Reason Within The Limits Of Revelation Alone: John Calvin’s Understanding Of Human Reason

By Barry G. Waugh

In honor of the five-hundredth anniversary of the birth of John Calvin in 1509, the author dedicates this article to the Calvinists who taught him church history—D. Clair Davis, who kept him in stitches as he learned from the past; William S. Barker, who taught him the importance of dates and precision; W. Robert Godfrey, whose Reformation history class was simply wonderful; Darryl G. Hart, who taught him the importance of reading, reading, and more reading; and Peter A. Lillback, who taught him the significance of general history for historical and theological studies. May they all continue to teach and encourage church history students for years to come.

Barry Waugh, who holds a Ph.D. from Westminster Theological Seminary, lives with his family in Greenville, S. C, where he studies and writes about church history.

I. Introduction

The question of Calvin’s view of human reason is important because some scholars, such as William J. Bouwsma, have interpreted him as a Renaissance humanist exalting the natural ability of man’s reason. Bouwsma portrays the Genevan as a disenchanted person who found philosophy a labyrinth that did not satisfy his quest for knowledge, so he turned to Renaissance humanism and its exalted view of reason.[1] Quirinius Breen, more than sixty years before Bouwsma, described the Genevan as “a seasoned humanist,” based on his use of humanist methodology in his commentary on Seneca’s De dementia.[2] Francois Wendel interpreted Calvin as teaching that reason is a fallen faculty that cannot govern human knowledge under its own power; Christian philosophy demands that reason must give place to and be governed by the Holy Spirit.[3] David Steinmetz’s more recent perspective presents the Genevan as teaching that fallen man’s reason is inadequate for perceiving the revelation of God in nature, but faith corrects this “blindness,” enabling reason to reclaim creation as a reliable source for the knowledge of God.[4] Another perspective is provided by Leroy Nixon’s early 1960s observation that Calvin was responding to Aristotle’s philosophy and its exalted understanding of human reason, which was causing controversy at the College de Montaigu when Calvin was there from 1524 to 1527. Nixon concluded that Calvin viewed reason as subservient to divine revelation.[5] The purpose of this article is to survey portions of Master Calvin’s corpus to determine his understanding of human reason, its limitations, and the effects of salvation upon its use.

II. Reason, Creation, And The Fall

John Calvin’s comments on the Genesis account of Adam in the state of innocence describe him as a light shining forth the image of God. Adam, in Gen 1:26, enjoyed “perfect intelligence,” “uprightness,” and “all the senses were prepared and molded for due obedience to reason.”[6] Adam’s reason and will were free and capable of choosing between continuing obedience to God and disobedience. Calvin commented on Gen 2:9 that God’s prohibition to the first parents was a restriction that visually—by means of the physical tree— reminded them that their lives were under God’s authority.[7] The first sin was a direct confrontation with the sovereign God and an assertion of the Edenic couple’s perceived autonomy as they reasoned in hopes of being like God. Calvin added that the Edenic prohibition was a “first lesson in obedience” showing man’s absolute dependence on God, and that the only way to live “well and rationally” was through obedience.[8]

Satan enters the narrative seizing his opportunity to tempt Eve by raising doubts concerning her interpretation of God’s prohibition, which exemplifies his continued, uncreative, and incessant methodology for leading people into sin as he tempts them by questioning what God has said. The Genevan, commenting on Gen 3:1, observed that the serpent questioned the meaning of God’s command, that is, “Did God really say you are not to eat of any tree of the garden?”[9] Satan’s plan was to raise the shadow of doubt concerning God’s intention—that is, do you think God’s requirement is reasonable?[10] Eve responded, in defense, that God’s restriction was not unfair or unreasonable at all; after all, the forbidding of only one tree in the midst of a glorious garden was not too much to ask.[11] At this point Calvin noted that Eve “was beginning to waver” and her perception of the meaning and penalty of death “was distant and cold.”[12] The serpent’s question presented Eve with a choice requiring her to weigh Satan’s words against what God had said. If Eve had reasoned rightly then she would have turned from the temptation and continued in her original estate, but she instead accepted the serpent’s proposition that God’s revelation was an expression of divine selfishness encumbering her knowledge unfairly. As Calvin put it, “Fatal temptation! when, while God is threatening us with death, we not only securely sleep, but hold God himself in derision!”[13] Eve’s fundamental failure was “not regulating the measure of her knowledge by the will of God,” and as a result of the first sin her posterity continues to pursue satisfaction through the exercise of autonomous reason.[14] Master John commented further:

For never would they have dared to resist God, unless they had first been incredulous of his word. And nothing allured them to covet the fruit but mad ambition. So long as they, firmly believing in God’s word, freely suffered themselves to be governed by him, they had serene and duly regulated affections. For, indeed, their best restraint was the thought, which entirely occupied their minds, that God is just, that nothing is better than to obey his commands, and that to be loved by him is the consummation of a happy life. But after they had given place to Satan’s blasphemy, they began, like persons fascinated, to lose reason and judgment [ratione etjudicio]; yet, since they were become the slaves of Satan; he held their very senses bound. 

We are despoiled of the excellent gifts of the Holy Spirit, of the light of reason [rationis], of justice [iustitia], and of rectitude [rectitudine], and are prone to every evil: that we are also lost and condemned, and subjected to death, is both our hereditary condition, and, at the same time, a just punishment, which God, in the person of Adam, has inflicted on the human race.[15]

The fall brought about a catastrophic transformation resulting in “the deformity which everywhere appears unsightly this evil also is added, that no part is free from the infection of sin.”[16] Eve and Adam fell from their original righteousness and brought mankind into the estate of sin and misery, and the master tempter continues to entice people with the doubt-inducing inquiry, “Hath God said?” Further insight into the state of man’s reason in Paradise is given in book 2 of The Institutes of the Christian Religion when Master Calvin distinguished between proper and improper knowledge of the self. For man to know himself he must know what he was in the estate of innocence, then he must comprehend the depths of the sinfulness and depravity he lives with in his fallen experience.[17] The importance of the imago Dei enters the picture since man had been created in God’s image and endowed with “reasoning and understanding.”[18] But the glories of Paradise cannot be recollected without “the sorry spectacle of our foulness and dishonor presenting itself by way of contrast, since in the person of the first man we have fallen from our original condition.”[19] If fallen man is to know himself he must first recognize his condition and then be induced to humbly seek God who is the provider of the “good things” that have been lost.[20] Man must not succumb to the pride-tickling understanding of his nature that consoles and encourages him to believe that, in and of himself, he has the ability to “lead a good and blessed life” and that he “can do anything by his own power.”[21] Man’s response to his condition should be prostration before God in recognition of the nature of his duty as man, and the corresponding inability he has to accomplish the task of pleasing and serving God.[22] Calvin argues from the greater to the lesser—look at man prior to the fall and his glorious estate, then look at yourself after the fall and consider the depths of your condition. Man could reason truly in Eden, but the comprehensive nature of the fall corrupted his reason as well as his other faculties.

