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see that trust and obedience are not the enemies of true knowledge,
but their necessary foundation. In our post-modern era, though
often beset by a vicious relativism, there has been a new openness
amongst even secular philosophers to the rationality of religious
description and symbolism. Accordingly, we should engage men‘s
minds as to the necessary relationship of reason, revelation and
wisdom.
As Calvin realized such wisdom should be applied to civil
life. A common misconception is that continual emphasis on the
majesty and sovereignty of God leads to an escapist and
otherworldly perspective: indifferent to the needs of the world. In
fact the Reformed emphasis on trust and obedience has historically
had the opposite effect. As Karl Barth has argued:
God has ordained and chosen (men) into his temporal and
eternal service, and, consequently into everlasting life. The
notion of service should not be missing. In the New
Testament, they did not come to the Church merely so that
they might be saved and happy, but that they might have the
signal privilege of serving the Lord. 198
Rather than an irresponsible otherworldliness, Calvin‘s
emphasis on trust and obedience led to a critical engagement in
society that transformed Western civilization. The Reformed
Christianity has historically viewed social responsibility as a divine
task. Emphasis on divine election in Reformed thought has not in
the main resulted in an indifferent quietude, but recognition of our
election by God to fulfill his purposes on earth. As Michael
Walzer has noted:
It was the Calvinists who first switched the emphasis of
political thought from the prince to the saint… and then
constructed a theoretical justification for independent
political action. What Calvinists said of the saint, other men
198 Karl Barth as quoted in John H. Leith‘s Introduction to the Reformed
Tradition, Atlanta, Georgia: John Knox Press, 1981, p. 72