Why you should read Calvin...

One of my goals (Greg) for the upcoming year is to finally, once and for all, read John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion.  This 1,400 page magnum opus has long fascinated and shaped my theological thinking and it's time I plunged full-depth into the work.  This past year Jan & I have waded, with much profit, through St. Augustine's Confessions  and have benefited greatly from the wisdom and perspective of this brilliant and pious saint.  So why read Calvin?  Pectus facit theologum, the heart makes the theologian, said Anselm; and it was certainly true in the case of John Calvin.  In an excellent article by theologian J.I. Packer called "Calvin the Theologian," Dr. Packer writes:

What were Calvin’s aims and qualifications as a theologian, and what was the extent of his achievement? To find the answer to these questions, we shall not need to look further than the 1559 Institutes, the definitive edition of Calvin’s magnum opus, at once confession of faith, Protestant apologia, Christian vade-mecum, Reformation manifesto, and theological text-book—by common consent the finest theological work of the Reformation, if not of all time. Its full title includes the statement that its contents, greatly augmented, had been rearranged for this edition into four books and eighty chapters.

The Institutes introduces itself in the opening chapters of Book I as a treatise on the
knowledge of God. As such, it may be described from two points of view, corresponding to
the traditional distinction between the formal and material principles of the Reformation (that
is, the principle of biblical authority and the doctrine of justification by faith only—sola
Scriptura and sola fide). Formally, it is an analysis of the entire theological content of the
Bible, from which, as the Word of God, our knowledge of God must derive and on which it
necessarily depends. God is the ultimate subject, as He is the ultimate author of all Scripture,
and if we would know Him it is to Scripture that we must go; for it is through His inspired
witness to Himself in Holy Writ that God makes Himself known to us today. Accordingly,
Calvin’s eighty chapters constitute a thorough systematic analysis of all that Scripture
discloses of the will and ways of God, and may be read, from this standpoint, as an extended
answer to the questions: how can men know God? and what is included in a true knowledge
of Him? But this is not all that they are. Just because, formally, the Institutes is an ordered
exposition of the biblical revelation, it is also, materially, a theology of the gospel and a
handbook of evangelical religion; for that is what the Bible, viewed from the standpoint of its
contents, is itself. Inspection shows, first, that the hub of the Bible is the gospel, the New
Testament kergyma, in which the Creator reveals Himself to sinners as Saviour through the
work of Christ and the gift of the Spirit; and, second, that Scripture presents this redemptive
revelation in a practical way for a practical purpose—namely, to restore ungodly men,
through faith in Christ, to a life of obedience and love towards God, in which true religion
consists. Calvin, as a faithful expositor, presents the biblical material from the biblical angle
of approach. Accordingly, his summa theologica is of set purpose, as its title proclaims, a
handbook of religion.

The complete text of The Institutes of the Christian Religion can be downloaded from the excellent and very useful website Christian Classics Ethereal Library. 

Comments

[Kevin T.]

Here are some articles that might interest you...
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20071129/30268_Calvinism_on_the_Rise_in_Southern_Baptist_Life.htm

and

http://www.bpnews.net/BPnews.asp?ID=26937

I think I might just join you guys...I have this on one of my resource CDs. Let me know when you start.

[hossam]

hello,this is hossam
it is really nice blog
an interesting topic
hope be a frinds
cu soon
bye

[Reed]

ok, if this is going to be book club type go, count me in. It has been too long since we last tackled a text together Greg. When do we start? Having Cubbie in the mix will be way too much fun.