作者：Richard A. Muller 译者：诚之
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一、问题的定义：何谓“加尔文主义”？
I.
Defining the Question: Varied Understandings of “Calvinism”
如果暂时把“TULIP”这个著名的公式搁置一旁，而照“加尔文是加尔文主义者吗？”这个问题的字面来回答，不给予进一步的说明，我们可以简要地回答：是的……不是……也许是……，答案完全取决于我们如何理解这个问题。之所以会如此复杂或不确定，是因为问题的本身就引发了一连串严重的疑问。事实上，对“加尔文主义者”和“加尔文主义”的不同理解，会决定我们如何回答这个问题，或者，实在来说，取决于提问者究竟为何要问这个问题。“加尔文主义者”曾被人用来描述加尔文在某一议题上的立场，也许最典型的是加尔文的预定论。它也曾被用来指加尔文的追随者，或者笼统地指改革宗传统的神学。同样地，“加尔文主义”也被人用来指加尔文自己的独特神学立场，有时用来指加尔文《基督教要义》的神学，或用来指加尔文追随者的神学。更常见的是，它被用来作为“改革宗”（Reformed）或“改革宗传统”（Reformed tradition）的同义词。
Leaving
aside for a moment the famous “TULIP,” the basic question, “Was Calvin a
Calvinist?,” taken as it stands, without further qualification, can be answered
quite simply: Yes … No … Maybe ... all depending on how one understands the
question. The answer must be mixed or indefinite because question itself poses
a significant series of problems. There are in fact several different
understandings of the terms “Calvinist” and “Calvinism” that determine in part
how one answers the question or, indeed, what one intends by asking the
question in the first place. “Calvinist” has been used as a descriptor of
Calvin’s own position on a particular point, perhaps most typically of Calvin’s
doctrine of predestination. It has been used as a term for followers of Calvin
— and it has been used as a term for the theology of the Reformed tradition in
general. “Calvinism,” similarly, has been used to indicate Calvin’s own
distinctive theological positions, sometimes the theology of Calvin’s
Institutes. It also is used to indicate the theology of Calvin’s followers.
More frequently, it has been used as a synonym for “Reformed” or for the
“Reformed tradition.”
1. “加尔文主义”是指加尔文自己的立场。
1.
“Calvinism” as Calvin’s own position.
如果我们选择的是第一个选项，那么，问题很简单，“是的，加尔文当然是个加尔文主义者”——“加尔文主义者”和“加尔文主义”是指加尔文在各种神学、教会、政治，甚至是哲学议题上的特定立场。这也许是Henry Cole以“加尔文的加尔文主义”（Calvin’s Calvinism）作为他的书名的用意。这本书翻译了加尔文对预定论的诸多论文。这也是许多作者，如Peter Toon和Basil Hall的用法。后者甚至把“加尔文主义”这个词严格用来指加尔文1559年版的《基督教要义》，据他的说法是完美“平衡的”神学。（注1）不过，这种方式会带来一些问题——至少，它（显然是故意地）会让加尔文成为唯一的加尔文主义者。
If
the first option is taken as the basis for the question, the answer is simply,
“Yes, of course Calvin was a Calvinist” — “Calvinist” and “Calvinism”
indicating the specific position of Calvin on various theological, ecclesial,
political, and even philosophical issues. This is perhaps the intention of the
title of a work such as Henry Cole’s translation of Calvin’s various treatises
on predestination, namely, Calvin’s Calvinism. It is also the usage of writers
like Peter Toon and Basil Hall, the latter going so far as to apply the term
“Calvinism” restrictively to the purportedly perfectly “balanced” theology of
Calvin’s 1559 Institutes. There are, however, a host of problems posed by this
approach — 1 not the least of which is that it (apparently intentionally)
leaves Calvin as the only Calvinist.
除此之外，这个方法也产生了一个问题，就是你要用什么尺度来说1559年的《基督教要义》，如果和所谓的较不平衡的神学相比，例如慈运理（Huldrych Zwingli），艾科兰巴迪（Johannes Oecolampadius），布瑟（Martin Bucer），布灵格（Heinrich Bullinger），菲密格理（Peter Martyr Vermigli），穆斯库卢斯（Wolfgang Musculus），邬新努（Zacharias Ursinus），以及其他通常和加尔文一样，被认定为属于改革宗传统的学者的神学，是一种完美而平衡的神学呢？可以这么说，这个尺度只是这种方法的提倡者的个人偏好而已，是由一种对《基督教要义》的现代解读所构成的，它抽离了当时的历史情境，把它当成现代神学系统——例如施莱马赫（Friedrich
Schleiermacher），巴特（Karl Barth），伯库维（G. C. Berkouwer），或其他近代神学家——的一种原型。这种所谓的平衡，无论是加尔文对预定的理解，或所谓的他的“基督中心论”（christocentrism），或他对“神秘的联合”（unio mystica）的提倡，都把一种所谓的融合的、以教理为中心（dogmatic center）的思想，加到加尔文的思想之上，而这种思想并无法在同一代人的思想中找到——也无法在加尔文的思想里找到。这种融合主义者的方法，不只是让加尔文成为唯一的加尔文主义者，也把加尔文的加尔文主义描绘成“原始施莱马赫主义”（proto-Schleiermacherianism），“原始巴特主义”，或“原始伯库维主义”（只是为了制造出一些稍微悦耳的语词）。
Beyond
that, this approach begs the question of what criterion has been applied to the Institutes of 1559 to
arrive at the conclusion that it represents a perfectly balanced theology in
contrast to the presumably less well-balanced theologies of Huldrych Zwingli,
Johannes Oecolampadius, Martin Bucer, Heinrich Bullinger, Peter Martyr Vermigli,
Wolfgang Musculus, Zacharias Ursinus, and a host of others usually identified,
together with Calvin, as belonging to the Reformed tradition. Arguably, that
criterion has been the personal theological preference of various proponents of
the approach and it has consisted in modern readings of the Institutes, out of
its historical context, as if it were a prototype for some modern theological
system — whether Friedrich Schleiermacher’s, Karl Barth’s, G. C. Berkouwer’s,
or some other recent theologian’s. The purported balance, whether found in
Calvin’s understanding of predestination, or his so-called christocentrism, or
his advocacy of the unio mystica, claims a coherent dogmatic center to Calvin’s
thought that cannot be found in the thought of his contemporaries — but which
also is not found in Calvin’s thought. The coherentist approach not only leaves
Calvin the only Calvinist, it also portrays Calvin’s Calvinism as
proto-Schleiermacherianism, protoBarthianism, or proto-Berkouwerianism (to coin
a somewhat less than euphonic term).
围绕在新正统或其他主题的当代融合方法论一旦被消解了，进一步的问题就会浮现出来。把加尔文主义和加尔文自己独特的教义等同起来，会遇到一个极为困难的问题，就是我们能否实际找到加尔文的独特教义。这个疑问更是被众多书籍所凸显。这些书籍提出一些脱离历史情境的解读，创立了“加尔文的预定论”，“加尔文的基督论”，或“加尔文的主餐论”等等说法，好像加尔文的确提出了非常独特的教义。我们必须提醒自己，有一位真正非常独特的神学家，他在16世纪进到日内瓦，却没有能活着离开。他就是塞维特（Michael Servetus）。创造独特或非常个人性的教义，并不是加尔文的目标。例如，如果他的预定论教义有任何独特之处，乃在于他从过去传统之内的思想家搜集元素的方法，并将它们揉合成他自己的表述。但是事实是，他的说法与布瑟，维若特（Pierre Viret ），穆斯库卢斯，和菲尔米革立并无二致。甚至布灵格的说法，在几个独特的论点上有所差异，例如亚当和神的预旨的关系，也和加尔文的教导有明显的相似之处。（注2）同样，加尔文的主餐论也有一些独特的元素——但有许多都是汲取自布瑟和莫兰顿。如果我们把这些共同之处都抹杀掉，只专注在真正独特的元素，我们就得不到一种神学，也缺乏一系列的主题去建构一种神学——即使有人尝试这样做，也得不到一种加尔文的神学，而是某种教条式的茱莉亚·蔡尔德（Julia Childs）的混合品，由一堆剁碎的、风味各不相同的烹调原料所组成。（译按：Julia Childs在美国以法国主厨的电视节目闻名。）换句话说，把加尔文主义等同于加尔文独特的神学，是一种错误。
Once
the modern mythologies of coherence around neo-orthodox or other themes have
been dissipated, a further problem emerges. The identification of Calvinism
with Calvin’s own distinctive doctrines, encounters the extreme difficulty of
actually finding distinctive doctrines in Calvin. This problem has been
enhanced by the numerous books that present interpretations of such
decontextualized constructs as “Calvin’s doctrine of predestination,” “Calvin’s
Christology,” or “Calvin’s doctrine of the Lord’s Supper,” as if Calvin
actually proposed a highly unique doctrine. We need to remind ourselves that the
one truly unique theologian who entered Geneva in the sixteenth century,
Michael Servetus, did not exit Geneva alive. Unique or individualized doctrinal
formulation was not Calvin’s goal. If, for example, there is anything unique in
his doctrine of predestination, it arose from the way in which he gathered
elements from past thinkers in the tradition and blended them into his own
formulation. But the fact is that his formulation is strikingly similar to
those of Bucer, Viret, Musculus, and Vermigli. Even Bullinger’s formulation,
which differed on several distinct points, like the relation of Adam to the
decree, has clear affinities with Calvin’s teaching. Likewise, there are some 2
distinctive elements in Calvin’s doctrine of the Lord’s supper — but there is
so much that was drawn from Bucer and Melanchthon. If one were to strip out
these commonalities and focus only on the truly distinctive elements one would
not have a theology remaining nor would one have a series of related motifs
sufficient to the construction of a theology — and even if one attempted to do
this, one would not have a theology of Calvin, but rather a kind of dogmatic
Julia Childs concoction made up out of a pile of chopped-up ingredients,
varying in taste from cook to cook. In other words, the identification of
Calvinism with the unique theology of Calvin represents a fallacy.
