Practical Teachings: The Separation and Union of Religion and Politics

Calvin is very much concerned to ground human institutions by establishing the political order as part of the divine order.

In every fundamental questions that he addresses, Calvin rigorously distinguishes between the secular and the spiritual in order to join them fast together. Calvin’s thought reveals surprising parallels to modern rationalism, whose materialistic assumptions are surrounded and supported by an often unrecognized idealism.

Nobility of Civil Government#

Spiritual government is to be rigorously distinguished from civil government, “which pertains only to the establishment of civil justice and outward morality.” But Calvin promises to show, without sacrificing this rigorous distinction, that he is right in “joining”’ the spiritual and the political teachings.

The word “right” is in the following two senses:

1. It is pious/theologically consistent to join politics to religion. (piety as ‘“‘that reverence joined with the love of God which the knowledge of his benefits induces’’ (1.ii.1; 41), he believes that to add to this knowledge of providence by describing the divine benefits of civil government will contribute to piety.)
2. It is political necessity. (God's order in the realm of civil government is threatened by two sorts of political evils that either esteem political authority too little - do not recognize its divine foundation - or claim too much for it - fail to recognize that it depends upon God -, and furthermore, unless political evils are checked, purity of faith will perish)

While Augustine: the error of thinking that civil government/law are things unworthy of us consist essentially in overestimating the perfection of believers in this life, and consequently, in underestimating the necessity of laws and civil government. Calvin: goes further to argue that government is not only necessary but noble.

It has not come about by human perversity that the authority over all things on earth is in the hands of Kings and other rulers, but by divine providence and holy ordinance. (IV.xx.4; 1489)

To deprive man of government, according to Calvin, is to ‘‘deprive him of his very humanity.” The purpose of government extends
far beyond man’s physical interest in ‘‘peace and tranquility” to the protection of ‘‘the outward worship of God,” the defense of “‘sound doctrine’’ and the promotion of  “civil righteousness”.

The difficulty with this reading#

It is not obvious what significance “outward worship” has for God or man. The magistrate's duty seems to be to protect only public manifestations of religion, and since Calvin distinguishes so sharply between body and soul, between outward and inward, it is not clear how this outward control can contribute to man's inward righteousness or salvation.

Magistrates are enjoined to defend “the true religion” which is “outside of human decision”, but it is unclear what purpose, natural or supernatural, is served by this defense of outward manifestations of piety.

One reading is that, to illuminate an activity by referring to the purpose it serves, would exempt it from the realm “outside of human decision”. If human beings could grasp the purpose of outward worship, it would be possible and right for them to deliberate in order to make laws according to their own decisions concerning religion and the worship of God. If such decisions affected man's highest ends, his supernatural ends, then men competent to make such decisions would be in a position to claim spiritual as well as temporal authority over other men. We can be spiritually free while politically bound only if we do not understand politics as serving any spiritual purpose - only if human choice cannot affect the salvation of the soul. (this is itself political)

(if it is possible to grasp the purpose of outward worship, it would be also possible to subject the form of outward worship under utilitarian inspection and transform it so that it is optimal for the utilitarian purpose of reaching the supernatural end. The manipulation of the outward form of life, so to speak, is “against humanity”.)

Status of Politics#

In Calvin’s teaching we find no attempt to link the political order with a comprehensive hierarchy unifying the natural and the divine. A radical depreciation of politics would seem to follow, but this is not at all the case. On the contrary, for Calvin politics is ordered by God—indeed, much more directly ordered, it appears, than for Augustine (at least in The City of God). Government does not arise from a mere compromise of human wills: magistrates have "a mandate from God, have been invested with divine authority, and are wholly God’s representatives" (IV.xx.4; 1489). The political order is thus for Calvin very much God’s own order. And yet there is no suggestion of anything intrinsically divine or partaking of the divine in this order itself. There is only a peace without transcendent purpose and a provision for “outward worship.” Calvin’s peace seems to have less in common with Augustine’s than with the naturalistic peace of Hobbes, a peace without any purpose beyond the containment of war by the terror of the sovereign (Leviathan, chaps. xiii, xiv, xvii).

Calvin’s puzzling combination of an elevation of the status of politics with a lowering of its substance or end has given rise to considerable confusion among scholars attempting to locate the essential character of the reformer’s political teaching.