Print This Post
The Hidden Philosophy Not Found in Syllogisms
Published by Cynthia R. Nielsen May 9th, 2008 in Calvin, Trinitarian Theology, Worship
What was the only chapter topic never altered in the many revisions of John Calvin’s Institutes? Was it predestination? No. Was it his discussion of human depravity in our postlapsarian state? Wrong again. It was his discussion of prayer, which is also the longest chapter in the Institutes. As Billings explains in his excellent book, Calvin, Participation, and the Gift: The Activity of Believers in Union with Christ, Calvin opens his chapter on prayer “with a Trinitarian portrait of prayer’s significance” (p. 110). When a person has been brought to see his or her need of Christ, which is a need for something other than what one is, a gift is bestowed-the revelation and gift of Christ Himself. Describing this gift as he begins his discussion of prayer, Calvin writes:
The Lord willingly and freely reveals himself in his Christ. For in Christ, he offers all happiness in place of our misery, all wealth in place of our neediness; in him he opens to us the heavenly treasures that our whole faith may contemplate his beloved Son, our whole expectation depend upon him, and our whole hope cleave to and rest in him. This, indeed, is that secret and hidden philosophy which cannot be wrested from syllogisms. But they whose eyes God has opened surely learnt it by heart, that in his light they may see light (Institutes, 3.20.1, trans. Ford Lewis Battles).
0 Responses to “The Hidden Philosophy Not Found in Syllogisms”
Please Wait
Leave a Reply