Day 08 — Institutes I.3.§3 [직강]

Closing argument day. Chapter 3 ends here, and Calvin ends it like a trial lawyer: he calls the hostile witnesses. Diagoras, antiquity's professional atheist. Dionysius, the tyrant who robbed temples for a living. They laugh at religion — and Calvin says: look closer at that laugh. It's a Sardonian grin — the smile of a man dying of poison. Then, in the last four sentences, the chapter quietly changes gears: from "everyone HAS the sense of God" to "everyone exists FOR the knowledge of God." Psychology becomes teleology. Miss that turn and you've missed the chapter.

Grammatically? Today is subject-hunting day. Calvin's translator keeps hiding the subject — inside that-clauses, behind interrupting relatives, under stacked if's. Your one job today: find the subject, find its verb, and let nothing standing between them fool you.

Today's 3 Big Points — mark them now:

1. The that-clause as subject: "That this belief is naturally engendered in all ... is strikingly attested by ..." — the subject is an entire clause, and the main verb keeps you waiting twenty words. One clause = one thing = SINGULAR verb.
2. The interrupting relative: "the sense of Deity, which of all things they wished most to be extinguished, is still in vigour" — bracket the which-clause, marry the subject to its verb. Twice in one sentence (S6).
3. Stacked conditionals into anticipatory it: "if all are born ..., and if the knowledge of God ... is fleeting and vain, it is clear that ..." — two if-gates, then the payoff clause. The it is empty; the that-clause is the real subject.

Three points. Lock them in. Now read.

All men of sound Judgment will therefore hold, that a sense of Deity is indelibly engraven on the human heart. And that this belief is naturally engendered in all, and thoroughly fixed as it were in our very bones, is strikingly attested by the contumacy of the wicked, who, though they struggle furiously, are unable to extricate themselves from the fear of God. Though Diagoras, and others of like stamps make themselves merry with whatever has been believed in all ages concerning religion, and Dionysus scoffs at the Judgment of heaven, it is but a Sardonian grin; for the worm of conscience, keener than burning steel, is gnawing them within. I do not say with Cicero, that errors wear out by age, and that religion increases and grows better day by day. For the world (as will be shortly seen) labours as much as it can to shake off all knowledge of God, and corrupts his worship in innumerable ways. I only say, that, when the stupid hardness of heart, which the wicked eagerly court as a means of despising God, becomes enfeebled, the sense of Deity, which of all things they wished most to be extinguished, is still in vigour, and now and then breaks forth. Whence we infer, that this is not a doctrine which is first learned at school, but one as to which every man is, from the womb, his own master; one which nature herself allows no individual to forget, though many, with all their might, strive to do so. Moreover, if all are born and live for the express purpose of learning to know God, and if the knowledge of God, in so far as it fails to produce this effect, is fleeting and vain, it is clear that all those who do not direct the whole thoughts and actions of their lives to this end fail to fulfil the law of their being. This did not escape the observation even of philosophers. For it is the very thing which Plato meant (in Phœd. et Theact.) when he taught, as he often does, that the chief good of the soul consists in resemblance to God; i.e., when, by means of knowing him, she is wholly transformed into him. Thus Gryllus, also, in Plutarch (lib. guod bruta anim. ratione utantur), reasons most skilfully, when he affirms that, if once religion is banished from the lives of men, they not only in no respect excel, but are, in many respects, much more wretched than the brutes, since, being exposed to so many forms of evil, they continually drag on a troubled and restless existence: that the only thing, therefore, which makes them superior is the worship of God, through which alone they aspire to immortality.