这种方法还有一种最终的、更深的问题。这个问题也假设了加尔文和后期被视为加尔文主义者的思想家，他们的神学传统完全是由加尔文自己的神学所建构的，而这种加尔文神学——很典型地被认定为等同于加尔文1559年最后版本的《基督教要义》——提供了唯一的基本索引，要成为这个传统的会员，必须由这个索引来评估。这种问题的形式假设了后期改革宗神学家都想要成为，或已经是唯独追随加尔文的人，而不能同时是慈运理，布瑟，艾科兰巴迪，布灵格和其他人的追随者，而且还不只是一般性的加尔文，或小册、论述、圣经注释和讲道的加尔文，也不是1539，1543或1555年《基督教要义》的加尔文，而是1559年《基督教要义》的加尔文（注3）。这种形式的疑问被众多谈论加尔文神学的书籍所助长或教唆，而这些书籍都完全或几乎完全根据1559年的《基督教要义》，而未曾检视加尔文之前或当时的思想（注4）：他的思想成为评估的唯一要件，引申而言，也是所有加尔文主义的唯一指引。这种观点偏差到一个程度，不值得进一步去反驳：它把加尔文从他自己抽离出来，否认他绝大多数作品的重要性，甚至抽离了他的历史背景，以及他所参与的传统。
There
is a final, deeper problem with this approach as well. The question also
assumes that the theological tradition in which both Calvin and the later
thinkers who have been identified as Calvinists reside was rather
exclusivistically founded on the theology of Calvin himself and that Calvin’s
theology — typically identified with Calvin’s Institutes in the final edition
of 1559 — supplies the foundational index by which membership in that tradition
ought to be assessed. This form of the question assumes that later Reformed
theologians either intended to be or should have been precise followers of
Calvin rather than also followers of Zwingli, Bucer, Oecolampadius, Bullinger,
and others, and not merely followers of Calvin in general or Calvin of the
tracts, treatises, commentaries, and sermons, nor the Calvin of the 1539, 1543,
or 1550 Institutes, but the Calvin of the 1559 Institutes. This form of the 3
question is aided and abetted by the numerous books on Calvin’s theology that
are based solely or almost solely on the Institutes and that do not examine the
thought of any of Calvin’s predecessors or contemporaries: his thought becomes
its own 4 criterion for its assessment and, by extension, the sole guide to all
that is Calvinistic. This view is so misguided that it needs no extended
rebuttal: it abstracts Calvin from himself by denying the importance of the
larger portion of his work even as it abstracts him from his historical context
and from the tradition in which he was a participant.
2. “加尔文主义”是指加尔文“追随者”的取向。
2.
“Calvinism” as the approach of Calvin’s “followers
如果“加尔文主义”是指加尔文的追随者，而“加尔文主义”是指他的追随者的神学，很明显地，没有人会追随自己。第一种选项让加尔文成为唯一的加尔文主义者，而这个选项要不是让加尔文无法成为加尔文主义者，就是落入类似第一种选项的情感泛滥，用一种建构在加尔文神学之外的、相当狭隘的标准，来判断其追随者。这也应该是很明显的，由于那些被视为追随者的人，很少、甚至从来不会完全照抄，因此，这种提问的方式，通常是期待一个负面的答案：就后期的加尔文主义者不是思想的克隆而言，加尔文不应该被视为和他们等同——而就加尔文的思想应该为所有后期的改革宗神学提供唯一的标准而言，那些通常被称为加尔文主义者的人，应该被视为在神学上是有问题的，因为他们没有追随加尔文。这样来看，老实说，这问题就是个伪问题。它没有考虑到加尔文及后期改革宗神学家的历史情境，而用笼统的教义来取代历史的分析。下面当我们检视一些教义（如预定论和基督满足的工作）之形成轨迹的细节时，就会看到。
.”
If, however, by “Calvinist” one means a follower of Calvin and by “Calvinism,”
the theology of his followers, it should be clear that no one can be his own
follower. Whereas the first option leaves Calvin as the only Calvinist, this
option either prevents the identification of Calvin as a Calvinist or, falling
back on the kind of sentiments fueling the first option, judges the followers
on the basis of a rather narrow norm constructed out of Calvin’s theology. It
should also be clear, inasmuch as those identified as followers were seldom,
perhaps never, precise imitators, that by the very way in which the question
has been posed, it is usually looking for a negative answer: to the extent that
later so-called Calvinists were not intellectual clones, Calvin ought not to be
identified with them — and to the extent that Calvin’s thought ought to supply
the norm for all later Reformed theology, those usually called Calvinists can
be viewed as theologically problematic for not following him. Framed in this
way, the question is, quite frankly, bogus. It decontextualizes both Calvin and
the later Reformed writers and it replaces historical analysis with dogmatic
generalization, as will be seen when we examine a few specifics concerning
trajectories of formulation of doctrines such as predestination and the
satisfaction of Christ.
在稍微复杂的层面上，这个问题假设了“加尔文主义者”是加尔文自己，以及属于同一个神学轨迹或加尔文所在的传统（例如，他死后一百年）的牧师、神学家和解经家们所乐于接受的。这个假设在这两件事上都是错的。加尔文自己把加尔文主义者这个词视为是一个侮辱，他认为自己的神学是大公信仰的表达。这是许多文献证实的，就是加尔文主义和加尔文主义者这两个词，在加尔文的敌对者当中已经产生出来，特别是一些路德宗的批评者，他们批评加尔文关于主餐的教义；而这个用法的起始，标志的不是从加尔文而来的独特传统，而是认识到改教家之间的一个裂口。他们原先认为自己是“宣讲福音的”（evangelical，或译为“福音派”），而到了十六世纪中叶，开始自觉地分裂成独特的认信群体，即路德宗和改革宗（注5）。1595年，当巴瑞特（William Barrett）开始攻击加尔文、慈运理、伯撒（Beza）、赞奇（Zanchi）和尤尼武斯（Junius）时，他受到了指责，因为他用“恶心的名字”（0dious names）来称呼这些坚定的信仰者，包括称他们是“加尔文主义者”（注6）。加尔文所属的这个传统的后期神学家，很典型地认同自己是改革宗大公信徒（Reformed Catholics），是已经改革了的教会——因此是真正的大公教会（Catholic Church）——的会员和教师，与尚未改革的罗马教会或普世教会的罗马分支不同。当著名的解经家和神学家瑞弗特司（Andreas Rivetus ，1573-1654）为加尔文的解经辩护时，也尽力地表明，加尔文不是“我们信仰”的作者或“最优秀的学生”（dux）（注7）。这种经常和撇清与“加尔文主义”这个名字有关的评注，在十七世纪的改革宗思想家当中是相当常见的（注8）。简而言之，对“加尔文是加尔文主义者吗”这个问题有意见的神学家，没有一个认同自己是加尔文主义者。
At a
somewhat more complex level, the question assumes that “Calvinist” is an
appellation that might have been happily accepted by Calvin himself and by
pastors, theologians, and exegetes who belonged to the same theological
trajectory or tradition as Calvin within, let us say, a hundred years after his
death. That assumption is false on both counts. Calvin himself viewed the term
Calvinist as an insult and thought of his own theology as an expression of
catholic truth. It has been quite well documented that the terms Calvinism and
Calvinist arose among the opponents of Calvin, notably among Lutheran critics
of Calvin’s work on the doctrine of the Lord’s supper, and the beginning of the
usage marks not a distinct tradition flowing from Calvin but the identification
of a rift among the reformers who had initially understood themselves as
“evangelical” and only after the middle of the sixteenth century began
consciously to separate themselves into distinct confessional groups, namely
Lutheran and Reformed. In 1595, when William Barrett attacked 5 the teachings
of Calvin, Vermigli, Beza, Zanchi, and Junius, he was rebuked, among other
things, for calling these stalwarts of the faith “odious names” including
identifying them as “Calvinists.” Later theologians in the tradition of which
Calvin 6 was a part typically identified themselves as Reformed Catholics,
members and teachers in the reformed and therefore true Catholic Church, as
distinct from the un-reformed Roman branch of the catholic or universal church.
When the noted exegete and theologian Andreas Rivetus (1573-1654), defended
elements of Calvin’s exegesis against various detractors, he also took pains to
indicate that Calvin was neither the autor or the dux of “our religion.” Such
comments, often connected with 7 repudiation of the name “Calvinist” are common
among seventeenth-century Reformed
thinkers. In short, none of the theologians whose thought is at issue in 8 the
question, “Was Calvin a Calvinist,” identified themselves in this way.
如此，引申而言，这个问题就引发了怎样辨识追随者的问题——关于这点，虽然是以稍为清楚的方式来提出的，仍然是个很难在历史上下定论的问题。到底怎样才算是追随者？如果追随者是必须认为自己是追随者的人，那么，大概在加尔文死后的一个世纪之内，只有一个加尔文主义者，就是亚目拉督（Moyses Amyraut）。更有甚者，在讨论亚目拉督所谓的“假设性的普救论”（hypothetical
universalism）这个问题上，绝大多数被视为加尔文主义者的神学家，认为亚目拉督严重地偏离了加尔文神学的精神，特别是他引用加尔文的方式。当然，在改革宗正统年代之后，在十八和十九世纪，出现了许多自封的“加尔文主义者”，典型的是他们被如此称呼，是因为他们提出某种形式的预定论，无论其根源是否是加尔文自己的表述；而所谓的“阿民念主义者”，是因为他们的神人合作救恩论，无论其根源是否是阿民念自己的表述。
By
extension, then, the question raises the issue of the identification of
followers — and this, albeit perhaps a somewhat clearer way of posing the
query, is a rather difficult issue to settle historically. Precisely what
constitutes a follower? If to be a follower one must identify one’s self as a
follower, then there was probably only a single Calvinist in the century following
Calvin’s death, namely Moyses Amyraut. In the debate over Amyraut’s so-called
hypothetical universalism, moreover, most of the theologians usually identified
as Calvinist thought of Amyraut as departing significantly from the spirit of
Calvin’s theology, particularly at the point of his citing Calvin. Of course,
after the era of Reformed orthodoxy, in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries, self-proclaimed “Calvinists” abound, typically so called because of
their advocacy of one or another form of the doctrine of predestination,
whether or not clearly rooted in Calvin’s own formulations, and because of
their opposition to so-called “Arminians,” so called because of their
soteriological synergism, whether or not (usually not!) they actually followed
Arminius’ teachings.
事实上，十六、十七世纪中被我们视为是加尔文主义者的人，并没有把他们自己视为加尔文的追随者。当然，改革宗神学传统的缔造者，如慈运理，布瑟，艾科兰巴迪和法雷尔（Farel），都比加尔文早一代，他们很难会认为自己是比他们还小的人的追随者，无论他是多么有才华。那些与加尔文年纪相近的人也不作如此想——包括穆斯库卢斯，菲密格理，布灵格和拉斯科（Johannes à Lasco）——把自己当作是加尔文的追随者，或实在而言，只是第二把手。我们在接下来的几代改革宗作家——邬新努，俄勒维安奴（Caspar Olevianus），赞奇，波兰努（Amandus Polanus），或甚至是加尔文的继承者，伯撒（Theodore Beza）——当中，也没有宣称自己是加尔文的追随者，或“加尔文主义者”。
As a
matter of fact, the vast majority of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century
thinkers we identify as Calvinists did not identify themselves as followers of
Calvin. Of course, founders of the Reformed tradition like Zwingli, Bucer,
Oecolampadius, and Farel, all of whom belonged to a generation prior to
Calvin’s would hardly have thought of themselves as followers of one of their
younger protegés, no matter how talented. Neither did other Reformed writers
closer in age to Calvin — among them Wolfgang Musculus, Peter Martyr Vermigli,
Heinrich Bullinger, and Johannes à Lasco — view themselves as his followers or,
indeed, as playing second fiddle to the virtuoso. Nor can we find Reformed
writers of the next several generations — Zacharias Ursinus, Caspar Olevianus,
Jerome Zanchi, Amandus Polanus, or even Calvin’s own successor, Theodore Beza —
claiming to be followers of Calvin or, indeed, “Calvinists.”
