Calvin s View of Natural Knowledge of God 1

International Journal of Systematic Theology Volume 3 Number 3 November 2001 Calvin’s View of Natural Knowledge of God1 EDWARD ADAMS* Abstract: For...
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International Journal of Systematic Theology Volume 3 Number 3

November 2001

Calvin’s View of Natural Knowledge of God1 EDWARD ADAMS*

Abstract: For Calvin, the relation between God’s revelation in the sensus divinitatis and God’s revelation in his works is not reducible to the distinction between internal and external revelation. Adams’ contextual interpretation of Calvin’s treatment of the natural knowledge of God in the Institutes illumines some the subtle complexity of Calvin’s argument ^ an argument which is informed both philosophically and biblically. Both Calvin’s positive evaluation of natural revelation and his pessimistic stance vis-a`-vis the ability of humanity to appropriate it emerge from Adams’ analysis.

In chapters ii–v of Book I of the Institutes of the Christian Religion, Calvin argues that there is a knowledge of God accessible to all human beings which is independent of God’s revelation in scripture.2 These chapters have functioned as the locus classicus for the debate on the place of natural theology (or natural revelation) in Calvin’s thought.3 The aim of this article is to investigate Calvin’s teaching in this section and, on the basis of a close reading of these chapters within their immediate context in the Institutes, to attempt to clarify his position on four key issues: (1) the relationship between ‘natural’ and ‘revealed’ knowledge of God, and between natural and scriptural knowledge of God; (2) the distinction and relation between the sensus divinitatis (awareness of divinity) and the self*Department of Theology and Religious Studies, King’s College, London, WC2R 2LS, UK. 1 The article is a revised version of a paper given at the Research Institute in Systematic Theology, King’s College, London, in June 2000. It has benefited from the feedback I received then and from the additional comments and suggestions of Prof. Colin Gunton and Prof. Paul Helm. 2 He speaks of a ‘way of seeking God . . . common both to strangers and to those of his household’: John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. J.T. McNeill, trans. and indexed by F.L. Battles, Library of Christian Classics (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960), vols 20 and 21, I. V. 6. Further references to the Institutes will appear in parentheses in the main text. 3 The debate was sparked off by the famous controversy between Emil Brunner and Karl Barth on the possibility of a natural theology which, as E.A. Dowey (The Knowledge of God in Calvin’s Theology, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994, pp. 265–7), in his brief review of the debate, writes, was itself ‘in part a controversy over the interpretation of Calvin’. Published by Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2001, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

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manifestation of God in his ‘works’; (3) the relation between ‘revelation’ and ‘reason’ in Calvin’s account of natural theological knowledge; (4) the intended purpose of natural knowledge of God and its actual outcome.4

Natural, revealed and scriptural knowledge of God The universally available knowledge of God, which is the subject of Book I. ii–v, is for Calvin a ‘natural’ knowledge. That is to say, the terms ‘nature’ or ‘natural’ are ones he freely uses in connection with it. The universal knowledge of God is ‘natural’ in at least two senses: firstly, in the sense that it is derived, in part, from the ‘course of nature’ (I. v.7), i.e. the natural world as it exhibits orderliness, intricacy and splendour and as it inspires awe, wonder and sometimes terror; secondly, in the sense that it is intrinsic to ‘human nature’ (I. v. 4). Calvin describes the sensus divinitatis as a ‘natural instinct’ (I. iii. 1), a ‘natural disposition’ (I. iii. 1), and as ‘naturally inborn’ (I. iii. 3). For Calvin, ‘nature’, as he employs the concept in these chapters relates to the created state of things. With regard to the world around us, nature is ‘the order prescribed by God’ (I. v. 5). With regard to the constitution of the human being, a ‘natural instinct’ is something which ‘God himself has implanted’ within the individual (I. iii. 1). Calvin does, of course, use the terms ‘nature’ and ‘natural’ later in the Institutes with reference to corrupt and vitiated human nature which is ‘naturally abominable to God’ (II. i. 11), and to the whole order of nature as ‘perverted’ by human sin (II. i. 5). But these are not senses which dominate the argument of Book I. ii–v. To be sure, for Calvin, the sensus divinitatis is not unscathed by the fall. But when he calls the sensus ‘natural’ he is not drawing attention to its distortedness and fallenness, but to its createdness and to the fact that even under fallen conditions it continues to reflect the creator’s design. Likewise, when referring to the ‘order of nature’, he means the physical universe in so far as it was created to be ‘a spectacle of God’s glory’ (I. v. 5), not as it has been spoilt by sin. But if the universal knowledge of God is fully ‘natural’, it is at the same time entirely ‘revealed’. There is no dichotomy in Calvin’s thinking here between the categories of ‘nature’ and ‘revelation’. ‘God himself ’ has endowed men and women with the sensus, and having ‘implanted’ it in their hearts (I. iii. 1) and ‘engraved’ it upon their minds (I. iii. 3), he is continually at work ‘renewing its memory’ (I. iii. 1). In the wider creation, God ‘revealed himself and daily discloses himself ’ (I. v. 1). He ‘renders himself near and familiar to us, and in some manner communicates himself; (I. v. 9). With such language, Calvin makes abundantly 4 It is not my intention to offer a critique of Calvin but rather to elucidate elements of his argument. I should also emphasize that I am confining my attention to the Institutes I. ii–v (though I bring other texts, especially I. vi and x into the discussion). A more comprehensive account of Calvin’s teaching on natural revelation would require treatment of a wider range of passages both in the Institutes and his commentaries. ß Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2001

