Jessica Hooten Wilson recently commented that because author Marilynne Robinson views all of created life as a sacred gift, her worldview "begins to sound more Catholic than Protestant." But as Nicholas Wolterstorff has pointed out, "If ever there was a theologian who saw the universe sacramentally, it was Calvin." In his Sermons on Job, Calvin ponders, "Why does God offer the earth to us as a mirror? It is so we can contemplate in it his glory, his wisdom, his virtue, his power." It is precisely the Calvinist sacramental vision that allows Robinson to take sin and grace seriously in her novels.
Robinson's most famous character, the Congregationalist minister John Ames, is devoted to Calvin—as is Robinson herself. She is a careful student of the Reformer and mimics his form: The Gilead novels, like the Institutes, should be read as a summa pietatis rather than a summa theologiae.This means that for both Calvin and Robinson, the goal is doxology.
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