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In the controversies of the late Middle Ages, it was frequent to assert the
supremacy of ecclesiastical power over the civil authority. Against this pretended
supremacy reacts OCKHAM, all authority comes from the Scripture and from the
universal Church, and not from the Roman pontiff. MARSILY OF PADUA
conceives a universal ecumenical and democratic Church, based on the supremacy
of Scripture as a source of authority, which should only be interpreted by councils in
obscure cases. These same ideas, are found in the fourteenth century by WICLIF and
HUS: simony and ignorance have diverted the spirit of the Church. (Tavard,
Ecriture or Eglise, Paris, 1963, in particular pp. 10 and 133, 53 ff.). According to
SKINNER (The foundations of modern political thought, Cambridge, 1978, II, 11),
LUTHER repeats the idea of medieval heretics (Waldenses, Wiclifitas) who
identified the papacy with the antichrist. From another perspective it is emphasized
that the Reformation was an essay of return to the Augustinianism in the High
Middle Ages, against a new rationalism triumphant by scholasticism, in the context
of the schism of Avignon, and the corruption of some Roman Popes. LUTHER,
writes NIETZSCHE, "was indignant at the rebirth of Rome, instead of
understanding, with the deepest gratitude, the extraordinary event which had taken
place: the defeat of Christianity in its own headquarters." (Antichrist, Madrid, 1982,
119). NIETZSCHE, considers LUTHERO a German fool who does not understand
the refinement of the Roman Church.
2
Nominalism, with its radical voluntarism, had come to the notion of a capricious
God, a tyrannical God, despot, remote and distant, who saved for unknown reasons.
This vision of God shakes LUTHER ( MATEO SECO, Martin Luther: on slave
liberty, Madrid 1978, 11). LUTHER is presented as a tributary at this point Of
medieval mysticism. On the theology of the Cross: GARCIA VILLOSLADA Martin
Luther, Madrid, 1973, 1, p. 363; GHERARDINI Theologia crucis l`heredita de
Luther nell'evolutione teologica della Riforma, Rome, 1978, 399. Protestantism, as a
religious phenomenon, is based on the notion of sin, as a radical corruption of
Human nature; by sin man is radically estranged from his God (Deus absconditus)
and deceived by his reason. The invincible concupiscence is ussualy identified with
original sin (GARCA VILLOSLADA, p. 361)..
Despite the brilliant response, which seems to be Melanchthons, the problem of the
identity of Scripture has not ceased to be controversial in the development of
Protestantism. To justify the canon of the Old and New Testaments, Lutherans and
Calvinists seem to lean on tradition and sacramentality of the Church, trying to
avoid a sharp rupture. For Luther, therefore, Faith is not a simple personal
adherence, but rather the sign of participation in a Christian community, redeemed
by the blood of Christ and founded on grace. The 5 Solos: Sola Gratia, Sola Fide,
Sola Scriptura, Solus Christus, Soli Deo Gloria. Protestants in general do not accept
the canonicity of books of the Old Testament that are not in the Jewish Bible, and we
will observe an effective approach of Protestants, especially Calvinists, to Judaism.
The real presence of Christ in the Eucharist does not mean that bread ceases to be
bread (theory of consubstantiation, in the face of Catholic transubstantiation), which
means a paradoxical dual nature visible and invisible, carnal and celestial, sinful and
redeemed (More in detail: B. GHERARDINI, Creature verbi, La Chiesa nella
theologia di Martin Luther, Rome 1993). In his famous Babylonian captivity of the
Church Luther denied that confirmation, marriage, priestly ordination and final
anointing were sacraments; Penance is the promise of exculpation received by faith
(the essence of penance is the absolution of sins, and this is freely received by faith),
penance is conceived as an experience of the covenant that recalls baptism, and is
not a sacrament (on the vacillations of Lutheranism on the sacramental character of
confession, and on the tensions between community public confession and private
confession.) RK RITTGERS, The Reformation of the Keys: Confession, Conscience
and Authority in sixteen century Germany, Cambridge, Mass., 2004). The central
point is the negation of the sacramental character of order, which is due to the
supremacy of the word as the constitution of the Church. The concept of universal
priesthood, is concretized in the famous letter of 1520 to the Christian nobility of the
German nation. The Church is God's people, and the distinction between laity and
is the divine and human duality of the Eucharist that also constitute
the dual nature of the priestly office (which apparently contradicts the
universal priesthood, as emphasized by the Anabaptist critique).
When he is accused of a new dogmatism and historical rupture,
he justifies himself by saying that he never wanted to leave the
Church, but only to reform it in the evangelical sense. His radical
opposition to the Roman Church does not mean to break tradition, but
to rescue the real tradition of Church from abuse and corruption, in
particular, deliver the Church of ecclesiastical hierarchy, celibacy, and
ritual practices by which man feels deserving divine predilection8.
Tradition is thus defined as a decisive component of the identity
and organization of the Lutheran Church, called evangelical, that
intends to represent the presence of Christ in the world and history9.
people is pure hypocrisy. The Church as a social form may, according to
Melanchton, be mistaken, but it is infallible as writing and word. TAVARD,
Ecriture, cit., 135. The priesthood is an office: all Christians participate in the same
priestly state (Stand), and the priesthood is no more than a function (Amt). For
Luther the priesthood should not be conceived as a sacrament, but instituted for the
teaching of the word and administration of the sacraments (see GONZALEZ
MONTES, Lutheran Reformation and Catholic Tradition, Salamanca 1987, p. 29
ff.). A duality: conversion, institution by Christ and by the Christian community, not
a simple vocation (berufung), or a choice for the people, But a vocation ordained by
the Church, which distinguishes the minister from the preacher. And in fact, Luther
seems to have evolved from the most spiritualistic early positions to emphasize the
importance of ordination in the face of the Anabaptists (see CL GREEN Change in
Luther's Doctrine of the Ministry "The Lutheran Quarterly" May 1966, http: //
members. Aol.com/SemperRef/change.html).
8
In his 1539 treatise on the councils and the Church, he maintains that the Roman
Church has separated from the early Church tradition by dogmatically affirming
papal authority. He examines the principal councils and resolves that the council is
not an authority by itself, since it only concretizes the truth in the face of heresy: In
Nicaea before Aryan he affirms the divinity of Christ, in Constantinople the divinity
of the Holy Spirit, In Ephesus against Nestorianism the divine and human double
nature of Christ, and in Chalcedon the unity of Christ. Thus seems to have reversed
his initial radicalism (A. LAUBE, Radicalism as a reserch problem in the history of
the early reformation, in "Radical tendencies in the Reformation", Kirksville, 1988,
p. 128 et seq.).
9
LUTHER does not seem worry, as in the Calvinist world, the problem of the first
election of the Jews, and the integration of the Jews in the New Covenant. Lutheran
thought manifests itself anti-Semitic, especially in his book on the Jews and their
lies (1543), accusing them of usury and magical practices. He advises in that writing
CALVIN was born in a family of the French high bourgeoisie closely linked to the
nobility. He receives a careful education as a child, where he stands out for his
intelligence. Studied bachelors in arts in the school of MONTAIGU of Paris,
celebrated by its rigor; and Law in Orleans, where taught ALCIATO, famous
only due to his energetic leadership in Geneva, but mainly because his
doctrine is presented in a clear and systematic way in the Christian
Institution, the most influential writing of the Reformation. CALVIN
spent his whole life re-editing and perfecting it13.
From the Lutheran principles of sola Fide and sola Scriptura, the
decisive event for the institutionalization of the Reformed Church is
the rupture with LUTHER, which occurs at the Marburg colloquium
in 1529. CALVIN refuses to accept literally "This is my body", which
underlies the sacrament of the Eucharist, a sign of the Church.
