Day 10 — Institutes I.4.§2 [직강]

Yesterday Calvin showed the seed of religion sown in all and corrupted in all. Today he opens the prosecution's star exhibit: the atheist. "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God." But watch the move — Calvin refuses to read this as an intellectual denial. The fool does not, with cool logic, conclude God's non-existence. He wants it gone, so he stupefies himself until the inner voice goes quiet. Atheism, says Calvin, is not a conclusion; it is a wish, self-administered like a drug. And even the drug fails: the stupor is never deep enough to keep the man from being "dragged before the divine tribunal."

Grammatically, today is "so … as / so … that" day — the language of degree and consequence. Calvin keeps building pressure with correlatives and then releasing it with a result clause. Track every so, as, and that: each one is a hinge.

Today's 3 Big Points — mark them now:

1. "so + adjective + as to + V" (= so X that it/he does Y): "their stupefaction is never so complete as to secure them." Front the so, expect the as to.
2. Correlative "as … so" (just as X, so Y): "as no fear restrains them … so long as …, it cannot be denied that …." Two halves; the first sets the condition, the second draws the verdict.
3. The nominative absolute + "it follows that": "Nothing being less accordant … it follows, that every man … virtually denies …." A capsule clause with its own subject, then the inference.

Three points. Lock them in. Now read.

The expression of David (Psalm 14:1, 53:1), “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God,” is primarily applied to those who, as will shortly farther appear, stifle the light of nature, and intentionally stupefy themselves. We see many, after they have become hardened in a daring course of sin, madly banishing all remembrance of God, though spontaneously suggested to them from within, by natural sense. To show how detestable this madness is, the Psalmist introduces them as distinctly denying that there is a God, because although they do not disown his essence, they rob him of his justice and providence, and represent him as sitting idly in heaven. Nothing being less accordant with the nature of God than to cast off the government of the world, leaving it to chance, and so to wink at the crimes of men that they may wanton with impunity in evil courses; it follows, that every man who indulges in security, after extinguishing all fear of divine Judgment, virtually denies that there is a God. As a just punishment of the wicked, after they have closed their own eyes, God makes their hearts dull and heavy, and hence, seeing, they see not. David, indeed, is the best interpreter of his own meaning, when he says elsewhere, the wicked has “no fear of God before his eyes,” (Psalm 36:1); and, again, “He has said in his heart, God has forgotten; he hideth his face; he will never see it.” Thus although they are forced to acknowledge that there is some God, they, however, rob him of his glory by denying his power. For, as Paul declares, “If we believe not, he abideth faithful, he cannot deny himself,” (2 Tim. 2:13); so those who feign to themselves a dead and dumb idol, are truly said to deny God. It is, moreover, to be observed, that though they struggle with their own convictions, and would fain not only banish God from their minds, but from heaven also, their stupefaction is never so complete as to secure them from being occasionally dragged before the divine tribunal. Still, as no fear restrains them from rushing violently in the face of God, so long as they are hurried on by that blind impulse, it cannot be denied that their prevailing state of mind in regard to him is brutish oblivion.

Ten sentences. A psalm text, a redefinition, and a verdict:

[TEXT]      Ps 14:1 — "the fool says: no God" → aimed at self-stupefiers   (S1)
[DIAGNOSIS] sin first, then madly banish the God natural sense supplies    (S2)
[REDEFINE]  they keep God's essence but strip his justice & providence     (S3)
[INFERENCE] a God who winks at crime ≠ God → security = practical atheism   (S4)
[JUDGMENT]  God blinds the self-blinded: seeing, they see not              (S5)
[WITNESS]   David interprets David — Ps 36:1, Ps 10:11                     (S6~S7)
[PAUL]      God cannot deny himself → a dumb idol = denial of God          (S8)
[RESIDUE]   the stupor never seals: still dragged to the tribunal          (S9~S10)

Examiner's Eye: two trap fields. First, S1/S3's redefinition: Calvin says the "atheist" does not disown God's essence (they do not disown his essence) — he denies God's justice and providence. An option that has Calvin saying the fool "denies that God exists at all" reads the passage backwards; the whole point is that practical atheism keeps a bare deity and guts his government. Second, the "so … as to" of S9: their stupefaction is never so complete as to secure them = the stupor is never deep enough to protect them. An option claiming "their stupor is complete enough to free them from judgment" inverts the result clause. Negation + degree = the day's favorite snare.

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

Formula 1 — so + ADJ + as to + V (degree → consequence; with never, it flips):

S is (never) so ADJ as to V ...
"their stupefaction is never so complete as to secure them ..."
= not complete enough to protect them

⚠️ With a negative (never), "so … as to" means "NOT enough to." A test option that reads it as "complete enough to free them" inverts the result. Restore with "complete enough to." Drill: No conscience is ever so seared as to silence completely the voice of God within.

Formula 2 — correlative "as … so" (just as X, so Y):

As S1 + V1 ..., so S2 + V2 ...
"as Paul declares ... ; so those who feign an idol are said to deny God"
"as no fear restrains them ..., ... it cannot be denied that ..."

⚠️ The first arm sets the principle/condition; the second draws the parallel or verdict. Don't read the two arms as unrelated clauses — they are yoked. Drill: As God cannot deny himself, so the man who recasts him as an idol denies the living God.

Formula 3 — nominative absolute + "it follows that":

[Noun + being + Complement ...], it follows that S + V ...
"Nothing being less accordant with God's nature ..., it follows, that every man ... denies ..."

