Why Calvin? Naming a Seminary After a Theologian of Consolation

from the Summer 2025 issue of The Forum Magazine

When a seminary builds a connection with a specific historical figure through its choice of a name, what message does that send? When the founders of Calvin Theological Seminary chose its name, they thought it appropriate to use the name of the Reformer John Calvin. In doing so, they declared a correlation between Calvin’s theology and thought with their  vision for the seminary that has now been training future leaders of the church and the world for a century and a half. So, who was Calvin, and how did he understand his calling?

In the Meeter Center for Calvin Studies, a research institute and special collection that serves Calvin Theological Seminary as well as the wider world, there are dozens of portraits of John Calvin. They include diverse depictions, yet a few common characteristics are observable throughout the collection. Calvin often is viewed as scholarly and authoritative. He sometimes seems aloof and stoic, as if he can’t be distracted by the mundane earthly matters that occupy most ordinary mortals. In many pictures, he appears grimly somber, looking as if he’s about to deliver a heady sermon or lecture. 

He could indeed be somewhat dominant and controlling. He knew that his intellect was quite exceptional. But his pastoral heart for people also was evident to those who came to know him. Those who gathered around his deathbed, deeply mourning his imminent departure, represented the many who came to love and respect his words and his work. Furthermore, many associate Calvin with difficult doctrines such as predestination and election. “Calvin, huh? Wasn’t he the one who wrote the Institutes of the Christian Religion to claim that everything is predestined and humans are like passive and powerless robots?” He is portrayed as “that theologian” who was fixated on God’s forceful decrees and humanity’s lack of agency. Others regard him as “that scold” who focused on self-denial, making everyone around him feel miserable or guilty. 

There may be grains of truth to these perspectives. Yes, he did emphasize the sovereignty of God and the fallen nature of human beings. Yes, he did believe that our life should be a continuous striving toward denying ourselves and loving God. Yet that was certainly not all he preached, taught, and wrote.  Calvin’s theology in sum is a compassionate, warm, and pastoral one. So, how does Calvin define theology and its glorious purpose?

In the first edition of his Institutes, published in 1536, Calvin wrote a prefatory letter to King Francis I of France. In it, he explicitly presented the “why” behind this scholarly project, his first ever theological writing to be printed: “My purpose was solely to transmit certain rudiments.” Throughout the letter, Calvin focused on the intellectual facet of theology, as he described his mission as helping the French to understand the right knowledge of Christ, encouraging the king to contemplate the truth, and defending the true teachings of the faith. However, he had another purpose, perhaps a deeper impetus that went beyond this transmission of knowledge. His greater aim was to ensure that those who “are touched with any zeal for religion might be shaped to true godliness.” For Calvin, theology was not merely about the right sort of theological knowledge. That was indeed a crucial element, but the more profound purpose had to do with edification, elevation, consolation, and transformation. 

And Calvin definitely walked the talk. He did not simply say that theology was for transforming the heart. He did indeed write a book that laid out all the right and wrong beliefs, but that was certainly not all he did. In fact, Calvin consistently connected major doctrines to pastoral concerns, showing how they speak into our everyday joys and challenges. Let us look at an example: his doctrine of covenant. As you probably know, covenant is a major feature of the Reformed tradition and is presented as one of the three doctrines that constitute the Reformed accent. In Reformed communities, there have been continual discussions and debates concerning the doctrine: Was there a true covenant of works before the Fall? Are the old and new covenants the same? Was there an eternal covenant of redemption within the Trinity? Are there conditions in the covenant of grace? These are all important questions with considerable implications. Calvin certainly weighed in on some, if not all, of these issues. However, his approach to this crucial doctrine shows how he understood the purpose of theology.

When we turn to Calvin’s own treatment of the covenant, especially in the Institutes, we find exactly this pastoral orientation at the heart of his doctrine. In the chapter that explores the theme of covenant, Calvin explains that the purpose of this doctrine is not to win a polemical point or to provide a purely conceptual framework for theological clarity. Instead, it is to strengthen faith. For Calvin, the covenant is God’s chosen way of binding himself to his people, a bond that assures them of God’s unwavering faithfulness and encourages them amid hardship. It is not a dry abstraction but a living promise that shapes how believers live, suffer, hope, and persevere. Calvin spends the bulk of his exposition not on minute theological definitions, but on carefully and exhaustively narrating the lives of patriarchs including Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, drawing out the sorrows, losses, and disappointments they endured while clinging to God’s promises. In doing so, Calvin not only reaffirms the continuity of the covenant across the two Testaments, but also points to its central meaning: that even in their deepest affliction, God’s people are never abandoned. The covenant, then, becomes a deep well of consolation—a theological truth meant to be lived, not just studied. Calvin gifted this doctrine to his readers to be an ever-flowing wellspring of joy, hope, peace, and assurance.

So, what is in a name? For Calvin Theological Seminary, our name is more than a nod to the past and a historical figure of note. It represents a calling and passion. To name a seminary after John Calvin is not simply to endorse a set of doctrines or to align with a particular theological tribe. It is to recognize a vision of theology that is deeply pastoral, a vision that insists doctrine must serve life. It is to declare that truth is meant to console the afflicted, anchor the doubting, lift up the weary, and contribute to the common good of the world that God cherishes dearly. The portraits in the Meeter Center might often depict Calvin as austere, but the theology he penned reveals a man profoundly concerned with the human condition, someone who believed that right knowledge of God and self would lead not to despair, but to overflowing hope, joy, and love.

This is the Calvin we honor as we bear his name, not a cold logician or an angry polemicist, but a shepherd-theologian whose work was aimed at comforting and edifying God’s people. For all who enter into the mission of Calvin Theological Seminary, this legacy offers not just a framework for thinking, but a model for living: to approach theology not merely as intellectual gymnastics, but as a vessel for spiritual renewal that transforms the common good. If we are to live into the name we carry, then let us remember the warmth behind the doctrines, the compassion undergirding the convictions, and the faithful God who, through covenant and promise, continues to bind himself to his people in love.