The doctrine of Scripture

Bible

The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...

 plays a vital role in the writings of John Calvin

John Calvin

John Calvin was an influential French theologian and pastor during the Protestant Reformation. He was a principal figure in the development of the system of Christian theology later called Calvinism. Originally trained as a humanist lawyer, he broke from the Roman Catholic Church around 1530...

. John Calvin's view of Scripture can be found mainly in his Institutes of the Christian Religion

Institutes of the Christian Religion

The Institutes of the Christian Religion is John Calvin's seminal work on Protestant systematic theology...

.

Necessity

Calvin

John Calvin

John Calvin was an influential French theologian and pastor during the Protestant Reformation. He was a principal figure in the development of the system of Christian theology later called Calvinism. Originally trained as a humanist lawyer, he broke from the Roman Catholic Church around 1530...

 viewed Scripture

Bible

The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...

 as necessary in two ways.

• General revelation
  General revelation
  General revelation is a term used by theologians which refers to a universal aspect of God, of God's knowledge and of spiritual matters, discovered through natural means, such as observation of nature , philosophy and reasoning, human conscience or providence or providential history...
  
   cannot in itself give us a saving knowledge of God
  God
  God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
  
  . Although he can be known in some ways through creation he has "added the light of his Word in order that he might make himself known unto salvation." Calvin compares Scripture to being like a pair of spectacles, that enable us to properly interpret what we see in creation:

For as the aged, or those whose sight is defective, when any book, however fair, is set before them, though they perceive that there is something written, are scarcely able to make out two consecutive words, but, when aided by glasses, begin to read distinctly, so Scripture, gathering together the impressions of Deity, which, till then, lay confused in our minds, dissipates the darkness, and shows us the true God clearly.

• Inscripturation is necessary to avoid the errors inherent in oral transmission:

For if we reflect how prone the human mind is to lapse into forgetfulness of God, how readily inclined to every kind of error, how bent every now and then on devising new and fictitious religions, it will be easy to understand how necessary it was to make such a depository of doctrine as would secure it from either perishing by the neglect, vanishing away amid the errors, or being corrupted by the presumptuous audacity of men.

Authority

Calvin viewed Scripture as being equivalent to an utterance of God given from heaven:

Since no daily responses are given from heaven, and the Scriptures are the only records in which God has been pleased to consign his truth to perpetual remembrance, the full authority which they ought to possess with the faithful is not recognised, unless they are believed to have come from heaven, as directly as if God had been heard giving utterance to them.

According to Calvin, Word and Spirit must always go together. Scripture gives us a saving knowledge of God, but only when its certainty is "founded on the inward persuasion of the Holy Spirit." It is "foolish to attempt to prove to infidel

Infidel

An infidel is one who has no religious beliefs, or who doubts or rejects the central tenets of a particular religion – especially in reference to Christianity or Islam....

s that the Scripture is the Word of God," since this can only be known by faith. Nevertheless, he did see a place for evidences of Scripture's authority, as long it is recognised that they are secondary:

The human testimonies which go to confirm it will not be without effect, if they are used in subordination to that chief and highest proof, as secondary helps to our weakness.

The "chief and highest proof" being, of course, the testimony of the Holy Spirit, though Calvin does not say that the inward testimony of the Holy Spirit is the source of this authority. John Murray

John Murray (theologian)

John Murray was a Scottish-born Calvinist theologian who taught at Princeton Seminary and then left to help found Westminster Theological Seminary, where he taught for many years.-Life:...

has suggested that the distinction between the authority intrinsic to Scripture, and our persuasion that it is authoritative is not "as clearly formulated in Calvin as we might desire."

Character

Calvin viewed Scripture as being both majestic and simple. According to Ford Lewis Battles, Calvin had discovered that "sublimity of style and sublimity of thought were not coterminous."

Majesty

Calvin believed that Scripture possesses "a divine majesty which will subdue our presumptuous opposition, and force us to do it homage." It speaks with a unified voice, and its parts make up a perfect harmony:

How admirably the system of divine wisdom contained in it is arranged—how perfectly free the doctrine is from every thing that savours of earth—how beautifully it harmonises in all its parts—and how rich it is in all the other qualities which give an air of majesty to composition.

Simplicity

Scripture, according to Calvin, also has an "unpolished simplicity". It is not particularly eloquent, for that would detract from its message:

The sublime mysteries of the kingdom of heaven have for the greater part been delivered with a contemptible meanness of words. Had they been adorned with a more splendid eloquence, the wicked might have cavilled, and alleged that this constituted all their force. But now, when an unpolished simplicity, almost bordering on rudeness, makes a deeper impression than the loftiest flights of oratory, what does it indicate if not that the Holy Scriptures are too mighty in the power of truth to need the rhetorician’s art?