1 Called by God
The Reformed understanding of the gracious and efficacious call to salvation reminds us of the fact that the calling of the church starts with the God who calls and whose creative Word constitutes the church by renewing sinners and uniting them to Jesus Christ. Reflecting on the calling of the church we should not forget to start from the divine beginning, as the Canons of Dort say, what “neither the light of nature nor the law can do, God performs by the power of the Holy Spirit through the Word.”1
If we discuss the calling of the church to witness in times of polarization, we might forget that the church has been called before she has a calling. The emphasis on her practical calling easily leads to the question of what we can do, for instance focusing on the different contexts in which Christians are called to be peacemakers in situations of polarization. What are the most challenging issues of our time? How should the church relate to society? Should the church contribute to the ‘common good’ or form a ‘counter culture’?
Ethical questions deal with what the church should do. That is fine, but before the church acts, she should remember that she is an ec-clesia, a “meeting of those whom God in his grace calls out from the state of nature into the supernatural state of children of God, in order to show his glorious mercy.”2 According to this definition from the Synopsis of Purer Theology (Leiden, 1625), a handbook of Reformed dogmatics written shortly after the Synod of Dort, the church displays the glorious mercy of God. Only in that consciousness the witness of the church in words and deeds can become effective.
This awareness of being called does not make the church passive, but leads to an active witness in the world. Being aware of the divine call out of the ‘state
The church does not have a calling in the first place, but is called by the grace of God. Her call to witness in and to a world full of division and violence is one of the main parts of sanctification. Holiness is not an end in itself but is for the glory of God and the benefit of others. According to the Reformed view the divine call by irresistible grace (the vocatio interna) lies at the heart of sanctification. The church is the body of Christ and the family of God. It is only through the efficacious work of the Spirit—who usually works through the Word—that we are united to this body and adopted into this family. God’s glory is manifest in his sovereign grace. The most important aspect of becoming, being and remaining a Christian is the mystical union with Christ, into whose body we are called by the Gospel.
Before focusing on two aspects of the church’s calling—from whence and to what she is called we will first offer a brief survey of the historical development of the tension between the general call through the gospel and the specific—or efficacious and internal—call though Word and Spirit. This will color the way in which the acknowledgement of being called by God colors the Reformed understanding of the calling of the church especially with regard to polarization.
2 Historical Summary
The theological term calling, or vocatio, roots in the New Testament use of the verb καλέω and the noun κλῆσις. The calling of the believer flows from a divine initiative and from sovereign grace. Calling and election are connected in Peter’s admonishment to make our calling and election sure (2 Peter 1, 10) and in the so-called golden chain of redemption (Rom. 8:28–30). The link between eternity and time in the chain is the calling: those whom God predestined, He also called. This calling, however, cannot be completely identical with the invitation to repent and believe that extends to all who hear the gospel. Not all who are invited into the kingdom of God actually come. “Many are called, but few chosen,” is the sad conclusion to two of Jesus’ parables (Matt. 20:16 and 22:14).
To solve this tension between the two meanings of κλῆσις, Augustine developed a concept of effectual calling, a calling which is peculiar for those who indeed come to Christ and to the salvation offered by him.
By that calling, then, which is according to his plan … God is at work in the hearts of human beings in order that they may not hear the gospel to no avail, but that, having heard it, they may be converted and believe, receiving it, not as the word of human beings, but as the word of God, as it truly is.3
External calling (vocatio exterior) takes place through preachers and is common to the good and the evil, while internal calling (vocatio interior) is only of the elect. Concerning the external calling it is said: Many are called but few are chosen. Predestination is fulfilled in calling.4
In the Reformation the emphasis shifts to the outward calling through the proclamation of the Word in the Law and the Gospel.
In his early career, Luther was much influenced by the mystical distinction of the outward and the inward word and in his polemics with Erasmus on free will in 1525, he argues that only the inward word conveys grace. God the Father draws and teaches the believers from within by his Spirit.
