Burns notes that Calvin is a champion of "presuppositional" apologetics, a type of apologetics that says one must accept the scripture as the divine word of God before one can understand anything at all. Choosing belief in the Scripture as a starting point rather than a conclusion wouldn't seem a particularly effective way in persuading those not already Christians to turn to the Christian faith, but the Calvinist approach turns out, in some instances, to be very effective. What do you see in the selections for the Institutes that would explain the appeal of Calvinist-style argument?
One thing I see is that the way this taught by John Calvin, is when you believe in the scipture first you will believe everything. Think of it as a way of teaching faith. look at a Physics textbook you are lead to believe that everything in this book is based on fact, but you can never know this unless you have done ever experiment for yourself. Therfor your acting on the faith that all this is a fact. This is one of the advantages of accepting the scripture first. Not only is it an important part of Christianity, but it is also a great study in what faith is. Trent Dean
ReplyDeleteOne of the keys to Calvin's philosophy is that you need to assume that the Scriptures are true and the Word of God. For most Christians, this should not be an unreasonable assumption. Because of this, when you read the Bible your eyes should be opened up and be able to believe by faith. It is a great view of Christianity that all can adopt, whether Calvinist or not.
ReplyDeleteKent Johnsen
I would agree that presuppositional apologetics would have it's problems in creating converts to the faith. At least for me (and apparently others), belief that the scripture is absolutely true is a bad place to start a defense. I would have my defenses up already. Not being an anthropologist though, I pondered on Calvin's idea that knowledge of the creator is a natural occurrence in all human minds. I spent maybe a half hour trying to think of a culture that doesn't worship some form of God. Atheism isn't that uncommon today, but all cultures that I could think of worship some or multiple deities. The best exception that I could come up is maybe some of the Far East religions that practice Ancestor Worship (ie. Japan)? For a guy who didn't think he'd get much out of Calvin...I'm still thinking about the natural state of God in the mind!?
ReplyDeleteJudaism says the doing come first then the understanding.
ReplyDeleteJerry Taylor
I agree with Scott in his claim that presuppositional apologetic works like Calvin's do not help very much in creating converts. However, I think it is an excellent tool for discussing these topics with other Christians (especially if they are of another denomination) because it uses the common ground of believing the Bible is the inspired word of God. It all depends on who you're talking to.
ReplyDeleteClaire DeMilia
Book I, Chapter III of Institutes says, “That there exists in the human mind … any sense of Deity, we hold to be beyond dispute, since God himself … has endued all men with some idea of his Godhead … that all to a man, being aware that there is a God, and that he is their Maker, may be condemned by their own conscience when they neither worship him nor consecrate their lives to his service.”
ReplyDeleteI think this might’ve been more appealing “back in the day.” Calvin was writing in the sixteenth century, when probably just about all societies had some type of belief in the divine realm, even though those beliefs could be wildly different. The acceptance of the existence of God would likely have been more readily accepted, even if the specifics of Christianity took some convincing to believe in.
Nowadays, it seems as though more and more people are turned off to the concept of a God, gods, or anything not proven by science. I’m not sure many people, at least Americans, would accept that they have an innate sense within themselves of the existence of God. Although, Calvin writes that we are to be condemned by our consciences if we don’t worship and serve God. People today are, by and large, pretty unhappy. Perhaps without realizing it, our consciences are telling us our disbelief is wrong. How does one convince non-believers of that, though?
The fact that he believed that one must accept the scripture as the divine word of God before one can understand anything at all is not all different from some religions today. Some of them won't baptize their members until they are old enough to speak and accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior, whereas other denominations of Christianity believe that if you grow up in the church hearing the word of God, you fully accept God and Jesus as your savior. I think if all denominations of Christianity adopted the Calvinist view, there would be a lot more thinking about which church will work for you.
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