Featured Are there any Bible teachers you fully agree with.

Calvin's commentary on Seneca's work.

 

It is not nonsensical. "I suspect" means that this is something that I believe it probably. This is a fact (my opinion that it is probable). That you know this is referring to the fact that while you and I believe Calvin to be such a gift that belief is far from an objective fact.

 

No. I have read Calvin's "Institutes". It does contain proper theology. But it is also quite a bit of philosophy.

I'm not saying I don't appreciate his works. I just am not so indoctrinated into his views that I am blind to what I am reading.

 

The difference is what we are studying. It has already been named Christian philosophy (I was born too late to make that claim).

Calvin was influenced by the humanistic my movement of his day. He applied the philosophy he knew and studied to Scripture upon his conversion and came up with a "theology".

Calvinism belongs to systematic theology. As such it contains Scripture, but also philosophy. By referring to it as a Christian Philosophy I am not slighting the view but rather pointing out the basis of Calvinism. I appreciate the philosophy, although I no longer hold it as true.

 

His reasoning for the secular government as the "arm of God" is philosophical (not true theology). His defence of infant baptism is philosophical in its reasoning out of the importance of baptizing babies). His application of humanistic law to Scripture and divine justice is philosophical.

You have to remember that Calvin was not formally educated in theology. His education was comprised of philosophy and humanistic law. Nobody is faulting him for applying both to Scripture. That is what he knew, how he thought.

 

Issue here is we all hold philosophies that we apply, by necessity, to Scripture.

The problem isn't the philosophy but the inability to recognize it. That is when we lean on our own understanding.

 

He studied Seneca (his first published work was a commentary on Seneca).

John Calvin was first and foremost a humanist philosopher. His interest (as was Renaissance Humanism) was in reviving some aspect of the Classical period. Reading Calvin's Institutes, he at least agreed with the philosophical approach to ethics.

Calvinism is basically an amalgamation of Scripture, philosophy, and reformed Roman Catholic doctrine.

I love reading Calvin, but mostly because I enjoy philosophy. I like Calvin's pastoral works, but I certainly would not read Calvin for theology. His works are his philosophy applied to Scripture in a contemporary to his time vacuum - that is apart from other contemporary interpretations.