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clear that natural knowledge of God has been divinely imparted. It does not come to human beings, nor do human beings come to it, apart from God’s action but as a direct consequence of divine initiative. ‘Natural theology’, at least in Protestant (and especially Reformed) thought, has tended to mean the attempt to come to an understanding of God through natural human capacities alone, in particular the faculty of reason. It has often involved a distinction between ‘nature’ and ‘revelation’.5 If for Calvin these fields of divine operation cannot be held apart, it is difficult to see how we could ascribe to him either a fully-fledged ‘natural theology’ (in the sense defined above) or the rudiments of one. It is unfortunate that scholarly discussion of Calvin’s view of natural knowledge of God, particularly in the wake of the Brunner–Barth debate, has tended to focus on whether he develops or lays the basis for a ‘natural theology’. This not only narrows but also prejudices the discussion, given the pejorative connotation of the phrase ‘natural theology’ for many Protestant interpreters.6 It seems to me that clarity is best served if we lay aside the category ‘natural theology’ when discussing Calvin’s exposition in Inst. I. ii–v and talk instead about his idea of a ‘natural revelation’.7 If one cannot differentiate between nature and revelation in Calvin’s teaching on natural theological knowledge, one can certainly maintain a distinction between ‘natural’ knowledge and ‘biblical’ knowledge of God in his exposition. Nature and scripture are two separate sources of truth about God and form two distinct, though concurrently running, ‘tracks’ of divine revelation. This is made clear in chapters vi8 and x of Book I. Calvin discusses the knowledge of God the creator available in creation (ii–v), quite separately from the knowledge of God the creator revealed in scripture (xi–xviii). The division is marked by a section on the Bible as divine revelation (xi–x) in which Calvin stresses the necessity of scripture for rightly knowing God, offers ‘proofs’ of its credibility as the word of God, and compares it with natural revelation. In Book I. ii–v, Calvin uses scriptural texts (e.g. Pss. 19, 104; Acts 17; Rom. 1) to confirm but not to advance his argument. Scripture in these chapters serves a supporting role, affirming and illuminating points established on other grounds. Calvin’s strategy is made clear at I. v. 6, where in discussing God’s

5 One can happily use the term ‘natural theology’ in the study of ancient philosophy, especially Stoic theological thought, without invoking this distinction. 6 T.F. Torrance (Calvin’s Doctrine of Man [London: Lutterworth, 1949], p. 164) sees ‘natural theology’ as a negative counterpart to ‘revelation’ in Calvin’s system, describing it as the ‘the shadow side of revelation’. 7 ’Natural revelation’ is an oxymoron for those who maintain a strict division between nature and revelation, but it is entirely applicable to Calvin. It is preferable to the alternative term ‘general revelation’. Although, in Calvin’s view, natural knowledge of God is ‘generally’ available, it is neither ‘general’ in content nor in purpose and outcome. 8 In Institutes I. vi 1, Calvin calls scripture ‘another . . . help . . . to direct us aright to the very Creator of the universe’ (italics mine). ß Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2001

