10
problems for us in other regards. If faith is assurance of God's benevolence toward us in
particular, what of those who experience such assurance, but live an ungodly life? What
about the experience of believers who struggle with doubts and fears about this very
point? What about Calvin's relation to the Puritans and the practical syllogism? These
are all difficult questions stemming from the way in which Calvin defines faith in his
classic definition. They may suggest that there is something in Calvin's definition that
needs tweaking. The fact is, however, that Calvin's definition of faith at least includes
assurance in faith. More probably it makes faith consist in a kind of assurance of God's
benevolence (His saving grace) toward us in particular. If faith includes or actually is
assurance, and I cannot see how Calvin's words can be otherwise interpreted, then clearly
faith is very different from obedience.
A voluntarist element in faith for Calvin? Calvin's definition of faith is
often taken as proof of an intellectualist conception of faith.
21
If faith is knowledge, this
seems to imply that Calvin is to be identified with the intellectualist tradition as over
against voluntarism. Kendall concludes from this that for Calvin faith is merely a matter
of the mind and not of the will and is, therefore, wholly passive. Against Kendall,
Richard Muller argues that Calvin affirms from the very beginning of his career a fiducial
aspect of faith in which it is seen as placing
22
all hope and trust in God.
23
It may well be true--I think it is true--that in other places Calvin makes clear
that there is a voluntarist aspect to his view of faith.
24
There is a voluntarist element in
_______________________
21
R. T. Kendall, Calvin and English Calvinism to 1649 (New York: Oxford University Press,
1979).
22
John Calvin, The Insitutes of the Christian Religion: The 1536 Edition, trans. and annotated
by Ford Lewis Battles (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), 42-43. Battles translates here, ". . . faith . . . is not
only to adjudge true all that has been written or is said of God and Christ, but to put all hope and trust in
one God and Christ . . ."
23
Muller, The Unaccommodated Calvin, 159f.
24
George W. Harper points out in "Calvin and English Calvinism to 1649: A Review Article,"