1 - John Calvin’s Political Naturalism

Summary

In 1532, a young humanist attempted to force his way into the illustrious upper echelons of classics scholarship by publishing a commentary on Seneca's De clementia (On Clemency). However, the commentary was received with no fanfare. The ambitious Frenchman's pride was wounded. This impressive work of classical scholarship would, in the end, recede into the background of the later theological works of that young Frenchman, John Calvin. As it turned out, more fame was to be had in his vocation as a Protestant Divine. Another thing related to the commentary that receded into the background, although remains present in Calvin's later works, is the Senecan emphasis on the social nature of humanity. In De clementia, Seneca states that ‘hominem sociale animal communi bono genitum’; that ‘man’ is a ‘social animal begotten for the common good’. Calvin, as we shall see, agreed with this sentiment in 1532, and he consistently reaffirmed it throughout his later theological and biblical writings. This embracing of the late Stoic understanding of humanity's social nature was consistent with a typical medieval Christian understanding of human nature, human society and natural law.

This chapter places Calvin within the broader sweep of Reformed Protestant ideas concerning natural law and politics. We will see that he articulated a natural law theory which maintained a close connection between God's governance of the universe and the natural law. In other words, the natural law is not secularised in Calvin's thought. And, because of this, his conception of political life is not secularised either, as he understands that humans are naturally political creatures as designed by God. For Calvin, humans are political because of the natural law. Calvin adhered to a form of theistic political naturalism, a naturalism which retained God's role in the establishment of human political life. This connection was ultimately broken later in the Reformed tradition, a fact which becomes evident in the latter part of the seventeenth century. However, for now, we can see quite clearly that the early Reformed thinkers like Calvin were political naturalists and retained a sacral view of political life.

Despite there being a wide range of scholarship on Calvin's natural jurisprudence, none of it draws the connection between his natural law thought and his understanding of the basis of political life.