III. “True Partaking Of The Flesh & Blood Of Christ In The Holy Supper”

This treatise, written in 1561, is particularly significant because the occasion for its composition antedates the Genevan’s death by three years and provides the most mature analysis of his ideas respecting human reason.[23] Calvin observed that Tileman Heshusius’s version of the Lutheran view of the Lord’s Supper incorporated “implicit faith in his [God’s] word, and subduing human reason,” while Heshusius reciprocally accused Calvin of exalting the place of human reason in the sacrament.[24] Calvin commented as follows:

To vindicate himself [Heshusius], he says, that the bread is the body not only properly, truly, and really, but also definitively. Should I answer that I cannot give any meaning to these monstrous contradictions, he will meet me with what he and his fellows bring forward on all occasions as a shield of Ajax—that reason is inimical to faith [rationem essefidei inimicam]. This I readily grant if he is to be regarded as a rational animal.[25]

Calvin, earlier in the treatise, explicitly denied Heshusius’s accusation when he said that he had “no dispute as to the boundless power of God; and all my writings declare, that far from measuring the mystery of the Supper by human reason, I look up to it with devout admiration.”[26] The next paragraph adds that there are “three kinds of reason to be considered.”[27] For the purpose of distinguishing these three kinds of reason in this article the following designations will be used: first, “natural reason,” second, “vicious reason,” and finally, “redeemed reason.” The following discussion considers each of the three individually to determine Calvin’s views concerning human reason and its limitations.

1. First Type, Or Natural Reason

The first type “is a reason naturally implanted (ingenita est naturaliter ratio) that cannot be condemned without insult to God, but it has limits that it cannot overstep without being immediately lost.”[28] This reason is not “lost” in the sense that it disappears and man is then without reason, but as the analysis of the other two aspects of reason will show, it takes on a different form. If natural reason could disappear, then man would cease to be man; natural reason is a necessary faculty for man as the image bearer of God.[29] An example of the limits of natural reason can be seen in Calvin’s title for book 1, chapter 8, of the Institutes where the contents are described as presenting, “The Credibility of Scripture Sufficiently Proved, in so Far as Human Reason Admits.”[30] Calvin uses the term “human reason” because the chapter goes beyond discussing just natural reason. He argues, through the use of various internal and external testimonies, for the trustworthiness and authenticity of the Word of God, but he also emphasizes that these testimonies do not establish a firm faith in Scripture until “our heavenly Father manifest his presence in it, and thereby secure implicit reverence for it.”[31] This first type of reason is limited and can only go so far with respect to establishing the authenticity and authority of the Bible. With reference to John 1:5, Master Calvin commented further that the fact that, “The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness comprehends it not,” shows that despite man’s perversion due to the fall “some sparks still gleam”[32] and these sparks show that man differs from “brute beasts” in part due to his ability to reason.[33] Natural man’s natural reason can accomplish many things but without the presupposition of God as creator and redeemer, knowledge is necessarily deficient because God is denied as the source of that knowledge.[34]

In The Necessity of Reforming the Church, Master John discussed the elements of ecclesiastical practice requiring reformation, and as he elaborated on prayer he wrote against praying in an unknown tongue. Calvin was referring to the Roman Catholic practice of conducting services in Latin and instructing parishioners to use memorized Latin prayers. Obviously, these prayers and services would be totally incomprehensible to any other than those present who had been educated in the use of Latin. Calvin affirmed that Christians must “pray with understanding,”[35] and

Every man, accordingly, is taught by our doctrine to know, when he prays in private, what it is he asks of God, while the public prayers in our churches are framed so as to be understood by all. And it is the dictate of natural reason that it should be so, even if God had given no precept on the subject.[36]

What man has within him, his innate understanding of the universe and the laws which govern it, is limitedly authoritative for guidance in what is right with respect to the issue of prayer. Natural reason dictates that prayer should be comprehensible to the one praying in private and to all involved in public prayer. So, even though natural reason recognizes that prayer is properly exercised in worship with a known tongue, natural reason alone does not comprehend the depth of religious purpose that only the Christian can understand in prayer. In effect, the Genevan is saying that Rome’s use of Latin for praying in services is so foolish that even fallen, natural reason can determine its folly.

Calvin’s commentary on Isaiah’s words in Isa 1:2, “Hear O heavens; and give ear, O earth,” interprets these words as communicating more than a figurative message. The Genevan tied his exposition to the teaching of Moses in Deut 32:1 where the creation is, as Calvin put it, called “to witness against the people.”[37] The verse shows that God was bringing a specific complaint against Israel and calling them to repent because they had not heeded his law. Master John commented as follows:

That no one may wonder at the circumstance of his addressing dumb and lifeless objects, experience very clearly shows that the voice of God is heard even by dumb creatures, and that the order of nature is nothing else than the obedience which is rendered to him by every part of the world, so that everywhere his supreme authority shines forth; for at his bidding the elements observe the law laid down to them, and heaven and earth perform their duty. The earth yields her fruits; the sea flows not beyond her settled boundaries; the sun, moon, and stars perform their courses; the heavens too. revolve at stated periods; and all with wonderful accuracy, though they are destitute of reason and understanding [ratione et intelligentia]. But man, endued with reason and understanding [ratione et intelligentia], in whose ears and in whose heart the voice of God frequently sounds, remains unmoved, like one bereft of senses, and cannot bend the neck to submit. Against obstinate and rebellious men shall dumb and lifeless creatures bear testimony, so that they will one day feel that this protestation was not in vain.[38]

This is not a glorious picture of fallen man. The reasonless and “dumb” creation is, it could be said, obedient to God while man lives in suppression of his knowledge of God. Man made in the image of God and endowed with reason behaves as a fool because he does not heed the sense of deity within and the declaration of the glory of God in the creation. The responsibility for man’s stupidity lies within man, and the rest of the created order are witnesses to his folly.

Paul’s epistle of direction and encouragement to Titus addresses issues of concern to a minister and his congregation. In ch. 2 the apostle begins by telling his readers to do what sound doctrine requires (v. 1), and then he calls the aged to live a good example before the younger members of the congregation (vv 2-5). Titus, in v. 6, is instructed to exhort the young men “to be sober-minded.” Calvin’s comments on this verse are concise:

He [Paul] merely enjoins that young men be instructed to be temperate; for temperance, as Plato shows, cures the whole understanding of man. It is as if he had said, “Let them be well regulated and obedient to reason [et rationi obtemperantes] .”[39]

This short comment raises a question—in what sense was Calvin using Plato? From Calvin’s Christian perspective the most Plato can be addressing is a temperance dictated by natural reason. Plato was cited for the truth he expressed because Plato’s observation concerning moderation was corroborated by the Word. Paul’s instruction to Titus gives foundation for Plato’s words of wisdom, that is, all truth is God’s truth, and Plato’s expression of the importance of temperance was an expression of God’s truth even though Plato would not have recognized the God of Scripture as the source. For Calvin, Plato’s proverb was an illustration of the instruction Paul gave to Titus—the benefits of moderation are comprehensible to natural reason.

