JOHN CALVIN ON MIRACLES

Times change yet remain oddly the same. In the 16^th century the question of miracles was a hot topic for discussion among the Roman Church and its Reformers. Sounding ever so modern this discussion broached many familiar questions.  Do miracles still occur in the post biblical world?  If miracles do occur after the canon closed, what larger purposes do they serve? What role should the miraculous play in the day to day expectations of a normal Christian life? Roman apologists of that era, like many modern day charismatics, sought after and boasted in a number of extraordinary claims of miraculous occurrences under their auspices. They piously challenged the Reformers' skepticism regarding these lavish accounts of the miraculous.  Contemporary miracles, they argued, evidenced Catholic piety and were proof of God's favor. Rome insisted it was only fitting that miracles would adorn a church of true apostolic succession. 

Going further, reports of contemporary miracles undergirded a major claim of the Roman Church.  According to traditional Catholic theology the miraculous was a major issue in affirming the canonization of saints. Miracles attributed to the work of the saints fortified the medieval concept of a Treasury of Merit, that mystical depository of all works of supererogation accomplished by the saints beyond those efforts which secured their own salvation. The alleged benefit of these works were stored, so to speak, in a vast Treasury of Merit existing in heaven and placed under the charge of the Roman church. These benefits could be made available to the penitent via indulgences granted by the church. The continuation of divine miracles performed by contemporary saints of the present day both secured the practice of indulgences and provided evidence that such were indeed efficacious in the eyes of God. It thus established the power of the Roman church over the lives of all believers and effected the disposition of their souls in eternity.

Many Reformers were quick to oppose continual claims of extraordinary miracles. The damage done by these lurid accounts, if in no other way, tended to distract the faithful from the central issues of the doctrines of grace. In the considered opinion of many Reformers, testimony to such a surfeit of arbitrary acts of divine intervention only helped contribute to a misunderstanding of the clear biblical doctrine of a gratuitous justification enacted by faith alone. The Reformers of the 16^th century boldly announced on the basis clear biblical teaching that a soul's disposition in eternity rested on the meritorious works of no one other than Christ. 

Beyond corrupting sound doctrine, wild claims of the miraculous heightened suspicions and fed the incredulity of the emerging modern mind.  Reasonable inquiry in the West was born in the labors of the School Men of the High Middle Ages.  It shaped the hermeneutics that eventually developed the formal and material principles of the Reformation: Sola Scriptura and Sola Fide. This examination of Scripture in turn became midwife to the rebirth of learning and scholarship in the Renaissance of Calvin's day.  These forces combined in forming the so-called Age of Enlightenment, an age which advanced through a growing freedom from the control of Rome but eventually succumbed to its rejection of personal Christian faith. 

By the 16^th century intellectual freedom was breaking the bonds of medieval superstition through the rational examinations of science and natural philosophy. As the Age of Reason grew it seemed to have little patience for the constant fracturing of the natural order demanded by anecdotal claims of repeated occurrences of the miraculous.  The challenge of such primitive ideas regarding the miraculous became a formidable obstacle to faith for those embracing the emerging new learning of the Renaissance. This fact troubled many Reformers far more than any finer doctrinal points argued pro and con on the basic question of whether miracles could or could not occur outside of the Bible.  Many who engage in the modern debate over the question of the miraculous in contemporary Christian experience would profit from listening to the Reformers' counsel on the matter.

The moderation urged by many leaders of the Reformation regarding exorbitant claims of the miraculous by Rome sounded much like the Apostle Paul when he cautioned the Corinthian church on undo displays of enthusiasm in the presence of unbelievers: "Will they not say you are mad?" (I Cor. 14:23). There is a subtle point to be observed here.  In defense of authentic spiritual signs and wonders the apostles and the Reformers alike were willing to endure ridicule and even martyrdom in the face of pagan disbelief. Paul, for example, did not recoil from the charge of madness leveled at him when he bore witness to the resurrection of Christ in front of Agrippa (Acts 26:24). Many reformers were willing to elicit similar scorn but only for the sake of legitimate workings of God's Spirit. Like the apostle Paul, Reformers warned against the negative impact unreasoned Christian hysteria and enthusiasm would have on the honest inquiries of unbelievers. Such excess, no matter how well intentioned, would inhibit those who were honestly considering the truth of the Gospel as well as feed the cynicism of less noble souls who were seeking only to discredit the name of Christ.

