[John] Calvin is often identified with his account of predestination. Yet that appears in the third book of his Institutes, not the first. Oliver D. Crisp More Quotes by Oliver D. Crisp More Quotes From Oliver D. Crisp [John] Calvin's Institutes is often called a summary of Christian piety. You can't say that about many modern works of theology. You can say it of Calvin. Oliver D. Crisp theologymodernchristian It is often reported that the Five Points of Calvinism are the conceptual hard-core of Reformed thought. That is very misleading. The Five Points supposedly originate with the Synod of Dort in the early seventeenth century. Yet we find important Reformed leaders who were signatories to that documentation who don't think that limited atonement is the right way to think about the scope of Christ's saving work. How can this be? The answer that recent historical theology has thrown up is that the canons of the Synod don't require adherence to the doctrine of limited atonement. Oliver D. Crisp historicalleaderthinking [Calvinistic tradition] has fashioned and shaped my thinking since I was a teenager. Oliver D. Crisp teenagertraditionthinking God shows us in Christ what he would have to do if he were to punish us for our sins. Oliver D. Crisp sinshowschrist There is no such thing as a stationary tradition. Traditions are always developing, living things. Oliver D. Crisp stationaryliving-thingstradition I think everyone who has an interest in Reformed theology, or just in Christian theology more generally, should read John Calvin Institutes. Oliver D. Crisp shouldchristianthinking [John] Calvin is revered as a thinker of immense importance in Reformed thought, Jonathan Edwards could say in his preface to his treatise on Freedom of the Will that he had derived none of his views from the work of Calvin, though he was willing to be called a "Calvinist" for the sake of convention. Oliver D. Crisp conventionssakeviews For instance, there are many mainstream Reformed theologians that deny the doctrine of "limited" atonement (the "L" in TULIP, the acrostic for the Five Points of Calvinism). These are not thinkers on the margins or troublemakers. They are leaders at the center of Reformed thinking like Bishop John Davenant. Oliver D. Crisp doctrineleaderthinking What I am trying to argue here [Save Calvinism] and in other works before this one is that the Reformed tradition as I have characterized it is much broader and richer than many of us today imagine. It is not just about "Five Points," and it was never just about [John ] Calvin's thought. Oliver D. Crisp arguingtryingtoday Reformed theology belongs to this confessional tradition, and Reformed theologians and churches continue to write confessions even today. Oliver D. Crisp churchwritingtoday The confessions don't speak with one voice. They are more like a cluster of closely-related but distinct voices - a kind of choir, if you like. Oliver D. Crisp voicekindspeak There are constraints on what counts as "Reformed." It's more than a name or a label. It's about belonging to a particular theological stream or tradition, which is shaped in important respects by particular thinkers and their work, particular arguments and ideas, a particular community (especially, particular church communities, denominations, and so on), particular liturgies or ways of worshipping and living out the Christian life, and particular confessions that inform the practices of these communities. Oliver D. Crisp practicechristiannames There is the view I call penal non-substitution, or the penal example view. (It is also called the Governmental View in textbooks of theology.) This is often associated with Arminian theology stemming from the great Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius. However, the view was taken up by [Jonathan] Edwards's disciples in New England, who developed a Calvinistic strand of the doctrine. Oliver D. Crisp takenexampleviews We may think that our tradition is exactly the same as it has always been, but that is an illusion. Oliver D. Crisp traditionmaythinking In the twentieth century the Reformed tradition was developed in several ways including additional confessions (Barmen, the Belhar Confession, the 1967 Confession of the PC(USA), and so on). It was also significantly augmented by the work of important thinkers like Karl Barth, T. F. Torrance, Jürgen Moltmann, Emil Brunner, Kathryn Tanner, and so on. Oliver D. Crisp usaimportantway I recommend Doug Sweeney's recent book [Jonathan] Edwards the Exegete (Oxford University Press, 2015), which is a terrific treatment of the way in which Edwards was steeped in the Bible, so that it shaped the whole of his thinking. Oliver D. Crisp oxfordbookthinking That is the great contribution of Reformed thinking to the Christian church: theology for a life well-lived. Oliver D. Crisp churchchristianthinking The best Reformed theology isn't just about careful arguments for theologically sophisticated conclusions. It is about how to live the Christian life. Oliver D. Crisp argumentsophisticatedchristian [John Calvin's] treatment of the person and work of Christ, of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer, of prayer and liturgy, of the sacraments, and of the way in which we have an in-built sense of the divine that we suppress to our great sorrow - these are all immense contributions to Christian thought. The same could be said of his commentaries, which are still regularly consulted by biblical critics today. Oliver D. Crisp biblicalprayerchristian One of the things we in the Reformed tradition are very good at is writing doctrinal theology! Oliver D. Crisp very-goodtraditionwriting
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