There is a different kind of drawing from that which is without: Christ is held forth in the illumination of the Spirit, whereby the man is drawn unto Christ with the sweetest of all drawing: under which he is passive while God speaks, teaches, and draws, rather than seeks or runs of himself.5
At the Marburg Colloquy (1529) Martin Luther and Huldrych Zwingli did not settle their disagreement on Christ’s presence in the Lord’s Supper, but they did agree ‘On the External Word’ (Von dem eusserlichen Wortt), that “the Holy Spirit, to express it clearly, gives no one this faith or his gift without preceding preaching or oral word or the gospel of Christ. But through and with such oral word He works and he creates faith, where and in whom He pleases.”6 One year later the Augsburg Confession (1530), condemns “the Anabaptists and others who think that the Holy Spirit comes to men without the external word.”7 This emphasis is prompted by the polemics against spiritualists.
The main point here is not to demonstrate that the development of the vocatio interna in Reformed theology was colored by polemics—and perhaps even polarization with regard to the anabaptists—but that the Reformed emphasis on the necessity of the Spirit’s work contains catholic elements that might be lost out of sight because of these polemics.
This emphasis of the mature Luther has become a standard to measure the position of others and to measure later developments, but in fact this position deviated from what was common among the early Reformers in what can be seen as a debate among Augustinian theologians. In the early Reformation Luther’s externalism is the exception and not the rule. Franciscus Lambertus, for instance, in his De Fidelium Vocatione in Regnum Christi (1525) interprets the calling of believers as “the enlightenment by which God moves someone so by his Word and Spirit that he leaves the kingdom and power of the devil and enters into the realm of the grace and mercy of his Son.”8 Martin Bucer even
In the 1539 edition of the Institutes John Calvin makes a distinction between the general call and the special call. In the general call God invites all to himself through the outward preaching of the Word. In the special call God causes the preached Word to dwell in the hearts of believers by his Spirit. The special call “consists of the preaching of the Word combined with the illumination of the Spirit.” The final edition of the Institutes even makes a stronger distinction, saying that the call “consists not only in the preaching of the Word but also in the illumination of the Spirit.”11 The Spirit is essential for the unification of Christ and the believer from the very start of Calvin’s theology, but in his later
In sum, Bucer’s and Calvin’s emphasis on the necessity of the Spirit to make the Word effective stands over against Luther’s later emphasis on the necessity of the Word to let the Spirit work effectively. Both emphases are constitutive for the Lutheran and Reformed traditions.
The distinction between the outward and the inward call is essential for Reformed theology. There also is a tendency, however, to turn the distinction into a dichotomy between Word and Spirit. This tendency has been strengthened in the context of the seventeenth century’s turn to the human subject in epistemology.12 This has made Reformed theology vulnerable for intellectualistic objectivation and pietistic subjectivation in the context of modernity.
Although the later developments show a certain vulnerability, still this Reformed—and originally catholic—notion of the interior vocatio that makes the Word of the external calling efficacious in the elect can be helpful in understanding the calling of the church in times of polarization, because the internal work of the Spirit reveals where the conflict really lies and because a Christian life in liberty and holiness is a fruit of the irresistible work of the Spirit through the Word.
3 Called into the Fellowship of Christ
The verb ‘to call’ implies movement. This is clear from the way in which Christ calls his disciples. They have to take up their cross and follow him unconditionally (Matt. 10:38). He invites all who are weary and burdened to come to him and promises to give them rest (Matt. 11:28).
In the New Testament the verb ‘to call’ (καλέω) mostly occurs in an authoritative relationship. Those who are invited must come and obey their calling. The shepherd calls his sheep by name and they follow him (John 10: 3). The call usually has the desired effect; it is a vocatio efficax. The movement to which we are called is both ‘out of’ (ἐκ) and ‘into’ (εἰς). The contrast is formulated most clearly in 1 Peter 2:9 where the suffering saints are to ‘declare the praises of him who called them out of darkness into his wonderful light.’ The believers in
It is not necessary to explain the term ec-clesia etymologically—as the Synopsis does above, as being called out of the world—to see that the New Testament calling is related to the contrast between the dominion of darkness and the kingdom of God’s beloved Son (Col. 1:13). The divine calling takes place in the context of the conflict between the prince of this present evil world and the righteous heir of the kingdom of heaven, and the world to come. To be called means a transformation, or rather a transplantation from one domain into the other, a transition from Babylon into Jerusalem. Living in the world, Christians are not part of the world, but have entered into the kingdom of Christ.
