John Calvin; A Sixteenth Century Portrait Book

I may be among a small minority of laymen (from both the clergy and the academy) to read this book. In my estimation it is not written for the wide audience, although it is not as arcane by a long shot as other academic works can be. Bouwsma's biography is dense, but has enough to stay interesting for those interested in the intersection of protestant theology, medieval cultural history, and humanist thinking.

However, looking back on my reading, I struggle to recall clear take-away's. Bouwsma does not have a crystal clear thesis, in fact he very much embraces complexity, in individuals, in history, in culture. Despite this, I have found the following points illuminated for me.

One: there is a central dualism between Calvin the conservative theologian and the Calvin the humanist rhetorician at the heart of Calvinism. First, Bouwsma describes the traditionally-understood Calvin as systematic theologian, who is at his heart conservative, orthodox, and doctrinaire. This Calvin is a man of the old world, with ideas seemingly contradictory with the tolerance and eclecticism of the upcoming Renaissance. However, Bouwsma also draws compelling textual evidence for Calvin the humanist, who is a man of the world, who wishes to reconcile faith to the realities of the world. This Calvin sees the clergy not as purist defenders of unadulterated doctrine, but as mediators who are responsible for making the gospel tangible for all Christians, of high and low learning. This Calvin tolerates ambiguity and contradiction in scripture, and puts greater emphasis on the human as divine rather than the divide between the two. The two Calvin's are in stark contrast to each other, they are hard to reconcile against each other, and Bouwsma makes no attempt to do so for us.

Two: early Protestantism is surprisingly zealous. My impression of "Calvinism" was a waspy mainline faith that emphasized culture over dogma. To my surprise, Bouwsma's Calvin had a lot more of the fire and brimstone baptist in him, who's message of sin, judgement, and the general misery of the human condition was louder than his humanist pronouncements of the divinity in man, of mercy and grace as the central message of the gospel. I was surprised at the backwardness of some of Calvin's conservatism (though I should not have been). His conception of the role of the woman was true to the 16th century - women should be the obedient and submissive party of the marriage, it is right that they should serve and not lead, cook and not think. Even his thoughts on church and state were less progressive than I expected. Calvin seemed to imagine a pseudo theocracy in which the clergy were different people than civil magistrates, but they worked hand in hand to strengthen a thoroughly Christian city-state. And this from Geneva, certainly not associated with theocracy or religious dogma in the modern world.

Three: Bouwsma doesn't make a compelling case for Calvin as a remarkable historical figure. I've learned quite a bit about his theology, but as Bouwsma admits himself, Calvin's theology is recombination of old ideas. Very little, if any, of his ideas are novel. In that case then, why are we to believe that he was a significant figure in history. Was the growth of Calvinism little more than historical coincidence? Having little to do with any heavy lifting by Calvin himself? Bouwsma seems uninterested in addressing this question, so we are left to wonder.