2. Second Type, Or Vicious Reason

The second type of reason is described with vivid and derogatory language as the Genevan’s True Partaking of the Flesh and Blood of Christ is once again consulted. Calvin warned of the danger of reason exceeding its limitations as he commented that:

. . . reason which is vicious [ratio vitiosa], especially in a corrupt nature, and is manifested when mortal man, instead of receiving divine things with reverence, would subject them to his own judgment. This reason is mental intoxication, or pleasing insanity, and is at eternal variance with the obedience of faith, since we must become fools in ourselves before we can begin to be wise unto God. In regard to heavenly mysteries, therefore, we must abjure this reason, which is nothing better than mere fatuity, and if accompanied with arrogance, grows to the height of madness.[40]

Vicious reason is not limited to the unregenerate; it is reason, whether in the unredeemed or redeemed nature, that succumbs to the temptation of self-exaltation, and its intoxicating influence can even lead to insanity. Vicious reason suppresses the knowledge of God and his limitations on man’s curiosity whether it is the atheist, who is one of “corrupt nature,” or the Christian who speculates regarding things man is not to know (e.g., how many angels can dance on the head of a pin).

The Genevan goes on, in his Institutes, to apply this analysis to the corruptness of “the philosophers” as they deny God’s creating and governing of the world.[41] Mentioned are the philosophies of the Stoics, Egyptians, and Epicureans as he observed that their darkened and ignorant understandings had created substitutes for God.[42] These substitutes displayed the “blindness of the human mind,” and most particularly, the philosophers attempt “by reason and learning to pierce the heavens.”[43] The greater the learning of these lovers-of-wisdom the greater is their foolishness. Later in the Institutes Calvin observed that philosophers, no matter how subtle their tactics, were simply rebelling against God because they had corrupted his revealed truth.[44] With particular reference to the philosophy of Plato, the Institutes condemn his methodology for knowing God:

Away, then, with that Platonic philosophy of seeking access to God by means of angels, and courting them with the view of making God more propitious ... a philosophy which presumptuous and superstitious men attempted at first to introduce into our religion, and which they persist in even to this day.[45]

This is vicious reason which is audacious, arrogant, and autonomous. It is folly to seek redemptive knowledge of God through any means other than through his Word. Though Calvin was well versed in Platonic philosophy he recognized its errors and saw it as a system that had exceeded its bounds and presumed to approach God through errant means. Calvin not only addressed the teaching of Plato but that of Rome as well as he saw Plato’s teaching in the celestial pecking-order of Rome.[46] Philosophy is addressed again in the Institutes as the Genevan pointedly spoke concerning the views of reason presented by Cicero and more generally with regard to Plato and Aristotle. Cicero’s analysis, said Calvin, taught that any goodness in man’s nature is soon destroyed by his “wicked opinions and evil customs” and it is necessary that reason choose to do good.[47] The Greeks believed that these evils were violent and no one could easily restrain them; they are like a wild horse that causes a driver to be tossed from his chariot allowing the vehicle to careen unpredictably so reason must pull in the reins of evil.[48] So, Cicero, Aristotle, and Plato taught that reason was a sufficient guide for right conduct.[49] The teachings of the philosophers exceeded the abilities of natural reason and constituted vicious reason. Calvin argued that man’s will is not free. but rather it is in bondage to sin and natural reason is impotent with regard to choosing good.[50]

Moving into his own era, Calvin opposed the Sorbonne as he exposited 1 Tim 6:3-5. The passage presents a warning to Timothy concerning the special dangers of vicious reasoning. Those who propound different doctrines and do not agree with “sound words” and “doctrine conforming to godliness” are “men of depraved mind” and view godliness as a means of great gain (vv. 3-5).[51] Commenting on v. 4, Calvin said:

Not without reason does the Apostle connect “questions and disputes of words”; for by the former term he does not mean every kind of questions, which either arise from a sober and moderate desire to learn, or contribute to clear explanation of useful things, but to such questions as are agitated, in the present day, in the schools of the Sorbonne, for displaying acuteness of intellect. There one question gives rise to another; for there is no limit to them, when every person, desiring to know more than is proper, indulges his vanity; and hence, there afterwards are innumerable quarrels. As the thick clouds, during hot weather, are not dispelled without thunder, so those thorny questions must burst into disputes.[52]

There is a proper and necessary pursuit of knowledge, but there are also limits—reason is to function within the limits of God’s revelation. The teachers of the Sorbonne exhibited pride by parading their intellectual abilities and inflated egos through vain speculations. The pursuit of one question after another hoping that each answer would lead to another question shows the Aristotelian/Thomist perspective at work. Calvin interpreted the passage as expressing the dangers of pursuing knowledge for knowledge’s sake, while Timothy and other Christians should seek knowledge for the sanctifying purposes of growing in grace and improving the attributes of the imago Dei.

The Institutes affirm that man cannot fain ignorance of God because all men have “a certain understanding of his divine majesty.”[53] God continually confronts fallen man by prodding his image-bearing conscience. Man can run, but he cannot hide from the eyes of God.[54] Man fights the sense of deity which is at work within him, but despite his efforts he cannot force God out of his consciousness.[55] The blindness of men is mixed with stubbornness and they measure “him [God] by the yardstick of their own carnal stupidity” and out of curiosity “fly off into empty speculations.”[56] Romans 1:21, 22 is cited by Calvin to show that though these unredeemed strive to be wise they are fools who exercise futile reasoning.[57] Reason becomes exalted while God and his Word are depreciated. Even though man may apprehend “some sort of divinity” he often falls back “into the ravings or evil imaginings” of the “flesh” and then corrupts God’s pure truth.[58] Vicious reason develops in each person particular errors whether one is “dull-witted” or “endowed with keen discernment.”[59] This benighted condition is described by Calvin as follows:

But among the philosophers who have tried with reason and learning to penetrate into heaven, how shameful is the diversity! As each was furnished with higher wit, graced with art and knowledge, so did he seem to camouflage his utterances; yet if you look more closely upon all these, you will find them all to be fleeting unrealities.[60]

Calvin argued that though general revelation is clear and man is without excuse, man chokes off this knowledge through superstition, speculation, and philosophy. Scarcely any person can be found who “did not fashion for himself an idol or specter in place of God.”[61] This is vicious reason manifested in the unredeemed, reason that seeks to extend itself beyond its restrictions and establish certainty in areas where it cannot. Man’s mind is like a “labyrinth” (labyrinthi) and due to this confusing maze of cogitations many “were drawn aside into various falsehoods.”[62] Calvin’s view of unregenerate man’s ability to reason his way to God is essentially, “You can’t get there from here.” Man cannot speculate, philosophize, and theorize his way to God while ignoring God’s condescension through the grace of the Word become flesh—God reached down through grace, man cannot reach up through natural reasoning or speculation. When man acts on his sense of deity and tries to ascend to God through his reason he fails because to know God one must know him through his Word.

