John Calvin: Where He Got His Theology and His Manner of Life

The following is an extract from Bob Kirkland’s book, Calvinism: None Dare Call It Heresy (published in 2018 by LT; chapters 1 and 2).

By Bob Kirkland

When one preacher first meets another preacher, it usually isn’t long until the question will come up concerning where they each received their Bible training. The answer will reveal a lot of information concerning the theology and the philosophy of ministry of the new acquaintance.

Concerning John Calvin’s spiritual education, Calvin said:

Augustine is so much at one with me that, if I wished to write a confession of my faith, it would abundantly satisfy me to quote wholesale from his writings.1

WHO WAS AUGUSTINE, AND WHAT DID HE BELIEVE?

Augustine (354-430) has sometimes been referred to as, “the father of the Inquisition” because he set the precedent that force and suppression must be used to stop and control those who were deemed heretics:
The emperor, he [Augustine] argued, had the duty of suppressing schism and heresy, and indeed of putting pressure on heretics to oblige them to convert. “Compel them to come in” (Luke 14: 23) was given a new and unsuspected meaning. Augustine had become the father of the Inquisition.2

In referring to those he considered heretics, Augustine said:

Why . . . should not the Church use force in compelling her lost sons to return, if the lost sons compelled others to their destruction?”3

Augustine also held to many beliefs that line up more with Catholicism than with biblical Christianity.
With regard to infant baptism, Augustine stated:

So that infants, unless they pass into the number of believers through the sacrament [baptism] which was divinely instituted for this purpose, will undoubtedly remain in this darkness.4

Let there be then no eternal salvation promised to infants out of our own opinion, without Christ’s baptism.5

. . . unless this benefit [baptism] has been bestowed upon them [infants], they are manifestly in danger of damnation.6

[U]nbaptized infants not only cannot enter into the kingdom of God, but cannot have everlasting life.7

Augustine also said things to suggest he believed Mary was sinless as can be seen in his book On Nature and Grace in chapter 42 titled “The Blessed Virgin Mary May Have Lived Without Sin.”8 In addition, he believed in purgatory.9

Regarding salvation, Augustine said:

I should not believe the gospel except as moved by the authority of the Catholic Church.10

He made this statement because he believed the only true church was the Roman Catholic Church. He stated:

The Catholic Church alone is the body of Christ. . . . Outside this body, the Holy Spirit giveth life to no one.11

This is the man of whom John Calvin based his understanding of the Bible. According to Augustine, anyone outside the Catholic church is going to Hell. Did Calvin not realize that would have to include him?

A YOUNG CONVERT FRESH OUT OF CATHOLICISM

Within only two years after Calvin declared himself a Protestant, he published his famous Institutes of the Christian Religion. In all of Calvin’s writing, one will not find a clear testimony of his salvation experience. A statement of his “conversion” can only be found in his book Commentary on the Psalms where he writes:

God by a sudden conversion [referring to his sudden move away from the Catholic Church at the age of 23] subdued and brought my mind to a teachable frame, which was more hardened in such matters than might have been expected from one at  my early period of life. Having thus received some taste and knowledge  of true godliness I was immediately inflamed with so intense a desire to make progress therein, that although I did not altogether leave off  other studies, I yet pursued them with less ardor.12

If we assume his vague intellectual testimony of salvation was a genuine salvation experience, he had been a Christian for just about two years when he wrote his Institutes, which is a foundational resource for today’s Calvinism.

It is interesting to note that during that same two-year period, this man that is held in such high esteem by so many Christians today kept himself on the payroll of the Catholic Church for at least a year.13

JOHN CALVIN’S MANNER OF LIFE

Bernard Cottret, a university professor in France, wrote a book titled, Calvin: A Biography in which he clearly shows his admiration for Calvin on several levels. Thus, given that Cottret is not what you would call a critic of Calvin, it lends credibility to the more than 36* executions with which Calvin was directly or indirectly involved that are recorded in the book. Cottret documents the dates of executions and the methods of persecution, torture, and execution. He describes the period of time when Calvin had much authority in Geneva; and when Calvin denounced someone as a heretic (often the denouncement came for criticizing or even just questioning Calvin’s teachings) that person was hunted down. Cottret describes the atmosphere during this time:

Fear of sorcery and of heretics entailed their retinue of hasty, indeed barbarous remedies: imprisonment, torture, the stake.14

Men and women alike endured the torturous imprisonments and deaths.