如果自认为是加尔文主义者的这个问题得到了解决，还有一个问题，就是在一个相当广博的传统——这个传统不是建立在刻意要去跟随某个人的脚踪的基础上，而且这个传统是在历经一个半世纪之后，加尔文主义这个名词才被接受为一个有用的名称——的这个背景下去辨认哪些人是追随者。而一个比加尔文几乎晚一个世纪，在帕多瓦和博洛尼亚大学（Universities of
Paduaand Bologna）受训，之后在施特拉斯堡（Strasbourg）、牛津和苏黎世受教，而因为他大体同意加尔文未论及双重谕旨、而是认同预定就是拣选的预定论；他正面地引用中世纪经院哲学（如阿奎那以及黑米尼的贵格利[Gregory of Rimini]）更甚于引用加尔文，他不认为自己是加尔文的追随者，而且在希伯来文的能力上远超过加尔文的神学家，能被称为是加尔文主义者吗？此人就是菲密格理（Peter Martyr
Vermigli）。他的作品对宗教改革后的改革宗神学非常具有影响力，而虽然他自己不这么认同，却经常被人称为是加尔文主义者（注9）。或者，更进一步，一个1590年代在剑桥大学，特别称自己是“改革宗”（不是加尔文主义者）的神学家，他支持主教制（episcopacy）；他的教导在很大的一部分上与加尔文的教义表述是相同的，也和菲密格理、赞奇，伯撒，邬新努，俄勒维安奴的思想有密切关系，但也表现出一些特色，是未曾在这些前辈的作品中出现的后期改革宗思想，例如对工作之约和恩典之约的区分——能被称为是加尔文主义者吗？这个神学家就是柏金斯（William Perkins）。在文献中，他经常被视为是加尔文主义者，而由于他的思想和加尔文思想的差异，经常被用来作为一个主要范例，当作“加尔文反对加尔文”的圈套。这个清单还可以无止境地扩展下去。
If
the issue of self-identification is set aside, there remains the problem of
identifying followers in the context of a fairly broad tradition the content
and character of which was not founded on an intention to follow in the
footsteps of a single person and that did not, until more than a century and a
half had passed, accept the name Calvinist as a useful designation. Should a
theologian almost a decade older than Calvin, trained in the Universities of
Padua and Bologna, who subsequently taught in Strasbourg, Oxford, and Zürich, and
who, for all his general agreement with Calvin did not speak of a double decree
of predestination but rather identified predestination with election, who drew
more positively on medieval scholastics (notably Thomas Aquinas and Gregory of
Rimini) than Calvin, who did not view himself as a follower of Calvin, and
whose abilities in Hebrew extended far beyond Calvin’s be called a Calvinist?
The theologian in question is Peter Martyr Vermigli, whose work was quite
influential in the development of post-Reformation Reformed theology — and who,
despite his own identity, has often been called a Calvinist. Or, further,
should a theologian at Cambridge University in the 1590s, 9 who specifically
identified himself as “Reformed” (not as Calvinist), who upheld episcopacy,
whose teaching occupies a good deal of common ground with Calvin’s doctrinal
formulations but which also has affinities for the thought of Vermigli, Zanchi,
Beza, Ursinus, and Olevianus, and also evidences some characteristics of later
Reformed thought not found in the work of these predecessors, like a
distinction between the covenant of works and the covenant of grace — should he
be called a Calvinist? The theologian is William Perkins, often identified in
the literature as a Calvinist and then, given the differences between his
thought and Calvin’s, used as a prime example in the attempt to pit “Calvin
against the Calvinists.” The list could be extended indefinitely.
那么，我们也许可以稍微修改这个问题的措辞，来问：“加尔文主义者真的是加尔文主义者吗？”或更尖锐地问：“加尔文主义者真的有意变成加尔文主义者吗？”如果“加尔文主义者”的意思是刻意的加尔文的追随者，或实在而言，是加尔文思想的模仿者或复制者，答案很简单：不是，从来就没有加尔文主义者——当然，除非我们回到最先提到的定义，而让加尔文成为唯一的加尔文主义者。
One
might, then, rephrase the question a bit and ask “Were the Calvinists really Calvinists?”
or, more pointedly, “Did the Calvinists ever intend to be Calvinists?” If a
“Calvinist” is taken to mean an intentional follower of Calvin or, indeed, an
imitator or duplicator of Calvin’s thought, the answer is simple. No, there
were no Calvinists — unless, of course, we fall back into the first-noted
pattern of definition and make Calvin the only one.
3. “加尔文主义”是指改革宗传统。
3.
“Calvinism” as a name for the Reformed tradition.
当然，“加尔文主义者”和“加尔文主义”还有第三种用法，也就是用来指与改革宗传统有关的思想家与教导。这是更常见的用法，显明在一些历史学家的作品中，如米勒（Perry Miller），麦格聂（John T. McNeill）, 特别是最近的本尼迪特（Philip Benedict）（注10）。用这种方式来表述，这个问题就变成“加尔文是改革宗吗？”以及“和加尔文一样同属一个认信轨迹的其他作者，无论他们是否是被算为加尔文的追随者，也是改革宗的吗？”我们也许会认为这些替代的问题的答案很简单：即，“是的。”但是这些问题也是很复杂的，取决于人们如何定义怎样才算是改革宗——特别要取决于“改革宗”，用来作为“加尔文主义者”的同义词，无论就其全部的内容和差异来理解，或以1559年的《基督教要义》的内容来看，在什么方式上与加尔文的神学有一致性。现在，如果这个问题以一种更留意到历史背景和历史文件的方式来重新表述的话，可以变成这样：“加尔文的思想，和后期站在改革宗认信信仰范围内的思想家，存在于他们思想之间的连续性与不连续性，相似性与差异性，其本质与潜在的来源是什么？”这就带我们进入到一连串神学问题的考量上。
There
is, of course, third, another usage of the terms “Calvinist” and “Calvinism” —
namely, as references to thinkers and teachings associated with the Reformed
tradition. This is the more common usage, as evidenced in the works of
historians like Perry Miller, John T . McNeill, and more recently Philip
Benedict. Framed in this way, the questions 10 become “Was Calvin Reformed?”
and “Were other writers who belonged to the same confessional trajectory as
Calvin, whether or not they count as his followers, also Reformed?” On might
think that the answers to these alternative questions are quite simple: namely,
“Yes.” But these questions too are complicated by the way in which one
identifies what is properly Reformed — specifically by the way in which
Reformed, used as a synonym of “Calvinist,” is defined as more or less in
agreement with Calvin’s theology, whether as understood in its full extent and
diversity or as resident in the 1559 Institutes. If the question is now
re-phrased with better attention to historical contexts and documents it might
read, “What is the nature and, potentially the source, of the continuities and
discontinuities, similarities and differences that exist between the thought of
John Calvin and later thinkers who stand within the boundaries of Reformed
confessionality?” — which brings us to a series of theological considerations.
二、神学考量：加尔文和后期改革宗的关系
II. Theological
Considerations: Calvin in Relation to the Later Reformed
当然，“加尔文是加尔文主义者”这个问题，之所以有争论，是因为有许多的神学议题，最出名的也许是神的谕旨，预定，和所谓的“限定的拣选”，与“TULIP”有关的两点，再加上圣约的议题。以这种形式提出，这个问题通常是以一种负面的方式来回答的，也通常是以一种非常怀疑的立场。例如，加尔文对预定论的看法，在一些立场上，被用来和后期改革宗对此教义的理解加以比较：他们说，加尔文把预定论从《基督教要义》中，一个和神的教义有关的地方，“搬”到一个比较温柔、温和的地方——而加尔文主义者又把这个教义重新归属于靠近神论的地方，并因此创造了一个以预定论和纯粹哲学为基础的神学系统（注11）。此外，加尔文的神学并不是那么的“预定论者”，而是“以基督为中心的”（christocentric）——而后期的加尔文主义者丢失了这个基督中心性（注12）。或者，借着把方法和内容加以混淆，说加尔文的确是个人文主义者，一个深受以圣约来看神学的影响的人文主义者，而后期的加尔文主义者是预定论者和经院主义者，已经丢失了这个运动的人文主义气质（注13）。或者，最后一种，有鉴于加尔文神学的基督中心的取向，他对基督的工作的看法倾向于“非限定的救赎”，而不是那种来自后期预定论主义的“僵硬”（rigid）的“限定的救赎”（注14）。总之，加尔文教导的是一种平衡的、基督为中心的神学，而加尔文主义者把他们的神学聚焦在神的谕旨，并产生了那种僵硬的、经院主义系统的，由“TULIP”来总结的“五要点”。
The
question “Was Calvin a Calvinist?” has, of course, been debated largely in
terms of a series of theological issues, perhaps most notably the divine
decrees, predestination and so-called “limited atonement,” two of the “points”
associated with the famous TULIP, plus the issue of covenant. When posed in
these forms, the question is typically answered in the negative and usually on
highly questionable grounds. For example, Calvin’s views on predestination have
been contrasted with later Reformed understandings of the doctrine on several
grounds: Calvin purportedly “moved” predestination out of relation to the
doctrine of God to a kinder, gentler place in the Institutes — the Calvinists
reverted to the practice of placing the doctrine in proximity to the doctrine
of God and created thereby a system of theology resting on predestination and
metaphysics. Further, Calvin’s 11 theology was not so much predestinarian as
“christocentric” — and the later Calvinists lost this christocentricity. Or, by
way of confusing issues of method and 12 content, Calvin was a humanist,
indeed, a humanist imbued with a covenantal approach to theology — the later
Calvinists were predestinarian and scholastic, having lost the humanistic
inclinations of the founder of the movement. Or, finally, 13 given the
christocentric orientation of Calvin’s theology, his views on the work of
Christ tended toward “unlimited atonement” in contrast to the “rigid” view of
“limited atonement” that resulted from later Calvinist predestinarianism. In
sum, 14 Calvin taught a finely balanced, christocentric theology whereas the
Calvinists focused their theology on the divine decrees and produced the rigid,
scholastic system of “five points” summarized by the acrostic TULIP
1. TULIP 的问题。
1.
The Problem of TULIP .
