Christian Spirituality and Ethical Life

Calvin's View on the Spirit in Ecumenical Context

Paul S. Chung

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN:
  9781556357909
  9781498250962
• eBook ISBN:
  9781630876975
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

Christian Spirituality and Ethical Life offers a helpful study of the place of the Spirit in John Calvin's theology. It also discovers a notion of the spiritual life in connection with ethical life. It thus overcomes the prevailing popular pictures about the theology of John Calvin in several significant ways, providing a refreshing alternative to the anemic spirituality so prevalent today. It can be stated confidently that Calvin was a theologian of the Holy Spirit in solidarity with the poor, standing in openness to others.

1

The Spirit in Cosmic Dimension

In a theological reflection on creation, Calvin combines the fundamental purpose of creation with twofold knowledge: the knowledge of God and the knowledge of our own being. God reveals himself as the creator to us: “It is one thing to feel that God as our Maker supports us by his power, governs us by his providence, nourishes us by his goodness, and attends us with all sorts of blessings, and another thing to embrace the grace of the reconciliation offered to us in Christ” (Inst. I.ii.1). In this statement we find the locus classicus of Calvin’s understanding of the twofold knowledge of God (Duplex cognito Domini).1 That is, for Calvin, God is known through the creation of the world and in general revelation and as the Redeemer in the person of Jesus Christ.

The God of the Scriptures is identical with the Creator of all things. Furthermore, we may also recognize God’s creative work in terms of God’s saving action in Christ, because all things are created through Christ, the eternal Word of God. According to Calvin, the divine creation and providence belong to general revelation. This knowledge is distinguished from the knowledge of God, the source of which is Jesus Christ.

Calvin views the role of the Holy Spirit as being the mediator of creation’s participation in the divine life. Here the Holy Spirit is understood as the One who is equivalent in dignity with that of the Father and the Son. God created the world with the potential for incarnation in history and the Spirit’s indwelling in human beings. This implies that God’s creation is conceptualized in relation to Christ’s incarnation and the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit in human beings. The significance of the Sabbath thereby becomes clear in that the ultimate purpose of life is to live in holiness, which means the presence of God in the world. If Christ and the Spirit are fully and truly divine, their work should be no less than God’s work in creation. Thus, Christ’s incarnation and the Spirit’s indwelling will primarily accomplish and fulfill God’s aims in creation.

With regard to the doctrine of creation in Scriptures, Calvin interprets the Spirit in creation to be both that of the Father and of the eternal Son. God created the world through the eternal Word. However, this creation is in need of the power and efficacy of the Spirit, so that the world can be sustained and maintained against the falling back into chaos. In Calvin’s view, it is necessary to grasp that God created heaven and earth out of nothing. This creation out of nothing is essential and central to Creator Spiritus, because Calvin understands bara as creatio ex nihilo in the exclusive sense. If we affirm that God the Father is the origin of all things and also the creator of the world, we also should remember that God created all things through the eternal Word and the Spirit. Scripture, according to Calvin, tells us “that God by the power of his Word and Spirit created heaven and earth out of nothing” (Inst. I.xiv.20).

Creatio ex nihilo shows God to be the One who alone is eternal and self-existent. Thus, creatio ex nihilo implies the fact that the world has only one ground, that is, the goodness of God. The expression “out of nothing” does not mean “out of the Nothing,” that is, out of some dark and chaotic power threatening our life.2 Calvin refers to creation of the invisible and the visible, including angels and demons (Inst. I.xiv.3–9). From this point of view we are aware that creation is not, for Calvin, under the sway of a certain fate, but under God’s almighty providence.

How does God sustain the creation? For Calvin, spiritus creator is conceptualized in the threefold way of life in the scope and outreach of creation. Calvin refers to universal life, which consists only in motion and sense, human life, which one possesses as the children of Adam, and, finally, supernatural life, which the believer alone obtains.3 In view of Calvin’s pneumatological framework, Werner Krusche makes an appropriate distinction between the cosmic but hidden power of God (arcana Dei virtus), the general, indiscriminate bestowal of various gifts (dona) upon all human beings, and the particular regenerating work of the Spirit (spiritus adoptionis).4 In other words, Calvin discusses the work of the Spirit concerning the cosmos, all human beings, and the regenerate.

