As Presbyterians, we know John Calvin as a key influence on our doctrine and faith. How many of us can also say that we understand his idea of spirituality? The association of Calvin with doctrines like predestination has led to an inaccurate characterization of his spirituality. With all the interest in spirituality in our time, we owe it to ourselves to explore further how Calvin actually viewed the life of everyday faith. This article shows that Calvin promotes a spirituality balanced between private practices for individuals and communal practice for the church.
Calvin uses the word ‘piety’ to describe what we think of as spirituality. For him, Christianity is the presence of God with ordinary lay people going about their daily lives. God and God’s will should be at the centre of life, at all times and places. Through union with God, who is virtue, we find the source of our own growth in virtue.
Private spirituality
In this balance of private and communal life, let’s first look at the private aspects of piety, which Calvin focused on scripture. Scripture takes the most important place in the Christian life; no one can have salvation and union with Christ without it. The Holy Spirit teaches as we read scripture with our hearts and minds. Calvin sees reading as a way of hearing—a passive reception of scripture is the aim, so that one is completely open to its message. This is typical of lectio divina, the monastic practice of holy reading, which Calvin adopted from the earlier tradition.
Scripture, properly understood with the mind, leads to doctrine, which is necessary for us, alongside the more intuitive knowledge gained from reading with the Holy Spirit. Calvin intended for the church pastor, through sermons, to operate as instructor on how to read scripture. The pastor was to be trained by the Institutes in order to understand the real meaning of scripture, and in turn to apply that meaning to individual church members. This would give individuals the ability to read scripture fruitfully on their own, using the ancient monastic practice of lectio divina, or divine reading.
Calvin pairs the sacrament (communion with bread and wine) with scripture. Without scripture, “our senses would gaze bewildered on an unmeaning object.” Calvin holds that the believer is taken to the mysteries of God upon seeing the sacrament, which confirms our faith in God, enhancing the effect of scripture.
Corporate spirituality
Calvin also sees spirituality as communal. While he believes evil affects every aspect of the human being, his hopeful understanding of creation sets the stage for public piety in the Christian life. To Calvin, creation is the work of God, good and capable of restoration. Humans, united with the church body, are meant to engage actively with society to achieve this restoration, while avoiding attachment to the world and its values.
Not only does the Spirit teach us, the Spirit also unites all Christians in scripture reading. Thus sacrament and word unite Christians—who become the church, a community of scripture readers. Private piety combined with unity in the church body leads to Christian participation in the larger public. Through worship, Calvin’s use of the psalter further ties personal and corporate prayer together. The congregation sings together, and individuals in turn sing the Psalms at work and home.
For Calvin, the church provides the necessary corporate dimension of support for faith, giving individuals the ability to understand rightly. Scripture and sacrament, reading and worship—all are rooted in practices for the individual and the community. For Calvin, the individual’s union with Christ and the body of Christ are both indispensable to the Christian’s individual development as well as the church’s contribution to God’s salvation of the world.
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