Conversations with Steinmetz on Calvin (Part Three)

Calvin did not discover many of the ideas that are attributed to him. For example, he did not discover the doctrine of predestination, though one frequently hears that he did. And the same could be said for many of the ideas that are attributed to Calvin.  Nevertheless, Calvin was an original thinker, and he was certainly an independent thinker. He did discover many new ideas; and, when he borrowed ideas from others, he thought about them carefully before doing so. Calvin was particularly careful when it came to the interpretation of Scripture. He studied the history of biblical interpretation closely, and though he often agreed with the interpretations of his predecessors, he did not hesitate to disagree with them either.

Sometimes, Calvin’s interpretations got him into trouble with others. As David Steinmetz explains in chapter fifteen of his book Calvin in Context, a few critics even argued that Calvin’s interpretation of Scripture led to heresy. One such critic was Giles Hunnius, a Lutheran theologian who rose to prominence during the second half of the sixteenth century. Hunnius claimed that Calvin practiced “Judaizing exegesis.” He also claimed that such exegesis supported the Arian heresy. Basically, Hunnius argued that Calvin rejected traditional interpretations of Scripture that supported the doctrine of the Trinity and the doctrine of the two natures (divine and human) of Christ. While Hunnius acknowledged that Calvin did not intend to reject these doctrines himself, Hunnius argued that by rejecting the traditional interpretations of Scripture that supported these doctrines, Calvin would be inevitably led to abandon these doctrines and embrace the Arian heresy. (To clarify, Arianism taught that Jesus was not co-eternal with God, and that Jesus was subordinate to God, and so it taught that Jesus was not God.)

Hunnius attacked Calvin’s interpretation of a number of passages, including Genesis 1:2, but Steinmetz focuses on three passages from John, namely, 10:30, 14:10, and 17:21. Here are the passages in full:

            “I and the Father are one.” (10:30)

“Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works.” (14:10)

“...that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” (17:21)

Christian thinkers from Augustine to Aquinas understood these passages to provide strong support for the doctrine of the Incarnation, viz., the doctrine that Jesus was both human and divine. (To be precise, the doctrine of the Incarnation teaches that God – or the second eternal person of the Trinity – assumed flesh and became human in the form of Jesus, who is truly human and truly divine.) Indeed, many Christian thinkers regarded these passages as proof-texts for the doctrine. Not Calvin. He denied that these passages were proof-texts for the Incarnation; and, in some of his writings, including his commentary on John, he denied that their primary readings provided any support for the Incarnation whatsoever. As Calvin read these passages, at least on some occasions, they did not take a stand on the question of Christ’s nature. Instead, they expressed the fact that Jesus’s will agreed with that of the Father (10:30), or the fact that Jesus’s words came from the Father (14:10), or the fact that Jesus is the head of the church and the mediator between man and God (17:21). But they did not express the fact that Jesus was divine.

Hunnius was scandalized by Calvin’s interpretations. Wasn’t it clear that these passages supported the doctrine of the Incarnation? Didn’t the Jews understand that Jesus claimed to be one with God? How could Calvin deny this? And, if Calvin was willing to deny that these passages supported the Incarnation, didn’t the biblical case for the Incarnation crumble? Well, no. Calvin pointed out that there are many other passages in John that provide clear support for the Incarnation. For example, he argued that John 20:28 (“Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!””) was sufficient to establish the divinity of Jesus, and he cited many more passages in John and other books of Scripture that also provided support for the doctrine of the Incarnation. Calvin’s interpretations of these latter passages were quite traditional. Thus, while Calvin argued that many passages that had been previously taken to support the doctrine of the Incarnation did not in fact do so, he also argued that many of these passages did provide such support.

I must say, I am impressed by Calvin’s independent spirit. I don’t agree with Calvin about the passages from John. Like Augustine and Aquinas, I take them all to provide strong support for the doctrine of the Incarnation. However, I respect Calvin’s determination to read the Bible on its own terms. In particular, I respect his refusal to impose foreign readings on the text. Furthermore, I greatly admire Calvin’s confidence in the teachings of Scripture. Calvin understood that there are plenty of passages in Scripture that clearly teach the doctrine of the Incarnation – he didn’t need to read it into passages where he thought it could not honestly be found. Again, I disagree with Calvin about the passages from John – I think that they do teach the doctrine of the Incarnation. But the issue here isn’t the particular readings that Calvin found in Scripture. Rather, it is his approach to the interpretation of Scripture that interests me. And I do agree with Calvin’s interpretations of some passages. For example, Calvin denied that the doctrine of the Trinity (or, which is logically weaker, the doctrine that the Holy Spirit is God) can be found in Genesis 1:2, and I am inclined to agree.

I think that we can learn a lot from Calvin’s approach to the interpretation of Scripture. We shouldn’t feel compelled to find the central doctrines of orthodox Christianity in every passage of the Bible. We should allow the Bible to speak for itself, especially if we believe it to be the word of God. After all, if we are unwilling to accept the Bible on its own terms, then haven’t we relinquished at least some of our trust in God? At the same time, we shouldn’t be reluctant to affirm what the Bible really teaches. I believe that the doctrine of the Trinity – not to mention the doctrine of the Incarnation – can be found in passages of Scripture that many Christians have regarded as teaching nothing of the kind. I may be wrong about these passages, but I also may be right. At any rate, I should be willing to share these interpretations with others and seek the guidance of the Spirit about them. And I hope that other Christians would be willing to correct any mistakes that they perceive in my interpretations.

Before closing, I want to note that while Calvin did deny that John 10:30, 14:10, and 17:21 provided support for the doctrine of the Incarnation in some writings, he seems to have been more open to the idea that they provided such support in the 1559 edition of the Institutes, as Steinmetz himself notes. Also, in some early writings, Calvin seems to have allowed that these passages might have secondary readings, though not primary readings, that provided some measure of support for the doctrine of the Incarnation. Finally, Calvin was not the only reformer who seemed to question the Incarnational implications of these passages from John. Steinmetz reports that Melanchthon and Bucer (but not Bullinger) seem to have had doubts about the Incarnational implications of at least some of these passages. However, he also reports that these reformers were not nearly as vocal as Calvin was in criticizing the traditional interpretations of these passages. Once more, we see Calvin’s intellectual courage.