Calvin. History and Reception of a Reformation Week 3. Calvin's Ethics Sequence 3. The Redeemer's Command There is a form of humanism in Calvin's thought. Indeed, he did not consider it necessary to be a Christian to do God's work. He felt that one could only react with amazement and admiration to the works of ancient jurists, the advances of medicine and the progress of scientific knowledge. For Calvin, these are all gifts from God to human beings. Even without man's knowledge, God acts through her -- and God acts in such a way as to maintain human life. Yet, for Calvin, these activities, though valid, do not exhaust, or encompass, the meaning of life. Calvin says it very clearly: we must distinguish between what he calls earthly (or terrestrial) things, on the one hand, and heavenly (or celestial) things, on the other. Among earthly things, Calvin includes: politics, philosophy, mechanical and liberal arts, and economics (in its original meaning: the art of managing one's household). But all these things together fail to exhaust the meaning of life. Let's quote Calvin: "The distinction is, that we have one kind of intelligence of earthly things, and
another of heavenly things. By earthly things, I mean those that relate not to God and God's kingdom, to true righteousness and future blessedness, but have some connection with the present life, and are in a manner
confined to its boundaries. By heavenly things, I mean the pure knowledge of God, the method of true righteousness, and the mysteries of the heavenly kingdom." Thus there is another reality, one that exists alongside the commonplace, everyday reality of human life, and even of justice. This other reality is God's reality, in which God chooses, or elects, a people -- but not based on any merit on their part or because they are somehow better than the rest, nor because
this people possesses particular qualities that make it agreeable to God. God elects God's people freely. This people was originally called Israel; later, it became the Church. Thus there is within the world another reality, that of God's elected people. To understand this reality, we have only one recourse: Scripture (in other words, revelation). "Sola Scriptura" -- by Scripture alone -- is one of the Reformation's great principles. The phrase "by Scripture alone" implies that true understanding is not achievable, in this regard, through human faculties. Reading the Bible, indeed, teaches us that God elects a people. God elects God's people out of love, yet this love has no cause -- nothing motivates it. It is a love freely given. When God revealed God's holiness, his first approach was to frighten this people, as illustrated by the revelation on Mount Sinai, in order, in Calvin's words, to "arouse them from their lethargy." When God manifested Himself on Mount Sinai with thunder, lightning, smoke and fire, it was in order to effect a sudden transformation in how God's people thought of itself. The aim was not to frighten, but to lead the people to realize the existence in this world of another reality, one it had failed to perceive until then. As soon as God ascertains that God is being heard, God has but one overarching message: you are my beloved children. Calvin refers to this message as "the promise." The promise negates every other ethical system, because everything one has built up, everything one has sought to improve using one's own faculties, and even one's conscience -- all his humanist
ideals and virtues -- melts like hot wax before God's promise. Based on one's own law, the law one discovers within one's conscience, it is easy for one to feel pleased with oneself, to see oneself as virtuous. But when one stands before God, God's Law tells one that everything one has sought to build up by oneself, all the efforts at self-improvement, have been worth nothing
whatsoever. Even if one has been, in effect, following the laws prescribed by conscience -- i.e., if one refrains from killing, stealing, giving false witness and committing adultery -- one discovers when one
stands before God that the "thoughts of one's heart" are very far removed indeed from God's Law. Thus the law, whose purpose of regulating social life was originally political in nature, now turns against the human being. God judges man. Yet every time God judges man, it is to show him God's grace, to show him love, to teach him that he is worth more than what he has shown thus far. This second use of the law -- the law of the Redeemer -- is therefore to show man how far removed he is from what is expected of him and, ultimately, to bestow God's grace upon him. As soon as man hears what God is saying, as soon as he becomes aware of God's promise, the only thing required of him is to trust in his heart in the truth of this promise. This notion is known as "justification by faith." Having recognized the truth of God's promise, man now commits to being, with everything it entails, God's chosen people. God commits to being this people's God, and this people commits to being God's people. The Reformation called this relationship the covenant. And in the covenant, we find a third use of the Law, this time neither as a political tool nor an instrument of denunciation -- used to
show man how far removed he is from God, and how unworthy of God's love -- but as a sign of the covenant. This time, man commits to following God's Law, not for the purpose of any kind of self-realization or to establish a political order reflecting the Creator's will, but so that he may remain
in this covenant with God. This third aspect of the Law is one in which man acquires a different understanding of it. He understands the law differently because it is no longer a self-projected ideal based on his own conscience, or a sign of how far removed he is from what he should be -- which is what
we mean when we refer to a "bad conscience." This time, rather, the Law has not been decreed by one's conscience alone, but by God -- a God who wants to liberate human beings (from themselves, first and foremost) and show them what it means to truly live. Calvin insists on the fact that the preamble of the Decalogue, "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt," carries within it the meaning of the Law. The person who submits to God's Law does so not in search of an idealized self or an impossible superego, but in order to remain in a state of freedom. Submitting to the Law -- for Israel at first, and then also for the Church -- constitutes the condition for remaining in this state of freedom. Thus a new meaning is given to the Law. For Calvin, though the Law remains one and the same, this new meaning allows human beings to live life more fully. The question then becomes: is the human being capable, having acquired this new meaning, of living according to the Law? Is the human being capable of remaining in the covenant? The answer, as we'll see, is that she cannot. Why not? Because human abilities are such that the person is incapable of it. Though one desires to follow the Law, one is unable to do so. Thus, having explored the first level of Calvin's ethics, in which one unilaterally defines one's own standards of justice, we now enter a second level of ethics, in which we are confronted with a
fundamental impossibility: the impossibility for one to carry out what one knows to be right (or just).
