Abstract
Michelle Chaplin Sanchez poses the question of whether it is possible to harness a critique of modern sovereignty by taking the perspective of an early modern author such as Calvin. She orients this question by viewing Calvin as a refugee, cast out of the bodies of the Roman Catholic Church and Christendom, who therefore offers a critique of these bodies from the perspective of the inglorious. She orients her analysis by focusing on the body in particular, for she claims that all learning not only involves, but is dependent upon, the body.
S. reads Calvin from the perspective of contemporary debates about the relationship of political theology to the tradition of Christian theology. These debates identify the doctrines of providence and the incarnation as being the most fertile sites generating views of sovereignty. Hence, if Calvin offers resistance to these views of sovereignty, this must be shown by examining his understanding of providence and the incarnation in his magisterial teaching document, the Institutes of 1559. S. claims that Calvin does not explicitly state the goal of his teaching, but she infers that the goal lies in Calvin’s claim that the universe should be the school in which we are to learn piety (Inst. II.vi.1). Hence she sees his central concern as being how revelation might be related to various spheres of immanent, material life in this world, and it is in light of this goal that she interprets both the doctrine of providence and the doctrine of the incarnation.
Taking her cue from Calvin’s statement that “nature is God,” she claims that Calvin indexes divine power to the world in such a way that the universe itself becomes the Archimedean point from which to critique all institutions. She claims that Calvin does this by means of poetic, fictive language that imagines the world “as if” created and affirmed by God, which she claims to be the meaning of his doctrine of providence. She does the same with the doctrine of the incarnation. The claim that Christ is divine is another instance of poetic fiction, S. argues, so that Christ effects the knowledge of what it means for all of us to be human “as if God” (197). The elect are those who realize that they are what Christ is, and they hold out the same hope for humanity. Christ does not reconcile us to God, as our estrangement from God is due to our “paranoid” interpretation of earthly experience (200). Rather, Christ by his suffering and death persuades us that we are loved by God despite what we otherwise may deserve. The goal of the incarnation is therefore to restore the universe as the school of God’s children (208). Even the church exists only to turn believers back to the world as the theater of God’s glory (266). Thus Calvin is read as joining with Nietzsche in criticizing all views of human sovereignty by means of their vision of the divine affirmation of the world (110).
This is a creative reading of Calvin, which succeeds in locating Calvin in the various discussions in political theology over the past century. However, it also successfully eliminates the central concern of his theology, which is how to attain eternal life in union with God. S. omits this concern from Calvin’s description of the universe as the school in which we were to learn piety, for in that sentence Calvin goes on to say, “and from it [the world] passes over to eternal life and perfect felicity” (II.vi.1). Calvin does not address readers as bodies, but rather as those created in the image of God, which he locates in the soul, defined as an immortal yet created essence. The image of God that remains in us should arouse our minds to meditate on eternal life. S. therefore completely reverses the direction of Calvin’s theology, which seeks to orient the reader on a path of rising by analogy and anagogy from this life to eternal life in union with God. Moreover, providence does not make the world into God’s school instead of the church; rather, providence is especially concerned with the governance of the church (I.xvii.1). The church does not direct believers to the world, but rather to Christ, in whom alone Calvin sees our access to the eternal life we lost in Adam. Moreover, Calvin would never agree that he teaches according to poetic fictions. Rather, he claims that God is revealed by God’s perfections or powers that are manifested in the works God does in the universe and in Christ. Our experience of these powers teaches us piety, and leads us to seek union with God in eternal life. Finally, Calvin provides two models for human sovereignty, one modeled on divine providence (IV.xx.6) and the other on Christ as King, to whom all other kings are to submit (IV.xx.5). Neither of these views is raised in this book, even though they are central to Calvin’s understanding of human government.