Calvin: Scripture above Creeds

I am no great expert on John Calvin, but I have come to feel that the most admirable thing about the great Reformer of Geneva was his willingness to put Scripture above the ancient creeds. To put it in another way, he was willing to risk the hatred of those who put creeds above Scripture, in order that Scripture might have the supreme honour it deserved.

To put it in yet another way, the reputation of opponents like Peter Caroli was nothing to him, compared with the priceless reputation of God's Word. Caroli was a doctor of the Sorbonne in Paris, and an unprincipled 'theological adventurer' who had left the Roman Catholic Church several times, but returned each time. During one of his 'Protestant' adventures he married, but on his final reconciliation to the Pope, he asked to be released from his 'concubine' as he called her. He died in rather miserable circumstances in a hospital in Rome.

In 1538, at a Synod in Lausanne, Caroli accused Calvin and Farel of being Arians, or deniers of the deity of Christ, because they refused to put the authority of the creeds above that of the Scriptures. In fact, Calvin and Farel had no objection at all to the technical language of the Nicene and Athanasian creeds, as their earlier writings showed, but they did object to the idea that the truth of the Trinity could be expressed in no other way than in that of the language of the creeds, merely to gratify a boisterous theological turncoat.

The Synod accepted the statement of Calvin and his colleagues. But there always remained some element of suspicion about Calvin's orthodoxy. This was the price he had to pay for his faithfulness in placing Scripture above Creeds. But for this he deserves, not suspicion, but the honour of a peerless defender of the great principle of the authority of 'Scripture alone'.