Welcome
to the root page of the
Adult Education Class on
Survey of Calvin's
 Institutes of the Christian Religion
at Rincon Mountain Presbyterian Church
in Tucson, Arizona USA


First, i'd like to thank Pastor Phillip Henry for this opportunity both to teach and to experience the need driven learning curve that teachers talk about when they express: You never really learn anything until you have to teach it.

This is the file lesson_plan, all the pieces of the class will be referred to here so that this will become the introductory page to the class material i am writing. As such it will remain a work under construction until the end of the class, and perhaps even longer.


0. purpose of the class  calvin_purpose.html knowledge is useful as it trains our will towards God and godliness. Intellectual knowledge simply as a collection of facts is not the objective of our faith, nor the objective of the class. Book I, chapter 2.

After preaching a sermon on 1 Timothy 2:3, Calvin offered this prayer:

     "Seeing that God has given us such a treasure and so inestimable a thing as His Word, we must employ ourselves as much as we can, that it may be kept safe and sound and not perish. And let every man be sure to lock it up securely in his own heart. But it is not enough to have an eye to his own salvation, but the knowledge of God must shine generally throughout the whole world." (quoted in http://www.rts.edu/quarterly/fall01/james.html)



1. historical context, from big to little: european, reformation, french, calvin, institute's
lesson one- Historical Context
the point is to form memory pegs to hang the events and issues of Institutes from in our minds.
secondary point is to see the way things effect Institutes: before 1559 the things that go into Institutes, after 1559 the things that Institutes influences. I'm calling this the cone of influence, the metaphor is shaped like a megaphone, the big point being that we just can't see Institutes as it was written but rather through 21stC eyes with all the history in between us and Calvin.

2. influence on calvin, presented as an expansion of the first time line
luther, humanities, law, calvin's pastorate==>silver thread, Calvin as pastor-teacher
lesson two-A Quick Life of Calvin
the point is that Calvin worked on the Institutes for a period of 25 years, as a Pastor-Teacher he brought those issues to the work. Geneva as laboratory where Calvin applied Scriptural knowledge.


3. Justification for reading the book. Intro to Sola Scriptura as motivation. If Luther is Sola Fide then Calvin is Sola Scriptura. Dominant image is Calvin sitting in his study, he is not in a vacuum but rather in the midst of a particular time, try to capture the big elements shaping him, Institutes and the times.
lesson three-The Logical Structure of Institutes

Structure; what is it? What is Calvin trying to achieve, does the purpose change through the different editions? How Institutes was written. the constant revisions, the relationship of Calvin's commentaries, sermons, tracts, letters to Institutes. the effect of Calvin as Pastor on the concerns of the Institutes. The issues that Calvin is primarily replying to, what drives his efforts. Set the stage for an analysis of particular themes.

4. lesson 4 is about Book I, chapters 1-5
doctrine of the knowledge of God.
sense of divinity.
what can we know about God from the creation as seen in natural theology and in Calvin's rebuttal to NT.
lesson 4 on the doctrine of the knowledge of God is now at:
http://www.dakotacom.net/%7Ermwillia/lesson4_essay.html
being to large and formatted to be useful via livejournal.

5. lesson is about Book I, chapters 6-13, basically on the necessity of Scripture.
themes are:
1. Why is Scripture required?
2. What is the witness of the Holy Spirit and why is it required in order to properly understand Scripture?
3. What is accomodation, that is how does God accommodate Himself to our form?
4. The motif-illustration-thought picture of spectacles, a continuation and extension of the 'testimony of eye-witnesses' motif from last week.
http://www.dakotacom.net/%7Ermwillia/lesson5_essay.html

6.lesson is Book I, chapters 14-18, the rest of book I.
the topic is mostly on providence, with the nature of the soul and the imago dei
i decided to concentrate in class on the imago dei and the mirror image, the readings aren't too hard and are close to self-explanatory.
http://www.dakotacom.net/%7Ermwillia/lesson6_essay.html

the mirror motif in Calvin at: mirror
what i decided to do was to increase class involvement by working on the motif's last step--the illustration creation as a class.
so we read several of the selections and worked on what the mirror motif is trying so hard to communicate.


