§7 Introduction (part 5 of 7)
Let us now analyze briefly the content of this last section.!°7 We recall that in the second section on church law, which gives us no law, he used the title “Christian Liberty.” This in itself tells us the whole story. Calvin certainly wants those whom he is instructing to plant both feet firmly on the ground. He certainly wants to answer the question: What shall we do? But he can give his answer only in the framework of Christian freedom. Remember that “freedom” is the catchword under which Dostoyevsky distinguishes Christ from the Grand Inquisitor.!®8 Only one thing is at issue even when demands are put: that we should be forced into a situation in which we are thrown back upon God and therefore free, that we should be freed from illusions that might still hold us and that are remote from freedom.
Hence Calvin’s aim in this section is not, as it might seem, the positive one of founding and establishing the ideal state. As before, when he discusses the church, his aim is to show what is God’s will in the orders
166. See n. 136 above.
167. OS I, 258ff.; BI 284ff.
168. The reference is to a passage in Dostoyevsky’s novel in which the Grand Inquisitor tells Christ that all will be happy under them, neither rebelling nor exterminating one another as they would under Christ’s freedom. He would convince them that they would be free only by renouncing their own freedom in the church's favor and becoming subject to it.
Early Years, [509-1536
that exist, with the emphasis not on the existing orders, as in a conservative worldview, but on the divine will! There can be no Christian freedom without submission to the divine will. The rights of government and law and the duty of citizens to obey arise only out of Christian freedom. For in government and law we encounter the order of God that Christians particularly should not seek to avoid.
The enemy whom Calvin combats here is the view OP He Radicals that salvation involves total world reform,!® the setting aside of imperfect government and law. For Calvin this view is so bad that he refrains from expressing his own concern for better government and better laws. We must avoid this “Judaic illusion” that would make Christ’s kingdom part of this world (I, 228).!79 We must not fuse into this world that which does not belong to it but must follow its own logic (ratio). As different as soul and body are Christ’s spiritual reign and civil order.!7! Spiritual liberty is truly compatible with political subjection.!72 Our human status and the national laws under which we live are not the thing that counts, for Christ’s kingdom does not consist of such things (I, 229).!73 So says the father of modern democracy, the man to whom it was not really a matter of indifference whether he continued to live under the laws of old Geneva! But that concern yields to the other concern, that in our desire for better human laws we should never forget or neglect that law of God that is always and everywhere present.
Does this distinction make the civil order an object of indifference and contempt? Not at all! That order is a different thing from the reign of Christ but it,does not stand in contradiction with it. The celestial kingdom begins already with the reign of Christ in us, and in this mortal and perishable life we thus have a prospect of immortal and imperishable blessedness. The point of civil order, however, is to integrate our life, so long as we live among others, into human society, to frame our ways of life according to justice, to make us mutually responsible for one another, to nourish and to cherish peace and tranquility.!74 All that will be superfluous when the kingdom of God that is now hidden in us brings the
169. OS I, 258; BI 284f.
170. OS I, 259; BI 285.
171), OS), 258t5 BL 285.
1722 OSU N25
9 BE 285s
173. Ibid.
174. Ibid.
present life to an end. But while it is the Lord’s will that we should wander as pilgrims in expectation of our true homeland, our pilgrimage demands instruments of that kind, and to strip us of them is to strip us of our humanity (I, 229).!75 A
Note the double meaning of the term “humanity” (Aumanitas) here. It first denotes our earthly pilgrimage far from our true homeland, and hence something no less imperfect than necessary. But this imperfect and necessary thing is the Lord’s will under which we stand here and now. We must not try to evade it even though we see how superfluous such supports for our pilgrimage will be when it is over, when there is no more here and now, when the kingdom of God brings our present life to an end. How lacking in insight it is to try to evade this relative divine will that is valid here and now! As though it were not simply barbarity (immanis barbaries)'76 to give free rein to evil because of some dream of a perfection that is already possible.
Calvin then goes on to list what civil order entails: first, simply seeing to it that life is possible; then seeing to it that there is no idolatry, no blasphemy against the truth of God, no other offense against public religion; that public peace not be disrupted; that the property of all be protected; that regulated dealings between people be possible; that Christian worship be ordered; and again, and obviously unambivalently, that humanity obtain among us.!77 Calvin excuses himself for makng the care of religion a political matter when it is in truth outside the sphere of human competence. He would rather not do this, but his concern is simply to protect true religion against public calumny and slander.!78 Here we are obviously on the level of relative considerations, and Calvin himself points this out. We do not owe our lives to the authorities but to God. God does not need the state to protect himself and his truth. Private property and free trade are not of supreme importance. Humanity is not the key to the door of heaven.
