Consciences And The Reformation PDF Download

This dissertation examines the complex relationship between oath taking, confessional subscription, and the binding of the conscience in John Calvin’s reform. Calvin and his colleagues routinely distinguished what they believed were impious constitutions of the Roman Church—human traditions claiming to bind the consciences of the faithful—and legitimate church observances, such as oaths and formal subscription to Reformed confessions of faith. Organizing reform in the cities became somewhat precarious, however, when friends and foes alike accused Calvin and his partners of burdening their consciences with extra-Scriptural statements of faith composed by human authorities—a claim that, if true, would necessarily shape our assessment of the success of Calvin’s Reformation. In light of these conflicts, this study offers a close reading and evaluation of the texts and controversies surrounding Calvin’s struggle for reform, especially as they reveal some of the unique challenges Calvin and his pastoral colleagues encountered in their attempts to employ oath-swearing and formal confession of faith as a necessary means to consolidate the reformation of church and society. Its principal goal is to demonstrate important ways in which oaths and vows were used to shape confessional identity, secure social order, forge community, and promote faithfulness in public and private contracts, while also illustrating the complex and difficult task of protecting the individual conscience as part of bringing order to Reformed communities according to God’s word. By examining Calvin’s thoughts and actions surrounding the relationship between oaths, confession, conscience, and discipline within the local context of the reformers’ conflicts with religious dissidents and obstinate laypersons, this study suggests three important revisions to the generally-received impressions of Calvin and the Reformation. First, this study reassesses and challenges the notion that Calvin’s mature ecclesiology represents a radical enlargement of church law and authority that effectively undercut his earlier commitment to the freedom of conscience. Indeed, one could say that Calvin’s so-called mature ecclesiology is on display far earlier than many have conceded. Second, it demonstrates how Calvin and the reformers defended a modified form of individual liberty on the basis of a highly nuanced conception of the relationship between conscience and tradition—an alternative type of tradition so manifestly beneficial to piety that it remained impervious to all conscientious objections—a sort of “divine adiaphora.” And finally, this study enhances our view of Calvin as a pastoral theologian, in that it further illustrates Calvin’s ability to accommodate law—and even conscience—to the causes that ranked, for him, even higher: namely, to the causes of individual and communal reform. Indeed, the effectiveness of Calvin and his Reformed colleagues often resided in their ability to navigate their ever-fluid circumstances, accommodating their standards to better serve the overarching cause of reforming societies and transforming consciences according to the word of God.