BOOK REVIEW
John Calvin: His Influence in the Western World,

ed. W. Stanford Reid. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1982, 415 pp.

Wesleyan Arminians will profit much from reading this important symposium on John Calvin's teachings and their influence in many Western countries.

As we read what Calvinist scholars say about the influence of their own teachings, we might be in for a few surprises. For one thing, we Wesleyans have often thought of them as antinomian. John Fletcher's Checks to Antinomianism, of course, has them in mind. This book nowhere suggests that they are antinomian, nor even that they have been thought to be. Instead, e.g., W. Robert Godfrey, in treating "Calvin and Calvinism in the Netherlands," says, "Concern for the piety of the church is inherent in Reformed Christianity" (p. 110). And he then quotes F. E. Stoeffler as saying, " 'Calvinism is intrinsically oriented toward piety' " (ibid.). The book correctly speaks of Calvin's stern discipline in Geneva, and of the Calvinist- Puritans as being similarly interested. In fact, a strong case is made for the "law and order" interest in present-day Fundamentalism, and of the Moral Majority's similar interests, as stemming authentically from the Calvinism of the Puritans of Colonial America.

Another surprise that Arminian readers might be in for is this book's interpretation of the way the Arminians were treated at the Synod of Dort. We Arminians have usually felt that our "forebears" were treated unfairly. Only three of the 42 delegates were Arminians, and they had to drop out because they could not take a certain pledge at the outset. Even the 33 invited, non-voting foreign visitors were all Calvinists (see my "Arminian- ism" in Wycliffe Bible Encyclopedia, Moody, 1975). Yet Godfrey says, "The Dutch Calvinists were sensitive to the Remonstrants' claim that they would not receive a fair trial at a national synod," and adds "To insure and to demonstrate the fairness of the proceedings, therefore, the Dutch decided to invite delegations from sister Reformed churches . . ." (p. 106). We Arminians have usually felt that real fairness would have meant that the Arminians would have been part in the inside workings of the synod.

Besides a few possible surprises such as I have mentioned, many of us Arminian-Wesleyan readers will probably receive enlightenment on a number of important matters. For one thing, the book shows that the roots of the rationalism among Fundamentalists, such as Francis Shaeffer, are in Calvin himself. Calvin had been educated as a humanist, before becoming a Christian; and afterward, he still had much respect for humanists and for human reason as an important aspect of the Sovereign Creator's work. This is in part why courses in apologetics are often offered in Calvinistic colleges and seminaries; but none that I know of, in Wesleyan schools. It is in part why J. Gresham Machen earlier this century, accepted the challenge of the liberals to be rational. The reader will find Calvin's rationalism and humanism discussed in the books first chapter, "Calvinism as a Cultural Force," by Robert D. Knudsen. Knudgen, who says, "Calvin may be called a 'humanist'" (p. 15), writes: "It is a mistake to suppose that Calvin's enduring interest in humanistic studies and in man's cultural development was a simple holdover from the time antedating his conversion to the evangelical faith" p. 15).

Another special way in which the book will enlighten many Arminian-Wesleyans is because it will show us that Calvinism is much broader than the decisions of the Synod of Dort-which were directed specifically against Arminianism. A particular view of the Lord's Supper, for example, that was somewhere between the literalism of Luther and the memorial view of Zwingli although I feel that Zwingli’s view includes more than that), is significant in Calvinism. Indeed, R. T. Kendall, who writes outstandingly on "The Puritan Modification of Calving Theology," says that when Mary Tudor "Bloody Mary") acceded to England's throne in 1553, "Calvin's influence . . . was probably more eucharistic than predestinarian" p. 200).

Arminians might also be enlightened by this book's suggestion that Calvin was not only influential in soteriology, but in "ecclesiology." That is, he influenced various countries by his presbyterian form of church government, in which you do not have to waste money, they felt, on the salaries of archbishops and bishops and other administrators. This was only implicit in Calvin, but was made explicit and even dogmatized by Theodore Beza see p. 201).

Still another way in which some of us might be enlightened by the book is because it points out the difference between Calvin and Calvinism, and we have not always been sufficiently careful to do this. On this matter, Calvin himself taught that Christ’s atonement was unlimited, whereas Beza is the one who said that it wag limited to the elect in its efficacy-so that one of the writers says that Calvin became Calvinism in Beza.

We might also be enlightened by reading Calvinists on Calvinism, because they put its teachings positively, and we tend to outline the teachings negatively. For example, they like to talk about God's sovereignty, and we often say, with Arminius, that they teach that this sovereign God is even the author of sin.

This volume also treats in some detail Peter Ramus on pp. 86ff. whose logic Arminius took up with); and in considerable detail the work of William Perkins pp. 202ff), whose Beza-influenced supralapsarianism Arminius responded to in one of his most important works. Carl Bangs' Arrninius Abingdon, 1974 regretfully out of print) mentions Ramus and Perkins, of course; but this new book tells us more about them.

The scholarship in the book is most commendable. The writers of the chapters were well chosen, as experts, and the festschrift which they produced, to honor Church Historian Paul Woolley, long of Westminster Theological Seminary, contains careful treatments in the fields of theology and church history. There might be a bit of the unscholarly and prejudicial, as when Godfrey speaks of "Calvinism's five answers to the five errors of Arminianism" p. 108), not putting "errors" in quotes. Yet on the whole, it is written with commendable objectivity. Calvinism is faulted on a number of counts. This includes Calvin's responsibility for Servetus' martyrdom; the Puritans' putting to death an American divinity student who, according to one witness only, denied the divinity of Christ; and their exploiting the American Indians on the basis that they themselves, the Colonial American Puritans, were the true Israel that was especially blessed of God. The book states that John Knox and others have had to modify Calvin's understanding that heads of state are ordained of God. It also admits that the Colonial American Calvinists did not succeed very well in their attempt to make the whole culture Christian. Along with the heroism of Knox and others, it tells of how prudent William Perkins was, in teaching only his supralapsarianism, and not his beliefs relating to presbyterian church government, at a time when in England you could be summarily burned for the latter teaching.

Nazarene Theological Seminary J. Kenneth Grider

Kansas City, Missouri

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Edited by Aaron R. Bynum of Northwest Nazarene University (Nampa, Idaho) for the Wesley Center for Applied Theology.