Calvin’s Institutes Book I Chapter 1

Greetings Calvin readers!  Some of you might be wondering about Calvin’s prefatory letter to King Francis so let me just say a few words about that.  In some ways it reminds me of some of the great apologetical writings from the early church in which appeals were made to pagan rulers for the toleration of Christians. Calvin, the great Reformer of Geneva Switzerland, was a Frenchman. Thanks to the imported influence of the writings of men like Erasmus and Luther and the home grown influence of biblical scholars like Jacques Lefevre d’Etaples, the Reformation was well underway in France, but opposition to it was very strong.  Francis, a patron of humanist studies, had originally been sympathetic to some measure of reform, but had turned against it under religious/political pressure and the actions of “extremists.” He came to support its suppression by imprisonment and torture and death. (I’ll soon post a link to more info. on this.)  In dedicating the Institutes to him, Calvin was making a classic plea for toleration.  Why should Francis not persecute the French Protestants?  Calvin’s answer was basically this.  1) You are a Christian king; examine here the doctrine held by your subjects and you will find it to be the true Christianity, which you don’t want to oppose.  2)  Believing these things has only contributed to them being among your most loyal subjects and exceptional citizens. 3)  The charges against them are false.  4)  Opposition to them, like opposition to the faithful of all ages, is futile and they will follow Christ no matter what you do.  In some respects this dedication also provides an overture of things to come in the Institutes, so be sure to read it. 

Okay, let’s look at chapter 1.  We might have expected Calvin to start his “Manual of Christian Teaching” talking about God or Scripture or a definition of Theology, but he begins talking about “our wisdom.”  Why?  This is really not at all surprising; it is a subject which is not only important in Scripture, indeed, it is one of the most important of biblical themes, but shows Calvin’s appreciation of theology as a universal human activity. While the quest for wisdom has always been around,  true wisdom is not to be found in something like the Greek or Renaissance philosopher’s “secular” worldly philosophy, which begins with the assumption that we must reason without God, nor is “theology” something speculative or theoretical, for eggheads in ivory towers and know-it-alls in theology chat rooms.  No, wisdom is a universal need, always current, practical, personal, and, as we will immediately discover, relational and theological.  Why?  Because, it is about man knowing himself as God made him, seeking and learning the true God as that God has revealed Himself, and responding to that revelation appropriately. 

Calvin’s beginning kind of reminds me of the apostle John’s beginning in his gospel.  John takes a topic very important to readers in his age, the Word, or Logos, which is the subject of much speculation and debate, and says, in effect, “You can really know the secret of the universe.  How?  He has come in the flesh and we have see Him.”  Calvin, in talking about true wisdom, is talking about a great preoccupation the Renaissance.  The Renaissance was marked by a revival of the great themes of Classical (Greek and Roman) antiquity, a new birth of humanism, which engaged in a quest to know what mankind is at his best, what is the true Philosophy (love of wisdom).  In these days we are not unfamiliar with the phrase, “philosophy of life.”  It is a way of talking about one’s view of reality, of truth, about the meaning (or meaninglessness) of life, our place in the universe.  What are we?  What is life?  What is truth, beauty, happiness, freedom, good, the world, mind, matter, time, eternity, God?  Calvin recognizes that the desire to understand is basic to us all, so he begins by addressing this universal quest for understanding with a discourse on its most basic ingredients, the knowledge of God, and the knowledge of ourselves.  Apart from this twofold knowledge, man can never attain to true wisdom.

Which comes first?  Which is most important, knowing God or knowing yourself?   For Calvin, they are correlative; you can’t and won’t really have one without the other because they are so intricately involved in one another.  Why is this?  Because we know God by His revelation and for that purpose God has created us in His image and placed us in His creation in order to learn Him from it.  If we receive that revelation of God in and to us in creation, it causes us to have a self-consciousness of our creatureliness.  We learn and feel that we are dependent creatures, made by this amazing God, Who is worthy that we should seek after for greater knowledge.   Calvin says, “no man can survey himself without forthwith turning his thoughts towards the God in whom he lives and moves; because it is perfectly obvious, that the endowments which we possess cannot possibly be from ourselves; nay, that our very being is nothing else than subsistence in God alone.”     

If we truly come to learn God any better, we will see the contrast between Him and us and thus will know ourselves better.  The following splendidly written description of this contrast shows a typical characteristic of Calvin’s style of teaching.  Be looking for more examples of comparison and contrast in Calvin

But should we once begin to raise our thoughts to God, and reflect what kind of Being he is, and how absolute the perfection of that righteousness, and wisdom, and virtue, to which, as a standard, we are bound to be conformed, what formerly delighted us by its false show of righteousness will become polluted with the greatest iniquity; what strangely imposed upon us under the name of wisdom will disgust by its extreme folly; and what presented the appearance of virtuous energy will be condemned as the most miserable impotence. So far are those qualities in us, which seem most perfect, from corresponding to the divine purity.

So, up we will go, up this spiral staircase of God-knowledge/self-knowledge.  This will, of course, have a great effect upon us, as it did on the patriarchs, of humbling us to the dust.  Yet, as Calvin will put it so  wonderfully in the next chapter, this knowledge will not drive us from God, but will make us the more intent of coming to Him, even though in fear and trembling,

 Just one more thought for today.  Note here the interactive nature of this true wisdom which Calvin describes.  Sometimes I hear people talk of Calvinism in terms of adherence to creeds and confessions and truth and covenants, but then they dismiss and even ridicule what others have called “experiential” Christianity,  Reacting to mystical experiences and emotionalism, they go to the extreme of a psudo-Calvinism which is either “cerebral” or devoted to cultural transformation, i.e., the “cultural mandate” or both, while leaving personal piety and the emotions or “affections” as something for the immature.  To me, even this very first lesson in true wisdom is a stark contrast to such teaching.  True religion, true theology, right psychology, right biblical anthropology necessarily involves much inward experience, emotion, and, as we will see in the next couple of chapters, personal piety.  Calvin’s Institutes will be teaching us a whole-personed Christianity.  Students of Calvin must not leave these foundational inward and personal realities in their quest to carry out the more public, as-the-church, and in-the-world roles of Christians. 

 Our next reading is Book I chapter 2.  It has one of my favorite of all descriptions of the truly pious mind.  See if you can find it.  Join us tomorrow in our house down the lane.

Rick and Sandy Daniels