提到这个问题，我们首先最重要的是留意到TULIP本身的问题——这是个为改革宗传统带来许多麻烦的缩写，也造成了对加尔文和加尔文主义的混淆。（我不打算轻描淡写地走过这个问题。）这实在有点奇怪，也不符合历史，把一个在1618-1619年写的文件，和整个加尔文主义连在一起，然后把它的意思简化成TULIP（郁金香）。你们很多人知道，那个字其实是“tulp”。“Tulip”并不是荷兰文——有时候我会怀疑，是否阿民念只是想纠正某人的拼写，当他被指控省略了那个代表“不可抗拒的恩典”（irresistible grace）的“i”。更严重的是，TULIP这个缩写和多特信经没有历史上的牵联。就我们所知，这个缩写和有关的“加尔文五要点”，是源自英美，在 十九世纪之前并不存在（注15）。错误的观念会如此快流行开来，真是令人称奇。因此，当加尔文和加尔文主义的关系，被简化成这个流行的花样般的联想——加尔文是否曾教导TULIP——任何答案都会建立在误读的基础上。加尔文自己，当然从来没有想过这个模型，但是后期的所谓加尔文主义者也不曾。或者，用另一种方式来说，加尔文和他的改革宗伙伴所持有的教义，是与多特信条有着明显的连续性的，但是加尔文和他的改革宗同伴，甚至多特信条的作者，都不会把他们的认信立场简化成TULIP。
By
way of addressing these issues, we should note first and foremost the problem
of TULIP itself — an acrostic that has caused much trouble for the Reformed
tradition and has contributed greatly to the confusion about Calvin and
Calvinism. (I don’t plan to tiptoe through this issue.) It is really quite odd
and a-historical to associate a particular document written in the Netherlands
in 1618-19 with the whole of Calvinism and then to reduce its meaning to TULIP.
Many of you here know that the word is actually “tulp.” “Tulip” isn’t Dutch —
sometimes I wonder whether Arminius was just trying to correct someone’s
spelling when he was accused of omitting that “i” for irresistible grace. More
seriously, there is no historical association between the acrostic TULIP and
the Canons of Dort. As far as we know, both the acrostic and the associated
usage of “five points of Calvinism” are of Anglo-American origin and do not
date back before the nineteenth century. It is remarkable how quickly bad ideas
catch on. When, 15 therefore, the question of Calvin’s relationship to
Calvinism is reduced to this popular floral meditation — did Calvin teach
TULIP? — any answer will be grounded on a misrepresentation. Calvin himself,
certainly never thought of this model, but neither did later so-called
Calvinists. Or, to make the point in another way, Calvin and his fellow
Reformers held to doctrines that stand in clear continuity with the Canons of
Dort, but neither Calvin nor his fellow Reformers, nor the authors of the
Canons, would have reduced their confessional position to TULIP .
事实上，很特别的是这个缩写和加尔文或加尔文主义的关系竟然如此薄弱，特别是在“T”和“L”上。我不认为加尔文曾经说过可以被翻译为“全然败坏”（total depravity）的词汇。他当然从来没有说过“限定的拣选”。这两个词都没有出现在多特信条里，也不是改教家或十七世纪正统加尔文主义者的语言特色。和TULIP本身一样，这是英美人士晚近所创造的语词。“全然败坏”，至少从英语口语的理解来看，如果把它用在路德宗学者依里利加斯（Matthias Flacius
Illyricus）的神学上，是一个绝对不准确的观念。他对堕落之后人类本质的理解几乎是二元式的。他主张，神的形象（imago Dei）已经被撒但的形象（imago Satanae）所取代了，并支持堕落的人性其本质就是罪。无论是加尔文或后期的改革宗思想家都没有走这条路，功劳要归给路德宗的学者，他们在《协和信条》中驳斥了这种语言。隐藏在“全然败坏”这个语词背后真正的议题，不是人绝对缺乏任何的良善，而是人没有能力救自己脱离罪。
In
fact, it is quite remarkable how little the acrostic has to do with Calvin or
Calvinism, as is most evident in the cases of the “T” and the “L.” Calvin’s
references to the utter deformity or depravity of the human will and human
abilities were directed against forms of synergism or Semi-Pelagianism and
refer to the pervasiveness of sin — reducing this language to the slogan “total
depravity” endangers the argument. Calvin certainly never spoke of “limited
atonement.” Neither of these terms appears in the Canons of Dort, nor is either
one of these terms characteristic of the language of Reformed or Calvinistic
orthodoxy in the seventeenth century. Like the TULIP itself, the terms are
Anglo-American creations of fairly recent vintage. “Total depravity,” at least
as understood in colloquial English, is so utterly grizzly a concept as to
apply only to the theology of the Lutheran, Matthias Flacius Illyricus who an
almost dualistic understanding of human nature before and after the fall,
arguing the utter replacement of the imago Dei with the imago Satanae and
indicating that the very substance of fallen humanity was sin. Neither Calvin
not later Reformed thinkers went in this direction and, to the credit of the
Lutherans, they repudiated this kind of language in the Formula of Concord.
What is actually at issue, hidden under the term “total depravity” is not the
utter absence of any sort of goodness but the inability to save one’s self from
sin.
TULIP里面的“L”的问题，即“限定的”（limited），而不是“普遍的”救赎（universal atonement），也是主要构成加尔文是否是加尔文主义的辩论的问题。这个问题也是从一系列当代的混淆中兴起的。其根源，对我来说，似乎是把一个非常模糊的、非历史性的语言，套用在十六、十七世纪的问题上。简单来说，无论是加尔文、伯撒或多特信经，或者任何十六、十七世纪的正统改革宗思想家，都没有提到限定性的救赎——而既然没有提到，他们也不可能教导这个教义。（毕竟赎罪Atonement这个字是英文的用语，而所有这些比较老的神学都是用拉丁文写的。）为了让这点不至于显得那么唐突，也更多留意到历史的材料，这个在十六、十七世纪受到争论的题目，主要是那些关于基督已经为所有人偿付了赎价，或者是那些说到上帝的旨意是要拯救全世界的经文，即使已经有那么多经文表明救恩只给一部分限定的人，也就是选民或相信的人。这是个古老的问题，属于早期教父和中世纪教会，也属于当代早期的改教家，而自从伦巴德（Peter Lombard）以来，关于基督的满足的工作（Christ’s satisfaction；译按：指基督满足了父神的震怒）的充足性和有效性，和宣讲救赎的普世性的关系，就已经被讨论过了。
The
question of the “L” in TULIP, of “limited” versus “universal atonement,” also
looms large in the debate over whether or not Calvin was a Calvinist. This
question, too, arises out of a series of modern confusions, rooted, it seems to
me, in the application of a highly vague and anachronistic language to a
sixteenth- and seventeenth-century issue. Simply stated, neither Calvin, nor
Beza, nor the Canons of Dort, nor any of the orthodox Reformed thinkers of the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries mention limited atonement — and insofar as
they did not mention it, they hardly could have taught the doctrine.
(Atonement, after all is an English term, and nearly all of this older theology
was written in Latin.) To make the point a bit less bluntly and with more
attention to the historical materials, the question debated in the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries, concerned the meaning of those biblical passages in
which Christ is said to have paid a ransom for all or God is said to will the salvation
of all or of the whole world, given the large number of biblical passages that
indicate a limitation of salvation to some, namely, to the elect or believers.
This is an old question, belonging to the patristic and medieval church as well
as to the early modern Reformed and, since the time of Peter Lombard, had been
discussed in terms of the sufficiency and efficiency of Christ’s satisfaction
in relation to the universality of the preaching of redemption.
加尔文和后期改革宗神学家争议的问题，不在于基督的死的价值（value）或功劳（merit）：实际上所有的人都同意，基督的死足以偿付全世界的罪。问题也不在于是否全人类都实际会得救：所有的人（包括阿民念）都同意，事情并非如此。换个方式说，如果“赎罪”（atonement）是指基督的死的价值或充足性，那么，没有人会教导限定的赎罪；而如果赎罪是指成就在特定的人身上实际的救恩，那么，没有人教导无限的赎罪（也许除了备受谴责的Samuel Huber之外）。
The
question at issue between Calvin and the later Reformed does not entail any
debate over the value or merit of Christ’s death: virtually all were agreed
that it was sufficient to pay the price for the sins of the whole world.
Neither was the question at issue whether all human beings would actually be
saved: all (including Arminius) were agreed that this was not to be the case.
To make the point another way, if “atonement” is taken to mean the value or
sufficiency of Christ’s death, no one taught limited atonement — and if
atonement is taken to mean the actual salvation accomplished in particular
persons, then no one taught unlimited atonement (except perhaps the
much-reviled Samuel Huber).
历史上，用十六、十七世纪可以懂的语言来说，有两个问题需要回答。首先，由阿民念所提出的，而由多特大会所回答的问题：既然基督的死的充足性偿付了所有的罪的代价，我们要如何理解它的果效只限定在有些人身上？在阿民念的看法中，其果效是被限定在有些人选择相信，其他人选择不相信，而预定是根据神对这个选择的预知上。而在多特信经的看法中，果效是根据救恩唯靠恩典的假设来限定的，只限于神的选民。加尔文的立场在这点上十分清楚：基督的死的施行或果效，只限定给了选民。这也是后期改革宗神学家一致的结论。
Historically,
framed in language understandable in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,
there were two questions to be answered. First, the question posed by Arminius
and answered at Dort: given the sufficiency of Christ’s death to pay the price
for all sin, how ought one to understand the limitation of its efficacy to
some? In Arminius’ view, the efficacy was limited by the choice of some persons
to believe, others not to believe, and predestination was grounded in a divine
foreknowledge of the choice. In the view of the Synod of Dort, the efficacy was
limited according to the assumption of salvation by grace alone, to God’s
elect. Calvin was quite clear on the point: the application or efficacy of
Christ’s death was limited to the elect. And in this conclusion there was also
accord among the later Reformed theologians.
第二，在十六世纪的改革宗作家的各种表述中隐含了一个问题，这个问题也在多特会议之后十七世纪的一连串争论中详尽地讨论过，即基督的死的价值，是否在果效上是普世性的（hypothetically
universalin efficacy）。更简而言之，如果神意欲如此，基督的死的价值是否就足以偿付所有的罪——还是基督的死的价值是，如果所有人都相信，所有的人就会得救。在这个特定的问题上，加尔文是沉默的。他并未经常提到传统的充足-有效的公式表述；他也没有提到这个由亚目拉督（Amyraut）提出的问题，即在要拯救选民的绝对谕旨之前，是否有一个假设性或条件性的救恩的谕旨，说这个救恩是要给所有相信的人的。他的确经常不加修饰地说到，基督赎了（expiated）世人的罪，而这个“恩惠”乃是“毫无分别地临到所有的人类。”在争论的两边，后期的许多改革宗神学家都求助于加尔文。（十七和十八世纪，只有很少数的作者会争论说基督的死只足以偿付选民的罪。）如此，后期的改革宗神学就比加尔文在这个特定的论点上更为具体——而我们可以这样认为，他有些模糊的表述指向了许多方向，而在事实上也形塑了多特信条的表述。
Second,
there was the question implied in variations of formulation among
sixteenth-century Reformed writers and explicitly argued in a series of
seventeenthcentury debates following the Synod of Dort, namely, whether the
value of Christ’s death was hypothetically universal in efficacy. More simply
put, was the value of Christ’s death such that, it would be sufficient for all
sin if God had so intended — or was the value of Christ’s death such that if
all would believe all would be saved. On this very specific question Calvin is,
arguably, silent. He did not often mention the traditional sufficiency-efficiency
formula; and he did not address the issue, posed by Amyraut, of a hypothetical
or conditional decree of salvation for all who would believe, prior to the
absolute decree to save the elect. He did frequently state, without further
modification, that Christ expiated the sins of the world and that this “favor”
is extended “indiscriminately to the whole human race.” Various of the later Reformed appealed to
Calvin on both sides of the debate. (Only a very few writers of the seventeenth
and eighteenth century argued that Christ’s death was sufficient payment only
for the sins of the elect.) Later Reformed theology, then, is more specific on
this particular point than Calvin had been — and arguably, his somewhat vague
formulations point (or could be pointed) in several directions, as in fact can
the formulae from the Synod of Dort.