*Some resources regarding the Calvin-related executions have given numbers as high as 58.

THREE EXAMPLES OF CALVIN’S PERSECUTIONS

Jacques Gruet, a known opponent of Calvin, was arrested and tortured twice a day for a month in an effort to get him to confess to the accusations against him. Then, on July 26, 1547, he was tied to a stake, his feet were nailed to it, and he was beheaded.15

Gruet’s book was later found and burned along with his house while his wife was thrown out into the street to watch. This was not unusual behavior to those who dared to challenge or disagree with Calvin:

Gruet was put to the torture many times (444) during many days . . . In reality such unmeasured use of torture was in Geneva a Calvinistic innovation. Gruet, refusing under the worst stress of torture to incriminate anyone else, at length, in order to end it, pleaded guilty to the charges against him, praying in his last extremity for a speedy death. On July 26, 1547, his half-dead body was beheaded on the scaffold, the torso being tied and the feet nailed thereto. Such were the judicial methods and mercies of a reformed Christianity, guided by a chief reformer.16

Michael Servetus, a scientist, a physician, and theologian was born in Villanova in 1511. He angered Calvin by returning a copy of Calvin’s writings with critical comments in the margins. Calvin drew up a doctrine of over thirty official charges against Servetus, one of which was the rejection of John Calvin’s teaching concerning infant baptism leading to salvation. Five days into the trial, Calvin wrote, “I hope the death sentence will at least be passed upon him.”17 He also stated regarding Servetus, “If he come, and my influence can avail, I shall not suffer him to depart alive.”18

Calvin got his wish on October 27, 1553. Servetus was burned at the stake. He was screaming as he was literally baked alive from the feet upward and suffered the heat of the flames for thirty minutes before finally succumbing to one of the most painful and brutal methods of death possible.

Servetus had written a theology book, a copy of which was strapped to the chest of Servetus. The flames from the burning book rose against his face as he screamed in agony.19

While Michael Servetus definitely had some unbiblical teachings, such as his rejection of the Trinity, he was, as the late apologist Dave Hunt puts it, “right about some things: that God does not predestine souls to hell and that God is love.”20

Some have tried to say that Calvin was not responsible for the cruel manner in which Servetus was executed and that all he wanted was for Servetus to be beheaded (obviously, a less painful way to be executed). Brenda Nickel, a former Calvinist who was featured in a documentary film about Reformed Theology, provides some insight:

Calvin had a long-standing vendetta against Servetus. Servetus foolishly taunted Calvin through letters; thus, Calvin insisted on having him arrested and charged when he entered Geneva. Calvin wanted the death penalty for him. Servetus pleaded with Calvin to be beheaded instead of being burned at the stake, and Calvin was willing to go along with the idea. If Servetus was beheaded instead of burned, then Calvin couldn’t be blamed. Beheading, in this case, was attractive to both Servetus and Calvin. Beheading would be seen as a civil crime and free Calvin from having blood on his hands. French reformer William Farel rebuked Calvin for the thought. Since the charge was religious and not civil in nature, Servetus was burned at the stake.

Melanchthon (Luther’s friend and successor) praised Calvin for Servetus’ death. This execution basically skyrocketed Calvin to fame throughout Europe. It put him on the map, so to speak, as a noteworthy and respected reformer.21

Apparently, Calvin must have felt a need to appease himself of guilt in the murders he had helped to institutionalize.

