The Philosopher
John Calvin
The face
The background
- Nationality:
- French
- Period:
- Renaissance
The synopsis
John Calvin (1509–1564) was a French theologian, pastor, and reformer during the Protestant Reformation. He was a key figure in the development of Calvinism, a theological system emphasizing predestination and God's sovereignty. Originally trained as a lawyer, Calvin broke from the Roman Catholic Church around 1530. He published the first edition of his seminal work, the *Institutes of the Christian Religion*, in 1536. He was influential in Geneva, where he established new forms of church government and liturgy, though he faced opposition. His ministry and writings significantly shaped Protestant theology and practice across Europe and beyond.
The works
Institutes of the Christian Religion
The quotes
A dog barks when his master is attacked. I would be a coward if I saw that God's truth is attacked and yet would remain silent.
No man is excluded from calling upon God, the gate of salvation is set open unto all men: neither is there any other thing which keepeth us back from entering in, save only our own unbelief.
However many blessings we expect from God, His infinite liberality will always exceed all our wishes and our thoughts.
Every one of us is, even from his mother's womb, a master craftsman of idols.
You must submit to supreme suffering in order to discover the completion of joy.
For there is no one so great or mighty that he can avoid the misery that will rise up against him when he resists and strives against God.
I consider looseness with words no less of a defect than looseness of the bowels.
There is no worse screen to block out the Spirit than confidence in our own intelligence.
All the blessings we enjoy are Divine deposits, committed to our trust on this condition, that they should be dispensed for the benefit of our neighbors.
Seeing that a Pilot steers the ship in which we sail, who will never allow us to perish even in the midst of shipwrecks, there is no reason why our minds should be overwhelmed with fear and overcome with weariness.
Man's mind is like a store of idolatry and superstition; so much so that if a man believes his own mind it is certain that he will forsake God and forge some idol in his own brain.
The torture of a bad conscience is the hell of a living soul.
God preordained, for his own glory and the display of His attributes of mercy and justice, a part of the human race, without any merit of their own, to eternal salvation, and another part, in just punishment of their sin, to eternal damnation.
Yet consider now, whether women are not quite past sense and reason, when they want to rule over men.
There is no work, however vile or sordid, that does not glisten before God.
Is it faith to understand nothing, and merely submit your convictions implicitly to the Church?
There is not one blade of grass, there is no color in this world that is not intended to make us rejoice.
We must remember that Satan has his miracles, too.
Knowledge of the sciences is so much smoke apart from the heavenly science of Christ.
Augustine does not disagree with this when he teaches that it is a faculty of the reason and the will to choose good with the assistance of grace; evil, when grace is absent.
God tolerates even our stammering, and pardons our ignorance whenever something inadvertently escapes us - as, indeed, without this mercy there would be no freedom to pray.