Unfortunately—and incorrectly—some people assume that Calvin’s magnum opus must be the bedrock of the so-called “five points of Calvinism” and that Calvin must have used his book largely to defend his “Calvinism.” That’s not correct. The first sentence of the Institutes orients us to its two great themes: “Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves” (Institutes 1.1.1). Calvin’s desire—which he comes back to time and time again—is this reciprocal knowledge. Only in knowing God will we know ourselves; only in knowing who we really are will we be able to know God.

John Calvin (1509–1564) is one of those historical figures people have strong opinions about—sometimes even when those opinions are not based in reality. I have heard people malign Calvin because, they said, all he taught was double predestination and the rightfulness of executing heretics like Michael Servetus. As if that’s all Calvin believed! Others fall prey to believing Calvin was simply a disembodied brain sitting on a shelf, trying to figure out how he could get as many people into hell as possible. As if he had no friends or feelings! More often, though, people view Calvin as more philosophical than biblical and refuse to read him for this reason. As if Calvin’s thought is not punctuated with biblical and pastoral reflection!
If these are some of your concerns or fears about Calvin, fear no more. Read the Institutes of the Christian Religion, Calvin’s magnum opus, to understand him and his thought for yourself. You can do it. And you will profit from it by being encouraged by one of Christ’s gifts to his people. Most significantly, I think, you will grow to know God better through the writing ministry of John Calvin.
To Know and Love God
Why do we sometimes fear reading older books? C.S. Lewis pointed out that, due to humility, students regularly read commentaries on the classics rather than going back to the original sources themselves. He then remarked, “The student is half afraid to meet one of the great philosophers face to face. He feels himself inadequate and thinks he will not understand him. But if he only knew, the great man, just because of his greatness, is much more intelligible than his modern commentator” (Introduction to On the Incarnation).
I agree with Lewis in the case of Calvin. “The great man, just because of his greatness,” is intelligible.
Once a reader is oriented to Calvin’s intention in composing the Institutes, he can readily understand almost all of it without needing recourse to a commentary or guide. Why? Largely because Calvin was a Christian writing to Christians about the most important reality in the universe to them: God, and our need to know him and enjoy him. Calvin desired his readers to know and love God through reading his book, a desire that’s a timeless longing for God’s people — whether persecuted sixteenth-century French Protestants or twenty-first-century Christians trying to navigate the upheavals of our world.
Seven truths orient us to reading and understanding the Institutes. The last one is the most important.
1. Title
Institutes is a translation of the Latin Institutio, which means “instruction.” Calvin, then, was writing to instruct people in the Christian religion. His book is not as extensive as Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae (“summary of theology”) or Charles Hodge’s Systematic Theology, which were meant for advanced students. Calvin wrote in a simple fashion so that normal Christians could understand him. This comes through even in English translation. Try it and see for yourself!
2. Audience
In fact, Calvin had two audiences in mind when he composed the Institutes. He first wrote and published the book in Latin, the language of scholarship in his day. No matter their country of origin, European theological students and the educated class would be able to read him. But as Calvin revised and expanded the book, he usually translated the Latin editions into French so that his native countrymen would be able to read his work in their heart language. His audience was largely the persecuted church, since Protestants in France and the rest of Europe lived in precarious conditions. The Institutes therefore has an earnestness that differentiates it from much modern theological writing. I think you’ll find your heart warmed by reading it.
3. Attention to Detail
John Calvin was extraordinarily driven to get everything just right. He published the first edition in 1536. It was about one-fifth as long as the final edition. Soon followed the 1539 edition. Between 1543 and 1550, Calvin released other revised editions similar to each other. Finally, the 1559 edition was published just five years before his death.
By the time he died, Calvin had lectured, preached, or written commentaries on almost all the books of the Bible. In this final edition, then, he brought to bear all the biblical exposition he’d done as well as the pastoral wisdom he’d gained in his decades of shepherding the church in Geneva.
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In a recent issue on Reformed scholasticism there is an article arguing that John Owen was a scholastic by Christopher Cleveland. That article consists in the main of the author’s analysis of how Owen used scholastic methods in his own work, but also mentions how he used concepts taken from the thought of Aquinas. Hence we read that “Owen demonstrates several of the characteristics of the scholastic approach in his writings” and that “the Thomistic distinction between God’s simple intelligence and knowledge of vision . . . found in Thomas’ Summa Theologica[,] is used by Owen in Display of Arminianism.”

The online magazine Credo, about whose notions I have written before, when it is not declaring the alleged glories of Platonism (comp. Col. 2:8), allowing Lutheran interim pastors to imply Anglo-Romanists are Reformed, or publishing materials by members of Romanist religious orders (participation in which we regard as sinful, Westminster Confession XXII.7), has been straining to re-popularize scholasticism, and has especially been commending the thought of Thomas Aquinas.
