January 2009 Archives

God has revealed himself above and below man, in the cosmos; he has also revealed himself in man, since he is God's image.  But we might also say that God reveals himself around man in his providential governing of the... continue

The heavens declare God's glory, and so the astronomer is also a theologian who explores the Book of Nature in which God has inscribed his glory. But "what is man that you care for him?" means that the anatomist who... continue

Man is God's image. The implanted knowledge of God is universal. Yes, perverted and fragmented by the fall, but still real..  It gives rise to the seed of religion, notes Calvin.  An instinct to praise and worship is inbuilt in... continue

If my first question about God is "What is he?" then I am already mistaken.  The really important question is "Who is he?" "What is God like?"     The biblical answer is that he is the fountain of all good and... continue

Calvin's Institutes opens with a strikingly important sentence--crafted first by a young man in his mid-twenties and only fine tuned between its first appearance in 1536 and its final expression a few years before his death. Wisdom--the knowledge coupled with... continue

"Catabaptists" is Calvin's term for "Anabaptists" - the sixteenth century radicals who basically wanted nothing to do with the earthly state, and did not encourage concern for the office of a magistrate or (in this case) the monarch. Calvin is... continue

How is the true church to be known?  Calvin's response in the preface to the Institutes is clear: it is known by "the pure preaching of God's Word and the lawful administration of the sacraments." Contrary to Roman insistence that... continue

Rome's antagonism towards the Reformers, and Calvin in particular, was that what they taught was "new" and "of recent birth." To this charge Calvin responds with evident feeling: "First, by calling it "new" they do great wrong to God, whose... continue

Blog readers using the template for reading the Institutes in a year should know that the form we have employed was devised by Dr. James C. Goodloe IV of The Foundation for Reformed Theology. The original form of the plan... continue

Although the Institutes itself grew five-fold from its first to the fifth edition, the contents of the Preface written to King Francis I remained largely the same. Precedent for publishing an introductory theological essay to the King had been set... continue