We naturally do not need Calvin to tell us all this. But does it then follow that these postulates, including a loyal protection of the church by the state, do not have a relative justification? The seriousness of the human situation forces Calvin to say that they do, and its humorous side permits
175, OS) 259» BL 286:
176. OS I, 260; BI 286.
177. Ibid.
178. OS I, 260; BI 287.
him to do so. We must not confuse Calvin's justification of the state with political conservatism, for although the general need for the state rests on a command of God, this command is valid only for a time, and, as we shall see, the details are based only on time and:place, not on divine institution.
In Calvin’s doctrine of the state and society we find three trains of thought.;
1. Authorities.!79 Calvin starts out from the fact that the Bible does not merely recognize civil authorities but eulogizes them. He even thinks John 10:34: “I have said, “You are gods,’” has to be related to the civil authorities. He takes it that this and similar passages give those who hold political office a divine mandate and therefore the divine authority to play the part of God in every relation (I, 230), seeing to it that to some degree they act as his representatives.
!80 What kings and their advisers and other officials decide and carry out is thus God’s work. The divine providence and sacred ordinance are a sufficient reason why human affairs are regulated in this and not some other way. Civil authority is thus the most sacred and honorable of things of this kind in all our mortal life.!8! After what I said last time I need hardly give a detailed explanation of these statements that should sound strange to us. We today no longer know what eternity is, and we thus find statements of this kind strange. But those who are as clear as Calvin was that the life we live here and now has the character of parable and pilgrimage can safely venture to make the statements. And we can rest assured that they will not fail to put them in proper light by means of other statements.
What does this dignity that is ascribed to public officials actually involve? Above all things a duty, a responsibility. Having to rule, those who are God’s vicars or legates must remember that in their own persons they have to offer to others a picture, as it were, of the divine providence, protection, goodness, benevolence, and righteousness. If they fail to do this, they sin not only against their fellows but against God, whose justice they besmirch.!82 In their dignity they do have, of course, the comfort that as God’s servants they do what God does, so that those who reject them always reject God.!83 The office of kings certainly differs from that
179. OS I, 260ff; BI 287ff.
180. Ibid.
LSTTOS GiB s/t.
182. OS I, 262; BI 288.
1835 @Oo 2625 BI289%
of apostles, but both rest on divine appointment,!84 even the dangerous office of the monarch. Monarchy or republic? That is a matter of circumstance, conditions, and usefulness. Both forms may be right in the right place. Calvin warns against disputation on such issues.!85 In the light of God’s will it is for us to be obedient where the one or the other exists (I, 231-33).186 The task of government?!87 Calvin issues a reminder that he is not speaking zo the powers that be, but about them. He is thus content with the affirmation that, as is necessary on earth, they must reward the good and punish the bad; this is the judgment or justice to which Jer. 22:3 refers. There is thus no disguising here that we are in the field of opportunistic or relative considerations, that the fact that God is in heaven and we on earth [Eccl. 5:1] applies also to the “gods” on royal thrones and in royal council chambers. For Calvin the divine justification of civil authorities lies precisely in the relativity and humanity of their task as he soberly sets it forth. In his view we may not and should not fail to see the finger of God in this very relativity.
Three short excursuses follow that show us what problems fanatical circles in France had caused at this particular time. First, government means the shedding of the blood of wrongdoers. Should it? Yes, says Calvin without hesitation. He well knows the prophecy of the holy mountain where no one wil! hurt or destroy (Isa. 11 [v. 9]). But the death penalty is simply the unavoidable answer to the fact that in this world the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” [Deut. 5:17] is constantly broken. It is a divine judgment on this transgression.!88 The devout, of course, must not hurt or destroy. But it is not hurting or destroying if the unjust suffering of the devout is punished by divine command. It is not human arrogance to exact this penalty. Since the judgment of God is concealed in it, failure to do so would be human arrogance. From this standpoint, Moses and David, both lenient and peaceable by nature, as Calvin thinks he can state, sanctified their hands by the use of force, and would have stained them had they not used it. They executed the vengeance that is the Lord’s but that the Lord commits to them for its execution.!8? Natu-
184. OS I, 263; BI 289f.
1350S 1263;7B1L290;
186. OS I, 263; BI 291.
187. OS I, 263ff; BI 292ff.
188. OS I, 264; BI 292.
139ROS T6579 B E293:
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rally kings and judges have to remember that clemency is their supreme ornament, but they must remember, too, that there is a superstitious softness that face-to-face with the horrors against which they have to protect us is in fact the most dreadful inhumanity.!9° Note well that what Calvin is arguing for here against the fanatics is obviously not the right of society to defend itself against those who disrupt it but the thought of the divine judgment, which in this world must first take the form of that self-protection of society. Calvin also realized that this is not the ius talionis of eternal law, but as temporal law it is the fearful reflection or likeness of that law, and for that reason it must be upheld.