technique for writing the lessons:
I start out with a livejournal entry:

rebellion under lesser magistrates
     i intend to make this the last class
first page on institutes online study
general notes on book 1
lesson 1 livejournal
lesson 2 livejournal
lesson 3 livejournal
lesson 4 livejournal

then i transfer it to my website as i get more info.
livejournal allows comments and i can add to it from the library computers.
something not possible with a webpage.


This is going to form the framework for the rest of the class:

Take it in Calvin's order: 1-reading from front to back 2-raise up Biblical Theology in doing so. Calvin preached through the Scriptures, thus allowing the Bible to speak in it's own structure. We are going to do the same with Calvin, to acknowledge the importance of his order, this is different than the usual systematic way of picking topics and seeing all the subtopics throughout the book pertaining to the topic under discussion.

As we do each book, a printout will contain the headers from the chapters and paragraphs. I will put 3 major items for each week to concentrate on and will abridge Institutes as needed to stay within the 15-20 page reading limit each week. The objective is to understand the major divisions of Institutes and get a deeper understanding of a limited part of each. While sticking with the class commitment of 1 hour of reading per week.

but look at specific chapters in a systematic theology order-the reason is interest and motivation, the questions that we ask. thus showing the tension that Calvin felt between systematic and Biblical theology in our way of approaching the books.
Book One-The knowledge of God as Creator

Proposed first pass through the material, these are the points thus made so far to keep in mind.
1st-what can we know about God from the Creation (chp 1-5)
2nd-what is the effect of sin on this understanding (partly 6-14, but Book II starts with this topic)
3rd-this knowledge is through the Scriptures- accommodation and warrant(see Plantinga)
[epistemology: knowledge of God, knowledge of ourselves
the golden thread--->God as transcendent as Creator and immanent in Christ as Redeemer
the first section of the first chapter of the first book (the knowledge of God leads to a knowledge of self), doctrine of the knowledge of God, get J.Frame's section. Best i know of.
f. the use of the Church Fathers and what we mean by "Sola Scriptura" (Mathison has a good book here).]

-----------------
At this point, i am starting to write the third packet of readings, lessons 7-9. here is my first pass.

This is my heavy writing week as i produce the readings packet for the next 3 lessons, this time on Book II.

The book naturally divides into 3 pieces along the lines of:

BOOK II. THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE REDEEMER IN CHRIST, FIRST DISCLOSED TO THE FATHERS UNDER THE LAW, AND THEN TO US IN THE GOSPEL.

lesson 7: http://www.dakotacom.net/~rmwillia/lesson7_essay.html
  1. By the Fall and Revolt of Adam the Whole Human Race Was Delivered to the Curse, and Degenerated from Its Original Condition; the Doctrine of Original Sin.
  2. Man Has Now Been Deprived of Freedom of Choice and Bound Over to Miserable Servitude.
  3. Only Damnable Things Come Forth from Man's Corrupt Nature.
  4. How God Works in Men's Hearts.
  5. Refutation of the Objections Commonly Put Forward in Defense of Free Will.
titled something like: the fall leads to complete inability to will the good
used the handout with the various uses of the mirror motif

lesson 8: http://www.dakotacom.net/%7Ermwillia/lesson8_essay.html
  1. Fallen Man Ought to Seek Redemption in Christ.
  2. The Law Was Given, Not to Restrain the Folk of the Old Covenant Under Itself, but to Foster Hope of Salvation in Christ Until His Coming.
  3. Explanation of the Moral Law (the Ten Commandments).
  4. Christ, Although He Was Known to the Jews Under the Law, Was at Length Clearly Revealed Only in the Gospel.
  5. The Similarity of the Old and New Testaments.
  6. The Difference Between the Two Testaments.
titled something like: the uses of the law
used the handout with the graph of the fall for lesson 7 review, and handout for lesson 8, i'll get them scanned in and will appear in jpeg section here.

