이 정석 교수의 신학 문답 Q&A

The treatise called Psychopannychia (1534) is the first theological work of John Calvin against the Anabaptist doctrine of “soul-sleep”. It is a classical presentation about the doctrine of the intermediate state and a comprehensive reflection of Calvin’s eschatology. The doctrine of the intermediate state has such a special importance for Calvin and his eschatology that any denial of this doctrine calls in question the truth of eternal life generally.2 Accordingly, Calvin demurs any objection “with great violence and bitter contempt.”3 The Anabaptists in his contemporaries, therefore, seemed to him “extra-ordinary dangerous” because of their denial of this doctrine , which was for Calvin of such decisive importance.4

Three views on the intermediate state of the soul are introduced in the work: non-existence, insensibility, and sensibility:

 

Our controversy, then, relates to the HUMAN SOUL. Some, while admitting it to have a real existence, imagine that it sleeps in a state of insensibility from Death to The Judgment-day, when it will awake from its sleep; while others will sooner admit anything than its real existence, maintaining that it is merely a vital power which is derived from arterial spirit on the action of the lungs, and being unable to exist without body, perishes along with the body, and vanishes away and becomes evanescent till the period when the whole man shall be raised again. We, on the other hand, maintain both that it is a substance, and after the death of the body truly lives, being endued both with sense and understanding.6

 

Calvin’s description of the intermediate state is very brief and simple because Calvin proceeds only as far as the Scripture reveals. Calvin is satisfied simply with the existence of the intermediate state itself rather than the speculative contents of it. Therefore, he discussed heavily about the intermediate state as “theological necessity”. To prove the doctrine of the intermediate state, Calvin developed three theological arguments: anthropological, Christological, and eschatological:

(i) The anthropological argument is about the substantiality and immortality of the soul (Psy., pp. 419-432). Calvin’s view of man is exclusively dichotomous and antithetical. The substantial oneness of soul and spirit, both of which represent “the immortal essence”45 of man, is explained by the creation. The two-step creation of man, in distinction from the one-step creation of animals, is the proof of human distinctiveness and antithetical dichotomy.

 

...the body was formed out of clay, and makes no mention of the image of God; thereafter, he says, that “the breath of life” was introduced into the clay body...But the soul of man is not of the earth...the image itself is separate from the flesh…nothing can bear the image of God but spirit, since God is a spirif.46

 

Therefore, the dichotomous constitution of man is “beyond controversy”47, and the soul is something divine48 of man, which is “inexterminable”.49 This view of man guarantees the substantiality of the soul distinct from the body, which supposes the independent life and sense of the soul, possible without the body. However, Calvin is very well aware of the fundamental difference between the divine intrinsic immortality and the human endowed immortality;

 

For when we say that the spirit of man is immortal, we do not affirm that it can stand against the hand of God, or subsist without his agency. Far from us be such blasphemy! But we say that it is sustained by his hand and blessing....by nature we are mortal, and God alone immortal...man, if the Lord withdraw his mercy from him, falls away and perishes.50

 

But, as far as our soul is sustained by the Lord and kept up, our soul can never lose its sense and understanding because, as Tertullian says, “The soul of soul is perception.”51

(ii) The Christological argument is about the union with Christ and its indestructibility by the physical death (Psy., pp. 436-440). Because of our union with Christ, we no longer live our own life separated from the life of Christ. Our life is Christ’s, and our destiny is Christ’s. Christ is our “leader” and revealer of our destiny.

 

He is the first-begotten of the dead, and the first-fruits of them that rise again. As he died and rose again, so we also die and rise again. For if the death to which we were liable was to be overcome by death, he undoubtedly suffered the same death as we do, and likewise in death suffered what we suffer.52

 

Therefore, “whatever happens to the Head happens also to the members”53 Christ has never lost the life of his soul in a time between his cross and resurrection, which is equivalent with our intermediate period. As a necessity, also we can’t lose our life in the intermediate state, because it relates necessarily with the life of Christ. So, Calvin’s reproach is bitter and fearful;

 

If, therefore, the life of Christ is ours, let him who insists that our life is ended by death, pull Christ from the right hand of the Father and consign him to the second death. If He can die, our death is certain; if he has no end of life, neither can our souls ingrafted in him be ended by any death.54

 

Our soul is impossible not only to perish, but also to sleep in the intermediate state. If our souls sleep, “then the soul of Christ must have been seized with the same sleep.”55 Christ did not sleep, and made the enemies’ insult exclaiming “Will he who sleeps rise again?”(Ps. 41: 9) totally fail.56 In the Scripture , the dead is often described as “sleep”. Calvin understood this expression as a synecdoche and discovered no use of such an expression of the soul of the dead;

 

…by synecdoche the whole is sometimes taken for a part , and sometimes a part for the whole -a figure which is constantly occurring in Scripture…nowhere in Scripture is the term sleep applied to the soul, when it is used to designate death.57

 

(iii) The eschatological argument is about the Kingdom of God and its uninterruptability of progress by the physical death(Psy., pp. 440-444, 462-474). Against the idea of no blessing or misery before the Judgment, Calvin answers the “already” - presence of the blessedness, eternal life , and the Kingdom of God. Pointing out their unreasonable logic that “there is no kingdom because there is not a perfect one ”,58 Calvin explains the biblical view on the Kingdom of God;

 

God, therefore , reigns in his elect whom he guides by his spirit . He reigns also in opposition to the devil, sin, and death, when he bids the light, by which error and falsehood are confounded, to shine out of darkness , and when he prohibits the powers of darkness from hurting those who have the mark of the Lamb in their foreheads. He reigns, I say, even now, when we pray that his kingdom may come. He reigns, indeed, while he performs miracles in his servants , and gives the law to Satan. But his kingdom will properly come when it will be completed. And it will be completed when he will plainly manifest the glory of his majesty to his elect for salvation, and to the reprobate for confusion.59

