July 17, 2024 Show with Dr. Tim Harmon on “Calvin’s Institutes: An In-Depth Analysis of Its Structure” (Part 2 of 2)

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But today is part two of a two-day discussion we are having with Dr. Tim Harmon. I really loved every minute of yesterday's discussion of part one of the subject Calvin's Institutes, an in-depth analysis of its structure, and we are continuing that topic today.

Dr. Tim Harmon is Vice President of Academics and Chief Administrative Officer, Provost, and Fellow of Theology at New St. Andrew College in Moscow, Idaho, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

Dr. Tim Harmon. Thank you, wonderful to be here again with you today. And if anybody wants to know more about New St. Andrews College in Moscow, Idaho, go to NSA .edu, NSA .edu, and also, please make sure you listen to part one of our interview that we conducted yesterday.

Dr. Harmon gives a more detailed explanation of New St. Andrews, and he also gives a summary of a salvation testimony in addition to opening up the discussion for this very important topic on Calvin's Institutes.

Well, I'm going to give our listeners our email address again, if they'd like to join us with their own questions. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, C-H-R-I-S-A-R-N-Z-E-N at gmail .com. As always, give us your first name at least, your city and state, and country of residence if you live outside of the USA.

And Dr. Harmon, if you want to just give a very brief recap, because people can always listen to the recording of part one to get the full details on what we discussed yesterday, but if you want to give us a brief recap before we resume this discussion.

Sure, sounds good. So.

Calvin the Man, the Institutes, and Their Original Purpose

Yesterday we talked through Calvin the man. We talked about his place in history and the events that led to his composing his institutes or instruction, or you could say catechism in Christian religion.

Calvin was a Frenchman at that time. He was aware of great persecution of Protestants in France. He was motivated not just to provide a compendium of doctrine to help Christians read the Bible better in general, but more specifically, he wanted to demonstrate to those persecuting Protestants that Protestants are simply holding fast to the main line of Christian doctrine throughout church history.

And so kind of with those twin goals, number one, to provide an aid to the reading of Scripture, and number two, to provide a defense of the Protestant faith. He then undertakes this task. He starts it quite early in the first edition, 1536.

He's still a young man, continues to work on this for about 25 years until the final Latin edition of the Institutes is published in 1559. A much expanded and reorganized work, and that is the final edition that we have today.

Along with the French edition that was published in 1560. Anything else in there that you'd like me to touch on by way of introduction?

Well, maybe we could just clarify one thing that is the subject of debate between Christians.

Does.

Calvin's Institutes contain what we have come to know as the five points of Calvinism? Now, I know the Tulip acronym, or acrostic, I always forget which one to use, but the Tulip was actually a response to the five points of Arminians, five points of Arminianism, during the remonstrance, a response to the remonstrance in the early 17th century by the Dutch Reformed Church.

And the Arminians rose up within the Dutch Reformed Church with their protest known as the Remonstrance. So, we know that you will not find Tulip in Calvin's Institutes of the Christian religion, but are the concepts of all five points in there?

Yeah, I think the concepts are clearly found in Calvin's writings. The those present at the Synod of Dort, they are simply trying to draw on that Calvinistic tradition and Calvin's own thought in order to respond to a controversy in their day.

So, I think that those five points are certainly part of Calvin's conceptual framework, even though you're correct, there are no five points of Calvinism articulated in Calvin's own writings.

Great. Well, you can continue now with what you most want to emphasize as far as the structure of this very historic and vital document.

Great. Yeah, well, I thought it would be having talked about the background of the Institutes, about Calvin and the kind of man that he was, and talking more generally about the structure, to walk through the work as a whole, kind of tracing what I see to be his main line of argument.

Before doing so, I do want to commend what I have found to be a helpful resource, which is the analysis of the Institutes by Ford Lewis Battles. He provides, if anyone's interested in studying the Institutes further, he provides what he calls a detailed analytic outline of the work.

And so you're able to turn to the section that you're reading in the Institutes and look at the outline that he's provided, and I think that really helps in understanding the logic of a section. Calvin, much like Augustine, within the framework of a somewhat systematic work, will often digress.

We've talked about Calvin being Augustinian, and this is one way in which Calvin is Augustinian, because he'll be articulating a biblical truth, and then he will digress to address a situation that he's facing in his day, might not be a situation that we're facing as well, but something in his day that he feels that he needs to address, and he kind of steps aside and does that.

And because of that, at times, it can be difficult to trace his line of argument. So I think Battles is helpful as a resource in doing that. And there are two comments that Battles makes in the introduction to this work that I think are worth mentioning before even starting to walk through his line of argument.

And the first of these is that while seeking to provide what he sees as a coherent account, a coherent summary of the whole of biblical teaching, Calvin is not merely trying to provide a compendium of doctrinal truths, and he doesn't even see himself as providing the final word.

