Calvin on Faith and Obedience

Did Calvin teach that faith is obedience? Sam Waldron of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary says Yes and No to that. On the one hand, Waldron argued in an ETS paper, Calvin does teach that faith is obedience, not only inseparable from obedience but actually IS obedience. He quoted from Calvin’s comments on Romans 1:5 to support the point: “Faith is properly that by which we obey the gospel.” On the other hand, Waldron argued that it was not AS obedience that faith justifies. He concluded his paper with this quotation from an article by Stanford Reid on Calvin’s doctrine of justification: “While Calvin is prepared to recognize that faith does work by love, he also insists that ‘it does not take its power to justify from that working of love. Indeed it justifies by no other means than by leading us into fellowship with the righteousness of Chirst. . . . And then that faith is reckoned as righteousness solely where righteousness is given through a grace not owed.’” It is not in its character as obedience that faith justifies. Faith works through love, but it is not this “working-through-love” that makes faith the instrument of justification.

To explain the distinction, Waldron offered this analogy: An oval mirror possesses the quality of being oval and being a mirror. But what makes it a mirror is not that it is oval, but that it reflects. So also, “faith is obedience, but it is not this quality, property, or characteristic that makes it faith. It is rather the fact that it rests and reposes on Christ that makes it faith.” I find this analogy probematic. Obedience is not a property of faith in the same way that ovality is a property of an oval mirror. After all, a mirror can be square and still be a mirror, so ovality is (in classical terms) an “accidental” property of the mirror. This does not seem to be what Calvin thinks about obedience and faith. Put it this way: Could Calvin conceive of faith that LACKED the quality of obedience and yet remained faith? Could Calvin have conceived of a faith that was DISobedient? Surely not, one would think. So, obedience is not some accidental property of faith that might or might not be a property of faith, but something much more integral to faith.

Overall, I think Waldron gets Calvin right ?EYes and No was Calvin’s answer to a lot of questions, and that seems to be the case with this one. But I think there is a better way to state it. Let’s try this: Faith does loves of things (as the Westminster Confession notes). Faith trembles at God’s threats, faith obeys God’s commands, faith sings with the Psalmist, and so on. But the ACT of faith that makes it the instrument of justification is the act of trusting God’s promise in Christ. Less abstractly: The believer responds to the whole Word and Work of God, and his, which is a response of faith, response is a response of the whole person and extends to his whole life. But the response that God accounts as righteousness is the believer’s trust in God’s promise. I think this captures the way that Calvin speaks of faith and obedience better than the mirror analogy.