# John Calvin's philosophy and epistemology



## WrittenFromUtopia (Jan 15, 2006)

If you had to guess (of if Calvin has himself revealed it at some point, I'm not sure..), what would you say Calvin's epistemological and philosophical basis was? Was he similar to Augustine in these areas, borrowing from Plato, or was there an epistemological/philosophical viewpoint predominant in his age (and if so, what was it?). Obviously, many post-Kantian theologians are heavily influenced by rationalism (some admittedly, others perhaps unknowingly), but what was the influence of Calvin's day?


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## RamistThomist (Jan 15, 2006)

any answer to this will be an unfair generalization, but Calvin fine tuned Augustine, and Calvin was fine tuned and brought to even more consistency by Van Til.

To be fair, there are Scholastic and Thomistic influences on Calvin, despite his (warranted) harsh language against them. That being said, Calvin proclaimed the Antithesis:

compare

Because what it is to be God is not evident to us, the proposition is not self-evident to us and needs to be made evident ... Such truths about God have been proved demonstrably by the philosophers guided by the light of natural reason.
Thomas Aquinas 
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No long or toilsome proof is needed to elicit evidences that serve to illuminate and affirm the divine majesty, since whithersoever you turn, it is clear that they are manifest and obvious ... Not that knowledge which, content with empty speculation, merely flits in the brain, but that which will be sound and fruiful.
John Calvin


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## WrittenFromUtopia (Jan 15, 2006)

Turretin is far more Scholastic than Calvin, although I guess I would concede Calvin was somewhat Scholastic at times.


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## Preach (Jan 15, 2006)

Gabe, have you ever listened to Bahnsen's (8 volume?) cassette lectures on Calvin's Institutes. I have them all, but I think you can rent them (25 cents per tape) from Mt. Olive Tape ministry. Bahnsen's take is that Calvin's epistemology and apologetics are forerunners of Van Til and attempts to show this by way of expounding the Institutes.

One interesting point regarding Theistic proofs is that in the "Institutes", Calvin puts the proofs for the existence of God after laying the epistemological framework (Christian worldview).


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## RamistThomist (Jan 15, 2006)

Further,
While Calvin had a masterful command of logic, he subordinated logic to the scriptures.


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## RamistThomist (Jan 15, 2006)

To be honest, I tremble with an awe-ful kind of joy when I read this part of Calvin. Even more striking, compare him to the renaissance philosophers who started with man as the ultimate reference point. I wonder how much Calvin knew on epistemology that he didn't tell us? Calvin's statements, while waiting for others to fully draw out the implications, anticipated some of the more powerful epistemological claims of the Reformed faith. Case Study:

_I'm Rational, Darn it!_
A non-Christian philosopher has to assume that the universe is fully knowable to someone other than God. Therefore, finite men try to exhaustively explain the infinite (rationalism then becomes irrational).
Non-Christian rationalism ultimately breaks down (the scheme collapses under its own weight). The rationalist grid is forced to deal with data that doesn´t fit into the rationalist grid. There is a lack of "œfit" between concept and experience. This is evident in non-Christian, religious rationalism. Men substitute "œprinciple" for a personal God. Impersonal principles cannot easily explain a personal God.

_Rationalism's Tunnel Vision_
Right now I am trying to work out the argument against rationalism that says, "In order to know anything, you must know everything. You do not know everything, therefore, you can't know anything."

OR

"You know someone who does know everything at all times and can apply that knowledge perfectly."

_The Revelatory God_
It is the glory of the Reformed faith that we have a God who reveals himself to us and that revelation is the source of all of our knowledge, ethics, and piety. Our God is an absolute God whose claims are total and whose voice speaks to all aspects of life.


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## JohnV (Jan 15, 2006)

> _Originally posted by Draught Horse_
> Further,
> While Calvin had a masterful command of logic, he subordinated logic to the scriptures.




I can't swallow the idea that Augustine "borrowed" his philosophy from Plato. The automatic question is, where did Plato get it then? 

We're all finite, and we do the best we can with what we know, but a Christian has a whole different concept in mind when he philosophizes. I just can't imagine that Augustine's philosophy owes anything to Plato, but rather that Plato's philosophy, if anything, owes that much to pre-Christian Christian philosophers, such as Solomon and the philosophy that descended from him.


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## RamistThomist (Jan 15, 2006)

> _Originally posted by JohnV_
> 
> 
> > _Originally posted by Draught Horse_
> ...



hmm...okay...Do you find Plato's knowledge of Forms and Ideas in the Old Testament? Serious question--I know some of the Joel Garver school of philosophy who claim that the OT is Platonic, which I don't hold to.


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## Saiph (Jan 16, 2006)

Jacob, great quote by Aquinas. Where is it referenced ?


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## Civbert (Jan 16, 2006)

> _John Calvin_
> 
> No long or toilsome proof is needed to elicit evidences that serve to illuminate and affirm the divine majesty, since whithersoever you turn, it is clear that they are manifest and obvious ... Not that knowledge which, content with empty speculation, merely flits in the brain, but that which will be sound and fruiful.



So Calvin was a bit of the empiricist?


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## WrittenFromUtopia (Jan 16, 2006)

While Augustine was influenced by Platonic thinking, apparently he also critiqued it a great deal as well.


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## Civbert (Jan 16, 2006)

> _Originally posted by Draught Horse_
> Further,
> While Calvin had a masterful command of logic, he subordinated logic to the scriptures.



I remember reading some of Calvin where he seemed to say it was a sin to inquire to heavily on God about some things. And I thought it was a bit of a cop out. He basically said that we should not seek answers to questions that were not clearly expressed in God's revelation. 

