A Word from Bob
No. I do not think John Calvin was an integrationist, even though, as we’ll see in today’s post, Calvin valued and used common grace insights from non-believers.
Some biblical counselors are using the word “integrationist” (or “neo-integrationist”) to describe fellow biblical counselors who value and use common grace insights. Like Calvin, many biblical counselors are using God’s Word as the lens or spectacles to assess and evaluate whether or not a given common grace insight—whether descriptive research, scientific research, neuroscience research, etc.—is potentially valid and helpful. Yet, they are being characterized as “integrationists.”
Re-reading John Calvin on the use of extra-biblical sources has me thinking:
If you took Calvin’s name out of his quotes on the validity of extra-biblical common grace sources, many modern biblical counselors would respond: “Integrationist!”
So, here’s a sampler of some of Calvin’s quotes on extra-biblical resources. Do these quotes make him an “integrationist”? Since they are from 500 years ago, would we make up a new term and call Calvin a “pre-integrationist,” or a “proto-integrationist,” or an “incipient-integrationist”?
A Calvin Sampler: Affirming Plato and Aristotle
To what extent did Calvin depend upon human authorities other than the Bible? To what extent did Calvin praise the ancient pagan philosophers? To what extent did Calvin follow the pagan (and now debunked) science of his day?
Calvin stated that the subtleties of the philosophers “are true, not only enjoyable, but also profitable to learn, and skillfully assembled by them” (Institutes I.15.6)” (131).
Calvin complimented pagan philosophers Plato and Aristotle on their teachings about psychology.
“Plato, in some passages, talks nobly of the faculties of the soul; and Aristotle, in discoursing of it, has surpassed all in acuteness…. They certainly thought more purely and wisely on the subject than some amongst ourselves, who boast that they are the disciples of Christ” (Calvin, Psychopannychia, in Selected Works, 3:420).
Stop. Imagine that I took Calvin’s name out of that quote, and you thought that I said this:
“Plato talks nobly of the faculties of the soul. Aristotle in talking about psychology has surpassed all in acuteness! Plato and Aristotle thought more purely and wisely on psychology than many Christians today who claim to be Christ’s disciples!”
I imagine the response might be something like this, “Kellemen is clearly an integrationist who loves secular psychology more than he loves the Bible and biblical counselors!”
A Calvin Sampler: Heavily Influenced by Secular Philosophical Psychology
In The Logic of the Body, Matthew LaPine notes that, “Roy Battenhouse sees heavy philosophical influence on Calvin’s anthropology” (133). And, “Likewise Battenhouse suggests that Calvin never quite ‘freed himself from the outlook of his early reading of Platonism’” (133-134, from Battenhouse, The Doctrine of Man in Calvin, 448).
LaPine further develops the influence of Plato on Calvin.
“Much has also been made of Calvin’s use of the Platonic term ‘prison house’ of the soul, referring to the body (Institutes, I.15.2). Ther term originates from Plato’s Phaedo…. Alida Sewell notes that Calvin both ‘likely read Phaedo personally’ and uses the term ‘prison house’ in his writings more often than Plato, a total of ninety-one times” (134, quoting Alida Sewell, Calvin, the Body, and Sexuality, 23).
Stop. Once again, imagine that you read my writings and found that ninety-one times I used a phrase first used by Plato, or by Freud! Might the response be, “Kellemen—a Freudian integrationist!”
LaPine explains that,
“Jean Boisset, likewise, sees in Calvin an intimate familiarity and recourse to Plato: ‘These statistics show that Calvin never ceased, from 1536 to 1560, to have recourse to Platonic sources, that he clarified his borrowings, and that he augmented them in the last edition of the Institutes in comparison with those of 1543 and 1550’” (135, quoting Jean Boisset, Sagesse et Saintete dans la Pensee de Jean Calvin, 227).
LaPine contends that the psychological concepts Calvin “inherited were roughly Platonic…. Charles Partee’s comment is apt:
‘Calvin looks at the subject of soul and body, immortality and resurrection through ‘the spectacles of Scripture.’ The lens of Calvin’s spectacles were certainly tinted by Platonism here, but the source of Calvin’s view of soul and body is the Scriptures’” (136, quoting, Charles Partee, Calvin and Classical Philosophy, 65).
What’s being said? While Calvin used the spectacles of Scripture to develop his psychology, those spectacles were tinted (tainted) with Platonism!