The second special problem is that governments wage war. Should they do so? Calvin again answers yes. But a conditional and limited yes! They must not resort to the sword under the impulse of passion. It must happen only as a last resort. All other steps must be taken before a decision is made for arms.!9! But finally we have a full and unqualified yes. Wernle comments that Calvin was not aware of the problem that the Radicals discerned.!92 He did at least know, however, the horrors of the reality of war and he had a strong impression of its ungodly nature, as we learn from many passages in which he speaks of it. Is it by chance that he does not mention the name of God here but is content simply to say that the same right which makes governments the protectors of their subjects, guardians of the laws, and a terror to malefactors is also the right to wage war when necessary, but also the right to anticipate what waging war involves, to have standing armies, and to enter into defensive alliance?1!93 Naturally he might have mentioned the name of God in this connection as well, not merely because on his view of God and the world God’s action is also concealed in some way even in our ungodly human action as its ultimate determinative basis, but also because our human action that evokes such horror — and this is the point here — is sanctified when it is performed in obedience to God’s command. The function of government in both peace and war, however, stands under God’s command. We must see to it that justice is done to this command and how it is done, but we should also be on guard against overlooking the fact that in observing the command ultimate and humanly speaking unheard-of possi-
190. OS I, 265f.; BI 294.
LOI OSMA2663 Bi 294:
192. Wernle, Calvin, 147.
193. OS I, 266f.; BI 294f.
bilities are present. To overlook this would be to overlook the seriousness of the human situation, the seriousness of the fact that while the kingdom of Christ is the beginning and the goal, it cannot be or become an element of this world. All the required restraint regarding the ultimate unheard-of possibilities of drawing and using the sword will not and should not prevent us from constantly realizing how serious the situation is.
This was what Calvin wanted to defend against the pacifists of his day. The step from there to what we neutrals in recent years called a theology of war!4 is a very small one, or no step at all. But we must not fail to see the distinction. To defend the right to wage war with the help of divine right is one thing, to illustrate divine right with the right to wage war is another. The latter was what Calvin was doing. Again recalling his own example of Hezekiah destroying the brazen serpent [2 Kings 18:4], we will not ourselves use this overworked example. But that should not prevent us from seeing that for the sake of divine rather than human order Calvin exalted something that is most imperfect and yet most necessary into a duty and a right.
The third excursus is on the raising of taxes, not just for truly necessary because generally useful state expenditures but, as Calvin remarkably and expressly emphasizes, to achieve domestic splendor, to carry out duties of representation, and to make possible the pomp and magnificence that are indivisibly associated with government of any kind.!% To play the parts they had undertaken, David, Hezekiah, Josiah, Jehoshaphat, other pious kings, also Joseph and Daniel, used public funds to achieve this splendor “without offending piety,” as Calvin strangely assures us, untroubled by the doubts that might assail us in this connection.!96 But then, of course, comes the sharp warning that the state treasury belongs to the people. It is the “lifeblood of the people” that is in the hands of the government, and it would be the worst possible inhumanity to squander it.!97 Unjustifiable tax burdens are tyrannical robbery. That is now the passionate cry, not perhaps without some allusion to the government of Francis I, which, as we recall, had made itself hated on this very score. Princes must see to it that what they venture in this field they venture with a good conscience. Wicked recklessness here can easily become contempt for God.!98
194. Cf. Barth’s letters to M. Rade (8.31.1914) in the Barth-Rade Briefwechsel, ed. C. Schdbel (Giitersloh, 1981), 95ff; also to W. Herrmann (11.4.1914) in ibid., 113ff.
195, OSH, 267; BI 295.
196. Loc. cit.
197. Loc. cit.
198. Loc. cit.
Why, we might ask, was the right of governments at this point so important to Calvin? Wernle conjectures that it is the practical Calvin who is speaking here.!199 I do not know. That explanation seems simplistic to me. The directions are not really very practical; we might equally well call them visionary. Perhaps in the representative splendor of those in high and responsible places, which private citizens, the public, could not and should not hope to achieve,20? he saw something divinely significant, a reflection of the majestic divine right that he did not wish to be assailed on obvious rational grounds. Perhaps he was motivated by complaints of fanatics unknown to us, complaints only too comprehensible in view of the lifestyle of Francis, but that Calvin now used, whether they might be justified or not, to clarify once more not the right of princes but Christian liberty.
2. Laws. We now come to a discussion that will help to shed light on all that is puzzling and paradoxical in the first train of thought regarding government. It is not as if Calvin wanted simply to absolutize the given reality of princes and others who happened to be in charge, or of their whims. We find the nerves, or indeed the soul, of the state, he says, in law. Without law there is no government, though the converse, of course, is also true. The law is silent government, the government living law.20! Calvin's concept of the state thus loses that element of the contingent and capricious that seems to cling to it and to the state functions that he has discussed. For Calvin, being blessed by God, if we might put it thus, is identical with the strictest subjection to laws. This being so, the wind is knocked out of pure “legitimism.” For even if, as we saw, Calvin issues unconditional warnings against all revolution, with this question of the legality of a regime the axe is laid to the root of the tree and blind obedience on the part of subjects is made impossible. It is this close link between government and law that distinguishes Calvin’s concept of the state from Luther's.
