Nelson D. Kloosterman schreibt im Sammelband zum Calvin-Jubiläum 2009, editiert von Joel R. Beeke, über Calvins Ethik:
“the concept of order was a fundamental category in Calvin’s theology,” a key to understanding his teaching on Christian spirituality.
Was verstand Calvin unter “Ordnung”?
For Calvin, the notion of order entailed “proper being, correct arrangement, beauty, harmony, symmetry, a situation as it ought to be; in a word, perfection, or…the presence of the Holy Spirit.” We might summarize this idea as “divinely proportioned harmony and integration” (captured well by the Latin word integritas).
Das geordnete Leben widerspiegelt Gottes Ebenbildlichkeit:
Living the rightly ordered, harmoniously proportioned life in relation to God, to others, and to the creation constituted humanity imaging God.
Bei der Beschreibung der Erschaffung Adams betonte Calvin diese Ebenbildlichkeit
…as the perfection, integration, and harmony of all of Adam’s senses and faculties.
Die Ordnung wurde durch den Sündenfall gestört.
Disorder and confusion replaced order and harmony, and disintegration replaced integration, through all of creation, among human beings, and within individuals themselves.
Daraus leitet sich das Ziel für die Wiederherstellung des Menschen in Christus ab:
Calvin identified the goal of the new life in Christ wrought by the Holy Spirit to be the manifestation of harmony and order between God’s righteousness and our obedience.
Es geht dabei nicht nur um eine äussere Ordnung:
With His law, God is not seeking merely an outward order, but inward spiritual order and true integrity of heart.
Die Erneuerung ist das Werk des dreieinen Gottes.
The Father is the source of order, Christ is the pattern of order, and the Holy Spirit is the restorer of order.
Die Erneuerung der Erwählten wirkt sich auch auf die äussere (gesellschaftliche) Ordnung aus.
In Calvin’s understanding, the restoration of history and of society is linked inseparably to the renewal of the elect…
This ordered life contributes to the gradual restoration of an ordered world.
Die Erneuerung geschieht durch die Kirche.
Calvin saw the church as the organ that led the renewal of both the cosmos and society.
