Anti-Catholic Reformed Protestant John Q. Doe Again (for the Umpteenth Time) Misrepresents My Views: This Time Regarding Calvin and His Remarks on Public Repentance and "Symbolic" Absolution

I documented this constant practice of Doe's very recently. The topic last time was purgatory. In that instance, he falsely claimed that I and other Catholic apologists (folks like Keating and Madrid) were inaccurately conveying the biblical indications of purgatory (making them much stronger and developed than they are). This time (having learned nothing), he insinuates, in his paper, Calvin and Penance (9-22-11), that I am conveying (willingly or not) an inaccurate impression of what Calvin believed, by citing (he would say, too selectively and out of context) one statement of his. His words will be in blue.
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Here's a quote which is supposed to be an example of a way in which Calvin and Romanism are in some sort of harmony:

[John Calvin] "I will speak briefly of the rite of the early Church, ... By the order observed in public repentance, those who had performed the satisfactions imposed upon them were reconciled by the formal laying on of hands. This was the symbol of absolution by which the sinner himself regained his confidence of pardon before God, ... I consider that ancient observance ... to have been holy and salutary to the Church, and I could wish it restored in the present day." ("Institutes," IV, 19:14)

The quote in this exact form has since disappeared from the Facebook page I first saw it on a few weeks ago (or I simply can't find it). Other versions of the quote are floating around as well that are slightly longer, but don't add anything more to the point being made.
As usual, Doe doesn't mention that it comes from me. In this case, he is excused from making a link (he usually doesn't, anyway, where I am concerned) by the fact that he finds himself unable (inexplicably) to locate the post on my Facebook page. Perhaps he isn't aware that, on Facebook, posts eventually become "old" and move off of the front page in due course. That is the case here. So one scrolls to the bottom, locates the textual link, "Older Posts" and clicks on it. Not rocket science . . . and scarcely different (if at all) from blogs and websites, that Doe is surely familiar with (since he has his own).

In this case, one had to click on that once and scroll down a little bit. The post in question (in caps, "Calvin and Penance") was a short "status" post, dated 9-13-11 (6:07 PM). The interesting question is to ask Doe how he has the quotation in the first place, straight from my Facebook page (which is undeniable from the placement of the ellipses), seeing that he now claims he can't find it? I guess at the time he grabbed it, hoping to try to "refute" me in the future.

I should note that the second and third set of ellipses (". . .") were added to make the quote fit, because one is allowed only so many characters (500, I think) in a status post. I have to mention this because Doe has been known to write entire posts detailing some nefarious conspiracy in my apologetics, based on use of ellipses.

If all that's being asserted is that both Rome's teaching and Calvin both admit that the early church practiced public repentance, then indeed Calvin and Romanism are both in harmony on the facts of history. Then again, any historical source that mentions this tidbit could be said to be in harmony with Romanism. 

I asserted nothing at all in the Facebook post.

On the other hand, if a Romanist were arguing that Calvin was some way in harmony with Rome's sacrament of penance or that Calvin's view of penance was somewhat like Rome's sacrament of penance, then that would simply be an error.
I argued nothing, either. I simply presented this as evidence of common ground, as far as it goes. It is Doe who is making all these silly assumptions about what I was trying to argue, just as he did last time in relation to purgatory. So he inadequately and absurdly speculates as to what I am arguing, in falsely claiming that I was supposedly inadequately and absurdly speculating on Calvin's view of penance. I always immensely enjoy the humorous ironies present in any failed Doe analysis of my apologetics.

Calvin argues in IV, 19:3 that the notion of seven sacraments was unknown in the early church.  He then goes on to argue that penance doesn't qualify as a sacrament (IV, 19:14-17). 
I never stated, nor implied that he didn't do so. Now it is necessary to look at the larger context in my own papers and books, to clarify what I was doing here. Doe is still without excuse in so wildly misinterpreting my intentions, as I will clearly demonstrate. In the third comment in the combox for the Facebook post, I provide a link to the paper from which I drew the quotation. Note the title (and especially the use of quotation marks):

The "Catholic" John Calvin: 50 Areas Where His Views Are Harmonious With Catholic Teaching 

It's extraordinary that Doe (for all his pompous self-promotion as the Reformed Researcher Extraordinaire) can't do so many things:

1) He couldn't figure out how to locate my quotation, so as to properly document it, before setting out to savage my research.

2) Even if he does find a source of mine he wishes to critique he habitually can't bring himself to actually link to it, so that readers may see both sides of the story.

3) He can't name me, lest someone be led astray down the "Romanist" road of destruction and the sky fall down. By not linking to papers of mine that he is criticizing, no one can even see whose they are, or read them in their entirety; whereas I link to his posts whenever I reply to their distortions, so that people can easily discover his real name (and I have explained why I use "Doe" in semi-provocative fashion), and read his entire paper.

4) He found my quotation on my Facebook page at some point, because he now has it, but at the time he visited it, he couldn't figure out that it was from a much longer paper, that I linked to in the third comment, complete with a painting of Calvin visible (hence, that more context and intentions could be found there). Doe is not even aware of this himself, let alone making the fact known to his readers who are enduring another vapid "anonymous" attack on my apologetics.

