Hugh T. Kerr (1909–1992)

Let's be upfront about this: I came into this reading disliking Calvin. I dislike almost everything about him. I dislike his rigidity. I dislike his scriptura sola thing. I dislike the way he twists his theology to satisfy two claims

i) God can't change
ii) People are worthless

even though God changes throughout the bible and people wouldn't be worth saving if we were worthless. I dislike the way he ignores the obvious conclusion from his theology, which was nicely smirked at in James Hogg's 'Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner.'

But I read this because Marilynne Robinson's crusade to make Calvin respectful made me ashamed and I decided I should go to the horse's mouth and, worse case scenario, I would understand Robinson's novels better. Marilynne won't be happy to know that my general attitude toward Calvin hasn't changed. She might be glad to know that I won't be as dismissive as I was before reading this book, if only because I now feel like he was a basically good guy who got carried away by a really bad idea, and a really smart guy who tried to square his goodness with his bad idea, but failed. It could be much worse.

So I have no idea whether this book is a representative selection of his complete Institutes or not, but it is a surprisingly easy read. The editor deserves a lot of praise, and he gets one of those three stars I just gave out. Calvin gets two for being smart and basically good.

As a special bonus, my running complaints in the margins of this book gave me a much better idea of what I value and what I do not value in the Christian theological tradition. Calvin turns out to be a good whetstone for your brain.… (meer)