So at the end, for example, of the preface to the 1560 French edition, which is the last edition that he publishes, he writes the following. He says, I urge the reader to have recourse to scripture in order to weigh the testimonies I adduce from it.

So he's challenging the reader. You've heard my take on scripture, and it does bear authority. It bears weight, both through logical argumentation and through his drawing upon church history, but at the same time, he ultimately is bringing the reader back to scripture.

And what he wants to do is he wants to pave an on-ramp, and he uses that language of a path or an on-ramp for a life of careful biblical reading, testing what they've heard from everyone, including Calvin, against scripture itself so that they may live in keeping with God's will, experience his blessing, and, and I think this is an important point, see the establishment of the kingdom of God.

So it's not just that they would rightly understand biblical truths, but it, taking it on Calvin's word, that they would be brought back to scripture, that bringing, being brought to scripture, that would result in a change in how they're living, and in so doing, that they would experience God's blessing and ultimately see the establishment of the kingdom of God.

So I think you have to keep all that in view when you're thinking about what Calvin is trying to provide.

Yeah, what you just said, said in regard to one of the intentions of Calvin, to change how people were living, this defies the slander of Calvin and Calvinism and Calvinists by those who oppose this theology, usually in ignorance of what it actually teaches, who will hurl against us the accusation that we believe in easy believism and cheap grace, that you can live like Satan your entire life unrepentantly after you make some kind of a profession, and you should be given confidence you will still go to heaven when you die just because you made a profession in the past.

And I remember distinctly one day years ago, back in the 1990s, hearing Raul Ruiz, the very well-known radio preacher, teacher, affiliated with the Calvary Chapel movement. I could still remember sitting there hearing him say, there are people out there who teach that you can live like the devil your whole life and you'll still go to heaven when you die.

That's not in the Bible, man. John Calvin made that up, man. And I remember thinking, this man never read one sentence of Calvin, one sentence of the Puritans, one sentence of any of the Continental Reformers.

I mean, this is ridiculous. Even somebody with a cursory knowledge of Calvin and the Puritans would know that that is just a blatant lie.

Yeah, that really is a straw man, and you're correct. You're not going to find that in Calvin at all. Now, what you will find, and I'm going to talk about this later as we walk through the Institutes, is you will find that Calvin is very concerned with providing Christians assurance, but that's not the same thing as easy believers.

Right.

So we'll talk more about his concern there to provide Christians with assurance, not false assurance.

Right.

But he doesn't want them to find their assurance in self, but ultimately to find their assurance in God. But that is not the same thing as saying it does not matter what you do, because for Calvin, he could not imagine, I mean, he'd be horrified if he thought that what he wrote was to be taken in such a sense that it was okay to simply believe the right things in a way that was disconnected from piety.

Well, let me just throw out a recommendation. I'm not sure you're familiar with this excellent book by Dr. Joel R. Beeke, founder and president of Puritan Reform Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

But he wrote his doctoral dissertation on assurance, and it became a, it got in print in a more popular form called The Quest for Full Assurance, The Legacy of Calvin and His Successors. So I just thought I'd throw that out there.

Yeah, good resource.

So pick up where you left it.

Yeah, so I want to pick up, point out just one more thing that I'm taking from Battles and his introduction, which, and it connects up to the prior item, which was that you have to understand that reading scripture, rightly understanding it, that cannot be disconnected from then you doing the will of God, receiving God's blessing, and ultimately the establishment of the kingdom of God.

And so the second thing that Battles asserts is that at the end of the day, Calvin, even though you might not find the language of, the exact language of sovereignty, the sovereignty of God being something you're stumbling across on every page, at the same time that Calvin's ultimately, ultimately focusing on God's rule among the nations.

And I liked the way he puts that because you can have more abstract references to the sovereignty of God and assert that that's a prevailing theme in institutes. And I think that's true, but I think it fails to capture this more concrete, as Battles puts it, royal imagery and political frame of the institutes.

So the sovereignty of God for Calvin is God's rule among the nations, which is much more concrete than an abstract notion of God's rule. And it connects up to, and we're getting now into the, one more comment on the organization before walking through the work.

Battles has this phrase, political frame. And one thing to take notice of is that in the final 1559 edition, which is a reorganization of prior editions, and Calvin again says, I'm finally satisfied in how I've organized the work.

But in that edition, it begins and ends on a political note, begins and ends on a political note. It begins with Calvin's letter to the earthly King Francis I with an appeal that recognizes the legitimacy of his office as a civil magistrate under the rule of God.

And then it ends in book four, chapter 20, with Calvin's famous treatment of civil government. So very interesting that it begins and ends with this political framing. And yesterday I mentioned that Calvin's Institute, something like more contemporary systematic theologies, it doesn't end with a section on eschatology.