2. 预定论，基督中心论和中心教理（centraldogmas）的问题。
2.
The problem of predestination, christocentrism and central dogmas.
预定论的问题有稍许的不同：没有人否认加尔文教导这个教义，虽然有些人宣称以基督为中心的加尔文，在1559年的《基督教要义》中，把预定论搬到了一个较为温和的地方，而他的继承者把这个教义又搬回神论的部分，以至于产生了一种对此教义更为“严格”（strict）的理解。事实上，加尔文并没有把预定论搬来搬去。他基本上是把它放在原先放置的地方，也就是跟随他所认为的保罗的顺序，适合教导的地方（注16）。说这是比较温和、温柔的地方的观念，忽略了一个事实，就是加尔文对预定、拣选和遗弃的定义，很少或并没有减弱这个教义的力量，也和后期改革宗作家的定义相当地吻合，非常协调，与放在一部神学著作的什么地方，没有任何的关联。再加上后期的改革宗神学家几乎没有察觉这个教义的位置和神学作品文体之间的关系，也据此如此摆放他们的公式表述，有些人呼应加尔文的摆放，有些人则把这个教义放在教会论里，当然，有许多人是跟着传统的位置，把它和神论放在一起，应该是根据在教导和信条在文体上摆放这个教义的区别，以及更为学术或教理上所争论的位置，以适合为大学的学习所发展出来的较为详细的神学（注17）。
The
issue of predestination is somewhat different: no one denies that Calvin taught
the doctrine, although some have claimed that the christocentric Calvin moved
predestination to a more gentle place in his 1559 Institutes and that his
successors moved the doctrine back into relation with the doctrine of God in
such a way as to create a more “strict” understanding of the doctrine. In fact,
Calvin did not move the doctrine of predestination around. He kept it basically
where he first placed it, having followed what he took to be a Pauline order
suitable to catechesis. The idea 17 that this is a kinder, gentler placement of
the doctrine ignores the fact of Calvin’s definitions of predestination,
election, and reprobation, do little or nothing to blunt the force of the
doctrine and also coordinate quite precisely with the definitions of later
Reformed writers, regardless of placement of the doctrine in a work of
theology. Add to this that the later Reformed were hardly unaware of the
relationship of placement of the doctrine to the literary genre of the
theological work and also placed their formulations accordingly, some echoing
Calvin’s placement, some placing the doctrine ecclesiologically, many, of
course, following a traditional placement in relation to the doctrine of God,
arguably on the basis of a genre distinction between catechetical and creedal
placements and more academic or dogmatically argued placements, suited to
detailed theologies developed for university study.18
然而，这里还有另一个所谓“中心教理”的问题。加尔文与加尔文主义的关系这个问题之所以常被人问及的原因，大部分是和十九和二十世纪初，加尔文神学被认为是对焦在预定论上有关。这个假设，伴随着一种把整个后期的改革宗传统视为大量聚焦在预定论的教义，或实际上是围绕着预定论的教义而建构的有关，这就为加尔文和加尔文主义之间，创造了一种连续感。然而，研究加尔文思想的趋势已经发生了改变。如前面提到的，在二十世纪大部分的神学中，有一种倾向是把加尔文视为是“基督中心”的。正如这个倾向是对后期改革宗思想的看法的转变，或与此有关，它变成一种时尚要把加尔文和加尔文主义对立起来——并且通常是责怪伯撒，把基督中心转移到预定论上（注18）。这不只是一种非常教条式的取向，它除了未能留意到改革宗传统的宽广，或者已经转变了的、后期改革宗神学在其中发展的历史背景之外，还有进一步的缺失，就是创造了一些教条式的滑稽人物，彼此互相对抗，有如加尔文的思想可以被简化成是在期待着新正统的基督中心论的出现，或者后期改革宗作家单纯只是预定论者。
Yet
another issue here is the problem of so-called central dogmas. Much of the
reason that the question of Calvin’s relation to Calvinism is asked has to do
with the fairly consistent identification, typical in the nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries, of Calvin’s theology as focused on the doctrine of
predestination. This assumption, together with the tendency to view the whole
later Reformed tradition as massively focused on and, indeed, constructed
around, the doctrine of predestination, created a sense of continuity between
Calvin and Calvinism. Trends in the study of Calvin’s thought, however have
changed. As already noted, there was a tendency to identify Calvin as
“christocentric” in much twentieth-century theology. As this tendency was or
related to an altered view of later Reformed thought, it became fashionable to
pose Calvin against the Calvinists — and, usually, to place the blame for a
shift form christocentrism to predestinarianism on the shoulders of Theodore
Beza. Not only was this a highly dogmatized approach that 19 paid little
attention to the breadth of the Reformed tradition or to the altered historical
contexts in which later Reformed theology developed, it had the further deficit
of creating dogmatic caricatures and posing one against the other, as if
Calvin’s thought could be reduced to an anticipation of neo-orthodox
christocentrism and later Reformed writers were simply predestinarians.
很不幸地，我们还没有超越这种谬误的论调，就进到了同一种论调的新阶段：当基督中心论点语言已经消褪，新的中心论已经试图把与基督联合的模式，套在加尔文神学上，然后做出同种的对后期“加尔文主义者”的负面宣称：既然加尔文被认为是专注在与基督联合上，他的思想就可以被彻底地与后期加尔文主义者分开，他们据说是从来没有想到过这个观念（注19）。我们可以猜测，当与基督联合这个主题走到尽头，又会有另一个假的中心出现，取代加尔文的思想，可以和后期改革宗神学据称的中心或遗漏的中心来加以并排比较。
Unfortunately
we are moving not so much beyond such fallacious argumentation as into a new
phase of the same: as the language of christocentrism has worn old, the new
centrism has tried to impose a model of union with Christ on Calvin’s theology
and then to make the same sort of negative claim about later “Calvinists”: now
that Calvin can be seen to focus on union with Christ, his thought can be
radically separated from the later Calvinists who purportedly never thought of
the concept.20 We can speculate that, when the union with Christ theme has run
its course, there will be another false center identified for Calvin’s thought
that can then be juxtaposed with the purported centers or omissions of later
Reformed theology.
至于基督中心论（christocentrism）或基督焦点（christological focus）与信条的焦点（decretal focus）并排的问题，也就是就历史而言，是一个虚构的议题，它不是根据十六或十七世纪所关心的，而是二十世纪神学的特定模式。如果“基督中心”是指救恩论是以基督为中心，那么，后期的改革宗作家和加尔文一样，都是基督中心的，不多也不少。所有的人都知道基督的牺牲是救恩唯一的基础，而所有的人都把拣选定义为“在基督里”。如果基督中心的意思是指其他，例如，把“基督事件”（Christ event）作为神唯一的启示，因此是我们神学的中心（这是二十世纪典型的说法），那么，这个词并不适用与加尔文或后期的改革宗——实在来说，它应该不适用与任何的神学家或任何写于第二世纪到第十九世纪之间的神学。无论如何，“基督中心论”不是一个有用的类别，可以用来评估加尔文和当代早期（early modern era；译按，指1946年之后的世代）的其他改革宗作家的关系（注20）。
As to
the issue of christocentrism or of a christological focus juxtaposed with a
decretal focus, this is, historically speaking, a fictitious issue based not on
sixteenth or seventeenth-century concerns but on particular patterns of
twentieth-century theology. If by “christocentric” one means having a
soteriology centered on Christ, then later Reformed writers were no more and no
less christocentric than Calvin. All understood Christ’s sacrifice to be the
sole ground of salvation and all defined election as “in Christ.” If by
christocentric one means something else, as for example, taking the “Christ
event” as the sole revelation of God and therefore center of one’s theology
(which is the typical twentieth-century usage), then the term does not apply
either to Calvin or to the later Reformed — indeed, it arguably does not apply
to any theologian or to any theology written between the second century and the
nineteenth. In any case, “christocentrism” is not a useful category by which to
assess Calvin’s relationship to other Reformed writers of the early modern
era.21
与此相关的议题，宣称后期的改革宗作家制造了一种“上帝谕旨的神学”（decretal theology），这是某种形式的宿命论，或某种不属于加尔文思想的“预定论者的形而上学（或译为玄学）”（predestinarian
metaphysic），也许很重要的是要留意到这些语词，和TULIP，“限定的拣选”和“基督中心论”一样，都完全不是根植于十六和十七世纪的：它们大半是二十世纪的符号，用来描述一个创造出来的问题。
On
the related issue of claims of later Reformed writers producing a “decretal
theology,” a form of determinism, or a “predestinarian metaphysic” foreign to
Calvin’s thought, it is perhaps important to note that these terms, like TULIP
, “limited atonement” and “christocentrism,” are not at all rooted in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: they are largely twentieth-century
descriptors of an invented problem.
当然，有鉴于一系列在名义上是形而上学的假定，但基本上是几乎比较老的基督教传统里所有神学家所共享的，例如认定神是绝对的或必要的（absolute or
necessary），而被造界是相对的或附属的（relative or
contingent），古老的改革宗神学几乎不是建立在形而上学的基础上，也无法被归类为某种宿命论的形式。后期的改革宗神学家甚至比加尔文更加明确，把神视为是完全自由的，并有能力做出不同的选择，而把这个世界视为是附属的，并且把理性的被造物视为有能力自由地根据他们的本性来行动，即同时拥有矛盾的自由（freedom of
contradiction）和背反的自由（注21）。在这里，我们也许会说，加尔文和后期改革宗作者之间，有某种程度上的不连续，但如果我们仔细阅读他和他们的作品，我们会看到，他更易于被接受为是个宿命论者，而他们反而不是。但是加尔文和后期加尔文神学之间的关系，就预定论来说，其基本的问题是相当简单的：加尔文和其他改革宗的思想家，无论是早期或当代，或后期，都持守一种或另一种形式的奥古斯丁对预定论的理解，是在罗马书第九章和其他经文所教导的，亦即，救恩乃是依赖永恒上帝恩典的旨意，因此，上帝从永恒以来的意图是有些人被拣选得救，而有些人则不。从历史来说，这既然是长久以来就被持守，并广泛被坚持的表述模式，它当然不能成为无论是加尔文或其他人被视为是“加尔文主义者”的准则。
Whereas
there are, certainly, a series of nominally metaphysical assumptions shared by
virtually all theologians of the older Christian tradition, such as the
identification of God as absolute or necessary and the created order as
relative or contingent, the older Reformed theology was hardly built on
metaphysics and in no way can it be classed as a form of determinism. Far more
clearly than Calvin, later Reformed theologians identified God as utterly free
and capable of willing otherwise, identified the world as contingent, and
viewed rational creatures capable of acting freely according to their natures,
having both freedom of contradiction and freedom of contrariety. Here, one
might claim a certain degree of discontinuity between 22 Calvin and later
Reformed writers, but it is such that a careful reading of his works and theirs
will show him to be more susceptible to a deterministic reading, they less so.
