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Why do Calvinists/Reformed reject Traditions using naturalistic premises?

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  • Why do Calvinists/Reformed reject Traditions using naturalistic premises?

    In this thread I wish to first ask whether either Calvinists or Reformed use naturalism as a perspective to cast skepticism on traditions from preceding generations of Christians.

    In his Institutes, Calvin noted that the Lutherans perceived his objection to the Lutheran view of Jesus' supernatural body as subjecting Jesus' body to the "laws of nature":
    These men [Lutherans] teach that he is in every place, but without form. They say that it is unfair to subject a glorious body to the ordinary laws of nature. But this answer draws along with it the delirious dream of Servetus[burned by Swiss Reformed], which all pious minds justly abhor...
    In the course of discussing the Eucharist, he proposed that Jesus' body could not be invisibly in the Eucharist bread on earth because it was up in heaven. He says about Lutherans' objection:
    They give out that we are so wedded to human reason, that we attribute nothing more to the power of God than the order of nature admits, and common sense dictates.
    Calvin's reply was that he proposed that during the Eucharist believers' spirits ascended to heaven where Jesus' body was, and that since his scheme involved spirits going to heaven, it was not subjecting the Eucharist to natural laws.

    In truth though, Calvin's scheme retained a stricter, materialistic sense of objects like Jesus' body, in contrast to spirits, whose natural properties he restricted to the supernatural plane.

    Calvin explained his objection to the Lutheran idea that Jesus' body could be everywhere in spirit form:
    ...but if it is considered one of the properties of a glorified body to fill all things in an invisible manner, it is plain that the corporeal substance is abolished, and no distinction is left between his Godhead and his human nature. Again, if the body of Christ is so multiform and diversified, that it appears in one place, and in another is invisible, where is there anything of the nature of body with its proper dimensions, and where is its unity?
    In Calvin's scheme, the human body according to its very nature must be one that is visible and have proper dimensions and be directly united.

    In contrast, if one proposes that Jesus' body could have a character that became supernatural and could go through walls and disappear like in John 20 , I don't have a conceptual problem thinking it could be invisible and not be restricted to "proper dimensions", or for that matter have the ability to have pieces of itself separated in physical space.

    Just as Calvin proposed that Jesus' body could not be "invisible" due to its human nature, he proposed that John the Baptist could not physically see the Holy Spirit descending on Jesus. Calvin wrote of the Lutherans:
    To conclude, If from the words of Christ, This is my body, it is inferred, that the substantial body of Christ is received by the carnal mouth, it might with equal force be argued that the divine essence of the Spirit was seen by the carnal eye, because it was said, Upon whom ye shall see the Spirit of God descending. Hence it will follow, that the Spirit of God was transformed into a visible dove.
    ...
    They[Lutherans] refuse to admit any trope, alleging, that there cannot be one in words so clear as, This is my body; as if there was not equal clearness in the words, On whom you shall see the Holy Spirit. Were we disposed to indulge in such empty garrulity, what might we not make of the term see, and the name of Spirit? If they say that the form of a dove was the Spirit, nothing can be more absurd.
    http://www.godrules.net/library/calv...calvin_b12.htm

    Dove-Jesus.jpg

    A similar emphasis on the natural order is held by Calvin in his judgment about whether saints' clothes and bones can be involved in miracles. Carlos M. N. Eire writes in War Against the Idols: The Reformation of Worship from Erasmus to Calvin:
    Since the numerous New testament examples of miracles performed through the agency of physical objects provided the Catholics with a scriptural argument, Calvin had to develop a different interpretation of the nature and function of miracles.... in connection with the story of the healing power of pieces of clothing touched by St paul Acts 12:2. These miracles says Calvin are temporary testimonies of the power of God, not a permanent condition of Christian religion. ... All miracles are performed to increase knowledge of the glory of God, he continues, not to further the glory of the saint performing them or, even less of the articles through which the miracles are performed. ... Calvin skirts having to consider the possibility of miracles being wrought through the agency of material objects. He does not deny that God chose such means... but he argues that the time has passed when such things would occur. ... In reference to the miraculous effects obtained by the apostles through chrism and unction, for instance, Calvin advised that it was no longer possible to expect these material objects to be of any use. Now that the gift of miracles had ceased, he said, the figure ought no longer to be employed, and such things should be banished from the Church.
    In contrast, Catholic and Orthodox churches have continued the practice of anointing with physical oil (chrism) since the time of the apostles.
    Even if I accept that the chrism does not itself have power, I have no problem in a supernatural mindset accepting that physical chrism can be a "figure" of a real spiritual process of healing. Consequently, it is only in a materialistic mindset that I prefer rejecting continuing the practice of apostles' chrism.

    Eire continues:
    At the heart of Calvin's argument against the miracles of the Catholic church may be seen his deep distrust of the religious value that men come to place on material objects. he has to accept the possibility of having miracles occur through material mediation, but he does so reluctantily, removing this possibility to remote and specific instances... Calvin's denial of miracles in the material sphere is the capstone of his metaphysical assumptions. Uneasy with any intermingling of spiritual and material, he takes the miracluous out of the ordinary and moves it into the realm of revelation. .... Aside from such extraordinary events, which God intends as proof of his revelation, and not as ends in themselves, there is no intrusion of the divine, spiritual sphere into the matieral. This world operates on its own divinely appointed principles. Religion then does not seek to change the way the material world operates but rather to understand it as it is. : eternally subject to god's will and always incapable of transmiting any spiritual power in and of itself. TO believe otherwise, says Calvin, is to transfer God's glory to His creation, and this is the trap of idolatry.
    Other examples of this kind of thinking I discussed on another thread:
    http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...judge-religion

    This raises the second main question of the thread. If Calvin's system does use materialistic or naturalistic criteria to judge against supernatural Christian traditions held by previous generations, then what is the philosophic basis for using naturalistic criteria for one's skepticism?
    Last edited by rakovsky; 04-18-2016, 12:52 PM.

  • #2
    Calvin's reasoning seems to be that God made the world to follow a natural order, and Calvin places an intense rigid emphasis on the workings of the natural order. For John the Baptist to visibly see the Spirit with his own eyes, or for Jesus' body to be invisible, would be impossible for Calvin. Such acts would go against the nature of the divine spirit and "the nature of a human body", respectively.

    Calvin did not deny the supernatural, but believed they were extraordinary events, such that in practice, those that violate the natural order basically don't happen, except for a few cases like what we read in the Bible like Jesus' resurrection and the incarnation. I am not sure if Calvin anywhere asserted that no healing miracles could happen outside the Bible times, but when it came to holy peoples' objects being preserved religiously, he was categorically dismissive.

    Yet why is it that God, having made the natural world and its order would not occasionally work in it, give it supernatural energy, or perform other such miracles that go against the natural properties of human bodies (in particular Jesus') and of objects? Why is the natural order so strong that such feats categorically don't happen outside Bible times?

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