Calvin on Politics - a rough outline

The Political Influence of Calvinism

1. Government is God’s compassionate provision for mankind. Rom 13.

2. Main principles:
· The absolute sovereignty of God which means that all human authority is relative ie not absolute, and therefore is limited.
· Human depravity to be taken into account in those who govern as well as in the governed
· The authority of man over man is only permissible as delegated by God.
· Leaders to be accountable via a senate or similar grouping eg Exodus 18 – Jethro’s advice to Moses – much relied upon by early Protestant writers to limit the power and potential tyranny of a single ruler (although the point of the text itself seems rather to be to distribute the work more efficiently).
· Republicanism as the preferred form of government. Calvin himself though was pragmatic and thought a monarchy could work with checks and balances. These consist, whatever the form of govt., in (i) power being divided between different organs of govt; (ii) having councils of men rather than one ruler; (iii) if a monarchy then a senate of some sort to check any tendency to absolutism.
· Sphere sovereignty: begins with family. Sanctity of autonomy under God to be respected. Then extrapolated, to the city then province then state/nation. ‘Spheres’ include the church, and professional organisations/guilds; Kuyper says science and art are ‘spheres of sovereignty'. Govt must respect these and not encroach and be overweening. (See Althusius below).
· Democracy in the sense that the people were happiest if they could appoint their own leaders; a monarchy should not be hereditary.
· The rulers can be challenged by passive disobedience if they go against the Law of God but in terms of rebellion (active resistance) it should be led by ‘lesser magistrates’; Calvin did not favour populist revolts.
· Any ruler, monarchs included, should be under the law. Tyranny is exhibited by a ruler’s unwillingness to tolerate restraint or live within the law.

3. Calvin saw purpose of government initially as ‘negative’ ie to provide for common safety and peace; but also later to cherish and protect outward worship; to defend sound doctrine and to form our social behaviour to civil righteousness. He saw the role of magistrate (ruler) as ‘the most sacred of callings’.

4. Relation of state and Church – early Calvinists (eg as in Westminster Confession) saw it as the state’s duty to maintain true doctrine as well as protect the externals of true worship. But many came to question this later. In essence Calvinism sowed the seed of separation of church and state. Calvin never wanted a theocracy (church over state) in Geneva; he fought for separate spheres for church and state. In fact it was in his view of church govt., with a plurality of leaders, that many see the origins of his views of state govt.

5. Especially in the young America did the seed sown in Geneva bear fruit in a situation where a new form of constitutional government could be established. It is demonstrable that the pulpits of Calvinist preachers were the most influential instruments in engaging the people to rise up against the English Crown in the War of Independence and establish a Republic.

6. Opposite principle seen in French Revolution (see Kuyper; also Groen van Prinsterer in Hall (below) pp 292-305). That was rooted in the supremacy of reason not revelation, the sovereignty of man not of God. A third option is the idealism or pantheism of German statism (Kuyper). Either man’s reason is sovereign (France), or the state is sovereign and law is some emanation of its mind (Germany). Either way people have no way of challenging the rightness of any laws by measurement against a higher standard. The result is tyranny either of man’s reason or of the state as the only alternative to a Christian based democracy.

For useful books see Calvin's Institutes Book IV.20, 'Civil Government'; Mark Larson Calvin's doctrine of the State(Wipf and Stock 2009); David Hall Calvin in the Public Square(P&R 2009); Abraham Kuyper, chapter on 'Calvinism and Politics' in Lectures on Calvinism(Eerdmans).