But the basic issue of the relationship between Calvin and later Reformed
theology with regard to predestination is quite simple: Calvin and other
Reformed thinkers, whether earlier or contemporaneous or later all held to one
or another form of the Augustinian understanding of predestination, as taught
in Romans 9 and other biblical texts, namely, that salvation depends on the
gracious will of eternal God and, therefore, it is intended by God from
eternity that some be elect to salvation and others not. And since that is,
historically, a long-held and widely argued pattern of formulation, it
certainly cannot be the criterion by which either Calvin or anyone else ought
to be identified as a “Calvinist.”
3. 人文主义和经院主义的二分化。
3. The humanist-scholastic
dichotomies.
就加尔文和加尔文主义的关系来说，人文主义—经院主义的二分化，是以几种形式出现的。一种是非常简单地把加尔文的人文主义和后期改革宗神学家的经院主义加以对比：简言之，加尔文是个人文主义者；后期的加尔文主义者是经院主义的；加尔文不是加尔文主义者。这种方法大有问题，因为它把人文主义和经院主义对立起来，但是这些作家的作品中，同时体现了人文主义和经院主义的元素。如同最近的学者十分确定显明的，虽然加尔文是以人文主义者的身份接受了哲学和修辞学的训练，但他也把各种经院主义方法的元素，无论是其主题或争论的模式，或者是它的诸多特点，融入到他的思想当中（注22）——而后期的改革宗神学家，那些被杀头的加尔文主义者，不只是在他们更细致的学术和争论的努力中，跟随着经院主义的方法，他们也运用了人文主义哲学和语言训练的果实。实在来说，人文主义的哲学训练正是经院主义正统世代的一种典型（注23）。此外，许多所谓的经院主义方法的元素，例如辨识并编排神学的标准课题或神学通题（loci communes），事实上正是源自人文主义。
The
humanist-scholastic dichotomy appears in several forms in relation to the
relationship of Calvin to Calvinism. One form rather simplistically contrasts
Calvin’s humanism with the scholasticism later Reformed theologians: in brief,
Calvin was a humanist; later Calvinists were scholastic; Calvin was not a
Calvinist. This approach is highly problematic inasmuch as it pits humanism and
scholasticism against one another with reference to thinkers whose work
embodied elements of both humanist and scholastic methods. As recent
scholarship has quite definitively shown, Calvin, albeit trained philologically
and rhetorically as a humanist, incorporated various elements of scholastic
method, whether its topical and disputative models or its many distinctions, into
his thought23 — and the later Reformed, those benighted Calvinists, not only
followed scholastic method in their more finely grained academic and
disputative efforts but also employed the fruits of humanist philological and
linguistic training. Indeed, humanist philological training was typical of the
era of scholastic orthodoxy. What is more, 24 various elements of so-called
scholastic method, like the identification and ordering of standard topics or
commonplaces (loci communes), are in fact of humanist origin.
另一种形式的人文主义—经院主义二分化尝试去克服这个明显的问题——宣称加尔文完全是人文主义者，而后期思想家完全是经院主义的。他们争论说加尔文有一种心理上的分歧，在他的个性当中，有着广博的人文主义情怀，有恩典、恩约的一面，同时又有相当黑暗的，经院主义式的，预定论式的一面（注24）。当这种方法被宣扬开来后，就鼓励了一种在人文主义的加尔文和后期加尔文主义者之间的对比。（他们说）这些后期的加尔文主义者，很不幸地忽略了加尔文人文主义者的一面，而变成加尔文传奇中，经院主义的、预定论者的一面的提倡者。这是一种大有问题的取向。有几个理由。首先，从Bouwsma的作品中，很明显可以看到它是根据一种缺乏事实根据的心理学论述，宣称加尔文的内心是分裂的，然后接着相当人为地把人文主义和心灵的某一面结合起来，把经院主义和另一面结合起来（注25）。在引用这些结论的同时（主要是根据一位或其他现代作者自己的偏好），这个方法继续混淆这个议题，把人文主义和经院主义方法和特定的内容结合起来，有如我们不可以同时是人文主义的预定论者，或经院主义的圣约主义者。人文主义和经院主义元素的结合，是那个时代改教家思想的特色（注26）。把人文主义和圣约思想结合起来，并把预定论，或实在而言，宿命论和经院主义结合起来，是绝对没有根据的：我们很容易可以指出人文主义者如Pietro Pomponazzi和Lorenzo Valla，他们都持守宿命论式的哲学，以及由圣约神学家所作的经院主义作品——我们也可以指出所谓的圣约神学家，尤其是原型的圣约神学家 Johannes Cocceius和他的学生Franz Burman。Burman持守典型的改革宗预定论的教义，并追随经院主义的方法（注27），或者是像Francis Turretin一样的改革宗神学家，他们以经院主义的方法和预定论的教义著称，却同时教导一种相当标准的改革宗的圣约教义（注28）。
Another
form of the humanist-scholastic dichotomy attempts to overcome the obvious
problem of claiming Calvin was entirely humanistic and later thinkers entirely
scholastic arguing a psychological bifurcation of Calvin into a thinker who had
a broadly humanistic, gracious, and covenantal side to his personality and a
rather dark, scholastic, predestinarian side. When unleashed, this approach 25
encourages a contrast between the humanistic Calvin and later Calvinists who, unfortunately,
neglected Calvin the humanist and became the proponents of the scholastic
predestinarian side of Calvin’s legacy. This is a particularly problematic
approach on several grounds. First, as is evident from Bouwsma’s work, it rests
on an unsubstantiated psychological argument that claims a bifurcated psyche in
Calvin and then goes on quite arbitrarily to associate humanism with one side
of the bifurcated psyche and scholasticism with the other. Having drawn these
26 conclusions, largely on the basis of one or another modern author’s own
preferences, this approach goes on to confuse the issue by associating
humanistic and scholastic methods with particular contents, as if one could not
be a humanistic predestinarian or a scholastic federalist. The conjunction of
humanistic and scholastic elements in the thought of the Reformers was
characteristic of the era. There is absolutely no 27 ground for associating
humanism with covenantal thinking and predestinarianism or, indeed, determinism
with scholastic thinking: one can easily point to humanists like Pietro
Pomponazzi and Lorenzo Valla who held deterministic philosophies and to
scholastic works written by covenantal theologians — just as one can point to
socalled covenant theologians, notably the archetypal covenant theologian
Johannes Cocceius and his student Franz Burman, who held to typical Reformed
doctrines of predestination and followed scholastic method, or to Reformed
theologians like 28 Francis Turretin noted (perhaps unfairly) for their scholastic
method and doctrine of predestination who also taught a fairly standard
Reformed doctrine of the covenants.29
4. 加尔文，加尔文主义和圣约神学。
4. Calvin, Calvinism, and
covenant theology.
加尔文的思想和后期改革宗圣约神学的关系，一直是备受争议的主题。有些人主张说加尔文完全不是圣约神学的思想家，因为他在基督教要义中只有很简短、对圣约似乎是单方面的看法，以及后期的改革宗作家浸淫在圣约神学的思想里，并坚持圣约是双方面的这个特色（注29）。其他人则宣称加尔文是个很强烈的圣约思想家，他对恩典的强调，在后期的加尔文主义者的思想家中已经丢失了（注30）。当然，历史的事实是更为复杂的，比这两种说法所表明的更为复杂；但是，在这种复杂性当中，它澄清了一些有关加尔文和所谓的加尔文主义之间的关系。首先，这一派的学者把加尔文的圣约思想理解为是彻底单边的，真的很奇怪，他们一再忽视认为加尔文相当细心地去分辨圣约之单方面和双方面的观点的其他学者的作品，与此同时，他们也拒绝去检视加尔文的圣经注释，也就是这些区分的出现之处。我们可以说，这个区分是十六世纪和十七世纪改革宗思想的通识，不只是在加尔文的著作中可以找到，也可以在后期改革宗作家的作品中找到。
The
relationship of Calvin’s thought to later Reformed covenant theology has been a
subject of much debate. Some have argued that Calvin was not at all a
covenantal thinker, given his very brief and seemingly unilateral view of
covenant in the Institutes and that later Reformed writers were immersed in
covenantal thinking and insistent on the bilateral character of covenant.
Others have claimed that Calvin was a strongly 30 covenantal thinker whose
emphasis on grace was lost to later Calvinistic thinkers, who descended into predestinarianism
and legalism. Of course, the historical case 31 is more complex, far more
complex, than either of these approaches indicates; but, in its complexity it,
clarifies somewhat the question of the relationship of Calvin to so-called
Calvinism. In the first place, there is the genuine oddity that the line of
scholarship associated with a radically unilateral understanding of Calvin’s covenantal
thought has consistently dismissed the work of those scholars who have
identified Calvin’s rather careful distinction between the unilateral and
bilateral aspects of covenant at the same time that they have refused to
examine Calvin’s biblical commentaries in which this distinction resides.
Arguably, the distinction is a commonplace of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century
Reformed thought and is found not only in Calvin’s work but also in the work of
later Reformed writers.
加尔文的著作和改革宗圣约神学也有其他重要的关系。毕竟，加尔文的确说过他对恩典之约的定义，即旧约和新约是同一个本质，但有不同的施行模式或时期（注31），这个定义也保留在十九世纪的圣约神学中。然而加尔文不是唯一，也不是这个表述最早的源头：在慈运理和布灵格早期的作品中也几乎是完全相同地存在着。认为布灵格是圣约神学——与加尔文主义者的预定论有所不同——的源头的学者们，很典型地贬低这个平行对比，也很典型地未能留意到加尔文并未实际展开他关于这个定义的圣约思想。这个定义出现在基督教要义最早的几章中，谈到两约的关系是。换句话说，除了这个定义之外，很难在《基督教要义》中挖掘出更多的圣约神学思想——因此，后期的改革宗圣约神学并没有大量引用《基督教要义》。他们所引用和经常大片段引用的，是加尔文的圣经注释，在圣经注释中，记载了加尔文对圣约的看法，我们从像Herman Witsius这样的圣约思想家的作品里，就可以得到证实（注32）。
There
are also other significant relationships between Calvin’s work and Reformed
covenant theology. Calvin did, after all, state his definition of the covenant
of grace as one in substance but differing in manner of administration or
dispensation from the Old to the New Testament, a definition that carried over
32 into the covenant theology of the seventeenth century. Yet Calvin was
neither alone nor very original in this formulation: it is present almost
identically in earlier works by Zwingli and Bullinger. The scholarship that has
associated Bullinger with origins of covenant theology as distinct from a
Calvinian predestinarianism has typically played down the significance of this
parallel and has also typically failed to note that Calvin did not actually
develop his covenantal thought in relation to this definition, which occurs in
the Institutes in the initial chapter on the relationship of the testaments.