Eleven sentences. A verdict, a proof, a precision strike, and a teleological turn:

[VERDICT]     Sense of Deity = indelibly engraven on every heart    (S1)
[PROOF]       Hostile witnesses attest it:
  [EXHIBIT]    The wicked struggle furiously — and stay caught      (S2)
  [EXHIBIT]    Diagoras & Dionysius laugh — a Sardonian grin;
              the worm of conscience gnaws within                   (S3)
[PRECISION]   NOT Cicero's optimism (religion improves with age) —  (S4~S5)
              ONLY this: when hardness weakens, the sense
              breaks forth again                                    (S6)
[INFERENCE]   Not learned at school — every man his own master
              from the womb; nature forbids forgetting              (S7)
[TELEOLOGY]   Born FOR knowing God → those who ignore this end
              fail the law of their being                           (S8)
[PAGAN AMEN]  Even philosophers saw it: Plato (likeness to God),
              Gryllus in Plutarch (no religion → worse than brutes) (S9~S11)

Examiner's Eye: the trap field is S4–S6, the NOT/ONLY pair. Calvin explicitly refuses Cicero's claim that "errors wear out by age and religion grows better day by day" — the world, he says, labours to shake off the knowledge of God. So any option crediting Calvin with "religious progress over time" flips him into the man he's correcting. His actual claim is deliberately minimal: the sense of Deity survives and occasionally breaks forth — survival, not improvement. Second trap: Plato and Plutarch are corroborating witnesses, not Calvin's foundation. An option reading "Calvin derives the sense of Deity from Greek philosophy" reverses the order of proof — the conscience of the wicked is the evidence; the philosophers merely noticed the same thing.

Star scale: ★★★ exam-critical, conquer it. ★★ know the structure. ★ one point and move.

Formula 1 — the that-clause subject:

[That + S + V ...] + V(SINGULAR)
"That this belief is engendered in all ... IS strikingly attested by ..."

⚠️ Test: substitute "the fact that" — if it fits, it's a subject clause. However long, it's ONE thing → singular verb. The bait is always a plural noun just before the main verb. Drill: That no nation has ever lived without religion is attested by the historians themselves.

Formula 2 — bracket the interrupter, marry S to V:

S, [which ...], V
"the sense of Deity, (which of all things they wished most
 to be extinguished,) IS still in vigour"

⚠️ Agreement belongs to the head noun, not the nearest noun. Of all things dangles a plural right before is — head, not ear. Bonus: fronted partitive of all things ... most = superlative spotlight. Drill: The seed of religion, which the proud labour most of all to smother, remains alive in every heart.

Formula 3 — stacked if's into anticipatory it:

If A, and if B, it is clear that C.
"If all are born ..., and if the knowledge of God ... is fleeting
 and vain, it is clear that ... fail to fulfil the law of their being."

⚠️ The it is empty — the that-clause is the real subject. Both if-gates stay in the present (real condition), not the counterfactual past. This is syllogism syntax: premise, premise, verdict. Drill: If all men are endued with some idea of God, and if that idea, in so far as it bears no fruit, is vain, it is clear that none can plead ignorance.

Where we are. Chapter 3 closes today, and its three sections form a clean arc: §1 thesis (the sensus divinitatis is universal and natural), §2 rebuttal (the priestcraft objection self-destructs), §3 the clincher — hostile witnesses plus a teleological turn. Notice Calvin's evidentiary discipline throughout: not one proof from Scripture's authority yet. He's arguing from the phenomena — anthropology first, Bible later (Ch. 6). That's a deliberate courtroom strategy: convict the world from its own mouth.

The witnesses. Diagoras of Melos — antiquity's brand-name atheist, the man who allegedly chopped up a wooden statue of Heracles to boil his turnips. Calvin's footnote points to Cicero (De Natura Deorum 1.23) and Valerius Maximus. Dionysius of Syracuse — the tyrant who plundered temples and joked about it (sailing home with stolen golden cloaks: "too cold for winter, too heavy for summer"). Cicero again (ND 3). And Cicero himself appears twice today — first as source, then as target: Calvin borrows his witnesses but refuses his optimism. The refused line is ND 2: opinionum commenta delet dies, naturae iudicia confirmat — "time wipes out the fictions of opinion and confirms the judgments of nature." Calvin's correction is sharply Augustinian: post-fall religious history is not self-purifying; left alone, it degenerates (Chapter 4 is the proof, hence S5's trailer).

