The Priscilla and Stanford Reid Trust

Note: This article was originally published as a feature article in the International Reformed Bulletin (Issue no. 31, Oct. 1967). Though this is but one of an extensive list of shorter articles which Dr. Reid produced during his career, and is not from amongst more recent ones, we choose to include it here because it is of general interest. It is also an article in which he shares his understanding of and appreciation for what has come to be known as a Reformed theological perspective.

The Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century was primarily a religious movement that brought about a major change in Christian thought and belief. At the same time, it went much farther, for it also had a radical influence upon the Christian concept of life and work, that affected not only those who professed to be Evangelical and Reformed Christians, but also many, even Roman Catholics, who did not accept the new ideas. Because of this, the Reformation became one of the most important cultural forces of the early modern period in European history. It helped to reshape many of the cultural patterns inherited from the Middle Ages or developed during the Renaissance, and in this way participated in laying the foundation for the development of modern culture. Within the Reformation itself, however, there were a number of different strains, the most important of which culturally would seem to have been Calvinism.

While most people who claim spiritual descent from the Reformation, and particularly from Calvin, are prepared to turn their attention to the theological and spiritual effects of the Reformation, they have often ignored the wide cultural impact of the movement in its own day. Rather, it has been those who do not accept the views of the reformers who have laid their stress on this point, in the belief that its spiritual significance was unimportant when compared with its cultural significance. Weber, Troeltcsh, Tawney and others are good examples of this point of view. Protestants who today seek to revitalize Reformation thinking should seek to understand what the Reformers did in this area in order that they may see what the men of the sixteenth century accomplished, and perhaps gain some insight into what they should strive for in their own day and generation.

European Culture in 1500

In order to understand the Reformation's cultural influence on the sixteenth century one must take a quick glance at Europe's cultural situation in 1500. Unfortunately in an article of this size, one can present only a few broad generalizations, without being able to bring out the many subtle nuances.

At the time of the Reformation European culture was in serious trouble, suffering from conflicts of interests and classes, and from a breakdown in its historic patterns of thought and action. For this one may find many causes. The repeated epidemics of bubonic plague, The Black Death, that struck parts of "Europe about every ten years from 1346, undoubtedly had an important effect. It helped to push Europe farther into an economic depression that had begun a little earlier and lasted until 1450-70. Only at the end of the fifteenth century did the European economy begin to experience something of the general recovery which helped to revive the influence of the middle class. Along with economic problems went the rise of national states ruled over by usually despotic monarchs who often sought to conform themselves to Machiavelli's Prince. Naturally these developments had a telling influence also on the church which was so much involved in society. European culture was thus in a constant state of conflict and confusion.

This situation was reflected most obviously in contemporary currents of thought. To a large extent the Thomistic synthesis of a sacramental Christianity and Aristotelian philosophy had been rejected in many quarters, in favor of the "via moderna" of Nominalism. The trend away from Acquinas's concept of universals to sheer individualism had received support from Renaissance classical humanism, which stressed the autonomy of the virtuoso. This in turn led to a concept of an irrational universe which came to full expression in the works of men such as Machiavelli, Castiglione and Benvenuto Cellini. Although many not classed among the "intellegentsia" still held to the old ways, extreme individualism was also gradually spreading to the middle class and to the aristocracy.

Evidence of the penetration of society by such thinking is not hard to find. After all, with an expanding economy enterprising merchants and rulers felt that such individualism provided them with assurance that they were on the right track. Consequently, in business, in government, in church and in private life one can see the constant erosion of medieval moral standards. This became most obvious, as is often the case, within the church where the papal court under the Borgias provided a spectacular example. The literary works of the period also show the trend of the day. Humanistic philosophy of the day was leading to an intellectual and moral breakdown of culture.

Yet while one recognizes the chaos of the times, one must always remember that cross currents of reform were also flowing. Not only did such extra-ecclesiastical groups as the Hussites and the Waldenses call for reform of church and society, but Roman Catholics within the church were making the same demands and working for the church's rejuvenation. Savonarola, the Brethren of the Common Life and others provide a few of the most obvious examples. At the same time at the level of the lower classes in both town and country, medieval pietistic movements were gaining influence by their calls for Christians to live a truly Christian life by separating themselves entirely from society. Many of the middle class, on the other hand, were turning from the church in search of a vital, dynamic religion which would give meaning to their life in society.