CALVIN does not place the accent on the Church as the presence of
the body of Christ, and maintains that the sacrifice of Christ is a
unique and unrepeatable historical event; Christ is seated at the right
hand of the Father and not in the Eucharist, as a bodily presence. The
humanist jurist of the Renaissance. After his conversion he flees the Catholic France
and it sits in Strasbourg. Called to Geneva as pastor, it culminates the most
ambitious and prestigious of Christian reforms. See GANOCZY (Calvin, Theology
de l'Eglise et du Ministre, Paris, 1964). CALVIN, in 1536 he completes, at only
twenty-seven years, the first edition of his Christian Institution. This is explained, of
course, by CALVIN's extraordinary intelligence, capacity for work and personality,
but also because his theology is closely inspired by LUTHER, which he adapts
through his jurist's eyes. (See BIELER, La pense conomique et sociale de Calvin,
Genve, 1959, p. 130 et seq.). It seems to me that since the first edition of the
Christian Institution CALVIN attempts to reconcile Lutheran theology using
"common sense", in the face of the disorder and dogmatism of the first reformer.
CALVIN is not a monk tortured by the presence of God, but a jurist, who attends to
practical problems of social identity of the dogma and organization of the Church.
As LEONARD explains, CALVIN, twenty years younger than LUTHER, belongs to
the second generation of the Reformation, which does not have to create
Protestantism, but to consolidate and organize it (General History of Protestantism,
1, 1967, p. 294).
13
The Christian Institution is called the summa of Protestantism: C. HUNT, Calvin,
London 1933, p., 177. Calvin's work contributes to the formation of the French
language, just as the Lutheran translation of the Bible contributes to the formation of
the modern German language. Had sucesive editions, each of which extends the
previous one. Written in a characteristic language, with classic resonances,
especially of CICERON, clear, brief, simple (MC NEILL, Calvin, on the Christian
faith, Indianapolis, 1957, page XVII of the introduction) AUTIN, L'institution
chrtienne de Calvin, Paris , 1929, studies the successive editions and their
particular historical avatars, as well as Gillmont, Jean Calvin et le livre prints,
Genve 1997, page 63 et seq. AM MC GRATH, Reformation thought, 3 ed Malden
1999). The full text in English at http://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/institutes.html. On
this website are digitaly published the main works of Calvin, in English, Latin and
French.
CALVIN since the first edition of the Christian Institution criticizes the Lutheran
doctrine of the ubiquity of Christ; Christ is incarnated with a finite humanity and this
prevents him from being present bodily in the Eucharist (D. Steininetz, Calvin in
context, New York-Oxford, 1995, p. 172 ff.). It develops a Trinitarian explanation of
the Eucharist: Christ is present in the Eucharist in his divine nature, as a
participation of the Holy Spirit, but not in his human nature. In 1549 the consensus
Tigurinus was signed, and unifies the Calvinist and Zwinglian Churches: BOYER
(Calvin et Luther, accords et diffrences, Rome, 1973, p. 168 et seq.), E. ISERLOH
(Compendium of History and Theology of Islam, Brescia 1990, p. 191). The famous
jurist Rudolph SOHM, Kirchenrecht, Berlin, reprint 1970, interprets this Calvinist
Church and its emphasis, on a visible, legally organized Church, especially after
1541, as a return to the Roman Catholic model. However holding the real presence
of Christ in the Eucharist, and other ceremonies and rites of the Babilonian Church,
from the reformed ranks Luther is also accused of enduring the errors of Roman
Catholicism (MUELLER, Church and State In Luther and Calvin, New York 1954) .
15
Baptism and the Eucharist are signs of the Church admitted in the Reformed
Church, although reinterpreted from scriptural presuppositions. The relationship
between theology and liturgy, especially referred to the Eucharist, is examined
recently by L. P. WANDEL. The Eucharist in the Reformation: Incarnation and
Liturgy. Cambridge, 2006. The Calvinist liturgy is no longer founded on
highlighting transubstantiation but on its commemorative character, and the
shepherd's garments no longer emphasize his special mission. The variety of liturgy
is explained by the very different theological interpretations of the Eucharist within
the Reformed movement.
16
In the strict Puritan congregations, except for psalm singing, music is hardly a part
of Christian worship, nor is the exaltation of the experience of the presence of the
Lord. After emphasizing the severity of Calvinist societies and pondering the classic
study of E. Durkheim, which states that suicide is much more prevalent in Protestant
LUTHER has been seen as the awakening of the Germanic identity. The birth of
the Germanic spirit against the double and nuances of the Latin hipocresy,
represented in the refinement of the Roman court, and in the subtleties of
scholasticism. LUTHER has been frequently presented as the hero of German
nationalism, complexed in the face of the Latin and Roman world (R. SEEBERG,
Textbook of the history of doctrines, Eng. Grand Rapids, 1952, ALVAREZ
GUTIERREZ, Luther in History, " Revista Agustiniana, 75, 1983, p. 306). HITLER,
considered LUTHER ancestor of his movement. The Reformation hymn (letter and
music of LUTHER: our God is a solid fortress), in their version of BACH, were
indicative of the German special communiques in World War II. Before reunification
the German Democratic Republic, which had officially considered Luther
reactionary due to his position in the wars of peasants, changed official doctrine on
the occasion of the five hundredth anniversary of his birth, and considered him
progressive (for its struggle against the papacy ). The Reformation is then presented
by the German democratic authorities as the first battle of the bourgeoisie against
feudalism (see, T. EGIDO, Luther from History, "Journal of Spirituality", 42, 1983,
Page 383) SUBILLA, Interpretationi di Luther, "Protestant" 1, 1983, p. 17 ff).
19
Primary mystical or religious experiences contrast Religions periodically, and are
difficult to digest by constituted religious authority. Pietism, the most characteristic
heresy within Lutheranism, originated in the eighteenth century, and advocates a
more emotive religion. For its part, Lutheran orthodoxy emphasizes that antidogmatism is destined to end in pseudo-millennial mysticism and indifferentism.
The Pietist movement is strongly influenced by the Spanish mystic of the golden age
and then influences the romantic movement and the poetic, literary and cultural
awakening of the German 19th century. It inspires also, in a decisive way,
Methodism in the Church of England. It reaches God fundamentally through
emotion (cf. SUMBILIA, il Pietismo, "Protestant", 1, 1963). By the strange principle
that an assertion is also the affirmation of its opposite, there are shocking affinities
between Pietism and the development of the philosophical trio of Wurttemberg:
Holdering, Hegel and Shelling. Pietism, in an unusual contradiction, coincides
historically with the development of the rationalist institutionalization of the great
German State, strong and reunified, national and xenophobic.
20
The Works of James Arminius, trans. By James Nichols and William R. Bagnall at
http://www.ccel.org/a/arminius.htlm. On this decisive Synod in Calvinist history S.
ROSTAGNO, I predestinati. Torino 2006, in particular, p. 56 et seq. Arminian
heresy is a decisive factor in the secularization of the Calvinist world. The essays
compiled by R. PO-CHIA HSIA, H.VAN NIEROP, Calvinism and Relegious
Toleration in the Dutch Golden Age, Cambridge, 2002. The Union of Utrech
guarantees freedom of conscience, although with restrictions for Catholics; Holland
receives the exiles of the European wars of religion and the Spanish and Portuguese
Jews (Marranos). In this context is initiated Dutch natural law, which advocates
valuing the person above his religious beliefs.
21
R. De MATTEI, A sinistra de LUTHER, Rome 1999, p. 77 ff. The most known
Spanish antitrinitarists are Juan de Valdes and Miguel Servet. The main Italian
antitrinitarians took refuge in the Poland of Sigismund, a calvinism in decay, and in
Rakov, between 1603 and 1605, they write Cathecismus recoviensis, on its dogmatic
principles. The counter-reform in Poland forces them to emigrate by settling in the
Netherlands and England, where they constitute a singularly influential stream of
thought. We will see that the English revolution and restoration condemns them
expressly. It constitutes a current within Calvinism and baptism, a denomination
more than a proper Church.
