Abstract
Richard A. Muller, Calvin and the Reformed Tradition: On the Work of Christ and the Order of Salvation, Baker Academic: Grand Rapids, 2012; 288 pp.: 9780801048708, £28.99/$40.00 (pbk)
In 1986 Richard Muller published Christ and the Decree, the first of his many books on the early Reformed tradition and its relation to Calvin. His magnum opus is his four-volume Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, published as a set in 2003. In these and other writings he has fought hard for a historical understanding of Calvin in his own context, castigating those who have sought to exploit the Reformer for dogmatic ends, either making Calvin a Calvinist or portraying Calvinism as a ‘betrayal’ of Calvin. That crusade is continued in this collection of essays, which helpfully draw together many aspects of the ‘Muller thesis’.
The present volume contains eight essays, followed by a Conclusion, these essays being based on lectures given in Korea in 2011. Two had already appeared in print in an earlier form. Chapters 1 and 2 set the scene: ‘From Reformation to Orthodoxy: The Reformed Tradition in the Early Modern Era’ puts Calvin in his historical setting; and ‘Was Calvin a Calvinist?’ engages directly with modern perceptions of Calvinism. The following chapters focus on specific issues related to the work of Christ and its application. Three of these consider the issue of ‘Limited Atonement’, in Calvin, Amyraut, Davenant and Du Moulin; two consider the issue of the Ordo Salutis.
The ‘Muller thesis’ can be summed up in a number of points:
Calvin was not the founder of Reformed Protestantism but was just one among a number of second-generation Reformers. Accounts of later Reformed theology as being faithful to Calvin or as betraying him are alike mistaken as they assume that fidelity to Calvin was or is the criterion for Reformed orthodoxy. The process of development of Reformed theology between Calvin’s time and the seventeenth century is complex and has been falsified by those who have sought to recruit Calvin for some modern cause of their own. It is mistaken to see predestination as central to Calvin’s theology or as the prime criterion for fidelity to his thought. This is even more true of the TULIP acrostic, a modern formulation which does not accurately reflect Calvin’s teaching.
These points are here, as in Muller’s other works, persuasively argued. He comments on a wide range of Calvin scholarship and one of his characteristics is that he does not shrink from calling a spade a spade, exposing the shortcomings of some sections of Calvin scholarship. This is compulsory reading for all with an interest in the place of Calvin in the ongoing Reformed tradition.