One finds, therefore, that the early sixteenth century was a time of confusion and contrast. In certain areas such as Italy, the Netherlands, southern Germany and France it was a time of vigorous artistic development and in some of these areas great economic expansion. The rise of an affluent society was very obvious. But at the same time, at the heart of all this apparent progress was conflict, change, a sense of frustration and a fear of what the future might bring forth. European society was in a state of uncertainty. It could perhaps go on as it was, but it looked more as though it would disintegrate into anarchic conflict of opposing individual entities. That it was saved from the latter fate to advance to greater cultural achievements, was due at least partially to the Reformation, and in particular to the cultural influence of Calvinism.

The Calvinistic View of Culture

Luther, as most of the other reformers acknowledged, sowed the harvest which they reaped. Through his doctrines of justification by faith, the priesthood of all believers and the final authority of the Bible for faith and life, he laid the foundation for not only a religious but also a cultural reformation. Yet he never carried his own principles through to their logical conclusions. Living in a conservative society, he himself was a strong conservative, who sough to retain everything that he could from the past. John Calvin, on the other hand, coming from the pushing middle class, trained in the somewhat heady atmosphere of Paris humanism, and facing the opposition of one of the greatest kings of his day, Francis I of France, adopted a more radical attitude. He had a greater appreciation of the need for change than did Luther. At the same time his more systematically articulated theology obliged him to think through the whole matter of the Christian's cultural responsibility and formulate ideas on this subject.

Basic to all of Calvin's thought is the doctrine of the sovereignty of God. According to the first paragraph of The Institutes of the Christian Religion it is the presupposition of man's whole existence. But God's sovereignty does not merely involve a concept of power. It also involves love which God expresses within the tri-une personal existences of the Godhead, and outwardly to men in His sovereign justice and grace. Thus God works all things according to His will, but His will is determined by his whole being.

In His sovereignty, according to Calvin, God has created all things, including man, according to His own will. All that has come into existence owes that existence to His sovereign power and purpose. Furthermore, all that He has created, God also sustains, and governs so they accomplish His will. All things, therefore, are His, for nothing has come into existence nor continues in that state apart from His sovereign action. All aspects of the first man's culture, therefore, ultimately traced their origins and continuance back to Him.

Man as created recognized his position as God's creature and had fellowship with Him on that basis. In that fellowship God revealed to man that He had a unique purpose for him: the use and development both of his own faculties and also of the environment in which He had placed man. The later Calvinistic thinkers have referred to this as man's "cultural mandate". Man was not to disregard his talents nor to ignore his environment but to use them both to the glory of God.

Sin, however, entered into the picture. Man denied God's sovereignty, and so his own responsibility to develop himself and his world for God's glory. Man attempted to appropriate everything for himself and for his own gratification. Such action brought God's curse and rejection. Consequently man, alienated from God, could no longer build a sound and durable culture, for inevitably his sinful nature and desires caused it to disintegrate under his own hands. To Calvin sin, the destroyer of culture, brought all man's works to nought. While he acknowledged the great accomplishments of men such as Plato, he had to point out that after all, without acknowledging the ultimacy of God's crown rights, they were as men spinning around in a glass bowl.

Yet God in His grace has not left man in his sin. He has brought to him redemption through Jesus Christ, who brings him back to a proper relationship to God, thus removing God's curse and giving man a true perspective upon himself and his work. The Christian believer no longer sees himself as simply in this world to work his own will and to exalt himself economically, socially or politically for his own glory. The objective is the service of God in all that he does, that is in all his cultural activity.

But what of the cultural achievements of the unbeliever? Calvin acknowledged quite freely that much that the Christian possessed, he owed to unbelievers. Calvin saw this as a result of God's benevolence even to the most violent opponent of the Gospel such as Cain or Lamech. Man despite his opposition to God must of necessity continue his cultural activity which one might call one of his most basic drives. It is this cultural development that forms the environment of the Church as it seeks to bring men out of the Kingdom of Darkness into the Kingdom of Light. The Church consequently speaks within and to the environment in which it lives.

