Refuting Calvin’s Psychopannychia

Calvin’s Psychopannychia:  An Introduction

John Calvin was a French theologian, a pastor, and someone who had a major influence during the Protestant Reformation.  Calvin published his small book Psychopannychia in 1534 when he was only 25 years old.   In his work, Calvin claims that the early church father Eusebius is responsible for the following statement “the soul dies with the body and that both rise again at the Day of Judgment.”  He claims that this idea began with Eusebius and has now begun to spark up interest by the group called the Anabaptists. (pg 6)

Calvin titled his work Psychopannychia, which means “the sleep of the soul” because it is a refutation of those that believe the soul either ceases to exist or sleeps upon bodily death.  In addition, he added the extremely long subtitle; “or, a refutation of the error entertained by some unskillful persons, who ignorantly imagine that in the interval between death and the judgment the soul sleeps. Together with an explanation of the condition and life of the soul after this present life.”   Calvin saw himself as protecting the church against heresy or false teaching.  While his heart may have been in the right place, it doesn’t seem that he always approached his opponents with a loving manner.  He repeatedly attacks their character appealing to their lack of knowledge and at one point refers to them as the “nefarious herd of Anabaptists”.  (pg 7)

In Calvin’s writing, he recognised the Biblical debate between the Pharisees and Sadducees in regards to the afterlife and the resurrection of the body. He mentions the early church father Tertullian five times in his book and Augustine of Hippo seven times.  Calvin seems to be highly influenced by both church fathers.  This makes perfect sense considering that both Tertullian and Augustine were the largest proponents for the immortality of the soul, and both helped to establish it as the doctrine of the developing Catholic church.  While Calvin reacted against the Catholic church theologically in several other areas, he sided with the Catholic church in regards to the immortality of the soul.  Calvin never mentions Martin Luther, who held and taught the idea of soul sleep prior to the Anabaptists adopting the teaching, but it seems that he may have had him in mind in writing this book.  Luther had previously written:

“As soon as thy eyes have closed shalt thou be woken, a thousand years shall be as if thou hadst slept but a little half hour. Just as at night we hear the clock strike and know not how long we have slept, so too, and how much more, are in death a thousand years soon past. Before a man should turn round, he is already a fair angel.” (Luther, Martin, WA, 37.191)

 While it would take a much larger response to address every argument and scripture Calvin either promotes for his view or uses to refute against it, what follows will is an attempt to address several of the key foundational issues that underline Calvin’s main arguments.  We will examine how Calvin was highly influenced by Platonic philosophy and derived his understanding of Biblical anthropology from him.  We will see that while Calvin is willing to concede that Biblically speaking animals have souls, or more accurately are referred to as living creatures (both nephesh and psuche), he proposes the Greek philosophical understanding of the rational soul solves this issue.

Calvin makes a critical error confusing the words spirit and soul, using them interchangeably and failing to recognise their distinctiveness.  As any theologian who affirms substance dualism forced to do, he is left with no choice but to redefine the very meaning of death itself.  Calvin seems to believe that his appeal to the ‘Imagio Dei’, (man being made in the image and likeness of God) is his trump card that can refute any opposing argument.  What Calvin fails to recognise is that this argument is very easily refuted when scripture is read in context and when his argument is extrapolated out beyond just the idea of the immortality of the soul.

Calvin claims that Christ is the model of our death and resurrection, which all Christians should be able to affirm.  When he applies his anthropology to Christ, death is no longer truly an enemy and is not complete in scope; it is a small roadblock in transitioning to a new form of life and a closer existence to Gods presence.  Calvin, along with others ironically appeals to Jesus interaction with the Sadducees and declares that because God is not the God of the dead but the living, that all must be alive.  As Tyndale has famously pointed out this argument negates Jesus entire appeal to the Sadducees that there must be a resurrection of the dead.  Finally, Calvin uses several standard ‘proof texts’ that have been used to appeal for the justification of both an intermediate state and the immortality of the soul.