Therefore, conflict cannot be avoided. There is a difference, however, between conflict and polarization. The latter “occurs when a fear born of difference transforms into ‘us-versus-them’ thinking … polarization entails the belief that rational and productive dialogue and interaction are impossible or fruitless. The result is avoidance, silencing, increased aggression, or violence.”13 Conflict as such does not exclude dialogue and the willingness to listen to the other even if it is with the intention to persuade and convince the other from a strong conviction that he or she is in error.
It is the calling of Christians to avoid polarization, because “reconciliation is the central unifying story of the Christian faith.”14 The kingdom of Christ manifests itself in this world as God’s fallen creation, but also stands diametrically opposite to this present evil world as the domain of the prince of darkness. Christians should be peacemakers and therefore often spontaneously object to polarization. That is fine, but this should not be done uncritically. They should be careful with the use of the term, because the essential Christian conflict can also be framed as polarizing by its opponents. Polarization is not a neutral term and can easily become a boomerang.
Some voices link religion to conflict per se and other blame monotheistic religions of being particularly violent. Belief in one God implies that there is only one people of God. Its members think they are called, under god-like leaders, to execute God’s justice on earth. Monotheism is a potential harbinger of cultural and political violence.15
Marcus Arvan argues that a model in which moral truths can be discovered, for instance through the Ten Commandments or through Christ, plays a significant role in causing polarization and that a model in which moral truths are created by negotiating compromises is more likely to prevent polarization.16 Justified Christian opposition against polarization, of course, should not lead to relativizing it moral standards, even if according to others these standards are polarizing per se.
In general, consensus is a blessing, but the church can arrive at a point where the witness to Christ as the Way, the Truth, and the Light simply does not allow for it. Then it is her calling to witness uncompromisingly and that makes her vulnerable for the accusation of polarization. Of course, a main problem is that all Christians agree that there are unnegotiable issues in statu confessionis, but that they strongly disagree about which issues these are. In some cases, for instance on the question whether or not homosexual relationships are acceptable, they might agree on the fact that the issue is unnegotiable, but still take opposite positions. Some say that the acceptance of these relationships brings the church in statu confessionis, while others say the same about the rejection of these relationships. The fact that the church is often struggling to find her way in dealing with moral issues perhaps is an extra reason to be cautious about the use of polarization. When it is used within the church as a label for groups with whom the majority disagrees it easily becomes a hidden weapon to silence them.
The Reformed and Augustinian emphasis on the inward work of the Spirit can be helpful to discern between forms of harmful polarization and the true conflict between the kingdom of Christ and the present evil age. The emphasis
Within this fundamental struggle Christians are also called to call others. This is one of the reasons why the terminology of the call is also used for the call to the ministry of the Gospel. In a sense, however, not only apostles, evangelists, teachers and pastors are called to the ministry, but all believers are office bearers and called to be Christ’s witnesses, a task for which they need and can expect the help of the Spirit of truth, the Lieutenant-Advocate, who will lead them into all truth and who, through their witness, will convince the world—or prove the world to be in the wrong—about sin and righteousness and judgment and glorify Jesus (John 16:8, 13, 14).
In other words, because those who are called out of darkness into the light of Christ are aware of the fact that there is no essential difference between them and the others, except for the grace of God, they have no reason at all to place themselves as sinners over against, leave alone, above others. We are all the same. The divine calling alone makes a difference and the conflict that flows from the difference made is not a struggle against flesh and blood, but against the powers that often hide themselves in enslaving structures for which we all are vulnerable.