Bernard Cottret also wrote of the persecution of the Anabaptist Belot:

While he shared the prejudices of his contemporaries against sorcerers, Calvin the churchman remained devoted to one of the church’s principal missions, the denunciation of heresy and the condemnation of heretics. For Calvin the greatest heretics were the Anabaptists. They were the internal enemy, as against the papists, who threatened the development of the “true faith” from outside. Papists, moreover, were not heretics in the strict sense; their errors were predictable, almost programmed, and less dangerous on the whole than those original thoughts that risked affecting the Reformed world itself. In 1545 the Anabaptist Belot held that the Old Testament was abolished by the New. This point of view might be debatable theologically, but did it justify the torture inflicted on poor Belot after he was chained and his invectives against Calvin were laughed at?22

Gruet, Servetus, and Belot were not the only ones to be persecuted for speaking against John Calvin and his institutes:

With dictatorial control over the populace (“he ruled as few sovereigns have done”), Calvin imposed his brand of Christianity upon the citizenry with floggings, imprisonments, banishments, and burnings at the stake. Calvin has been called “the Protestant Pope” and “the Genevese dictator” who “would tolerate in Geneva the opinions of only one person, his own.”23

It puzzles me immensely why anyone would think that God would use such a man as Calvin to be a great leader of Christianity?

In 1 Corinthians 11:1, Paul said, “Be ye followers (imitators) of me, even as I also am of Christ.” Was John Calvin an imitator of Christ in his actions? I see no answer to that question but a resounding, “Not at all!”

CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE

Jesus said in Matthew 5:44, “But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.”

Jesus was persecuted for over thirty years and finally crucified. In Luke 23:34, we read how Jesus responded to His enemies. He said, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” And in John 13:15, Jesus said, “I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you.”

Dave Hunt, who wrote the Calvinist expose, What Love is This?, said:

Perhaps Calvin thought he was God’s instrument to force Irresistible Grace (a key doctrine in Calvinism) upon the citizens of Geneva, Switzerland—even upon those who proved their unworthiness by resisting to the death. He unquestionably did his best to be irresistible in imposing “righteousness,” but what he imposed and the manner in which he imposed it was far from grace and the teachings and example of Christ.24

EXAMPLES OF THE FOLLOWERS OF CHRIST

Stephen’s persecutors did not write a note on the margin of his sermon outline; they were smashing his head in with rocks. He cried loudly, “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge” (Acts 7:60). When Peter, James, John, and Paul were persecuted, they had no desire to strike back at their persecutors. They responded the way they did because they were all under the control of the Holy Spirit. “[T]he fruit of the Spirit is love” (Galatians 5:22). But Calvin had no real persecutors and responded to those who opposed him by having them imprisoned, brutally tortured, and murdered.

Bible Christians who are born again and indwelt by the Holy Spirit never hope the death sentence is passed upon their persecutors as did Calvin when people disagreed with him.

WHAT SPIRIT CONTROLLED JOHN CALVIN?

The primary teaching in Calvinism is the teaching on “election” in that the majority of people God created, He did not elect to save nor did He love them. In fact, He hated them from before they were even born. Under the Calvinist view of election, wherein God does not love every human being or desires that each one come to faith and be saved, it makes sense that John Calvin did not have God’s love toward those he saw as his unsaved fellow man. After all, if God does not even love them, why should he? It is this reasoning that would have made it easy for Calvin to justify the torture and murder of people whom he believed, in his own estimation, to be heretics.

But the Bible says that God is love. And He is righteous, true, faithful, and just. Such are fruits of the Spirit as described in Galatians 5:22, and love is the first one mentioned.

It is hard not to believe that John Calvin was under the influence of some other spirit than the Holy Spirit. You will have to look long and hard to find anything in Calvin’s writings about love. It is certainly not obvious in his manner of life.

