Allan Smith Thesis Final

301 Pages·2015·1.8 MB·English

by  University Chaplain

‘LIFT UP YOUR HEARTS’: A CONTRIBUTION TO THE
UNDERSTANDING OF JOHN CALVIN’S TEACHING ON THE
EUCHARIST AND ITS SETTING WITHIN HIS THEOLOGY.

Allan Robert Smith

Submitted to the University of Hertfordshire in partial fulfilment of the requirements of
the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

September 2013
Contents
Abstract 1
Chapter 1. Introduction 2
1.1 Why John Calvin’s eucharistic theology? 2
1.2 Setting Calvin’s understanding in a theological context 4
1.3 The Eucharist in Calvin studies 8
1.4 The question of the Catholicizing Calvin 33
1.5 The crypto-Zwinglian Calvin? 41
1.6 The shape of this study 49
PART 1: CALVIN’S HISTORICAL SETTING 52
Chapter 2. Some historical considerations. 53
2.1 Introduction: a man of his time 53
2.2 The Catholic Calvin? The influence of his early years and education. 54
2.3 Anxiety, superstition and struggle: the challenges of sixteenth-century life. 60
2.4 Conclusion: Calvin the Catholic prophet? 66
PART 2: CALVIN’S THEOLOGICAL PREOCCUPATIONS 69
Chapter 3. Rhetoric, reason and knowledge: engaging with the texts. 70
3.1 Introduction: The question of knowledge 70
3.2 Calvin and the twofold knowledge of God 72
3.3 Calvin’s epistemology and participation 75
3.4 Calvin as rhetorical theologian? 76
3.5 Conclusion: The knowledge of God as a context for Calvin’s theology 81
Chapter 4. Prayer, Piety and Parenthood: the human relationship to the Godhead. 83
4.1 Introduction: discerning the place of prayer and piety in the human relationship with
God 83
4.2 The Knowledge of God and Piety 83
4.3 Prayer: The chief exercise of faith 89
4.4 From Father to Son – Prayer is Mediated through the person of Christ 94
4.5 The role of Christ as Mediator in Salvation 98
4.6 Receiving the benefits of the Mediator — a communion of faith? 112
4.7 Conclusion: a pious hunger. 114
Chapter 5. Faith and Understanding: the Work of the Spirit 117
5.1 Introduction: the convincing Spirit. 117
5.2 ‘The Spirit says’: Word as doctrine 118
5.3 Authority and holiness as marks of the Word 120
5.4 The role of the Spirit in the exhibition of Christ in the Word 126
5.5 Word, Faith and The Work of the Spirit 131
5.6 Conclusion: the Spirit and the benefits of union with Christ. 142
PART 3: CALVIN’S EUCHARISTIC THEOLOGY 143
Chapter 6. Word, Sacrament and substance. 144
6.1 Introduction: discerning meaning in the Sacraments 144
6.2 Signs and seals 145
6.3 Word and Sacrament 152
6.4 The accommodation of God in Word and Sacrament 154
6.5 Substance and spiritual nourishment 158
6.6 koinonia and participation 165
6.7 The question of the unfaithful 173
6.8 Conclusion: the substance of the Sacraments as meaning. 178
Chapter 7. The duplex gratia and the Sacraments 181
7.1 Introduction: the effect of the Sacraments 181
7.2 The duplex gratia: the twofold grace of God 181
7.3 The duplex gratia in the Sacrament and the ‘fruit’ of participation 194
7.4 The duplex gratia and our being made ‘conformable to God’ – Calvin’s concept of
deification? 202
7.5 Baptism and Eucharist, two Sacraments for twofold grace 214
7.6 Conclusion: The effect of the Sacraments as the reception of the duplex gratia 229
Chapter 8. ‘What I do is not what I want to do, but what I detest’ How Catholic was
Calvin’s understanding of Communion? 231
8.1 Introduction 231
8.2 Calvin’s ‘middle way’. 232
8.3 Transubstantiation 236
8.4 Transignification 240
8.5 Does Calvin reinvent the doctrine of transubstantiation? 242
8.6 Reinvention or rediscovery? 246
8.7 The background to Calvin’s liturgical form 247
8.8 Consideration of the liturgy of Geneva and Strassburg 250
8.9 The divine driving force: the role of the Spirit in the Eucharist. 263
8.10 Conclusion: Substance, significance and meaning, Calvin’s inventio 270
Chapter 9. Concluding thoughts: the Sacrament as the place of encounter with Christ. 273
9.1 Reinvention and renewal: the potential of Calvin’s understanding 273
9.2 ‘Come out from among them’: a necessary separation. 274
9.3 Continuing the reform of worship 275
9.4 The importance of the Eucharist 278
BIBLIOGRAPHY 279
Key Abbreviations used 279
Calvin’s Works 279
Translations of Calvin’s works 279
a) The Institutes 279
b) Tracts, treatises and letters. 280
c) Commentaries. 282
Patristic, Medieval and Reformation Works 284
Secondary Sources 285
Abstract
This dissertation considers the possibility that, flowing from his broader theological
framework and historical background, John Calvin’s eucharistic theology ‘re-invents’ a
doctrine where the ‘substance’ (meaning) of the elements becomes the body and blood
of Christ, and the believer who receives them is drawn, through understanding, into
participation in Christ.