As Calvin discussed Deut 18:9 he concentrated his exposition on the foolishness of seeking those things which have not been revealed—the secret things of God. The Israelites were cautioned by God to beware of the seduction of idolatry and superstitious practices.[63] The Genevan then argued that the only way man can truly know and exercise his reason rightly is through the transformation wrought by redemption.[64] Since God is the source of knowledge and “the Gentiles” knew not God, then the Gentiles sought knowledge through “magicians and sorcerers” and exemplified their ignorance and darkness.[65] It is “from these sources, viz., foolish curiosity and unrestrained temerity or audacity, all the superstitions and errors have flowed whereby the world has been assailed.”[66] God forbids magic, sorcery, and divination because they constitute an attempt by man to know things that God chose to conceal and retain as his knowledge alone.[67] So, people must be sober in their use of knowledge and recognize that they are creatures, or as Strother Martin’s words to Paul Newman expressed it in Cool Hand Luke, “A manz gotta knooow hiz lim’tations.” Calvin observed that man’s “curiosity is insatiable” and “like Adam” he desires “to be as God, and to know all things without exception.”[68] The Edenic temptation is the paradigm temptation in that it challenges God’s authority while catering to a lust for speculation and the pursuit of forbidden knowledge. The comments on v. 9 conclude with the summary statement, “This is the origin of all the vanities whereby the world has ever been entangled.”[69] That is, when man seeks to obtain knowledge that is proper to God alone, whether through sorcery, philosophy, or speculation, he is exercising vicious reason and denying the sufficiency of God’s revelation while butting his head against the wall of an epistemological dead-end. Vicious reason returns to Eden and asks, “Hath God said?” and once again seeks to know what is forbidden and have what cannot be obtained.

3. Third Type, Or Redeemed Reason

The third kind of reason is one that “both the Spirit of God and Scripture sanction.”[70] Redeemed reason is discussed in many of Calvin’s writings and the Institutes are a good starting place. Calvin’s view of man’s ability to reason in the Institutes stresses the importance of man knowing himself and knowing God.[71] Man must become discontent with himself and the misery of his condition if he is to be aroused to seek God.[72] The corruption of the world around him leads man to regard those things that are “a little less vile” as things that are very pure,[73] but when man contemplates God and his nature, the darkness that he considered righteous is reinterpreted as evil.[74] The redeemed mind “does not dream up for itself any god it pleases, but contemplates the one and only true God.”[75] The redeemed mind has a view of man and of God’s world that is antithetical to the mind of the impious; it is a mind that reveres God, not because of the threat of hell, but because it loves God.[76] Redeemed man’s mind sees God’s hand working in creating and blessing the pious. The Christian reasons differently because his world view, hopefully, does not suppress his knowledge of God. In book 3 of the Institutes, Calvin showed that for reason to be redeemed it must be in submission to the Holy Spirit:

. . . the Christian philosophy [christiana philosophia] bids reason give way to, submit and subject itself to, the Holy Spirit so that the man himself may no longer live but hear Christ living and reigning within him.[77]

Christian philosophy is the true love-of-wisdom because Christian philosophy involves reason that is submitted to God. Where vicious reason is an expression of autonomous and rebellious man, redeemed reason is expressed in denying the self and submitting to the leadership of the Holy Spirit illuminating the Bible. Philosophy, as any other aspect of the Christian life, is to be viewed through the lens of sola Scriptura, which is exemplified in a February 1549 letter to Martin Bucer concerning truth, philosophy, and the Scriptures. Any truth obtained from any source, whether philosophy or Scripture, proceeds from God because all truth is God’s truth.[78] Philosophy is “the noble gift of God” and men in ages past worked hard in the discipline so they “might enlighten the world in the knowledge of truth.”[79] But, said Calvin, the truth obtained from philosophy is minuscule compared to the truth that can be obtained from Scripture.[80] The Genevan concluded with an encouragement to Bucer to concentrate his efforts on pursuing truth in God’s Word.[81] Thus, philosophy as a discipline is not evil in and of itself despite the fact that its history often exemplifies vicious reason, but when the benefits obtained from philosophy are weighed against the time and effort involved in its study, the reading and understanding of Scripture is more profitable and time efficient.

Paul’s instruction in Eph 4:23 encourages Christians to “be renewed in the spirit of your mind.” This exhortation was particularly relevant to the philosophical context within which Calvin wrote the following:

How much there is in us that is sound or uncorrupted may be easily gathered from this passage, which enjoins us to correct chiefly the reason or mind, in which we are apt to imagine that there is nothing but what is virtuous and deserves commendation.[82]

People would be “apt to imagine” that the mind is virtuous due to the influences of philosophy. The dependence on Aristotle and the exaltation of reason in sixteenth-century humanism may have led Calvin’s contemporaries to conclude “the reason or mind” is necessarily virtuous. He shunned this Aristotelian/ Scholastic notion because the biblical picture of fallen man is grim. Calvin contended that the mind had fallen because man in his entirety was fallen. Master John warned his readers to beware of self-deception, beware of the propensity for self-glorification, beware of the temptations coming through a fallen mind. Comments on the next verse relate restoration of the imago Dei to the redemption of reason, that is, the catastrophe of the fall affected all aspects of man including his ability to reason.[83] Redeemed reason is renovated as the imago Dei is refurbished.[84]

Calvin’s commentary on Romans is one of his most extensive, learned, and thorough analyses of any of his NT expositions. The Genevan waxes eloquent because Romans is a gold mine of Pauline doctrine and practical instruction. The comments on Rom 1:18, 19 shed further light on the issue of redeemed reason. The first pertinent observation is that impiety and unrighteousness are manifest in man because he has transferred to himself what properly belongs to God.[85] Secondly the world in which man lives is receiving the wrath of God poured upon it “to the full extent of heaven.”[86] Thirdly Calvin concluded his comments on v. 18 by noting that:

The truth of God means, the true knowledge of God; and to hold in that, is to suppress or to obscure it: hence they are charged as guilty of robbery.[87]

Man’s fallen condition as a sinner encourages him to suppress his knowledge of God and thereby steal the divine glory for himself; man continues to seek self-divinity and to glorify himself. Further:

We conceive that there is a Deity; and then we conclude, that whoever he may be, he ought to be worshipped: but our reason here fails, because it cannot ascertain who or what sort of being God is. Hence the Apostle in Heb. xi.3, ascribes to faith the light by which man can gain real knowledge from the work of creation, and not without reason; for we are prevented by our blindness, so that we reach not to the end in view; we yet see so far, that we cannot pretend any excuse.[88]

If reason is to know anything truly it must be built on the foundation of faith. Knowledge of God through salvation is the chief corner stone of the edifice of redeemed reason. The introduction of Heb 11:3 into the analysis turns us to Calvin’s comments that men have been given understanding and reason for the purpose of acknowledging their creator but it is through faith “that we know that it was God who created the world.”[89] Though God’s revelation in creation is such that man knows the world was made by God, sinful man’s response is to worship “a mere shadow” of some nebulous deity.[90] The mind of man is blind to the fullness of the glory of God in creation until the Holy Spirit regenerates reason.[91] Thus, redeemed reason not only sees the power of God in the created order, but also his goodness, wisdom, and justice, which leads him to worship and honor God as the maker of heaven and earth.[92] General revelation can lead man to “make proficiency in the universal school of nature, so far as to be affected with some perception of deity, but what God is, they know not, they straightaway become vain in their imaginations.”[93] But Master Calvin adds, “It follows, then, that mankind do not err thus far through mere ignorance, so as not to be chargeable with contempt, negligence, and ingratitude. Thus it holds good, that all have known God, and yet have not glorified him.”[94] Romans 12 is directed more specifically towards Christian ethics. Christian behavior is built on a redeemed mind and reason:

Now attend here, and see what kind of renovation is required from us; it is not that of the flesh only, or of the inferior part of the soul, as the Sorbonists explain this word: but of the mind, which is the most excellent part of us, and to which philosophers ascribe the supremacy; for they call it ἡγεμονικὸν, the leading power; and reason is imagined to be a most wise queen. But Paul pulls her down from her throne, and so reduces her to nothing by teaching us that we must be renewed in mind. For how much so ever we may flatter ourselves, that declaration of Christ is still true,—that every man must be born again, who would enter into the kingdom of God; for in mind and heart we are altogether alienated from the righteousness of God.[95]

These comments are in direct confrontation with the contemporary philosophical/theological milieu that elevated the mind to the height of excellency and its exercise of reason to the pinnacle of virtue. It was inconceivable to the “Sorbonists” that the mind needed renewal, thus they applied Paul’s teaching to the inferior part of the soul; for the Sorbonne, reason could not need renewal because it stood on its own merit. In contrast to this, Calvin pointed out that man must be renewed homo lotus. The terms “mind and heart” are used to express the totality of man’s separation from God and the need for a complete redemption. Mind renewal is necessary because heart renewal is necessary.

In 1 Cor 1:18-31 Paul’s teaching concerning the foolishness of preaching the crucified Jesus in light of the wisdom of the world is presented. The cross is the power of God in the eyes of the redeemed, but it is the symbol of benighted nonsense to those dead in their trespasses and sins. This biblical passage addresses the issue of reason because Paul was drawing a distinction between the thinking, knowledge, and reason of the wise of the world, and the fools of the Kingdom. Calvin commented on v. 20 that:

Hence, whatever knowledge a man may come to have without the illumination of the Holy Spirit, is included in the expression, the wisdom of this world. This he says God has utterly made foolish, that is, He has convicted it of folly. This you may understand to be effected in two ways; for whatever a man knows and understands, is mere vanity, if it is not grounded in true wisdom; and it is in no degree better fitted for the apprehension of spiritual doctrine than the eye of a blind[96] man is for discriminating colors. We must carefully notice these two things—that knowledge of all the sciences is mere smoke, where the heavenly science of Christ is wanting; and man, with all his acute-ness, is as stupid for obtaining of himself a knowledge of the mysteries of God, as an ass is unqualified for understanding musical harmonies.[97]

The understanding of the lost and the redeemed differs due to antithetical pre-suppositional foundations for wisdom, knowledge, and reason. What fallen man knows apart from regeneration is “smoke,” but the redeemed are enabled to know and reason properly even into the mysteries of God. Knowledge of all without knowing Christ is “vanity” and the only hope for fulfillment is through faith that transforms the worldly wise into a heavenly fool. Calvin responded to the question which some would raise concerning how something so “noble” as reason could be viewed so disparagingly by Paul:

A solution of this question, I say, is opened up to view from the circumstance, that Paul does not expressly condemn either man’s natural perspicuity, or wisdom acquired from practice and experience, or cultivation of mind attained by learning: but declares that all this is of no avail for acquiring spiritual wisdom.[98]

It may appear that Calvin is teaching a conflict between faith and reason, that is, reason is the means for obtaining knowledge in all things except those requiring “spiritual wisdom,” but the point he is making is that no matter how wise a person may be through natural reason, no matter how much common knowledge he may have, it will avail little in the attainment of spiritual wisdom. The Genevan added to his analysis as he commented on v. 20 that:

... it holds true, that without Christ sciences in every department are vain, and that the man who knows not God is vain, though he should be conversant with every branch of learning. Nay more, we may affirm this, too, with truth, that these choice gifts of God—expertness of mind, acuteness of judgment, liberal sciences, and acquaintance with languages, are in a manner profaned in every instance in which they fall to the lot of wicked men.[99]

Fallen and unredeemed man’s reason and knowledge are necessarily deficient due to his inability to build his understanding on a theistic foundation. Calvin does not say that unbelieving fallen man cannot reason at all, but he does say that sinners dead in trespasses and sins cannot reason rightly in any area of life. There are two distinct ways to know, understand, and reason about the world. Right reason is redeemed because it is reason which is reconstructed from the ground up by the Holy Spirit; wrong reason is that of the blind, it remains devastated by the fall and cannot know the things of God nor truly comprehend the world he created, and it can readily become vicious reason.

IV. Paul, Calvin, And Human Reason And Its Limits In Acts 17:16-34

Acts 17:16 opens by expressing the anguish of Paul’s heart as he viewed the gross idolatry of Athens. Calvin observed in this passage that the idolatry of the Athenians was an expression of “extreme madness” in order that the world might know the foolishness of “learning and instruction . . . when it comes to the kingdom of God.”[100] The Greeks’ understanding of wisdom, knowledge, and reason was “nothing else but a shop of all errors,” a binge of intoxicated pride and arrogance before God, and they exceeded “all others in blindness and madness.”[101] Athenian reason had gone beyond the natural and become vicious. The wise men of Athens had pulled God down to the level of the creature and made “him an inhabitant of their city.”[102] Verse 18 tells of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers who viewed Paul with curiosity since he taught something new in his preaching of Jesus and the resurrection. Calvin commented, on v. 18, that Paul’s method was not with unprofitable and contentious arguing, but with modesty and meekness avoiding the temptation to exalt himself.[103] Paul did not seize the opportunity to enter into a free-for-all of philosophical wit, learning, and sophistry, but instead preached the gospel by appealing to the philosophers’ sense of deity represented in the presence of the inscription to the unknown god.[104] Paul was faced with two attitudes in v. 18: some wanted to hear something new and were driven by “vain curiosity,” while others, said Master John, had higher motives and listened with doubt but were “not quite past hope.”[105] Reasoning which doubts may show the Holy Spirit at work, but vicious reason seeking titillation could show an attitude of arrogant autonomy. Calvin commented on this text as follows:

. . . though the philosophers do not reason purely, yet they say somewhat. Yea, they speak much concerning eternal life and the immortality of the soul; but as touching faith, which shows free reconciliation in Christ; and regeneration, whereby the Spirit of God does restore in us the image of God, concerning calling upon God, and the last resurrection, not a word.[106]

The Stoics’ and Epicureans’ reasoning was vicious as they speculated concerning things that could only be known through the Bible, while within the context of natural reason they could discern the afterlife, but the gospel of grace and faith required reading the Bible through the spectacles of faith. Reason and knowledge were of particular significance for the Stoics because they believed knowledge is virtue and that well-being could be obtained through achieving a state of cognitive perfection. If knowledge is virtue, then the more one absorbs varieties of knowledge the more virtuous one becomes. The Stoics were willing to listen to Paul as an intellectual curiosity and as a means to increase their virtue.