Calvin’s Platonic View of the Soul:

In his work, Calvin proposes a Platonic view of the immortal soul.  This should come as no surprise, seeing that he was highly influenced by Augustine.  Calvin says elsewhere:

“If I were inclined to compile a whole volume from Augustine, I could easily show my readers, that I need no words but his” (Institutes, Book III, chap. 22)

Augustine highly influenced Calvin, and in turn, Augustine was highly influenced by the Greek philosopher Plato.  Augustine once said:

“It is evident that none come nearer to us than the Platonists.” (Augustine- City of God, Book 8, Ch 5)

As Calvin lays out his understanding of the soul, he echoes the Platonic sentiments that the soul is a substance separate from the body and that it survives bodily death.  Calvin says that the soul is a “substance distinct from the body”. (pg 17). He also states that “the body, which decays, weighs down the soul”. (pg 34) Because the body is seen as a hindrance to the soul, Calvin thinks that “the body is the prison of the soul”. (pg 34) Calvin’s says that the Anabaptists do not believe in a conscious existence or state of being between death and resurrection.  Calvin states:

“we, on the other hand, maintain both that it (the soul) is a substance, and after the death of the body truly lives, being endued both with sense and understanding.” (pg 11)

Calvin believes that we are souls inhabiting a body.  Upon death, the body dies, and the soul lives on.  For him, the soul is an outer shell of the true self.  Again, he says:

“This, if you attend to it, you must see to apply to the soul, which dwells in a clay body. He did not call man a vessel of clay, but says that he inhabits a vessel of clay, as if the good part of man (which is the soul) were contained in that earthly abode.” (pg 15)

For the sake of clarity, Calvin emphasises his main point and leaves the reader no room for doubt concerning his aim in writing the book.  Calvin believes that the soul is immortal and does not die or sleep when the body dies.

“For I come to The Second Head, which I propose to discuss, viz., that the soul, after the death of the body, still survives, endued with sense and intellect. And it is a mistake to suppose that I am here affirming anything else than the immortality of the soul.”  (pg 17) {emphasis mine}

 Animals Have Souls:

Calvin admits that all animals are called “souls” Biblically speaking and that all animals also have the “breath of life”. (pg 41) However, Calvin appeals to the idea that there are different kinds of souls.  This is a line of argument that is found in both Plato and Aristotle, but this delineation is never made within the Biblical language.  Scripture never distinguishes between an animal and human nephesh or psuche.  The Greek understanding of the soul was that the soul could be differentiated by the ability of the animal, humans having the highest level as a result of their rational and cognitive abilities.  Therefore, the reason is Calvin’s rebuttal the problem that both animals and human have souls.

Calvin says, “seeing, then, that the soul of man possesses reason, intellect, and will – qualities which are not annexed to the body – it is not wonderful that it subsists without the body, and does not perish like the brutes.”  (pg 41) In this case, Calvin has no Biblical scripture to quote or to back up his claim.  He appeals to the notion that humans have the ability to reason and therefore, they must have an immortal soul.  He makes a logical jump without being able to support his argument with scripture.  As a result, his argument is lacking, to say the least.

Confusing the Words Spirit and Soul:

Throughout his work, Calvin intermingles the two words soul and spirit.  At times he wants to use them as synonymous, and at other times he chooses to make a distinction between them.   Calvin fails to recognise that the two words are distinct in the Bible.  The Hebrew and Greek words for spirit are never translated into the English word soul, not a single time in any of our modern translations of the Bible. And yet Calvin states, “when the two terms are joined, “soul” means will, and “spirit” means intellect.” (pg 13)

Any time the word soul is used in context with death, Calvin wants to argue that “soul is there used metonymically for life” (pg 12) This allows him to pick and choose when to use the word soul as a substance that survives death or when it is simply to be translated as the word ‘life’.  For instance, he appeals to Matthew 10:28 but doesn’t see there that a soul can die.

Calvin sees both Jesus and Stephens deaths (Luke 23:4,6; Psalm 31:6, Acts 7:59.) as their spirit returning to God (also citing Ecc 12:7) but in order to do this he has to translate the Greek word pneuma meaning spirit into the Greek word psuche.  Scripture doesn’t have a single instance where this is done in translation, but Calvin seems to justify in order to prove his theological bias.

The Redefinition of Death:

Anyone arguing for the concept of the immortal soul will have to redefine the basic and common definition of the word ‘death’.  However, it is not just this word but other Biblical words such as perish, consume, destroy and others that all refer to the cessation of life.  Calvin understands this.  For example, when the soul is associated with death in the following texts, he sees this as pertaining only to the body.  However, scripture never makes that distinction in death, not once.

