Calvin's view of natural knowledge of God

International Journal of Systematic Theology

Volumn 3, Issue 3, 2001, Pages 280-292

  Adams, Edward ^a  

^a KING'S COLLEGE LONDON   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 61149221982     PISSN: 14631652     EISSN: 14682400     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/1463-1652.00065     Document Type: Article

References (21)

1. He speaks of a 'way of seeking God ... common both to strangers and to those of his household': John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. J.T. McNeill, trans. and indexed by F.L. Battles, Library of Christian Classics (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960), vols 20 and 21, I. V. 6. Further references to the Institutes will appear in parentheses in the main text
2. The debate was sparked off by the famous controversy between Emil Brunner and Karl Barth on the possibility of a natural theology which, as E.A. Dowey (The Knowledge of God in Calvin's Theology, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994, pp. 265-7), in his brief review of the debate, writes, was itself 'in part a controversy over the interpretation of Calvin'
3. T.F. Torrance (Calvin's Doctrine of Man [London: Lutterworth, 1949], p. 164) sees 'natural theology' as a negative counterpart to 'revelation' in Calvin's system, describing it as the 'the shadow side of revelation'
4. Contra Torrance, Calvin's Doctrine, p. 182, who argues that 'the revelation of the Word of grace ... completely undercuts natural reason and natural knowledge, and puts them out of court'
5. See further Dowey, The Knowledge of God, p. 131
6. In the commentaries, Calvin uses the metaphor of blindness, whereas in the later editions of the Institutes, he speaks of weak vision. As D. Steinmetz (Calvin in Context [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995], pp. 29-31) argues, the shift probably reflects Calvin's realization that the blindness image is too strong since it suggests human ignorance
7. P. Helm, 'John Calvin, the sensus divinitatis, and the noetic effects of sin', International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 43 (1998, pp. 87-107), pp. 92-3
8. See T.H.L. Parker, Calvin's Doctrine of the Knowledge of God, second edn., (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1969), pp. 28-35
9. E. Grislis, 'Calvin's Use of Cicero in the Institutes I:1-5 - A Case Study in Theological Method', Archiv fur Reformationsgeschichts 62 (1971, pp. 5-37), pp. 5-8
10. Grislis ('Calvin's Use of Cicero') argues that Calvin draws extensively from Cicero's De Natura Deonrum and to a large degree follows Cicero's argument. C. Partee, Calvin and Classical Philosophy, Studies in the History of Christian Thought, ed. H.A. Oberman (Brill: Leiden, 1997), p. 43 n. 1, thinks that the dependence is not as great as Grislis contends
11. Cicero, De Natura Deonrum, trans. H. Rackham, Loeb Classical Library (London: Heineman, 1933), 1.16.43
12. M. Schofield, 'Preconception, Argument and God', in Doubt and Dogmatism: Studies in Hellenistic Epistemology, eds. M. Schofield, M. Burnyeat and J. Barnes (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980), pp. 283-308, p. 294
13. Schofield, 'Preconception', p. 294
14. For the Stoics, this means identifying the universe as God. For a concise account of Stoic natural theology see B. Gärtner, The Areopagus Speech and Natural Revelation, trans. C.H. King (Uppsala: Sleerup, 1955), pp. 105-16
15. Cf. Helm, 'John Calvin, the sensus divinitatis', p. 96
16. In making use of Stoic ideas in Instit. I. ii-v, Calvin follows a similar procedure to Paul in Rom. 1. In my recent monograph (E. Adams, Constructing the World: A Study in Paul's Cosmological Language, Studies of the New Testament and Its World [Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 2000], pp. 154-64), a revision of my PhD thesis, I note that Paul adopts Stoic themes in developing his theological argument in Rom. 1:18-32 (though Paul does not make use of the theory of the 'preconception' as Calvin does). As well as specifically Stoic motifs, I argue that Paul depends on the Greek and Hellenistic view of the world as kosmos: the world as an ordered, unified, beautiful, awe-inspiring structure, to which human beings are related as microcosm to macrocosm. To an extent, in Book I. ii-v of the Institutes, Calvin also reflects such a worldview
17. For an account of this view of the world, see Adams, Constructing the World, pp. 64-9
18. H. Sassa (etc.' Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. G. Kittel and G. Friedrich, trans. G.W. Bromily, 10 vols [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964-76], vol. 3, 1964, pp. 367-98), pp. 873-5. (Reference to Sassa was accidentally omitted on p. 64 of my book and on p. 70 of the thesis.) I follow the traditional approach to Rom. 1 which sees Paul as invoking the idea of a natural revelation in his denunciation of Gentile wickedness
19. For a very different reading of this passage see D.A. Campbell, 'Natural Theology in Paul? Reading Romans 1.19-20', IJST 1 (1999), pp. 231-52
20. Cf. K. Barth, 'No!' in Natural Theology, Comprising 'Nature and Grace' by Professor Dr. Emil Brunner and the reply 'No!' by Dr. Karl Barth, trans. P. Fraenkel (London: Centenary, 1946), p. 102
21. Torrance, Calvin's Doctrine, p. 171