This immediately raised the question of the Christian's cultural responsibility. The Anabaptists adopted the position that the Christian's responsibility was to separate himself from his cultural environment and set himself up in an environment that was perfectly Christian. The Lutheran tendency was to go along with the environment as far as it did not contravene the divine commandments. The Christian should witness to his environment in order that men might believe the Gospel, but there was no idea of a specifically Christian cultural responsibility. Calvin, on the other hand, insisted that the Christian has a cultural duty and responsibility from which he sought to escape only at the cost of disobedience.

Growing out of this view of Christian cultural obligation Calvin set forth his doctrine of vocation. God had called all men to serve Him in this life, having given to them vocations. The non-Christian does not recognize this, but the Christian should, and in fulfilling his cultural responsibility he is to use and develop his talents to the very best of his ability. Furthermore, he is to use the attainments even of non-Christians, recognizing that all that they have accomplished is a gift of God. In this way, the Christian carries out the cultural responsibility laid upon man by his Creator.

Man's development of a culture and all that it includes: material wealth, social organization and artistic refinement, is for man's use. He does not create a culture and put it in a glass case. Calvin made his emphasis upon the practical importance of human culture clear on more than one occasion. In his enjoyment of culture, man glorifies God and should recognize this fact, for he manifests the glory of God's grace and power in the exploitation of creation. Here Calvin differed radically from the medieval point of view that regarded nature as something almost evil, and certainly not usable for the glory of God because man had to forsake it in order to draw near to God. Also, he differed from the Renaissance humanist who thought of the world as his own possession which he could use for his own glory and satisfaction. Calvin laid down new principles, and provided a perspective that was to exercise a wide influence upon European development in the years to come.

The Effect of Calvin's View of Culture

In attempting to evaluate the influence which Calvin had on the thought and action of his time in the realm of cultural development, it may be convenient to indicate something of the nature of culture. Professor Herman Dooyeweerd has pointed out that the cultural mandate applies to two entities: persons and things. Man's cultural responsibility involves, therefore, society in all its ramifications and the material world in all its aspects. Man is to develop and use both for his own benefit and blessing, and to the glory of God. In this context the term culture includes every aspect of man's activity in this life.

That Calvin and his followers had a very strong influence upon the theological thought of his own day, even among those who disagreed with him, is recognized by most historians. But his ideas soon began to make their presence felt in other fields. Christians began to recognize that all their cultural activity was part of their service of God in this life. To serve God one did not need to enter a monastery or a nunnery or the ranks of the clergy. Thus all that man did had a moral background, even in his use of things indifferent. He was responsible to do all things even the most routine and mundane to the glory of God. This meant a radical change in outlook on life and its meaning.

Calvinism, however, went further, for it also brought about an alteration in man's views of "things". Calvin's emphasis upon God as creator, sustainer and ruler over all of nature meant a new approach to the physical universe. For one thing Calvin gave a new dimension to the idea of natural law. It was not something that existed by itself, but had been created and was sustained by God through the Holy Spirit at all times. Therefore, if man wished to know about nature he should not follow Aristotle's rationalistic method, nor even the medieval technique of seeking explanations of physical phenomena from the Bible. Rather, man must go to nature itself for his answers. As a result he gave theological support to an empirical method of investigation of the physical and social worlds. Of equal importance was his insistence that all knowledge must be used for man's benefit and to God's glory, Since cultural activity should always be applied to life and used in life, mere rationalizing, speculation or even observation for their own sakes meant nothing. Man had the responsibility of using God's good gifts which he had found.

Such cultural activity had two sides. For one thing there was the investigation and use of the physical environment. Calvin, himself, did not bother too much about this as he was primarily a theologian and ecclesiastical leader, but his point of view was not lost on others. The second aspect of cultural development was the study and organization of human relationships. On this subject Calvin, trained as a lawyer, had much to say which has had its effect down to the present day. In these ways he sought to bring all man's activity under the rule of the risen Christ.