“The soul that sinneth, it shall die,” (Ezekiel 28:4)

 “The soul which turneth aside to wizards and soothsayers shall die the death,” (Leviticus 20:6)

In the same way, Calvin says he has heard the argument that Adam and Eve became mortal after sinning in the garden.  His opponents quote texts such as;

“dying ye shall die.” (Genesis 2:17)

“The wages of sin is death.” (Romans 6:23)

“The soul that sinneth shall die.” (Ezekiel 18:4)

“Dust thou art, and to dust shalt thou return,” (Gen 3:19)

“Remember how thou hast made me of clay, and will reduce me to dust.” (Job 10:9.)

Calvin makes a strange move in responding to these texts claiming that in these cases, the death of the soul means loss of God’s presence.  “Would you know what the death of the soul is? It is to be without God – to be abandoned by God, and left to itself: for if God is its life, it loses its life when it loses the presence of God.”  (pg 45). This leaves the reader with obvious questions such as how can one be separated from the presence of a God who is omnipresent.

Calvin’s attempts to redefine death only end up causing more problems theologically.  He even goes so far as to claim that all references to death as sleep are a form of synecdoche where the whole is sometimes taken for a part (pg 49). This allows him to bifurcate humanity and say that what the texts ‘really means’ is that the body sleeps, but the soul lives on after death.  Again, this is a distinction that scripture never makes.

Calvin Sees the Imago Dei as His Trump Card:

Calvin seems to think that the Imago Dei is his ultimate trump card: He can always appeal to it in order to win the theological debate regarding the immortality of the soul.  For Calvin, it is simple math.

1. “We are made in the image of God” (Genesis 1:16)

And

2. “God himself, is a Spirit, and cannot be represented by any bodily shape” (pg 13)

So

3. We have an immaterial spirit/soul within us that is also immortal

Calvin’s states, “yet that seat of the image of God always remains safe, whether they call it “soul” or “spirit,” or give it any other name.” (pg 43). Again, we see him confusing the two Biblical terms of soul and spirit.  The problem for Calvin’s argument is that the image or likeness of God is never tied to humanity having a spirit or soul because animals are called souls and are also given spirit or breath.  The Imagio Dei instead is connected to man’s vocation, his mandate to rule and reign over God’s creation as God’s co-regent on earth.

Calvin’s line of argument fails on two accounts.  First, the image of God is not connected to the immortality of God or the human soul.  Instead of being made in the image of God is connected to having dominion over God’s creation.  God created mankind to rule and reign over the earth.  Scripture says:

“Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”  (Genesis 1:26)

 Second, Calvin’s line of reasoning fails because when it is extrapolated further, it cannot be sustained.  Calvin’s line of thought is that mankind is made in the image of God and God is immortal; therefore man must be immortal as well.  But when we begin to apply other attributes of God to this form of reasoning, the logic becomes absurd.  We could also propose that mankind is made in the image and likeness of God and that God is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent.  I doubt that Calvin would be willing to concede that mankind also possesses these and other attributes commonly associated with God.  While it may sound like a great argument on the surface, it does not hold water when applied against scripture or reason.

Christ Our Model for Death:

Potentially Calvin’s strongest argument is that Christ is our model for both death and resurrection.  On this point, every Christian should be able to agree wholeheartedly.  He says, just “as he died and rose again, so do we also die and rise again.” (pg 26). Calvin then adds that Jesus has life in himself so he cannot die, at least not completely.  Death for Calvin is only a separating of the body from the soul; half of the person dies (the body) and the other half (the soul) lives on after death.  Calvin argues, just “as the Father hath life in himself, so hath he has given to the Son to have life in himself.” (John 5:26.)  Just a few pages later Calvin expounds on this idea more.

“yet he has it not of himself, as he elsewhere declares that he lives by the Father. And though as God he had life in himself, yet when he assumed human nature, he received from the Father the gift of having life in himself in that nature also. These things give us the fullest assurance that Christ could not be extinguished by death, even in respect of his human nature; and that although he was truly and naturally delivered to the death which we all undergo, he, however, always retained the gift of the Father. True! death was a separation of soul and body. But the soul never lost its life. Having been commended to the Father it could not but be safe.” (pg 28)

Adding to this idea, Calvin appeals to Jesus words concerning his analogy of his death to Jonah’s time in the belly of a fish.  For him, Jonah proves as a type that we exist as a soul after death.    Calvin says, “another proof of the immortality of his soul was given us by our Saviour when he made the confinement of Jonah three days within the whale’s belly to be a type of his death.” (pg 28). There are several problems with this argument.  First, this requires a literal reading of the book of Jonah, which some scholars say is meant as an allegory and is not to be taken as historical fact.  Even if the book of Jonah is to be taken as a historical account, there is also debate as to whether or not Jonah died in the belly of the fish and was later resurrected after being spit out.  Language in the second chapter of the book certainly leads us to believe this was a possibility.  Finally, even if Jonah did not die in the belly of the fish, Jesus use of this reference does not demand that the metaphor be stretched to mean that Jesus was alive as a disembodied spirit while his body lay in the tomb.  The farthest that we should take this metaphor is to mean that like Jonah, who spent three days and three nights in a fish, Jesus spent three days and nights in a tomb.  The metaphor works because the time frame is the same.  When stretch it seems to break down because Jonah was alive in a fish and Jesus was dead in a tomb.