There is not, in other words, apart from this definition, very much covenant
theology to be dredged out of the Institutes — and, accordingly, the Institutes
was not heavily cited by later Reformed covenant theologians. What they did
cite and cite both frequently and at some length were Calvin’s commentaries in
which most of Calvin’s thought on covenant is recorded, as can be easily
documented from the work of a thinker like Herman Witsius.33
三、结论
III. Conclusions
“加尔文主义”这个词，和TULIP这个缩写一样，简言之，都曾经引起一系列有关改革宗传统的本身，以及加尔文和此传统的关系的问题。这两个识别符号都是不符合时代的，也是过于简单的。“加尔文主义”的每一种意义，都造成了对约翰加尔文的思想和与十六、十七世纪的改革宗传统思想之间的关系的误解。使用TULIP这个缩写，带来一种狭隘的（如果不是错误的），对多特信条的解读，也导致了对改革宗传统和加尔文神学的混淆。
The
term “Calvinism,” like the acrostic TULIP, has been, in short, a cause of a
series of problems concerning the identity of the Reformed tradition and of
Calvin’s relationship to the tradition. Both identifiers are anachronistic and
reductionistic. Each of the several meanings of “Calvinism” results in mistaken
understandings of the thought of John Calvin and its relation to the Reformed
tradition of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Use of the acrostic TULIP
has resulted in a narrow, if not erroneous, reading of the Canons of Dort that
has led to confused understandings of the Reformed tradition and of Calvin’s
theology.
由这些语词和前面提到的，关于加尔文的作品与后期改革宗传统在神学和知性上的关系的例子，所引发潜在的议题，涉及到一个传统的本质，也涉及到一个传统内各种连续性与发展的特色。正如Carl Trueman最近指出的，整个关于连续性和不连续性的问题，需要相当仔细地分别（注33）。首先，教会和信经的大公性的基本传统，有着基本的连续，这连续性当然会遗留在改革宗和路德宗这两个宗教改革的分支的神学当中，也留在罗马教会里。其次，有一些问题是属于宽泛的连续性，这些连续性是属于一个特定的宗教改革和后宗教改革年代的认信传统——就改革宗认信信仰的传统而言，在十六世纪中叶所发布的主要信仰告白著作，如加利坎（Gallican），比利时和苏格兰信条，海德堡要理问答和英国教会的三十九条（Thirty-Nine
Articles ofthe Church of England），有着一种共同的神学基础。所有这些信条都在一些圈子里写成的，这些圈子要不是在和加尔文对话，要不是就是在某种方式上受惠于加尔文的，而更重要的，它们是代表改革宗信仰的国际社群，加尔文也隶属这个社群。在这些案例中，加尔文和他当时代的人之间，以及加尔文和后期的改革宗传统之间，有着很明显的连续，当然，这不是因为加尔文思想的独特性，而是因为其大公性。
The
underlying issue that is posed by these terms and by examples noted above of
the theological and intellectual relationship of Calvin’s work to the later
Reformed tradition concerns the nature of a tradition as well as the character
and variety of continuities and developments within a tradition. As Carl
Trueman has recently pointed out, the entire question of continuity and
discontinuity requires considerable nuancing. There is, in the first place, the
fundamental continuity of the basic 34 tradition of ecumenical and creedal
catholicity, which, of course remained in place in the theologies of the
Reformed and Lutheran branches of the Reformation as well as in the Roman
Church. Second, there are issues of the broad continuities belonging to a
specific Reformation and post-Reformation era confessional tradition — in the
case of the Reformed confessional tradition, there is a common theological
ground enunciated in the major confessional works of the mid-sixteenth century,
namely the Gallican, Belgic, and Scots confessions, the Heidelberg Catechism,
and the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England, all which were written
in circles either in dialogue with or in one way or another indebted to Calvin
and which, more importantly, represent the international community of Reformed
belief to which Calvin belonged. In both of these cases, there is clear
continuity between Calvin and his contemporaries as well as between Calvin and
the later Reformed tradition not, of course, because of the individuality of
Calvin’s thought but because of its catholicity.
还有一个问题是加尔文思想和一个传统的关系，他是这个传统的一部分，这个传统也在一段时期内得到发展与变化，与一个复杂而连串的不同历史背景有关。正如经常为人提及的，加尔文与改革宗传统的关系是作为第二代的整理者（codifier），他可以说是这个群体中最突出的，如果不总是最重要的声音，为这个传统带来特殊的表述或思想发展。他反思如慈运理，伯撒，莫兰顿，法惹勒和艾科兰巴迪等前辈的作品；忙着和同代人对话或辩论，如布灵格，菲密格理，穆斯库卢斯，维若特和拉斯科；而他的作品得到接纳也详尽地受到辩护，他的表述（也许最著名的是他的释经公式）受人参考，被修正，并且被并入一个发展中的、不断改变而缤纷多彩的神学传统。加尔文并没有开始这个传统；在这个传统早期的整理过程中，他不是唯一的声音，也没有作为其发展的标准。
There
is also the issue of the relationship of Calvin’s thought to a tradition of
which he was a part and which developed and changed over the course of time in
relation to a complex series of differing historical contexts. As often noted,
Calvin stands in relation to the Reformed tradition as one second-generation
codifier among others, arguably the most prominent of the group if not always
the primary voice leading to a particular formulation or development of thought
in that tradition. He reflected on the work of predecessors like Zwingli,
Bucer, Melanchthon, Farel, and Oecolampadius; he engaged in dialogue and debate
with contemporaries like Bullinger, Vermigli, Musculus, Viret, and à Lasco; and
his work was received and defended in detail, his formulations (perhaps most
notably his exegetical formulations) were consulted, modified, and incorporated
into a developing, changing, and variegated theological tradition. Calvin did
not originate this tradition; he was not the sole voice in its early
codification; and he did not serve as the norm for its development.
正如从这个小小的概述一开始所表明的，有关加尔文和加尔文主义的关系的这个问题是相当复杂的——特别是如果我们适当地遵守把“加尔文主义”理解为笼统地指改革宗传统的话。此外，这个问题依然很复杂，因为在改革宗正统没落后的几个世纪，有许多人或团体自认是加尔文主义者。这些群体包括浸信会会友，根据他们对婴儿洗礼的拒绝，无论是在加尔文的日内瓦或任何改革宗正统世代认信信仰的背景下，都不会受欢迎。这里也应该提到的是许多当代神学家和哲学家，他们根据一种严格的形而上学的宿命论或相容论（compatibilism）而称自己是加尔文主义者。这种看法在十六、十七世纪的改革宗的圈子里也不会受到欢迎。As indicated from
the beginning of this little survey of the issue of the relationship of Calvin
to Calvinism, the issue is quite complicated — particularly if a proper
understanding of “Calvinism” as loosely referencing the Reformed tradition is
observed. The issue remains complicated, moreover, by the self-identification
of various persons and groups as Calvinist or Calvinistic in the centuries
after the decline of Reformed orthodoxy. These groups include Baptists who, on
grounds of their denial of baptism to infants, would have been unwelcome either
in Calvin’s Geneva or in any of the confessionally Reformed contexts of the era
of orthodoxy. Also to be noted here are various modern theologians and
philosophers who call themselves Calvinist on grounds of a strict metaphysical
determinism or compatibilism, a view that also was less than welcome in
Reformed circles of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
如此，在这些尝试中就存在一种高度的讽刺，以及时代的错误。这些尝试让加尔文去对抗一个所谓的僵硬的正统（rigid orthodoxy）——主要的根据是改革宗正统的失败，他们僵硬地复制加尔文的神学；这些尝试并且是受到主要是十九或二十世纪所产生的教义标准或甚至教义口号所驱动的。既然后期的改革宗思想的图像，即我们从研究十六世纪晚期到十七世纪的文件中所浮现出来的图像，是一个相当多样化的运动，在教会早期的传统中，以及一个相当大的改教家群体的作品中有着众多的先行者，包括加尔文的前辈和同代人，这个运动的多样性就否定了把这个运动归类成一个僵硬的运动。更有甚者，如果后期的改革宗神学按照那些问“加尔文是加尔文主义者吗”这个问题的人所宣称的一种理想的方式来建构自己，亦即一再地复制加尔文的思想，它不只是以无法以一个认信的运动而存活，它的僵硬度也会到达最大的程度。相反地，后期改革宗传统汲取并求助于加尔文，作为许多奠基的教师中的一位，承认他作为改革宗信仰第二代整理者的能力，承认他作为一个专业思想者的限制，以及他没有能力在一个已经改变的背景中和其他的时代，谈到所有他面对的事。
There,
then, is a high degree of irony and as well of anachronism in these attempts to
pit Calvin against a so-called rigid orthodoxy — largely on the basis of the
failure of the orthodoxy rigidly to reproduce Calvin’s theology and largely
driven by doctrinal criteria and even doctrinal slogans originating in the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Given that the picture of later Reformed
thought that we have seen emerge from a more detailed study of the late
sixteenth- and seventeenthcentury documents is the picture of a rather diverse
movement with numerous antecedents in the earlier traditions of the church and
in the work of a sizeable group of Reformers, both predecessors and
contemporaries of Calvin, the very diversity of the movement militates against
the characterization of it as rigid. What is more, had later Reformed theology
formulated itself in the way pronounced as ideal by those who raise the
question, “Was Calvin a Calvinist?,” namely, duplicated Calvin’s thought over
and over again, not only would it have failed to survive as a confessional
movement, it would also have attained a maximal rigidity. Quite to the
contrary, the later Reformed tradition drew on and appealed to Calvin as one
founding teacher among others, recognizing his abilities as a second-generation
codifier of the Reformed faith, his limitations as a technical thinker, and his
inability to address all of the issues that faced them in altered contexts and
other times.
By
way of conclusion, we return to the initial question, “Was Calvin a Calvinist?”