The Synod was presided over by Teodoro Beza, and the confession of faith was
signed by Juana III of Albret Reina de Navarra, and his son Enrique, future king of
France (see JM OLAIZOLA, History of Protestantism in the Basque Country,
Pamplona 1993, in Special page 155 et seq).
For to the internal crisis of the Protestant denominations is added the massive
arrival of immigrants who do not identify with the values that forged independence
S.E. AHLSTRON, A Religious History of the American People, New Haven 1972,
especially Page 915 et seq. The American society faces the beginning of a growing
secularization after the civil war, probably due to the incapacity of the main
Protestant denominations to solve the abolitionism dilemma. In the nineteenth
century, the exponential multiplication of Baptism and Methodism, proselytizing
currents, makes Calvinists lose their former dominance. According to W. SWEET's
classic thesis, Religion in the American Frontier, Chicago 1946 (4 vols. Dedicated to
Baptists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists and Methodists) is the conquest of the
West, and the proselytizing thrust of Baptists and Methodists, the forge of a new
American Protestantism, which rejects Calvinist predestination and affirms
individual responsibility (fruit of conversion as personal experience) and success
based on work. In the last third of the nineteenth century, there was an important
migratory flow of Catholic countries that had a strong impact on American society,
in which context the war with Mexico, Spain, the invasion of the Philippines, Cuba
and Puerto Rico, and a revival of Protestant radicalism and anti-Catholic proselytism
Protestantism, Scottdale, 1968, IX). The first communities seem to have formed in
Switzerland, northern Germany and Holland. Later in Moravia they were known like
Hutterianos, by the extraordinary influence of Jakob Hutter; and in the Netherlands
from 1545 they were known as Mennonites, taking the name of one of the foremost
reformers of their time, Menno Simons. Anabaptists formed major congregations in
Germany, Switzerland, Central Europe (Moravia in particular), Holland, England
and southern Russia, massively emigrating to the United States and Canada, where
there are important congregations (especially in Pennsylvania, Ontario and
Mannitoba), some Very picturesque for their dress and customs, as the Amish. There
is also an important Mennonite group in the Chaco, Paraguay (constituting
independent groups: Menno, Fernheim, Friesland, Volendam, and Neuland).
31
The defense of freedom against predestination leads them to maintain the personal
resurrection at the end of time, unlike Calvin, who does not dogmatically support the
resurrection of all, but only of the elect (BALKE, Calvin and the Anabaptist
Radicals, Grand Rapids 1981). It can be said that the general basis of his theology is
generally antitrinitarian. In many Anabaptist streams the ceremony of washing of the
feet emphasizes hospitality as a special virtue of Christians and acquires special
relevance and is associated with the Lord's Supper (WOPACKULL, An Introduction
to Anabaptist Theology, "The Cambridge Companion to Reformation Theology
"Cambridge 2004, p. 194).
32
The Anabaptists intend to break with the duality Church State and the corpus
christianum, which they say maintain Catholics and Protestants, and affirm the
freedom of conscience, and the total emancipation of the Christian of the political
organization. Making Christianity the religion of the Roman Empire in Constantine's
time was the great historical betrayal of the Gospel, as Christ did not interfere with
the princes of his time. More in Detail: WENGER, Compendium of Mennonite
History and Doctrines, trans. Esp., Buenos Aires, 1960; G.H. WILLIAMS, The
radical reform., Trad. Esp., 1983, p. 440; PACKULL, Hutterite beginnings,
Baltimore 1995; H.G. GOERTZ, Radical religiosity in the German reformation, in
"The reformation world", Oxford, 2004.
33
MENNO SIMONS, and in general the great Anabaptist reformers, affirm respect
for the constituted order. Some Anabaptist currents (such as the Hutterites) place
particular emphasis on the idea of sharing goods and organizing "communist"
congregations; others in charity and hospitality; Others in the spiritual character of
the divinity of Christ, adopted by the father; others in the silent suffering of the
Christian, the practice of forgiveness and the offering of the other cheek, which
should preside over the renewed life of the convert, etc., See J. STAYER,
Anabaptists and the sword, Lawrence, 1972. However, certain Christian radicals
deny authority, property and marriage, and generate dangerous and destructive
social, political and pseudomistic experiences. For example, in 1534 in the name of
Anabaptism the kingdom of Sion was founded in Munster. Property was abolished,
marriage of women over 14 years old was ordained, legally establishing polygamy.
His king Jan van Leyden marries 16 women. Thousands of Anabaptists converge in
Munster until the city is surrendered by treason in 1535 (in detail S. HAUDE, In the
shadow of Salvage Wolves: Anabaptist Munster and the German Reformation,
Boston-Leyden-Cologne, 2000). Because of polygamy, the kingdom of Sion of
Munster is often excluded from Anabaptism (although some claim to be genuine
Anabaptists such as STAYER, Anabaptist and the Sword, Lawrence, Kansas, 1976).
Also the Charitatis family, called Nicolaitans, when founded by N. NICLAES
(1502/1580), advocates the mystical union with the Lord, by which the converts are
free from sin, and practice free love and communication of goods, a sect to which
the famous Spanish humanist Benito Arias Montano allegedly belonged, and which
seems to have spread with peculiar force among the English Baptists (R. De
MATTEI, A sinistra de Luther, Rome 1999, p. 51 ff.). The famous friends of blood
(Blutsfreunde aus der Wiedertaufe), Thuringia, considered that the true sacrament of
marriage was the collective and carnal exchange of brothers and sisters.
34
Anabaptists are inspired by the Calvinist organization of the Church, but they
usually emphasize, in the face of Calvinist organization, the radical principle of the
free choice of pastors for each Christian community. See the Ministry Ministry in
"Mennonite encyclopedia", 1957, vol 3 Page 699 et seq. Also now: Global
Anabaptist
Mennonite
Encyclopedia
Online:
http://www.gameo.org/encyclopedia/contents/M9ME.html. The Baptist Churches in
the British colonies of New England adopt the Westminster Confession and the
congregational forms of organization, differing from the Congregationalists mainly
on the theme of adult baptism and refusal to be a state religion (WS HUDSON- J.
CORRIGAN , Religion in America, 6 ed. Upper Saddle River, 1999, p. 43). The
Congregationalists themselves debate at length about the respective value of baptism
clashes and religious wars, it is clear that none of the Christian beliefs
can prevail in an absolute way on the European stage.
The peace of Westphalia affirms the confessional State,
indulgent with the religious minorities for practical reasons. After the
storm of Reformation, when the waters rest, when confessions are
politically established, in what we can call the second phase of the
Reformation, the difficulty is no longer award social and legal
institutions for new religious ideas, but the integration of dissidents,
coexistence with minority Christian groups, considered disloyal,
fanatic or idolatrous.
The legal structure, arising from the peace of Westphalia, is still
unstable. Tolerance is accepted as a legal principle, but with what
limits? The Protestant confessional trends also face internal
discrepancy and even religious fanaticism, and sometimes the
persecuted transform into persecutors, maybe to check again its
uselessness.
Lutheran and Calvinist rules of law seem to leed to nondenominational institutionalitation founded on secular values, as the
most effective way to ensure political stability. It is one step further:
only authentic religious freedom guarantees the end of confessional
conflict and internal religious dissidence. We thus arrive at the social
formalization of secular political models of Protestant territories,
which are defined by religious freedom, and egalitarian treatment of
all Christian confessions. The cold, dour and severe Protestant society,
tortured by dissent and quarrels, then discovers authentically Christian
values of man's worth, and establishes religious freedom as ground of
social and political equality.
Religious freedom is reached by different paths. The German
Protestant state of Lutheran roots, produces a authoritarian secular
model of religious freedom, which I examine in detail in Chapter II,
and which I think has failed. On the other hand, the Calvinist world, as
a counterpoint to Royal absolutist doctrines, rises a genuine religious
freedom, founded on parliamentarism, which is the germ of modern
democracy.