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omnipotence he states he will ‘intentionally pass over’ the various praises of God’s power one finds in the Bible, especially in Job and Isaiah since he is not here discussing ‘from the Scriptures’ the theme on hand. From chapter xi onward, Calvin directly appeals to the Bible as his primary authority. How, then, are the two tracks of revelation, natural and biblical, related? On one level, Calvin accords natural knowledge of God a certain priority over scriptural knowledge: he discusses natural revelation first. The priority is chronological, both in the general sweep of world history and in the particular life of every individual: the natural revelation has been active in the world ever since the moment of creation, and the seed of religion is present in the individual ‘from his mother’s womb’ (I. iii. 3). Natural revelation is a human being’s first point of access to God. On another and much higher level, natural knowledge of God is secondary and subordinate to biblical knowledge. The latter goes far beyond the former in the truths about the creator it communicates (especially the doctrine of the Trinity, I. xiii), and it is only through scripture that human beings may come to a knowledge of God the redeemer (I. vi. 1). Despite the lower value placed by Calvin on natural revelation for attaining truth about God, he does not view it as opposed to or in tension with biblical knowledge.9 What may be ascertained about God from nature is confirmed and elucidated in scripture. Calvin makes this clear in Book I. x, where he argues that the divine attributes discernible in creation are in agreement with the qualities of God described in scripture. But it is also implicit in the guarded appeal to biblical testimony in I. ii–v noted above. Without building his argument upon scripture in these chapters, he nevertheless tries to show that natural knowledge of God is congruent with the teaching of the Bible. Scriptural revelation, both of God the creator and God the redeemer, as Calvin sees it, fills out, adds to and deepens human beings’ natural knowledge of God; it does not oppose, challenge or amend it.10 This foregoing claim may, however, appear difficult to reconcile with Calvin’s oft-cited comment in I. vi. 1, that scripture acts like ‘spectacles gathering up the otherwise confused knowledge of God in our minds’ so that we might clearly see the ‘the true God’. But he is very careful to say that the confusion which arises and which must be dispersed is caused by ‘our dullness’. What scripture helps to dispel are the distortions and false notions which ensue from the human appropriation, or rather misappropriation, of natural theological knowledge. Calvin is not saying that biblical revelation is a corrective to natural revelation, as if the latter were intrinsically a misleading and unreliable guide to God, but to the ‘weak vision’ (I. vi. 1) which prevents human beings from properly seeing the God to which nature points. Calvin consistently attributes the failure of natural revelation to the failed eyesight of 9 Contra Torrance, Calvin’s Doctrine, p. 182, who argues that ‘the revelation of the Word of grace . . . completely undercuts natural reason and natural knowledge, and puts them out of court’. 10 See further Dowey, The Knowledge of God, p. 131. ß Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2001

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human beings.11 The spectacles analogy builds on the defective sight analogy. The thrust of his analogy is that scriptural revelation re-awakens and re-establishes natural knowledge of God for believers.12 Calvin thus views God’s revelation in nature as in harmony and continuity with the revelation in his word, not only in content (the ‘same powers’ of God which shine in creation are explicated in scripture, I. x. 2) but also in purpose: both share ‘the very same goal’, the invitation ‘to fear God, then to trust in him’ (I. x. 2).

Revelation in the sensus and in God’s ‘works’ Calvin delineates two distinct aspects of natural knowledge of God in Book I. ii–v: the sensus divinitatis and God’s self-manifestation in his ‘works’. The sensus divinitatis (‘awareness of divinity’), according to Calvin, is possessed by every human being (I. iii. 1). He locates this awareness ‘within the human mind’ (I. iii. 1). By virtue of the sensus, men and women know that God exists and that he is their creator (I. iii. 1). The sensus is not simply a gut feeling, intuition or vague impression, but a cognition, an intellectual consciousness of God the creator. Calvin describes it as a ‘deep-seated conviction that there is a God’ and a ‘certain understanding of his divine majesty’ (I. iii. 1, italics mine). There is also a moral dimension to the sensus. Through its operation, people know how they should respond to the God of whom they are intellectually aware ^ by honouring him and dedicating their lives to him (I. iii. 1). The sensus thus conveys to human beings an awareness of their duty or obligation toward God.13 It seems to me to have been established beyond any serious doubt that Calvin draws his theory of the sensus divinitatis from the Hellenistic philosophical dogma of the ‘preconception’ (prolepsis) of God.14 The doctrine of the preconception originated with Epicurus, but was taken over and developed by the Stoics. The 11

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See also his commentaries on Ps. 19:7; Rom. 1:20; 1 Cor. 1:21. In the commentaries, Calvin uses the metaphor of blindness, whereas in the later editions of the Institutes, he speaks of weak vision. As D. Steinmetz (Calvin in Context [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995], pp. 29–31) argues, the shift probably reflects Calvin’s realization that the blindness image is too strong since it suggests human ignorance. Dowey, The Knowledge of God, p. 143, writes, ‘This metaphor would imply neither the substitution of a new object of vision for an old one nor a complete cure of the eyes, but the use, because of a permanent defect in sight, of an aid in perceiving the original object, the revelation in creation.’ P. Helm, ‘John Calvin, the sensus divinitatis, and the noetic effects of sin’, International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 43 (1998, pp. 87–107), pp. 92–3. See T.H.L. Parker, Calvin’s Doctrine of the Knowledge of God, second edn., (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1969), pp. 28–35; E. Grislis, ‘Calvin’s Use of Cicero in the Institutes I:1–5 ^ A Case Study in Theological Method’, Archiv fur Reformationsgeschichts 62 (1971, pp. 5–37), pp. 5–8. ß Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2001