and

lesson 9: : http://www.dakotacom.net/%7Ermwillia/lesson9_essay.html
  1. Christ Had to Become Man in Order to Fulfill the Office of Mediator.
  2. Christ Assumed the True Substance of Human Flesh.
  3. How the Two Natures of the Mediator Make One Person.
  4. To Know the Purpose for Which Christ Was Sent by the Father, and What He Conferred Upon Us, We Must Look Above All at Three Things in Him: the Prophetic Office, Kingship, and Priesthood.
  5. How Christ Has Fulfilled the Function of Redeemer to Acquire Salvation for Us. Here, Also, His Death and Resurrection Are Discussed, as Well as His Ascent Into Heaven.
  6. Christ Rightly and Properly Said to Have Merited God's Grace and Salvation for Us.
again titled something like: the nature of Christ as Mediator
handout on Calvin's Christology and solution to apparent paradoxes as the golden thread in Institutes tapistry.

i'm thinking of shortening the lessons from 20 pages to 12 or so. Instead of quoting whole sections of Calvin, to just quote a few paragraphs. People are not, apparently, on the whole reading the material. For someone who is interested Calvin is available after just a few clicks. The point ought to be to make everything as easy as possible to draw people into reading it.
So i'm going to write more and quote Calvin less in these three lessons.
Likewise i learned from this weekend that you can encourage participation, this by making a task obvious and letting people do it for themselves. Another good and useful lesson.
My first pass through the book, i read it as a piece of literature, i did not yellow highlight, something i have consistently done for many years. On the second pass through i highlighted with the class work in mind. This now gives me my first one volume Institutes read perhaps 30 years ago, all yellow highlighted, and now a 3 volume Battles translation, highlighted. So i work through the online web edition, cutting and pasted what are primarily my highlighted sections. The point is to present the material, in less than 20 pages, preserving as much of the flow of the argument as possible. Trying to define words, people's names, and movements in the text as i go along. This yields version 1, primarily Calvin, very little of my work or outside website quotations. Version 2 will be more explanation, Version 3 will begin to introduce written commentaries and their quotations.

So anyone reading along with the lessons or reading Calvin, thanks for the online help.
pretty close to 1/2 through the class time period, and about 1/3 through the book, people are still coming to the class and talking so i guess i am doing ok......
once again the busy packet of readings preparation week.

the outline of book III
This is the week i abstract out 12 pages or so from Institutes to form the weekly reading. It's a big job and takes most of the week, leaving little time for supplementary reading.

So the next reading packet to be passed out Sunday is on Book III.
Calvin's definition of faith is:
[quote]
"I will praise thy name for thy loving-kindness and thy truth," (Ps. 138: 2.) I need not quote what is said in the Prophets, to the effect that God is merciful and faithful in his promises. It were presumptuous in us to hold that God is propitious to us, had we not his own testimony, and did he not prevent us by his invitation, which leaves no doubt or uncertainty as to his will. It has already been seen that Christ is the only pledge of love, for without him all things, both above and below speak of hatred and wrath. We have also seen, that since the knowledge of the divine goodness cannot be of much importance unless it leads us to confide in it, we must exclude a knowledge mingled with doubt, - a knowledge which, so far from being firm, is continually wavering. But the human mind, when blinded and darkened, is very far from being able to rise to a proper knowledge of the divine will; nor can the heart, fluctuating with perpetual doubt, rest secure in such knowledge. Hence, in order that the word of God may gain full credit, the mind must be enlightened, and the heart confirmed, from some other quarter. [b]We shall now have a full definition of faith, if we say that it is a firm and sure knowledge of the divine favor toward us, founded on the truth of a free promise in Christ, and revealed to our minds, and sealed on our hearts, by the Holy Spirit.[/b][/quote]
from: II.2.7