In recent years many historians such as Professor Herbert Butterfield of Oxford and others, have constantly reiterated that much more important than the Protestant Reformation was the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century. They do not seem to realize, however, that without the work of Peter Ramus, Bernard Palissy, Ambrose Pare, Francis Bacon and others, all imbued with Calvin's concept of nature and man's cultural responsibility to study and use nature to God's glory, there might have been no such revolution. Copernicus, Vesalius, Galileo and others like them, all seem to have approached science more as philosophers, craftsmen or technicians than scientists, Copernicus, for instance, devised his theory of a helio-centric universe not on the basis of observation, but because the old Ptolemaic system seemed so untidy! It was men such as van Huygens, Isaac Newton and Robert Boyle, coming out of a Calvinistic background and building on the foundations laid by earlier Calvinistic scientific thinkers, who brought about the radically new scientific developments.

Similarly in the field of art, literature and music Calvin had stressed the empirical and the practical. Man should write about the things he knew, and should do so that men might easily understand. Even theologians dealing with eternal verities must stick to what the Scriptures had to say and write comprehensibly for the uneducated. In the field of the representational arts, again the artist should not paint pictures of what he has not seen, such as angels, but rather those things of God's creation or of man's history which he can verify empirically. Hence came the genre painting of the Netherlands, Palissy's pottery decorated with molluscs, fish and the like, and the portraits and landscapes of seventeenth century English and Scottish artists. Even music, whose primary object was to glorify the sovereign God for His power and grace was to have the same characteristics: melody, sonority and dignity. The composers Bourgeois, Goudamel, Sweelinck, Purcell and many others owed much to this viewpoint.

In what one might call the field of social action also, Calvinism not only had very clear ideas, but also a very strong influence. Since all of life is under God's sovereignty, man's cultural activity involves his relations with his fellow man. Under the influence of Calvin's teachings family life took on a new dimension. A wife did not exist merely for the purpose of bearing children and keeping house. She was the man's partner and helpmate in life. Education became not something merely for the few, but for all as far as possible, and it should be practical and applicable in everyday life. In the spheres of economic activity and political action the same was true. Many books have been written on these subjects, so that one only needs to point to the liberating effect that Calvin and his followers had upon economic and political developments in sixteenth century Europe.

To sum it all up, what was the contribution of Calvinism to the cultural development of the sixteenth century? In a culture that was becoming sceptical and irrationalistic in outlook, the first effect of Calvinism was to return man to the belief in a coherent universe governed by law. The physical and social worlds operated not by chance, but according to their God-created structures or patterns. For this reason man could achieve an understanding of them by observation and experience. Not by some rationalistic deduction from general principles, not even by mystical contemplation, but by empirical research alone could man attain a knowledge of his world. This meant, that when man had attained to such understanding, he should then use his knowledge for the benefit of himself and his neighbor, to the glory of God. The long roll of Calvinistic thinkers during the last half of the sixteenth century and the early part of the seventeenth century, bears witness to the widespread influence of this interpretation of cultural activity.

As one looks back over the last half of the sixteenth century, therefore, one cannot but recognize that Calvin inaugurated what amounted to almost a cultural revolution. Sometimes, particularly in the political spheres it resulted in violence and civil war, but even where this did not take place, the changes in society and outlook were frequently striking. Scotland and the Netherlands are two very good examples. Furthermore, in Lutheran and Roman Catholic areas, in order to combat Calvinism, the latter's ideas received careful consideration and often had important effects, as for instance in France. Thus among both Calvinists and anti-Calvinists, Calvin's cultural influence bore fruit that has lasted until today.

In our own age, however, radical changes are taking place. Much of the inherent Calvinistic basis is being cut away, its place being taken by a nominalistic existentialism which leads only to cultural despair and disintegration. We have returned to the situation of the late fifteenth century, having turned the full circle. What the modern world needs, therefore, is not merely evangelistic preaching, but the setting forth of a full-orbed world and life view that gives twentieth century life and cultural activity meaning. The so-called "hippies" finding that existence according to modern thought has no meaning or purpose, have risen in revolt and wish to separate themselves from contemporary society.

The Reformed position, to this writer's way of thinking, offers the only answer. Yet the answer cannot be found merely in turning back to the sixteenth century. As the Reformers themselves did, those who profess to be Reformed in their thinking today must go forward into the twenty-first century. While not cutting themselves off from their own roots, they must ever seek to apply their basic principles to the present and the future, in order that they may present a relevant cultural alternative to the contemporary irrationalism: Soli Deo gloria.