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notion of the preconception is prominent in Cicero’s dialogue On the Nature of the Gods and it is from this source that Calvin derives it.15 It will be useful to outline briefly the Stoic theory. A preconception is a basic notion which arises naturally without mental effort or instruction. Cicero defines it as ‘a sort of preconceived mental picture of a thing, without which nothing can be understood or investigated or discussed’.16 It is not strictly speaking a proposition, though when it is given rational presentation, it is invariably expressed in propositional form.17 for the Stoics, many preconceptions (e.g. justice, honour, goodness) are common to all or most humans, and hence may be described as ‘common notions’. Preconceptions operate as ‘yardsticks’ or kanones against which theories and opinions can be tested.18 A preconception does not need arguing. It is a ‘prior notion’.19 It may be taken for granted that the content of the preconception is true. If argument is sought, however, the pervasiveness of preconceptions ^ that they are held by all or most human beings ^ is sufficient to demonstrate their reliability. Thus Cicero states that ‘a belief which all men by nature share must necessarily be true’20 (the argument from common consent). For the Stoics, that God exists is a preconception. Cicero writes, ‘For what nation or what tribe of men is there but possesses untaught some ‘‘preconception’’ of the gods?’21 The universally held preconception of God is enough to establish God’s existence. Additional evidence confirming the presence of God, however, is to be found in the ordered universe. Through rational contemplation of the natural world, the human mind develops its understanding of the divine.22 For Calvin the sensus divinitatis is a ‘preconception’ of God in line with the Stoic theory. It is not a fully-developed idea of God, but some sort of pre-notion of God, not in itself propositional, but when expressed it is articulated as a proposition: ‘there is a God . . . and he is . . . Maker’ (I. iii. 1). The conception is a priori. Calvin states that it ‘is not a doctrine that must first be learned in school, but one of which each of us is master from his mother’s womb and which nature itself permits no one to forget’ (I. iii. 3). Unlike Cicero, however, Calvin does not claim 15 Grislis (‘Calvin’s Use of Cicero’) argues that Calvin draws extensively from Cicero’s De Natura Deorum and to a large degree follows Cicero’s argument. C. Partee, Calvin and Classical Philosophy, Studies in the History of Christian Thought, ed. H.A. Oberman (Brill: Leiden, 1997), p. 43 n. 1, thinks that the dependence is not as great as Grislis contends. 16 Cicero, De Natura Deorum, trans. H. Rackham, Loeb Classical Library (London: Heineman, 1933), 1.16.43. 17 M. Schofield, ‘Preconception, Argument and God’, in Doubt and Dogmatism: Studies in Hellenistic Epistemology, eds. M. Schofield, M. Burnyeat and J. Barnes (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980), pp. 283–308, p. 294. 18 Schofield, ‘Preconception’, p. 294. 19 Cicero, De Nat. 1.17.44. 20 Cicero, De Nat. 1.17.44. 21 Cicero, De Nat. 1.16.43. 22 For the Stoics, this means identifying the universe as God. For a concise account of Stoic natural theology see B. Ga¨rtner, The Areopagus Speech and Natural Revelation, trans. C.H. King (Uppsala: Sleerup, 1955), pp. 105–16. ß Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2001

