Sárospataki Füzetek 13. (2009)
2009 / 4. szám - TANULMÁNYOK
"Calvin on the Proper Attitude Toward This Life and the Next” in death? .... Therefore, if the earthly life be compared with the heavenly, it is doubtless to be at once despised and trampled under foot (III.9.4). But then Calvin immediately adds an important warning which sets the above dour comments in perspective. For he continues, “Of course it [this earthly life] is never to be hated except in so far as it holds us subject to sin.” However, he seems to take back what he has just said, for he concludes this section (IX.4) with these grim words: “In comparison with the world to come, let us despise this life and long to renounce it, on account of the bondage of sin, whenever it shall please the Lord.” Three things can be said in regard to these pessimistic statements and the seeming contradictory remark in regard to them. First, note that it is in contrast to the heavenly life that this life seems so grim. Calvin, as we shall see is not all that negative about our earthly existence, but over against heavenly existence it is bound to appear in a negative light. Second, it is due to “the bondage of sin” that this life is “a vale of tears.” God’s creation of humanity and the world was good. After the fall life becomes hard and miserable (see Genesis 3:16-19) and even the creation is “groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now” (Romans 8:22). When viewed from the perspective of Christ’s victory over sin, death, and the devil, the world and all its troubles can be seen in a different light. Third, we must understand Calvin’s negative remarks in the context of his culture. Life in the sixteenth century—and even more so in earlier times—was hard and precarious. Plagues such as the Bubonic Plague, which came to be known as “The Black Death” is estimated to have killed three-fourths of the populations of Europe and Asia in the fifteenth century.12 In his own time Calvin courageously risked his life to minister to members of his congregation who were stricken with a very contagious deadly disease. There is also another passage in Chapter IX where Calvin warns at greater length and with a different argumentation concerning the danger of having a one-sided view of this life. The contempt which believers should train themselves to feel for this life must not make them hate it or be ungrateful to God. This life is so full of unhappiness, but we must also recognize it as a blessing from God. If we do not recognize God’s kindness to us, we are indeed ungrateful.... We are aware of God as Father by . . . the blessings he showers on us each day. So since this life makes us acquainted with the goodness of God, we must not scorn it as though it contained nothing good .... When we have discovered that our earthly life is a gift of God’s mercy, which we 12 Calvin is not unusual in taking a dim view of this life at times. In the famous devotional classic, The Imitation of Christ, written by Thomas ä Kempis a century earlier, we find the same outlook. The title of Chapter 20 reads, Acknowledging Our Weakness and the Miseries of This Life,” version edited and translated by Joseph N. Tylenda, S. J. (New York: Vintage Spiritual Classics, 1998), 104. Sárospataki Fii/,eld 15