The deep fall of man, opens an insurmountable abyss between man and God,
between reason and faith. God is unknowable and beyond the natural capacity of
man. LUTHER despises reason, the "whore of the devil," the deceiver of man,
deformed by sin. Man is related to God exclusively by faith (I believe because it is
absurd). For Luther the fallen nature of man requires a firm authority to defend true
faith against Rome, to brake the rebels, to punish the Jews, and to subject heretics.
The sharp separation between reason and faith is characteristic of nominalism and its
conceived conception of God.
40
respect and obey the offices or institutions that the Lord has instituted
for the social order. The government of the world is realized according
to LUTHER through states (Stnde), also called "orders",
"institutions" or "trades", diverse contents called Ordnungen:
Gottesvater, Landesvater and Hausvater. The State, family and
professions serve as craftsmen and servants of God, with autonomy in
their own foundations and ends41.
LUTHER against the rebellion of the peasants defends the
authority of the prince, without questioning legitimacy, and considers
the violence against the rebels justified; he does not hesitate to
encourage princes to exercise violence against religious dissent, and
against the Jews. The vicissitudes of history bear witness to the
practical application of his political thought. LUTHER relies on the
authority of the princes to defend the reform of the Roman Church;
and entrusts the prince, by means of the consistory and the so-called
ecclesiastical visits, the dogma, the ritual and the ceremonies, and to
maintain the ecclesiastical discipline, that avoids the abuses of the
clergy42.
41
LUTHER initiates the theology of the (three) orders in his sermon on baptism von
der sakrament der taufe (1519). The theory of orders is also exposed in a nonsystematic way in opposition to the monastic life and lack of substantiality of papal
authority, in the confession relating to the Lord's supper (1528), in his classes on the
genesis (1535-1545), and finally in dispute on the right to resist the emperor (1539).
Many authors emphasize that it is not appropriate to dogmatize the theology of
orders in Luther: KOLB (Martin Luther and the German nation, in "A companion to
the Reformation World" studies conducted by R. Po-chia Hsia, 2004-2006, p. 47 and
sig.). On the Theology of Orders: WITTE Law and Protestantism, Cambridge, 2002,
Page 6, F. HARRIGTON, Reordering marriage and society in Reformation
Germany, Cambridge 1997, E. ISERLICH, Compendium of History and Theology
of Islam , Trad.it., Brecia 1990, p. 92 et seq., GONZALEZ MONTES, Lutheran
Reformation and Catholic Tradition, Salamanca 1987, Page 236 et seq., P.
ALTHAUS, The Ethics of Martin Luther, trans. Ing. R. Schultz, Philadelphia, 1972,
p. 36.). In particular C. Schmitt founded his corporate doctrine of the concrete order
of the state, which is based first and foremost on the people and race (Volkisch) on
the theory of the orders of LUTHER (in detail CAMPDERRICH, The Word of
Behemoth, Madrid 2005, p. 107).
42
As Luther's thought does not seem to have been practical, the competences and
composition of the consistory and ecclesiastical visitation, key institutions for the
discipline of the Church, do not appear to be profiled in Lutheran thought. In fact it
was MELACHTON who wrote in 1527 an instruction for the visit of the parishes,
although with a passionate prologue of Luther. The ecclesiastical ordinance of
Many authors from different perspectives underline the direct link between
Lutheran Reformation and authoritarian nationalism.. R. NIEBUHR, the American
evangelical theologian, promoter of a radical anti-fascist movement for social
justice, in The Nature and Destiny of Man, 2 Vols., New York 1953, emphasizes how
Hitler claimed the Lutheran Ethos when he demanded unconditional obedience. E.
TROELTSCH, ends up absorbing personal ethics in the institutional, when the State
is conceived as the result of a divine will that legitimizes it directly (Protestantism
and the modern world, 1967) concludes that he has deposited in the German soul the
germ of an original type of legal positivism, founded on the religious, which leads to
a cult of authority and an apology for obedience and discipline. La formation of the
pense juridique moderne, Paris, 1968, p. 307. Many other authors hold the same
position; DE NEGRI, The Theology of Luther, Florence, 1967, Prologue, etc.
CHANTRAINE, Erasme the Luther free et serf arbitre, Paris, 1981 introduction.
BALMES, Protestantism compared with Catholicism, Madrid, 1949, Page 670,
SHIRER, The rise and fall of the Third Reich, New York, 1960, page 91.
GONZALEZ MONTES, Religion and nationalism, Salamanca 1982, Page 16 and
sigs, WITTE, Law and Protestantism, Cambridge, 2002, p. 18 ff.
Modern philosophy seeks to reconquer "something that was once more securely
possessed, something belonging to the old patrimony of the faith ..." (NIETZSCHE,
Beyond Good and Evil, cit., P. 26). Nietzsche's criticism of all metaphysics is based
on the fact that he imposes values, and therefore atrophies and weakens life (cf.
FINK, Philosophy of Nietzsche, Madrid, 1966, p. Certain analogies between
NIETZSCHE and LUTHER could be emphasized. NIETZSCHE starts from the
criticism to the institutionalization of the Christian and Jewish movement by the
manipulative action of a sacerdotal caste; Is the same criticism of LUTHER to the
Catholic Church, but now extended to all Christian doctrine and even Jewish. The
Nietzschean contraposition between the historical Jesus its perverse manipulation by
a sacerdotal caste and the demand of a "true truth" is the same position of LUTHER
in its criticism to the Church; NIETZSCHE criticizes idealism, LUTHER
metaphysics. Both are irrational to the search for the authenticity of the man, both
identify rationalism and dogmatism both also start using a direct, violent, insulting
style. NIETZSCHE presents us to the State as the theology of the death of God (at
least of the subjective God of Christians); In the Antichrist the idea that every
concept is an image of divinity is clearly formulated and developed. In particular,
the State, as the superior present divinity, is, according to NIETZSCHE, the death of
peoples, the idol of the weak, the paradise of mediocrity and irresponsibility. It is an
invention of the weak to subdue the strong; Is, says ZARATHOUSTRA the coldest
cold monster; Is cold even when he lies, and this is the lie that slips from his mouth:
"I am the State, I am the people." Where the state ends, man (Thus speaks
Zarathoustra, cit., P. 82 ff.), For the gregarious man is the only species of man
allowed (Beyond good and evil, Page 129).
45
K. BARTH dedicates to KANT a long space between Protestant theologians of
the eighteenth century (Protestant theology in the nineteenth century: its background
and history, by Brian Cozens and John Bowden, London 2001). Kant, by making
individual and subjective thought the absolute foundation of knowledge, claims for
To paraphrase NIETZSCHE, we can say that truth was the Lutheran, and that the
new authoritarian state sought to support by another name (with the new
terminology that philosophy had lent) the same Lutheran principles that had founded
the political impetus of the Prussian State .
47
The relationship between HEGEL and LUTHER is underlined by the most diverse
authors in the most frequently encountered fields. For example, already in an old
study, ZUBIRI gave birth to the modern philosophical thought of LUTHER (On the
problem of philosophy, in Revista de Occidente, 115, 118, 1933, Page 116). The
claim of NIETZSCHE is, in this sense, very correct: the need to ground a moral has
developed the Philosophy , And not the other way round, as is commonly believed.
Although the statement is reproduced in different places in the work of
NIETZSCHE, it can be seen, for example, in Beyond Good and Evil. The Protestant
pastor is the grandfather of German philosophy, and Protestantism his original sin
(The Antichrist, Madrid, 1982, page 29), according to NIETZSCHE, the end of the
tragic epoch has arrived and is assisted at the beginning of the theoretical man
SOCRATES is responsible for the birth of metaphysics and guilty of the genesis of
Christianity. In search of God the young theologians of Tbingen went out to search
the undergrowth, but God is dead. All German Philosophy is a Camouflaged
Theology.
In my opinion, Hegel loses the notion of evil and sin and conceives the evolution
of history as a continuous progression of the idea (which is the same as reality)
towards subjectivity. In the seminary of Tbingen Hegel, Holdering and Schlegel,
they come into contact and influence each other, in close dependence on the German
Romantic movement, authority, which exalts the role of the State in the ultimate goal
of reuniting Germany.