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that the notion of God’s existence is able to guarantee the fact of God’s existence. He does not offer a version of the Stoic argument from common consent.23 But he plainly assumes that the core idea of God present in the human mind has its referent in the objective reality of God. Calvin offers empirical evidence for the sensus divinitatis. He calls attention to the universality of belief in God, the fact that the conviction that God is a ‘common conception’ which occupies ‘the minds of all’ (I. iii. 1). He points to the human need for religion and cites the ‘ample proof’ of idolatry (I. iii. 1). Human beings must have some object of worship, and bowing down before a statue of wood or stone is preferable to being thought of as having no good at all. He also tries to meet two possible objections to the existence of the sensus (I. iii. 2): the theory that religion was invented as a tool to dominate and control the masses (a view with which he has some sympathy); the fact that some have denied God’s existence. To the first objection, Calvin replies that religious control of the masses could not have been achieved ‘if men’s minds had not already been imbued with a firm conviction about God’ (I. iii. 2). To the second, Calvin responds by contending that thoroughgoing atheism is impossible. Those who reject the existence of God ‘from time to time feel an inkling of what they desire not to believe’ (I. iii. 2). Human beings may strive to cast off their belief in God, but, he contends, ‘they are unable to extricate themselves from the fear of God’24 (I. iii. 3). This residual fear of God in the hearts of professing atheists is sufficient proof of the sensus divinitatis (I. iii. 2). Calvin goes on to argue that the sensus divinitatis is smothered by sin and wilful disobedience (I. iv). Paradoxically, he appeals to the very same evidence he has previously cited for the existence of the sensus: religiosity, idolatry, atheism. These phenomena, he argues, not only bear witness to the sensus but also to its corruption. Yet for all its distortedness through human sin, the sense of God persists and indeed thrives: it can ‘never be effaced’ (I. iii. 3), and ‘can in no wise be uprooted’ (I. v. 4). In dealing with the second aspect of natural theological knowledge, Calvin divides the ‘works’ through which God reveals himself into works of two kinds (I. v. 7): God’s workmanship in the physical creation and his administration of human society. According to Calvin, the whole order of nature displays God’s glory, so that human beings ‘cannot open their eyes without being compelled to see him’ (I. v. 1). God’s glory shines through in the beauty, splendour and order of the universe. Calvin calls the universe with its manifest order ‘a sort of mirror in which we can contemplate God’ (I. v. 1). The physical universe conveys to those who observe it two divine qualities in particular: God’s ‘wisdom’ and ‘artistry’. Those who engage in astronomy, medicine and natural science are able to penetrate deeply into the divine wisdom. But even the most untutored are able to see the 23 24

Cf. Helm, ‘John Calvin, the sensus divinitatis’, p. 96. Calvin cites the example of Gaius Caligula who denied the gods but shuddered when any sign of divine anger (thunder) appeared. ß Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2001

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excellence of God’s wisdom and craftsmanship as they survey the distinct and wellordered variety of the heavenly realm (I. v. 2). The clearest proof of divine artistry in creation, for Calvin, is the human being. The human individual is for Calvin a ‘microcosm’ analogous to the macrocosm, the universe. Thus, claims Calvin, ‘there is no need to go outside ourselves to comprehend God’ (I. v. 3). Calvin accepts a dualistic view of the human being as comprised of body and soul. Both parts of the individual point to the creator. Thus, the ‘symmetry, beauty and use’ of the body show it to be ‘a composition so ingenious that its Artificer is rightly judged a wonder-worker’ (I. v. 2) The capacities of the soul ^ its abilities to observe, reflect, remember, link past and present events, imagine, create ^ are ‘signs of divinity in man’ (I. v. 5). In addition to God’s wisdom and artistry, the natural world also displays his omnipotence. Calvin cites meteorological phenomena (thunderstorms and seastorms) as evidence of God’s sovereign power over creation (I. v. 6). The second class of God ‘works’, the divine administration of human society (and here it should be stressed that it is fallen society which Calvin has in view) reveals God’s ‘providence’ (I. v. 11). The flow of history at both micro and macro levels shows the divine government of the world of human affairs. In addition to his general providence, God also discloses some of his moral qualities. In numerous ways God indicates his general goodness and beneficence (I. v. 7). By showing clemency to the godly and severity to the wicked he makes known his righteousness. Calvin admits that examples of God’s protection of the righteous and punishment of the wicked are ‘inchoate and incomplete’ (I. v. 10), but this points to the fact that the full manifestation of God’s mercy and severity is deferred to a future life.25 Before drawing conclusions about the relationship between the sensus divinitatis and God’s communication of himself in his works, we need first to account properly for the difference between them. The two aspects of the natural revelation are often distinguished as ‘internal’ and ‘external’ revelation. Thus the sensus is God’s revelation ‘within’ a human being, and God’s manifestation in his ‘works’ is his revelation in the world ‘external’ to the human being.26 One can certainly classify the various elements of natural knowledge of God in Book 1. ii–v as either ‘internal’ or ‘external’ knowledge, but these categories do not correspond to Calvin’s distinction between the revelation in the sensus and the revelation in God’s works, since when dealing with the latter, Calvin talks about the signs of divinity in the human soul, which are clearly internal faculties. Calvin’s distinction is rather an epistemological one. The division, it seems to me, is between innate and inferred knowledge of God. The former, the sensus divinitatis, comes about instinctively and without ratiocination. The latter, knowledge of God from his 25 Here he cites Augustine’s remark: ‘If now every sin were to suffer open punishment, it would seem that nothing is reserved for the final judgment. Again if God were now to punish no sin openly, one would believe that there is no providence’ (I. v. 10). 26 E.g. Dowey, The Knowledge of God, pp. 51, 72. ß Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2001

