In the manual
for Melchizedek Priesthood Quorums for 1960, T. Edgar Lyon wrote about some of
the problems of John Calvin’s theology:
Calvin’s
Inconsistencies
In Calvin’s teachings
there is an obvious strain of contradictions. While insisting that the Bible
must be the sole standard for Christian guidance, he accepted Augustine’s
doctrine of original sin in its most extreme form. He did the same with
Augustine’s doctrines of predestination and the depravity of man, except that
he went farther than the ancient bishop of Hippo, Calvin made the doctrine of
depravity into one of total depravity and turned Augustine’s predestination into
such absolute predestination, that it appears he believed even God could not
change the status of one of the elect or the damned, once the election had been
made. In these three doctrines there is an example of the Protestant
Reformation furthering the apostasy rather than a striving to return to
original Christianity. (T. Edgar Lyon, Apostasy
to Restoration [Course of Study for the Melchizedek Priesthood Quorums of
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book
Company, 1960], 274-75)
Later, he addressed some of the problems of the theology of the Magisterial
Reformers (not just Calvin’s) and their followers:
Why the Reformers Could Not Establish the True Church of Christ
There are at least
five major explanations why the reformers of the sixteenth century could not
effect a restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ.
1. The false assumption concerning pristine
Christianity. The reformers assumed that the Roman Catholic Church, which
they declared to be an apostate institution, had represented true Christianity
until the eighth or ninth centuries.
As a result, the
Protestant churches which they founded adopted such doctrines as original sin,
predestination, election, and the traditional interpretation of the “Fall,” all of which were not
part of apostolic Christianity. They thought that the decisions of the first
seven or eight general councils of the church represented original Christian
norms. They thus laid a foundation for their reformed churches on teachings and
practices far removed from the Church of Jesus Christ of the first century.
Their ecclesiastical institutions could be no better than the foundations on
which they were built. True Christianity could not be built upon a changed
church.
2. The
false assumption concerning the authenticity of the Bible . . . the
reformers found themselves, having withdrawn from the Roman Catholic Church,
with no claim to authority or doctrine except the New Testament. This was a
very insufficient guide to Christian faith and living, as its original authors
had not concentrated on producing a handbook for complete Christian living. It
had been the outgrowth of Christianity, not Christianity itself. The reformers
appear to have forgotten that the Christian church was a thriving, vigorous
organization for many years, before the New Testament books had been composed.
In the Reformation literature it is
astonishing to note the frequency with which the expression “God’s Word”
appears. The reformers assumed that the bible contained all that God intended
his children to know and that it was sufficient for both Christian faith and
church government. Some of the reformers reached the stage where they accepted
the theory of “verbal inspiration,” that is, every word in the Bible was just
as though it had been dictated by God.
3. The
false assumption concerning Priesthood. While still functioning within the
Roman Catholic Church, the reformers had been acquainted with an ordination
type of priesthood. This was based on a theory of authoritative descent since
the days of the apostles. The reformers were excommunicated from the church
which professed to have this power concentrated in their bishops. Obviously
they would have to find a new basis for ecclesiastical power. Luther arrived at
the conclusion that the priesthood was a power which the Christians received
automatically by church membership. This “Priesthood of all believers” gave
rise to the theory that the congregation could delegate its priesthood to any
minister whom they employed. When retained by the individual, this priesthood
was insufficient to authorize one to perform church functions. When the
congregation combined its priesthood by delegation to the priest, it was
sufficient to constitute a valid power to act in the name of God.
Calvin’s doctrine of priesthood was less
explicit than that of Luther. Calvin adopted an idea that the sovereignty of the
people in any church congregation gave sufficient authority for that
congregation to delegate its minister to function for it. But there was a prerequisite
to functioning at the call of a congregation: the individual must have
scholastic preparation for the ministry.
4. The
false assumption concerning God. First century Christianity was characterized,
in its theology, by a close adherence to the Hebrew concept of God. Throughout
Old Testament dispensations, as well as during the dispensation of the Meridian
of Time, the patriarchs and prophets of Israel, and the early Christian leaders
had faith in God who created mankind. This mortal creation, however, had not
been the beginning of man’s existence. Man had a pre-existent entity who was “
. . . in the beginning with God.” This placed man and God in the same category
as far as the time cycle was concerned. It made God a participant in the same
universe in which man resides.
A second characteristic of Hebrew-Christian
theology was belief in God as a tangible Being—One who was real, who had spoken
to mortals and had been seen by their prophets. Though of more refined matter
than they, He was not something merely ethereal, but, like mortals, occupied space.
During the third and fourth centuries of the
Christian era theologians rejected these original concepts of early
Christianity. In their place they brought into changing church explanations
concerning God which came from Neo-Platonism. These held that any matter,
regardless of how fine it might be, was inherently evil and of temporary
duration. Hence, they reasoned, that if God were composed of matter, and, like
matter, occupied time and space, he would be evil, and ultimately crease to
exist. This, of course, was unthinkable, so the theologians replaced the God of
the Old and New Testaments with a philosophical abstraction. This changed
theology was adopted by the reformers of the sixteenth century and has been
perpetuated unchanged in Protestantism down to the present time.
5. The
false assumption concerning revelation. Somewhere between the close of the
New Testament writings and the Council of Nicea in the fourth century the
Christians had given up the belief that God gave personal revelation for public
declaration to a universal head of the entire church. It was assumed that the
church organization of bishops which had developed contained in the office of
the bishop sufficient guidance for the church. The Protestant reformers, reared
in this tradition continued to believe that revelation had ceased about the
close of the apostolic period. It was assumed by the reformers that the Bible
had sufficient revelation in it to supply the human race with all essential guidance.
(Ibid., 290-93)
After the Order of the Son of God: The Biblical and Historical Evidence for Latter-day Saint Theology of the Priesthood (2017)
