Sanctification as a Human Process: Reading Calvin Alongside Child Development Theory

Abstract

In Calvin’s doctrine of sanctification and in recent work on children’s moral formation within developmental psychology, we find a surprising convergence. In both cases, moral formation or transformation takes place within the context of a parent’s (divine or human) loving and unconditional commitment to a child. Although Reformed doctrines of sanctification have struggled to articulate how the graced change of sanctification is intelligible as a human process, a comparison between these two approaches shows that sanctification is both intelligible to the moral agent and a genuinely human process. This comparison also highlights affective social acceptance as a condition for moral agency that is infrequently addressed in theoretical accounts of moral formation. WHEN DISCUSSIONS OF MORAL FORMATION TURN TO A CONsideration of children, the goal is generally practical: How can we, the adults, so organize the lives of children that they grow up to be good? These questions certainly have their place, but in moving so quickly from the empirical to the practical, an opportunity is missed to reflect on the person of the child and to consider what his or her emerging moral capacities tell us about human morality as a whole.1 Recent studies of children’s moral development in the human sciences vividly display early familial relationships as the crucial context for moral development.2 They suggest that when these relationships are characterized by unconditional commitment, attentiveness, mutual trust, and affection, the stage is set for optimal developmental outcomes. If the picture of children’s moral development emerging from the last few decades of research is correct, this relational grounding is so foundational that scholars of moral formation from a variety of disciplines would do well to consider the implications for understanding moral growth and transformation throughout the life span.