The study begins with the historical setting and the second chapter sketches Calvin’s
life. Chapter 3 considers epistemology and the impact of classical rhetoric on Calvin’s
approach to knowledge. The following chapter considers Calvin’s understanding of our
relationship with the Father, and of Christ as Mediator and as means of salvation.
Chapter 5 considers the work of the Spirit in nurturing faith, a ‘higher knowledge’,
through preparing us for knowledge of Christ and mediating our understanding of and
participation in him. In this manner the Spirit acts as an instrument of revelation to
enable us to participate in Christ. Chapters 6 and 7 move to consider Calvin’s writing on
the Sacraments, their nature as sign and seals of the promise made in Christ, their
substance and their role in our participation in Christ and, in the light of the duplex
gratia, as gateways to participation.

In Chapter 8 Calvin’s teaching is examined in terms of his opposition to the doctrine of
transubstantiation, and his understanding of substance is considered. The possibility that
Calvin ‘re-invents’ the doctrine is proposed. This is not to suggest that there is a
conscious copying of the doctrine, but that through the process of forming his doctrine,
using an alternate philosophical framework, Calvin’s understanding bears significant
similarities to the doctrine he so deeply opposed. His key opposition to
transubstantiation can then be seen to be to the materialist interpretations that impede
the ability of the believer to lift his attention beyond the physical elements to the divine
offer they represent.

The study concludes by briefly considering the significance of Calvin’s ‘reinvention’
for contemporary understandings.
Chapter 1. Introduction

1.1 Why John Calvin’s eucharistic theology?
My interest was first drawn to the question of Calvin’s Eucharistic theology by my
background as an ordained minister in the United Reformed Church (URC). The
theology of the URC, which has its origins in the Presbyterian, Congregational and
Churches of Christ traditions, is rooted to the continental Reformation in general and to
the theology of John Calvin in particular. It did not take much investigation to realise
that there was a disconnection between the contemporary Reformed theology of the
Sacraments as experienced in the life of the Church (which would appear to be
‘practical Zwinglianism’1) and that of John Calvin.

