Tracking Individual Freedom: Roots in the Reformation - An Introduction to the Temperament of Calvin5/30/2019 If there were a true list of the top mischaracterized historical figures, the person and work Geneva's most “notorious” theologian, Jean Calvin, would indefinitely make the top ten. Images of the brutal Calvin ruling the French church culture with fury and wrathful absolutism have over and over proved outlandish caricatures in comparison to reality. As historians have further researched and dove into the truth of Calvin’s livelihood, more and more of these assumptions have proved ludicrous. Regardless of one’s personal sentiments regarding Calvin’s Doctrines of Grace, the heated debate among those who share Calvin’s same opinion and those who reject such claims is inconsequential when examining the influential mark he left on Christian belief and understanding during and after the Protestant Reformation. When getting down to the temperament of Calvin, the task of accurately characterizing him does get a bit messy. Many scholars have argued for, what I have previously referred to as “outlandish caricatures”, that Calvin’s natural temperament towards the public may be associated with themes of rage, impatience, and noticeable pride of belief. Stephen Hicks, a Canadian-American philosopher who received his doctorate from Indiana University Bloomington and is a notable critic of religious matters, paints the disposition of Calvin in rather dim light; “In physique, temperament, and conviction, Calvin (1509–1564) was the inverted image of the freewheeling, permissive, high-living popes whose excesses had led to Lutheran apostasy. Frail, thin, short, and lightly bearded, with ruthless, penetrating eyes, he was humorless and short-tempered. The slightest criticism enraged him. Those who questioned his theology he called pigs, asses, riffraff, dogs, idiots, and stinking beasts. One morning he found a poster on his pulpit accusing him of gross hypocrisy.” Hicks’s perspective on the character of our supposedly infamous preacher and theologian is quite popular among established and, reluctantly, liberal academics. Although, an entire slew of scholars argue furiously against Hicks’s very accusations against the man from Geneva. On the opposite end of the ideological spectrum lies the J. Gresham Machen Professor of Theology and Apologetics at Westminster Seminary California, Professor Michael Horton, who offers a completely contradictory opinion on our much debatable subject in his book Calvin on the Christian Life: Glorifying and Enjoying God Forever; “However, not a single charge was brought against Calvin for personal misconduct in a disorderly city that, under his ministry, became widely noted for its justice, civility, and (eventually) kindness to strangers. Calvin was especially devoted to the cause of the poor exiles who flooded the city and were often mistreated by the proud Genevans. Ignoring the pleas of the magistrates, Calvin tended to the spiritual needs of plague victims in the hospital. Marilynne Robinson reminds us that Calvin’s entire life was burdened with a deep sense of obligation to the suffering and that from its very first edition the Institutes was written to defend victims of persecution.” As we read, Horton paints Calvin in a distinctly philanthropic light. Caring for the needs of his fellow Genevans and devoting himself to the cause of those who were less fortunate remain popular characterizations from those who generally agree with Calvin’s theology and teachings. Yet, the polarization of perspectives and information could not get further extreme as Horton goes on to say that “As Spitz summarizes, “Calvin himself had an unusually good wine cellar. God does not forbid us to laugh, he said, and was himself very adept at punning.”’ which directly contradicts Hicks’s notion that “he [Calvin] was humorless…”. Historical rationalization becomes our friend in this situation, or, rather, a pain in the rear-end. It is clear that the two given descriptions of Calvin’s attitude are ideologically consistent with the sentiments of both scholars. To Horton, the Christian, Calvin’s natural temperament is often mischaracterized. Furthermore, to Hicks, the atheist, Calvin was the tyrant many make him out to be. Oftentimes polarizing descriptions like these become quite popular with such a contrversial historical figure like Calvin and we will further rely on primary documentation to further rationalize what kind of man he really proved to be. Calvin would confess it himself, that he, was “by nature… shy and timid”. This specific attribute regarding his character seems intellectually consistent with evidence from a surplus of Calvin’s contemporaries including Calvin’s first successor, and, close friend, Theodore Beza, who wrote that “[he was] of a rather timid disposition” in his biography the French Reformer. Beza would go on in his biography to state that “he [Calvin] was constantly filled with a great sense of compassion as if he could see for himself the distress which overtook the churches and the dreadful massacres perpetrated against the poor believers.” Clearly, the infamous theologian from Noyon contained within himself a deep reverence for the church and a quiet seriousness about him. Calvin, unlike the larger-than-life Luther, was rather reserved, assuredly, naturally timid, and slow to speak void of any circumstance. From the pulpit, Calvin was one to carefully and meticulously organize his dialogue, with great genius and thought, his discourse was entirely absent of any hint of brashness or negligence which might have proved humorously contradictory to the outlandish Luther. Calvin’s “[preaching was] marked by much grace, strength and simplicity and yet was completely lacking in ostentation” according to Beza. Although, Calvin’s natural timidness did not indefinitely immunize him from the vice of short-temperedness and irritability. Wolfgang Musculus, a Reformed theologian closely associated with our Genevan preacher stated that “[Calvin was] a bow that was always so tightly strung.” Musculus’s formalization of Calvin’s susceptibility to impatience, or rather, edginess, also perfectly coincides with one of Beza’s descriptions of him, he says,
“Besides a temperament that was by nature prone to anger, there were a number of things that tended to make him irritable and difficult to get on with. These included, for example, his own lively mind, the lack of discretion on the part of many of those around him, and the many varied affairs he had to deal with concerning the church of God…but he was far from seeking to make excuses for this failing. On the contrary, no one was more aware of it, or more conscious of its importance, than he was himself.” That said, Calvin’s vulnerability to anger, impatience, and irritability are the result of his, sometimes righteousness oftentimes not, aggravation towards those who would not acquiesce to his standard of Christian morality and living. Although, sixteenth-century Geneva was not necessarily the place, nor context, where submitting to biblical principles, or Calvin’s standard of such, made it into the mainstream. According to Horton, when referencing a number of Roman Catholic polemicists, he says that “Geneva was a cauldron of debauchery and a refuge for hedonists of every kind” and he goes on to state that “[Geneva was quite the] disorderly city.” Scholars seem to depict Calvin’s homeland of Geneva as one of the many regions that wholly felt the cultural shift that was onset by the ensuing Reformation. Calvin’s theological toil, that was fueled by a deep reverence for staunch biblical principals, seemed as if it catapulted the city forward into a new ideological light, all the while leaving many behind in the darkness. The result of such was a visible polarization of ideological beliefs and lifestyles, many of which were widely associated with Calvin’s philosophies while others did not make it out of what Petrarch coined the “dark ages”. Furthermore, there was certainly a noticeable faction-esque schism that separated those who accepted reform and those who fancied themselves with anachronistic doctrines, which, of course, was a divisionary split that created a fair bit of difficulty for Calvin to navigate within his ministry. The shift in ideological beliefs that greatly influenced the political, social, and religious landscape of early to mid-sixteenth century Geneva and the region’s subsequent retaliation of those newly formalized ideas we will call “the great catapult of Genevan principals” for time's sake. Will be continued.
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