---

Endnotes:

1. John Calvin, Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press edition, 1997), p. 63.
2. Stewart Sutherland, Leslie Houlden, Peter Clarke, and Friedhelm Hardy, The World’s Religions (England, Routledge Companion Encyclopedias, 1988), p. 162.
3. Augustine, The Writings Against the Manichaeans and Against the Donatists, Part II—The Donatists (Devoted Publishing edition, 2017), p. 333; also available at Christian Classics Ethereal Library (https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf104.v.vi.viii.html).
4. Augustine, Edited by Philip Schaff, A Treatise on the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins, and on the Baptism of Infants (Aeterna Press, 2014 edition), p. 30.
5. Ibid., p. 29.
6. Ibid., p. 112.
7. Augustine, Edited by Philip Schaff, A Treatise on the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins, and on the Baptism of Infants (Kindle edition, published by Amazon Digital Services), Chapter 8, Kindle location 3350.
8. Augustine, On Nature and Grace (Pickerington, OH: Beloved Publishing, 2014), pp. 35-36.
9. For example, in City of God (Start Publishing e-edition 2012, Kindle edition), Augustine states on p. 533: “. . . it more evidently appears that some shall in the last judgment suffer some kind of purgatorial punishments.”
10. Augustine, Against the Fundamental Epistle of Manichaeus (JehuBooks. A.D. 397, Kindle edition), Kindle location 89, Chapter 5. Also in the print edition of Against the Epistle of Manichaeus Called Fundamental by CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, June 7, 2015, p. 13.
11. Augustine and Chrysostom, Edited by Philip Schaff, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1-14 (Ephesians Four Group, 2015 edition, Kindle edition), Kindle location, 106761.
12. John Calvin, Commentary on the Book of Psalms (Amazon Digital Services LLC, 2011 edition, Kindle Edition), Kindle locations 939-943.
13. Dave Hunt, What Love Is This? (Bend, OR: The Berean Call, 2013, 4th edition), p. 42. Hunt writes: “Most of those today, including evangelical leaders who hold Calvin in great esteem, are not aware that they have been captivated by the writings of a devout Roman Catholic, newly converted to Luther’s Protestantism, who had broken with Rome only a year before. Oddly, Calvin kept himself on the payroll of the Roman Catholic Church for nearly a year after he claimed to have been miraculously delivered from the “deep slough” of “obstinate addiction to the superstitions of the papacy.”
14. Bernard Cottret, Calvin: A Biography (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Pub. Company, English translation, 2000), p. 181.
15. To read more about Gruet’s execution and other Calvin-era executions, read Preserved Smith’s (1880-1941) The Age of the Reformation (New York, NY: Henry Holt and Company, 1920); see page 120 for information about Gruet.
16. J. M. Robertson, A Short History of Freethought, Ancient and Modern, Vol. I (London: Owlfoot Press, 1914), p. 352; citing partly from: “Stähelin, i, 400. Henry avows that Gruet was ‘subjected to the torture morning and evening during a whole month’ (Eng. tr. ii. 66). Other biographers dishonestly exclude the fact from their narratives.”
17. “The Murder of Michael Servetus” (http://www.bcbsr.com/topics/servetus.html). Also see The Ridpath Library of Universal Literature, Vol. 5, p. 89 by John Clark Ridpath documenting actual letters from Calvin discussing the fate of Servetus.
18. J. M. Robertson, A Short History of Freethought, Ancient and Modern, Vol. I, op. cit., p. 354.
19. Will Durant, The Story of Civilization: The Reformation, Vol. VI (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1957), pp. 482-484.
20. Dave Hunt, What Love Is This?, op. cit., p. 79.
21. Brenda Nickel, featured in the documentary film, Wide is the Gate, Vol. 2 (Produced by Caryl Productions; available through Lighthouse Trails or The Berean Call; trailer for the film: http://www.lighthousetrails.com/home/29-wide-is-the-gate-dvd-volume-2-the-emerging-new-christianity.html). Her online book on Calvinism, which includes biography on her years as a Calvinist, can be accessed at http://www.CalvinismNoMore.com.
22. Bernard Cottret, Calvin: A Biography, op. cit., p. 208.
23. Dave Hunt, What Love Is This?, op. cit., p. 74; partly citing Williston Walker from John Calvin: The Organizer of Reformed Protestantism (New York, NY: Schocken Books, 1969), pp. 259 and 107.
24. Ibid., p. 72.

Note: In some endnotes, the source material is taken from Kindle (e-book) editions. When page numbers are given along with Kindle location numbers, these are the page numbers provided by the Kindle edition.