The worm. The worm of conscience wasn't Calvin's coinage — it's a medieval commonplace built from Isaiah 66:24 / Mark 9:48 ("their worm dieth not"). The interesting move is what Calvin does with it: he pulls an eschatological image into present psychology. The undying worm of final judgment is already gnawing, now, mid-blasphemy. Judgment previewed in the sinner's own chest.

The philosophers, baptized carefully. Plato's "likeness to God" (homoiōsis theōi kata to dynaton, Theaetetus 176b; cf. Phaedo) — the soul's chief good is assimilation to the divine. Calvin cites it approvingly, but watch his gloss: likeness comes by means of knowing him. Knowledge first; transformation through knowledge — which quietly converts Plato's ascent-by-virtue into something nearer Paul's beholding-and-becoming (2 Cor 3:18). And Gryllus: Plutarch's dialogue Bruta animalia ratione uti ("That Brute Beasts Use Reason"), in which Circe lets Odysseus interview a Greek she has turned into a pig. The pig — Gryllus, "Grunter" — declines to be changed back and argues beasts surpass men in courage and temperance. Calvin's relish: even the pig's argument leaves man ONE superiority — the worship of God. When your defense witness is a satirical pig conceding your point, the point is conceded indeed.

Reception. This section is ground zero for the modern debates. The Brunner–Barth explosion of 1934 (Natur und Gnade vs. Nein!) was substantially a fight over what THIS chapter licenses — does the sensus divinitatis ground a natural theology, or only inexcusability? And Alvin Plantinga's Reformed epistemology explicitly takes the sensus divinitatis from here: belief in God as "properly basic" — not learned at school (S7!), not inferred, but triggered natively. Calvin's S7 ("every man is, from the womb, his own master") is the proof-text.

Over-reading guardrail. Don't let S8's teleology become a ladder. "Born for the express purpose of learning to know God" grounds obligation and inexcusability, not capacity — Calvin is NOT saying fallen man can climb from the sensus to saving knowledge. The knowledge in view condemns; it does not yet save (that distinction — duplex cognitio — is the architecture of the whole book, Day 04). And the pagan citations are corroboration, not foundation: Calvin's proof rests on the conscience of the wicked, with Plato and the pig as friendly amici.

1. Romans 1:19–20 — under the whole section. The argument "the wicked themselves attest the sense of Deity" is Paul's: τὸ γνωστὸν τοῦ θεοῦ φανερόν ἐστιν ἐν αὐτοῖς ("what may be known of God is manifest in them") — knowledge internal to the suppressor, rendering all without excuse (ἀναπολογήτους). S1–S2 restate it as a verdict.
2. Romans 2:15 — S1's engraving. "The work of the law written in their hearts" (γραπτὸν ἐν ταῖς καρδίαις) "their conscience also bearing witness" (συμμαρτυρούσης τῆς συνειδήσεως). Indelibly engraven on the human heart is Pauline lettering — and conscience-as-witness is exactly the courtroom function the worm performs in S3. Calvin uses the verse's metaphor without citing it: the engraving is assumed cultural knowledge.
3. Isaiah 66:24 / Mark 9:48 — S3's worm. "Their worm shall not die" (Heb. תוֹלַעְתָּם tolaʿtam; Mark: ὁ σκώληξ αὐτῶν οὐ τελευτᾷ). Calvin imports the undying worm of final judgment into the present tense — is gnawing — making conscience a foretaste of eschatology. How he uses Scripture here: not quotation but image-transfer.
4. Acts 17:26–27 — S8's law of being. God made all men "that they should seek the Lord" (ζητεῖν τὸν θεόν). Man's created telos is God-knowledge — S8's premise is the Areopagus speech in conditional dress; Calvin will cite it openly in I.5.
5. Genesis 1:26–27 with 2 Corinthians 3:18 — S10's "resemblance." Calvin lets Plato's homoiōsis stand because Scripture has its own version: made in God's image, and "beholding ... are changed into the same image" (μεταμορφούμεθα — we are being transformed). Calvin's gloss "by means of knowing him, she is wholly transformed into him" is 2 Cor 3:18 wearing a toga.

