The context of natural law: John Calvin's doctrine of the two kingdoms

Journal of Church and State

Volumn 46, Issue 3, 2004, Pages 503-524

  Vandrunen, David ^a  

^a Systematic Theology and Christian Ethics Westminster Seminary   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 43249181392     PISSN: 0021969X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/jcs/46.3.503     Document Type: Article

References (15)

1. See William Klempa, "John Calvin on Natural Law," in John Calvin and the Church: A Prism of Reform, ed. Timothy George (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster/John Knox, 1990), 73-76. Since the writing of this article, several books in English have appeared that make substantial contributions to the understanding of Calvin's natural law thought; see esp. Susan E. Schreiner, The Theater of his Glory: Nature and the Natural Order in the Thought of John Calvin (Durham, N.C.; Labyrinth, 1991); I, John Hesselink, Calvin's Concept of the Law (Allison Park, Pa.: Pickwick Publications, 1992); and Guenther H. Haas, The Concept of Equity in Calvin's Ethics (Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1997). Important also is the recent article by Irena Backus, "Calvin's Concept of Natural and Roman Law," Calvin Theological Journal 38 (2003): 7-26
2. Emil Brunner's articulation of this line of thought provoked Barth's essay cited above; see Brunner, "Nature and Grace," in Natural Theology, 15-64. A short time after Brunner's essay, John T. McNeill penned a relentless argument supporting the continuity of Calvin with his medieval predecessors on natural law: "Natural Law in the Teaching of the Reformers," Journal of Religion 26 (1946): 168-82. McNeill's claims are generally, if more cautiously, supported in Richard A. Muller, The Unaccomodated Calvin: Studies in the Foundation of a Theological Tradition (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 39; Schreiner, Theater, 2-3, 77; Susan E. Schreiner, "Calvin's Use of Natural Law," in A Preserving Grace: Protestants, Catholics, and Natural Law, ed. Michael Cromartie (Washington, D. C: Ethics and Public Policy Center; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 54-55, 73; Paul Helm, "Calvin and Natural Law," Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology 2 (1984): 9-12; Backus, "Calvin's Concept," 11-12
3. This is the approach of Klempa, "John Calvin on Natural Law." See also R. S. Clark, "Calvin and the Lex Naturalist Stubs 6 (May-November 1998): 1-22
4. On this point generally, see Klempa, "John Calvin and Natural Law," 84
5. Lang, "The Reformation and Natural Law," 68-69
6. See Heiko Augustinus Oberman, The Dawn of the Reformation: Essays in Late Medieval and Early Reformation Thought (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1986), 58-59
7. Torrance, "Interpreting the Word," 256-57
8. Recent scholarship has in many ways discredited the neo-orthodox reading of Calvin generally, as well as its quick dismissals of his natural law thought more specifically; for example, see Muller, The Unaccommodated Calvin, vii-viii and throughout; and Schreiner, Theater, 78
9. For historical material on Calvin's legal studies, see especially Cottret, Calvin, 20-23; McGrath, A Life, 58-62; and Ganoczy, The Young Calvin, ch. 3. On various aspects of the importance of Calvin's legal training for the development of his thought, see Backus, "Calvin's Concept"; Haas, The Concept of Equity, ch. 1; Ford Lewis Battles and Andre Mai an Hugo, "Introduction," in Calvin's Commentary on Seneca's De dementia (Leiden: Brill, 1969), 137-38; H. A. Lloyd, "Calvin and the Duty of Guardians to Resist," Journal of Ecclesiastical History 32 (1981): 65 -67
10. For English translation, see Calvin's Commentary on Seneca's De dementia, trans. Ford Lewis Battles and Andre Malan Hugo (Leiden: Brill, 1969)
11. Graham, The Constructive Revolutionary, 158
12. Klempa, "John Calvin on Natural Law," 85, points to the importance of Calvin's distinction between earthly and heavenly things for understanding his natural law thought, though Klempa does not develop this with reference to the two kingdoms doctrine
13. Backus, "Calvin's Concept," 26
14. See Haas, The Concept of Equity, 71
15. Among many examples, see Calvin, Treatises, 77-78