The Cosmic and Universal Dimension of the Spirit

As for the cosmic and universal dimension of the Spirit, Calvin states that “the power of the Spirit was necessary in order to sustain it [the world],” cherishing the earth “by his secret virtue, that it might remain stable for the time.”5 Here we see the Spirit preserving order and giving life, which implies God’s ecological concern within the mission of the Spirit. Put otherwise, this refers to a continuous action of God in the process of God’s creation. “He [God] brought forth living beings and inanimate things of every kind, that in a wonderful series he distinguished an innumerable variety of things, that he endowed each kind with its own nature, assigned functions, appointed places and stations; and that, although all were subject to corruption, he nevertheless provided for the preservation of each species until the Last Day” (Inst. I.xiv.20). God’s ecological care of the world, that is, the preservation of each species until the Last Day, is clear in that God “nourishes some in secret ways, and, as it were, from time to time instills new vigor into them” (Inst. I.xiv.20). Thus, God’s blessing comes. “God blessed them, saying, ‘Be fruitful, and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth” (Gen 1:22).

In this regard, it can be stated that God’s ecological concern in creation stands in connection with God’s providential blessing for human beings. The dominion, which God gives to human beings over other creatures, is the human right to care for the creatures, which is a part of human ethical stewardship and mandate. Our confession that God is the Creator of all being is then associated with our appreciation of God’s providence effectively at work in the present life (Inst. I.xvi.1). The spirituality of a human being in creation is characterized by gratitude, praise, and cooperation with God’s goodness and care for other living creatures.

God stands in a particular relationship to human beings as well as with every kind of creature, and nature itself. Nature, in Calvin’s view, has a two-fold meaning; nature as created perfection (the state before the Fall) and nature as corrupt or fallen nature, that is, accidental under the conditions of sin. Calvin’s praise of nature’s beauty in itself becomes tremendously striking. The created world as “most beautiful theatre” endows “each with its own nature, assigned functions, appointed places, and stations” (Inst. I.xiv.20). The stamp of the divine glory in the created nature is found in heaven and on earth, because God “has written and as it were engraven the glory of his power, goodness, wisdom and eternity.” All living creatures could be witnesses and messengers of divine glory to all human beings to do God service and honor. “For the little singing birds sang of God, the animals acclaimed him, the elements feared and the mountains resounded with him, the river and springs threw glances toward him, the grasses and the flowers smiled.”6

Although Calvin interprets nature to be “the whole array of the physical world including human nature,”7 nature is not supposed to become the divine source of validating the point of contact between God and human beings. Rather it is God’s creature under the promise of covenant that is to be preserved and taken care of in the power of the Holy Spirit for the glory of God. In fact, the Spirit is a point of contact between God, human beings, and nature.

At this juncture, theological talk about nature should not be misunderstood or glorified as a natural theology in its independent way, i.e., “the autonomous rational structure which it develops on the ground of ‘nature alone’ in abstraction from the active self-disclosure of the living God.”8 Rather, in God’s creation nature has its unique place in relation to human life. From nature comes cultural life. By human interaction with nature, political, social, and cultural realms are shaped and developed. If these domains threaten nature, God’s care for life should question and challenge their proper place. The Spirit awakens human beings to their relationship with nature. Here lies the human socio-ethical mandate of stewardship as God’s co-worker in nature with other creatures. We discern the orderliness or constancy of God’s will within nature that is, the ordo naturae. In point of fact, the universe is a book, theatre or mirror, and God appears “in the garment of creation” (Inst. I.v.1).

Along this line, Calvin’s language of the cosmic work of the Spirit can be conceptualized as a theological program for deepening the connection between human beings with nature. Justice, peace and integrity of creation stand in mutual relationship and interaction which are inspired and strengthened by the work of the Spirit. Christocentric theology thus needs to be extende...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Introduction: Calvin’s Theology of the Spirit in the Context of Christian Life
• Chapter 1: The Spirit in Cosmic Dimension
• Chapter 2: The Spirit in the Trinity
• Chapter 3: The Spirit as Communicator of Christ for the Christian Life
• Chapter 4: The Spirit and the Law
• Chapter 5: The Spirit and the Church
• Excursus: Christian Politics in Confession and Resistance
• Conclusion
• Afterword: The Ecumenical Legacy of John Calvin in Reformed and Neo-Pentecostal Dialogue