Blogging The Institutes

In this section, Calvin mentions individuals who draw unwarranted inferences from the providence of God. One false inference is that means do not matter. One might say, "if God has unchangeably set the time of my death, then what does it matter if I eat well, exercise, and see the doctor?" Calvin...

Calvin reminds us in 1.16.9 that though all things are ordained by God's plan yet the events of our lives and world often look to us as if they are random and fortuitous. As Calvin says "the order, reason, end, and necessity of those things which happen for the most part lie hidden in God's purpose...

For Calvin, providence means God governing, not merely watching, his creation (1.16.4). Calvin is emphasizing that providence entails more than "bare foreknowledge." It involves God's will, and his acts. Nor is it merely a general control, but a specific direction. Indeed, Calvin asserts that God "...

1.15.8 is a "rock your world" important passage in the Institutes. In it, Calvin explains a fundamental source of confusion in the quest for "free will.""The Philosophers," says Calvin, by discussing the question of free will apart from understanding the consequences of the fall "were seeking in a...

Calvin, having introduced the subject of our creation in the image of God in 1.15.3, argues that we learn what the image of God entails not only by studying man as originally created (Genesis 1-2), but by studying what Scripture says about the image of God as it is renewed in Christ. Calvin says: "...

Calvin now turns to the creation of mankind (1.15.1), and he does so with a view to further elaborate his assertion that we cannot have a clear and complete knowledge God unless we have a corresponding knowledge of ourselves. Calvin does not have in view here some sort of an introspective,...

Calvin wraps up his discussion of the demons with section 19, showing that demons are real and not impulses or inspirations that God arouses in our minds (cf. section 9 on the reality of angels). Moving on to creation, Calvin encourages "pious delight" in the works of God's "most beautiful theatre...

Section 12 concludes Calvin's discussion of angels with the plea--certainly relevant today!--that unless we see the angels as leading us to God, we are being misled in our understanding. In sections 13-19 Calvin will now look at what Scripture teaches about fallen angels. If we care about God's...

In section 6 Calvin shows that God often dispenses and administers his goodness to us through his angels. Do we each have a guardian angel (section 7)? Calvin doesn't know. He does know from Scripture that the protection of an individual is not the task of one angel only, but "all with one consent...

We now move into chapter 14, on creation of the world and man (sections 1-2), the role of angels (sections 3-12) and demons (sections 13-19), and the lessons we should learn (sections 20-22). Today we look at the first five sections. In the first and fourth especially, Calvin continues to hammer...