LaPine opines that Cavlin “often supplemented his arguments with appeals to general revelation, famously with his sensus divinitatis (Institutes I.15.2). LaPine, continues:
“Edward Adams claims, ‘It seems to me to have been established beyond any serious doubt that Calvin draws his theory of the sensus divinitatis from the Hellenistic philosophical dogma of the ‘preconception’ (prolepsis) of God. The doctrine of the preconception originated with Epicurus, but was taken over and developed by the Stoics. The notion of the preconception is prominent in Cicero’s dialogue On the Nature of the Gods and it is from this source that Calvin derives it’” (136, quoting, Edward Adams, “Calvin’s View of Natural Knowledge of God,’ International Journal of Systematic Theology 3, no. 3 (November 2001): 284-285).
“When Calvin gets to the ‘true,’ ‘enjoyable,’ and ‘profitable’ teachings of the philosophers on this matter, he produces an intentionally synthetic account. While he does cite Plato’s Theaetetus, he engages more with Aristotle than Plato. Calvin’s account of the faculties [of the soul] explicitly relies on De anima [Aristotle]. Irena Backus connects Calvin’s account of the five senses with De anima III.1 (425a13-426b21); his account of the imagination with De anima III.3 (427a15-429a9); his account of reason with III.4 (429a10-430a9); his account of the passive and active intellect with III.5-6 (430a10-430b9); and his distinction between the three appetitive and cognitive faculties with [Aristotle’s] Eudemian Ethics II.7 (1223121-27)” (161 referencing Irena Backus, Historical Method, 95). Paul Helm remarks, “Here we see Calvin’s admiration for Aristotle” (161, quoting Helm, “Vermigli, Calvin, and Aristotle’s Ethics,’ Unio Cum Christo 3, no. 2 (October 2017): 92).
A Calvin Sampler: Influenced by Debunked (and Junk) Science
Aelius Galenus (129-216 AD), often anglicized as Galen, was a Roman and Greek physician, surgeon, and philosopher. To what extent was Calvin’s thinking influenced by Galen?
LaPine explains,
“Finally, we have already noted that Aquinas was unwittingly and indirectly influenced by Galen’s medicine. What about Calvin? To what extent did Galen influence his theology? That Calvin was a Galenist is almost a truism since it was the reigning medical paradigm. It hardly would have been possible for him not to espouse these medical views” (137).
“We have strong evidence of Calvin’s intimate acquaintance with Galenic medicine and its theories about spirits, the four humors, and even physiological aspects of personality” (143). Calvin wrote, “In regard to the structure of the human body one must have the greatest keenness in order to weigh, with Galen’s skill, its articulation, symmetry, beauty, and use” (143, quoting Calvin, Institutes, I.5.2).
“Specifically, Calvin integrates Galen’s views on the spirits and humors in many places. In De Clementia he writes, ‘Still it is truer to say that all living beings consist of four elements and divine spirit. This was clearly Aristotle’s opinion. For they derive flesh from earth, humor from water, breath from air, heat from fire, and natural disposition from divine spirit’” (143-144, quoting Calvin, De Clementia, 103-105).
“Calvin even cites the humoral personality theory, writing to Monsieur de Richebourg of a certain Louis: ‘as he was of a more sanguine temperament, was also more lively and cheerful. Charles, who has somewhat of melancholy in his disposition, is not so easily drawn out of himself’” (145-146, quoting Calvin, Selected Works, 4:252).
Stop. Imagine that I wrote, “The secular concept of temperaments is truer than any other model of the human personality, and should be integrated into our biblical counseling thinking and practice!” Might I be charged with being an integrationist?
A Calvin Sampler: A Platonic Dualist
LaPine writes about Calvin and dualism.
“In the soul’s relationship to the body, we see something of Calvin’s respect for Stoic ethics. Battles writes, ‘Calvin recognized Seneca’s supreme gift to be in ethics, and this judgment is certainly borne out in the course of the Commentary’” (138, quoting, Ford Lewis Battles, “The Source of Calvin’s Seneca Commentary,” in John Calvin, 48).
“In discussing the philosophers’ views, Calvin adds that the soul, though ‘not spatially limited,’ is ‘set in the body, it dwells there as in a house; not only that it may animate all its parts and render its organs fit and useful for their actions, but also that it may hold the first place in ruling man’s life’ (Institutes, I.15.6). Certainly, the language here is Platonic and Augustinian; Calvin does not use the language of ‘form’ here. But there are also perhaps some echoes of an Aristotelian, entelechist model, i.e., the soul as vital principle, especially Calvin’s terminology of animating its parts and rending its organs useful…. The relation of body to soul in Calvin’s psychology is not perfectly transparent. It is fair to say he was more Platonic than Aristotelian. But given Calvin’s immediate Scholastic context, it is difficult to make a rigid demarcation” (155-156).
