Are the Anglican Articles of Faith Calvinistic?
It
is sometimes said that the 39 Articles are an expression of the theology of
John Calvin, the great Swiss Protestant Reformer. It might be said that John Calvin had pushed one side of the
teaching of St. Augustine to its logical conclusion. For instance, Calvin had a strong sense of the sovereignty
of God, which led to the notion of double predestination, i.e. the sovereign God
decrees that certain people, the elect, are going to heaven, and other people
are predestined to go to hell.
Calvin’s
theology might be summarized by the acrostic TULIP: Total depravity; Unconditional
election; Limited atonement; Irresistible grace; and the Perseverance
of the saints.
The
Church of England at the time of Queen Elizabeth I did not aim at excluding the
Calvinists, but it is wrong to say that the 39 Articles are “Calvinistic,” in
the sense that they accept all the teachings of John Calvin.
Let’s
take a look at a couple of the articles of faith.
Article
2 says that Christ died for all; Calvinists would say that Christ died only for
the elect (Limited atonement).
Article
16 says that man who has received the Holy Ghost and fallen into sin may
rise again; Calvinists would say that such a person must rise again
(once saved, always saved).
These
are just a couple of examples which show that the 39 Articles are not, in fact,
Calvinistic. They are worked in
such a way as to be broad and inclusive, not narrow and rigidly exclusivistic.
Postscript: I must admit that an earlier confession
of faith, The 42 Articles, were
influenced by Calvinism; they fell short of the notion of
comprehensiveness. The articles
were revised in 1571, and became 39.
The 39 Articles avoided the Calvinism of
the earlier 42 Articles. There was an advance in sacramental
teaching, for instance, in regards to the Real Presence of Christ in the
Eucharist, it takes a position between the Roman view, on the one hand, and the
Anabaptists and the Zwinglians, on the other.
Article
28 excludes the Roman doctrine of transubstantiation, which apparently denies
the earthly elements of bread and wine, and , on the other hand, the
Anabaptists and Zwinglians view that the Lord’s Supper is a mere memorial of
Christ’s death.
“The
language of Article 28 is at least consistent with a belief in the Real
Presence, though the relation of the gift bestowed in Holy Communion to the
visible elements is left undiscussed,” E.J. Bicknell.
The
whole matter of the authority of the 39 Articles might be dealt with in a
future issue.
The Rev. Gary Canon Turner,
of Blessed Recent MemoryApril A.D. 2010
