Passion and order in the formation of Calvin's sense of religious authority

This study considers the formation of Calvin's sense of religious authority, a sense rooted in both thought and emotion. To consider the dimensions of Calvin's experience that shaped this sense, it draws upon the insights and methods not only of intellectual and cultural history, but of social history and psychology as well.;This theme is then followed as it shaped his conception of the soul, the problem of his first theological work. His views are considered in relation to those of two leading Renaissance thinkers on this question, Marsilio Ficino and Pietro Pomponazzi.;From his first theological writings, Calvin not only asserted the principle of "Scripture alone," but that his way of interpreting it was the proper one. Interpretation and conviction were inseparable for Calvin. Hence this study considers this exegesis in the three major cultural contexts. It explicates a debate during Calvin's student days that pitted the renowned German humanist jurist Ulrich Zasius against Calvin's law professor at Orleans, Petrus Stella, in which the leading question was the proper interpretation of the Corpus Iuris Civilis of Justinian. It traces the influence in his Scriptural interpretation of practices derived from the jurists, and considers their relationship with humanist practices and assumptions.;Finally, this study considers several other dimensions to Calvin's changing relationships with each of the major cultures: enduring personality characteristics, his career preferences, common social attitudes that affected him, his life circumstances, and contemporary religious and political developments.;Its primary emphasis is upon three Renaissance cultural contexts, Roman law, humanism and speculative philosophy, and their differing assumptions as to what rendered a belief convincing. It devotes much attention to Calvin's youthful work, his Commentary on Seneca's 'De Clementia', to Calvin's intellectual concerns, and to the forms of authority to which he looked at that time for validation of a belief. Calvin's comments and use of classical sources reveal that the relation between the passions and virtue preoccupied him at this time.