5) Then he either didn't visit the longer paper before setting out in his ridiculous and failed present efforts at "refutation" or if he did, he obviously missed the explicit disclaimer at the beginning (cited below).

6) Had he read the disclaimer, the whole thing would be a complete non-issue, and he couldn't possibly have made the rather stupid claims he is now making about what my intentions were, or if not deliberate intentions, the supposed irresponsible result of my citations.

Once we get to the larger paper from which the short quote on Facebook was drawn (i.e., the paper that I linked to there), we discover that the quotation in question is #49 (of 50). Note the title I use to describe it: "Approximation of the Catholic Sacrament of Penance." That gives a big indication of what was in my head. But no doubt is left if Doe had found and troubled himself enough to actually read the disclaimer at the beginning of the paper (after giving the source info. on the version of the Institutes I used, and providing the link to the entire online version (so people can check any quote in full context):

Note: I don't intend to imply that Calvin agrees with Catholics in every jot and tittle of all the following categories. What is agreed-upon is what is actually stated in these particular comments, which may be just a part of a doctrine or practice, not all of it. Two parties can agree, for example, on the basic fundamentals of a question, and then go on to differ on more minute particulars that each feels are a logical extension of the premises.

That said, the areas of agreement are voluminous and extraordinary, and my hope is that this compendium will give both Catholics and Calvinists a feel for how close we really are in many respects, despite our many honest, serious differences.

All the citations below were included in the extensive, 66-page compilation at the end of my book, Biblical Catholic Answers for John Calvin. That section thus accounts for about 18% of the 388 pages (minus the introductory sections).

This is quite sufficient to clear up any misconceptions that Doe has regarding the quote. It answers all of his questions and speculations before he uttered them. But obviously Doe never read this. Moreover, you see how the paper was in turn taken from my book on Calvin. In the book it appears on the very last page (p. 388), under the same title. We know that Doe has my book, because he has reviewed it (anonymously!), six times.

Moreover, Doe is aware that I posted the entirety of my replies to Calvin's Institutes, Book IV (listed at the top of my Calvin, Calvinism, and General Protestantism web page). Thus, Doe could easily look up the paper where I dealt with IV: 19:14 (since I listed them in the order of Calvin's sections). Doe can actually learn to do a word search ("Control-F" on a keyboard) to find the relevant section. If he managed to do that, he would discover that I made very little comment on the section. All I stated was: "We can be thankful, however, that Calvin retains some remote notion of formal penance and absolution." Obviously I wasn't equating his notion with the Catholic one at all.

Furthermore, I have a section in my book on Calvin, entitled, "Absolution and Forgiveness of Sins by the Clergy" (pp. 164-167).  In it I stated, concerning Calvin's conception of these notions (p. 166):

Calvin intends more or less a preaching function (which is classic "low church" Protestantism): tell people the message of reconciliation and they (by God's grace and His will) will receive it of their own accord without need of sacramental absolution or even baptismal regeneration.

Calvin neglects to also include the transactional element of forgiveness of sins, through a priest, acting as the representative of God, as opposed to a mere declaration of the same (the preaching of the gospel of forgiveness). Calvin wants to spiritualize all this away, just as he (largely) does with baptism and the Eucharist. Binding and loosing are not merely the equivalent to the gospel: another way of saying "gospel."

The priest does not only, merely declare (by preaching or evangelizing) the availability of forgiveness and reconciliation through God's grace, to be subjectively appropriated by the individual; he also brings it about as a sacramental agent. Calvin apparently rejects this latter element.

So we have no less than six pieces of hard evidence that I was not engaged in an effort (as Doe accuses me) to pretend as equivalent what is clearly not:

1) The title of the paper in which the citation is found (prominently linked to in the Facebook post).

2) The title over the citation (#49) from the same paper.

3) The lengthy disclaimer in the paper, describing exactly what I was intending to argue.

4) The one-sentence comment on this section in the paper that was part of my complete reply to Institutes, Book IV (a series of replies Doe was quite aware of).

5) The title provided for the citation on p.388 of my book on Calvin (that Doe has in his possession).

6) Clarification of my understanding of Calvin's view of "penance and absolution" in my book (p. 166).

All of this, yet Doe can't comprehend just what it was that I was trying to argue and accomplish with the citation. It's truly astonishing (but not surprising to me, being quite familiar with his ramshackle research through the years). Now, having established and documented all of this that was perfectly accessible to Doe, to find out, let's go back to what he claims in his current paper:

Calvin then goes on to argue that penance isn't a sacrament (IV, 19:15). If there's any similarity between Calvin and Romanism here, it isn't at all related to penance being a sacrament.
Yes, of course. I know Doe regards me as dumber than a doornail and not to be taken seriously (as he has stated innumerable times), but does he really think I am so stupid as to not know that Calvin believed in only two sacraments?  That's why I described his citation in my book and a paper based on it, "Approximation of the Catholic Sacrament of Penance." Duh!!!!

True, Calvin here states he would be in favor of the ancient observance of public penance. To my knowledge though, Romanism isn't interested in reviving the practice in the form Calvin outlines.
Never said it was, but this is irrelevant to the point, anyway.