4 Called unto Liberty and Holiness
Exactly because the emphasis on the hidden and efficacious calling highlights the fact that we all need the same irresistible grace, it also sheds light on the character of sanctification or on that to which the church is called. Here again it helps to avoid the confusion of polarization and conflict, because the liberty and holiness to which the church is called are fruits of the same Spirit.
This verse has led to the misunderstanding that being a slave or being free in itself was a calling, just like being married or unmarried and that consequently any occupation or job is a divine calling. There is nothing wrong with seeing our everyday work as a ‘calling,’ but that is not what the text says.
One should know that the word ‘call’ (Ruf) here does not mean the station (Stand) to which one is called, as when people say being married is your calling or being a priest is your calling, and so forth, everyone has his
calling from God. St. Paul is not speaking of such a calling here, but of the Gospel call, that is to say: Stay in the calling in which you are called, that is: just as the Gospel meets you and just like its call finds you, stay there.21
Everyone has to stay where God’s call has found him or her, except when that is a sinful position, “because this call causes you to be transferred from a sinful station into a pious station.”22 Due to the massive influence of Weber’s thesis, the influence of Luther on this issue has been very much exaggerated.
What is worse, however, is that this influential misunderstanding of the Lutheran tradition has led to the idea that the Protestant understanding of calling implies an affirmation of the status quo, even if that is a situation of injustice and slavery. On the contrary, the true understanding of the calling by Word and Spirit is the secret of true liberty. Christian liberty is independent of the precise circumstances. If you are called to faith while being a slave, that makes you ‘the Lord’s freed person’ if you are called being free, that transforms you into ‘Christ’s slave.’ “You were bought at a price; do not become slaves of human beings” (1 Cor. 7:23).
According to Luther, by faith in Christ, we become free from all sin and fearless of death, endowed with the eternal righteousness of Christ.23 Calvin elaborates on this liberty from the very first edition of the Institutes. For him it means three things: freedom from the law through faith, freedom of conscience to obey the law without compulsion and freedom in things indifferent.24
In Reformed orthodoxy this work of the Spirit was located in the renewal of the will in order to be able to perform good works. According to the Puritan John Owen “faith is in the understanding, in respect of its being and subsistence,—in the will and heart, in respect of its effectual working.”25 The essence of true regeneration lies in the renewal of the will into which God secretly communicates spiritual power. The will is not able to perform any spiritual act unless the Spirit effectuates the act of willing in it.26 The Spirit uses the Word
This is in line with the Canons of Dort, that state that the regenerating Spirit penetrates into the innermost recesses of man. He opens the closed and softens the hard heart. He makes the will, which was dead, alive; which was bad, good; which was unwilling, willing; and which was stubborn, obedient. He moves and strengthens it so that, like a good tree, it may be able to produce the fruit of good works.28 Or in the words of Luther: “Good works do not make a good man, but a good man does good works … the fruits do not make trees either good or bad, but rather as the trees are, so are the fruits they bear; so a man must first be good or wicked before he does a good or wicked work.”29
In other words, the vocatio interna does not make one passive as if the calling of the church or the individual Christian is to accept the status quo without resistance. On the contrary, the divine call empowers the church and individual Christians to strive for a life of liberty and holiness even if the present situation is awful and hardly makes change possible. There is always hope, because the power to change does not lie in human possibilities but in the divine and creative call towards liberty and holiness.
This freedom rooted in justification does not lead to a careless life, exactly because the calling to justifying faith at the same time is a calling to holiness, sanctification, and dedication to God. The believers in Rome “are called to belong to Jesus Christ and to be his holy people” (Rom. 1:6–7, cf. 1 Cor. 1:2). The call is effective, but the effective call is referred to as a motivation. The Ephesians are encouraged to live up to it or “worthy of the calling they have
The duplex vocatio always relates the work of the sovereign Spirit to the Word. This implies that it is only from Scripture that the believers know what they are precisely called to, and what the content or the direction of their calling is. At the same time, it is only the Spirit who empowers them to do so and teaches and leads them inwardly how to do it. We can do the wrong things in a right spirit and then need the correction of the Word, but we can also do the right things with the wrong spirit. Hypocrisy is worse than unintended error. In any case, next to the knowledge of the content of our calling, we need the work of the Spirit who recreates those whom God foreknew and predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son (Rom. 8:29).