49
The authority of the Kaiser would be seen by the "real" Prussians as a guarantee of
the preservation of Protestant ideals, but why would Jewish authors (converts to
Protestantism or at least integrated into Protestantism) exalt authority? I believe that
perhaps the Jews, after centuries of persecution in the Germanic world, feared more
the disorder and the chaos than the Constituted authority. See R. PO-CHIA HSIA,
The myth of Ritual Murder. Jews in Germany, New Haven and London, 1988. In
prerreformed Germany, the accusation of the Jews of Christ's death is frequently
reproduced in the accusation of Jews of the place of ritual murders of Christian
children, Charles V protected the Jews, prohibited the prosecution of Jews for
alleged ritual crimes.
And it will be subject to a close criticism by the most modern Lutheran theology,
which re-elaborates the concept of Church and accuses SOHM of being a
responsible of the national-Lutheranism. In particular the thinking of H. DIEM,
related in detail by GONZALEZ MONTES, (Religin y nacionalismo, cit., Pgs.
123 y sigs.), o TROELTSCH (cit., Pg. 145 y sigs.).
61
of the Church and the State 65. And in fact lacked practical usefulness
and did not last66.
The Catholic Church, was not integrated into the German
Christians, and had indexed Dr. Rossemberg's book. In the Encyclical
Letter of S.S. Pius XI, Mit brennender Sorge, of March 14, 1937, it is
stated that Nazi ideology perverts and falsifies the order created and
imposed by God, is far from true faith and a conception of life
according to her.
4.4. Renewal of Theology.
The Second World War meant the collapse of German Protestant
liberalism. And today seems to be predominant a radical
condemnation of liberal theology and a theology of total separation of
the Church. If HEGEL was the great architect of the theory of the
nineteenth-century German state, KIERKEGAARD represents the
spirit of a new Protestant theology that condemns the Nazi ideology,
and accuses HEGEL, and all German theology linked to German
idealism, of paganism. With Kierkegaard philosophy and theology
opens to anxiety and dispair, also directly inspired by the theology of
LUTHER.
According to KIERKEGAARD, secular thinking (seems to refer
to Hegel) does not know what faith and sin are. The figure of
Abraham is the central theme of the book, Fear and Trembling, one of
the most decisive books of modern thought: it raises the spiritual
notion of sin and moral judgment about Abraham. The figure of
Abraham, who breaks with the world in the acceptance and silent
65
It is curious to note that if the Nazi regime was able to integrate evangelicals and
reformed into a single ecclesial organization of Christian Germans, it also succeeded
in framing in the confessing Church a unique opposition which also included
evangelicals and Reformed. See, Karl HELMREICH, The German Churches under
Hitler: Background, Struggle, and Epilogue, Detroit, 1979.
It is striking that prestigious authors within the new evangelical church confess,
today, claim an authentic autonomy of the Church against the secular political order,
and the importance of law in the Church (in particular WOLF). They appear to
distance themselves from the first Lutheran interpretation of the integration of
religion into a single Christianum corpus, or from a personalist and fideist view of
religion. And in general, within this process of autonomy of the Church and
rejection of interference by the State, we can speak of a revival of the study of canon
law in the evangelical Church. The Evangelical Church also moves away from
Lutheran claims about the Jews, assuming a painful responsibility in the genesis and
development of anti-Semitism.RAYMOND, Entre la grce et la loi. Introduction au
droit ecclsial protestant, Genve 1992, pags, 55 y sis. y pag. 74. WITTE, Law and
Protestantism, Cambridge, Mass. 2002, Pg. 53 y sigs..
SMITS, Saint Agustin dans loevre de Jean Calvin, Assen, 1957, 2 vols. y T.H.L.
PARKER, Calvins New Testament commentaries, Grand Rapids, 1971; GILMONT,
Jean Calvin et le livre imprime, Geneva 1997, Page. 210 y sigs., analiza en detalle
las citas de la patrstica. Tambin TAVARD, From Bonaventure to Reformers,
Milwaukee, 2005, Page. 85 y sigs, A.N.S. LANE, Calvin and Bernhard of
Clairvaux, Princeton 1996; John Calvin. Student of the Church Fathers, Edinburgh,
1999).
73
GANOCZY, cit., Page. 13. A.N.S. LANE, John Calvin. Student of the Church
Fathers, Edinburgh, 1999, Page 40 y sigs.
74
Calvin, betraying the Lutheran notion of the irrationality of faith, considers that
the reality of God is present in the reason of man and therefore is a principle which
directs, with providence, The course of History.K. BARTH, niega este punto en su
clebre polmica con E. BRUNNER (vase K. BARTH-E. BRUNNER, Natural
Theology, trad. ing. London 1946). En sentido contrario a K.Barth se decanta la
mayora (Por ejemplo, BOYER, Calvin et Luther, accords el diffrences, Roma,
1973, pgina 45; J. BOWSMA, John Calvin a sixteenth Century Portrait, New YorkOxford, 1988, D. STEINMETZ, Calvin in context, New York-Oxford, 1995).
Cfr. SKINNER, op. cit., II, page. 225. A.M McGrath, Reformation thought, 3 ed
Malden 1999, Page. 244 (ver H:A: OBERMAN, The dawn of the reformation,
Edimburgh, 1986, Page. 49).
76
The immutability of the word of God allows CALVIN to conclude that the
ontological principles of the organization have remained unchanged in the history of
the chosen people, although the visible and temporal character of the Church
facilitates the change and modification of appearances (which must be adapted in
each Moment to the circumstances).Cf. WILLIS, Calvins catholic Christology,
Leiden, 1966, pgina 191 y sigs. GANOCZY, Calvin, thologien de lEglise et du
ministre, Pars, 1964. Page. 129; tambin WENDEL, Calvin, sources el volution
de se pense religieuse, Pars, 1950, Page. 89 y sigs.
77
The radical and Anabaptist reform (although it is difficult to establish a single line
because of its many particularities), can be said in general terms that it continues in
the line of approach to the Old Testament by refusing to see in the Bible an alliance
to two deliveries (G.H. WILLIAMS, La reforma radical., trad. esp., Mxico 1983,
Page. 3).
PARADOWSKI, Sociologa del Protestantismo, Cp. IV, Verbo, 168, 1978, Pg.
119 y sigs.). In Holland, the iusnaturalistim, GROCIO and PUFENDORF in
particular, claims to be admirer of the Jews, and are called (H. KNG, El judasmo,
trad. esp., 3 ed, Madrid 2001, Page. 184). On K. BARTH (E. BUSCH, The Great
passion. An Introduction to K. Barths Theology , Grand Rapids/ Cambridge, 2004,
en particular Page. 154 y sigs.).
83
Cfr. REDONDO, Luther et lEspagne de 1520 a 1536, Mlanges de la casa de
Velzquez, Pars, 1965, pgs. 159-161; MARTN HERNNDEZ, Influencia de
LUTERO en Espaa durante el siglo XV RA, 75, 1983, pgina 357. DE
MADARIAGA (El ocaso del imperio espaol en Amrica, Buenos Aires, 2. ed.,
1959, Pg. 308 y sigs). G0I GAZTAMBIDE, La imagen de LUTHER en Espaa;
su evolucin histrica, Scripta theologica, 1983, Pg. 470.
84
The Puritan era brought about a radical change in the treatment of the Jews in
England, Rome was now considered the incarnation of the Antichrist, the Jews
ceased to be accused of being Christ's murderers. John LIGHTFOOT, one of the
inspirers of the Westminster confession, had studied especially the Jewish works,
and is considered a Hebraist, his main work Horae Hebraicae et Talmudicae,
published in 1658, Avihu ZAKAI, From Judgment to Salvation: The Image of The
Jews in the English Renaissance in "Westminster Theological Journal," Vol. 59: 2, p.