But what is this law that gives legitimacy to government and with it constitutes the state? In what precedes we have seen that it is a divine command that makes the king a king and that permits and even commands him to draw and use the sword and adopt a kingly style. We have seen
199. Wernle, Calvin, 148, states that for the practical Calvin it was obvious that a king should live as such and show himself to be a king to the people.
200. OS I, 267; BI 296.
201. Loc. cit.
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that it is not for his own sake but for that of the command of God that we cannot deny him these rights. But whence comes this divine command, we might ask, and what is its content? Calvin replies that it is no other than the moral law, which itself is the basic content, valid for all ages, of the revelation to Moses, but which again, as is added by way of explanation, is simply a witness to, and co-knowledge of, that natural law which God has engraven on every human soul.?02 Its content, however, is the eternal and unalterable will of God that we all worship him and love one another.293 Understood and written thus, it is the magna carta or basic law of human society in all its forms. As the ceremonial parts of the Mosaic law were subject to the moral law, and in contrast to it2°4 had only transitory significance, and as the detailed legal provisions of the Mosaic law applied only to Israel, so in laws that are valid today we must distinguish between law in the broader sense (constitutiones) and the sustaining and motivating basis of all laws, namely, that revealed moral law which is simply an explication of the natural law that is innate in everyone and that Calvin sums up in a very sober and practical word, equity.2 It is typical and noteworthy enough that Calvin can here associate the worship of God and neighborly love, and force them, one might almost say, into the Procrustean bed of equity. What resignation, one might say, what a withdrawal from absolute requirement! Naturally Calvin realized that the demand for love of God and neighbor went far beyond the demand for equity. We see this from the fact that he quietly drops the word “love” and uses the more restrained term. The frenetic need to assure us that paying taxes, governing, and waging war are works of love that we find in Luther,2 Calvin wanted to avoid.
The puzzle remains, however, that in him the basic command of God remains here in this strikingly shrunken form. It obviously does so because here only the absolute requirement had to come on the scene, because Calvin had no intention of sketching a plan for the ideal state. But what is the issue? He has to show that the state which has in fact evolved historically does not rest on chance or caprice, that it does not
2O2NOSWIy 269 sBI 298:
203. OS I, 268; BI 297.
204. The MS had jenen here.
205nOS 1,269; BI297.
206. WA 19, 625, where Luther argues that in spite of appearances what soldiers do is in fact a work of love.
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rest on any uncontrollable institution, on any intrinsically sacred origin, or on any arbitrarily invented human orders or statutes, but that it finally rests on the one law of all laws known to us all. That this law is not pure or absolute in a historical, human, earthly entity like the state, or in this or that person or institution, Calvin takes for granted, not because, as Wernle says once more, he is so practical,2°7 but because he has too great a sense of distance to have any such expectation.
But even if in the foreground that which is unclean and imperfect, in this case pagan-sounding equity, is all that remains of the law of all laws, this does not alter the fact that worship of God and love stand in the background,?°8 and that the unclean foreground has at least a share in the dignity and significance of this background. Equity is the form in which the divine command appears in human laws. It is the meaning inherent in all initially meaningless laws, thus forbidding us to free ourselves from existing laws. The question of equity is the question that we can fairly put to state representatives and institutions when, as the fanatics fail to see, there would be no point at all in putting the question of the absolute demand in such cases. The relative is only relative. But it is not for this reason a matter of indifference. Let us see that in the different legal enactments of every age and country one meaning, one requirement, lies hidden. Let us see God even in the imperfect reflection of the human. Let us fear God by honoring the king whom the law of equity legitimates (cf. 1 Pet. 2:17)! This is what Calvin wants to impress upon us. The divine mandate of government is not an irrational sacred cow but a necessity that we can well understand to be rational.
3. People and Government. May we and should we accept the state in practice? This is the last question. The Enthusiasts say no, Calvin yes. But here if anywhere we see that Calvin's real concern is not the state. He does not begin with the state but by way of it, and above it he begins first with God. Though from what we have heard thus far it might seem so, it is really no surprise that in the long run Calvinism was never and nowhere reactionary or merely conservative. In the long run it always had a reforming, unsettling, and even revolutionary effect on state life, and it did so just because it suppressed and stifled all the usual and most obvious
207. Wernle, Calvin, 150, states that Calvin, being very practical, took it for granted that in the main he could speak only of equity. In everything relating to life he stayed close to the realm of the possible.
208; OS 1, 268) BI 297: reasons for revolution and left only the great contrast that what is simply is, that it is the order of pilgrimage, the humanity that is necessary in all its imperfection, and that over against it, truly over against it, is the celestial country.*° This contrast justifies humanity but also unavoidably brings to light its questionability. The great contrast that gives its due to what is cannot but have a most unsettling effect even on what is. When seen in this light, even though justified in this light, the state must be on the watch for what will become of it when its reality is in all too great contradiction with its claim.