In a recent issue on Reformed scholasticism there is an article arguing that John Owen was a scholastic by Christopher Cleveland. That article consists in the main of the author’s analysis of how Owen used scholastic methods in his own work, but also mentions how he used concepts taken from the thought of Aquinas. Hence we read that “Owen demonstrates several of the characteristics of the scholastic approach in his writings” and that “the Thomistic distinction between God’s simple intelligence and knowledge of vision . . . found in Thomas’ Summa Theologica[,] is used by Owen in Display of Arminianism.” As concerns the latter statement this analysis may be correct; I am not sufficiently well read in Owen or Aquinas (two notably difficult authors) to say. But the method seems wanting, and fairness commends allowing Owen to speak for himself. Following are a series of mentions of Aquinas and the scholastics in some of Owen’s works so that you may judge, dear reader, whether Owen would concur with his description as a scholastic. All works cited are hyperlinked and are available through the Post Reformation Digital Library, a wonderful resource whose executive board is moderated by a sometime Credo contributor, David Sytsma. In some cases I have regularized capitalization and spelling somewhat for readability.
Before proceeding, note that what we now call the scholastics were referred to as ‘schoolmen’ or ‘school doctors’ in Owen’s day, and that instead of scholasticism he speaks of ‘the schools.’ Owen did refer to Aquinas with appreciation in some occasions at least. In A Vindication of the Animadversions on Fiat Lux he spoke of “Thomas of Aquine, who without question is the best and most sober of all your school doctors.” Given what follows I am not sure that is quite as much a compliment as it first seems, however. Then too, Vindication is a polemic work written against a Romanist author: telling his correspondent that Aquinas is one of “your school doctors” seems to be saying he belongs in the camp of the papists, not the Reformation.
That is borne out elsewhere, as in his work Of Schisme Owen refers to “Thomas Aquinas and such vassals of the Papacy,” and says of him and others of like opinion on schism that “we are not concerned in them; what the Lord speaks of it, that we judge concerning it.” Note carefully Owen’s rejection of Aquinas’ opinion as false and as contradicted by the Lord’s revelation in scripture. In that same work Owen says that Aquinas regarded schism as damning sin: “Schism, as it is declared by S. Austin and S. Thomas of Aquin, being so great and damnable a sin.” That makes it a bit of an oddity that so many Protestants are falling all over themselves to lay claim to Aquinas, since his published works condemn us as lost schismatics laying under the threat of damnation for our ‘sin’ in refusing to submit to Rome.
Elsewhere in the work, discussing the enormous differences of opinion that exist within the Roman communion, Owen quotes the great Roman controversialist Bellarmine’s opinion that one of Aquinas’ teachings was “idolatricall” (fun phrase), namely “that of Thomas about the worship of the cross with latria.” On that same subject Owen says in Vindication that “Thomas contendeth that the cross is to be worshipped with latria, p. 3. q. 25. a. 4. which is a word that he and you suppose to express religious worship of the highest sort.” And again, that “the most prevalent opinion of your doctors is that of Thomas and his followers, that images are to be adored with the same kind of worship wherewith that which they represent is to be worshipped.”
(This is why I have elsewhere opposed the Aquinas craze on the grounds that it is not appropriate for God’s people to be so zealous about someone who commends idolatry, which is what is entailed in worshiping the cross.)
Owen’s opinion of the scholastics in general does not seem to be very positive. In one of the works that Credo’s article quotes, A Display of Arminianism, we find Owen discussing the question of whether before the Incarnation men living “according to the dictates of right reason, might be saved without faith in Christ,” a matter he says “hath also since, (as what hath not) been drawn into dispute among the wrangling Schoolmen: and yet, which is rarely seen, their verdict in this particular, almost unanimously passeth for the truth,” a statement he immediately follows with a quote from Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae (2. 2 ae. q. 2. a. 7. c.) as evidence. Perhaps my understanding of seventeenth century English is errant, but that reads to me as though Owen is saying ‘even the schoolmen, who argue about everything, seldom agree amongst themselves, and are seldom entirely right, concur that this idea is false.’ (And that that was Owen’s position as well is abundantly confirmed by his subsequent statement that asserting men can be saved apart from faith in Christ is “a wicked Pelagian Socinian heresy.”) It is noteworthy, however, that the several other mentions of the ‘schoolemen’ in that work are not so dismissive, some citing them approvingly.