The act of setting up an altar to the unknown God displayed the Athenians’ ignorance and lack of certainty concerning the true God. Calvin put it succinctly by commenting, “Furthermore, whosoever worships God without any certainty he worships his own inventions instead of God.”[107] In v. 24 Paul established that the true God must be separated from all the divinities invented by man.[108] God cannot be known rightly unless attempts to define him according to man’s nature and flesh are abandoned; God must be distinguished from his creatures if he is to be known.[109] Faith is necessary to know God and without faith man “must needs vanish away in . . . [his] own cogitations.”[110] Paul goes on to proclaim that God must be sought because no man can proclaim ignorance concerning his existence. God, said Calvin, does not hide from man but rather partially reveals himself through creation and conscience; it is “absurd” to allow for the notion that man could be ignorant of his creator.[111] Further, man’s blindness is “shameful and intolerable” since God’s revelation is to be seen everywhere because “God hath not darkly shadowed his glory in the creation of the world, but he hath everywhere engraven such manifest marks, that even blind men may know them by groping.”[112] Calvin commented further that the quote from Aratus in v. 28—”for in him we live and move and exist”—came from the fountain of “nature and common reason.”[113] Paul could use the words of a pagan philosopher because the quote contained truth that the philosopher had discerned through natural reason. Verse 30 is controversial due to its perspective on God’s actions in history concerning the redemption of the lost. The point of concern is, what does the Bible mean when it says, “God have winked at the time of this ignorance so far”? The key question is, why did God allow man to wander for so long? Despite man’s ability to reason he erred grossly and continuously. The only cause, said Calvin, for this period of “winking” was God’s good pleasure.[114] It was a manifestation of fallen man’s arrogance that he continued to try and explain God’s works. Man must accept this “winking” of God and not try to delve into the Divine purpose.[115] Readers of the verse are warned not to let “a vain and perverse desire to know more than is meet” lead to presumptuous speculation.[116] God’s providence limits man’s knowledge and man must not attempt to reason beyond what God has revealed.[117] Commentary on the passage concludes with a call to repentance, an ending of vain speculations, and embracing Jesus Christ as the resurrected Redeemer and final judge of the world.[118] Mention of the resurrection brought about three responses in vv 32-34—those who mocked, those who were willing to listen to more, and those who believed. Calvin explained the skeptical response of some:

And none marvel that this point of Paul’s doctrine was derided at Athens; for it is a mystery hid from men’s minds, whereon the chief philosophers had never thought, neither can we otherwise comprehend it, than when we lift up the eyes of faith unto the infinite power of God.[119]

Paul’s sermon before the Areopagus was a successful apologetic confrontation. Successful not only because Dionysius and Damaris were evangelized and believed the gospel, but because the gospel had been faithfully and accurately presented in the face of autonomous philosophy. The Genevan’s comments show that philosophy cannot comprehend God’s truth through natural nor vicious reason. Reason must be transformed by grace if reason is to reach God through the Word.

V. Conclusion

A foundational aspect of Master Calvin’s theology is the catastrophic nature of the fall. Man fell from the glories of Edenic perfection into the miry bog of sin and misery. The fall affected man in his entirety, but it did not totally destroy him nor completely obliterate the imago Dei. Thus, if man’s ability to reason had been totally and completely removed, then man would have ceased being man. Human reason is an aspect of man in the image of God. In each of the three kinds of reason—natural, vicious, and redeemed—the effects of sin are present. Calvin’s designation of three kinds of human reason may mislead since the second and third are actually modified extensions of fallen natural reason. That is, natural reason is man’s fallen ability to reason, which in redeemed and lost alike can descend into the abyss of speculative philosophy and become vicious reason, or in the Christian may ascend into the glories of a redeemed reason that views the entirety of revelation through the spectacles of faith. Natural reason can imperfectly comprehend the existence of God, the wonder of his handiwork, science and the laws of creation, mathematical problems, weighing, measuring, building, and other common areas of life, but it cannot comprehend the gospel nor understand any aspect of these common areas of life truly because only redeemed reason illumines the common and salvific. Vicious reasoning is exemplified in two ways. First, it seeks to obtain knowledge of God and his works through means other than Scripture when Scripture is the only way to acquire that knowledge; and second, it is the illegitimate pursuit of knowledge that God has reserved for himself alone. Vicious reason is often condemned by the Genevan with terms like “sophistry,” “the schoolmen,” “the philosophers,” and “the teaching of the Sorbonne.” In contrast with vicious reason is redeemed reason, which is seeded, cultivated, and pruned by the Holy Spirit speaking through the Word of God. Redeemed reason, though in a Christian struggling with sinful flesh, is definitively and progressively reasoning rightly. Despite the catastrophe of the fall, the pollution of all man’s faculties, and the propensity for speculative reasoning, the grace of redemption enables man to reason rightly.

An illustration involving Calvin’s three types of reason may help at this point. The atheist physicist understanding Newton’s laws of motion has a necessarily deficient perspective on their meaning due to his denial of God’s existence; the Christian physicist, though his scientific knowledge may not be as extensive or technical as the atheist’s, necessarily understands Newton truly, though maybe not completely, through the spectacles of grace. Creation’s laws are of divine origin; the equation, force equals mass times acceleration, is true because God is its author. The atheist physicist has excelled in the use of natural reason, while the Christian physicist’s redeemed reason provides a fullness of perspective unavailable to the atheist due to his suppression of the knowledge of God in unrighteousness.

John Calvin was deeply concerned that people recognize the limits of human reason and submit to the sufficiency of God’s revelation concerning knowledge. God’s revelation expressed in the work of creation, the acceleration of gravity the Trinity, the orbits of the planets, and parallel lines never intersecting, are all revealed by God and true because the Lord is their author. The sufficiency of Scripture, according to Calvin, is not only an illuminating factor in that it tells man all he needs to know for faith and life, but it is also a limiting factor because man must not speculate concerning the knowledge God has withheld. One of the Genevan’s foundational principles for the exercise of reason in the interpretation of Scripture is that man should know when to stop pursuing the prodding of his curiosity. Vicious reason is seen in the unconverted who theorize about metaphysics and epistemology trying to answer “the big questions” when the answers can only be known through redemptive reason searching the Scriptures. Knowledge for creatures made of dust is limited by what God has made known, and man must reason within his limitations. The enticement of the forbidden combined with aspirations to divinity have continued to characterize man’s exercise of reason. This perspective is exemplified in Calvin’s comments on the doxological words of Paul in Rom 11:33 as the apostle concluded his exposition of the wonders of predestination and God’s electing grace:

Whenever then we enter on a discourse respecting the eternal counsel of God, let a bridle be always set on our thoughts and tongue, so that after having spoken soberly and within the limits of God’s word, our reasoning may at last end in admiration. 

Let us then learn to make no searchings respecting the Lord, except as far as he has revealed himself in the Scriptures; for otherwise we shall enter a labyrinth, from which the retreat is not easy. 