It might be conceded that Calvin’s argument would solve all further dispute if his anthropology was correct.  However, it is not, so he fails to understand the incarnation of Christ, who became fully human for our sake.  Paul explains that Jesus literally went through a metamorphosis in the process of becoming a human being.  Jesus was in the form (Greek-morphe) of God but humbled himself and took the form (morphe) of a man.  In doing such a thing, Jesus divested himself of his immortality and became a mortal human susceptible to death.  Paul says:

“Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus,

Pre-incarnation:

who, although He existed in the form of God,

did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,

Incarnation:

but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant,

and being made in the likeness of men.

Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself

Death:

by becoming obedient to the point of death,

even death on a cross.

Resurrection:

For this reason, also, God highly exalted Him,

and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name,

Glorification:

so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow,

of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,

to the glory of God the Father.”  (Philippians 2:5-11)

To say that Christ only partially died also seems to bring up potential problems for any view of the atonement which holds to substitution.

God of the Dead and the Living:

Calvin appeals to Jesus encounter with the Sadducees in which he told them that he is “not God of the dead but the living” (Mathew 12:32) to prove that the dead must somehow still be alive.  He takes Luke’s statement that “all live to him” (Luke 30:28) to be proof that the dead are still alive somewhere.  He says that “it follows, therefore, that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are alive.”  (pg 36). Calvin references Paul to try and further prove his point.  He thinks that Paul’s statement “for this Christ both died and rose again, that he might be Lord of the living and the dead” helps further prove his point.  (Romans 14:8-9).

However, what Calvin fails to see is that Paul speaks of death and then life ‘after’ being resurrected and not an intermediate state.  In addition, Jesus when talking to the Sadducees uses the phrase “he is not God of the dead but the living” to prove the resurrection precisely because these people are dead and need to rise again.  Calvin unknowingly reverses Jesus intended statement and strips him of the very argument he was trying to make with the Sadducees.  If the Israelite fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are not dead but living, the resurrection is not necessary.

Standard Proof Texts:

Besides the major arguments already discussed, Calvin’s Psychopannychia appeals to several other Biblical texts to make his case for the immortality of the soul.  He mentions that he has heard the argument against his position that judgment is reserved for the last day. (pg 54) Following this, he does not provide a very satisfactory explanation as to how this is not negated by an intermediate state that involves judgement and separation of the righteous and the wicked.  In his understanding, then, there must be an initial judgement that takes place upon death, and a secondary judgment that happens after Christ’s return and the resurrection of the dead occurs.  He later appeals to the historical argument which has been that souls are in paradise, or heaven, resting peacefully. (pg 60)

Calvin refers to Jesus’ parable of the ‘Rich man and Lazarus’ claiming that it must be a historical account and not a parable because Lazarus is named.  Here he provides a rule for deciphering history from parable but has no way of justifying why this rule should be followed.  He also states that “sleep” as it has pertained to death elsewhere in the Bible, is just a metaphor for being at peace in Abrahams bosom.  Calvin wants to take the narrative that Jesus provided to the Pharisees out of its literary context in order to justify his theology.  This becomes problematic when on one hand, he wants to say the account is historical and on the other has no way of justifying how in the parable both the Rich man and Lazarus seem to be embodied and are able to experience suffering and pain.

Calvin also draws attention to Christ’s encounter with the thief on the cross to justify the immortal soul and a disembodied intermediate state.  Because Jesus told the thief “today shalt thou be with me in paradise”, (Luke 22:42) this is all the proof Calvin needs to show that men survived death.  But this quickly becomes problematic for his timeline because Calvin also wants to confess that Jesus went to Hades as both Peter and Paul affirm in the book of Acts.  This places him firmly in line with the Catholic teaching of the ‘Harrowing of Hell’.  Jesus words to the thief actually fit the theology of his opponents better, when understood that this man will not experience time between death and resurrection.  This also fits with the Biblical picture of Paradise being a physical place in both Genesis and Revelation.  Calvin, on the other hand, cannot explain how Paradise which is understood to be the garden of God on earth, can also be in either Hades or Heaven, or how a physical place is also a place for disembodied souls.

