Civil Disobedience And Obedience In Calvin’s Institutes Of The Christian Religion

John Calvin(1509-1564)was the great 16 th century religious reformer in western Europe, His ideas has had a profound impact on the protestant reformation in Europe, the Americas and even the world. Since the Middle Ages, the authority has been in a dual society in Europe, political and religious competition. To the 15 th and 16 th century, due to corruption and economic, political, cultural and other reasons,Catholic religious reform is inevitable. Therefore we can say that although the political content is not Calvin main elements of reform, but Calvin’s religious reform in a sense is a political reform.This article focuses on the Reformation Calvin reflected in the obedience and disobedience ideological thought, obedience among other issues, including Calvin’s view of God and the secular government and the Protestant church on the relationship between the secular government and the believers. Calvin coordinated the relationships between believers, between the Pope and the king in change of society, Properly handle the relationship between the secular government and the spiritual government. the idea had far reaching implications on maintain social order and stability in Western Europe, and give a form for future States to address the relationship between Christians and the government,more worthy to our attention。This paper is divided into three parts:Part I sketches out foreword introduction about Calvin’s obedience and disobedience in Christian institutes. Historical method and comparative analysis method are adopt in analyzing and introducing Calvin’s ideas of obedience and disobedience in Chinese and foreign books.Part II analyses historical background leading to formation of Calvin’s obedience and disobedience. By historically and synthetically analyzing history、economic、culture、political and religion and so on, Generation of Calvin’s obedience and disobedience are founded and analyzed.Part III mainly discusses the reasons why the thought of obedience and disobedience come into being. The part expounds the reasons from Calvin’s character, contradictions in among three force of west Europe and Christian needs.Part IV analyzes Calvin’s obedience thoughts and disobedience thoughts. The part includes two sides, one side is that Knowledge about God as a center of Calvin’s thoughts is firstly introduced, and also is foundation of Calvin’s thought of obedience and disobedience. Moreover the part analyzes the relationships between Christians and spiritual and secular governments in Calvin’s Christian institutes; the other side is the prolongation of Calvin’s obedience thoughts and analyzes formation and specific content about Calvin’s disobedience thoughts, and also elaborates consistency between obedience and disobedience.Part V summarizes and analyzes Calvin’s obedience and disobedience thoughts. The part firstly summarizes obedience and disobedience in Christian institutes, and then expounds guiding significance and elicitation of the ideas to the later ages, even nowadays.