John Calvin was born in early sixteenth century France to an affluent family. He was originally Catholic, but sometime around the spring of 1534, he experienced the conversion to Protestantism. His beliefs stressed God's sovereignty over all of Creation and the importance of man's duty to conform to it. Some would consider John Calvin to be Calvinism's perfect embodiment, as he is its namesake and the ideal he would strive to make the world become. (Kagan 282) Calvin's belief that men and women should live their life as their Christian beliefs calls them to. His firm holding to the Protestant way of life caused him to be expelled from where he previously worked and lived, in France, to flee from his accusers and those who disagreed with him. Calvin's determination to hold to his Calvinist beliefs despite his difficult and often treacherous life shows him to be a man that not only believes that God has a Plan for each and every one of his Children, but that it is the child's duty to follow Him. "His own hard experience became a personal model of reform by which he would measure the recalcitrant citizenry of Geneva. His mature theology stressed the sovereignty of God's will over creation and the necessity of humankind's conformity to it." (Kagan 282).
In Truth for All Time, Calvin implies that that the "good life" is a complete and total following of God's predetermined Plan. Calvin repeatedly claims that only the chosen few can make it into heaven because only the chosen few will be able to lead a good Christian life; a life that one must, nonetheless, strive towards to obtain "the good life." Calvin is not saying that your actions do not matter in the world, and one can sin whenever he sees fit, but he is saying only those God has already chosen will be able to fit into the criteria needed for those to obtain the good life. The Truth for All Time is, in the author's own words, a brief outline of the Christian Faith.
