An important inflection point in history took place just over 500 years ago. Many of the teachings of the Catholic church began to be challenged openly and vehemently. This was not the first time someone challenged the Catholic church’s teachings, but it was the first time that a major schism took place that was not based on geographical separation, and the objections to the Catholic church held strong. Teachings, such as veneration of the saints, were challenged on a scriptural level. As we continue to discuss the topic of saints, it is important that we take some time to review the reformation and its impact on our understanding of sainthood.
In 1517 Martin Luther sent out his 95 Theses, which were a collection of worries and corrections to the current teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. His theses were the domino that launched the Protestant reformation, dividing the Protestant and Catholic churches. Just twelve years later in 1529, the Reformation would gain another worker, John Calvin. Only six years after his conversion John Calvin would begin his most famous work The Institute of the Christian Religion which would have its first publication in 1536. Calvin would rewrite, and expand this work till just a few years before his death in 1559. This was an impressive work, which had a mighty goal of helping all Christians in understanding what it means to be Christian, and to help outline and explain what is and is not okay to do in their faith.
While Calvin wrote his Institutes for all Christians, he had in his sights new converts from Catholicism, so most of the sections of his books are correcting the incorrect beliefs and behaviors of the Roman Church. While the whole Institute is a great resource to help build up a person’s knowledge of God, understanding of Jesus, and the proper role of the Holy Spirit, for the sake of the length of this post we will be doing a quick run-through. Today we will look through the arguments Calvin has against the veneration of saints, summarizing and pointing out some of his arguments, and pulling some of the bible verses in his arguments. I highly encourage people to read through these sections, and the whole work, on their own, to hear the arguments straight from Cavin’s words.
Calvin’s first book establishes the authority of scripture based on God, and not on any church. This means the church does not decide what is and isn’t God’s word or if anything should be added to God’s word. This is an important fact, because the Roman Church had elevated, and still holds to this day, the Councils and Papal decrees to be on par, if not a higher authority, than the Bible. From this grounding, Calvin will build upon the errors of the church’s interpretation of scripture and Council decisions about Saints and veneration. Calvin rejects all images as a pathway to idol worship. During his time he would paint over the walls of churches and remove every item and image from churches to help the congregation focus on God alone and not revert back to using the Saints. Calvin makes his first attack based upon the Greek word dulia. The use of Dulia was only brought on, as Calvin claims, to make allowance for the prayer to the Saints, and having their images in statues and pictures. He also discusses the distinction between Dulia and Latria, which are two terms used to represent service and worship of God. The Roman church had decided to distinguish between them to avoid the claims of idol worship, saying latria is for the worship of God and dulia can be for God or for man. The Catholic claims they are not worshiping saints incorrectly, but as they are able to according to dulia. If we are to have only one God, we need to avoid anything that distracts us from God alone. Any kind of worship should be for God alone.
In book II we get a thorough breakdown of the ten commandments with a great explanation of what the spirit of each commandment is. Calvin says about the first commandment “The purpose of this commandment is that the Lord wills alone to be pre-eminent among his people, and to exercise complete authority over them.” Calvin explains this command is not only worshiping God, but it is also making sure that all worship, adoration, and trust be in God alone; any ounce of removal to anything else (i.e. saints) is breaking this first commandment. The second commandment is much the same way. It is not enough to worship God, but to make sure no superstitious rites creep into that worship of God. At the time of the Israelites and the commandments being given, there were lots of other groups claiming a vast amount of gods. They would carve images of their gods, pray in front of them, and go to them for help. It is important to note that these people were not foolish. They did not believe these idols were their actual gods, but a dwelling place for their god’s presence. They were a means to invite their god into their presence so their prayers could be heard. This is exactly what God is warning us NOT to do. Calvin goes on to discuss the mediator, which could only be Jesus. This is important because saints are labeled by the Catholic church as mediators between the believer and Jesus/God. When you send your prayers to the saints they intercede through praying to God, acting as mediators. When we call Jesus our mediator it is not for prayer, it is for our sins and sanctification. Jesus’s role as mediator was the fulfillment of the Old Testament law (which Calvin speaks about in the previous chapters of Book II), he could only do this being completely God, so he could not err in the law at any point, and completely man, so he could truly die and conquer death. Once achieving this He is now our mediator, which means he stands before God during our judgment and we are judged through the person of Christ and not our own actions. That means there could be no other mediator that could stand before God because no one else was able to be blameless like Christ. “All have sinned” (Romans 3:23). While hopefully, we could all agree on this point, an argument for the saints being able to act as mediators is the belief they were perfect in life (a distinction to be talked about more in-depth in another post). This chapter clearly lays out the role of a mediator and why it could only be Christ.
In book three we get a short section about praying for the dead. Calvin points out that our prayers, after a person dies, are for mourning, for our prayers will play no part in what happens to someone when they are already dead. Calvin then gives us six rules for prayer so we can understand when we pray and the tone and attitude we should have in prayer. From this, we get to the meat of the matter. That is, relying on the saints to hear and then bring our prayers to Christ, we are lessening the divinity of Christ and his role as mediator. Paul writes in 1 Timothy 2:5, “One God, one mediator between God and men, the man Christ.” Calvin says of this verse, if the disciples say there is only one mediator, why would we think we need a special individual for safe travels, doing well in school, cooking food, or having a safe childbirth? Jesus alone acts between us and God. God hears all prayers and is not swayed in his decision by those already in Heaven.
There is much more that Calvin, and other reformers said, against the teachings of the Catholic church. It is important to know that there were many people before the time of the reformation that also spoke out against these teachings. History has a large mix of church fathers that supported and opposed doctrines that are held today by the Catholic church. We can not rely on history alone to understand what doctrine is correct. We must hold to the scriptures as our source of understanding what is proper and improper worship–that is what the reformers were doing roughly 500 years ago, and it is what we continue to do as protestants today.
Sources
Book I “The Knowledge of God the Creator”
Chapter VII
Chapter XI.11
Chapter XII.2
Book II “The Knowledge of God the Redeemer in Christ, First Disclosed to The Fathers Under the Law, and Then to Us in the Gospel”
Chapter VIII.16; 17-21
Chapters XII-XVII
Book III “The Way Which We Receive the Grace of Christ: What Benefits Come to Us From it, and What Effects Follow”
Chapter V.10
Chapter XX.20-27
Book IV “The External Means or Aims by Which God Invites Us Into the Society of Christ and Holds Us Therein”
Chapter I.3
Chapter IX
Apostle’s Creed
I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit
and born of the virgin Mary.
He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to hell.
The third day he rose again from the dead.
He ascended to heaven
and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty.
From there he will come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic* church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.
*that is, the true Christian church of all times and all places
Notable Verses
“For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing. They have no further reward, because the memory of them is forgotten. Their love, their hate, and their envy have already vanished, and they will never again have a share in all that is done under the sun. Eccl. 9:5-6
“Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man has great power to prevail. Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth yielded its crops.” James 5:17-18