“Insofar as the medieval development tended toward dualism, Calvin’s position is not surprising in the least. Calvin simply reflected the common psychological trends of his time” (159).
A Calvin Sampler: Calvin, Stoicism, and Emotions
LaPine examined Calvin on emotions.
“On the issue of emotion, Calvin never really rid himself of his Stoic sensibility” (184).
“The Stoic sensibility is especially pronounced in Calvin’s language of bridling emotions. To list just a very few selections from Calvin’s Commentary on the Psalms, he suggests bridling affections in commenting on Psalms 21:1; 36;1; 37:8; 39:1-2; 82:1-4; 85:8; 119:147. Uncomfortable with the emotive expression of the Psalms, Calvin seemed to think that the chief value of the Psalms is to uncover hypocrisy…. Calvin’s rhetoric only confirms what his psychological structure implies, that there is no room for responding to negative emotion other than suppressing it” (185.).
What Explains Calvin’s Thinking and Practice?
Was all of this accidental? Was it simply that Calvin did not realize how much he was impacted by his intellectual environment? To some extent, that is one possible explanation. Our worldview, no matter how much we insist it is only developed by God’s worldview, is more influenced by the world’s worldview than we realize and care to admit. It is the old “frog in the kettle” analogy of simply not being aware of how the environmental temperature is slowly impacting us.
Perhaps we are all a tad tainted? Perhaps we are all a tad infected? Perhaps all of us, like Calvin, and like Tertullian before him, will one day be exposed by future generations who more clearly see how we were unknowingly effected by the worldview of our fallen world.
Tertullian famously declared that Jerusalem should have nothing to do with Athens—meaning that secular philosophy should not have any role in our thinking about God and humanity. However, when one reads Tertullian today, it is almost laughable, and certainly sad and ironic, how clearly Tertullian, unbeknownst to himself, was so impacted by the Neo-Platonic thought of his day.
So, yes, some of this likely was Calvin being impacted by his world’s worldview without him realizing it. However, for the great Reformed theologian, John Calvin, much of this was also theological.
Calvin based his engagement with extra-biblical thinking on his theological convictions about common grace, the role of fallen human understanding, and God’s sovereign plan.
A Calvin Sampler: Calvin’s Theology of Non-Christian Understanding
Since this post is already lengthy, I need to be somewhat succinct. If you’d like to read over 1,500 words of quotes about Calvin and common grace, go here: John Calvin on Common Grace. Here’s a sampler…
Calvin said that the unbelieving mind, “though fallen and perverted from its wholeness, is nevertheless clothed and ornamented with God’s excellent gifts” (Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 2.2.15).
Regarding “understanding,” Calvin wrote: “When we so condemn human understanding for its perpetual blindness as to leave it no perception of any object whatever, we not only go against God’s Word, but also run counter to the experience of common sense” (Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, II.ii.12).
Cavlin forcefully admonishes Christians not to neglect the studies of the ungodly:
“But if the Lord has willed that we be helped in physics, dialectic, mathematics, and other like disciplines, by the work and ministry of the ungodly, let us use this assistance. For if we neglect God’s gift freely offered in these arts, we ought to suffer just punishment for our sloths” (Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, II.ii.16).
Similarly, Calvin made a startling case in his Institutes (Beveridge ed.) 2.2.15–16, for Christians availing themselves of “the work and ministry of the ungodly”:
“Therefore, in reading profane authors, the admirable light of truth displayed in them should remind us that the human mind, however much fallen and perverted from its original integrity, is still adorned and invested with admirable gifts from its Creator. If we reflect that the Spirit of God is the only fountain of truth, we will be careful, as we would avoid offering insult to him, not to reject or condemn truth wherever it appears…. If the Lord has been pleased to assist us by the work and ministry of the ungodly in physics, dialectics, mathematics, and other similar sciences, let us avail ourselves of it.”
In his Commentary on Titus, speaking of Paul’s positive use of a non-Christian philosopher in Titus 1:12, Calvin explains:
“From this passage we may infer that those persons are superstitious, who do not venture to borrow anything from heathen authors. All truth is from God; and consequently, if wicked men have said anything that is true and just, we ought not to reject it; for it has come from God. Besides, all things are of God; and, therefore, why should it not be lawful to dedicate to his glory everything that can properly be employed for such a purpose?”
Stop. Imagine I said, “All truth is from God, so if wicked men have said anything true, we ought not to reject it for it has come from God!” Would I be declared a “syncretistic neo-integrationist”?
The next quote is perhaps Calvin’s clearest and most stunning conviction about the Christian’s engagement with secular thinking.