As then we cannot by our own faculties examine the secrets of God, so we are admitted into a certain and clear knowledge of them by the grace of the Holy Spirit; and if we ought to follow the guidance of the Spirit, where he leaves us, there we ought to stop and as it were to fix our standing. If any one will seek to know more than what God has revealed, he shall be overwhelmed with the immeasurable brightness of inaccessible light. But we must bear in mind the distinction, which I have before mentioned, between the secret counsel of God, and his will made known in Scripture; for though the whole doctrine of Scripture surpasses in its height the mind of man, yet an access to it is not closed against the faithful, who reverently and soberly follow the Spirit as their guide; but the case is different with regard to his hidden counsel, the depth and height of which cannot by any investigation be reached.[120]

Only the Christian enjoys the privilege of plumbing the depths of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God through the grace of redemptive reason. Contemplation of God’s eternal purpose bridled by the reins of Scripture leads one’s reason to admire, worship, and praise God.

Master Calvin’s assessment of his own faithfulness to reasoning in submission to Scripture is expressed in his letter of farewell to the ministers of Geneva dated May 1, 1564.[121] His last years had been particularly difficult due to the physical pain of kidney stones, arthritis, hemorrhoids, colic, expectoration of blood, and ulcers.[122] The letter to his co- laborers in the gospel is reminiscent of Paul’s words in 2 Tim 4:6-8 and 1 Cor 2:4:

As to my doctrine, I have taught faithfully, and God has given me grace to write what I have written as faithfully as it was in my power. I have not falsified a single passage of the Scriptures, nor given it a wrong interpretation to the best of my knowledge; and though I might have introduced subtle senses, had I studied subtlety I cast that temptation under my feet and always aimed at simplicity.[123]

The last sentence expresses the Genevan’s belief that he had avoided speculating in his expositions of the Word of God. Calvin’s exposition of the truth of Scripture was in direct confrontation with the exaltation of human reason expressed in scholasticism and humanism. If the locus studied yielded itself to vast depths of inquiry because Scripture had much to say about the issue, then he illumined that depth in his teaching; if the point of discussion was addressed little in the Word, then he limited his instruction to what God said. Reason must be established on the foundation of faith and exercised within the bounds of God’s scriptural revelation if it is to be right reason.