Elsewhere Owen speaks of the principle reformers as being superior to the scholastics in defending trinitarian doctrine. Discussing his Romanist opponent’s arguments in Animadversions on Fiat Lux, he says that “from them [anti-trinitarian heretics like Servetus] a return is made again, to Luther, Brenz, Calvin, Zwingli, who are said to nibble at Arianism, and shoot secrets darts at the Trinity.” He rebuts this by saying that “all impartial men must needs confess, that they have asserted and proved the doctrine of it, far more solidly then all the schoolmen in the world were able to do.”
Yet such statements are rather weak in comparison to the extended condemnations of the scholastics that appear in Animadversions and Vindication of Animadversions. In the first he speaks of his papist opponent’s “gallant commendation of the ingenuity, charity, candor, and sublime science of the school-men.” Owen’s response to this “gallant commendation” is strong:
I confess, they have deserved good words at his hands: These are the men, who out of a mixture of philosophy, traditions, and scripture, all corrupted and perverted, have hammered that faith, which was afterwards confirmed under so many anathemas at Trent. So that upon the matter, he is beholden to them for his religion; which I find he loves, and hath therefore reason to be thankful to its contrivers. For my part, I am as far from envying them their commendation, as I have reason to be, which I am sure is far enough. But yet before we admit this testimony, hand over head; I could wish he would take a course to stop the mouths of some of his own church, and those no small ones neither, who have declared them to the world, to be a pack of egregious sophisters, neither good philosophers, nor any divines at all; men who seem not to have had the least reverence of God, nor much regard to the truth in any of their disputations, but were wholly influenced by a vain reputation of subtility, desire of conquest, of leading and denominating parties, and that in a barbarous science, barbarously expressed, until they had driven all learning and divinity almost out of the world. But I will not contend about these fathers of contention: let every man esteem of them as he seems good.
A similar passage in Vindication is equally strong and expounds this theme:
I confess the language of your schoolmen is so corrupt and barbarous, many of the things they sweat about, so vain, curious, unprofitable, their way of handling things, and expressing the notions of their minds, so perplexed, dark, obscure, and oftentimes unintelligible, divers of their assertions and suppositions so horrid and monstrous; the whole system of their pretended divinity, so alien and foreign unto the mystery of the Gospel that I know no great reason that any man hath much to delight in them. These things have made them the sport and scorn of the learnedest men that ever lived in the communion of your own church.
And further, after some obscure Latin and ancient allusions:
They are not like to do mischief to any, unless they are resolved aforehand to give up their faith in the things of God to the authority of this or that philosopher, and forego all solid rational consideration of things, to betake themselves to sophistical canting, and the winding up of subtility into plain non-sense; which oftentimes befalls the best of them; Whence Melchior Canus one of yourselves says of some of your learned disputes, Puderet me dicere non intelligere, si ipsi intelligerent qui tractarunt. ‘I should be ashamed to say I did not understand them, but that they understood not themselves.’ Others may be entangled by them, who if they cannot untie your knots, they may break your webs, especially when they find the conclusions, as oftentimes they are, directly contrary to scripture, right reason, and natural sense itself.
And following more allusions:
But whatever I said of them, or your church, is perfectly consistent with itself, and the truth. I grant that before the schoolmen set forth in the world, many unsound opinions were broached in, and many superstitious practices admitted into your church: and a great pretense raised unto a superintendency over other churches, which were parts of that mass out of which your popery is formed. But before the schoolmen took it in hand, it was rudis indigesta (que) moles, ‘a heap, not a house.’ As Rabbi Juda Hakkadosh gathered the passant traditions of his own time among the Jews, into a body or system, which is called the Mishnae or duplicate of their law, wherein he composed a new religion for them, sufficiently distant from that which was professed by their fore-fathers; so have your schoolmen done also. Out of the passant traditions of the days wherein they lived, blended with sophistical corrupted notions of their own, countenanced and gilded with the sayings of some ancient writers of the church, for the most part wrested or misunderstood, they have hammered out that system of philosophical traditional divinity, which is now enstamped with the authority of the Tridentine Council, being as far distant from the divinity of the New Testament, as the farrago of traditions collected by Rabbi Juda, and improved in the Talmuds, is from that of the old.
Lastly, he says in Vindication:
Some learn their divinity out of the late, and modern schools, both in the Reformed and Papal Church; in both which a science is proposed under that name, consisting in a farrago of credible propositions, asserted in terms suited unto that philosophy that is variously predominant in them. What a kind of theology this hath produced in the Papacy, Agricola, Erasmus, Vives, Jansenius, with innumerable other learned men of your own, have sufficiently declared. And that it hath any better success in the Reformed churches, many things which I shall not now instance in, give me cause to doubt.
