United to God through Christ: Assessing Calvin on the Question of Deification

Abstract

'From Calvin's prayer at the end of Lecture 123 on Jeremiah 31. This quotation and others labeled as CTS are from the Calvin Translation Society series of Calvin's Commentaries (ed. and trans. John King et al.; Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1845-1856; repr., Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1981). Quotations labeled CC are from Calvin's Commentaries (ed. David and Thomas Torrance; Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1959), a newer translation. Unless otherwise noted, quotations from the Institutes are from John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles; 2 vols.; Library of Christian Classics; Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960). For many quotations from various works of Calvin's, I have included references to the following Latin editions of his works: Joannis Calvini Opera Selecta (ed. Peter Barth and Wilhelm Niesel; Munich: Chr. Kaiser, 1926), hereafter OS; or Johannis Calvini opera quae supersunt omnia, Corpus Reformatorum (ed. G. Baum et al.; Brunsvigae: apud C. A. Schwetschke et filium, 1863-1900), hereafter CR. 2According to Frangois Wendel (Calvin: Origins and Development of His Religious Thought [trans. Philip Mairet; Durham, N.C.: Labyrinth Press, 1987] 259; see 258-60), Calvin fears anything that might have led to the admission of any deification of man, even by way of Jesus Christ, and even in his person. In addition, Roland Bainton claims that in Calvin, God is high and lifted up, so unspeakably holy, and man so utterly unworthy, that no union between God and man could be thinkable (Hunted Heretic: The Life and Death of Michael Servetus, 1511-1553 [Boston: Beacon Press, 1960] 46-47).