This historically significant volume collects Karl Barth's lectures on John Calvin, delivered at the University of Göttingen in 1922. The book opens with an illuminating sketch of medieval theology, an appreciation of Luther's breakthrough, and a comparative study of the roles of Zwingli and Calvin. The main body of the work consists of an increasingly sympathetic, and at times amusing, account of Calvin's life up to his recall to Geneva. In the process, Barth examines and evaluates the early theological writings of Calvin, especially the first edition of the Institutes.
John Calvin in Context offers a comprehensive overview of Calvin's world. Including essays from social, cultural, feminist, and intellectual historians, each specially commissioned for this volume, the book considers the various early modern contexts in which Calvin worked and wrote. It captures his concerns for Northern humanism, his deep involvement in the politics of Geneva, his relationships with contemporaries, and the polemic necessities of responding to developments in Rome and other Protestant sects, notably Lutheran and Anabaptist. The volume also explores Calvin's tasks as a pastor and doctor of the church, who was constantly explicating the text of scripture and applying it to the context of sixteenth-century Geneva, as well as the reception of his role in the Reformation and beyond. Demonstrating the complexity of the world in which Calvin lived, John Calvin in Context serves as an essential research tool for scholars and students of early modern Europe.
The Oxford Handbook of Calvin and Calvinism offers a comprehensive assessment of John Calvin and the tradition of Calvinism as it evolved from the sixteenth century to today. Featuring contributions from scholars who present the latest research on a pluriform religious movement that became a global faith. The volume focuses on key aspects of Calvin's thought and its diverse reception in Europe, the transatlantic world, Africa, South America, and Asia. Calvin's theology was from the beginning open to a wide range of interpretations and was never a static body of ideas and practices. Over the course of his life his thought evolved and deepened while retaining unresolved tensions and questions that created a legacy that was constantly evolving in different cultural contexts. Calvinism itself is an elusive term, bringing together Christian communities that claim a shared heritage but often possess radically distinct characters. The Handbook reveals fascinating patterns of continuity and change to demonstrate how the movement claimed the name of the Genevan reformer but was moulded by an extraordinary range of religious, intellectual and historical influences, from the Enlightenment and Darwinism to indigenous African beliefs and postmodernism. In its global contexts, Calvinism has been continuously reimagined and reinterpreted. This collection throws new light on the highly dynamic and fluid nature of a deeply influential form of Christianity.
In what shape do we find the doctrine of sola Scriptura today? Many modern Evangelicals see it as a license to ignore history and the creeds in favor of a more splintered approach to the Christian living. In the past two decades, Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox apologists have strongly tried to undermine sola Scriptura as unbiblical, unhistorical, and impractical. But these groups rest their cases on a recent, false take on sola Scriptura. The ancient, medieval, and classical Protestant view of sola Scriptura actually has a quite different shape than most opponents and defenders maintain. Therein lies the goal of this book-an intriguing defense of the ancient (and classical Protestant) doctrine of sola Scriptura against the claims of Rome, the East, and modern Evangelicalism. "The issue of sola Scriptura is not an abstract problem relevant only to the sixteenth-century Reformation, but one that poses increasingly more serious consequences for contemporary Christianity. This work by Keith Mathison is the finest and most comprehensive treatment of the matter I've seen. I highly recommend it to all who embrace the authority of sacred Scripture." -R.C. Sproul, Ligonier Ministries
Early New England and the early modern era -- Jonathan Edwards and the Protestant scholastics -- Sources of Christian homiletics -- Sources of biblical exegesis: an ecumenical enterprise -- Sources of the formulation of doctrine: continuity and discontinuity? -- Sources of history as theology -- Conclusion and prospect
John Calvin's understanding of the extent of the atonement achieved in Christ's death is one of the most contested questions in historical theology. In common thought, Calvin's name is closely associated with the 'limited atonement' stance canonized within the 'TULIP' acronym, but Calvin's personal endorsement of a strictly particularist view, whereby Christ died for the elect alone, is debatable. In Calvin on the Death of Christ, Paul Hartog re-examines Calvin's writing on the subject, traces the various resulting historical trajectories, and engages with the full spectrum of more recent scholarship. In so doing, he makes clear that, while Calvin undoubtedly believed in unconditional election, he also repeatedly spoke of Christ dying for 'all' or for 'the world'. These phrases must be held central if we are to discover Calvin's own view of the subject. Hartog's conclusions will surprise some, and may hold significant implications for the Calvinist tradition today. Throughout, however, they are cogently articulated and sensitively pitched.
This study centers on Girolamo Zanchi's De Tribus Elohim (1572), placing it in its political and theological setting. De Tribus Elohim focussed on the grammatical peculiarity of the Hebrew word Elohim (God).
In The Doctrine of God Dolf te Velde examines the interaction of method and content in three historically important accounts of the doctrine of God. Does the method of a systematic theology affect the belief content expressed by it? Can substantial insights be detected that have a regulative function for the method of a doctrine of God? This two-way connection of method and content is investigated in three phases of Reformed theology. The first seeks to discover inner dynamics of Reformed scholastic theology. The second part treats Karl Barth’s doctrine of God as a contrast model for scholasticism, understood in the framework of Barth’s theological method. The third part offers a first published comprehensive description and analysis of the so-called Utrecht School. The closing chapter draws some lines for developing a Reformed doctrine of God in the 21st century.
Is the God of Calvin a fountain of blessing, or a forceful tyrant? Is Calvin's view of God coercive, leaving no place for the human qua human in redemption? These are perennial questions about Calvin's theology which have been given new life by Gift theologians such as John Milbank, Graham Ward, and Stephen Webb. J. Todd Billings addresses these questions by exploring Calvin's theology of `participation in Christ'. He argues that Calvin's theology of `participation' gives a positive place to the human, such that grace fulfils rather than destroys nature, affirming a differentiated union of God and humanity in creation and redemption. Calvin's trinitarian theology of participation extends to his view of prayer, sacraments, the law, and the ecclesial and civil orders. In light of Calvin's doctrine of participation, Billings reframes the critiques of Calvin in the Gift discussion and opens up new possibilities for contemporary theology, ecumenical theology, and Calvin scholarship as well.