213-4. John Owen, an eminent Puritan, Vice Chancellor of Oxford wrote: "The Jews
will gather from all parts of the world where they are now dispersed and will return
to their land before the end of time" (DL LARSEN, Jews, Gentiles and the Church,
Grand Rapids, 1995, p 126). M. W. KARLBERG, Reformation Politics: The
Relevance of Old Testament Ethics in Calvinistic Political Theory, in "Journal of the
Evangelical Theological Society," Vol. 29: 2, June, 1986, pp. 188-189. Karl Marx
himself, writes that the English people had borrowed from the Old Testament the
words, passions, and illusions to make the bourgeois revolution. Some English
Puritans also claim the direct application of the Mosaic law and even that adultery
be punished with death (INGRAM M. Church Courts, Sex and marriage in
England, 1570-1640, Cambridge, 1987., p. 151). T. CARTWRIGHT, the famous
Puritan leader, advocated direct rule by the Bible (PDL DAVIS, The Church in the
Theology of the Reformers, London 1981 , P. 46). Even the mythical Milton seems to
be decisively influenced by the reading of the Jewish religious texts (J. S.
SHOULSON, Milton and the Rabbies: Hebraism, Hellenism, and Christianity, New
York, 2001)..
The puritan origins of the American self, New Haven, Londres 1975, page. 223,
nota 43. SPINI, Autobigrafia della giovene America, Turn, 1968. W. S. HUDSONJ. CORRIGAN, Religion in America, 6 ed. Upper Saddle River, 1999, Page. 129.
90
HOLTROP, The Bolsec controversy on predestination, from 1551 to 1555,
Lampeter 1993). STEINMETZ, The theology of John Calvin, en The Cambridge
companion to Reformation Theology, Cambridge 2004, Page. 119.
91
I would dare to point out two fundamental sources of the Protestant position are
the opposition of St. Augustine to the Pelagians; And second, the nominalist
conception of God. CADIER, Calvin, Pars, 1967, Pg. 38; WENDEL, op. cit., Pg.
92 y sigs. WERNICKE, Los agustinos y la Reforma, RA, 1983, Pg. 333;
ATKINSON, LUTHER y el nacimiento del Protestantismo, trad. esp., Madrid, 1980,
Pg. 31 y sigs. The great objection to predestination is the problem of evil: If God
has predestined everything, how can evil be explained? It is common in this sense to
interpret Lutheran thought as a continuation of medieval thought (OBERMAN,
Forerunners of Reformation, the shape of medieval thought, Nueva York 1996)
and man, because God does not change his mind (II, 11, 2). The
Church for CALVIN testifies the living Scripture, because the will of
the Creator is the fulfillment of Scripture, which is realized through
the Church. As the end of man and history is the glory of the Lord
(Soli Deo Gloria), the Church witnesses the triumph of good and truth,
and to stage that triumph the Lord chooses the elect. Predestination
manifests history as the theater of the Lord's providential will94.
2.3. Predestination in the Reformed Churches.
Denying freedom is nasty, and difficult to understand. Within
Calvinism the meaning of predestination is subject to harsh
controversies. It is worth underlining that free will is a common
heresy in Calvinist history. In Holland, the question of predestination
divides Arminians (partisans of free will) and predestinationists.
ARMINIO and his disciple, the celebrated jurist GROCIO, affirm free
will; Most of the Calvinist pastors of the United Provinces then joined
GOMAR, and the Synod of Dordrecht condemned the Arminians in
1619.
We will find this same controversy, raised in very similar terms,
in many national and local Churches, and still remains the center of
bitter discussions. For example, in the Hiedelberg catechism promoted
by the Palatine elector Frederick III, which will have particular
significance in Poland and Hungary, the reformed doctrine of the
Eucharist is accepted and iconoclasm is firmly supported, but not the
doctrine of predestination95.
But where the History of the polemic has more interest by its
political transcendence, is in England, where predestination becomes
the doctrinal center of social conflict. In 1552, in the Book of
Common Prayer prepared by CRANMER, Calvinist organization and
ritual are implanted, as well as predestinationism; and CALVIN
personally manifested his approval and delight in this predestinationist
94
MC NEILL, The History and character of calvinism, Nueva York, 1954, page.
142; WALTZER The revolution of the saints, Cambridge 1965, page 55 y sigs.
95
BENEDICT, pag 212. The most famous of modern Reformed theologians, Karl
BARTH, accepts the doctrine of election, but not condemnatory predestination
( BOYER, cit., pgina 124).
96
The Confessio Gallicana was written by CALVIN in 1559, for the French
communities. The Scottish Confession of 1560 was written by J. KNOX, and
approved by the Scottish Parliament. The Confessio Belgica of 1561 was composed
by GUY DE BRS, and became the flag of struggle against Spanish rule in the
Netherlands. The Reformed Churches of Germany subscribed to the Heidelberg
Catechism at the initiative of the elector Frederick III of the Palatinate, written by
the disciples of Melanchton, Ursinus and Oleviano, in 1562. The Reformed
Churches of Switzerland adopted the second Helvetic Confession, prepared by
BULLINGER, 1564, to which other synods convened in Hungary, Poland and
Bohemia joined, although introducing their specificities: the Confession of Erlauthal
and the Hungarian Confession, both of 1562, the Consensus Sendomiriensis, in
Poland, and the Confessio Bohemica of 1609. (Basel was the only Swiss city that
remained faithful to the first helvetica confession). The Catechism of Heidelberg,
together with the Canons of the Synod of Dortdrecht, constitute the Confession of
Faith of the Reformed Churches of Holland and Reformed Churches German and
Dutch in America. The Westminster Confession of 1648 was adopted by the
Prebisterian National Churches in Scotland, England, Ireland, and by the
Constituting Synod of the Presbyterian Church of North America in 1729. The
Congregational Convention convened by Savoy in London in 1658, declared that he
approved the doctrinal part of the Westminster Confession, although he formulated
his own Confession, called Savoy, which is preferred by some Congregationalist
branches of the Reformed Church, such as the Synod of Cambridge, Massachusetts,
in June 1647, the Synod in Boston in May 1680, and the Synod of Saybrook,
Connecticut, in 1708. From here doctrinal and organizational evolution no longer
recognizes its Calvinist origin and overflows in many Anabaptist, Methodist,
Quaker, and even sectarian approaches doubtlessly Christians. (See some of these
confessions M.A. NOLL, Confessions and Catechisms of the Reformation, Gran
Rapids, 1991).
Although CALVIN clarifies (IV, X, 5) that the civil law does not
compel in conscience, the scrupulous respect to the constituted power
is a constant in the writings of CALVIN. CALVIN drastically limits
the right of resistance to constituted power, because unjust power is a
punishment of God for sins, and only God is revenge. In the Christian
institution he does a detailed scriptural analysis, which always
concludes with the duty of obedience to political power, even though
Nebuchadnezzar was an invader and devastator of the countries, and
he adduces a text from Jeremiah in which God calls Nebuchadnezzar
his servant. Commenting on Daniel 2, 21, CALVIN states
categorically that it is the Lord who has instituted all power, coming
directly from the Lord and not from the Church (also comments to 1
Timothy 2,2, and 1 Peter 2,13, and in the commentary to Jeremiah).
Commenting on the epistle to the Romans, he underlines that
obedience to the authorities is obedience to the Lord himself. In the
delicate days of struggle against the Catholic monarchy of the French
Calvinists (Huguenots), CALVIN advises prudence and patience118.
Because of this respective autonomy of Church and State,
because of its humble respect for the constituted power, it can be
concluded that CALVIN did not found or attempt to found a theocracy
in Geneva. He never intended the extension of his doctrines by
physical coercion. His coercive measures were mainly spiritual: the
apartment of the supper and the excommunication of the Church119.
emphasizes that two institutions, the family and the State, are the instruments
established by God to preserve the social order. There is an order in nature
concretized by the Mosaic law, which is the first foundation of civil law, although a
social ethic is not derived particularly from the moral law, due to the obscuring
reason for sin : WILLIS, Calvins catholic Christology, Leyden, 1966, Page. 148.
