John Calvin has proved to be surprisingly useful for modern ideologies. Despite the common caricature of Calvin as the stern Genevan authoritarian, many scholars have argued that his theology was in fact a dynamic, even revolutionary, cultural and political force. In more popular accounts, Calvin has been portrayed both as a liberal and a civic republican, a proponent of secularism and a renovator of theological politics, a capitalist and a sort of pre-Marxist revolutionary. However, while the rather pliable Calvin has been conscripted into radically divergent camps, these ideological interpretations still have to wrestle with what we might call “the historical Calvin” – that is, the John Calvin who – despite (or on account of) his notions of freedom, equity, and liberty – was rather reluctant to embrace more revolutionary political measures in his own day.
While the political dimension of Calvin’s theology has many facets, it might be useful to approach his writings with an orienting question about his view of the relationship between religious worship and external (civil) order. In many contemporary discussions of political theology, there appears to be an operative assumption that the division between church and state is fundamentally institutional. However, at the outset of Calvin’s discussion of civil authority in Institutes 4.20, the political parameters do not neatly map onto this modern distinction. Rather, Calvin’s doctrine of the two governments (in the Latin version, duplex regimen) appears to resist a simple spatial demarcation of the ecclesial and the civil. What is civil is properly “external,” while the spiritual kingdom encompasses matters of faith and doctrine. On the surface, Calvin allows, these two governments appear quite “divorced” from each other. And, at least in the modern conception of church and state, the terms of this divorce would look quite definitive. If the distinction between the two governments consisted entirely of earthly jurisdictions, then it might be possible to partition off specific spiritual duties from what is common to the entire society. However, Calvin suggests at the outset that it is impossible to entirely dissociate the two governments.
In Calvin’s earliest texts, the political order is a good and proper thing, in that it provides the conditions for human flourishing. Yet, according to Calvin, this basis for civic order was confronted by two primary threats: first, the anarchy of radical Christians who argued that civil power was fundamentally anti-Christian; and second, the tyranny of unbounded princely power which dares to challenge (or simply ignore) the “overlordship of God himself.” To rebut both these positions, Calvin’s political theology adopts a rather marked dialectical narrative. First, Calvin establishes that the kingdom of Christ “in no way inheres” in earthly instantiations of power or social hierarchy (4.20.1). In this way, “the spiritual kingdom of Christ and civil government are things far removed from one another.” For Calvin, this move appears to accomplish two primary ends: on one side, it rejects the “Judaic folly” that earthly objects can enclose and delimit the authority of Christ; on the other side, it allows the Christian to live according to two orders, one in which she may be in subjection to earthly power structures, and another (spiritual) order in which there is “neither male nor female, neither slave nor free.”
After denying that the civic order can in any way determine the conditions or reality of Christ’s spiritual kingdom, Calvin proceeds dialectically to restore –contingently – the conditions by which the two regimen overlap. Or, to state things more precisely, Calvin suggests that civic life, while not sufficient to achieve the conditions of Christ’s lordship, nevertheless serves a proleptic function in advance of that spiritual kingdom. Christians must take care not to deny the compatibility of service in both civil and spiritual life. Rather, “while we are still on earth, Christ’s spiritual rule establishes in us some beginnings of the celestial kingdom.” Calvin even suggests that the external “aids” of civic life are “necessary for our journey” toward Christ’s kingdom. Because Christians are eschatologically prior to the fullness of the kingdom, they must not reject the pedagogic function of the external civil powers, or otherwise risk depriving human beings of their humanitas.
The emphasis on the pre-perfected status of both civil and spiritual kingdoms is a crucial distinction. In each regimen, the pilgrimage is still not yet finished (4.20.2). This penultimacy points out a crucial distinction in Calvin’s political thought regarding the religious quality of external order. Calvin clearly sees the defense of “true religion” as falling under the jurisdiction of the civil ruler – even commending the Duke of Somerset for making the “restoration of religion” his “principal object” (Dedication to Commentary on 1 Timothy. See also: Calvin’s preface to the French New Testament (1543), and his commentary on Isaiah 49:23). But how does this duty not conflict with Calvin’s argument that the spiritual kingdom does not “inhere” in earthly things? If the distinction of spiritual and earthly kingdoms were concerned primarily with specific instantiations of power, the tension would appear to be irreducible.
On this account, it may be useful to make a careful distinction between the spiritual kingdom in se and the protection and observance of true worship. For Calvin, the gospel is the content of the spiritual kingdom, and in light of this overwhelming perfection, everything else is a “matter of indifference” (4.20.1). And yet, Calvin clearly favors the external civil protection and promotion of what he considers true worship of God. In fact, he articulates a two-fold benefit deriving from the establishment of civil order: most fundamentally, it preserves “humanity amongst men” which works toward the “cultivation of upright conduct and decency.” But alongside these clearly external, even secular, virtues, Calvin also grants civil power the duty to establish “a public form of religion amongst Christian.” Therefore, rulers have duties which are simultaneously oriented to the entire populace as well as observant Christians. However, it seems crucial to note that in each case, the authority of the civil ruler is public, or external in nature. Providing for the public worship of God, therefore, is a valid – even necessary – duty of civil authority. After all, kingdoms not founded on Christ tempt God’s judgment (Commentary on Daniel 2).