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works, comes through experience and rational reflection. The object of contemplation and reflection is not the world outside of the human being, but the whole universe, the physical and social world of which human beings are part. The distinction between innate and inferred knowledge of God, I believe, reflects Calvin’s partial dependence on Stoic natural theology.27 These twin aspects of natural theological knowledge differ in the kinds of information they deliver. The innate revelation, the sensus divinitatis, conveys the bare facts of God’s existence and of his rank as creator. God’s revelation in nature and history conveys some of his qualities or characteristics (his wisdom, his creative ingenuity, his power over the natural world, his providential oversight of the world, his goodness, righteousness and mercy). So Calvin states that ‘in God’s . . . works . . . God’s powers are . . . represented’ (I. v.10, italics mine). How, then, are these two aspects of natural revelation related in Calvin’s exposition? Firstly, innate knowledge of God is the precursor and precondition of inferred knowledge of him. Innate theological knowledge is chronologically and logically a priori. Knowledge of God drawn from his works is a posteriori. The sensus is primary; without it one could not process the information about God that comes via creation. The sensus is where natural knowledge of God begins. Secondly, inferred knowledge ideally develops and enhances the basic notion of God given by the sensus. Having a basic idea of God, one should come to a better understanding of his nature through contemplation of his created works. Thirdly, apprehension of God’s existence and his status as creator accorded by the sensus is validated by the revelation of God in the order of nature and the course of history. This seems to me to be what Calvin has in view when he states that God is ‘ever renewing its memory’ and that he ‘repeatedly sheds fresh drops’ (I. iii. 1) on it. Observation of the natural world confirms the sensus and, in principle if not in practice, strengthens confidence in it. 27

In making use of Stoic ideas in Instit. I. ii–v, Calvin follows a similar procedure to Paul in Rom. 1. In my recent monograph (E. Adams, Constructing the World: A Study in Paul’s Cosmological Language, Studies of the New Testament and Its World [Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 2000], pp. 154–64), a revision of my PhD thesis, I note that Paul adopts Stoic themes in developing his theological argument in Rom. 1:18–32 (though Paul does not make use of the theory of the ‘preconception’ as Calvin does). As well as specifically Stoic motifs, I argue that Paul depends on the Greek and Hellenistic view of the world as kosmos: the world as an ordered, unified, beautiful, awe-inspiring structure, to which human beings are related as microcosm to macrocosm. To an extent, in Book I. ii–v of the Institutes, Calvin also reflects such a worldview. For an account of this view of the world, see Adams, Constructing the World, pp. 64–9; H. Sassa (‘o´"!, etc.’ Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. G. Kittel and G. Friedrich, trans. G.W. Bromily, 10 vols [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964–76], vol. 3, 1964, pp. 367–98), pp. 873–5. (Reference to Sassa was accidentally omitted on p. 64 of my book and on p. 70 of the thesis.) I follow the traditional approach to Rom. 1 which sees Paul as invoking the idea of a natural revelation in his denunciation of Gentile wickedness. For a very different reading of this passage see D.A. Campbell, ‘Natural Theology in Paul? Reading Romans 1.19–20’, IJST 1 (1999), pp. 231–52. ß Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2001

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For Calvin, the revelation in the sensus divinitatis and the revelation in God’s works are intended to work together, mutually reinforcing each other. Operating in tandem they produce a picture of the divine majesty which is sufficiently clear in itself.

Revelation and reason As already observed, Calvin shows no interest in giving formal proofs of God’s existence. But this is not because Calvin thinks that there is no place for reason in the acquisition of natural revelation. He declines to argue for God’s existence because in his view the divine self-existence does not require argumentation: the conviction is already firmly fixed in the human mind; it is ‘part of an individual person’s noetic structure’.28 In I. v. ix, Calvin claims that ‘no long or toilsome proof is needed . . . to illuminate and affirm the divine majesty’. At first sight, this may seem to be an outright rejection of reason in the appropriation of natural theological knowledge. But it becomes clear that what Calvin is opposed to is not reason per se but a particular style of theological reasoning. What he rejects is reasoning about God which is abstract, that is to say, divorced from sensory experience, which requires intellectual skill and which seeks to investigate the ‘essence’ of God (II. v. ix). He condemns this type of theological enquiry as speculative, excessively cerebral (it ‘merely flits in the brain’, whereas sound knowledge of God ‘takes root in the heart’) and audacious (it is driven by ‘bold curiosity’, I. v. ix).29 Calvin’s distrust of ‘long or toilsome proof’ reflects his sensitivity to the possibility of ‘an intellectual works-righteousness’ in theological investigation.30 He is wary of any approach to God that makes the arrival at truth about God an intellectual virtue. It is important for Calvin that the ‘evidences’ of God’s wisdom are accessible to all, tutored and untutored alike (I. v. 2). Thus he rejects any proof which requires mental contrivance and intellectual dexterity. But he affirms those proofs which are ‘so very manifest and obvious that they can easily be observed with the eyes and pointed out with the finger’ (I. v. ix).31 For Calvin there is no dichotomy of revelation and reason in the sphere of natural theological knowledge. The faculty of human reason has its part to play in the reception of God’s communication of himself in nature. It does not operate 28 Helm, ‘John Calvin, the sensus divinitatis, p. 87. 29 Calvin rejects the propriety but not (or at least not explicitly) the possibility of progressing to some measure of knowledge about God (though not a fruitful measure) by abstract reasoning. 30 Cf. K. Barth, ‘No!’ in Natural Theology, Comprising ‘Nature and Grace’ by Professor Dr. Emil Brunner and the reply ‘No!’ by Dr. Karl Barth, trans. P. Fraenkel (London: Centenary, 1946), p. 102. 31 It should go without saying that such evidences are not as obvious or as convincing as Calvin thinks! Cf. Dowey, The Knowledge of God, p. 81. ß Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2001

