AS many of our readers are aware, at the beginning of last month a Calvinistic Congress was held at Edinburgh, when delegates assembled from different parts of the world. Papers on different phases of Calvinism were delivered by eminent divines, and according to its promoters, the Congress was a decided success. The newspaper reports, unfortunately, were of a very scrappy nature and gave one a very inadequate idea of the value of the papers read. In all likelihood these papers will be published, and then one will be in a better position to assess their value. Calvinism, as Dr. Warfield points out in his essay Calvinism, in the Schaff-Herzog Encyclopaedia of Religious Knowledge (ii. 359-364), sometimes designates the system of doctrine held by Calvin himself; sometimes, the system of doctrine held by the Reformed Churches in distinction from the Lutheran Churches. It is the latter conception, of Calvinism we have before our mind in writing this article. In approaching the subject one naturally asks what are the outstanding features of this system which on the one hand has evoked the greatest admiration and on the other hand awakened the greatest enmity. We may say that the tremendous emphasis it lays on the doctrine of the Divine Sovereignty and closely connected with this the peerless place it assigns to God in the salvation of sinners are distinctive features that have won the admiration of multitudes, and called forth the detestation of others. All this teaching is firmly based on the divine authority of Scripture. Herein it differs from the Neo-Calvinism of Barth and Brunner who are in fashion among a certain class of theologians at present. This new Calvinism is seriously defective inasmuch as it does not stress the infallibility of God’s written Word. To return to the doctrine of divine sovereignty as set forth in Calvinism, it should not be forgotten that in laying emphasis on this doctrine Calvinism is not setting forth some new doctrine invented by the great Reformer. All he did was to set aside the accretions of the theological conceptions of the Dark Ages and going back through Augustine to the Bible he set forth with striking clearness this great doctrine, so glorifying to God, but so humbling to man’s pride.
The whole teaching of Scripture lays tremendous emphasis on the peerless position of God. He stands alone—the one living and true God—besides whom there is no other. The utter insignificance of man in the presence of the Divine Majesty of heaven gives an awe-inspiring presentation of the greatness of the God before whom the sinner stands condemned. Man’s supposed greatness, his arrogant pretensions, and his boasted attainments dwindle to insignificance in that awful presence. Calvinism, therefore, in stressing this doctrine, is in line with the teaching of the Scriptures which always gives God His place on the highest throne and man’s place in the dust before Him. Man would be great and be as a god but Calvinism based on Scripture strikes at the root of this vanity and lie of the devil and exalts God to His peerless position and fixes the sinner’s eye on that unapproachable greatness. It asserts the truth set forth in Scripture that God has a right to do what seemeth good with His own. He is not to be brought to the bar of men’s judgment, and sentence passed on Him by any of His creatures, however exalted they may be, angels or men. Such a view of God awakens a spirit of rebellion in the unrenewed heart, but where the Spirit of Christ is at work a spirit of submission is produced and in measure according to the grace given he will submit and say, in the words of His divine Master, “Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Thy sight.”
The other aspect of Calvinism referred to above is comprehensively set forth by Dr. William Cunningham. “We believe,” he says, “that it is impossible to bring out accurately, fully, and definitely, the sum and substance of what is taught in Scripture concerning the place which the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost hold in the salvation of sinners, without taking up Calvinistic ground—without being in a manner necessitated to assert the fundamental principles of the Calvinistic system of theology. It is, we believe, impossible otherwise to do full justice, and to give full effect, to what Scripture teaches, concerning the sovereign supremacy of the Father in determining the everlasting destiny of His creatures—concerning the death and righteousness of Christ, as of infinite worth and value, and as infallibly efficacious for securing all the great objects to which they are directed—and concerning the agency of the Holy Spirit in certainly and infallibly uniting to Christ through faith all whom the Father had given to Him, and preserving them in safety unto His eternal kingdom. Those who reject or put aside the peculiar doctrines of Calvinism can, we think, be shown to be practically, and by fair construction, withholding from God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, more or less of the place and influence which the Scripture assigns to them in the salvation of sinners; and to be giving to men themselves, or at least to creatures, a share in effecting their salvation which the Scriptures does not sanction” (The Reformers and the Theology of the Reformation, p. 339). In other words, Calvinism strikes at the very root of Pelagianism and that semi-Pelagianism acknowledged and nurtured by Arminianism. By one blow it struck at the Pelagianism of the Church of Rome and swept out of the way all the mummery and idolatry that found shelter under its wings. It did the same to Arminianism. Man, according to Calvinism, is not simply sick but dead, and unless God intervenes, his case is hopeless. Here again it stresses the great truth which meets us everywhere in Scripture, that God is not only supreme but that He has a right to all the glory in the salvation of His people. In this, the natural heart of man is confronted with a truth that is repugnant to the pride of his fallen nature.
It has been said by men of high literary distinction and by men of no distinction at all that Calvinism enslaves the mind, that it sets an inhibition on human effort and is generally destructive to all freedom in thought and action. These objections have been repeated time and again as if they were axiomatic truths. The easiest way to combat them is to appeal to actual facts in the world of thought and action. Is the testimony of history that the nations which were largely influenced by Calvinistic teaching so conclusive on the side of the objectors? Do not the objections of the theorists come up against stern facts that point the other way? The great lovers of liberty and freedom among the nations were the people who came under Calvinistic teaching. If the stern facts of history strike a smashing blow to our theories there is likely a flaw somewhere eating at the very root of our theories. It is also an erroneous view that the distinctive doctrines of Calvin came from a cold and frigid mind, untouched by warmth or feeling from the heart. Dr. Warfield has done a fine service in pointing out in his Calvin and Calvinism that Calvin’s Institutes is not what men generally take it to be, a cold system of dry doctrine untouched by any feeling from the heart. He holds and he gives proof for his contention that the Institutes is a religious book and not a purely dogmatic treatise composed of the dry bones of theology but infused with the warmth of deep spiritual experience.
Perhaps in no nation did Calvinism exercise such an influence as on the Scottish nation, and it was an influence which was for our country’s good. In a leading article, the Scotsman (8th July) pertinently met the attacks of these writers as follows:—”It has become the vogue in recent years among men of letters to attack the Calvinist tradition and to suggest that it has had an unfortunate effect on Scottish society. Calvinism is depicted in its most unlovely features; it is represented as a narrow creed, dogmatic and obscurantist, inhumanly austere, flourishing on the denunciation of human follies, and inimical to culture. Such a picture of Calvinism is, no doubt, a travesty produced by critics who have never taken the trouble to acquaint themselves with its real principles, and whose idea of it is drawn from the extravagances of fanatics rather than from the practice of its best adherents. Every religious movement is liable to misunderstanding and misrepresentation at the hands of those who have not been moved by its real spirit, and it is easy to understand why Calvinism in particular should have suffered in this way. There is a widespread impression that Calvinism is essentially opposed to the cultivation of the arts that add urbanity and grace to human society, and it is chiefly on this score that it has incurred the censure of writers and artists. But Calvin, who was himself a man of culture, did not proscribe artistic activities, or suggest that they were unlawful; his strictures on art were confined to its meretricious use for ecclesiastical decoration.”