Subordinating logic to scriptures seems to imply the God's revelation is self-contradictory and we should not try to resolve these kinds of contradictions. My belief is the truth that God want us to understand in scripture can not contain contradictions, and it is our duty to resolve any "apparent" contradictions - because where we interpret contradictions is where we misunderstand God. We are obliged to understand God's Word to the best of our ability and the Holy Spirits power to enlighten us.


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## WrittenFromUtopia (Jan 16, 2006)

> _Originally posted by Civbert_
> 
> 
> > _Originally posted by Draught Horse_
> ...



Where would you place faith in regards to reason?


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## Civbert (Jan 16, 2006)

> _Originally posted by WrittenFromUtopia_
> 
> 
> > _Originally posted by Civbert_
> ...



Faith is belief in the truth of propositions. Saving faith is belief in the propositions of the Gospel. That being said, in order for one to rightly understand the propositions one asserts to believe, he must apply reason to the contents of those propositions. To understand a proposition is (in part) to understand the meaning of the terms it contains, and this is always in relationship to the meaning of other propositions. Without reason, one can not understand. Without understanding, one can not have faith, for one can not believe what one does not understand. Otherwise faith becomes irrational and the irrational is nonsensical. So one might say that faith and reason are two sides of the same coin.


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## WrittenFromUtopia (Jan 16, 2006)

So...


FAITH / REASON


Not...


FAITH
_____
REASON


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## Civbert (Jan 16, 2006)

> _Originally posted by WrittenFromUtopia_
> So...
> 
> 
> ...



Uh... yes?? You'll need to translate that for me.  

Sorry. :embarrassed:


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## WrittenFromUtopia (Jan 16, 2006)

Sorry, hard to draw with these text boxes.

Would you put FAITH on the same 'level' as REASON, or would you put FAITH 'above' REASON?


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## Civbert (Jan 16, 2006)

> _Originally posted by WrittenFromUtopia_
> Sorry, hard to draw with these text boxes.
> 
> Would you put FAITH on the same 'level' as REASON, or would you put FAITH 'above' REASON?



Both really for the sake of epistemology.

All systems of epistemology include fundemental axioms that can not be proven outside that system. These axioms must be assumed true for the sake of the system. In that sense, all knowledge is founded on our faith in the axioms we believe true but can not prove. So the first logical step to knowledge is faith.

But every thing that follows ... follows by reason (logic) if a system is not irrational. This includes our understanding of propositions we consider "faith" propositions like "Jesus died for my sins." 

We believe the Gospel because we have been given the gift of faith. But we understand the Gospel because we are rational beings and therefore understand what each term in "Jesus died for my sins" means, and what the statement "Jesus died for my sins" means.

Soooo....

Faith and reason are two sides of the _knowledge_ coin.  

:lightbulb:_ (just thought of that expression - probably not original but I'm still proud of it) [pats self on back]_


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## WrittenFromUtopia (Jan 16, 2006)

> _Originally posted by Civbert_
> 
> 
> > _Originally posted by WrittenFromUtopia_
> ...



What you are describing sounds more like the FAITH above REASON diagram to me, although they are not absolutes in any way. Also, I wouldn't limit REASON to logic (I think you might be, correct me if I'm wrong), but I'd include empirical evidence and experience within the category of reason as well.


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## Arch2k (Jan 16, 2006)

I am certainly no expert on Calvin, but I do find the following quote interesting.

_John Calvin comments on Jeremiah 44:1_


> I call that knowledge, not what is innate in man, nor what is by diligence acquired, but that which is delivered to us by law and the prophets.



By "innate in man" the pressup takes Calvin to mean rationalism and "by diligence acquired" they take Calvin to mean empiricism. They use this quote to support the idea that Calvin rested on the scriptures alone for knowledge, and that should be our starting point as well.

For more, read An Introduction to Gordon H. Clark


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## JohnV (Jan 16, 2006)

> _Originally posted by Draught Horse_
> 
> 
> > _Originally posted by JohnV_
> ...



I don't buy into that either. 

Of the philosophers that Augustine found most worthy to critique, Plato draws his attention more than any other. He is not shy about acknowledging appreciation of tenets, such as the necessary simplicity of God, but also finds much fault with Plato. However much he is influenced by Plato ought not to be elevated in comparison to how much he is influenced by the Spirit and by Scripture. 

Personally, I find Augustine's spiritual understandings too superior for me to understand. I can only hope to understand but a part of it. Calvin does not owe anything to Augustine on that score. His acute legal mind caught Augustine's rhetorical ( as Augustine used that term ) meanings, and translated them into contemporary critique of the religion of that day. But this done, Calvin relied solely on Scripture for institutes of the Christian religion, not on borrowed paradigms. At least, if he was aware of any borrowed paradigms he would have worked furiously to eviscerate them from his works if they were not firstly purely Scriptural. 

That's not to say that influences from other sources do not find their way into his writings inadvertantly. We could, I suppose, find traces of influence even from Plato if we looked for them. But they would have to be a minor consideration in understanding Calvin, not a major theme under which to interpret him. To do that would be to undermine the value of what he bequeathed to us in his writings. We value them inasmuch as they are purely Biblical, not according to how much they emulate contemporary philosophical trends. Surely he was more of an influence upon philosophy than he was influenced by it; otherwise his works would not have had such an impact as they did down to today. 

If I were to read Augustine or Calvin I would not be looking for Plato's influences. I would be looking for the Spirit's influence. I believe that Calvin was gifted by God for the occasion of the Reformation, to hand down through the generations again the teachings of the gospel without man's suppostions pasted overtop of them. Neither of them were perfect, but the teaching they tried to inculcate is perfect, insofar as they were led by the Spirit. That is the value of their work to us.


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## RamistThomist (Jan 16, 2006)

Very well said, John.


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## JohnV (Jan 16, 2006)

Thanks, Jacob. 

Its nice to see you back, friend.


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