“Whenever we come upon these matters in secular writers, let that admirable light of truth shining in them teach us that the mind of man through fallen and perverted from its wholeness, is nevertheless clothed and ornamented with God’s excellent gifts…. Shall we deny that the truth shone upon the ancient jurists who established civic order and discipline with such great equity? Shall we say that the philosophers were blind in their find observations and artful descriptions of nature? Shall we say that those men were devoid of understanding who conceived the art of disputation and taught us to speak reasonably? Shall we say that they are insane who developed medicine, devoting their labor to our benefit? What shall we say of all the mathematical sciences? Shall we consider them the ravings of madmen? No, we cannot read the writings of the ancients on these subjects without great admiration. We marvel at them because we are compelled to recognized how preeminent they are…. Those men whom Scripture (1 Cor. 2:14) calls ‘natural men’ were, indeed, sharp and penetrating in their investigation of inferior things. Let us, accordingly, learn by their example how many gifts the Lord left to human nature even after it was despoiled of its true good” (Calvin, Institutes, II: 2.15, 273-275). Note: Among “earthly things” and “inferior things” Calvin includes government, household management, mechanical skills, and the liberal arts and sciences, including philosophy (Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, II.ii.13). Clearly and consistently, throughout this blog post, we’ve read Calvin affirming the “soft sciences” of philosophy and psychology.
The Moral of the Story: “Calvin-Like Biblical Counselors”
Maybe after reading this, you want to label John Calvin, the father of Reformed theology, an “integrationist.” I do not.
After all of these quotes, why don’t I see Calvin as an integrationist? Because we can’t “cherry-pick” quotes from Calvin to create a pre-determined narrative about Calvin.
And that’s the moral of the story:
- We should not cherry-pick quotes from our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ to create a pre-determined narrative about them.
- We should carefully and comprehensively read and accurately and fairly characterize our fellow Christian biblical counselors.
- We’ve falsely created a new definition of “integration” that claims someone is a “neo-integrationist” for simply believing and practicing the Reformed doctrine of common grace, even when they do so by engaging and evaluating common grace resources using the spectacles of God’s all-sufficient Word.
- We create an unseemly spectacle when we place blinders on our spectacles and falsely accuse fellow biblical counselors of not using the spectacles of God’s Word as they view common grace resources.
We need to find more apt descriptors for biblical counselors today who are committed to using the spectacles of God’s all-sufficient Word to engage and evaluate common grace resources. The apt descriptor is not “integrationist.” Perhaps the apt descriptor is:
“Calvin-like biblical counselor.”
Amazing Grace! Amazing Common Grace!
So why would someone like John Calvin—the founder of Reformed theology—who emphasized total depravity, also marvel at the insights of the unsaved?
John Calvin was not, ultimately, marveling at the unsaved mind; he was marveling at God’s mercy!
John Calvin was not, ultimately, marveling at the wisdom of humanity; he was marveling at the wisdom of God!
In advancing the truth of common grace, John Calvin, Abraham Kuyper, Herman Bavinck, and all Reformed thinkers are marveling at God’s amazing common grace. They understand biblically the truth that many modern biblical counselors misunderstand. They understand the affectionate sovereignty of God.
In common grace, God is sovereignly moving forward His eternal kingdom plan first inaugurated in Genesis that His image bearers would subdue the earth. In God’s common grace, He is affectionately and, yes, graciously, assuring that His will would never be thwarted—not by Satan, not by sin, not by sinners.
Calvin, Kuyper, Bavinck, and modern biblical counselors who recognize the common grace insights of the non-Christian are not frustrated with the Scriptures and fascinated with the secular.
We are fascinated with how God frustrates the plan of Satan, sin, and sinners!
We are fascinated with how God frustrates even depraved anti-God thinking and causes all things to advance His eternal kingdom purposes.
In celebrating the amazing grace of God’s common grace, we are not extolling humanity. Just like saving grace does not extol fallen, but saved, humanity, so common grace does not extol unsaved humanity.
Common grace extols not the wisdom of humanity—saved or unsaved—but the wisdom of God!
Those modern biblical counselors who decry common grace insights for biblical counseling do not realize that they are decrying the wisdom of God’s eternal plan. In their theological misunderstanding, they are decrying the affectionate sovereignty of God who works all things according to the counsel of His will.
Calvin-like biblical counselors glory in God’s grace—in Christ’s common grace, in God’s amazing common grace!
Doxology: Romans 11:33-36
33 Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable his judgments,
and his paths beyond tracing out!
34 “Who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has been his counselor?”
35 “Who has ever given to God,
that God should repay them?”
36 For from him and through him and for him are all things.
To him be the glory forever! Amen.