The Reformed understanding of sanctification as a fruit of the inward renewal of the heart implies that the liberty of the one should not diminish the liberty of the other or even hurt him or her, because we are all called out of the darkness into the light of the fellowship of Christ and thus have become members of the same body. Even if Christians strongly disagree, the acknowledgement of their essential unity implies that internal conflicts may not lead to the rejection of the other as a fellow saved sinner if his or her convictions are not mine and even if they are objectionable to me. In other words, the Spiritual character of sanctification teaches the Christian inwardly to distinguish between the person and his or her convictions. This essentially Christian notion of liberty can also be applied to the broader field of living peacefully in society. The liberty to express yourself freely should not turn into the freedom of bashing others.
Applied to the calling to live holily, the emphasis on holiness as a fruit of the inward renewal through the Spirit, conjoined with the awareness of one’s own lasting struggle with indwelling sin and the flesh, is the best antidote against spiritual pride. The work of the divine Spirit is characterized by a broken heart. A feeling of moral superiority always leads to polarization. Even blaming others for polarization can be a symptom of hidden feelings of being better than others. The history of Reformed churches illustrates that they have not always lived according to the theological standards. Often fierce battles have been fought on minor issues. Nevertheless, in essence its theological emphases have the potential to discern between essential spiritual conflict and unnecessary unspiritual quarrels. The reason why the Reformed tradition has not always—and perhaps not even often—practiced what it preaches is an issue for further and deeper reflection. In the Protestant principle of Scripture as the highest and sole authority in the church, “next to a church-reforming element,
5 Conclusion
The calling of the church always starts with the acknowledgement that she has been called. God’s Word that constitutes the church by renewing sinners and uniting them to Jesus Christ. Being called by the grace of God, the church witnesses in and to a fallen world. The divine call by irresistible grace (the vocatio interna) lies at the heart of sanctification. The historical development of this concept shows that the Reformed emphasis on the Spirit’s work contains catholic elements that easily disappear because of objectivating tendencies in the conflict against spiritualism in the early Reformation. The Reformed emphasis on the inward calling is not a deviation from the Reformation, but rather a correction of a one-sided polemical reaction.
It is important not to label all forms of conflict as polarization. There are genuine and necessary forms of conflict. There is no Christianity without conflict, Christians are called out of the darkness into the light of the kingdom of God. Consensus is a blessing and Christians as peacemakers strive for peaceful coexistence in society. But sometimes the church is called into a ‘state of confession’ in which the uncompromising witness to Christ as the Truth is her highest calling even if that is framed as polarizing by others. The term polarization is a tar baby, the label itself can be polarizing. Therefore, Christians should be careful in using it. The Christian appeal to God’s Commandments or the example of Christ as a moral standard and even monotheism itself can all be framed as forms of polarization.
The notion of the efficacious calling can be helpful to understand the calling of the church in times of polarization. The internal work of the Spirit reveals where the conflict really lies. The border between the two kingdoms does not run along sociological lines, but right through the church itself and even through the heart of the believers who themselves participate in the struggle between the flesh and the Spirit.
The emphasis on the efficacious calling also sheds light on the character of sanctification. Christians are not only called out of the world (ec-clesia), they are also called to freedom and holiness. The work of the Spirit empowers them
The New Testament relates the call of Christ to the future. It is the eschatological call to a wedding, to the marriage supper of the Lamb. The essential unity of the Church has an eschatological perspective. Due to the renewing work of the Spirit, there is hope. Once we will live in a world without polarization, a world for which the Spirit teaches us to groan with all creation waiting eagerly for the future glory to which we have been called by grace.
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Backus, Irena. “Polemic, Exegetical Tradition and Ontology: Bucer’s Interpretation of John 6:52,53 and 64 before and after the Wittenberg Concord.” In The Bible in the Sixteenth Century, Duke Monographs in Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 11, ed. David C. Steinmetz, 176–180. Durham: Duke University Press, 1990.