As I continued to look into this it struck me that there was a parallel between what
Calvin tries to do as he formulates his eucharistic theology (where his concern can be
seen as maintaining the effectiveness of the Sacrament, while denying a local material
presence) and what the doctrine of transubstantiation was trying to do: to explain the
idea that we are truly offered Christ’s body and blood in the Sacrament and not simply
being reminded of a past event. At this stage I was introduced to the work of Edward
Schillebeeckx who sought much the same goals in his development of the idea of
‘transignification’. While by no means has Schillebeeckx’s transignification been
accepted as official Catholic doctrine, it did indicate that there were those within the
modern Catholic tradition who found the teaching on transubstantiation to be

1 The term ‘practical Zwinglianism,’ can be traced back at least as far as the mid-nineteenth century, for
example in William Scott and Francis Garden, Rev. of Notes of a traveller, on the social and political
state of France, Prussia, Switzerland and Italy, and other parts of Europe during the present century, by
Samuel Laing. The Christian Remembrancer 3.4 (1842), 399. ‘Practical Zwinglianism’ seems to be a
useful way to describe what is often an unconscious position rather than a considered theological stance.
It is interesting to note that in the example cited the reference is to a move in the theological stance of the
Lutheran Church.
Chapter 1. Introduction 3
unsatisfactory and suggested that there might be scope for a reading that would allow
the possibility of dialogue with Calvin’s understanding.

The question remained, why did Calvin choose to develop his eucharistic theology
along the lines that he did? What stood at the root of Calvin’s opposition to the doctrine
of transubstantiation and his objections to the practices of the Roman Church? Here a
number of factors come into play: Calvin’s education, his epistemology and soteriology
and the degree to which he felt that the teaching of the Church had been corrupted in its
practice. One of the deeper (and perhaps more easily overlooked) roots is, perhaps, in
Calvin’s early life. His upbringing had strong Catholic influence, with a devout mother
and engagement in the ceremonies, rituals and (as he would later see it) superstitions of
popular Catholic piety. This would have had a significant formative role in his
understanding of the Church and its worship. As he was forced to separate from the
Roman Church he took a stance that indicated his desire to purify the worship of the
Church, especially the Church in France. In this Calvin took on what he understood as a
prophetic role. But it is not simply his early education that was formative in this respect.
His studies, initially with a view to the priesthood but later in preparation for a career in
law, brought him into contact with humanist elements. He may well have been
influenced by the resurgence of Platonic and neo-Platonic philosophy but perhaps more
significantly it is clear that he was exposed to the idea of a classical rhetoric. One aspect
of this would appear in his epistemology, that knowledge is affective rather than simple
possession of information. Such an understanding shaped his insistence on the link
between Word and Sacrament, his understanding of what it meant to participate in the
Sacraments and, indeed, his whole approach to liturgy.
Chapter 1. Introduction 4
1.2 Setting Calvin’s understanding in a theological context
Here I hope to show that Calvin, in his desire to re-establish the true Church, develops
an understanding of the Sacrament that could be termed a ‘re-invention’ of the doctrine
to which he is most vehemently opposed, transubstantiation. This is by no means a
simple reproduction of the contemporary Roman Catholic understanding, rather it is a
recasting of the doctrine in a particular philosophical and epistemological framework
that allows it to hold divine accommodation and human participation in tension, while
avoiding the danger of materialist interpretation and thus of idolatry (the failure of the
Catholic doctrine which draws Calvin’s most vehement criticism).

The form of worship, the expression of both the pious life and the life of the community
of Christ’s followers, that Calvin desired was not isolated from his theological
understanding, but intimately tied to it. Carlos Eire observes that for Calvin the
knowledge of God is inseparable from worship of him, in that it is impossible to come
to know God ‘without yielding some worship to him.’2 There is a fundamental linkage
of Word and Sacrament in Calvin’s understanding that was reflected in his desire to
celebrate the Eucharist at every service.3 Even when the service is non-eucharistic it is
important to remember the effect it should have upon the worship of the people.4

