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| Institutes of the Christian Religion (2 Volume Set) | 
 enlarge | Author: John Calvin
Creators: John T. Mcneill, Ford Lewis Battles
Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
Category: Book
List Price: $79.95
Buy New: $29.50
You Save: $50.45 (63%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  (32 reviews)
Sales Rank: 23124
Languages: Latin (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1559 translation
Number Of Items: 2
Pages: 1800
Shipping Weight (lbs): 5.3
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.3 x 2.9
ISBN: 0664220282
Dewey Decimal Number: 284
EAN: 9780664220280
ASIN: 0664220282
Publication Date: June 1960
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Calvin Institutes March 15, 2006
4 out of 12 found this review helpful
very good volume of the Institutes with lots of footnotes. a must for any Calvinist or those looking to broaden their knowledge of Calvinism and what it is all about
 A Brilliant Christian Thinker March 6, 2006
8 out of 40 found this review helpful
John Calvin is a controversial figure in the history of thought. The main intellectual architect of the Protestant Reformation, his influence casts a shadow over everything from the Wars of Religion to the English Civil War, to the bitter split in Western Christendom between the Catholic Church and Protestantism, which continues today.
However contemporaries describe Calvin as a fairly meek and mild figure; prone to poor health and fits of coughing, Calvin died at a fairly early age by modern standards. Yet during this time he was remarkably productive, producing his brilliant magnum opus 'The Institutes of Christian Religion', his commentaries on the Bible, creeds and catechisms, as well as taking a very active life in the form of both theologian and public administrator.
Calvin's controversy comes from a certain part of his systematic theology, predestination. The logic of predestination is this; if God is omnipotent and omniescent, it is a logical necesscity that God forsaw the fall of Adam and Eve and of all of humanity. Since the Bible seems to indicate only those in Jesus Christ will be saved, it seems God has pre-destined most of humanity to eternal damnation to hell for original sin, even before they are born.
Predestination in fact does not form the central focus of Calvin's theology itself, at least as much as it did in later Calvinists. However Calvin simply felt he was returning to the theology of Augustine, which he felt (asides from the unhealthy influence of Platonism and Manicheiasm on his thought) largely got Christian theology correct. Similar positions to Calvin can also be found particularly in St Anselm and also in Jansen, before the Reformation.
Whatever the role of predestination, Calvin aimed to produce a new systematic theology which was truer to the Bible than corrupt scholastic Catholicism had been, in much the same spirit as Luther, though Calvin is more logical and systematic than Luther, having recieved a far better liberal education in the form of his humanistic studies and Law background. He is also an excellent biblical exegete, and one of the first modern exegetes who pays close attention to the original Hebrew of the text and its literal meaning, something neglected since the time of Origen and St Jerome. It is no doubt in the spirit of Calvin that Protestantism produces some of the greatest bible scholars and commentators who healthily remind other Christians to pay close attention to the Bible and its context, before wandering off into other roads.
Yet I also feel Calvin's legacy has some great weaknesses; his attachment to Augustine's rigid predestination is hard to defend when now we know the majority of the world's peoples don't know or never knew Christ at all, and that many religions have very different concepts of God or reality than the Christian one. His instances of religious intolerance and bigotry, particularly towards Catholics, and his brutal heartlesseness towards the 'heretic' Michael Servetus (noted with particular disgust by the Protestant historian Edward Gibbon) in allowing him to be executed, are certainly not in my view exemplars of behaviour to be allowed in society today. He was also in many ways blind to the beauty and power of Philosophy, seeing that humanity was hopelessly lost and corrupt in ignorance outside of what revelation could teach, a position I find hard to accept given the remarkable progress the human mind has made in understanding our own nature and that of the universe.
Despite these reservations, Calvin is a brilliant mind who sheds much new light on Christian theology and is a pivotal figure during the time of the Reformation, and cannot be ignored by any student of this period of history.
 Please read why I give this book one star (it deserves less) November 29, 2005
11 out of 125 found this review helpful
I have the Institutes and I have read with careful atention Calvin`s Doctrine of Salvation. He teaches pretty well some christian truths. He uses the bible and the church fathers, but when Calvin gives his (or Luther`s) peculiar teachings, he shows how unchristian his doctrine really is by NOT quoting a single NT text or church father to support what is nothing more than an heretic view. Just to give an example: he teaches in this book that the good works of the christian stink, smell horrible, but Calvin doesn`t give a single quote from the NT or the fathers to support this view. His teaching is clearly anti biblical. One more: When he teaches about Righteousness he never quotes Matthew 5:20. In this text Jesus tells us that if our justice is not superior than the scribes' we won`t enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Justice for Matthew is good work of love for God and the needy (Mt 6:1). Calvin simply doesn`t quote this biblical text, and just read his commentary on his "Harmony of the Gospels" and you will see how in some 29 lines Calvin just run from the simple sense of this text, and that`s because Mt 5:20 goes against his doctrine (salvation by faith alone).
Calvin taught that salvation can`t be lost, even tough this doctrine wasn`t taught by the church fathers (not even by Augustine). Read Daniel Corner`s Conditional Security of the believer"
Yes you will find in this book his classic insult to God: that He has predestined some people to hell. And Calvin`s use of violence to support his views is well known. Let`s reread the Bible without Calvin`s lens.
Henry Beveridge is free. I got 3 2/vol hb sets for others! April 15, 2005
20 out of 25 found this review helpful
The strength of that heretic (John Calvin) consisted in this, that money never had the slightest charm for him. If I had such servants my dominion would extend from sea to sea. -- Pope Pius IV (1559-1565)
After the reading of Scripture, which I strenuously inculcate, and more than any other ... I recommend that the Commentaries of Calvin be read ...For I affirm that in the interpretation of the Scriptures Calvin is incomparable, and that his Commentaries are more to be valued than anything that is handed down to us in the writings of the Fathers -- so much that I concede to him a certain spirit of prophecy in which he stands distinguished above others, above most, indeed, above all. -- Jacobus Arminius
Those who consider Calvin only as a theologian fail to recognize the breadth of his genius. The editing of our wise laws, in which have had a large share, does him as much credit as his Institutes ....So long as the love of country and liberty is not extinct among us, the memory of this great man will be held in reverence. - Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Du contrat social. 1792
He that will not honor the memory, and respect the influence of Calvin, knows but little of the origin of American independence. -- George Bancroft
Summit Level January 11, 2005
2 out of 9 found this review helpful
Calvin's Institutes is a summit level work that transcends its category and carries impressions and influence and inspiration and power beyond what works of theology general exist and are useful for... The Bible is beyond-summit.
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