Calvin and the Beasts: Animals in John Calvin's Theological Discourse

Abstract

"In the twentieth century, John Calvin’s theology of creation has been the subject of much debate, especially as it has ˜gured in controversies regarding the legitimacy of natural theology in Christian thought and of what is now called “animal theology” in Christian ethics. Read through systematic Barthian categories, Calvin’s thought on nature has been construed as conceptually negative, simply a thematic foil for an exclusive “theanthropocentric” gospel of salvi˜c revelation in Jesus Christ.1 At the hands of animal rights theologians, his thought has been reduced to a “humanocentric” misreading of the Christian message, a severe departure from the biblical vision of the peacable kingdom and a signi˜cant contributor to the Western desacralization of nature.2 Consequently, studies in historical theology, shaped by such ideological concerns, have routinely obscured what Calvin actually said about the excellence and integrity of creation"