Problem 1 — Grammar. One underlined part is wrong. Find it.

That a sense of Deity ①is engendered in all men ②are strikingly attested by the wicked themselves, ③who, though they struggle furiously, ④are unable to extricate themselves from the fear of God.

Answer: ②. The subject is the entire that-clause (That a sense of Deity is engendered in all men) — one clause, one thing, singular: is attested. ① is the verb inside the clause (fine), ③ the relative for the wicked (fine), ④ agrees with plural who/the wicked (fine). Examiner's intent: Formula 1 — the plural bait (all men) sits right before the main verb. Head, not ear.

Problem 2 — Comprehension. Which statement matches Calvin's argument in this section?

A. Calvin affirms, with Cicero, that errors wear out by age and religion grows purer day by day. B. The mockery of Diagoras shows that some men succeed in wholly extinguishing the sense of Deity. C. When the hardened insensibility that the wicked cultivate grows weak, the suppressed sense of Deity reasserts itself. D. Calvin holds that the knowledge of God is first instilled by formal instruction and then confirmed by nature.

Answer: C — a near-paraphrase of S6. Examiner's intent: A is the direction-flip — Calvin explicitly refuses Cicero's optimism (S4–S5; "I do not say with Cicero"). B flips S3: the mockery is a Sardonian grin, evidence the sense survives (the worm gnaws within). D reverses S7: not a doctrine first learned at school; every man is his own master from the womb. The NOT/ONLY pair (S4/S6) is the section's trap field — know exactly how much Calvin claims.

Problem 3 — Composition. Using Formula 1 AND Formula 2 in a single sentence (that-clause subject + interrupting relative), render this thought in English: "종교가 인간 본성에 새겨져 있다는 것은—악인들이 무엇보다 부인하고 싶어 하는 사실인데—그들 자신의 떨림이 증명한다."

Model answer: That religion is engraven on human nature, which of all things the wicked most wish to deny, is attested by their own trembling. Examiner's intent: the that-clause subject must take a singular verb (is attested) even after the interrupting which-clause dangles the wicked (plural) near the verb; the fronted partitive of all things ... most reproduces S6's spotlight. Both of today's hardest machines in one sentence — if you can build this, you own the section.

One-line summary: Chapter 3 rests its case — the sense of Deity is indelibly engraven, proved by the wicked's furious, failed escape (the Sardonian grin, the gnawing worm), claimed with lawyerly precision (NOT Cicero's progress, ONLY survival-and-eruption), and cashed out as teleology: born FOR knowing God, man fails the law of his being when he aims elsewhere — and today you learned to find hidden subjects: that-clause subjects take singular verbs; bracket interrupting relatives and marry S to V; stacked if's resolve into anticipatory it is clear that.

Homework (10 min): 1. Structure restoration: rewrite S6 as three plain sentences (one for the when-clause, one per relative), then recombine it — feel where the brackets go. 2. Composition: using Formula 3, write one sentence beginning "If all men carry the seed of religion, and if that seed ..." — finish with it is clear that ... 3. Preview: tomorrow opens Chapter 4 — "But though experience testifies that a seed of religion is divinely sown in all, scarcely one in a hundred is found who cherishes it..." The seed from Day 07 returns — and immediately starts dying. Why does universal knowledge universally go wrong? That's Chapter 4's question.

Where we stopped: Book 1, Ch. 3, §3 끝 — Chapter 3 complete. 다음은 Book 1, Ch. 4, §1.