118
MC NEILL, Calvin, on god and political duty, Indianapolis, 1950, introduccin.
Vase en detalle, MUELLER, Church and State in Luther and Calvin, New York
1954, en especial page 127 y sigs.
119
A reiterated accusation is to have conceived and founded a theocracy. Contrary
to what has been repeatedly written, CALVIN respected the existing political
institutions, and always maintained that every Christian has a duty of loyal
obedience to the civil authorities (even though these are unjust). CALVIN has
always been aware of the Church-State duality, and incessantly underlines the
difficulty of achieving satisfactory relations between Church and State, even in the
Reformed Christian territories. CALVIN maintains the independence and separation
of the Church of the State, demands of the political power the respect and freedom
for the preaching of the word; And the denial of the Lutheran principle of
submission to political power is the main cause of his exile from Geneva in 1538.
Puritan preachers from the very beginning secularized the notion of universal
priesthood and advocated the authority of God granted to the Christian people and
not to the King, and especially in Scotland these doctrines promote a Calvinist
rebellion. Opposition to royal absolutism is reproduced similarly in Holland,
England, and France. On the other hand, Presbyterianism and parliamentarism
always had a particular fascination on jurists. It is an idea repeated in the AngloSaxon literature. DUNNE, The City of Gods, Notre Dame, 1978; HANCOCK,
Calvin and the fondations of modern politics, Ithaca, 1989; MITCHELL, Not by
reason alone, Chicago 1993, who see in the political ideas of the Anglo-Saxon
authors of the XVII, the "political arm" of their Calvinist religious convictions. This
idea is repeated. Cf. BALMES, cit., P. TROELTSCH (Op. Cit., Page 63): Calvinism
in its great struggles against the Catholic authorities (Scottish, Dutch, Huguenots
and English) ends up organizing the State in a synodal-presbyteral form and in that
Context originates the theory of the social pact. Also K. Barth (The Theology of
John Calvin, trad ing Grand Rapids 1995, page 305) considers him one of the
founding fathers of modern democracy. Likewise, in my opinion, the theory of the
constitution could be a secularization of the Calvinist dogma of predestination.
world. CALVIN influences the modern secular world but not because
of his theory of the state, but because, the patristics of modernity are
English jurist philosophers of Calvinist formation (such as HOBBES,
HOOKER, LOCKE). A political theory, with precise analogies to the
epistemological and ecclesial Calvinist system.
In my opinion religious freedom, in which the person is taken as
a political subject, recognizing the supremacy of the individual over
the system, regardless of his beliefs or ideology, has been developed
by authors of Calvinist origin and forms the basis of modern
Democratic ideas. The understanding of this fascinating historical
process, requires a detailed examination of the evolution of the
Reformation in England.
CHAPITER IV:
ENGLAND AND THE SECULARIZATION OF
CALVINISM.
123
C. CROSS, Church and people, Glasgow, 1978, pg. 94, TAVARD (La poursuite
de la catholicit dans lEglise dAngleterre, Pars, 1965., pg. 42).
124
LINDSAY (The constitutional history of modern Britain, Londres, 1964, pg. 71).
SKINNER, op. cit., II, page. 99 y sigs.
125
DELUMEAU, op. cit., page. 77; LEONARD, op. cit., II, page. 50. SOMERSET
sought advice directly from Calvin (WALTZER, The revolution of the saints,
Londres, 1966, page. 62; BOYER, op., cit., page 7. 1549).
126
Luther, Calvin, and other reformers, felt a very special aversion for Anabaptism
(on the subject, see CROSS, Church and People, Glasgow, 1976, p88). Curiously in
this phase of the Reformation of the Church we witness the natural coexistence of
Lutheranism and Calvinism as uniform religious forms in their opposition to
Papism; thus, if CRANMER in his early days maintained Lutheran tendencies, he
later accepted, quite naturally, Calvinism.
1.3. Elisabeth.
After the parenthesis of 1553-1558, and the ephemeral Catholic
restoration of MARY and Reginal POLE, a moderate and
decaffeinated version of Calvinism returns with Queen
ELISABETH127.
But despite Calvinist dogmatics, the iconoclasm of King
Edward's time is abandoned; the traditional rite of communion, the
altar and the orientation of the churches are preserved, and even the
queen expressly opposes Calvin's predestinationist approach.
ELISABETH continues Henry VIII policy of glorious
comprehensiveness that encourages tradition in rite and tolerance in
doctrine. In the thirty-nine articles of Anglican faith of 1571 a sui
generis Church is organized, dependent on civil power, whose
Protestant theology, influenced especially by Calvinism, only
recognizes baptism and the Eucharist as Sacraments, but retains to a
large extent with the traditional liturgy. The bishop is seen as a
political office of government and the priesthood a function rather
than a sacrament (for the early Church knew nothing of Roman
theological subtleties)128.
To effectively carry out the unified liturgy of the Book of
Common Prayer the visitation of the churches by lay officials at the
service of civil power is organized; and a court, the High Commission,
is created, like the star chamber, to persecute the Papists (a tribunal
which after 1580 was also used to persecute Baptists and Puritans)129.
127
However, contrary to what happened previously, the new act of supremacy and
the restoration of the prayer book, will have a strong opposition of the ecclesiastical
estate in the House of the lords. It outlines the beginning of what will be known later
as the party of the high church, and political power is forced to appoint new bishops
among the emigres (the admission of ideas and the Ritual cranmeriano, in the
Church of Elisabeth produces the loss in England of the apostolic succession:
LINDSAY, cit., page. 86).
128
TAVARD, La poursuite..., cit., page. 39. NIETZSCHE, a profound connoisseur of
the English soul, speaks of SHAKESPEARE, who was philocatolic and hated the
Puritans, as the paradigm of the Hispanic-Arab tradition of the English aristocracy
K.POOLE, Radical Religion from Shakespeare to Milton. Figures of non conformity
in Early Modern England, Cambridge 2000; he interprets Falstaff as a parody of
Puritans and their follies).
129
R. HOULBROOKE, Church courts and the people during the English
reformation, 1520-1570, Oxford 1979.
133
BEZA wrote in 1565 that the papacy had not been expelled from
England, but transferred to royal majesty. As the reign of
ELISABETH evolves, a movement that promotes the purification of
the Church of England, contrary to the king as the head of the Church,
crystallizes and proposes a new form of government. GRINDAL,
exiled in the time of Queen Mary, named primate of the Church of
England in the days of Elisabeth, Calvinist, defender of Presbyterians,
recriminates to the queen that the absolute monarchy represents a civil
papism136. In this context the political problem is no longer to justify
the opposition to Rome of the English monarchy, which appears
consolidated, but to defend the Anglican ecclesial and political order
against the Puritan movement.
HOOKER writes, at the end of the sixteenth century, The Laws
of ecclesiastical polity, a decisive book in the consolidation of the
Anglican Church and establishment of religious freedom 137.
HOOKER, a Calvinist, conceives the political body of the Church
distinct from the Church as a mystical body. HOOKER affirms that
the Real supremacy has a political sense, on avoiding the interference
of foreign powers, and in no case means denying the supremacy of
Christ as head of the Church. For HOOKER the visible Church is a
society or assembly of men, the Church and the Commonwelth, and
the king must be considered as supreme head of the Commonwelth 138.
He opposes the dogmatic exclusiveness of Luther and Calvin, and on
the basis of St. Paul's epistle to the Galatians he reinterprets the
principle Nulla salus extra ecclesiam, conceives the Church as a
community of faith and baptism, in which different doctrines might
meet. Anglicanism is defined as an integrating Christianity of the
religious parties that devastate Europe. And even the members of the
papist Roman Church, however mistaken they may be, participate in
the visible Church; only the Saracens, the Jews and the apostates are
136
139
2. Origins of parlamentarism.
2.1. Evolution of Calvinist thought on the right of resistance.
Resistance to papal idolatry is for many Calvinists inseparable
from resistance to political tyranny. In England many Puritans justify
rebellion against absolute English monarchs, especially when kings
promote episcopalism and approach Catholicism.
