Sárospataki Füzetek 14. (2010)

2010 / 1. szám - TANULMÁNYOK - Sell, Alan P. F.: Milyen megoldásra váró feladatok elé állítja Kálvin a 21. századi egyházat?

Sell, Alan P. F.

of God depended upon the decision of men!’26 Against the fanatics with their claim to be in receipt of extra-biblical, often eccentric, revelations he is no less severe. Those,’ he thunders, ‘who, having forsaken Scripture, imagine some way or other of reaching God, ought to be thought of as not so much gripped by error as carried away with frenzy. ... What devilish madness it is to pretend that the use of Scripture, which leads the children of God even to the final goal, is fleeting or temporal?’27 Calvin insists that the Spirit confirms and brings home the Word, he does not contradict it or supplement it: ‘the Spirit, promised to us, has not the task of inventing new and unheard-of revelations, or of forging a new kind of doctrine, to lead us away from the received doctrine of the gospel, but of sealing our minds with that very doctrine which is commended by the gospel.’28 As B. B. Warfield rightly saw, Calvin’s doctrine of the testimony of the Holy Spirit ‘centres in the great doctrine of Regeneration — the term is broad enough in Calvin to cover the whole process of the subjective recovery of man to God — In which he teaches that the only power which can ever awaken in a sinful heart the emotions of a living faith is the power of this same Spirit of God ...’29 It is because of the Spirit’s testimony both as accrediting Scripture and as applying it to human hearts that Calvin can say, in one of his most pastoral observations on the subject, that the Bible is the only pasture for our souls; it nourishes them to eternal life (C’est la pasture unique de nos ames, pour les nourrir ä la vie etemelleJ.30 In one of his most concise utterances on the subject he states the fact and utters a warning: ‘We choke out the light of God’s Spirit if we cut ourselves off from his Word.’31 No doubt; but let us be careful to draw an important distinction to which James Orr adverted in his Calvin Memorial Address of 1909: we may not rest ‘the authority of Scripture exclusively on the internal witness of the Spirit’, because

it can apply only to Scripture taken as a whole, or in its general teaching, and can hardly be employed for the setdement of critical and exegetical questions, or the determination even of the canonicity of disputed books ... and Calvin himself does not so employ it. He brings his full exegetical power to bear on every passage, and freely uses what critical or historical aids he possesses to determine points of difficulty.32

26 Ibid., I.vii.l.

27 Ibid., I.ix.l.

28 Ibid. Cf. I.ix.3.

29 B. B. Warfield, ‘John Calvin the theologian,’ Proceedings of the Ninth General Council, 141. For a fuller account see his paper in Calvin and the Ri'formation.

30 See G. Baum, E. Cunitz and E. Reuss, Corpus Reformatorum: Joannis Calvini Opera Quae Supersunt Omnia, Brunsvigae: C. A. Schwetschke, 1863-97, IX, 823.

31 Treatises against the Anabaptists and Against the Libertines, trans. B. W. Farley, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1982, 224-5. My focus here on Calvin and the Bible should not be taken as indicating that I regard him as simply a narrow theologian of the Word. On the contrary, I concur in Paul Helm’s judgment that Calvin presents us with ‘a distinctive blend of scriptural appeal, rational argument, and reverential agnosticism’ — not to mention, one might add, a rather heavy dose of swashbuckling polemics. See P. Helm, John Calvin’s Ideas, Oxford: OUP, 2004, 80.

32 J. Orr, ‘Calvin’s attitude towards and exegesis of the Scriptures,’ in Calvin Memorial Addresses, 104. See further David Frew, ‘Calvin as an expositor of Scripture,’ Proceedings of the

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