Notes

1. William J. Bouwsma, John Calvin: A Sixteenth Century Portrait (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 113, chs. 6 and 7, address this particularly; see also Bouwsma’s article, “Calvin, John,” in The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy (ed. Robert Audi; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).
2. Quirinius Breen, John Calvin: A Study in French Humanism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1931), 146, 147.
3. Francois Wendel, Calvin: Origins and Development of His Religious Thought (trans. Philip Mairet: Grand Rapids: Baker, 1963), 188, 248-49.
4. David G. Steinmetz, Calvin in Context (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 30.
5. Leroy Nixon, John Calvin’s Teaching on Human Reason (2d ed.; New York: Exposition Press, 1963), 27.
6. Genesis, 1:95 (the edition of Calvin’s commentaries in English used for this article is the set originally published by The Calvin Translation Society and reprinted as Calvin’s Commentaries [22 vols.; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1993]); CO (Calvini Opera omnia; 59 vols.) 23:26-27.
7. Genesis, 1:117; CO 23:38.
8. Genesis, 1:126; CO 23:44.
9. Genesis, 1:147-48; CO 23:57.
10. Genesis, 1:148; CO 23:57.
11. Genesis, 1:148; CO 23:58.
12. Genesis, 1:149; GO 23:58.
13. Genesis, 1:150; GO 23:59.
14. Genesis, 1:151; GO 23:59.
15. Genesis, 1:154, 155; GO 23:61, 62.
16. Genesis, 1:95 (italics added for emphasis); GO 23:27. Also, commenting on Gen 8:21 and the words, “For the imagination of man’s heart,” Calvin observed: “We must, therefore, acquiesce in the judgment of God which pronounces man to be so enslaved by sin that he can bring forth nothing sound and sincere” (1:285; GO 23:141). Commenting on Ps 51:5 and the words, “Behold, I was shaped in iniquity” Calvin said, “Adam, upon his fall, was despoiled of his original righteousness, his reason darkened, his will perverted” (Psalms, 5:291; CO 21:514; v. 5 in English is v. 7 in the Latin).
17. Institutes, 2-1-1 (the English version used in this article is Ford Lewis Battles’s translation in the Library of Christian Classics, vols. 20 and 21: Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion [ed. John T McNeill; 2 vols.; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1977]); the 1559 Institutes in Latin is contained in the entirety of vol. 2 of CO.
18. Institutes, 2-1-1.
19. Ibid.
20. Ibid.
21. Ibid., 2.1.2.
22. Ibid., 2.1.3.
23. All publication dates for Calvin’s writings are taken from W de Greef, The Writings of John Calvin (trans. Lyle D. Bierma; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1993); pp. 237-41 provide a chronological list.
24. John Calvin, True Partaking of the Flesh and Blood of Christ, in vol. 2 of Calvin’s Tracts Containing Treatises on the Sacraments (trans, by Henry Beveridge; Edinburgh: The Calvin Translation Society 1849), 512; CO 9:474.
25. True Partaking 512; CO 9:474.
26. True Partaking, 505; GO 9:469.
27. True Partaking, 512; GO 9:474.
28. Ibid, (sedea suos habetfines, quos si exsuperat, evanescit).
29. Calvin’s view of the imago Dei can be confusing. In some of his writings, particularly earlier ones, he appears to say that the image was “destroyed” in the sense of totally eliminated by the fall. But when more of his corpus is read, one realizes that Calvin’s view of the depravity of man is so extensive that it is almost as if man lost the imago. For example, comments on Gen 1:26-27 referring to Col 3:10 and Eph 3:23, 24, read, “Since the image of God has been destroyed [deleta] in us by the fall, we may judge from its restoration what it originally had been. Paul says that we are transformed into the image of God by the gospel. And, according to him, spiritual regeneration is nothing else than the restoration of the same image” (Genesis, 1:94). Taken by itself this statement would seem to teach that Calvin believed in man’s loss of the imago in the fall, but on the next page of the commentary Calvin clarifies his position by saying that the image of God is so “vitiated” and “maimed” that it could be said to be “destroyed.” Thus, it could be said of Calvin’s view that the fallen imago can be likened to an invalid on the critical list, in the intensive care unit, on life support, with an erratic EKG, and near the point of death, but redemption brings new life to the imago and initiates the process of recovery healing and restoration which is ultimately and gloriously completed in heaven. The fall was truly catastrophic for man. See also comments on Gen 3:1, 1:139; Gen 9:1-17, 1:296; 2 Cor 3:18, 20:187. The Institutes also: “[image was] so vitiated and almost obliterated” (1.15.4); “image obliterated in him” (2-1-5); and “image of God wiped out from his mind and soul” (3.2-12)- So, Calvin’s describing natural reason as “lost” should be understood in connection with his understanding of the imago Dei and the devastating results of the fall.
30. Beveridge translates humana ratio as “natural reason,” while the Battles edition translates the Latin as “human reason”; CO 2:61.
31. Institutes, 1.8.13. This is also the perspective Calvin takes concerning the “proofs for the existence of God.” In Calvin’s view, the “proofs” are not meant to prove God’s existence, but rather are testimonies to the God which man knows to exist. That is, Calvin sees man as putting the God of the universe in the dock when he starts trying to prove God’s existence, but testimonies are witnesses to man’s responsibility to God and place man in the dock. Thus, proofs show man exercising a perceived autonomy, while testimonies show God exercising his sovereignty and calling man to belief in him.
32. Calvin likes this “sparks” imagery and uses it in 1.15.3, 1.16.9, and 2-2-12, as well as in other locations in the Institutes and his other works.
33. Institutes, 2.2.12.
34. Ibid., 2.2.15.
35. John Calvin, The Necessity of Reforming the Church, in vol. 1 of Calvin’s Tracts Relating to the Reformation (trans. Henry Beveridge; Edinburgh: The Calvin Translation Society, 1844), 158.
36. Ibid.; italics added.
37. Isaiah, 7:38; GO 26:28.
38. Isaiah, 7:38-39; GO 26:29.
39. Titus, 21:313, this is the entire comment about this verse in the commentary; GO 52:420.
40. True Partaking, 512; GO 9:474.
41. Institutes, 1.5.12.
42. Ibid.
43. Ibid.
44. Ibid., 1.14.12.
45. Ibid.
46. See Harper Collins Encyclopedia of Catholicism (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1995), 47, for a table of nine levels of “celestial hierarchy.”
47. Institutes, 2.2.3.
48. Ibid.
49. Ibid.
50. Ibid., 2.2.7, 8.
51. The “gain” appears to be financial profit since w. 6 and 8 call for godliness to be content with its physical and monetary condition in life, and v. 10 warns that “the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil.”
52. 1 Timothy, 21.155; GO 52:324-25.
53. Institutes, 1.3.1.
54. Ibid., 1.3.2- Three quotes from Cornelius Van Til are helpful here: “No matter which button of the radio he [man] presses, he always hears the voice of God” [Common Grace and the Gospel [Nutley NJ.: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1977], 53); “Arguing about God’s existence, I hold, is like arguing about air. You may affirm that air exists, and I that it does not. But as we debate the point, we are both breathing air all the time” [Why I Believe in God, printed in Greg Bahnsen, Van Til’s Apologetic [Phillipsburg, NJ.: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1998], 122); “The natural man is such an one as constantly throws water on a fire he cannot quench” [Christian Apologetics [Nutley NJ.: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1976], 56; note Van Til’s fire imagery and Calvin’s repeated use of “sparks” to show the sense of deity and the imago Dei).
55. Institutes, 1.3.3.
56. Ibid., 1.4.1.
57. Ibid.
58. Ibid., 1.5.11.
59. Ibid.
60. Ibid., 1.5.12- Van Til comments, “When man became a sinner he made of himself instead of God the ultimate or final reference point. And it is precisely this presupposition, as it controls without exception all forms of non-Christian philosophy that must be brought into question” [Christian Apologetics, 45).
61. Institutes, 1.5.12.
62. Ibid. Battles comments in n. 36, “The pictorial figure of the labyrinth is in Calvin’s writings frequently employed as a symbol of human frustration and confusion.” Thus, labyrinth vividly describes the vicious nature of reason run amok; CO 2:49.
63. Deuteronomy, 2:424; CO 24:266.
64. Ibid.
65. Ibid.
66. Ibid.
67. Ibid.
68. Deuteronomy, 2:425-26; GO 24:266-67.
69. Deuteronomy, 2:426; GO 24:266-67.
70. True Partaking, 512; GO 9:474.
71. Institutes, 1.1.1.
72. Ibid.
73. Ibid., 1.1.2.
74. Ibid., 1.1.2,3.
75. Ibid., 1.2.2.
76. Ibid.
77. Ibid., 3.7.1.
78. John Calvin, Selected Works of John Calvin: Tracts and Letters (ed. Jules Bonnet; trans. Marcus Robert Gilchrist; 7 vols.; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1983), 5:212-13.
79. Calvin, Tracts and Letters, 5:213.
80. Ibid.
81. Ibid.
82. Ephesians, 21:295; CO 51:208.
83. Ephesians, 21:296; CO 51:208-9.
84. Colossians, 21:211; CO 52:121.
85. Romans, 19:68, 23. This is Calvin’s first published Bible commentary 1540.
86. Romans, 19:69; CO 49:23.
87. Ibid.
88. Romans, 19:71; GO 49:24. Van Til comments: “Saving grace is not manifest in nature; yet it is the God of saving grace who manifests himself by means of nature” (“Nature and Scripture,” in The Infallible Word [ed. Ned Stonehouse and Paul Woolley; 3d rev. ed.; Philadelphia: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1967], 266); “Men can read nature aright only when it is studied as the home of man who is made in the image of God” (Introduction to Systematic Theology [Nutley NJ.: 1974], 82).
89. Hebrews, 22:264; GO 55:144.
90. Hebrews, 22:264-65; GO 55:145.
91. Hebrews, 22:265; GO 55:145. Calvin exhibits this as he mentions the rainbow, which he describes as “but a reflection of the sun’s rays upon the clouds opposite,” and “such a variety of colors naturally arises from rays reflected upon a cloud opposite” (Institutes, 4.14.18). This shows, concludes Battles, Calvin’s familiarity with Pliny’s Natural History and Seneca’s Natural Questions.
92. Hebrews, 22:265; GO 55:145.
93. 1 Corinthians, 20:85; GO 49:326-27.
94. 1 Corinthians, 20:85-86; GO 49:327.
95. Romans, 19:454; GO 49:235; italics added; Calvin comments on 12:2.
96. Calvin’s continued use of “blind” terminology shows that the unredeemed cannot know anything truly because they are like people who cannot see; see also comments on Eph 4:18, Ephesians. 21:292; CO 51:205-6, where this blindness is described as “the punishment of original sin.”
97. 1 Corinthians, 20:82; CO 49:325.
98. 1 Corinthians, 20:83; CO 49:325.
99. Ibid.
100. Acts, 19:146; GO 48:403
101. Ibid.
102. Ibid.
103. Acts, 19:149; GO 48:405.
104. Ibid. Calvin’s point is that Paul did not play the Athenians’ game; he stuck to the gospel, did not succumb to pride and ego, and made apologetic contact.
105. Acts, 19:151; GO 48:406.
106. Acts, 19:152; GO 48:406-7.
107. Acts, 19:155; CO 48:408.
108. Acts, 19:159; CO 48:410-11.
109. Acts, 19:159; CO 48:411.
110. Acts, 19:160; CO 48:411.
111. Acts, 19:166; CO 48:415.
112. Ibid.
113. Acts, 19:169; CO 48:417. Calvin also mentions this in Institutes, 1.5.3.
114. Acts, 19:173; CO 48:419-20.
115. Acts, 19:173; CO 48:420.
116. Acts, 19:174; GO 48:420.
117. Acts, 19:174; GO 48:420-21.
118. Acts, 19:174-77; GO 48:420-22.
119. Acts,19:177-78; GO 48:422-23.
120. Romans, 19:444, 445, 447; GO 49:230-31.
121. Calvin, Tracts and Letters, 7:372-78. Calvin died on May 27, 1564.
122. For a rather explicit and wrenching description of his agony see his letter to the Physicians of Montpellier written from Geneva, February 8, 1564, in Tracts and Letters, 7:358-60.
123. Calvin, Tracts and Letters, 7:375.