Calvin. History and Reception of a Reformation Week 3. Calvin's Ethics Sequence 2. The Creator's Command I am standing in the Chapel of the Maccabees, which, during the 16th century, was transformed into a classroom. Try to imagine it without this neo-gothic decor and with a ceiling about half as high -- this is where many classes of Calvin's Academy were taught. Today, we are going to discuss God's command for all people. As I said earlier, Calvin's ethics are based on God's stance towards human beings, and not the human's own view of herself. God communicates with all people. Such communication with all people, obviously, takes place independently from revelation. The Bible is not necessary in order to hear the Word of God. God communicates with all humans in order to show them how to live in a properly human way. As Aristotle pointed out a very long time ago, man is an animal capable of living only in society. Aristotle described man as a "political animal." Calvin agreed. For him, human beings, by nature, need company -- one is able to live only in the company of other people. But unlike other naturally gregarious creatures such as sheep, bees, and ants, human beings cannot rely solely on their instincts to live in society. For Aristotle, humans need language -- they need to communicate with others, and require at least some basic impressions of good, evil, and justice. Calvin, however, believed that human beings cannot rely exclusively on their rational abilities or will. There is something else upon which people must rely. For Calvin, this something else is to be found in one's conscience. Calvin refers in particular to Romans 2:15, a passage in which Paul says that even Gentiles who have not experienced God's law through revelation can know it (and have known it)
"in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness." Conscience, indeed, gives rise to judgment through "good conscience" and "bad conscience." Man has the ability, in fact, to know something of God's law, of God's command. People have have the ability to know, for instance, that they must not kill, steal, commit adultery, take what belongs to others, or give false witness. They know all these things. And through this knowledge, their conscience acts as an intermediary, a midpoint, between them and God. In a sense, conscience represents the most intimate aspect of a human person. For Calvin -- who, employing a bit of etymological creative license, defined the Latin cumsciencia as "cum" (middle) "science" (way) -- one's conscience is a convocation before an authority much
greater than oneself, an authority external to oneself. Conscience, then, already evokes something of the "judicial seat of God", of God's tribunal. It is through one's conscience that one is able to gain knowledge of God's will -- in a universal sense -- and something of God's Law. God's Law -- the Decalogue -- is traditionally divided into two tablets. One tablet pertains to human beings's relationship with God; the other, to human beings's relationship with fellow human beings. The operations of conscience relate mainly to the second tablet, which contains what Claude Lévi-Strauss called the "fundamental prohibitions." Calvin referred to them as the "commands of the second tablet" -- you shall not kill, you shall not steal, etc. Yet for Calvin, there are in one's conscience some aspects relating to the first tablet as well. One knows there is a God, or at the very least that there is something other than oneself. For the Christian, the god imagined by one's conscience is a false god, nothing more than an idol. Nonetheless, it is an idol that has a function. One knows that, one day, one will have to give account for one's conduct before some kind of greater authority. For Calvin, what conscience is able to perceive of the divine Law, though it can never be the Law in its entirety, is sufficient for one to live properly, to know the difference between
good and evil, between just and unjust. And this is universal: all human beings know it in their conscience. Everyone knows, in one's conscience, that others have rights. Here we have a precursor to what would later be fleshed out and systematized as the concept of human rights. Every human has rights; my conscience tells me so. Ideally, our conscience would be sufficient. But, as Calvin points out, we often find many excuses not to do what our conscience dictates. Something more than conscience is thus required. This "something more" is given to us in the form of our political institutions. Calvin views political institutions as the mechanism by which the natural law, which our conscience discovers, can be applied in practice. Here Calvin positions himself within an already well-established philosophical tradition: republicanism. This tradition had been rediscovered and revived during the Renaissance, particularly by Machiavelli. Unlike Greek republicanism, which is based on the concept of the Good (see, for example, Plato's "Republic"), the foundation of Roman republicanism is the principle of non-domination. For Machiavelli, the republic should be an embodiment of this principle. When Ulysses was tied up by sirens, he was nonetheless a free man, having consented to being shackled. On the other hand, a slave, even though he may appear to go and do as he pleases, is not free, since he or she depends on the will of another. In the tradition of republicanism, then, the principle of non-domination constitutes the foundation of the republic. Calvin disagreed. For him, the central issue was not domination but the law. Calvin developed a new type of republicanism, based not on the principle of non-domination -- he saw no evidence of God disapproving of the domination of some over others -- but on
the obligation for those in positions of power and strength to take into account
the needs of the weak. In fact, not only to take the weak into account, but to treat them as equals. Consequently, Calvin's republicanism is clearly and forcefully opposed to any form of absolute monarchy. Indeed, absolute monarchy, in which the king decides on the meaning of the law, goes against man's conscience. Calvin's republicanism is built on three key elements: 1) The law, which governs all people and relies on the conscience of each, and which any one can discover for oneself. 2) The magistrature, or government, which is subordinated to the law. For Calvin, the magistrates were, "in the best case," to be elected by the people. 3) The people, who, although governed by the magistrature, represent the source of the magistrature's election and the source of the law's meaning. To an extent, then, Calvin can be considered one of the fathers of democracy as we know it today. Indeed, our concept of democracy involves two key principles: the existence of a constitution which lies outside the power of the government and reflects the will of the people, and
the election by the people of magistrates who are tasked with putting the law into practice. Thus Calvin's republicanism, though opposed in many ways to Machiavelli's, retains the conviction that man's life cannot be lived properly without rules, without laws
and without justice. This justice is based on the Decalogue -- or at least on the second tablet, which deals with man's interactions with man (and perhaps some elements of the first tablet) --
but it can be condensed into a single principle: the Golden Rule. The Golden Rule enjoins man -- and the political sphere's function is to put it into practice -- "not to treat others in ways that you would not want to be treated." The Golden Rule imposes a standard of justice -- moral justice, originally, and subsequently judicial (i.e., institutionalized) justice -- according to which all people must be placed in a position of
mutual equality and reciprocity. This principle has political consequences, but also consequences on social life as a whole. If the Golden Rule is the central standard, then humanity as a whole must be considered as one body -- a body within which some are richer that others, some are more intelligent than
others, some have more resources than others. Yet regardless of one's place in this body, one's activity, one's welfare, depends on others. We must not simply rely on our individual situation: we have a duty to work, to act, to contribute to this body. Calvin was against anyone earning a living without working: landlords, noblemen landowners, people living off an inheritance, etc. Everyone should work and contribute to the body's development and well-being. Anyone in a position of superiority, be it due to wealth, intelligence, or resources, has an obligation towards everyone else. This is the principle of reciprocity. Others are not simply here for our own convenience or to serve us; we owe them something. Thus Calvinistic societies have tended to strongly emphasize the importance of both work and justice. It is no coincidence that Geneva is home to one of the United Nations's major offices. When US President Woodrow Wilson decided where to establish headquarters for the nascent League of
Nations (the ancestor of today's UN), he thought that no city better embodied the principles of justice
than Geneva. Through various institutions, through law, but also through initiatives such as the Red Cross and countless personal engagements, Reformed Protestants have sought
to always keep the meaning of justice at the forefront. Justice requires that all people be placed on equal footing, and demands of those in a position of strength that they use their resources to uphold the law. This is one of the major aspects of Calvin's legacy.