Calvin begins with the question whether one may go to law.?!° This was a well-known problem for Radicals. Calvin’s reply is that legitimate complaint and defense at law have a place. Without bitterness, and trusting in the courts, we should seek what is just and good.?!! We should not wish harm to opponents, nor seek revenge, nor insist unconditionally on our own rights. We should look for the friend in the foe. We should handle the dispute in a superior way as though it were already settled. No strife, anger, or hatred, yet still litigation! For if not, says Calvin, pursuing even the most righteous cause is ungodliness. Even Wernle dare not say that Calvin is speaking here as a practical lawyer. A lawyer could hardly speak about litigation in a more unpractical way. How does he mean it? Here again there is method in the madness. To use Calvin’s own phrase, he is depicting a kind of miracle.2!2 That is the point of litigation. It is far too easy to cry out that in reality the miracle will not take place. Naturally it does not, or very seldom does. But what does that prove? The thing itself is still good and pure.2!3 The point of it, the meaning, is the heavenly justification of the meaninglessness.
Those who simply reject the seeking of justice before human judges must realize that they are rejecting the divine order, and that if they keep hammering away at this order they will never be aware of it anywhere. We are certainly commanded to suffer injustice rather than commit it [Matt. 5:39]. We must be ready to find nothing good in this life but bearing the cross, seeking to overcome evil with good [Rom. 12:21], not repaying eye for eye or tooth for tooth. But we can unite all such things and even fulfill
209. See n. 169.
210. Barth has prozedieren, which equals prozessieren.
DN, OSA PAVE Jel AOS).
DD OSL, AFA eh! SKOUy
DiS wkocrcit:
27,
them by earnestly seeking justice, whether on our own behalf or as the public interest demands.?!4 Christians will suppress the love of battle that plays a part in every trial. They will keep alive in their hearts the love that bears all things even when they are in court. But for that very reason they can go to court. Is Calvin defending litigation or is he defending the great and secret possibility of a common striving for justice and truth that lies concealed in this unpleasant garb? I think that to put this question is to answer it. It is obvious, however, that on this view litigation must be something very different from what first appears, that it necessarily effects a revolution of its own. And we need to ask ourselves: Which is really more revolutionary, the refusal of the Anabaptists or Calvin's rejection of it, his apparent connivance and cooperation with the world?
After that odd example Calvin takes up the main theme of the final train of thought which also concludes the whole work. The duty of subjects to rulers is that of respecting and obeying the divine mandate entrusted to the latter.215 We should not view government as a necessary evil. We should warmly and sincerely cherish it. We should meet its demands with a ready mind.2!6 Temperately renouncing self-will, we should realize that the authorities and not private citizens are the true subjects in public life.2!7 It is for them to act and take the initiative. Citizens do so only to the extent that the constitution provides. If it does not, they must be content to play a part in achieving what they regard as needed for improvement.
The problem of bad government, of the tyrant, arises here. What if the ruler is not what he should be, the father of the fatherland, the shepherd of his people? Does the obligation of obedience and respect fall to the ground because nothing may in fact be seen of the divine image that he ought to reflect??!8 Calvin begins with the natural and obvious right to revolt. In all ages a hatred of tyrants has been innate in our hearts no less than a love of good rulers. But this sentiment or resentment must not be the deciding factor. Divine right is still present in the right of government even when those who rule are not worthy of it. But the divine right is then disclosed more plainly in its true character. It is the right of the divine Judge and Avenger that is revealed in the injustice of a bad ruler against
214, OS I, 272; BI 301.
JINGY, COWS) I, 7B JIL BOB.
216. Loc. cit.
217. OS I, 274; BI 304.
2NS OS I275sBiIN3 046
his people. A wicked ruler is the wrath of God on earth. Hence that ruler, too, shares in the divine majesty. Even the most terrible man who holds office, unworthy of any honor at all, is still as such the holder of that wonderful divine power which the Lord of justice and judgment has committed to his servants, and he must be honored by his subjects accordingly.*!9 Along such lines we must view even the most unjust of rulers from the standpoint of his divine appointment.220
What Calvin has in mind he illustrates by the so-called right of kings in 1 Samuel 8, which without exaggerating depicts the power of the king over his subjects in terrifyingly harsh colors. Are all these acts of violence the right of kings? No, by right, by law, kings should not act in this way. But it is their right in relation to the people, and though it is personally wrong for them, subjects must not contest it, for they are kings.2?! As Jeremiah says, God, the Creator of all things, has delivered the peoples into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar his servant, and woe to all those who resist his hand. But serve the king of Babylon and you will live. Thus it is sedition against even the worst of rulers to think we should treat them as they deserve.222 Instead, seek the best for Babylon to which the Lord has taken you (Jer. 29 [v. 7]). Again, even though David was himself chosen to be king, he did not harm Saul. Why? Because Saul was the Lord’s anointed.223 We should not have regard to individuals but to their role, which that “inviolable majesty” encircles.224 We cannot want to repay authorities tit for tat anymore than in the case of husbands and wives or children and parents. In marriage the law of love obtains even though the other225 be a fragile vessel. The command to honor parents holds sway even though they do not do their duty. Similarly, the command to obey governments obtains even though the regime be bad.??¢ Calvin is willing to go thus far, not so as to overvalue or glorify the state (I can only repeat that that is not his point), but out of concern to clarify by this actual problem what Christian liberty is, the divine right under which we are set in Christ.
