reviewed by Gary Neal Hansen
Charles Partee is known to students of Calvin for the book Calvin and Classical Philosophy. He is known to friends of Pittsburgh Seminary’s as a beloved, and now emeritus, professor of church history. And he is also known to readers of these pages for occasional commentaries exemplifying quirky wit and love of word play.
His recent volume on The Theology of John Calvin shows him in all of these roles. Partee the scholar shows his lifetime of conversation with Calvin’s works and his interpreters. Partee the teacher frequently connects the ideas of the sixteenth-century reformer to literature and life. Partee the wordsmith crafts 345 pages of rather small print, brimming with his own personality.
The book has two main parts. More than fifty pages of preface and introduction discuss the theological perspective of the book and two larger issues in Calvin studies: Calvin’s reception by admirers and detractors, and the structure of the Institutes. The second part, comprising the bulk of the book, is an exploration of the final 1559 form of the Institutes.
The introductory discussion of the structure of the Institutes is a nice summary of the major options and their advocates. Calvin explicitly structures the work in four books. Underneath this some interpreters note parallels to the structure of the Apostles’ Creed. Others see it as shaped by the two-fold knowledge of God, first as creator and second as redeemer. Still others note an underlying Trinitarian shape. Lastly some emphasize the pervasive issue of union of the believer with Christ. Partee favors this fourth view, and presents his study with this doctrine as a focusing issue.
His exploration of the Institutes basically follows the order of Calvin’s four books and their contents. Some writers have presented digests of the Institutes, using Calvin’s own words but cutting out all but the essential argument. Others have tried to summarize Calvin’s points in Calvin’s order using their own words. Partee goes beyond this latter approach by bringing generations of interpreters and his own voice into the conversation. He emphasizes his interpretation by placing Calvin’s first two books into a first part on “God for Us.” He joins Calvin’s second two books as “God with Us.” The division is not seamless: One might expect Book II, Calvin’s treatment of the knowledge of the Redeemer, to be “God with Us;” and Calvin treats the sacraments as emphasizing that God is “for us” in book IV. Calvin’s books are also given new titles. Partee calls Book III “The Faithful Person(s).”
Partee has given us an exploration of the 1559 Institutes, guided by a scholar with a lifetime of engagement with the subject, arguing that union with Christ is a shaping and unifying theme. This is very important work. However, it is really only one slice of Calvin rather than “the full sweep of Calvin’s theology” as claimed in the preface. The 1559 Institutes are admittedly an important slice. But to consider the full sweep of Calvin’s theology one really must include his other works, especially his Biblical commentaries, and the development of the Institutes from 1536 to 1559.
Partee’s quirky sense of humor is very much in evidence: He begins with “introductory conclusions” — unusual, but in fact it is helpful to let the reader know what one should find at the end of the journey. Less helpful, and sometimes counter-productive, is his tendency to play with words, including the invention of new ones.
Partee is not, I think, writing for Calvin scholars, but to help theological students, ministers, and other interested and educated people understand Calvin’s theology.
Gary Neal Hansen is assistant professor of church history at the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary, Dubuque, Iowa.
