Integrite Spring 2013

22 Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal exposition serves the life and understanding of the believer” (20). Herbert’s poetry is an example of the practical purpose that Calvin’s theology serves in the believer’s life; furthermore, it is an example of how one’s own theology can be used as map to navigate spiritual conflicts and circumstances.

In the contemporary controversy and misunderstanding of Calvin’s simplified “five points” doctrine, many overlook the underlying theology that fuels Calvin’s teaching. Despite the complexity of Calvin’s doctrine, it is generally taught as five main points: total depravity (all men are affected by original sin and unable to choose salvation); unconditional election (God decides the eternal fate of humans, either salvation for the elect or damnation for the reprobate); limited atonement (Christ’s death was only for the elect); irresistible grace (when the elect are called to salvation they cannot and do not reject God); and perseverance of the saints (the elect cannot lose their salvation). Although important in providing a cursory understanding of Calvinism, these five points leave many guessing at the core of Calvinism. John Dillenberger suggests the following as the foundation of Calvin’s theology: The essential structure of his thought is evident in a series of parallels which run throughout—God the Creator and God the Redeemer, law and Gospel, the Old Israel and the New Israel, Providence and election. Indeed, all the pairs can be put under God the Redeemer and God the Creator. (14) Dillenberger’s statement seems to be supported by the organization of Calvin’s “Catechism of the Church of Geneva of Faith.” The first catechism emphasizes Calvin’s belief in the importance of God as Creator: “Master.—What is the chief end of human life? Scholar.—To know God by whom men were created” (249).

The most important objective of man’s life is to know God, and the reason for this, Calvin suggests, is that men were created by God. Calvin’s last catechisms address God as Redeemer. After asserting that repentance is the act of surrendering one’s self to the Holy Spirit to reject sin and obey God, Calvin writes that this allows for the true worship of God, because “the only worship which [God] approves is not that which it may please us to devise, but that which he hath of his own authority prescribed” (265). Calvin begins with the idea of God as Creator and ends with the idea of God as Redeemer of man through the repentance produced by the fear of God and leading of the Holy Spirit; Calvin begins and ends his religious instruction with God, specifically the sovereignty of God as Creator and God as Redeemer. God created, and the Holy Spirit allows man to reject sin and obey God, which could not have been done by man’s own power. Underlying the contemporary five points of Calvinism is this belief in the sovereignty of God as creator and redeemer; ultimately, God is completely sovereign over his creation, which includes man.

In understanding the function of Herbert’s poetry, one must first understand the character of Herbert and his devotion to sincerity. In “The Country Parson,” a brief text that teaches men how they should conduct their lives if they are pastors, Herbert continually refers back to an idea underlined in ‘The