2 Carlos M. N. Eire, War against the Idols. The Reformation of Worship from Erasmus to Calvin
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 197.
3 Wallace observes how Calvin argues for the Sacraments to be celebrated ‘with such a frequency as will
befit their importance.’ Ronald S. Wallace, Calvin’s Doctrine of the Word and Sacrament (Edinburgh &
London: Oliver & Boyd, 1953), 252. Calvin argues that the Supper should be celebrated ‘at least once a
week’ (Inst. 4.17.43) and indeed that ‘no meeting of the church should take place without the Word,
prayers, partaking of the Supper, and almsgiving.’ (Inst. 4.17.44). Despite such a clear desire on his part,
Calvin was unable to persuade the Genevan Council to accept even the monthly celebration proposed in
the Articles of 1537 or the Draft Ecclesiastical Ordinances of 1541, and he was forced to accept a
quarterly celebration which even as late as 1561 he appears to have considered ‘defective.’ Bard
Thompson, Liturgies of the Western Church, 1980 ed. (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1961), 190.
4 J. M. Barklay, The Worship of the Reformed Church. An Exposition and Critical Analysis of the
Eucharistic, Baptismal, and Confirmation Rites in the Scottish, English-Welsh, and Irish Liturgies
(London: Lutterworth, 1966), 16.
Chapter 1. Introduction 5
Discerning Calvin’s understanding of the theology of worship in general or the
Eucharist specifically is not necessarily an easy task. At one stage Calvin’s Institutes of
the Christian Religion, seen by some as ‘a clear and systematic exposition of Calvin’s
fundamental beliefs,’5 would have been considered a sufficient text in itself.6 However
the Institutes are neither a systematic work in the modern sense nor a concise summary
of the entirety of Calvin’s theology,7 and form only a small part of the volume of his
published work.8 The importance of this becomes obvious when one takes into account
the nature of sixteenth-century theology as being forged in dispute. While theological
systems in that period would frequently take the form of ‘common places’ (Loci
communes)9 – theological topics drawn out of disputation and exegesis – the influence
of the disputes amongst the churches would have also contributed to the formation of
particular understandings as theologians sought to clarify and justify their views. Even a
cursory inspection of the published work of Calvin shows that a significant amount of
his work formed part of ongoing disputes.10 Calvin’s theology did not arise full-grown,

5 e.g. F.L. Cross and E.A. Livingstone, ‘The Institutes,’ The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church.
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983), 707.
6 A line of Luchesius Smits is often quoted to sum up this unfortunate attitude, ‘Calvin was a man of a
single book.’ Luchesius Smits, Saint Augustine Dans L’oeuvre De Jean Calvin: Étude De Critique
Litteraire, vol. 1 (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1956). Taking account of Calvin’s prolific output the view of
Willem van’t Spijker that ‘the Reformer of Geneva wrote more in the space of thirty years than one
person can adequately study and digest in an entire lifetime,’ seems more appropriate. Foreword, Wulfert
De Greef, The Writings of John Calvin: An Introductory Guide (Louisville & London: Westminster John
Knox, 2008), ix.
7 Bouwsma argues that to apply the term ‘systematic’ to sixteenth-century theology would be an
anachronism: ‘I do not believe that Calvin even aspired to the construction of a system, as the term
‘system’ is commonly understood; as a biblical theologian, he despised what passed for systematic
theology in his own time. … Beyond this, the intellectual and cultural resources of the sixteenth century
made the production of ‘systematic thought’ almost inconceivable, a circumstance that students of Calvin
have not always kept in mind. A systematic Calvin would be an anachronism; there are no ‘systematic’
thinkers of many significance in the sixteenth century.’ William J. Bouwsma, John Calvin: A Sixteenth-
Century Portrait (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 5.
8 Muller, for example, notes that the Institutes are ‘equalled in size by Calvin’s sermons on Job and
dwarfed by the sermons on Deuteronomy, as well as by the individual commentaries on Psalms, Isaiah,
Jeremiah, and Pentateuch.’ Richard A. Muller, The Unaccommodated Calvin. Studies in the Foundation
of a Theological Tradition, Oxford Studies in Historical Theology (Oxford & New York: Oxford
University Press, 2000), 5.
9 For example Philip Melanchthon’s Loci communes theologici, Wolfgang Musculus’ Loci communes and
Andreas Hyperius’ De theologo, seu ratione studii theolgici, libri IIII
10 The overview of Calvin’s writings from Wulfert de Greef is particularly useful here. Setting aside his
letters Calvin debates or disputes with (among others) the Nicodemites, Roman Catholics (including the
Albertus Pighuis, the Council of Trent and the Sorbonne), Anabaptists, Libertines, Lutherans (including
Westphal and Heshusius) and Zwinglians. De Greef, The Writings of John Calvin.
Chapter 1. Introduction 6
but was developing through dialogue, discussion and dispute throughout his ministry.
His views were not static but developing and have had an impact that has continued
long beyond his lifetime.11

