Journal: Reformation and Revival
Volume: RAR 13:4 (Fall 2004)
Article: The Patristic Inheritance in Calvin’s Understanding of Sin as an Obstacle to Theological Knowledge
Author: James D. Ernest

RAR 13:4 (Fall 2004) p. 95

The Patristic Inheritance in Calvin’s
Understanding of Sin as an
Obstacle to Theological Knowledge

James D. Ernest

A very basic theological question is, “Is theological knowledge possible?” And if it is, under what conditions? When we pose these questions to John Calvin, we receive answers that illustrate both his indebtedness to patristic traditions and the difficulty of tracing dependency upon particular patristic writings and texts. In particular, it appears that he tacitly follows a line within the patristic tradition that emphasized piety as a prerequisite to theological knowledge.

Calvin, in common with the Christian tradition in general, contemplates the possibility of acquiring theological knowledge both through observation of the created world and through the Word of God as given in Scripture. With regard to the former, Calvin has been construed both as affirming and as denying the possibility of natural theology—or at least of a “Christian natural theology,” as Emil Brunner phrased it in thel930s.1

An approach to Calvin’s thought on this matter could begin with the two kinds of twofold knowledge found in the Institutes. First there is the duplex cognitio del or domini (twofold knowledge of God or of the Lord) that became an organizing principle of the Institutes in the 1559 Latin edition. Calvin grouped its eighty chapters into four books, the first titled, “On knowledge of God as creator,” and the second,

RAR 13:4 (Fall 2004) p. 96

“On knowledge of God as redeemer.”2 Another duplex cognitio is spelled out in the opening sentence of the Institutes: “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.”3 Calvin says that it is not easy to discern which precedes and which follows. The subheadings added in chapter 1 in the McNeill-Battles edition (“1. Without knowledge of self there is no knowledge of God.” and “2. Without knowledge of God there is no knowledge of self”) encourage the impression that these two knowledges are mutually dependent and mutually transforming: a balanced pair.4

Serene Jones, however, has pointed out that the opening paragraphs of the Institutes are carefully crafted for rhetorical effect.5 They are meant to capture the benevolence of literate humanists of the early sixteenth century by acknowledging the re...