In his dedicatory address to Francis I in the 1535 edition of ­The Institutes, John Calvin responded to several charges levied by Rome that were intended to discredit the Reformers' standing as true teachers of the Gospel of Christ (Institutes of the Christian Religion, Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, John T. McNeill, ed., vol. 1, pp. 14-23). Among Rome's charges discrediting the Reformers were accusations that their evangelical teachings and practices did not provide believers with the encouragement that would make Christians confident of their faith. For example, these modernists, as Rome disdainfully regarded the Reformers, refused to encourage the common folk and support their happy claims of contemporary miracles. In answering the charge that the doctrines of evangelicals undercut the faith and piety of the common man, Calvin made some telling remarks concerning the possibility that miracles could occur in contemporary, post-canonical Christian experience. 

In Calvin's argument to the French King he establishes three solid reasons for caution with regard to Rome's claims of the miraculous. 

I.  MIRACLES WERE INTENDED TO CONFIRM THE GOSPEL NOT EXALT THE FAITHFUL.  

Calvin insisted that Miracles were intended to establish the claims of the gospel and glorify God. They did not, in Scripture, ever attest to the peculiar piety of any individual. The miraculous may establish the authority of the apostolic testimony to Christ but it never lifted the messenger outside the norm of human beings. Calvin wrote "All the miracles that Jesus Christ and his disciples ever wrought serve to confirm the truth of the Gospel. (Scripture) teaches that those signs which attended the apostles' preaching were set forth to confirm (that truth)."

He drew his support for this generalization from many familiar passages in the Bible: 

Therefore they spent a long time [there] speaking boldly [with reliance] upon the Lord, who was bearing witness to the word of His grace, granting that signs and wonders be done by their hands. 
Acts 14:3

How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? After it was at the first spoken through the Lord, it was confirmed to us by those who heard, God also bearing witness with them, both by signs and wonders and by various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit according to His own will. 
Hebrews 2:3-4

For I will not presume to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me, resulting in the obedience of the Gentiles by word and deed, in the power of signs and wonders, in the power of the Spirit; so that from Jerusalem and round about as far as Illyricum I have fully preached the gospel of Christ. 
Romans 15:18-19

Calvin went on to insist: "But those things which we are told were seals of the Gospel, shall we pervert to undermine the faith of the Gospel? Those things which were designed to be testimonials of the truth, shall we accommodate to the confirmation of falsehood?"

II.  EXTRAVAGANT CLAIMS OF CONTEMPORARY MIRACLES OFTEN PROVOKE THE MINDS OF REASONABLE MEN AND DIVERT THEIR INQUIRY INTO THE FACTS OF THE GOSPEL.  SUCH WILD CLAIMS SERVE SATAN'S STRATIGIES IN PROMOTING THE CLAIMS OF QUESTIONABLE MIRACLES.

Calvin lamented that the Roman Church's uncritical and over exuberant teaching on miracles "disturb the mind. They are so foolish and ridiculous, so vain and false!" Biblical miracles were intended by God to be "seals of the gospel." That is, they conveyed divine provenance and authority. Rome's naive understanding of miracles, Calvin insisted, actually worked for "the destruction of faith in the gospel." Such destruction is done primarily when the lavish and patently absurd claims regarding so called miracles are acknowledged and touted by Rome. Rome's seeming naiveté actually masked a more cynical ulterior motive to strengthen its grip on the lives of the faithful. Furthermore, Rome's cynicism, more than a simple naiveté, served to alienate the reasonable and intelligent inquirer from ever embracing the gospel's message of salvation. It is no surprise that extravagant and even absurd claims of the miraculous can harden man's heart to the Gospel. The ultimate source of such absurdities is little more than the parlor tricks of the devil. Calvin wrote:

we should remember that Satan has his wonders, which, though they are juggling tricks rather than real miracles, are such as delude the ignorant and inexperienced.  Magicians and enchanters have always been famous for miracles; idolatry has been supported by astonishing miracles; and yet we admit them not as proofs of the superstition of magicians or idolaters.

For further evidence Calvin points to the frauds of Elymas or of Jannes and Jambres as yet more Biblical witnesses to what is tantamount to Satanic gamesmanship. They are strategies of the devil. 

Calvin completes his point on the problem of being devilishly obsessed with the miraculous by citing the telling example of the error of the Donatists and the wise response of the great Augustine:

With this engine (i.e. weapon of war) also the simplicity of the vulgar was anciently assailed by the Donatists, who abounded in miracles. We therefore give the same answer now to our adversaries as Augustine gave to the Donatists, that our Lord hath cautioned us against these miracle-mongers by his prediction, that there should arise false prophets, who, by various signs and lying wonders, “deceive (if possible) the very elect.” (Mt. 24:24) and Paul has told us, that the kingdom of Antichrist would be “with all power, and signs, and lying wonders” (2Thess. 2:9).

