination of God functioning independent of the input of the other divine attributes (such as justice), is essential to such calvinistic doctrines as supralapsarianism and particular redemption. With reference to the latter, voluntarism allows the extent of the work of Christ to rest solely in the will of God. Whatever "sufficiency" in might exist in his atonement for all is overridden by the extrinsic acceptatio Dei for some. This alone determines the meaning and extent of the atonement. This point, which the majority of later Calvinists accepted, is not clearly stated by Calvin, who at best vacillates on the question of particular redemption. But later Calvinists, though accepting this consequence of voluntarism, did not accept other consequences of voluntarism vis-a-vis the atonement, consequences which Calvin himself apparently did accept. These later Calvinists have asserted the absolute necessity of the atonement and the intrinsic value of Christ's atoning work. This suggests at least two possibilities. Either there is a basic inconsistency at this point within the systems of either Calvin or the later calvinists or the nature and complexity of voluntarism, as a philosophical framework for Calvinistic theology, has not been examined to its fullest. I leave these as questions to be considered.

One conclusion can, however, be drawn from the preceding exposition. There is a significant amount evidence for the contention that there is a real continuity between Reformed theology (at least so far as it is connected with the work of John Calvin) and the medieval tradition, especially later the medieval theology of the via moderna. This is not to suggest an absolute identity, for Calvin also differs from his medieval predecessors on many points. What we should gain here is a recognition that an adequate understanding of the reformation requires a serious consideration of the background of the theology of the reformers, and that background, for both the scholastic Luther and the humanist Calvin, was--in least in a significant part--medieval theology. It is perhaps this merging of influences and elements, the new humanist learning and the old Scholastic systems, which made possible the dynamic and revolutionary theology of the reformation.

Earlier this century Etienne Gilson argued for the continuity between medieval and modern thought. We now have learned that modern thought is best understood in the light of the medieval influences that gave rise to it. Descartes philosophy was not built upon innate ideas but upon a solid Jesuit education, and a certain degree of tenacity as well. It should come as no surprise that shortly after the Neo-Thomist Gilson's discovery, reformation scholars should have also looked for a sort of continuity between the medieval and modern world, specifically a continuity between medieval theology and the reformation. Calvin may have owed as much to his medieval influences as to the prayerful and diligent study of the Scriptures. In this way, the old and new, may have proved most essential to the origins of Protestant theology. The fruitfulness of Reformed theology in the future will rest in large part upon this recognition.