The Highway Forums General Discussion Theology Discussion Forum Calvin and the image of God

I recently came across an interesting conversation involving John Calvin, specifically related to RC Sproul who someone accused of disagreeing with the doctrine of 'Total Depravity' and therefore not worthy to be considered "Reformed".

According to this particular person, he believes that Scripture says that man lost the image of God at the fall, and that the Reformed doctrine of 'Totally Depravity' is related to this.
He also claimed that the that Reformers such as Calvin and other Reformers believed what he said as well.

Understand here, I have never heard anyone of Reformed persuasion or Calvinist persuasion say anything like that. In fact recently, I listened to several Reformed theologians speak against the Woke and one of arguments they used is that there is only one race and that is the human race. All were created in the image of God; racism is a sin against God, who created man in the image of God.

The person gave several John Calvin quotes to prove his point. Including the following.

“Hence followed the obliteration of the image of God in man, who became unbelieving, unrighteous, liable to death.”
(John Calvin, Aphorisms book 2 # 17)

I suspect, I am not understanding Calvin here.

My understanding and indeed RC Sproul and many others of Reformed persuasion believes despite the fall, mankind retained the "image of God". Though the image of God was marred because of the fall.

Thoughts

Tom

Yeh, yeh... I've heard this silliness before. The 'image of God' consists of the ability to think rationally, logically, to appreciate beauty, to create things from that which was created, and also to love God, love and desire to do all that is good, etc. This set man apart from all other creatures. At the Fall those marvelous attributes which involved the spiritual graces were lost, but the rest remained albeit seriously damaged. The inclination of man was radically changed from loving God and the law to one of hating God and the law. Genesis 9:6 is all that is needed to refute the fallacious notion that the 'imago dei' in man was totally destroyed, which I am going to assume the detractor meant when the word 'obliterated' was used. Genesis 9:6 (ASV) 6 Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: For in the image of God made he man.

IF man is nothing more than a brute beast then the reason demanded the death penalty for taking the unwarranted life of man would be moot or even false for capital punishment rests upon the fact that man still possesses God's image in himself to some degree. After the Fall, all mankind knew that murder was a grievous sin and worthy of death to the guilty one. We see this in the life of Cain after he murdered his brother Abel. [i[]Genesis 4:14 (ASV) 14 Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the ground; and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer in the earth; and it will come to pass, that whosoever findeth me will slay me.[/i]. Even before he murdered Abel, God spoke to Cain and chastised him for bring an unauthorized offering. There was guilt in Cain for doing so which God pointed out to him, Genesis 4:4-7 (ASV) 4 And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And Jehovah had respect unto Abel and to his offering: 5 but unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell. 6 And Jehovah said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen? 7 If thou doest well, shall it not be lifted up? and if thou doest not well, sin coucheth at the door: and unto thee shall be its desire, but do thou rule over it.. God never required an offering from an animal; only a human being. Animals are not required to be obedient to God, nor to worship Him. Fallen man is totally depraved but not utterly depraved and thus he is responsible to do all the law perfectly and held accountable for failing to do so.

My advice, which is typical to such individual of which you seem to have a propensity to run into..... .

What you said is also my understanding of the matter.
What I am interested in finding out more about is the John Calvin quote.

I am not sure I understand what he said.

Tom

A quote out of context is nothing more than pretext. I do not have a copy of Aphorisms to be able to see the context. But there are many more places one can look at Calvin's view of total depravity and the 'imago dei' to discover what Calvin actually believed on this matter. So many spurious attacks on the basic doctrines of the faith have been launched over the centuries where the stalwarts of the faith have been deceitfully quoted in an attempt to give credence to heretical views. But, they all have been shown to be what these attempts were... totally fallacious and thus rejected. I am confident that this is just another such attempt. And, even IF Calvin did believe that the image of God in man was totally lost, thus non-existent, I would have to say that Calvin's view was wrong as would thousands of others who stand on Scripture ALONE as the sole and final authority in all matters of faith and practice.

Agree!

That is one of the reasons why I can’t stand these short little quotes of people.

Just read that someone else chimed in the conversation and showed Calvin’s position on the image of God in man.

Tom,
You may have run into someone I encountered a while back. This person is adamant that mankind "lost" the image of God at the Fall, thus resulting in Total Depravity (which includes Utter Depravity according to him). Since "total" and "utter" are synonyms man is now AS BAD AS HE CAN POSSIBLY BE. He defines the image of God as "knowledge, righteousness and holiness" using Eph. 4:24 and Col. 3:10 as scripture proofs and claims that only he and a few of the dead guys (Calvin being one) get this right. I had to take Pilgrim's advice and run. Hope you will do the same.

Thanks, this person never intimidated me at all.
While I decided it was not worth further discussion with him. I am not convinced that Calvin believes we are "utterly depraved". It should be fairly obvious that mankind never lost the ability to do good things, such as help each other out in times of need etc...
In fact, if we measure it that way, then I know non-Christians that put most Christians to shame in that department. Yet, if they were utterly depraved they would sooner laugh in their face than help people out in times of need.

As Pilgrim indicated however, even if Calvin did believe those things, he would be wrong. He is not perfect, Scripture is.

One thing I did notice is that after a while nobody conversed with him.

Tom