For Calvin, the recent practice was a deterioration. This would hardly be similar to what Rome believes about the positive development of doctrine.
That's entirely beside the point as well, and no part of my argument, either.

In the Romanist version above of IV, 19:14, 
It's not a "Romanist version," it is simply a slightly edited citation taken from a Calvinist translation of Calvin.

the selective citation appears to place an emphasis on "the formal laying on of hands" as "the symbol of absolution by which the sinner himself regained his confidence of pardon before God." The Romanist selective citation process chooses this as that which Calvin wishes restored. 
Yes, because laying on of hands was a sacramental gesture. Calvin lies about what the early Church believed. For them, it was not merely a "symbol," but an actual transactional absolution: granting of forgiveness by God through the priest. I was well aware of all this, and wrote about it; nevertheless the similarities at least in outward form and general concept, remain, and that was all I was highlighting, per the disclaimer in the paper.

Is this the way in which Calvin and Romanism are similar?
Yes: outwardly in the laying on of hands, having to do with some semblance of absolution for sin (which is merely symbolic for Calvin. It's why I called it  an "approximation" in my book and "'Catholic' Calvin" paper, and "some remote notion of formal penance and absolution" in my critique-paper for this section of the Institutes. One would think that Doe could get something right once in a while, if only by accident.

As I read Calvin here, he doesn't appear to think the laying on of hands is crucial to the practice of public penance, even if it were restored.
I never said that he did. Doe's analysis is a classic instance of relentless non sequitur comments.

One other point of difference as well: According to this section from the Institutes, Calvin understood that "symbol of absolution" to be just that, a symbol.
No kidding!!! That was in my citation, so this is a needless thing to point out.

As I understand Calvin,  he denies the Bishop is forgiving the sin, only Christ can do that. A clergyman only proclaims the forgivness [sic] of sins.

Yep; no new revelation here, either.

I've gone through this little exercise of compare / contrast not in any effort to prove the dishonesty of the quote being put forth on Facebook. 
A rare case where Doe doesn't accuse me of deliberate dishonesty.

Rather, I think the quote as selectively cited shows how a particular worldview, in this case, a Romanist worldview, sees what it wants to. 
Sheer hogwash. I have proven that I perfectly understand what Calvin's belief was, and exactly how it was similar to ours and how it was dissimilar. I never argued for more than limited, qualified similarity and harmony: in some respects, not all. It is Doe who can't comprehend how I was arguing, because of his blinding anti-Catholic prejudice and also personal hostility to me. All the noncomprehension in this case lies with him, not myself.

It begins by presupposing the truth of Roman Catholicism, and then applies that template to Calvin.
As we have seen, this is a grossly inaccurate description of what I did.

Calvin's words are put forth in some sort of ecumenical attempt to demonstrate Calvin's agreement with a distinctive of Roman Catholicism.  When one reads Calvin in context though, his entire presentation at this point is to distinguish the Christian faith from Romanism. 
No kidding. Hence, we observe yet another atrocious example of Doe "reasoning" and "argument": a complete failure; utterly out to sea as to what the view that he opposes actually is, and precisely that I was contending in the first place. He does this repeatedly: all the while claiming to be such a profound researcher, while I am allegedly a prime example of the complete opposite: an incompetent buffoon and not fit to be called an apologist at all. Readers may judge the facts of the matter. I'm confident that anyone with any shred of fairness will conclude that Doe has royally botched this "refutation."

To conclude, I shall now add a comment that my friend Paul Hoffer made in Doe's combox for his post.  I have been banned for a long time on Doe's blog, so my commenting was out of the question. Paul's comments are often allowed, so he still has a chance to get in.  Nor is my name allowed to be mentioned on Doe's blog (thus, Paul had to use a pseudonym). Doe in his infinite wisdom and profoundly impartial judge-like fairness actually allowed it to be posted!:

Natamllc, you are greatly overreaching here.

All Mr. Swan established here is that Atty. Calvin did not share the view of the Catholic Church that reconciliation/penance is a sacrament which certainly is in accord with his widely known view that there are only two sacraments: baptism and communion. Our host did not lay out any ad fontes evidence that any of the Early Church Fathers actually agreed with Calvin's view or for that matter that they agreed with the view of the Catholic Church.

Thus, if someone used this quote to make Atty. Calvin out to be some sort of closet Catholic, Mr. Swan would be certainly warranted in taking the quote-giver to task which he did here.

On the other hand, I have seen the Catholic-apologist-who-may-not-be-named-on-this-blog use this quote in a far more reasonable, responsible manner to show that there are areas of harmony between the Church and the Reformers that could be used as starting points of discussion between Catholics and Protestants. If our gracious host allows it, I could offer a link to that situs or folks can just go out and buy Lord Armovalidus' book, "Biblical Catholic Answers for John Calvin".

Mr. Swan,

I much appreciate your efforts to actually put before your audience what the Church teaches by referencing the Catechism.

God bless you both! (3:47 PM, 9-23-11)

In a personal message, Paul informed me that "Latin for Armstrong is Armovalidus."



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