 

The Kingdom of God is grown up by “the progress of believers”, and our eye of faith cal1 see its “growing in his elect , and increasing from day to day”. The Kingdom of God stops to grow, when our progress stops to continue. For that reason, Calvin fervently rejects the interruptibility of our progress by death;

 

Our blessedness is always in progress up to that day which shall conclude and terminate all progress.60

Eternal life is begun…If an entrance has been given into eternal life, why do they interrupt it by death?61

We acknowledge God as growing in his elect, and increasing from day to day…Those who formerly went from faith to faith, from virtue to virtue, and enjoyed a foretaste of blessedness when they exercised themselves in thinking of God, they deprive both of faith and virtue, and all thought of God, and merely place on beds, in a sluggish and lethargic state! For how do they interpret that progress!62

 

This principle of the uninterruptable progress dominates and characterizes Calvin’s eschatology, and it, by connecting time and eternity, history and the eschaton, gave the way to overcome the “time-less” or “history-less” eschatology. And the historical eschatology, by emphasizing the cosmic consummation, rejected the “individualistic” eschatology, which is dominant in the transcendental eschatology. Through the three theological arguments, Calvin established the “theological eschatology”, which is needed today, more than ever, to overcome the modern eschatological crisis of “time-less”, “history-less”, and “individualistic” eschatology and to regain the biblical eschatology.

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1. T. F. Torrance, “The Eschatology of the Reformation”, in Eschatology, Scottish Journal of Theology Occasional Paper No. 2 (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd Ltd., 1957), p. 54.

2. H. Quistorp, Calvin’s Doctrine of the Last Things, tr. H. Knight (London: Lutterworth Press, 1955), p. 56.

3. loci. cit. 4. Ibid., p. 55.

5. Willem Balke, Calvin and the Anabaptist Radicals, tr. W. J . Heynen (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publ. Co., 1981), p. 28.

6. John Calvin, Psychopannychia, in Tracts and Treatises in Defense of the Reformed Faith, tr. Henry Beveridge (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publ. Co.,1958), vol. III, pp. 419-420.

7. Cf. Inst., IV.vii.28; Pope John XXII(1249-1334) “who openly asserted that souls are mortal and die along with bodies until the day of resurrection.”

8. Psy., p. 415.

9. J. Yoder, Taufertum und Reformation in der Schweiz (Weierhof, 1962), p. 109; C. Neff, The Mennonite Encyclopedia (Scottdale, Penn., 1959), vol. IV, p. 543, quoted in Willem Balke, Calvin and the Anabaptist Radicals, pp. 31, 33.

10. Balke, op. cit., pp. 33-34.

11. Ibid., p. 38. 12. Ibid., p. 31.

13. T. H. L. Parker, John Calvin: A Biography (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1975), pp. 31-32.

14. Cf. Balke, op. cit. , p. 11: “Sometimes Calvin used the term Catabaptistae instead of Anabaptistae.”; n. 70: “The prefix ‘ana-’ in Anabaptist means ‘anew’; the prefix ‘cata-(down)’ gives the name Catabaptist a more negative connotation.”; This term was used also by Zwingli and Oecolampadius.

15. Psy., p. 490.

16. Balke, Calvin and the Anabaptist Radicals, p. 28.

17. Psy., p.414. 18. loci . cit. 19. Psy., p. 415. 20. Psy., p. 418. 21. Psy., p. 415. 22. Balke, op. cit. , p. 35. 23. Psy., p. 417. 24. Psy., p. 416. 25. Psy., p. 418. 26. Psy., p. 416. 27. loci.cit. 28. loci.cit. 29. loci.cit. 30. Psy., p. 418. 31. Psy., p. 414. 32. Pay., p. 414. 33. Psy., p. 490. 34. Psy., p. 428. 35. Psy., p. 418. 36. Psy., p. 464. 37. Psy., p. 460.

38. R. K. Harrison, Introduction to the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publ. Co., 1977), pp. 1082-1083; H. D. Hummel, The Word Becoming Flesh (St. Louis: Concordia Publ. House, 1979), pp. 534-535.

39. Psy., p. 418.

40. Quistorp, Calvin’s Doctrine of the Last Things, p. 91.

41. Psy., p. 414. 42. loci.cit.

43. Balke, Calvin and the Anabaptist Radicals, pp. 26-27; Concerning the publication, 1534 and 1536 editions are imagined to be published in Paris and Basel, but generally doubted partly because of

their unfortunate unavailability and partly because of Calvin’s letters revealing some advice not to publish for a while. The 1542 edition was published and regarded as its first printing. Cf. Balke, op. cit., pp. 25 ff. and W. Zimmerli, Psychopannychie von John Calvin(Leipzigs: A. Deichertsche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1932), pp. 6ff.

44. Psy., p. 415. 45. Psy., p. 422. 46. Psy., p. 423. 47. Inst., I.xv.2.

48. Inst., I.v.5; Psy., p. 466 ”we are partakers of a Divine immortality.”

49. Psy., p. 424. 50. Psy., p. 478. 51. Psy., p. 427. 52. Psy., p. 436.

53. T. F. Torrance, “The Eschatology of the Reformation”, p. 58.

54. Psy., p. 439. 55. Psy., p. 458. 56. loci. cit. 57. Psy., pp. 458-459. 58. Psy., p. 464. 59. Psy., pp. 464-465.

60. Psy., p. 463. 61. Psy., p. 440. 62. Psy., p. 444.