John Calvin Did NOT Deny the Sphericity of the Earth

This comes from Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion (Book I, 5:11):

Every one appropriates to himself some peculiar error; but we are all alike in this, that we substitute monstrous fictions for the one living and true God—a disease not confined to obtuse and vulgar minds, but affecting the noblest, and those who, in other respects, are singularly acute. How lavishly in this respect have the whole body of philosophers betrayed their stupidity and want of sense? To say nothing of the others whose absurdities are of a still grosser description, how completely does Plato, the soberest and most religious of them all, lose himself in his round globe? [editor’s footnote: Plato in Timaeos. See also Cicero De Nat. Deorum, lib. 1; Plutarch De Philos Placitis, lib. i.] What must be the case with the rest, when the leaders, who ought to have set them an example, commit such blunders, and labour under such hallucinations? (translation by Henry Beveridge, produced for the Calvin Translation Society in 1845, from the 1559 edition in Latin [16 years after Copernicus’ death]; reprinted by William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company [Grand Rapids, Michigan], 1995, and available online at the wonderful Christian Classics Ethereal Library site)

Now, lest we doubt what Calvin was referring to by “round globe” (i.e., question whether he had in mind the spherical earth, that he rejected), this edition references Plato’s Timaeus; as does the more recent translation by Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960). The latter also provides a more specific portion of the classic work (footnote 35 on p. 64 of Vol. I): “Timaeus 33B”. Let’s see, then, what this section states. The following is from the famous 1871 Benjamin Jowett translation (that I also had in my own library and consulted):

And he gave to the world the figure which was suitable and also natural. Now to the animal which was to comprehend all animals, that figure was suitable which comprehends within itself all other figures. Wherefore he made the world in the form of a globe, round as from a lathe, having its extremes in every direction equidistant from the centre, the most perfect and the most like itself of all figures; for he considered that the like is infinitely fairer than the unlike. (from the html version available online at Project Gutenberg)

***

It has been brought to my attention today (2-21-26) that Calvin, in his Commentaries, [The Complete Biblical Commentary Collection of John Calvin, Kindle Edition] made many references to the earth as a “globe.” For the documentation, see the article, “John Calvin on the Shape of the Earth” (8-18-19).

The material I found at first, concerning Calvin’s view of Plato’s cosmology, apparently can be interpreted in a different way. That being the case, I retract my previous position, in light of this information, and offer my sincere apology for having posted this article in its original form, which has been online for more than thirteen years. I have now modified it, including the title, and am quite happy to do so, as I have no desire at all to misrepresent anyone’s position, or any group’s opinion on anything.

As a Catholic subject to the constant onslaught of anti-Catholic lies, misinformation, misrepresentations, and utterly uncharitable and irrational vitriol about my own views, I am especially aware of the ethical and intellectual responsibility to get things right, and to not treat others unethically, no matter how they might treat us (the golden rule). So I have acted accordingly.

Previously I wrote the article, Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Philip Melanchthon Wax Astronomical and Geocentric, Oppose Copernicus [2-5-09], but that didn’t claim that Calvin believed in a flat earth; only that he affirmed geocentrism (i.e., the view that the sun rotates around the earth).