John Calvin: Predestined to Succeed (Part 1: Conventional Biography)

Known as a Christian Reformer of the early 16th century, a period of history largely characterized by the reforms of the Christian church, John Calvin has made indelible marks in numerous facets of life, ranging from practical theology to philosophy to human rights to politics. Calvin’s seminal work, The Institutes of the Christian Religion, was sold out when published in 1536. Calvin’s Institutes remains today not only as a widespread influence in the Western world and a key theological resource, but also as a lasting reminder of the incredible influence John Calvin’s master pen worked for the benefit of the French language (Holder). These things all qualify the French-born theologian for all persons’ standards of fame-based or monetary success. John Calvin’s conventional success was coincidental to his burning passion to spreading biblical truth, which was the source of his true success.


John Calvin (French: Jean Cauvin) was born on July 10, 1509 in the small town of Noyon, France. A precocious child, Calvin found opportunities falling into his lap left and right. As his father was a notary, Calvin did not descend from the 16th century beginnings of the bourgeois or aristocracy. Rev. Ward Holder, professor of theology at St. Anselm College, says that “through the good fortune of his father’s professional relationship to a family of the local nobility, [Calvin] received a private education with that family’s children” (Holder). Gerard Calvin wished better lives for his sons, and with the financial support of the local church he sent Calvin to Paris to become a priest (Holder). However, Calvin’s meager origin should not be taken at face value as a rags-to-riches story, for he was given many advantages that punctuate his life’s story even from his beginning.


According to Alexandre Ganoczy of Cambridge University, Calvin was a pupil of Mathurin Cordier at the College de la Marche before he enrolled as a philosophy student at the College de Montaigu. Cordier was the world’s leading expert of the Latin language (Ganoczy 3). He completed his master’s degree at the College de Montaigu in the University of Paris at the early age of 18, but his career as a clergyman seemed to disappear when his father was excommunicated from the church after 1526. Tucking his master’s degree quickly under his belt, Calvin was then urged by his father to commit himself to a law school (Holder). Calvin studied law at the University of Orleans, and “continuing his studies at the University of Bourges,” he went on to publish the first of his many commentaries in 1532 on Seneca’s De Clementia (“John Calvin: Biography”). While at Bourges, he learned Greek, which would become useful for studying the New Testament (Ganoczy 4). Calvin befriended the rector of the Parisian College Royal, Nicolas Cop, who later “was branded a heretic after calling for reform in the Catholic Church” in 1534 (“John Calvin: Biography”). Though it is heralded as a time of great reform, the 1500s held nothing but violence for controversial doctrines, however true or false they may have been. Calvin’s time spent in Paris studying the budding philosophy of humanism as related to politics and law would soon come to an end when his association with Cop forced him to flee to Basel, the border-town between France and Switzerland.


Fleeing the violent opposition towards reformation driven by French unrest in the early 1600s, Calvin dared a return to Noyon on May 4, 1534 only to “[surrender] his clerical benefices,” thus severing any lingering semblance of a “personal attachment to the church of Rome [the Roman Catholic Church]” (Holder). His now abandoned life as a clergyman (as well as the political and religious unrest of the early 16th century) “disciplined him in his writing project,” and he began working on what would become his magnum opus: The Institutes of the Christian Religion (Latin: Institutio Christianae religionis) (“John Calvin: Biography”). This grand collection of Calvin’s doctrines for church order, ethics, philosophy, government and politics, and theology was first published in Latin (being the reigning tongue of the church at the time) and was sold out of print in its first publication in 1536.


Calvin would not simply reprint the Institutes as many college professors do today in the twenty-first century, but he would go back and heavily revise his work to turn out the subsequent editions in Latin over the next two decades. He translated his own work from Latin into French in 1545 and 1560 editions, in order to make his writings conveniently available to his lay countrymen who, for the most part, so furiously raged against religious reform. Holder asserts that “if this had been the sole gift from Calvin’s pen, it might seem enough…but Calvin also wrote commentaries on almost every book of the Bible, issued numerous [Christian] tracts, and preached almost every day in Geneva” (Holder). According to Austin Cline, Atheist Guide of The New York Times’ About.com, Calvin’s Institutes “play[ed] an important role not only in the development of religion in France, but also of French language through the 17th century” (Cline). Along the same line, Holder likened Calvin’s influence and aid in forming the modern French vernacular with Martin Luther’s (prominent German Christian reformer of early 16th century) linguistic contributions to modern German (Holder). For all the praise and success rendered to him from Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion, Calvin’s large masterpiece was as much a response to the failings and inconsistencies Calvin saw in the Roman Catholic church in the 16th century as it was an exhaustive systematic theological resource for Protestant Christians.