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Hazlett, Ian. “Zur Auslegung von Johannes 6 bei Bucer während der Abendmahlskontroverse.” In Bucer und seine Zeit: Forschungsbeiträge und Bibliographie. Festschrift for Robert Stupperich, eds. Marijn de Kroon, Friedhelm Krüger and Robert Stupperich, 74–87. Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1976.
Lambertus, Franciscus. De Fidelium Vocatione in Regnum Christi, id est, Ecclesiam. Strassburg: Herwagen, 1525.
Luther, Martin. Against the heavenly prophets. WA 18:136.
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Neuser, Wilhelm H. “Die Marburger Artikel von 1529.” In Reformierte Bekenntnisschriften 1/1, 1523–1534, eds. Heiner Faulenbach and Eberhard Busch, 259–267. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 2002.
Owen, John. The Works of John Owen, ed. William H. Goold, 16 volumes. London: Johnstone and Hunter, 1850–1853. Reprinted: Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1965–1968.
Schwarz, Regina. The Curse of Cain: The Violent Legacy of Monotheism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997.
Stark, Rodney. One True God: Historical Consequences of Monotheism. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001.
Synopsis Purioris Theologiae/Synopsis of a Purer Theology: Latin Text and English Translation, Volume 2, Disputations 24–42, ed. Henk van den Belt, trans. Riemer Faber. Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2016.
Tappert, Theodore G. The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1959.
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Weber, Max. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, trans. By Talcott Parsons, intr. by Anthony Giddens. London/New York: Routledge Classics, 2001.
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Synopsis Purioris Theologiae 40.1–3. For the English translation, see Henk van den Belt (ed.), trans. Riemer Faber, Synopsis Purioris Theologiae/Synopsis of a Purer Theology: Latin Text and English Translation, Volume 2, Disputations 24–42 (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2016), 559.
Augustine, De praedestinatione sanctorum 19.39, PL 44:989. For the English translation, see Augustine, “The Predestination of the Saints,” in Augustine, Answer to the Pelagians IV, translated by Roland J. Teske, The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century, I/26 (New York: New City Press, 1998), 149–187, 182.
Michael S. Woodward, The Glossa Ordinaria on Romans, Teams Commentary Series (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan University, 2011), 132. For the Latin text, see the scans of the Glossa Ordinaria on www.lollardsociety.org/glor/Glossa_vol6b_EpistPauli_a.pdf.
Martin Luther WA 18:782, for the English translation, see Martin Luther, On the Bondage of the Will, translated by Henry Cole (London: T. Bensley, 1823), 366.
Wilhelm H. Neuser, “Die Marburger Artikel von 1529,” in Reformierte Bekenntnisschriften 1/1, 1523–1534, eds. Heiner Faulenbach and Eberhard Busch (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 2002), 259–267, 264.
Augsburg Confession, 5, Die Bekenntnisschriften der evangelisch–lutherischen Kirche (10th ed.) (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1986), 58. The translation relies on Theodore G. Tappert, The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1959), 31.
Franciscus Lambertus, De Fidelium Vocatione in Regnum Christi, id est, Ecclesiam (Strassburg: Herwagen, 1525), 2b.
Martin Bucer, Enarratio in evangelion Johannis (Strassburg: Herwagen, 1528). For the critical edition, see Martin Bucer, Enarratio in Evangelion Iohannis (1528, 1530, 1536) (Martini Buceri Opera, Series II Opera Latina, 2), Studies in Medieval and Reformation Thought, 40, ed. Irena Backus (Leiden: Brill, 1988), 268. Cf. Johannes Brenz, In divi Joannis Evangelion Exegesis (Hagenau: Secerius, 1527), 117. On the debate regarding the Lord’s Supper and the exegesis of John 6 see Ian Hazlett, “Zur Auslegung von Johannes 6 bei Bucer während der Abendmahlskontroverse,” in Bucer und seine Zeit: Forschungsbeiträge und Bibliographie. Festschrift for Robert Stupperich, eds. Marijn de Kroon, Friedhelm Krüger and Robert Stupperich (Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1976), 74–87 and Irena Backus, “Polemic, Exegetical Tradition and Ontology: Bucer’s Interpretation of John 6:52, 53 and 64 before and after the Wittenberg Concord,” in The Bible in the Sixteenth Century, Duke Monographs in Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 11, ed. David C. Steinmetz (Durham: Duke University Press, 1990), 176–180.
