I won't break this down book by book, as there is little here that I have not already studied in seminary. I will say that I've been struck, in reading the Institutes, by a few things:
1. In Book I, Chapter I, Calvin tackles the knowledge of God and knowledge of ourselves, and I doubt that Descarte would recognize it. The first book is called "The Knowledge of the Creator," and the first chapter is entitled "The Knowledge of God and That of Ourselves are Connected. How They Are Interrelated." The title of book one bears this footnote:
The Latin for knowledge is here cognitio, while in the title of ch. i following it is notitia. The words are used interchangeably by Calvin, and both are by him here translated into French (1541) as cognoissance. Knowledge, whatever the word employed, is for Calvin never "mere" or "simple" or purely objective knowledge...Probably "existential apprehension" is the nearest equivalent in contemporary parlance (Battles translation).
Calvin, in other words, is far closer (in my mind) to a postmodern epistemology than a modern one. Not that Calvin is simply a postmodernist. He was obviously convicted of the truth of the gospel (see item 3). He seems to recognize that knowing is not a simple apprehension of reality by the mind, because the mind is deceived and clouded by sin. Knowing is both an intellectual and a spiritual act. And it is not disinterested, not "objective." Of course, Calvin is a lot more optimistic about our ability to apprehend truth than the average (secular) postmodernist.
2. Calvin is sometimes a lovely writer, even devotional. There are passages of breathtaking lyrical beauty, like this one:
With what clear manifestations his might draws us to contemplate him! Unless perchance it be unknown to us in whose power it lies to sustain this infinite mass of heaven and earth by His Word: by his nod alone sometimes to shake heaven with thunderbolts, to burn everything with lightnings, to kindle the air with flashes; sometimes to disturb it with various sorts of storms, and then at his pleasure to clear them away in a moment; to compel the sea, which by its height seems to threaten the earth with continual destruction, to hang as if in mid-air; sometimes to arouse it in a dreadful way with the tumultuous force of winds; sometimes, with waves quieted, to make it calm again! Belonging to this theme are the praises of God's power...(V.VI)
3. Calvin is also capable of being a dismissive crank. Right before the lovely passage I just quoted, he calls an opponent (Lucretious) a "filthy dog." He refers to individuals and crowds, elsewhere, as "wranglers," "rascals," "ignorant and stupid." You can scarcely read five pages without Calvin taking verbal aim at someone. I think that this must have been a shepherding impulse: an anger against what might deceive the flock, what was clearly untrue--but it's also distracting, and not really an argument. At times, Calvin is so dismissive of an opponent's argument that he barely replies, and so some important themes are dealt with in a way that is surprisingly unsystematic.
Nevertheless, the work yields benefits, and if you are not researching a particular subject (Holmes and I are looking for stronger arguments about canon formation), it so far seems to live up to its importance in Reformed thought. If his rebuttals are sometimes lacking, his articulation of doctrine is rigorous and consistent.
More as I read.
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