The external-spiritual distinction raises a number of issues. Perhaps most basic is the question of whether external ordinances can claim any proper relation to the spiritual reality. For example, if the state is able to sanction “true” worship, can it likewise claim to represent God’s kingdom on earth? Calvin clearly wants to reject this latter claim (even though he often fails to emphasize this point when addressing political rulers). But if the magistrate has a necessary duty to promote specific instantiations of public religion, how can Calvin divest the state of sacral authority?
In one sense, Calvin does not wish to strip the magistrate of the sacred. Every individual, most especially a Christian, owes proper obedience to the state as God’s “deputy” (Commentary on Romans 13:4). Even a tyrannical state can, to a certain degree, promote the common good and ordering of society – unlike anarchy (Commentary on Romans 13:3). However, the key to delimiting this divinely-derived authority is the realization that such authority does not reside in the magisterial office itself, but in God’s overlordship. Magistrates “are deputed by God and do his business,” and accordingly, “they must give an account to him.”
When it comes to confronting the implications of a powerful and antagonistic state, Calvin is not especially prone to utopian illusions. “Kings and nations rage” against the Lord’s anointed, and so the Christian life is often one lived “under the cross” (Institutes, 2.15.4). Life under tyranny may be a marginal good (insomuch as it avoids anarchy), but it also lead to wretched conditions of existence (Commentary on Romans 13:3). This realization should lead the Christian to see that “the happiness which is promised to us in Christ does not consist in external advantages such as leading a joyful and tranquil life,” nor in wealth or physical security, which belong properly to the future heavenly kingdom. Because the “kingdom of Christ consists in the Spirit, and not in earthly delights or pomp… we must renounce the world” (Institutes, 2.15.5). Passages like this strain the tension of Calvin’s external-spiritual dialectic to the breaking point. While one might expect Calvin’s emphasis on the spirituality of the kingdom to alleviate his demands for civic piety, it seems that – if anything – the opposite is true. Calvin becomes increasingly concerned with the magistrate’s obligation to protect the church and its pure worship. The inner reality of Christ’s kingdom only serves to reinforce the external religious duties of the state.
Calvin’s contemporary interlocutors are not likely to embrace the fullest application of his political dialectic (even the most ardent theocrats would probably demur from his world-renouncing habit). Yet, what aspects of Calvin’s political thought might still have purchase today? What thematic elements are most relevant to the late modern – or perhaps even post-secular – world?
At least two themes may prove useful. First, Calvin’s distinction between external and internal kingdoms (although not unique among the early Reformed) suggests that, although “godly kings defend the kingdom of Christ by the sword,” political power cannot command the heart of an individual like the Word of God can. As Calvin writes in his commentary on John 18:36, “Neither the laws and edicts of men, nor the punishments inflicted by them, enter into the consciences.” Rather, princes “accidentally” defend the kingdom of Christ “by appointing external discipline” and by protecting the church from wicked persons (this kind of language may find a close cousin in Barth’s description of the church’s “unassuming witness” to the kingdom of Christ in the civil community). Even granting this much, Calvin points out that “the kingdom of Christ is strengthened more by the blood of the martyrs than by the aid of arms.” Any external, civic orientation to the kingdom of Christ is strictly provisional, but nonetheless a proper and good thing.
A second potentially significant theme in Calvin is his early emphasis on how the civil community protects common humanitas. The state, as external regimen, protects and fulfills the original creation ordinance for human flourishing. Yet, because it is external, civic life is desacralized and essentially ordinary. However, on the same account, it is also the proper locus for creational participation in the rule of Christ through the transformation of the Spirit. As J. Todd Billings writes of Calvin, the insistence upon the necessity of Christ and the Spirit for human flourishing and regeneration “does not mean that God must violently intrude upon the ‘natural,’ fallen human.” The fact that every individual shares this basic need for the divine gift should drive us “to embrace the whole human race without exception,” since all bear the image of God. This realization in turn should drive us toward a voluntary, rather than a coerced, participation in the terms of civic life. This definition opens up a secular dimension which make otherwise be closed to religious life and observance. After all, for Calvin worship is an integral part of the civic order. If anything, a political community without the worship of God is hardly a true community.
In this way, the clear eschatological end of human society tends “toward free, voluntary participation of persons in the various structures of society,” even when “this eschatological tension is stretched to the breaking point.” Calvin envisions both the ecclesial and civic communities sharing overlapping external goals. The church maintains a position that is “eschatologically privileged,” as it is a place where coercion has been abandoned (at least in theory!). As such, the Christian community presents a pedagogical model for the state. Because Christ has already taken up His kingship, His people are called to orient their temporal lives according to the anticipatory terms of Christ’s lordship. Therefore, civic life after the ascension is itself a pedagogical activity. And perhaps on that account, the reality of Christ’s spiritual kingdom provides political theology with the means to set favorable terms of engagement with civic life – without pretensions, but not without hope.
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