QUESTIONS 10–11. Is this enough?—Far from it. Why?—Because we are unworthy that He should exercise His power to help us, or for our salvation show us how good He is.
Supposing even that there exists an almighty and all-good being, it is not yet certain that we might and could put in him all our trust. “We are unworthy.” In other words: we cannot enjoy his almightiness and his all-goodness. It might be that this power and even this goodness could turn against us. The relationship between God and man, for Calvin, is then not simply one that unites a big being to a small one, an infinite being to a finite being. There is a personal rapport, there is a question of worthiness of the one unto the other. It is a moral and not only a physical relationship. The events that have come to pass between these two beings show that there was unworthiness on our part.
QUESTION 12. What then is needed further?—Just that each of us should affirm with his mind that he is loved by Him, and that He is willing to be his Father and the Author of his salvation.
To this moral unworthiness of man corresponds the love of God. But no more than our unworthiness is God’s love a description, a sort of natural history of our relations with him. It is a question of a history, of something which has come to pass in time, of a relationship of will and love: God loves, God wills—this is how Calvin expresses himself. There is will, there is love—this is how a philosopher would express himself. With the latter, truth is abstract; with the former it is an historical reality.
With Questions 13 and 14, Calvin examines how we can arrive at the certitude that God loves us.
QUESTIONS 13–14. Where will this be apparent to us?—In His word, where He reveals His mercy to us in Christ and testifies of His love towards us.
Then the foundation and beginning of faith in God is to know Him in Christ? (John 17:3)—Quite so.
Calvin clearly indicates the origin of our knowledge of God’s love. Note well: it is not a question of a general and abstract and philosophical knowledge, not a question of a treatise on the love of God in nature or on love in general; all this, all these abstract ideas are a piece of paper, a great noise, only ideas. The Gospel, on the contrary, tells us about realities. The task of theological reflection and of preaching does not begin at all with abstract ideas, but with the reality of God’s action. The love of God is not an abstract quality of God’s; it is an act: God takes to heart our misery. In Jesus Christ, He declares His mercy unto us and puts this mercy to work, and there is no mercy towards us outside Jesus Christ.
Here it is almost impossible for us not to run against our philosophical habits of mind. We indeed say, “Why could God’s love not reveal itself otherwise?” May it not be that Jesus Christ is at most an intermediary who tells us about God’s love, and afterwards becomes useless? In so thinking, we avow ourselves sons of the whole theological generation of the last two centuries, from J. F. Osterwald down to our time: according to that theology, Jesus Christ merely reveals to us an idea, the love of God, which we could have by ourselves. Between man and God there lies a fundamental relation: the adoration, the service of God. But who is God? What is that service? It is that which we are not told. It already smacks of Oxford Group ideas … God is supposed known. Jesus Christ comes only afterward, and at bottom we do not very well see why.
For Calvin, on the contrary, Jesus Christ holds a central position. There is not an “essence” of God’s love that one could know as such, and then a “manifestation” of such a love whose eminent representative is Jesus Christ. No distinction is made between the principle and the person, between the message and the messenger. Jesus Christ is what he brings forth. He is the mercy of God, he is the love of God, he is the open heart of God. By knowing Jesus Christ, we then have this “trust” we talked about above. It is not only a possibility, it is a reality: “Therefore since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God” (Rom. 5:1). In the presence of Jesus Christ there no longer is any other alternative but to “trust” in Him.
REMARK I. On the Precedence of “Trust.” The first point consists in reliance on the good will of God. You realize how fitting it is to be cautious when one asserts the stiffness and severity of Calvin. Precisely it is Calvin who begins with the Creed, and not with God’s demands upon us, as revealed in the law. Calvin does not begin by saying to us: This is what you should be! He begins by saying: We are enabled to put our whole life in God’s hands through Jesus Christ. And this life has been put there by this same Jesus Christ. We have this “trust” (which is far from saying merely: let us have this “trust”).
REMARK II. On the Authority of the Word. To “trust” in God is not taking a chance, leaping into the darkness, or gambling and betting. For the Word of God is the very revelation of God, and the revelation of God is the demonstration of God. On the basis of that demonstration we have this “trust”—a “trust” that is not out of whimsey but an act of true wisdom.
REMARK III. On the Conjunction of God’s Almightiness and All-goodness. Nothing is more frequent than to speak, on the one hand, of our knowledge of God’s almightiness (nature, various events) and, on the other, of our knowledge of His goodness (Jesus Christ). There would thus be an almightiness of God which has nothing to do with his allgoodness, with the Christ. And there would be a goodness of God which is not almighty. It must rather be understood that almightiness and all-goodness are united in Christ. A good many errors of the religious life come from their separation.
INTRODUCTION TO THE APOSTLES’ CREED
Questions 15–20
QUESTIONS 15–16. Now I would hear from you in a few words what the sum of this knowledge is.—It is contained in the confession of faith, or rather in the formula of confession, which all Christians hold in common. It is commonly called the Apostles’ Creed, because from the beginning of the Church it was always received among all the pious, and because either it came from the lips of the apostles or was faithfully collected from their writings.
Repeat it.—I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ His only Son our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried; He descended into hell; the third day he rose again from the dead, he ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. I believe in the Holy Ghost; the Holy Catholic Church; the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. Amen.
The substance of this knowledge is the Creed in its entirety. Therefore the whole Creed refers to our knowledge of God in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ does not appear “in the second act” only. He is unceasingly present, unceasingly active.
QUESTIONS 17–18. To understand the several points more thoroughly—into how many parts shall we divide this Confession?—Into four principal parts.
Name them to me.—The first refers to God the Father; the second concerns His Son Jesus Christ, and also includes the entire sum of man’s redemption. The third part concerns the Holy Spirit; the fourth the Church and the divine benefits vouchsafed to it.
I do not wish to insist on the question of the division of the Creed. Calvin—following the example of medieval scholasticism—counts four articles. Sometimes, however, only three articles were counted, integrating the Church and following affirmations under the third, that of the Holy Spirit.
QUESTIONS 19–20. Since there is no God but one, why do you here mention three, Father, Son and Holy Spirit?—Because in the one essence of God it is proper to regard God as beginning and origin, the first cause of all things; then the Son, who is his eternal wisdom; and last the Holy Spirit, as his virtue diffused through all things, which yet perpetually