The folks at Credo will say that such vehement anti-scholastic rhetoric is directed against later scholastics like Gabriel Biel, not Aquinas or other “sounder scholastics.” The above make that seem doubtful, however, especially that last quote, and they draw into question whether Owen would concur with his classification as a Reformed scholastic of Thomistic inclinations. Let the reader judge for himself.
Tom Hervey is a member of Woodruff Road Presbyterian Church, Five Forks (Simpsonville), SC. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not of necessity reflect those of his church or its leadership or other members. He welcomes comments at the email address provided with his name. He is also author of Reflections on the Word: Essays in Protestant Scriptural Contemplation, available through Amazon.
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Even the most devout faith will sooner or later falter and fail unless those who hold it are willing to bring it into public debate and to test it against experience in every area of life. If the Christian faith about the source and goal of human life is to be denied access to the public realm, where decisions are made on the great issues of the common life, then it cannot in the long run survive even as an option for a minority.

Christian faith is in decline in America. A 2022 Pew research report observes that in 1972, 90% of Americans identified as Christian with 5% identifying as “nones” or religiously unaffiliated. Today, those identifying as Christians dropped to 63% with nones increasing to 29%. More staggering is the fact that according to a 2021 Arizona Christian University, Cultural Research Center (CRC) report, 43% of Millennials (18 -36 yrs) are “Don’ts”—Don’t know, don’t care, or don’t believe that God exists. Projections show a continuing decline in those identifying as Christians, so that by 2070 Christianity will be a minority religion in America with only about 35% of people identifying as Christian.
There is a concurrent decline in theological orthodoxy. According to the same 2021 CRC report, belief in an all-knowing, all-powerful Creator God who rules the world fell from 86% in 1991 to 46% in 2021. Belief in the Bible as the accurate Word of God fell from 70% in 1990 to 41% in 2021. According to a 2020 CRC study, 75% of evangelicals (defined as those who identify as born again) believe that people are basically good, which logically leads to the conclusion that Christ’s death is not salvific.
We could trace the decline back to the Enlightenment with contributions by historical criticism, Marxism, and evolutionary theory. We could even trace it further back to Adam and Eve who first decided to trust their own desires over God’s Word. Today some might add to the reasons for decline: the church is not welcoming enough, the church abused or oppressed people by calling them to repent; church scandals turn people away; the church’s Bible, theology, and practice are labeled misogynist, bigoted, and patriarchal. The list could go on.
In 1966, Time Magazine published an article, “Is God Dead?” that highlighted liberal voices attacking Christian faith. The author observes, “If nothing else, the Christian atheists [it would seem ‘Christian atheist’ is an oxymoron] are waking the churches to the brutal reality that the basic premise of faith—the existence of a personal God, who created the world and sustains it with his love—is now subject to profound attack.” Today the attack on Christian faith continues by news media, entertainment, academia and jurisprudence, with their voices magnified by 24/7 cable outlets and social media. The media reported recently that the Chief Diversity Officer of Johns Hopkins Medicine’s Office of Diversity published a hierarchical list of oppressors, stating in the accompanying newsletter that members of these privileged groups have unearned advantages and favors, “at the expense of members of other groups.” Christians were listed sixth just after white people, able-bodied people, heterosexuals, cisgender people and males. Although she apologized for her list, the list is not unusual. It is a typical intersectionality list from the Critical Race Theory movement.
When the Supreme Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act in 2013, which sought to preserve in law the biblical definition of marriage that existed for 2000 years, the majority of the Court labeled the Christian view as bigoted and harmful. Justice Antonin Scalia in his dissenting opinion wrote:
But the majority says that the supporters of this Act acted with malice—with the “purpose” (ante, at 25) “to disparage and to injure” same-sex couples. It says that the motivation for DOMA was to “demean,” ibid.; to “impose inequality,” ante, at 22; to “impose . . . a stigma,” ante, at 21; to deny people “equal dignity,” ibid.; to brand gay people as “unworthy,” ante, at 23; and to “humiliat[e]” their children, ibid. (emphasis added).”
Entertainment media also feels justified in attacking and ridiculing Christian faith. In the second season of the popular TV series West Wing, the President, played by Martin Sheen, ridiculed a talk show host, who was opposed to same-sex behavior based on Old Testament passages. Sheen confronts the host suggesting, “My chief of staff, Leo McGarry, insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly says he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself or is it okay to call the police? …Does the whole town really have to be together to stone my brother, John, for planting different crops side by side?”
According to analyst George Barna, who heads up the Christian Research Center, “The United States has become one of the largest and most important mission fields in the world.” Yet, he explained, “many of the approaches now relied upon by Christian ministries—and especially churches—may be inadequate to impact the new population that needs to be reached with God’s truths and principles.”
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