At times Calvin’s meaning is not always clear. In his book Grace and Gratitude, Brian
Gerrish notes that ‘even within the very first edition of the Institutes, taken by itself, it is
not difficult to discover reasons why Calvin’s critics might think his views uncertain,
ambiguous, perhaps devious.’12 Part of this problem may reside in the tendency to
impose modern theological perspectives on his sixteenth-century thinking, or in failing
to understand the eclectic nature of sixteenth-century culture,13 but the perspectives of
development and disputation might be helpful in discerning his understanding. In this
respect Charles Partee’s observation that ‘attempting to understand Calvin requires a
starting point, behind which is always a stand point,’ is a useful warning for any
analysis as is his broad categorization of the standpoints to be found as opponents,

11 Calvin’s work, it can be argued, lays the foundation for modern systematic theology. Thomas Torrance
writes: ‘It was he [Calvin] who in his Institutes of the Christian Religion laid the foundations for biblical
and dogmatic theology as they are now pursued, and he who … paved the way for the systematic
interpretation of the Holy Scriptures in which so many great scholars have engaged ever since. … Not the
least of Calvin’s contributions was the disciplined method which he brought to both these [biblical and
theological] studies and the way in which he related them to one another.’ Thomas F. Torrance, The
Hermeneutics of John Calvin, Monograph Supplements to the Scottish Journal of Theology, eds. A.I.C.
Heron and I.R. Torrance (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1988), 61.
12 Brian A. Gerrish, Grace & Gratitude. The Eucharistic Theology of John Calvin (Edinburgh: T&T
Clark, 1993), 10.
13 Bouwsma suggests that, ‘Like other major thinkers of the sixteenth century, and indeed for some time
before, Calvin was complex and eclectic, engaged in an effort to marshal and manage a bundle of
contradictory intellectual impulses and resources. … Scholars have wasted a lot of time arguing that
Calvin was “really” a Stoic or Neoplatonist because they did not realize that every sixteenth-century
intellectual was something of both, as well as a good deal else.’ William J. Bouwsma, ‘Calvinism as
Renaissance Artifact,’ John Calvin & the Church. A Prism of Reform., ed. Timothy George (Louisville,
Kentucky: Westminster John Knox, 1990), 30. Similarly Muller, in discussing the difficulties of
understanding the relationship between Calvin and scholasticism, observes that Calvin’s theology did not
arise in a ‘sixteenth-century vacuum’ and notes the problem of the ‘tendency of much twentieth-century
Protestant theology and historiography to view scholasticism as a highly speculative and rationalistic
system of thought bound to Aristotelianism and to certain specific theological and philosophical
conclusions, characteristic of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, the primary goal of which
was to produce a synthesis of Christian theology and Greek philosophy.’ Richard A. Muller,
‘Scholasticism in Calvin: A Question of Relation and Disjunction,’ Calvinus Sinceriorus Religionis
Vindex, eds. Wilhelm H. Neuser and Brian G. Armstrong, Sixteenth Century Essays & Studies
(Kirksville, Missouri: Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers, 1997), 247-51.