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independently or in a vacuum but is contingent on experience. Evidence for God from the divine ‘works’ comes to the human mind through the five senses, and it is the responsibility of reason to interpret and to draw inferences from the sensory data. This is no small part in the process. The operation of reason is vital if the divine qualities communicated in the natural revelation are fully and correctly to be discerned. Rational reflection upon sensory evidence, for Calvin, includes deductive reasoning. From the apprehension of God as creator which comes from the sensus and through consideration of his created works, Calvin states, one may go on to conclude that he is eternal, ‘for he from whom all things draw their origin must be eternal and have beginning from himself’ (I. v. 6). One may further deduce that he is good: ‘if the cause is sought by which he was led once to create all these things, and is now moved to preserve them, we shall find that it is his goodness alone’ (I. v. 6). But while reason has an important role to play in acquiring natural theological knowledge, it is, I am sure, critical for Calvin that the starting-point for this knowledge, the sensus divinitatis, is not the product of human reasoning about God, but the basis for it. The ‘awareness of divinity’ is present in the human mind by divine gift; it is not an intellectual achievement. Since all (right) reasoning about God stems from this divine implant, it may be said that for Calvin, the natural faculty of reason reaches truth about God (to the extent that it does or may do) only by prevenient grace. Thus, while revelation and reason are viewed by Calvin as complementary and not antithetical, revelation has prior status in his exposition.

The purpose and outcome of natural knowledge of God It cannot be denied that Calvin is deeply pessimistic about the outcome of God’s natural revelation. With regard to the sensus divinitatis, he states that there is ‘scarcely one man in a hundred . . . who fosters it . . . and none in whom it ripens’ (I. iv. 1). All human beings fall away from the true knowledge of him, failing to apprehend God as he offers himself (I. iv. 1). They degenerate into superstition, forgetfulness, false religion and hypocrisy (I. iv). The sensus becomes ‘so corrupted that by itself it produces only the worst fruits’ (I. iv. 4). The same fate befalls God’s revelation in his works. God has revealed himself clearly, but such is human stupidity and dullness, that his many manifestations in his created works ‘flow away without profiting us’ (I. v. 11). All human beings (even the very wisest) thus subvert the natural knowledge of God they have been given. In the final estimation for Calvin, the many lights of his revelation ‘can of themselves in no way lead us into the right path’ (I. v. 14). The outcome of God’s natural revelation under fallen conditions is that people are condemned and rendered inexcusable (I. v. 14, 15, echoing Rom. 1:19–21). Natural theological knowledge functions to convict human beings in the divine court, robbing them of any defence of ignorance before a judging God. ß Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2001