219, OS 1,275; BI 305:
220. OS I, 276; BI 306.
DINOS slg2//65, Ble3 07s
227.4081, 2775 BL 507,
223,081,277; BL 308.
224. Ibid.
225. Le., the spouse.
2262 OS 1,278; Bl 309.
I do not know whether my understanding of this section has convinced you so far. I freely admit that it is not the most obvious or the clearest, especially when we read the section alone. Here, as in Romans 13, which deals with the same problem, what seems to be the most faithful historical interpretation is that we have an acceptance, justification, exalting, and extolling of the state, and how we are to explain that, well, it simply is so by God’s command unless one can find some external pragmatic explanation or other.22” As an example of the latter I will take Wernle’s explanation because it is the most recent and the most illuminating that I know. Wernle concludes that Calvin was (a) a French royalist, (b) a follower of Paul tied to the wording of Romans 13, and (c) a practical man.228 J can only say that if I had to be content with this type of explanation, then at this decisive point, but basically in relation to Calvin as a whole, I would be confronted by a blank hole of which I could have absolutely no understanding at all. Wernle speaks of the glorifying of state power as such, but what would be the point of that here at the end and climax of Calvin’s instruction in Christianity? With what inner right does such a thesis come into connection with what Calvin thinks and desires? What in the world does the fact that Calvin was a French royalist, a literal expositor of Romans 13, or a practical man, have to do with the title “Christian Liberty” under which Calvin has contingently set these contingent matters? A man who had so little idea of what he wanted, or was so little aware of what he was doing, would not in my book be a living man but a wax figure, like the author of Romans 13 if, as almost all expositors say, he,followed up what he had to say about divine wrath and righteousness, human misery and redemption, election and self-offering, with an immediate and disconnected but enthusiastic eulogizing of the state, and then just afterward, as though nothing had happened, proclaimed the end of all things, the imminent day of Jesus Christ. If such contradictions are to have the last word just because a superficial literal
227. Cf. Barth’s Rémerbrief, 2nd ed. (Munich, 1922), 424ff, on 13:1f., where Barth argues that only apparently do we have here a positive basis for total subjection, since the decisive word “God” does not have here alone in the epistle the significance of what is metaphysically unequivocal and given. What use is faithfulness to the wording if it is purchased at the expense of unfaithfulness to the Word?
228. Wernle, Calvin, 158f., states that no one glorified the power of government more than Calvin. In spite of everything Calvin spoke as a French royalist, yet also as a disciple of Paul, and it is hard, he says, to see how a Christian who is so closely tied to what Paul says can take any other position on this issue. reading that is out of context seems to support them, then Paul and Calvin were poverty-stricken opportunists and amateur theologians and their historical influence is a riddle whose solution we cannot even sense, since there is no solution, either with Ged or with us.
Pardon this polemical digression. I entered into it only because I suspect that in the last hours there might still have been some distrust among you, that you might perhaps have suspected that I have been reading into Calvin something that is not there. I Aave been reading something in, namely, the presupposition that Calvin could not be teaching such resounding nonsense in contradiction with himself. But I think I have shown that even the literal wording does not force such a conclusion on us. I have not opposed but accepted the fact that Calvin does emphatically affirm the state. But I am asking: In what sense? And I reply: In a parabolic sense, not directly, but indirectly, not as it stands but in its relation, as a temporal image of the eternal righteousness of God, to what is thus its meaning and origin.
Relation means relativity. The Radicals wanted to bypass the relativity and plunge directly into the origin, the absoluteness of God. That is for the most part the tendency of the medievals and us moderns as well. The Radicals thought they could base this tendency on the newly discovered insight of the Reformation that God is really God, that absoluteness is absoluteness, that eternity is eternity. They showed thereby that in thus understanding this insight they were misunderstanding it. For if God is God and eternity eternity, then the only thing for us is the relativity, the relation, of all things human and finite and temporal to their origin. We must avoid leaping into that abyss, whether in the form of serious objective knowledge of the significance precisely of the relative, in the form of reverent and obedient pilgrimage with all that that entails, or in the form of meditation on the future life that is necessarily one and the same thing as taking the present life with basic seriousness. The state as the most primitive and the most developed form of life in society and not just a future ideal state (even if there were ever to be such), the present state no matter how it is constituted, is what reminds us impressively that as we live in the body we stand under the divine justice and judgment; in other words, that God’s command is now valid for us as we live in the body, that there can and should be obedience here and now, that we do not have to wait for Christian freedom because it is itself the great waiting for God. This is what Calvin wanted to defend in this crowning chapter of his book against what I have called the brilliant misunderstanding of the Radicals. And in my view Calvin and the other reformers, in rejecting the Radicals’ hostility to the state, were even more brilliant so long as we do not make of their opposition a banal friendliness with the state.
