How Did John Calvin Contribute To The Western World

The earliest most famous Protestant reformer, Martin Luther went to the school of Erfurt to study law in 1501, but he quickly became more interested in theology. Luther was exposed to recent humanist writings and read extensively in classical Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. In 1505, he enrolled in an Augustinian monastery. He spent a decade educating and preaching and visited Rome. The Reformation was a religious uprising in Europe in the 16th century, prompted by dissatisfaction with the set Roman Catholic Church, which directed to the formulation of the Protestant branch of Christianity.

The church in the Medieval era, however, was incredibly powerful and mostly unopposed. Salvation, to the religious, was and remains the most important aspect of faith. Religion without a fate after death is almost entirely hopeless and borders on nihilistic. The Catholic church used this incessant fear to fuel their political vendettas. This is made evident by the attempted squelching of the Reformation sparked by Martin Luther as well as the expulsion of the Moriscos, Jews, and Protestants from Spain. The church had successfully convinced an entire continent that the only true way to attain eternal life was through the doctrine of the church. This gave the Pope authority, power, and uncontested control over the Christian people, for a

Calvinism swept into England in the 1530s when Henry VII was breaking ties with the Roman Catholic Church and making himself the head of the Church of England.

The Catholic Church is the oldest major religion in the Western world. Littered with peace, love, and humility, along with violence, turmoil, and controversy this institution has seen, heard, led, and had influence over the majority of everything and everybody that there was in the last two millennia. This has included ordinary people, Kings, Queens, Generals, Nobleman, Royalty, and everything in between, and has endured since the beginning of the modern era, Anno Domini. They great spiritual and monetary machine created a powerful reign over the entire world’s Catholics, and remains so to this day. For the purpose of background for my visit to a Catholic Church, being Presbyterian, I did historical research before I visited. I

John Calvin was a famous Theologian that was involved in an active role of the Reformation. He published a work that contained many of his teachings while trying to escape the uprising of the French protestants. During the Reformation, he studied by reading scriptures to gain more knowledge of God and his ways. He was able to publish more commentaries of different books of the Bible from studying and learning more information that could help others. He stated that God has a plan for all people, and that anyone who preached his name would be saved.

The rise of papacy in the Western Catholic Church is debatably the most corrupt and darkest time in Christianity. The collapse of the greatest and longest running empire in human history created an immense void in society which the church attempted to fill. The bishops of the roman churches who had previously been politicians were now in a position to usurp even more power. The power of the pope continued to rise even to the point of deposing and appointing the kings of Europe. The ramifications of the papacy on history are many.

John Calvin was a very intense reformer who made sure his ideas were heard. In Geneva, the city in which Calvin had the most influence, Calvin’s ideas were forced on to the citizens and enforced by the law of Geneva. Servetus and Calvin had very different views on Christianity and were each expert writers who could convey their ideas on paper in a way for any literate person to easily understand. That’s why when Servetus came to Geneva and was arrested, the debates between him and Calvin were so great. In John Calvin’s The Institutes, he describes Jesus Christ to be the Eternal Son of God and expresses that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were all equal and should all be worshiped.

John Calvin, the founder of Calvinism, believed in absolute dominance of God in salvation of the human soul from death and eternal sentence. He wrote many commentaries on most books in the Bible and created a lot of controversy. Calvin helped reform the church in Geneva. His spent his final years promoting reformation throughout

There were two major problems within the Church that weakened it. One, was worldliness and corruption that existed within the Church. Many Catholics felt that the Church had become too corrupt and worldly. The Church officials did not live up to their titles of spiritual leaders. They had vowed to not marry nor have children, but many had broken that vow. Other leaders acted royal-like instead of servants of God. People were worried about the way the Church had raised money, such as indulgences. An indulgence is a way to pay to be released from punishment for their bad acts. It was a way to buy forgiveness for their sins. Later on, they even sold leadership positions, this act was called simony. Second,

Calvin was forced to take refuge with some other reformers at a castle in Pau with Queen Marguerite of Navarre (King Francis I's sister: she was a noble name in church history). After living this fugitive life style for a while he decided to flee to Switzerland, where at twenty six he published the writings of his catechism, Institutes for the Christian Religion. He published these works with a bold preface addressed to King Francis I to help convince him that protestants were of no threat to his rule, but that did not work (Lord).

People faced the rise and the fall of the Catholic Church during the medieval time. The Popes used to hold the final authority for the church and over the state. Pope Gregory VII asserted the Pope had granted the divine power from God because Saint Peter was the first of getting this

Martin Luther and John Calvin were both leaders in the Protestant Reformation. Martin Luther was a monk, or priest, in the Augustinian friars’ order and his ideals were that Catholicism were corrupting the New Testament beliefs and people were saved by faith alone not by buying their way into heaven. John Calvin studied law “but in 1533 he experienced a religious crisis, as a result of which he converted from Catholicism to Protestantism. Calvin believed that God had specifically selected him to reform the church” (McKay et al., 2015, pg. 448). “The cornerstone of Calvin’s theology was his belief in the absolute sovereignty and omnipotence of God and the total weakness of humanity” (McKay et al., 2015, pg. 448).

had such a big influence in the time which he lived from 1509 to 1564. John Calvin

Although Martin Luther impacts history greatly, people must remember what role John Calvin has to offer as well. Born in France in 1509, John Calvin is raised as a Roman Catholic by his family. His family is so devoted to the Roman Catholic Church that his dad aspires for his son to become a priest (John Calvin- Calvin College 1). John Calvin later reads Luther’s works and converts to the ‘faith of the Reformation.’ He strongly believes that salvation is achieved through faith and predestination (Cowie 44). In 1537, John Calvin publishes, Institutes of the Christian Religion. In this book, John Calvin states his beliefs on Christianity. He proposes that God has been veiled by the devotion of the people to the Virgin Mary and the saints. He also insists in his book that predestination is how God determines who goes to hell and who goes to heaven. John Calvin writes, “We call predestination, God’s eternal degree, by which He determined that He willed to become of each man.

John Calvin was born on July 10th, 1509 in Noyon, Picardy, France. He studied at the universities of Paris, Bourges, and Orleans. He was a key leader of the Protestant Reformation. He wrote many protestant works like Institutes of the Christian Religion. Calvin was also a revolutionary theologian and leader, developing the religion of Calvinism and doctrine of predestination. In addition, Calvin reorganized the city of Geneva, Switzerland and made it into an example theocracy. John Calvin died on May 27th, 1564 in Geneva, Switzerland, but his ideas and achievements have lived on. In fact, the average citizen should care about him because of the contributions he has made to the world, however positive or negative they may be. John Calvin’s three main contributions that make him historically significant are his development of the doctrine of predestination, his revolutionary reform of the education system, and his emphasis on the protestant work ethic.