Renaissance Problems in Calvin's Theology1

Abstract

Professor Roy W. Battenhouse has recently presented us with a most stimulating and perceptive essay on “The Doctrine of Man in Calvin and in Renaissance Platonism.” In it he argued that the general mode of Calvin's thought about the states of man—innocent, fallen, and saved—conformed to the pattern of Renaissance neoplatonist ideas of the different levels of human existence. Although the specific conclusions and content of Calvin's thinking (e.g., predestination and the denial of free will) were on their face diametrically opposed to those of Pico della Mirandola and Ficino,Calvin's rejection of humanism for theology, and of reason for revelation, seems to have been a rejection more often of conclusions than of basic definitions and assumptions… . Calvin's doctrine of man may have a subterranean dependence on the very Renaissance optimism and rationalism which Calvin sought to reprove and chasten.