You are naturally right to ask me how it is that this whole line of interpretation is not more obvious, that Calvin himself does not seem to have worked it out in this way. I can offer in reply only the general observation that Wernle, too, expressly emphasizes (p. 164), namely, that the uniformity of the /Institutes is not immediately apparent, that we have to read the work from a certain distance in order to perceive the unity that is still there.229 Calvin speaks of each subject, in this case the state, in such a way that it seems almost to stand alone, and we have to look closely to be able to see that in fact the totality is always there behind what he says, shining forth from hundreds of points. Reformation theology, like NT theology, does not meet our systematic needs as we might desire. It counts on readers having intuition, the ability to divine things and to put them together, gifts that are not as plentiful in every age as they were then. It poses riddles. As Wernle again says regarding this section, it speaks in hard paradoxes.?3° It flings out one Cyclopean block after another and counts upon us having eyes to see how they all fit together. If we do not, then the worse for us. We will see only blocks being flung around and falling and lying there, and we will excuse our failure by saying that the Reformation was a wonderful event even though, when we look at it, we do not understand it. If, then, you ask whether the teaching of Calvin really hangs together, I can only ask you to read the Institutes for yourself with the question whether you do so presupposing that this section has to be part of the whole and has to have a meaning that a better interpretation can wrest from the literal wording.
Yet I have not yet fully analyzed the third train of thought in the section, the discussion of the right relation between people and government. Listen, then, to the conclusion of this final section of the Institutes. Is it really the case that the affirmation that even bad rulers are God’s envoys and representatives for the sake of the role that is given them and
229. Wernle, Calvin, 164, does not think it easy to find any guiding thought in the Ist edition of the Institutes. A first glance suggests that Calvin deals with each theme separately and leaves it to his readers to tie them together. Calvin certainly handles each question with a specific interest and feels no compulsion to systematize. We have to look at the work at some distance to achieve awareness of its inner unity.
230. Wernle, Calvin, 155. that sanctifies them in their total lack of sanctity — that this is really the last word on the problem of tyrants? In ordinary life we would say that people usually deny the most vehemently that which is the most obvious implication of their own thinking. You remember perhaps my review of the last passage in the dedicatory epistle to Francis I, in which we read unequivocally that when all appeals and explanations to the king have failed to halt the fury of the persecution of believers, we will then be led as sheep to the slaughter and reduced to extremes, but in such a way that Wwe possess our souls in patience and wait for the strong hand of the Lord, which will undoubtedly be stretched forth armed in its own good time both to rescue the sufferers from their distress and to execute vengeance on the despisers.23! What does that mean? Is it just a pious flourish, or does Calvin know something else about the relation of a tyrant to his victims apart from their having to honor him in all circumstances since he is God’s representative? And if the latter is true, if Calvin, seriously if not threateningly raising a warning finger against his king, is showing that he really does know something different, can we really expect that the conclusion of the book, unlike that of the epistle, will insist on the duty of unconditional respect and obedience? That would have to be so, of course, if Calvin were really the royalist and statist that he seems to be according to the wording at least of many passages. But if Calvin had really aimed to glorify the power of government as such, if he had been a French royalist and a disciple of Paul tied to Romans 13, then how could he have thwarted his own purpose at the end by pointing out the possibility of an appeal to the supreme court, from the representative to him who is not just a representative, and how could he have shown in no less than three ways, and more plainly than when he spoke about the right of kings, that there is a limit to the power of tyrants?232 Certainly the Calvin of a Wernle, for example, could not have done this.
But he does it. And that is how the Institutes ends. What are we to do when we suffer under a bloodthirsty, avaricious, spendthrift, idle, and ungodly ruler? Answer: We are to remember our sins that have merited this punishment and consider that it is not for us to ward off such evils.79° Note here that the loyalty that Calvin so urgently recommends is again apparent. It is not the tyrant who plagues us but God who punishes us. And if we were
231 OS 1536; BI 19:
232. Cf. Schiller’s Wilhelm Tell Il, 1, v. 1275: “No, the power of
tyrants has a limit.” 233. OS 1,278; BI 309: to set out to remove the tyrant it would not help us. Our only help comes when God ceases to chastise us through the tyrant. Our one resort is to call upon God. Thereis really no such thing as the power of government on earth. What we describe as such sinks into oblivion when the one who has appointed rulers his servants comes on the scene in opposition to them. He is God and he will stand in the assembly of gods and judge them in the midst. All kings and judges of the earth who have not kissed his ‘anointed will fall down before him and will be cast down (Ps. [82:15] 2 [vv. 10-12]), all kings and judges who have passed unjust laws in order to wrong the poor in judgment and to do violence to the cause of the lowly, in order to rob widows and to seize the goods of orphans (Isa. 10 [wv. 1f.]).234 It will then be clear that these rulers and judges are only servants.