Bucer, Enarratio in Evangelion Iohannis, 268. For the English translation, cf. Stephens, Holy Spirit, 202–203 n6. Bucer here cites from Luther’s work Against the heavenly prophets, WA 18:136. These and other anti-Lutheran passages were deleted in the 1536 revision of the commentary. For the final edition, see Martin Bucer, In sacra quatuor evangelia enarrationes perpetuae secundum recognitae (Basil: Johannes Herwagen, 1536), 682.
Jean Calvin, Opera Selecta, 3rd edition, eds. Peter Barth and Wilhelm Niesel (Munich: Christian Kaiser, 1967) 3:412 (henceforth Calvin, OS). For the final edition see John Calvin, Institutes 3.24.2.
This is the case, for instance, in John Owen’s understanding of the calling as a synonym of regeneration. See Henk van den Belt, “Vocatio as Regeneration: John Owen’s Concept of Effectual Calling,” in John Owen between Orthodoxy and Modernity, eds. Willem van Vlastuin and Kelly M. Kapic (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 148–163.
Lauren Swayne Barthold, Overcoming Polarization in the Public Square: Civic Dialogue (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), 2.
Pieter Vos, “Introduction,” 7.
For his application of this accusation in particular to the Reformed doctrine of election and for his convincing answer that, on the contrary, predestination accentuates grace, Michael Allen refers to Regina Schwarz, The Curse of Cain: The Violent Legacy of Monotheism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997) and Rodney Stark, One True God: Historical Consequences of Monotheism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001). R. Michael Allen, Reformed Theology (London/New York: T&T Clark International, 2010), 112–113.
Marcus Arvan, “The Dark Side of Morality: Group Polarization and Moral Epistemology,” in The Philosophical Forum 50:1 (2019), 87–115, 88, 89, and 91.
Calvin, Institutes 3.1.1.
Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, trans. By Talcott Parsons, intr. by Anthony Giddens (London/New York: Routledge Classics, 2001), 160. According to Weber, this translation is the first case in which Beruf has a purely secular sense. It did not exist in German nor was it used in previous translations of the Bible, although Luther might lean on Johannes Tauler. Weber Protestant Ethic, 159.
For instance, by K.L. Schmidt in the article on ‘kaleo’ in the influential Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament (Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler, 1937), 3:493. For the English translation, see Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972), Vol. 3, 487–496.
Luther, WA Dt Bibel 7:104, 105.
Luther, WA 12:132.
Luther, WA 12:132–133.
Luther, On Christian Liberty, 18, WA 7, 20–38.
John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion: 1536 Edition (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing, 1995), 176. For the final edition, see Calvin Institutes 3.19.2–5.
John Owen, The Works of John Owen, ed. William H. Goold, 16 volumes (London: Johnstone and Hunter, 1850–1853), reprinted (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1965–1968), 1:487. Cf. his remark that faith “doth not consist in, that it is not to be fully expressed by, any one single habit or act of the mind or will distinctly whatever.” Owen, Works 5:100.
Owen, Works 3:315 and 356. On Owen’s voluntarism and in particular with respect to the effectual call, cf. Gavin John McGrath, “Puritans and the Human Will: Voluntarism within Mid-Seventeenth Century Puritanism as Seen in the Works of Richard Baxter and John Owen” (PhD-thesis at Durham University, 1989), 251–292.
Owen, Works 3:320.
Canons of Dort, 3/4.6–11.
Luther, On Christian Liberty, 23, WA 7, 20–38.
Herman Bavinck, “The Catholicity of Christianity and the Church,” translated by John Bolt, Calvin Theological Journal 27 (1992), 220–251, 249.