John Calvin's Rhetorical Doctrine of Sin

John Calvin's Rhetorical Doctrine of Sin. By Don H. Compier. Texts and Studies in Religion, Volume 86. Lewiston, N.Y.: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2001. x + 154 pp. $99.95 (cloth). Don Compier's book on Calvin is a worthy contribution to a growing body of theological texts that attempt to situate Calvin's theological concerns within the messy historical particulars of the political and social landscape of sixteenth-century Europe. The book's unique contribution to contemporary Calvin studies is its analysis of Calvin's doctrine of sin from the angle of his rhetorical sensibilities.

Chapter 1 summarizes the importance of rhetoric in Calvin's education in the arts and legal studies. Compier argues that rhetorical considerations will lead us to see Calvin and his texts differently. We will no longer read him as trafficking in timeless doctrinal ideas but instead as engaging in strategies of persuasion for the sake of the Reforming cause. In chapter 2, Compier describes the thoroughly political character of Calvin's theological rhetoric. The John Calvin presented here is "a campaigner and skillful propagandist" (p. i).

Only then does the book move to a consideration of Calvin's sin discourse. Chapter 3 argues that his Augustinian conception of sin's power was not incompatible with an optimism about human agents sponsoring change in social, political, and ecclesiastical structures. Chapter 4 then argues that only with Calvin's criticism of the sins of the papacy in Book IV of the Institutes do we begin to understand his doctrine of sin. In short, Compier sugBests taking Book IV as the interpretive center of gravity for what Calvin has to say about sin.

Compier's book actually executes two related claims: first, that Calvin's theology was political; second, that the "politics" in question was more progressive than conservative. "My interpretation emphasizes the strategic and subtly radical character of Calvin's politics" (p. 60). Walzer "rightly points us toward the revolutionary tendencies of Calvin's rhetorical practice ... Calvinism was a creed tailor made for the transformation of the reigning social order" (p. 9). If Compier's book were merely about Calvin's political legacy, such claims would provide little that is new. What is new is Compier's case that Calvin's talk about sin actually contributed to the fashioning of Calvinist social agents with a "revolutionary" ideology. The familiar Calvin legend emphasizes a pessimistic obsession with human depravity and a conservative identification of the political status quo with the will of God. If Compier's interpretive approach is persuasive, then this legend of Calvin's conservatism needs revision. Interestingly, he suggests that Calvin's sin discourse functions in some ways like critical theory (p. 72).

Compier is clearly sympathetic to Calvin. Yet what he admires is not any particular conclusion, but the simple fact that Calvin's theological writing was practical and timely. He treats him as a model practitioner of working out the political implications of the Christian faith in a particular context. "By subjecting Calvin's doctrine of sin to a rhetorical treatment, I hope I will demonstrate something of theology's ability to perform historically effective acts of transformation" (p. 11). The book -will be most helpful for students and scholars of Calvin interested in his rhetorical strategies, his political thought, or his doctrine of sin.

JARED L. WITT

Yale University

New Haven, Connecticut

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