Calvin In Geneva: The Sociology Of Justification By Faith -- By: Rousas John Rushdoony

Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 15:1 (Nov 1952)
Article: Calvin In Geneva: The Sociology Of Justification By Faith
Author: Rousas John Rushdoony


Calvin In Geneva: The Sociology Of Justification By Faith

Rousas John Rushdoony

TO THE average historian, the significance of John Calvin is limited to the fact that he loomed large in his era. He dominated the scene briefly, thinks the historian, and then disappeared, together with his influence, before the march of reason and tolerance, and his place in history is like that of a bare mountain which bulks large at a particular point in the horizon but has no significance or value other than prominence.

Such an approach is devoid of any understanding of the central significance of Calvin, and, in like manner, of Luther. The Protestant revolt was significant primarily, not for its rupture of the medieval church, but for its proclamation of the radical doctrine of justification by faith, which abolished not only the priesthood and the Church but the Holy Roman Empire and the whole social order which depended on the soteriology of mediating institutions. The full implications of the sociology of justification by faith were never realized by the Reformation, but in John Calvin there began a rigorous re-orientation of all theology and all society in terms of that concept, the development of which constitutes the most urgent responsibility today of Calvinist thinkers.

In order to understand the significance of this sociology of justification by faith, it is rewarding to review the relationship of John Calvin to Geneva and to understand why that city, which found itself in sympathy frequently with theologians who opposed Calvin, and showed actual disinterest in the theological divergencies of Servetus, still found Calvin a social necessity and executed Servetus. And that same city council, despite its sympathy with Calvin’s enemies and its distaste for Calvin, found it necessary to insist on an “intolerant” Calvinism.

No society can be tolerant of an assault upon its fundamentals. It can extend tolerance to opinions, actions, and beliefs peripheral to its foundation without harm to itself, and, in times of great peace and security, may temporarily countenance a measure of questioning with regard to its central dogmas. But let that probing grow to more than a trivial degree, and a tightening of defense follows, and the dogmas are enforced rigidly. The greater the threat or crisis in a society, the more rigid is the defense of the dogmas. The essence of Nazi Germany was not totalitarianism but rather a new racial foundation to society. Had the Nazi regime attained its ideal and made its dogma the common assumption of its era, the totalitarian methodology could have been relaxed, for its dogma would have become the “self-evident” truth of the age, even as in India, ages ago, the outcastes came t...

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