Calvin On The Lord’s Supper: Revisiting An Intriguing Diversity, Part 1 -- By: Henri A. G. Blocher
Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 76:1 (Spring 2014)
Article: Calvin On The Lord’s Supper: Revisiting An Intriguing Diversity, Part 1
Author: Henri A. G. Blocher
WTJ 76:1 (Spring 2014) p. 55
Calvin On The Lord’s Supper:
Revisiting An Intriguing Diversity, Part 1
Henri A. G. Blocher taught Systematic Theology and other subjects at the Faculté Libre de Théologie Evangélique (near Paris) since it was founded in 1965, and he still lectures there occasionally. From 2003 to 2005, he held the Gunther Knoedler chair of Theology at the Wheaton College Graduate School of Biblical and Theological Studies.
I. Introduction
The 500th anniversary of John Calvin’s birth has stimulated a comforting profusion of new, and sympathetic, readings of his works. His sacramental theology, however, and especially his view of the Lord’s Supper, has not been the object of much inquiry, even though it was the “hottest” topic among Protestants in his own times and one which consumed a high proportion of his energy. Furthermore, a serious “hermeneutical” divergence has not yet been solved: two rival interpretations hold the field of Calvinian studies. One, which was dominant in the nineteenth century, sees in Calvin a constant opposition to sacramentalism, or, at least, little sympathy for it. The other reading, the majority view in the last six or seven decades, pictures him as a strong sacramentalist, or, at least, a moderate sacramentalist in his own way. Candor acknowledges that both can appeal to significant pieces of evidence; an intriguing diversity obtains among the Reformer’s statements. We may only hope to reach secure conclusions if a review of the data takes into account the full range of Calvin’s teaching through its various genres of utterance and the various stages in the thirty years of his ministry. This I will seek to do in the following.1
WTJ 76:1 (Spring 2014) p. 56
“Sacramentalism,” “sacramentalist”: many dislike such tags. Provided we clarify and define the meaning, however, they remain the most convenient words, and it would be too cumbersome to attempt to avoid them. “Catholic,” or leaning towards a catholic understanding (“catholicizing”), sometimes replaces “sacramentalist”; undoubtedly, the tendency has been that of the great “Catholic” churches (Eastern and Western); yet, the vehemence of Calvin’s polemics against Rome and against “popish” connections creates an uneasy paradox if we call his doctrine “catholic,” and even Luther’s, to whom the second, sacramentalistic, reading makes Calvin’s close. From the other side, “catholicity,” in the older sense, may be claimed by other traditions, as it is by Baptist theologian Daniel H. Williams. “Symbolist” or “symbolic” was common for the first reading of Calvin’s view (non-sacramentalistic), which locates him not too ...
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