Calvin would travel to Geneva, Switzerland twice in his life, never leaving the city after his second journey. Kathryn Hadley of History Today writes that in September 1536, “[Calvin] subsequently worked on reform with the French evangelist William Farel,” who “carried the [reformation] to Geneva” from French-speaking borderlands of the Swiss Confederation (Hadley). Calvin and Farel did not stay long in Geneva; in February 1538, one year after the two reformers advocated “free use of excommunication and the imposition of a puritan moral discipline throughout Genevan society,” a newly-elected civic council banished Calvin and Farel from Geneva (Hadley). Calvin returned once more to France, pastoring a congregation in Strasbourg where he would spend his energies publishing commentaries on most of the books of scripture. Geneva called him back in 1541, where he would remain until his death in 1564. Not content to ever let his pen wax dry, Calvin wrote his Ecclesiastical Ordinances of the Church of Geneva, another great contribution to the church. According to Holder, “in this [the Ecclesiastical Ordinances], all the principles of Reformed polity are found” (Holder).


Calvin’s final home of Geneva, Switzerland was not an easy life. With the opportunity given him, he taught daily, preached weekly, continually wrote commentaries and treatises, as well as pastoring the church in Geneva. In 1552, the libertines (who believe in exemption from moral/religious law) compromised Calvin’s authority, and even “nearly succeeded in banishing [Calvin] from Geneva a second time” (“John Calvin: Biography”). However, John Calvin’s greatest opposition came from his theological antagonist, Michael Servetus. Calvin and Servetus maintained a civil dialogue-debate through letters for years before Servetus appeared in Geneva to publicly denounce the doctrine of the Trinity, of paedobaptism (infant baptism), and revile his nemesis, John Calvin. He was wanted for numerous capital crimes of heresy by the French Inquisition. Servetus was abhorred by both Roman Catholics (representing the church at large) and Protestants alike (representing the rest of western Christendom at the time). Michael Servetus was arrested in Geneva and handed over to be executed by burning at the stake on account of heresy (“John Calvin: Biography”). Just as John Calvin has become the archetypal symbol of Christian Reformation and loyalty to truth, Michael Servetus has become the archetypal symbol of religious persecution.


The main branch of philosophy Calvin fleshed out was that of the sovereignty of God and the free will of mankind. Calvin taught that “God is absolutely sovereign – nothing can happen without God wanting it to happen and nothing that God wants to happen can fail to be good. God is the absolute standard of everything” (Cline). Calvin also taught that “humans, on the other hand, are absolutely powerless… [and] they are also completely depraved and sinful” (Cline). To address the philosophical “problem of sin,” Calvin simply took the undisputed Christian doctrine of predestination to its logical conclusion. Cline summarizes Calvin’s doctrine by stating that “it [sin] exists because God wants it to exist – but for the purpose of achieving some greater good… [thus], some people are predestined to be saved while others are predestine to be damned” (Cline). While Calvin contributed numerous gems to the crown of philosophy, his doctrine of predestination is the most debated today and has had the most influence on western thought.


Calvin lived out the rest of his days in Geneva, quelled by a multitude of debilitating diseases in 1564. It has been said that he preached and wrote to his dying day, thundering loudly to any urging for him to respite for his health with the now-legendary quote: “What! Would you have the Lord [Jesus Christ] find me idle when He comes” (“John Calvin”)? Throughout his life of reformation, John Calvin was successful because he was faithful with the opportunities given to him to spread the gospel of truth.






Works Cited:


"John Calvin." Grandpa Pencil. 2011.Web. 3 Feb. 2012.


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"John Calvin: Biography." Calvin 500. The Standard Theme, 2012.Web. 18 Jan.


2012.http://www.calvin500.com/john-calvin/biography/


Cline, Austin. "John Calvin." About.com. The New York Times Company, 2012.Web. 17 Jan.


2012.http://atheism.about.com/library/glossary/western/bldef_calvinjohn.htm


Ganoczy, Alexandre. "Calvin's life." The Cambridge Companion to John Calvin. Ed. Donald K.


McKim Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2004. : 3-4. Print. 1


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Hadley, Kathryn. "Calvin's Legacy." History Today Aug. 2009: 6-7. Print. 23 Jan. 2012.


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2001.Web. 19 Jan. 2012. http://www.iep.utm.edu/calvin/