At this point i intend to divide the book into 4 parts, we have 9 classes left to cover books 3,4:
lesson 10a-definition of faith, Calvin against implicit faith and the role of knowledge and reason in the process of faith, and intro to Ordo Salutis (The Order of Salvation) see: http://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/articles/topic/ordosalutis.html
so that is chapters 1-3

lesson 10b. skipping all the issues directed at the RCC- confession, purgatory, indulgences with just a few words, then look carefully at the things Calvin says about the material life in chapter 10, introduce the Tawney-Weber theory as a way the world badly distorts Calvin, Using this relationship to the material world look back to chapters 6-9.
so we will skip 4,5 and study 10,6-9 in the light of modern sociological misinterpretations of it, as well as looking at it as a condemnation of our current materialism.
lesson 10

lesson 11 will be on justification by faith, chapters 11-18

lesson 12 will concentrate on chapters 21-24 the doctrine of election since that is 1-the distinctive in most people's minds about Calvin, 2-the most misunderstood issue in book III. lesson 12

the big problem is what to do, and how to work in assurance of faith. There are no chapters assigned to the topic, but rather it forms an underlying theme, from the very definition of faith onwards. So i will do a 4th class on assurance of faith, and get the pieces of the puzzle and my supplementary readings into a single packet for it. i still don't know where to put the crucial pieces of chapters 19(ended up as 2 pages in lessons 11), 20(ought to end up in lesson 12), 25(in lesson 13?) here as we dont have the time to look at them directly. lesson 13


the natural division of the book is into:
faith
1-The Things Spoken Concerning Christ Profit Us by the Secret Working of the Spirit.
2- Faith: Its Definition Set Forth, and Its Properties Explained.
3- Our Regeneration by Faith: Repentance.
contra Roman Catholic distinctives
4- How Far from the Purity of the Gospel Is All That the Sophists in Their Schools Prate About Repentance; Discussion of Confession and Satisfaction.
5- The Supplements That They Add to Satisfactions, Namely, Indulgences and Purgatory.
our physical life in the body, what to expect from God and why
6- The Life of the Christian Man; and First, by What Arguments Scripture Urges Us to It.
7- The Sum of the Christian Life: The Denial of Ourselves.
8- Bearing the Cross, a Part of Self-denial.
9- Meditation on the Future Life.
10- How We Must Use the Present Life and Its Helps.

Justification by Faith
11- Justification by Faith: First the Definition of the Word and of the Matter.
12- We Must Lift Up Our Minds to God's Judgment Seat that We May Be Firmly Convinced of His Free Justification.
13- Two Things to Be Noted in Free Justification.
14- The Beginning of Justification and Its Continual Progress.
15- Boasting About the Merits of Works Destroys Our Praise of God for Having Bestowed Righteousness, as Well as Our Assurance of Salvation.
16- Refutation of the False Accusations by Which the Papists Try to Cast Odium Upon This Doctrine.
17- The Agreement of the Promises of the Law and of the Gospel.
18-Works Righteousness Is Wrongly Inferred from Reward.

19- Christian Freedom.
20-Prayer, Which is the Chief Exercise of Faith, and by Which We Daily Receive God's Benefits.

election and predestination
21- Eternal Election, by Which God Has Predestined Some to Salvation, Others to Destruction.
22- Confirmation of This Doctrine from Scriptural Testimonies.
23- Refutation of the False Accusations with Which This Doctrine Has Always Been Unjustly Burdened.
24 Election Is Confirmed by God's Call; Moreover, the Wicked Bring Upon Themselves the Just Destruction to Which They Are Destined.

25- The Final Resurrection.

This is the last section- 3 lessons on book IV.

