Calvin's Doctrine of Faith in Dialogue with Catholics and "Schoolmen": Its Object, Content, and Implications

I wrote this a few months ago when I was in seminary. I thought it was important to go ad--secondary--fontes in order to further understand the instrument of justification.

Sometime in March I will do some spade work with the primary source (Holy Scripture). We will look at the respective roles of and the relationship between the threefold law we find in the NT, i.e., "the law of works" & "the law of faith" (Rom. 3:27), and "the law of Christ" (Gal. 6:2).

Faith and its Many Facets

The following essay will survey John Calvin’s doctrines of faith and assurance in chapter two of book three in the 1559 edition of his Institutes. In order to flesh out the character of Calvin’s doctrine of faith we will first look at the object of faith both for Calvin and his opponents. Then we will turn our attention to the content of faith as taught from their respective positions. In order to appreciate Calvin’s break with the medieval and Catholic tradition we will focus rather narrowly on Calvin’s polemics against the “formed” and “unformed” faith of his Scholastic forebears and Roman Catholic contemporaries. From this vantage point, we will then note the different role of the human will in apprehending faith’s object between Calvin and his opponents. Finally, we will look at the implications of faith as they relate to the doctrine of assurance in the theology of Calvin and his opponents.

The Object of Faith

For Calvin, Christ is both the object and goal of the Christian’s faith (3.2.6; cf. 3.3.19). He says, “For just as [Christ] has been appointed as the goal of our faith, so we cannot take the right road to him unless the gospel goes before us” (3.2.6). Calvin contends sharply against the medieval and Roman doctrine of “implicit faith” in which believers were instructed to embrace as true whatever the church taught concerning God or Christ. Calvin calls the doctrine of implicit faith “fiction” and claims that such teaching not only buries but utterly destroys true faith (3.2.2). In contrast to the Medievals and Rome, Calvin insists that Christ as he is given in the gospel, rather than the church, its teaching, or even a vague depiction of God, is the proper object of a Christian’s faith. He says, “Faith embraces Christ, as offered to us by the Father” (3.2.8).

The Content of Faith

Both Calvin and his opponents believed the intellect played a key role in the apprehension of faith’s object for the Christian. However, Calvin accuses “the Schoolmen” of going completely astray by identifying faith “with a bare and simple assent arising out of knowledge” (3.2.33, emphasis added). By focusing solely on one faculty of the human soul (the intellect) at the expense of the will Calvin believes that Christians are left without any ground for confidence or assurance of heart as it relates to their salvation. He says, “Whatever sort of assent that is, it does not penetrate to the heart itself, there to remain fixed” (3.2.10). Even knowledge, for Calvin, must not be simply understood as bare intellectual assent to faith’s object since “faith is much higher than human understanding” and “ [the mind] is persuaded of what it does not grasp, by the very certainty of its persuasion it understands more than if it perceived anything human by its own capacity” (3.2.14). However, Calvin’s strength over against his opponents is found in the way he incorporates the role of the human will in apprehending faith’s object.

For Calvin both faculties of the human soul must be engaged for faith to properly apprehend its object. The importance of the role of the human will in this process cannot be underestimated for Calvin. He says, “Now the knowledge of God’s goodness will not be held very important unless it makes us rely on that goodness” (3.2.7, emphasis added). Elsewhere he says, “A firm and steadfast constancy of heart is the chief part of faith” (3.2.33). Clearly, for Calvin, true faith does not rest in the intellect alone but includes the role of the human will. Faith is not merely knowledge or intellectual assent through it certainly is not less than that. For Calvin, saving faith consists not only in the intellectually faculty of soul apprehending faith’s object, i.e., Christ, but consists also in an act of the will which trusts and relies on faith’s object.

It should be noted that Calvin’s opponents also place an emphasis on the role of the human will in the Christian’s faith. The Catholic doctrine of fides formata caritate, faith informed by love, taught that faith perfected the will which made Christians capable of producing good works. The performance of these good works, therefore, allowed one to earn merit before God which contributed to their justification. According to the Council of Trent: “For faith, unless hope and charity are added to it, neither unites perfectly with Christ, nor forms a living member of his body” (session 6, chapter 8). Calvin, on the other hand, claimed that the essence of faith consisted in the Christian trusting that God, in Christ, is faithful to save and redeem them as he has promised in the gospel.

Conclusion: Faith’s Implications

One of the chief implications of Calvin’s understanding of faith’s object and its content is found in his doctrine of assurance. Calvin summarizes the Roman and medieval understanding of assurance which based salvation in a subjective assessment of one’s merits and works as “a conditional promise that sends us back to our own works and does not promise life unless we discern its presence in ourselves” (3.2.29). Calvin believes when confidence of salvation is left to the Christian it becomes impossible to know what tomorrow will hold for one’s soul (3.2.40). Therefore he goes to great pains in emphasizing the objective work of Christ and the promises of God’s Fatherly mercy annexed to the gospel as the object of the Christian’s faith. For Calvin these objective promises are not contingent upon one doing anything except trusting, relying on, and resting in these very promises and what they signify. He says, “We make the freely given promise of God the foundation of faith because upon it faith properly rests…faith properly begins with the promise, rests in it, and ends in it” (3.2.29).

For Calvin, contra his medieval and sixteenth century opponents, assurance of salvation is not primarily grounded in the Christian’s objective working, but rather in their subjective trusting in the objective work of Jesus Christ on their behalf for their redemption. In other words, for Calvin, the objective and subjective grounds of the doctrine of assurance find their respective basis in Christ’s work of salvation for sinners and the human will’s trusting in that work on their behalf.