The appearance of Susan Schreiner's book The Theater of His Glory in 1991 continued a line of study on Calvin's understanding of creation and the natural order begun by Richard Stauffer in 1978 (Dieu, la Creation et la Providence dans la Prédication de Calvin). Schreiner's work, a revision of her dissertation, argues for continuity between medieval and Reformation thought on the understanding of natural law. Schreiner, who is an associate professor of church history and theology at the University of Chicago Divinity School, has, in fact, continued to write on this subject, submitting the chapter, 'Calvin's Use of Natural Law' in the volume, A Preserving Grace: Protestants, Catholics, and Natural Law, ed. Michael Cromartie (Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 1997). This latest book is an attempt at finding common ground between Roman Catholics and Evangelicals, in particular, common ethical platforms upon which issues of contemporary concern may be addressed. The attempt to find some trappings of natural law in Calvin has, then, an urgent and current motivation.

In The Theater of His Glory Schreiner suggests that Calvin's understanding of natural law has been unduly confused by twentieth-century polemics, particularly the controversy between Barth and Brunner, and, as with much else in Calvin studies, there exists a need to retreat ad fontes (to the originals), and, more particularly, to appreciate Calvin within his own time.

The Theater of His Glory, a title borrowed from a phrase used by Calvin in the Institutes (I.v.8; I.vi.2; I.xiv.20; II.vi.1), is an analysis of Calvin's under­standing of the natural order and his dependence on, and agreement with, medieval and ancient traditions. Schreiner's conclusion, which appears in the opening pages for the sake of clarity, is that Calvin 'stood in the line of continuity with the past teachings of the church' (p. 2). Calvin, she insists, did not engage in a polemic against the medieval insistence upon natural theology; instead, in Book I of the Institutes, which is devoted to the knowledge of God the Creator (as opposed to later sections of the Institutes which deal specifically with the Knowledge of God the Redeemer), Calvin appeals to a natural 'awareness of divinity' (sensus divinitatis) and a 'seed of religion' (semen religionis) in every man. Appealing to Romans 1:18ff, Schreiner notes that Calvin can state that the conviction of God's existence is 'naturally inborn in all, and is fixed deep within, as it were in the very marrow' (Inst. I.3.1, 3; 4.1).

Theologians in this century have been sharply divided over natural theology and Calvin's supposed position on it. Some, while accepting the theoretical possibility of it in Eden, claim that the fall obliterated such a possibility entirely (Karl Barth, and in defence of his position Peter Brunner, Peter Barth, Wilhelm Neisel, T F. Torrance and T H. L. Parker), and oth­ers, just as vehemently, defending Calvin's acceptance of, at least, some modified form of a revealed knowledge of God in a post-lapsarian condition, though falling short of a saving knowledge of God (E. Doumergue, Emil Brunner, Edward Dowey, J. T McNeill, Arthur Cochrane and William Bouwsma) .

Cutting through the Barth-Brunner debate (which, according to Schreiner, is dogged by different definitions of 'natural law': an observation which is surely correct), Schreiner emphasises (in chapter 3) Calvin's adher­ence to an Augustinian view of human fallenness and inability in sin, thus making any form of full-blown natural theology impossible, whilst at the same time arguing that Calvin held to a view of fallen humanity which is capable of reasoning, learning from 'the common light of nature,' and even of aspiring towards truth, albeit, from the point of view of salvation, in an inadequate way. The reason why fallen man does not succumb to complete irrationality, and why creation does not disintegrate (Calvin argues in his Genesis commentary that creation is inherently unstable even before the Fall and that apart from the intervention of God's hand in providence restrain­ing the primeval forces the natural order would collapse into chaos), is because of God's positive restraint. This is exercised: (a) in the conscience (the seed of religion still remains and conviction of God's existence and the demands of law still impinge), and (b) in creation itself since God upholds the created order by his providence, which is his positive involvement in every aspect of reality. In particular, creation, according to Schreiner's under­standing of Calvin, is a mirror that displays the glory of God. However, only with the eyes of faith and with the benefit of special revelation can one properly perceive God in the natural world (pp. 65-66). Without special revelation, the knowledge of God is, to use the words of T. H. L. Parker, 'still­born.'

