Per Caritatem

By Michael Vendsel

At this point, however, we need to clarify the precise character of this “divine majesty”, especially since there are places where Calvin clearly distinguishes the assurance brought about by the internal testimony from considerations of Scripture’s gracefulness. For example, in the beginning of chapter 8, as he is describing the secondary helps just mentioned, he writes:

it is wonderful how much we are confirmed in our belief, when we more attentively consider how admirably the system of divine wisdom contained in it is arranged-how perfectly free the doctrine is from every thing that savours of earth-how beautifully it harmonises in all its parts-and how rich it is in all the other qualities which give an air of majesty to composition. Our hearts are still more firmly assured when we reflect that our admiration is elicited more by the dignity of the matter than by the graces of style.

How is this passage, which seems to treat the aesthetic qualities of Scripture as a confirmation of belief, to be reconciled with the earlier passages, which seem to speak of it as a foundation of belief?

It will be useful in this connection to distinguish what we might call literary and moral beauty from the sort of beauty described earlier. The beauty Calvin seems to have in view in the passage just quoted comes from things like logical coherence and rhetorical or poetic elegance, as well as from the moral elegance of the Christian story. The sort of majesty that performs the strong evidential function described earlier, however, is something different. Perhaps it can best be characterized by connecting it with what Calvin says about the knowledge of God earlier in book I.

When he discusses the revelation of God in creation during the first six chapters of book I, he introduces his doctrine of the sensus divinitatis. According to this doctrine, God instills knowledge of Himself within humanity, and that knowledge is both presupposed and augmented by the revelation of God in the rest of creation. It is presupposed in the sense that this internal revelation of God enables the recognition of God’s glory in the rest of creation, and it is augmented in the sense that creation confirms or seals what is known internally. As a result of sin, however, human response to this revelation is resistance. Sometimes this takes the form of atheism and overt rebellion, but more often it takes the form of idolatry. In either case, the result is a sort of blindness. It should be emphasized that this blindness is not total and complete; Calvin’s whole point in the first six chapters is that enough knowledge of God remains so as to remove ignorance as an excuse for sin. In a state of sin, however, that spark of divine knowledge is constantly being resisted in a way that ultimately creates deep tensions within the human being.

With this in place, perhaps we can form an idea of the majesty of God in Scripture. It is clear from the first six chapters of book I that Calvin sees creation as saturated with the glory of God, and that this glory constantly calls out to the inner sense of divinity which is fundamental to all human beings. It should be noted, however, that for Calvin Scripture is formed by divine speech for the purpose of revealing God every bit as much as is creation. It stands to reason, then, that just as the glory of creation calls out to the human sense of divinity, so does the glory of Scripture. There is an inescapable heavenliness or divinity to Scripture that harmonizes with an equally inescapable sense of divinity deep within the human. As noted above, of course, humans resist the revelation within themselves and creation, and to the extent that they succeed blindness takes over. The same will be true for Scripture. But perhaps that is precisely where the doctrine of the internal testimony comes in. The Spirit softens human resistance to the sensus divinitatis, and this allows for the deep majesty and glory of Scripture to be recognized and appreciated. And when that happens, it produces the sort of overwhelmingly deep confidence described earlier, a confidence which can be augmented by the literary, rhetorical, and moral beauty of the text or by philosophical and scientific arguments, but which can never be successfully paralleled by them.