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But it is important to distinguish between the actual outcome of the natural revelation and its intended primary aim (or as Dowey puts it, between the ‘actual function’ of the revelation in creation and its ‘original purpose’).32 God’s primary objective in making himself known was not to condemn men and women but to lead them to a proper relationship with him and to everlasting life. According to Calvin, the original purpose of natural revelation was ‘not only to arouse us to the worship of God but also to awaken and encourage us to the hope of the future life’ (I. v. 10). Later in the Institutes, he states that the natural order was meant to be ‘the school in which we were to learn piety, and from it pass over to eternal life and perfect felicity’ (II. vi. 1). Because of the fall, its original purpose is unrealized, and an intended accidental function of the natural revelation has become its actual outcome.33 At the outset of his discussion in these chapters of the Institutes, Calvin speaks of ‘the primal and simple knowledge to which the very order of nature would have led us if Adam had remained upright’ (I. ii. 1). This, together with other remarks he makes, strongly suggests that, in his view, had the fall not taken place, natural revelation, unsupplemented by word-revelation, would have been sufficient to establish communion with God and secure the goal of human existence. The fact that in I. vi. 1, Calvin states that Adam needed the word of God to know him as creator quite apart from knowing him as saviour (stressed by Torrance)34 does not negate the foregoing conclusion. In I. ii. 1, Calvin is not comparing ‘our’ (i.e. his and his readers) post-lapsarian situation with Adam’s pre-lapsarian state, but our actual situation with our situation as it might have been had Adam stayed upright. He is thinking of the different path which the whole of history might have taken had Adam remained upright. Had history taken that different course and we were now living in unfallen conditions, his point seems to be, natural revelation would alone be sufficient to secure a right standing with God and to pass over into eternal life.35 Our reality is, however, a world spoilt by Adam’s failure to remain untarnished and in such conditions, there can be no question of natural knowledge achieving its original purpose and having for us a saving function. Scriptural revelation is necessary for salvation. Calvin writes, ‘In this ruin of mankind no one now experiences God either as Father or as Author of salvation, or favorable in any way, until Christ the mediator comes forward to reconcile him to us’ (I. ii. 1). Calvin is quite clear that whatever the pre-lapsarian potential and purpose of the natural revelation its postlapsarian function is to pronounce guilt. This is not because the natural revelation has become defective since the fall. The revelatory light of nature shines just as brightly. It is rather that human eyes fail to see to its radiance (I. v. 14). 32 Dowey, The Knowledge of God, pp. 81–2. In Adams, Constructing the World, pp. 159– 60, I argue that this distinction holds for Paul’s argument in Rom. 1. 33 Dowey, The Knowledge of God, p. 82. 34 Torrance, Calvin’s Doctrine, p. 171. 35 Calvin occasionally allows himself to indulge in such speculation, most famously in his debate with Osiander where he contends that ‘if Adam’s uprightness had not failed . . . it would not have been necessary for the Son of God to become either man or angel’ (II. xii. 7). ß Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2001

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The function of natural revelation in the world at large is thus mainly a negative one (though not an entirely negative one since it heightens the conviction of sin36). But Calvin hints at a more positive function for natural revelation in the life of the believer. The spectacles analogy of I. vi. 1 suggests that having been illuminated by scripture, one can more fully appreciate the evidences of God’s wisdom, artistry, power, goodness, mercy and justice in his created works. Although Calvin does not develop the idea of a positive re-claiming of natural revelation by Christians, he does, it seems to me, lay some basis for it.

Conclusion It has been my aim in this article to try to elucidate what Calvin has to say about natural knowledge of God in the Institutes Book I. ii–v. I have sought to read these chapters in their context in the developing grand theological argument of the Institutes. A contextually sensitive interpretation such as I have attempted to offer, I think, brings out some of the subtleties of Calvin’s argument, nuances which might otherwise be missed in a reading of his teaching on natural theological knowledge in Book I. ii–v refracted through his later discussion in Book II original sin and total depravity. One aspect of Calvin’s exposition which I hope has become clearer is the way in which he conceives of the relation between God’s revelation in the sensus and his revelation in his works. This is no mere distinction between an internal and external revelation, though it is often explained as such. It is somewhat more sophisticated and interesting. The extent to which Calvin’s understanding of the operation and relation of these two aspects of natural revelation draws on Stoic theology is striking. Calvin attempts to develop an approach to natural theological knowledge which is philosophically informed as well as biblically based. More broadly, I hope to have shown that categories which scholarly interpretation of Calvin has sometimes driven apart and turned into sharp dichotomies, ‘nature and revelation’, ‘nature and scripture’, ‘reason and revelation’, are in fact held in a very close union in these chapters. Conversely, categories which are often fused to the extent that they are indistinguishable (particularly when discussion of Inst. I. ii–v has focused on the issue of ‘natural theology’), the revelation in creation and the human response to it, are in fact sharply differentiated. Indeed the extraordinary and deeply ironic contrast which Calvin draws between the exceptional clarity of God’s revelation in nature and the incredible wilful dullness of human beings (I. iv. 15) is one of the leading rhetorical themes of his presentation. It is possible, therefore, to recognize and appreciate (with Brunner) Calvin’s highly positive evaluation of natural revelation, without underplaying his extreme pessimism about human ability to appropriate it and reach the goal for which it was originally intended (stressed by Barth). 36

Dowey, The Knowledge of God, p. 83. ß Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2001