Significantly, Schreiner sees Calvin's doctrine of providence, by which that Reformer teaches that God is both actively involved in the preserving and government of the natural world as further corroborating Calvin's adherence to natural law in his theological system. Noting that historical theology has largely failed to find one systematic centre to Calvin's thought, Schreiner suggests that the over-arching idea, which she calls the 'proscenium arch', linking Calvin's thought together is his doctrine of providence.

Schreiner includes a separate chapter (chapter 2) on Calvin's understand­ing of angels in the providential ordering of the universe (this contribution is unique and fascinating). The book ends with an eschatological appraisal of the restoration of creation. Sin has brought disorder and chaos into the world; the goal of God's work is the restoration of creation and human nature. What is apparent now: God's restraint of wild beasts by a fear of human beings, and, in a parallel way, human fear of rulers (both exhibit a form of natural law), becomes a theatre in which God's ordering glory is seen. But, the cosmos awaits its final restoration, in the regeneration of all things. Not only are Christians advancing towards that goal, but, as Schreiner points out, Calvin also indicated the biblical emphasis of the restoration and renewal of the cosmos itself, something of which has already begun in the death and resurrection of Christ, but awaits its final consum­mation at the Second Coming.

Schreiner's work is important for at least the following reasons:

1. It presents a study of Calvin which analyses his thought not only from the Institutes and Commentaries, but also from his Sermons. The lack of availabil­ity of much of Calvin's sermonic material in English continues to hamper progress in our understanding of the Reformer;

2. Schreiner attempts to distance herself from the Barth-Brunner debate. This is a move in the right direction. The issues facing Barth in the 1920's have to be a universe away from that of Calvin. Twentieth-century debates have focused on epistemo­logical issues: How much knowledge of God does nature provide? Rather, the focus ought to be: To what extent does God operate in the natural realm? For, according to Calvin, God is no mere deus otiosus, an idle spectator from the vantage point of an ivory tower. Rather, he is the active governor of the world, the helmsman who steers the ship of nature. To this extent, Schreiner's shift of emphasis is helpful and reveals a sensitivity to the sixteenth-century debate. And yet her conclusion, that Calvin 'stood in the line of continuity with the past teachings of the church' (p.2), and that Calvin did not engage in a polemic against the medieval insistence upon natural theology is misleading. Calvin showed no interest in the philosophi­cal demonstration of the existence of God to which natural theology gives birth. There is in Calvin a qualification of medieval natural theology, some­thing which Schreiner, in the last analysis, fails to point out with sufficient clarity. In the end, as Schreiner herself admits, Calvin does not use the language of full-blown natural theology, but a qualified form of it. The use of the phrase 'natural theology' (one which Calvin himself does not use) is therefore inherently confusing. Furthermore, Schreiner's attempt to redirect the focus of the question away from epistemological considerations (How much knowledge of God does the natural man have?), is a valiant one; but, in the end, one suspects that it will prove a cul-de-sac, for the Pauline way of approaching the issue brings us back, not to providence as such, but episte­mology: 'that which may be known of God...' (Romans 1:19).

The issue is not as esoteric as it may appear. As Timothy George points out (A Preserving Grace, p. 79), there is an agenda to which the possibility of 'natural law' contributes. Roman Catholic assent to natural law goes back to Thomas Aquinas, and is endorsed by Vatican I (1870): 'The Holy Mother Church holds and teaches that God … may certainly be known by the natu­ral light of human reason, by means of created things.' Compare this with the Westminster Confession:

Although the light of nature, and the works of creation and providence, do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God, as to leave men inexcusable; yet they are not sufficient to give that knowledge of God, and of his will, which is necessary unto salvation.WCF I:i

If both Catholicism and evangelical Protestantism can subscribe a common base for 'natural theology', then both may engage in a 'co-belligerency on an array of moral concerns' (George, A Preserving Grace, p. 79). Hence the publication of the statement 'Evangelicals and Catholics Together' in 1994, and the continued ripples this has on the evangelical-Reformed world today as leading figures take different sides. The question is wider still: Are there 'transcendental truths' to which all men can subscribe and which provide a platform for a common condemnation of such evil practices in our modern world as abortion? That is an enterprise worthy of continued research.