The dual story line of Calvin's sense-making approach

 

 

Erasmus van Niekerk

Department of Systematic Theology and Theological Ethics, University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa

 

 

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ABSTRACT

Calvin's sense-making approach, which is embedded in his Institutes of the Christian Religion (1559), can be construed as a story embodying two reflexive realms, one of creation and the other of redemption. In each of these realms, two trajectories operate closely together. The first is a "vertical" mirroring trajectory with God and human beings facing each other. The second is a "horizontal" trajectory consisting in a process that begins with God approaching human beings and the natural cosmic world. Calvin, who was at times very eclectic but could be very consistent too sometimes, contradicted what usually made sense to him (e.g. his instrumentality in the death of Servetus).

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