ABSTRACT
John Calvin as a member of an outwardly religious but in its ideas and actions actually extremely anticlerical family. Lange-Eichhaum called Calvin an extreme schizoid psychopath, a typical fanatic. But Calvin’s view of God would be distorted, falsification against which Calvin expressly protests, if the brighter side were alone to be considered. To support his view Calvin appeals to words of the Old and of the New Testament. By attributing the actions to God, Calvin makes Him a compulsion-neurotic; and indeed Calvin himself had a compulsive character with neurotic elements, although he was not a compulsion-neurotic in the vulgar sense. The form taken by Calvin’s theology used frequently to be explained by referring to the attitude assumed by Calvin, to the absolute despotism ruling in contemporary France. In order to carry through his camouflaged diabolization of God, Calvin was driven to lay a powerful emphasis on the figure of the Devil as the author of all that is absolutely evil.