The answer is certainly a negative. Calvin was not a “Calvinist” — but then
again, neither were the “Calvinists.” They were all contributors to the
Reformed tradition. The moral of the story, perhaps, is to recognize the common
ground on which Calvin, the various Reformed confessions, and the so-called
“Calvinists” of the later sixteenth and seventeenth centuries stand, and if you
must, “gather ye rosebuds while ye may,” but don’t plant TULIP in your Reformed
garden.作为收尾，我们回到最初的问题，“加尔文是加尔文主义者吗？”答案当然是否定的。加尔文不是个“加尔文主义者”——但再次说，“加尔文主义者们”也不是。他们都是改革宗传统的贡献者。也许这个故事的教训，是认识到加尔文，各个改革宗信条，以及十六世纪后期和十七世纪的所谓“加尔文主义者”他们所站立其上的共同基础，而如果你必须，请“趁着还能收集玫瑰花蕾时尽量收集”（gather ye rosebuds
while yemay；译按，这是一首诗的词，也是一幅画作的名称），但是不要把郁金香栽种在你的改革宗花园里。
References
1.
Peter Toon, The Emergence ofHyper-Calvinism in English Nonconformity, 1689-1765
(London: The Olive Tree,1967), p. 143; and Basil Hall, “Calvin Against the
Calvinists,” in John Calvin:A Collection of Distinguished Essays, ed. Gervase
Duffield (Grand Rapids:Eerdmans, 1966), pp. 19, 25-26.
2.
Note the conclusions in Cornelis P.Venema, Heinrich Bullinger and the Doctrine
of Predestination: Author of “theOther Reformed Tradition”? (Grand Rapids:
Baker Books, 2002).
3.
Hall, “Calvin Against theCalvinists,” p. 19.
4.
E.g., T. H. L. Parker, Calvin: anIntroduction to His Thought (Louisville:
Westminster/John Knox, 1995); Charles Partee, TheTheology of John Calvin
(Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2008).
5.
Cf. the comments in Brian Gerrish,The Old Protestantism and the New: Essays on
the Reformation Heritage (Chicago:University of Chicago Press, 1982), pp.
27-48.
6.
See John Strype, The Life and Acts ofJohn Whitgift, D.D., 3 vols (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1822), III, p. 318: “eos odioso nomineappellans Calvinistas.”
7.
Andreas Rivetus, CatholicusOrthodoxus, oppositus catholico papistae (Leiden:
Abraham Commelin, 1630), p. 5.
8.
E.g., Pierre Du Moulin,Esclaircissement des controverses salmuriennes (Leiden:
Jean Maire, 1648), pp.231-232; Jean Claude, Défense de la Reformation contre le
livre intituléPréjugez légitimes contre les calvinistes, 4 edition (Paris:
L.-R. Delay,1844), pp. 210-211; Pierre th Jurieu, Histoire du Calvinisme et
celle duPapisme mises en parallèle: Ou apologie pour les Réformateurs, pour
laRéformation, et pour les Réformés ... contre ... Maimbourg, 3 vols. 2nd
ed,based on the Rotterdam printing of 1683 (S.l.: s.n., 1823), I, pp. 417-418.
9. On
Vermigli, see Frank A. James, III,Peter Martyr Vermigli and Predestination: the
Augustinian Inheritance of an Italian Reformer(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998).
10.
Perry Miller, The New England Mind:the Seventeenth Century (New York:
Macmillan, 1939; repr. Boston: Beacon Press, 1961), pp.93-97; John T. McNeill,
The History and Character of Calvinism (New York:Oxford University Press,
1954), pp. vii-viii, et passim; Philip Benedict,Christ’s Churches Purely
Reformed: A Social History of Calvinism (New Haven:Yale University Press,
2002), pp. xxiixxiii.
11.
Hall, “Calvin Against theCalvinists,” pp. 19-37.
12.
E.g., Walter Kickel, Vernunft undOffenbarung bei Theodor Beza (Neukirchen:
Neukirchner Verlag, 1967).
13.
Thus, Brian G. Armstrong, Calvinismand the Amyraut Heresy: Protestant
Scholasticism and Humanism in Seventeenth Century France(Madison: University of
Wisconsin Press, 1969).
14.
As, e.g., in M. Charles Bell, “WasCalvin a Calvinist,” Scottish Journal of
Theology, 36/4 (1983), pp. 535-540;idem, “Calvin and the Extent of Atonement,”
in Evangelical Quarterly, 55(April, 1983), pp. 115-123; James B. Torrance, “The
Incarnation and LimitedAtonement,” in Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical
Theology, 2 (1984), pp. 32-40;Kevin Dixon Kennedy, Union with Christ and the
Extent of the Atonement (NewYork: Peter Lang, 2002).
15.
See Ken Stewart, “The Points ofCalvinism: Retrospect and Prospect,” in Scottish
Bulletin of Evangelical Theology, 26/2 (2008), pp.187-203. There are, of
course, many early references to the “five points” or“five articles” in
controversy between Reformed and Arminian: e.g., PeterHeylin, Historia
quinqu-articularis: or, A declaration of the judgement of theWestern Churches,
and more particularly of the Church of England, in the fivecontroverted points,
reproched in these last times by the name of Arminianism (London:E.C. for Thomas
Johnson, 1660); and Daniel Whitby, Daniel. A Discourseconcerning I. The true
Import of the Words Election and Reprobation … II. TheExtent of Christ’s
Redemption. III. The Grace of God … IV. The Liberty of theWill … V. The
Perseverance or Defectibility of the Saints. London, 1710; secondedition,
corrected, London: Aaron Ward, 1735), often referenced as “Whitby onthe Five
Points” or “Five Arminian Points”: note George Hill, Heads of Lecturesin
Divinity (St. Andrews: at the University Press, 1796), p. 78. Occurrences
ofphrases like “five distinguishing points of Calvinism” also occur
earlier,referencing the Canons of Dort without, however, specification of the
points themselves:see, e.g. Daniel Neal, The History of the Puritans and
Non-conformists ... withan account of their principles (London: for J.
Buckland, et al., 1754), I, p.502; Ferdinando Warner, The Ecclesiastical
History of England, to theEighteenth Century (London: s.n., 1756-57), II, p.
509; note also that theeditor of Daniel Waterland’s sermons identified
justification by faith alone asone of the “five points of Calvinism”: see
Waterland,Sermons on Several Important Subjects of Religion and Morality,
preface byJoseph Clarke, 2 vols. (London: for W. Innys, 1742), p. xviii.
16.
Richard A. Muller, The UnaccommodatedCalvin: Studies in the Formation of a
Theological Tradition (New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 2000), pp. 118-139.
17.
See Richard A. Muller, “ThePlacement of Predestination in Reformed Theology:
Issue or Non-Issue” in Calvin Theological Journal,40/2 (2005), pp. 184-210.
18.
See, e.g., Hall, “Calvin Against theCalvinists,” pp. 25-28; Johannes Dantine,
“Les Tabelles sur la doctrine de la prédestination parThéodore de Bèze,” in
Revue de théologie et de philosophie, XVI (1966), pp.365-377; Walter Kickel,
Vernunft und Offenbarung bei Theodor Beza (Neukirchen: NeukirchnerVerlag,
1967), pp. 136-146.
19.
Partee, Theology of John Calvin, pp.3, 4, 25, 27, 40-41.
20.
Cf. Richard A. Muller, “A Note on‘Christocentrism’ and the Imprudent Use of
Such Terminology,” in WestminsterTheological Journal, 68 (2006), pp. 253-260.
21.
As documented in Willem J. vanAsselt, J. Martin Bac, and Roelf T. te Velde,
trans., ed., and commentary, Reformed Thought on Freedom:The Concept of Free
Choice in the History of Early-Modern Reformed Theology(Grand Rapids: Baker,
forthcoming).
22.
David C. Steinmetz, “The ScholasticCalvin,” in Carl R. Trueman and R. Scott
Clark, eds. Protestant Scholasticism: Essays inReassessment (Carlisle:
Paternoster Press, 1999), pp. 16-30; cf. Muller,Unaccommodated Calvin, pp.
36-61.
23.
See Peter T. van Rooden, Theology,Biblical Scholarship and Rabbinical Studies
in the Seventeenth Century:Constantijn L’Empereur (1591-1648), Professor of
Hebrew and Theology at Leiden,trans. J. C. Grayson (Leiden: Brill, 1989); and
Stephen G. Burnett, FromChristian Hebraism to Jewish Studies: Johannes Buxtorf
(1564-1629) and HebrewLearning in the Seventeenth Century (Leiden: E. J. Brill,
1996).
24.
William J. Bouwsma, John Calvin: ASixteenth Century Portrait (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1988); andPhilip C. Holtrop, The Bolsec Controversy on
Predestination, From 1551 to 1555,2 parts (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen, 1993).
25.
See my critique of Bouwsma’s readingof Calvin in The Unaccommodated Calvin, pp.
79-98.
26.
See e.g., Frank A. James III, “PeterMartyr Vermigli: At the Crossroads of Late
Medeieval Scholasticism, Christian Humanism andResurgent Augustinianism,” in
Trueman and Clark, eds. Protestant Scholasticism,pp. 62-78; and Scott Manetsch,
“Psalms before Sonnets: Theodore Beza and theStudia humanitatis,” in Andrew C.
Gow and Robert J. Bast (eds.), Continuity andChange: The Harvest of Late
Medieval and Reformation History. Essays Presentedto Heiko A. Oberman on his
70th Birthday (Leiden: E. J. Brill,2000), pp. 400-416.
27.
See Willem J. van Asselt, “CocceiusAnti-Scholasticus?” in Willem J. van Asselt
and and Eef Dekker, eds., Reformation andScholasticism: An Ecumenical
Enterprise (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001), pp. 227-251.
28.
See James Mark Beach, Christ and theCovenant: Francis Turretin’s Federal
Theology as a Defense of Divine Grace(G?ttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht,
2007).
29.
J. Wayne Baker, Heinrich Bullingerand the Covenant: The Other Reformed
Tradition (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1980); andidem, “Heinrich
Bullinger, the Covenant, and the Reformed Tradition inRetrospect,” in Sixteenth
Century Journal, 29/2 (1998), pp. 359-376.
30.
E.g., James B. Torrance, “TheConcept of Federal Theology – Was Calvin a Federal
Theologian?” in Calvinus SacraeScripturae Professor, edited by Wilhelm H.
Neuser (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,1994), pp. 15-40; idem, “Covenant or Contract? A
Study of the TheologicalBackground or Worship in Seventeenth-Century Scotland,”
in Scottish Journal ofTheology, 23 (1970), pp. 51-76; and idem, “The
Incarnation and “LimitedAtonement,” The Evangelical Quarterly, 55 (April,
1983), pp. 83-94.
31.
John Calvin, Institutes of theChristian Religion, trans John Allen, 2 vols.,
7th edition (Philadelphia:Presbyterian Board of Christian Education, 1936),
II.x.2.
32.
See the discussion of thesecitations in Richard A. Muller, “The ‘Calvinists’
Respond to Calvin,” plenaryaddress at the International Calvin Congress,
Geneva, May, 2009.
33.
See Carl Trueman, “The Reception ofCalvin: Historical Considerations,” in
Andreas Beck and William den Boer, eds.vThe Reception of Calvin and his
Theology in Reformed Orthodoxy (Leiden: E. J.Brill, 2010).