To justify rebellion Puritans must deepen the concepts of
authority, people and sovereignty. The Calvinist revolution against the
Catholic monarchy in the Netherlands, puts the facts before ideas. And
it is noteworthy that the Puritan exile saw in Calvinist Holland a
model of a legitimate popular revolution not only against papal
idolatry, but also against the tyranny of kings.
Calvinist puritanism is divided in England in the question of
whether they should collaborate with the established Church of
England, and by 1570 appear the first Presbyterian organizations
separated from the official English Church, in direct conflict with
Church and State. During the seventeenth century the Scots tended to
be more radical and populist (BUCHANAM in particular), and in
Scotland the Puritans initiate civil war. To give to Caesar what is
Caesar's and to God what is of God (Mark 12,17) represents the
counterpoint of the divinization of the power of the king as "head of
the Church." KNOX and BUCHANAN will be milestones of the
Puritan and Calvinist development of the right of resistance, contrary
to being integrated in the Church of England and also opposing to
recognize the absolute monarchy.
2.2. Absolute king and Christian people.
Coexistence within the Church of England becomes more and
more difficult, and within the Stuarts kingdom two opposing positions
are clearly defined: Episcopalists and Presbyterians. The double
principle tradition-hierarchy versus predestination-equality, will divide
them in the political arena. The presbiterians tend to models of
organization by councils or assemblies, whereas episcopalists tend to
form aristocratic and traditionalist organization. Presbyterians believe
FRANKLIN, John Locke and the theory of sovereignty, Cambridge, 1978, page.
54.
143
BEAUTE, Sir Edward Coke, Pars, 1975, Page 45. BOWEN, Catherine, The lion
and the throne: the life and times of Sir Edward Coke (1552-1634), Boston 1956.
Page X. STONER, James Reist, Common Law and Liberal Theory: Coke, Hobbes,
and the Origins of American Constitutionalism, Lawrence, Kan, 1992;
HOSTETTLER, John, Sir Edward Coke: A Force for Freedom, Chichester, 1997.
HILL Los orgenes intelectuales de la Revolucin inglesa, trad. esp., Barcelona,
1980, pg. 261.
144
Jos M. LASALLE, Locke, liberalismo y propiedad, Madrid 2003.
145
LEONARD, op. cit., II, page. 241..
146
http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/search?
amode=start&author=Locke,%20John. H. KRAMER, John Locke and the Origins of
Private Property, Cambridge 1997, Page 11, Jose M. LASALLE, Locke, liberalismo
y propiedad, Madrid 2003, Page. 14). MARSHALL (John Locke. Resistance,
Religion and Responsabilty, Cambridge, 1994, Pg. XVIII de la introduccin).
DUNN The political thought of J. Locke, Cambridge 1969; SPELLMAN John
Locke and the problem of depravity, Oxford 1988; ASHCRAFT, Revolutionary
politics and Lockes two treatises of Government, Princeton 1986; SOLAR CAYON,
La teora de la tolerancia en John Locke, Madrid 1996. 114.
152
WALDRON, God, Locke and equality, Christian Foundations in Lockes political
thought, Cambridge, 2002 Page. 181 y sigs. MARSHALL, John Locke. Resistance,
Religion and Responsibility, Cambridge, 1994, Pg. 113.
153
TULLY, a discourse on property. John Locke and his adversaries, Cambridge,
1980., Page. 157 y sigs.
154
FRANKLIN, John Locke and the theory of sovereignty, Cambridge, 1978,
TULLY A Discourse on Property, Cambridge 1980, MITCHELL, Not by Reason
alone, Chicago 1993). HAZARD, (La crisis de la conciencia Europea, trad. esp.,
Madrid 1975), que Locke, con su teora del derecho natural, ha terminado por
secularizar el derecho (Pg. 260).
The great and main purpose ... of men joining together in community and putting
themselves under a government is the preservation of their property (Second Treaty,
Cap IX, paragraph 124, underlined in the original). Locke asks how property is
possible that divides and distinguishes men with the essential equality of all men.
Locke justifies that men take ownership of a general good for the work of their body,
and the work of their hands. Work adds to things something that distinguishes them
and excludes them from common property, while explaining economic inequalities.
According to LASALLE (p. 14) with Locke arises the modern property right.
questions. In short, they are all branches of the same Calvinist tree,
and heirs of the "Puritan" tradition, beyond denominations. And
puritans do not to identify themselves with dogmatic ideas, but as part
of a religious adventure, that loved and participated in the diversity
that would forge the great American nation, where hospitality was
more important than authority and belief. The United States has for a
long time retained that foundational mark of the Calvinist tradition of
convenant, of proclaiming itself a chosen people, and of considering
the new world as the new Zion of the elected, part of the history of
Salvation160.
American independence is thus tied to the extension of Calvinist
puritanism to America: while the Anglican episcopalists were
generally faithful to the crown161. The war of American independence
acquired a marked dye of religious war, continuation of the civil and
religious wars of English XVII century162.
The civil war marks an unstoppable process of secularization of
American society. Churches are divided on the issue of slavery, and
generally conform to the political circumstances of their surroundings:
Churches: in the north are opposed in the name of the Lord to slavery
in the South, also in the name of the Lord, they argue its legitimacy 163.
160
Recapitulation
Lutheranism and Calvinism based on Scripture alone,
marginalizes the immediate experience of the presence of the Creator
in the daily life of the Church and the believer. By extolling the
written word, the Reformation belittles the monastic life and
condemns the mysterious and sublime in religion: sacred
enlightenment, prophetic inspiration, mystical rapture.
The mystical experience, however, seems to be a paradigm of all
religions, which creates and destroys them. Also in Protestantism a life
of penance, prayer and purity necessarily confronts the believer with
the presence of the Lord. The impact of the Spanish mysticism of Juan
de la Cruz and Teresa de Jess, Jewish converts to Christianity, seems
to have been decisive in the genesis and development of mystical
movements within Lutheranism (Pietists) Calvinism and specially
Anabaptism, developing an affective spirituality of the Song of Songs,
always in conflict with established religious and political structures.
The lack of authority is a serious drawback for the channeling of the
mystical experience in Protestantism, and in fact Protestantism in
general and Puritanism in particular are consumed in the love of the
Lord, for we observe that great dogmatic crises and Pietists and
Puritan secessions occur as a result of mystical experiences, difficult
to understand in an egalitarian, corporate, democratic and localist
religious structure.
Another ontological problem of Protestantism is that of the
dogmatic self-definition of a religion which protests against dogmas in
the name of faith and freedom of conscience. In particular in the
historical evolution of Calvinism the various denominations
(Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Arminians, Unitarians, Quakers,
etc.), and much more in the Anabaptism stream, are consumed in
internal quarrels over the principles that define them, for in a religion
based on the single faith reason can neither judge nor define the
origins of man and the nature of divinity.
CHAPITER IV:..........................................................................70
ENGLAND AND THE SECULARIZATION OF CALVINISM....70
1. Religious differences and Royal supremacy......................................................71
1.1. The identity of the Anglican Church..............................................................71
1.2. Henry VIII......................................................................................................72
1.3. Elisabeth.........................................................................................................73
1.4. Absolutism in the early Reformation.............................................................75
1.5. A return to absolutism.....................................................................................77
2. Origins of parlamentarism..................................................................................78
2.1. Evolution of Calvinist thought on the right of resistance...............................78
2.2. Absolute king and Christian people................................................................79
2.3. The restoration................................................................................................80
2.4. John LOCKE and the origins of popular sovereignty....................................82
3. Political origins of modern Law..........................................................................85
3.1. American Calvinism and Independence.........................................................85
3.2. The right of resistance and the religious origins of the French Revolution...87
RECAPITULATION...................................................................92