War and the Supernatural in Early Modern Europe

Calvinists (or more properly the Reformed) were sometimes accused by their contemporaries of bringing the supernatural too far into human life, deprecating human reason, and subverting human polities by their clumsy attempts at erecting theocracy. Did those who taught at Reformed universities across Europe teach distinctive and extreme political and revolutionary doctrines? Too often scholars and students in the English-speaking world assume that all of the Reformed in the Seventeenth Century adhered to the political positions laid down by John Calvin in the mid-sixteenth century. Assisted by the members of our War and Supernature Seminar, Dr Floris Verhaart will edit and translate selections from a range of Reformed theologians (including David Pareus, whose commentary on Romans 13 is pictured above) who participated in public debate on war and resistance.