God also has other servants. This is the first bar to tyranny. From among them, if need be, God raises up avengers and gives them a commission to punish wicked rulers and to liberate people from their misery. To this end he can even use the fury of those who have in mind and before them something very different from the will of God.?3> There is a legitimate divine vocation to oppose kings without violating their divine appointment because a greater power is now restraining the lesser, as when a king can and may proceed against his ministers.23° We have examples in Moses and the judges when they avenged and liberated their people. There is also, however, an unwitting doing of God’s will here when those concerned may perhaps themselves have only evil in mind.
It is still true, however, that no matter how we are to evaluate the human actions, the Lord uses them to do his own work of breaking the scepters of bloodthirsty kings and toppling regimes that have become impossible.?3” Thus the Assyrians executed judgment on Egypt, the Egyptians on Tyre, the Medes and Persians on Babylon, the Babylonians on Judah and Israel. Wernle sees it as a sophism that Calvin thinks a legitimate divine vocation to resist government is possible, and he conjectures that out of sheer biblicism, since all the examples of the overthrow of tyrants are taken from the Bible, Calvin is in self-contradiction in advocating a right of resistance.*38 If we think the power of government as such is the
234. Ibid.
235), Noval,
236. OS I, 279; BI 309f.
UST OS) Ih, DSR LE SiO),
238. Wernle, Calvin, 156f.
theme here, then we must, of course, accept this kind of exposition. But we ought not to think that. Calvin’s thinking is clear and not at all sophistical, and it has nothing whatever to do with biblicism, once we see that his real theme is the rule of God, which may today wear the mask of tyranny and tomorrow the mask of revolution, but is always the same.
All the democratic impulses that we find in Calvin are for him the next bar against tyranny. Private citizens have simply to obey and to suffer. The law of subjection is strictly valid for them in all circumstances. Nevertheless, there are people’s magistrates who are specially appointed to curb the whims of rulers. By way of example Calvin refers to the demarchs of Athens, the ephors of Sparta, and the three estates of France. They, too, are divinely instituted to protect the people’s freedom, and they will be guilty of serious unfaithfulness if they do not fulfill their office.239 It is here, if we will, that we can call Calvin, the herald of a divine blessing of the strictest observance, a father of modern democracy. In his day he himself could not see how broad was the breach that he made in the wall of the conservative principle with this thesis. But how could the modest beginnings of democracy that he knew and earnestly acknowledged fail to lead at last even to a social democracy whose representatives are not by a long way to be excluded from divine appointments? No party, right or left, can claim direct support from Calvin. In truth we have to say that in him the breach was no more important than the wall. It is only for the sake of him who appoints that he speaks at all of those who are appointed, whether they be kings or ephors.
A third and the strongest bar to tyranny is for Calvin the freedom of conscience in relation to God that even kings may not violate. How perverted it would be to please men by injuring him for whose sake we obey them. The Lord is the king of kings who, when he speaks, alone must be heard before all others and above all others. We are subject to those set above us, but not at this point.249 In this regard, however, we in no way fail to render rulers the respect that is their due. We simply place them on the step where they belong face-to-face with the supreme power of God. How dangerous this is, is clear. The king’s anger at such conduct can be the messenger of death. Nevertheless, we must obey God and not humans. We have been dearly bought in Christ. Hence we have to do two things. On the one hand we must not be enslaved by common human
239-OS:1; 2793 BI310.
240. OS I, 279; BI 310£. lusts — this is obviously aimed at the revolutionaries. On the other we must not become servants of “impiety” out of fear of suffering for the sake of obedience to the will of God — this is obviously aimed at legitimists who have forgotten that there is a supreme court over the one immediately below it.24! Calvin belongs neither to the one group nor to the other.
Naturally the conclusion of the Institutes is not establishing the right to revolt. But neither, as we have seen, is it establishing the right of kings. Either way, it is establishing the divine right measured by which all human and relative rights both stand and fall. Yes, the right of kings may also fall and that of revolt against it may also stand. Calvin unquestionably sees that there is a divine vocation, a legitimate vocation, to offer resistance in the three different forms of direct divine revelation, democracy, and the freedom of conscience, and he clothes this vocation with the same dignity as that of rulers. But the applause that here breaks out perhaps from the left, and that makes Calvin a forerunner of Rousseau and human rights, is just as lacking in understanding and insight as that of the right that would make him the defender of dark Romantic forces. There neither can nor should be any complete right on the human side in such matters.