Calvin sees death as the separation of the body and soul, so naturally, he appeals to Paul’s words to the church in Corinth when Paul said, to be “absent from the body and present with Lord”.  (2 Cor 5). Calvin says “we desire indeed to depart from this prison of the body, but not to wander uncertain without a home.” (pg 33).   For Paul, however, the home he longs for is the resurrected body not a disembodied Platonic state of existence.

Calvin believes that after death, Jesus went to preach to the spirits which he understands to be disembodied people, in prison and sees the justification for this idea in the apostle Peters letters.  (1 Peter 3:18-19, 4:6) He says, “Christ in spirit preached to those other spirits who were in prison – in other words, that the virtue of the redemption obtained by Christ appeared and was exhibited to the spirits of the dead.”  (pg 19). The problem with Calvin’s exegesis is that the term ‘spirits’ is not used to refer to human beings but angels or fallen angles Biblically speaking.  If humans are to be called ‘spiritual beings’ at all it is not justifiably until after their resurrection and glorification.  Paul’s Magna Carta on the resurrection of the death found in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 tells us that it is not until after we are resurrected that we will bear the image of the heavenly.

Finally, Calvin appeals to the book of Revelation for support of his view.  He says that the souls of the martyrs under the altar (Revelation 6:10-11) show us that humans must be in heaven as disembodied spirits.  Calvin rightly recognises that there is an argument to be made regarding this text in relation to Abel’s blood that is said to cry out to God.  Just as we don’t actually believe that Abel’s blood was making audible sounds crying out to God, we are not meant to think that John means these martyrs are actually stuck under an altar in heaven crying out to God as disembodied spirits awaiting their revenge.  But Calvin says that this is precisely how we should understand this text.  There is some irony in Calvin’s use of this text to justify his theology.  The text itself says that John sees the psuche or souls that have been slain.  For Calvin, a soul cannot be slain or killed because it is immortal, but that is exactly what John explains that he is seeing, souls that have been killed.

Conclusion

In regards to this matter, it would have behoved the young John Calvin to side with his reformation fathers Martin Luther and William Tyndale rather than the Catholic church.  His disdain for the Anabaptists may have partially blinded him to the truth.  It may have also been his infatuation with Augustine that caused him to build his anthropological foundation on Platonic dualism that which in turn did not allow him to read scripture without the lens of substance dualism.  Calvin’s Biblical attempt to justify the immortal soul is robust, but at the end of the day is found lacking.

What we have seen is that scripture never makes a distinction between humans and animals in regards to the language of the soul.  Calvin must appeal to Platonic philosophy for justification in those regards.  Calvin mixed the language of spirit and soul when it was convenient for him and separated them when it was not.  In an attempt to justify his anthropology, Calvin must redefine the very meaning of death itself.  Death no longer becomes the cessation of life and the return to the dust as God promises but the separation of body and soul.  His appeal to mankind being made in the image of God as a means to justify the immortal soul does not hold water.  Calvin rightfully appeals to Christ as our paradigm for death and resurrecting but fails to put the incarnation of Jesus into the correct framework of Biblical anthropology.

In conclusion, the Bible nowhere attributes immortality to humanity but instead mortality and the inevitability of death.  On the contrary to Calvin’s appeal, scripture explicitly states that only God possesses immortality.  Calvin’s strongest evidence for an intermediate state between death and resurrection is found in a parable that he attempts to justify as a historical account.  Scripture also nowhere states that humanity is going to heaven.  On the contrary, it does say that Jesus will return in the same way he came to resurrect the dead and dwell on the earth.

Other Articles

John Calvin on Psalm 31:5

A Brief tour of Reformation Conditionalism

Hades; Or, The Intermediate State of Man by Henry Constable

About David Tatum

David Tatum received his BA in Philosophy and Theology from Point Loma Nazarene University and went on to get his Masters in Divinity at Nazarene Theological Seminary. He is currently pursuing his Ph.D. at the University of Birmingham in the UK. David has been a pastor and educator in Christian education for the last 15 years. He is the proud father of three children and competes in Ironman triathlons in his spare time. He started and administers a Facebook Group discussing Biblical Anthropology

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