Research Paper On John Calvin's Piety

Calvin’s Piety
The influence of John Calvin is the semantics of piety is notorious. Pietas is a word Calvin frequently uses referring to godliness, while the traditional medieval word spiritualitas is foreign to his language. For Calvin, sanctification and godliness are one and the same. He says, “The whole life of Christians ought to be a sort of practice of godliness, for we have been called to sanctification.” Calvin signals that piety is a leading term and one of the major themes in his theological system.
When Calvin went to Paris to continue his humanist studies, studying Greek and Hebrew, he published his earliest characterization on the term, in his Commentary on Seneca’s “De Clementia,” in which he cites Cicero’s rhetorical question, “What is piety but a grateful disposition to one’s parents?” In Calvin’s mind, a primary paradigm for “piety” is the relationship of children to their parents, and especially the sense in which children feel gratitude, love, reverence, and a consequent sense of devoted obligation toward them. Early references also suggest that Calvin makes pietas a focus of his theology, grasping not only the term but also meaning something of its classical and early ecclesial pedigree.
Calvin’s commentaries reflect the importance of pietas. For example, he writes

The “knowledge of benefits” clause is constitutive, not merely incidental, to the inaugural definition of pietas in the Institutes. Calvin was determined to confine theology (knowledge) within the limits of piety. Therefore, a key premise of his overall argument: namely, that "piety" and "doctrine" are mutually related. The true knowledge of God results in pious activity that matches its goal beyond personal salvation to embrace the glory of God. Consequently, the right and pious attitude is to recognize God as father and fountain of good, and therefore to regard believers as God's adopted