The views expressed in this article are of the author only and do not necessarily represent those of the Center for Pastor Theologians.
The Theatre of His Glory: Nature and Natural Order in the Thought of John Calvin
Susan E. Schreiner
Baker (1991). 164 pp.
Explorations of the interrelation between Christian doctrine and science often either give short shrift to the work of pre-Enlightenment theologians who attempted to understand the world around them or canonize their efforts as work that can never be surpassed. The teaching of the tradition is alternately condemned for its backwardness or plucked from its context in order to be placed upon the museum shelf. It is easy to divide those who have gone before us in the project of negotiating this interdisciplinary project into one of two bins: accept or reject. But for those who work with the conviction that the Holy Spirit has both been at work in the tradition and is also currently renewing the church’s teaching today, there must be a better way. What is needed is scholarship that will serve as the foundation for the work of theological retrieval that is needed in the church.
In The Theatre of His Glory: Nature and Natural Order in the Thought of John Calvin, Susan Schreiner has provided a carefully argued and contextualized survey of pastor theologian John Calvin’s understanding of the natural order. This revision of her doctoral thesis bears all the marks of a fine work of historical theology: close attention to the contemporary theological tradition, a hesitancy to overstate conclusions, and painstaking effort to provide a fair and charitable reading of her subject. This comprehensive study gives us a survey of Calvin’s thought on providence and causality, angels, the nature of the human person, natural law, and the redemption of the causality and gives the reader a sense of what commitments and methodologies guided Calvin as he formed his thoughts on these doctrines.
It is this window into Calvin’s reasoning that makes this volume so significant for pastor theologians and other readers of this bulletin. Schreiner demonstrates how Calvin triangulates his theology based upon his exegesis of Scripture, pastoral concerns for the flock in Geneva, and claims made within the intellectual milieu of his age. The first chapter on providence and causality provides an excellent example of this reasoning. For Calvin, providence was a profoundly pastoral doctrine that could bring great comfort to God’s people. Yet this conviction was to be tempered by the careful reading of Scripture in light of the tradition’s teaching as well as the rebirth of philosophical trends such as Epicureanism and Stoicism. His concern with causality, though a far cry from current discussions about quantum mechanics, demonstrate his conversance with what amounted to the physics of his own day. Calvin’s theology is indicative of the kind of interdisciplinary work that is required of pastors today.
The second chapter on angelology and the final chapter on eschatology are also instructive to our own age. Although he was attentive to contemporary intellectual trends like Averroeism and Aristotelianism, Calvin did not allow these influences to flatten his exposition of Christian doctrine. Instead his theology remains well-proportioned to the Scriptural witness. While Calvin cautions against overfascination with angels, he nonetheless gives an account of them that contrasts strikingly with modern systematics that are curiously silent on this topic. His work on eschatology gives both a place to the natural order in God’s redemptive economy while also training the eye to the need for God’s saving intervention. In a time when it is easy for pastors and theologians to fall unsuspecting into the naturalizing tendencies of our age, Calvin provides a needed alternate vision.
The second chapter on angelology and the final chapter on eschatology are also instructive to our own age. Although he was attentive to contemporary intellectual trends like Averroeism and Aristotelianism, Calvin did not allow these influences to flatten his exposition of Christian doctrine. Instead his theology remains well-proportioned to the Scriptural witness. While Calvin cautions against over-fascination with angels, he nonetheless gives an account of them that contrasts strikingly with modern systematics that are curiously silent on this topic. His work on eschatology gives both a place to the natural order in God’s redemptive economy while also training the eye to the need for God’s saving intervention. In a time when it is easy for pastors and theologians to fall unsuspecting into the naturalizing tendencies of our age, Calvin provides a needed alternate vision. fine example of the task of the pastor theologian. Calvin’s answers to the questions of his age may not be precisely the same as what pastors today provide, but he remains a fine example to those who would take up the same task in an age where “portals of change” are no doubt likewise being opened so that God’s people may again be pointed to the Word who still calls light out of darkness.
Joey Sherrard (PhD, University of St. Andrews) is the Associate Pastor of Discipleship at Signal Mountain Presbyterian Church in Signal Mountain, TN. He is a Senior Fellow of the Center for Pastor Theologians.
