Calvin Is RC?

“I suspect Calvin's own Catholic infant baptism really left an impression on him. He was not re-baptized for he believed that the Romish baptism was valid. It's hard to get around that creedal statement "I believe in one baptism for the forgiveness of sins", not one baptism for the sign of forgiveness of sins.”

The above quote is from Tiber’s Blog. He has been citing John Calvin as if John Calvin were really a sacramentalist of the Roman Catholic stripe. This is odd since every reformed person I know of would never see Calvin in that way. Perhaps all of these Reformed churches and Reformed people that I know have been in error for centuries now as to their own beliefs about Calvin? What an odd thing that would be.

As for Calvin not rejecting his baptism, is Tiber not familiar that the Reformed Tradition still clings to paedobaptism (yes there are reformed credobaptist people such as myself. I am simply referring to Presbyterian churches)? Some Reformed teachers would still defend Roman baptism as being valid today (anyone listen to the debate between White and Douglas Wilson?) Yet does Wilson believe in the sacraments in the same way as a Roman Catholic? If I were to use Tiber’s interpretative method, I could just as easily consider Wilson a Roman Catholic.

Calvin was a man of his times. He debated about the issues that were pressing in his day. He firmly taught Sola Fide, Sola Gratia and Sola Christus, and shockingly enough, he even taught Sola Scriptura. Perhaps if the situation were different he would have gone against the notion of infant Baptism. As one Reformed Baptist has noticed, “I can agree with Books 1,2 and 3, but book 4 (of Calvin’s Institutes) goes south” [my own paraphrase].

In other words, Calvin’s teaching is solid throughout his Institutes until he attempts to defend paedobaptism. The beauty about being a Reformed Protestant and standing firmly in that Tradition, is that I may test all things in light of Scripture. Tiber may not.