And indeed it contains no extended eschatology section at all. Instead, what you have are these, and again, we're going to come to this, there is one chapter on the resurrection, but the work as a whole is bookended by attention to the civil sphere in which we presently live.

Battles makes this note, Calvin's theology lives in the real world and squarely faces it. And that's not to the neglect of the eschaton when God's will is done on earth as it is in heaven. It's not to neglect of that day when the kinship of Christ over all nations will be manifest, but that's a future event.

At the same time, I think the point is here is that Calvin is addressing his readers here and now, living as members of the spiritual kingdom among the kingdoms of the earth. So there is a very practical focus in this work to help people navigate their present life situation.

And that again is why Calvin digresses, because he thinks theology has something to do with the practical situations that you're facing right now.

Now, when you said that the Institutes does not contain any kind of thorough exegesis or discussion on eschatology, are you including, because eschatology does include this, heaven, hell, and the afterlife?

Certainly those are touched upon in his section on eschatology, but it's kind of in the scope of the work as a whole, it's a relatively meager treatment. And I don't think that's because he, again, would want to downplay their significance, their great significance.

He spends a lot of time on soteriology, our need for salvation in Christ. He certainly believes that we are in dire straits without the redemption work in Christ. But I do think he wants to make his theology connect up with our present situation as we live in light of that day.

And so his focus is a lot more on how should we live now in light of the truth of Christ, rather than speculation. And I mentioned yesterday, he's anti-speculative. I think that he's content with looking forward to that day when Christ will come in his kingdom as well, in its fullness at Christ's return, that we will experience that blessing of a unified body and soul and a glorified human existence.

He's happy looking forward to that reward, not knowing exactly what all the particulars are going to look like.

Well, it sounds like, according to your vast knowledge of the Institutes, that something that would be foreign to Calvin is the idea that has been adopted by multitudes of Reformed Christians and their pastors and their churches and congregations and denominations of this total separation of the church from the political arena.

Obviously, on the one hand, there are people, I believe, who delve into heresy when they equate political activism with the gospel as if they are really just adopting a right-wing social gospel. Correct.

But at the same time, there are many Reformed pastors that will never, ever address anything of a political nature, even if the issues can transcend politics. Like, for instance, the murder of unborn children is not just a political issue.

I would fully agree with you. He definitely—and in the final section of the Institutes, when he's dealing with power, first the power of the church and then the power of the civil magistrate, he believes that these two are vitally connected to one another.

There's no way of distinguishing these into absolutely different spheres. They have different functions, in God's design, but the two are vitally connected, and we're whole beings. We're whole people.

Life is not bifurcated and segregated in that kind of way.

Well, we have to go to our first commercial break, and if you want to join us with a question, send it to chrisarnsen at gmail .com. Give us your first name, at least, city and state, and country of residence.

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So go to royaldiadem .com today to get the ball rolling on your purchase and mention Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. And we are now back with Dr. Tim Harmon. This is day number two of our two-part discussion on Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion.

If you have a question, submit it to chrisarnson at gmail .com. Chrisarnson at gmail .com. As always, give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence. Will, please pick up where you left.

Off, brother. Yeah, so I think we're at a good point now to just starting to talk through the as a whole and trace its argument. As was mentioned before yesterday, we talked about there being four books.

These are not discrete books. They're meant to be read together in sequence, but you could say four larger sections. The first deals with the knowledge of God as creator with a focus on the Father. The second, the knowledge of God as a Redeemer, as Redeemer with a focus on the Son.

The third, the way in which we receive the grace of Christ with a focus on the Spirit. And then finally, the fourth book has to do with life in the society of Christ. So right at the beginning, book one, we have the knowledge of God as creator, and both books one and two have to do with the knowledge of God.

We see two ways in which God can be known, either as creator or Redeemer. And in book one, the focus is on how humans, through general revelation and without the aid of special revelation, may know God.

Now for Calvin, due to our fallenness, we cannot know God as creator through general revelation in the way that we ought to, and as such, special revelation in scripture is needed. Book one, chapter one, opens with Calvin's famous words.

He says this, nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts, the knowledge of God and of ourselves. So wisdom for him involves two parts, knowledge of God and knowledge of self.

Now ask yourself the question, why does he use the term wisdom in earlier versions? In the 1536 version in particular, he used a term other than wisdom. He spoke of sacred doctrine, which if you're reading through patristics and medievals, they just use that language of sacred doctrine to refer to both scripture, scripture itself, and doctrinally what scripture teaches.

And so he employs a pretty common term, but then he changes it in the 1539 version from sacred doctrine to the term wisdom. And scratch your head and ask, he doesn't tell us why he did it, but ask yourself, why did he do this?