III. THE PURSUIT OF MIRACLES AS ENDS IN THEMSELVES DEVALUE THE BIBLICAL ACCOUNTS OF TRUE MIRACLES AND ROB GOD OF HIS GLORY 

Calvin argued: "when we hear that (miracles in the Bible) were appointed only to seal the truth, shall we employ (claims of modern miracles) to confirm falsehoods?" The Scripture assigned the miraculous the role of testifying to the gospel's validity. Because of this it is clear that the gospel is superior to miracles as the message is superior to all that would affirm it. This is a subtle point and the reader should be careful not to miss it. The point is built on the same logic employed by the writer of Hebrews when he says in his third chapter that it is obvious the builder of the house is worthy of greater honor than the house itself (Heb 3:3-4). To put it in modern language miraculous deeds are never ends in themselves but always serve the greater end which is the end of the Gospel, namely the ordering "of the dispensation of the fullness of time," (Eph 1:9-10), i.e. the setting of the universe eternally in synch with the sovereign will of God through the life, and death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Calvin goes on to give wise counsel that should instruct us today. "Miracles are wrongly valued that are applied to any other purpose." Calvin makes this claim not only on the strength of specific Scripture that states this point but on a cleverly argued logical implication that God alone should be glorified not merely because of his acts but because of who he is intrinsically. On this point the miracle working Christ is clear.

But I do not seek My glory; there is One who seeks and judges.  

John 8:50

If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder comes true, concerning which he spoke to you, saying, 'Let us go after other gods (whom you have not known) and let us serve them,' you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams; for the Lord your God is testing you to find out if you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. 

Deut 13:1-4

In short, the things Christ did were not for his glory. They were to seal the truth of what he said about God. Calvin notes that Moses was clear about the miraculous signs that might follow a prophet.  Regardless of the miracles, the word of God judges the value of the signs. Miracles are meaningless if they don't affirm the truth of the gospel.  In fact, miracles dislocated from this primary function become dangerous and idolatrous. On this point Calvin is adamant. "The characteristic of sound doctrine given by Christ promotes, not the glory of men, but the glory of God. The name of God ought to be sanctified in all places and at all times, whether by miraculous events, or by the common order of nature." When the miraculous, in and of itself, takes the center stage, it clearly becomes idolatrous. 

CONCLUSION           

Calvin's concerns about post canonical miracles are quite clear. An unbridled pursuit of the miraculous can form a serious distraction to a sound Biblical practice of Christian living. He counsels believers to beware of such dangers and rightly points to Scriptural warnings against the devilish uses of false miracles. "Satan has his miracles… they are deceitful… (and) mislead the simple-minded and untutored." Going on he said, "Magicians and enchanters have always been noted for miracles." Calvin underscored the irony that "Idolatry has been nourished by wonderful miracles." For additional support he quotes a favorite writer among 16^th century reformers, Augustine of Hippo. Augustine cautioned that many false teachers were mentioned in the Bible who based dubious claims of authority on the miraculous. "The Lord made us wary of these miracle workers," the Bishop observed, "when he predicted that false prophets with lying signs and prophecies would come to draw even the elect (if possible) into error." Moreover Augustine warned that the Apostle Paul predicted that the reign of Antichrist would be "with all power, and signs and lying wonders." Calvin allowed Augustine's final words on Satan's use of lying wonders and false miracles to be his own: "But these miracles, they say, are done neither by idols, nor by magicians, not by false prophets, but by the saints, as if we did not understand that to disguise himself as an 'angel of light' is the craft of Satan!"

Though written nearly 500 years ago, Calvin's final observation about contemporary miracles is as moderate and reasonable as any modern writer of today. His opposition to Rome's carnival of the miraculous does not arise from a simple a priori conviction that miracles are "not for today". Calvin's comments prove that he himself is not categorically convinced that God refuses to work miraculously in our post-canonical world. "We (he says of the emerging Protestant churches) are not entirely lacking in miracles, and these (are) very certain and not subject to mockery." One might argue that Calvin is here referring only to the miracles recorded in the Scripture but such an argument seems to be an unlikely bit of casuistry. It is more likely Calvin is referring to the rare occasion of miraculous happenings among his contemporaries in the churches of the Reformation. The latter interpretation of his comment is not completely certain. However it would not be the first time that the great teacher of reformed faith would be less doctrinaire than the later theological systems which bore his name. It may indeed be that Calvin is more tolerant of modern day miracles than the Westminster Confession, for example. But his concerns over the abuses of miraculous claims remain valid. They are instructive. Careless appeals to the miraculous can threaten to obscure the basics of the gospel and may lead Christians away from a clear affirmation of the truths regarding salvation by faith.  

Calvin's concerns should continue to inform us today. We needn't, as it were, throw the baby out with the bath water in refusing to recognize rare acts of the miraculous among us. We should, on the other hand, remain vigilante making sure that wrong lessons are never learned, nor wrong practices ever encouraged among us.

-- M. Braun