I would like to use Calvin's concern for French evangelism as an organizing principle to get into Book IV, what did Calvin teach that gave particular strength to the Reformed churches so that they could organize in the face of governmental opposition? So next week will be lesson 14, how to define the church? what are the marks of a true church? and what are the means of grace and how does this relate back to the contents of Book 3-faith? Following week will be on Servetus, the big question is the relationship of the church and the state, tied back into the definition of the church, and asking the fundamental question of whether this action was consistent with the theology or rather a confusion. I will use the sections of book IV on church discipline to try to understand what it is that Calvin wished to accomplish with this prosecution of Servetus--lesson 15. The last lesson, 16, will be to tie the ends of the study together. Going back to the preface to Francis I and looking at the last chapter-on civil government i want to ask a very pointed question. Was Calvin being disingenuious when he claimed to be a good subject of the king when the Reformed beheaded Charles King of England in Jan 30th, 1649. The associated issue is if Reformed theology leads naturally to republican forms of government that challenged and finally won over the long held divine right of Kings to rule.



a couple of people have asked where to get systematic theologies online:
try---
my favorites are online:
via the most excellent links list at:
http://www.monergism.com/thethresho...systematic.html

robert dabney's lectures on systematic theology is at:
http://www.pbministries.org/R.%20L....ic_theology.htm
pieces at: http://www.spurgeon.org/~phil/dabney.htm
i've used dabney a lot over the years, his is the second book i reach for after Institutes.

charles hodges outline of systematic theology is at:
http://www.dabar.org/Theology/Hodge...ntent_Intro.htm
this is the most organized and complete set i am aware of, use it more like an encyclopedia than straight through reading.

http://www.founders.org/library/boyce1/toc.html
this is an online recommendation, i have not had the time to read it yet.

A Body of Divinity Contained In Sermons Upon The Westminster Assembly's Catechism By Thomas Watson
John Gill archive

this is just a single webpage summary of bavinck:
http://www.aplacefortruth.org/studies/bavinck.htm

louis berkof's summary of christian doctrine at:
http://www.mbrem.com/shorttakes/berk.htm

there are a few others available off this links list:
http://www.theologywebsite.com/inte...tic/index.shtml
or this one:
http://www.christianarsenal.com/Doctrine.htm
jpegs of class handouts
knowledge of God inseparable from knowledge of ourselves
chapter changes through the editions.jpg
cone of influence motif
Calvin's poetical version of his conversion 1 of 4
Calvin's poetical version of his conversion 2 of 4
Calvin's poetical version of his conversion 3 of 4
Calvin's version of his conversion 4 of 4
scheme of edition changes
front page of readings
timeline of Calvin's life
timeline of the Reformation
the Silver thread, Calvin as Pastor-Teacher
scheme of dedicatory letter to Francis I
Enlightment's wedge between knowledge and belief
calvin's doctrine of the knowledge of God
metaphor of spectacles
testimony of eyewitnesses, epistemology of hearing and sight

some notes:

i intend to rewrite the whole thing in September, trying to build a decent introduction/survey to Institutes that could be used online.
so i will continue to concentrate first on the next week's lesson, and second on the next batch of three lessons to write. this schedule leaves little time for book research. therefore the postponement of lots of the reading until after the class is finished and before the final revision.

it is a worthwhile project, learning how to teach a little, learning a lot about Calvin and Institutes, it would be nice just to keep the whole thing as a minor ongoing project through my remaining lifetime.

my reading lists are all kept online at amazon. i really appreciate the comments they generate:
Institutes study is at: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/guides/guide-display/-/2M5PDHTG3S7WA/ref=cm_aya_av.sylt_sylt/103-3140353-3140624

extremely good and important overall websites:
an online theology class built around Institutes
the best summary of Institutes, each chapter
links list to Calvin's works in english
a church website with extraordinary classes


pointers on teaching
http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/teachtip.htm

to contact me use:
rwilliam2@yahoo.com
rmwillia@dakotacom.net
thinkcreation2002@yahoo.com

subject line of "institutes" to get past spam filters.

thanks
richard williams
-----
if you prefer you can anonymously comment on my blog at:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/rmwilliamsjr/132013.html?mode=reply
i've turned off all data collection for this page and you can say what you want, i will however delete obscene or pornographic comments.

version dated:
  28 June 2004

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