And perhaps it's because he's trying to underscore that it's not just the body of truth, which constitute the Christian faith, but rather this broader category of wisdom that includes both the knowledge of the truth and then our applying that truth to our lives.

So perhaps he wanted to bring into view a broader notion of theology that was at once theoretical and practical. Either way, this wisdom is twofold. It involves knowledge of God and self. And then Calvin makes a comment on these and he says, while joined by many bonds, which one proceeds and brings forth the other is not easy to discern.

And what he's getting at is that the knowledge of God and knowledge of self are very much interrelated. They're mutually implicating. It says, we come to know God, that we come to know ourself. And it's as we come to know ourself, that we come to know God.

And framing things that way at the outset or setting things up that way at the outset, it's clear that whatever kind of theology Calvin is doing is not abstract theology, disconnected from our day-to-day lives, as I've talked about before.

So that's the starting point for Calvin. And then in terms of his answer to how the knowledge of God and the knowledge of self relate, he goes on to say that for us as fallen creatures, it's primarily as we come to recognize our own unhappy condition that we rightly see God for who he is.

We have to be displeased with self before we can truly aspire to the knowledge of God. And I don't think what he's talking about here is just self-abasement in a way that doesn't recognize all the good things that God has put into our life.

God is constantly restraining evil. Our original created condition is good. But I would say more about knowing that we don't stand in a right relationship to him.

So that's the starting point. Now just to clarify a couple of things, obviously you mentioned some terms—general revelation, which is involving nature, and special revelation, which involves the God-breathed scriptures.

What in Calvin's mind and belief and teaching in the Institutes, what can we know from Romans 1, which obviously many, not all, but many Reformed Christians who consider Calvin their hero are presuppositionalists.

That's one of the favorite texts of presuppositionalists. And so what can we truly know, or even all of mankind know, whether they are.

Regenerate or not, from Romans 1? So I think that the answer, of course, is different before and after the fall. If there had been no fall, all that we needed to know of God would have been clear. And I'll get into this in a bit when I talk about Calvin's idea of the scripture being a set of spectacles, which helps us to read the book of nature or to read the created order.

But prior to the fall, there would have not been a need for those spectacles, because our eyeballs, as you could put it, would not be defective. But there's been a great change that's taking place because of the fall.

Because of the fall, general revelation is still operative. God is still making himself known through every aspect of the created order, including the human being. And Calvin talks about there being a sense of the divine that's still operative in us, where we're still, as it were, able to perceive partially, and not always correctly, that book of nature.

But the best that it's going to get us is to perceive a more general notion of a God. So that's my understanding of his conception of what we're able to read of the book of nature, apart from those spectacles of scripture.

So that we can discern that there is a God, and we can discern some things that are true about divinity. So we might have a fuzzy conception of some of the divine attributes. Certainly, we're not able to discern who this God is,.

Nor are we able to discern his triunity. Which is exactly why Christians sought to evangelize the Native Americans, because they definitely developed a religion from what they observed in nature. But it was an idolatrous and false religion, and therefore, they needed the specific details of God's breathed words and scripture to know the gospel, and to know the true God who they needed to repent and follow and trust as their only hope for salvation.

Am I right?

Absolutely. And I would say that something similar is true in every culture. Just by virtue of being creatures made in the image of God, and being made for the purpose of knowing God. Even though we're fallen, God in his kindness has not allowed our humanity to be as corrupted as it possibly could be.

And so it still does operate, but not quite correctly. But yeah, I would say that there is no culture in which there is not some perception of a God. Some cultures do a better job of reading the book of nature than other cultures at the same time.

Right. I can remember as a young kid visiting pretty much annually my Uncle Hans in Waitley, Massachusetts. He was a man from Germany who married my father's cousin. And I remember we, my father and I, and my brothers would go to church somewhere in the area on Sunday.

And I asked one day when we were eating dinner in Uncle Hans's house, I said, Uncle Hans, why don't you go to church? And he pulled open the curtains and pointed out the window to his beautiful acreage of property out in the countryside.

He said, this is my church. Now, the only thing that that did was make him accountable for his sin. Am I right? Yes. He was not going to get eternal life from that church that he was pointing to. He only had no excuse when he met God on judgment.

And I really do hope that he repented, apart from my knowledge, and came to Christ. I don't know that at all. But that's what we know from nature, is that we are without excuse.

Correct. So thank you for helping to clarify there on what's meant by those terms, general and special revelation. And as you mentioned, there's nothing wrong with general revelation. There's something wrong with us.

And because of that, general revelation, as good as it is, is not good enough to provide us with the knowledge of God that's necessary for salvation.

Humility, Pride, and the Knowledge of God

Okay. What else would you like to highlight?

So picking back up, Calvin connects this idea of the knowledge of self and the knowledge of God, and how it's primarily as we come to recognize our own unhappy condition that we rightly seek God for who he is.