Abstract

MUTTITT, Andrew. John Calvin, 2 Samuel 2:8-32 and Resistance to Civil Government: Supreme Equivocation or Mastery of Contextual Exegesis?. Koers (Online) [online]. 2017, vol.82, n.2, pp.1-6. ISSN 2304-8557.  https://doi.org/10.19108/koers.82.2.2352.

Over the years, it has been the considered view of some scholars that John Calvin regarded popular armed resistance to duly appointed but abusive civil rulers as illegitimate. Instead, they are of the view that the legitimacy of forceful resistance to a tyrannical civil magistrate, as subsequently developed by the later Huguenots, Scottish Covenanters and English Parliamentarians, was rooted in the thought of Theodore Beza as it allegedly diverged from that of Calvin. They apparently base this view exclusively on a reading of the Institutes 4.20.24 - 31. This paper examines whether Calvin's sermons on 2 Samuel, preached in 1562, put to rest accusations of equivocation raised by the infamous "perhaps" of 4.20.31; and if so, whether they evidence a development in Calvin's thought which stands in irreconcilable contradiction to the position expressed in the last chapter of the Institutes

Keywords : Calvin; resistance; ruler; Protestant; France.

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