⚠️ The bracketed [Noun + being …] is a sealed adverbial capsule ("since Noun is …") — it has its OWN subject; the main clause is it follows that …. Don't look for the sentence's main verb inside the capsule. Drill: The Judge being awake, it follows that no secret crime escapes his eye.

The thesis: atheism is moral before it is intellectual. This is the doctrinal heart of §2. Calvin reads Psalm 14:1 not as the report of a philosopher who has reasoned his way to "no God," but as the self-portrait of a man who has willed God away. The denial is in the heart ("said in his heart"), not the head. Sin comes first (S2: after they have become hardened), and the denial is its anesthetic. This anticipates by four centuries the modern insight that unbelief can be wish-driven — but Calvin's verdict is the reverse of Freud's: it is not God who is the projection, but the no-God that is the wish.

Practical vs. speculative atheism. Calvin makes a careful distinction the exam loves: the "fool" usually does not deny God's essence (S3, S7 — they do not disown his essence; forced to acknowledge … some God). What he denies is God's justice and providence — that God governs, judges, and sees. Hence S4's redefinition: every man who indulges in security, after extinguishing all fear of divine Judgment, virtually denies that there is a God. You can keep a deity in the abstract and still be, functionally, an atheist. This is practical atheism (atheismus practicus), a category later Reformed orthodoxy (e.g., the Puritans, and Calvin's own heirs) would develop at length.

Judicial blinding. S5 (God makes their hearts dull … seeing, they see not) is Calvin's compressed citation of the Isaiah 6:9–10 hardening motif (echoed in John 12:40, Rom. 11:8). Note the order he is careful to preserve: the blinding is a just punishment, consequent upon their prior self-blinding (after they have closed their own eyes). God's hardening is judicial, not arbitrary — a handing-over (cf. Day09's Rom. 1 "gave them up"). Guardrail: Calvin is not making God the author of the unbelief; he is describing God's righteous ratification of a self-chosen darkness.

God cannot deny himself. S8's use of 2 Tim. 2:13 is doing heavy lifting: God's faithfulness is grounded in his aseity and immutability — he cannot deny himself, cannot act against his own nature. The idolater, by contrast, feigns a god who is not God; to recast the living God as "a dead and dumb idol" is therefore to deny him as truly as the open atheist. The line runs straight into I.11–12 (the mind as a "perpetual forge of idols") — but don't pre-quote it; here the point is only that fabricated worship = denial.

1. Psalm 14:1 / 53:1 — quoted in S1. "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God." Hebrew נָבָל (nabal) = the moral fool, not the unintelligent one; the denial is בְּלִבּוֹ (belibbô) — "in his heart," the seat of will. Calvin builds the whole section on the location of the denial: heart, not intellect.
2. Psalm 36:1 — quoted in S6. "no fear of God before his eyes." Paul gathers this very verse into his catena in Rom. 3:18. Calvin uses it to define the fool's atheism as the absence of reverence, i.e., practical denial.
3. Psalm 10:11 — quoted in S6. "He has said in his heart, God has forgotten; he hideth his face; he will never see it." The fool's creed in his own words — not "no God," but "no watching God." Exactly Calvin's redefinition (denial of providence).
4. Isaiah 6:9–10 (cf. John 12:40; Rom. 11:8) — behind S5. "seeing, they see not" — the judicial-hardening formula. Calvin assumes the reader hears Isaiah under his phrase; the self-closed eye is sealed shut by God as punishment.
5. 2 Timothy 2:13 — quoted in S8. "If we believe not, he abideth faithful, he cannot deny himself." Calvin turns a comfort text (God's faithfulness) into a prosecutorial one: precisely because God cannot deny his own nature, the man who refashions him into an idol is the true denier. How Calvin uses Scripture today: he lets David interpret David (S6) and Paul interpret the Psalmist, building the doctrine out of the Bible's own cross-references rather than imposing a system on it.

문제 ① 어법 — 밑줄 친 부분 중 틀린 것은?

Their stupefaction is never (A) so complete as to secure them from judgment; for, (B) as no fear restrains them, (C) so long as they are driven by blind impulse, it (D) cannot to be denied that their state is brutish oblivion.

✨ 답안 보기 (클릭)정답: (D). it cannot to be denied is wrong — the impersonal passive is it cannot be denied that … (no to). (A) is the so … as to V degree frame (correct). (B) as = "since" (correct). (C) so long as = "for as long as" (correct). 출제 의도: Formula 1·2의 구조는 살려 두고, 빈출 함정인 조동사 뒤 동사원형(cannot be, not cannot to be)을 심었다.

문제 ② 내용일치 — §2와 일치하는 것은?

(A) Calvin argues that the fool of Psalm 14 has rationally concluded that God's essence does not exist. (B) According to Calvin, a man may keep belief in some deity and yet, by living without fear of judgment, virtually deny that there is a God. (C) Calvin says that once the wicked stupefy themselves, their stupor becomes complete enough to free them from God's tribunal. (D) Calvin teaches that God blinds the wicked first, and only afterward do they close their own eyes.

✨ 답안 보기 (클릭)정답: (B) — S4 그대로: every man who indulges in security, after extinguishing all fear of divine Judgment, virtually denies that there is a God. (A)는 S3/S7 뒤집기 — 어리석은 자는 본질(essence)은 부인하지 않고 정의·섭리를 부인한다(지성적 결론이 아니라 마음의 의지). (C)는 S9 함정 — never so complete as to secure them(결코 ~할 만큼은 아님)을 정반대로. (D)는 S5 순서 뒤집기 — after they have closed their own eyes, 자기 눈을 먼저 감은 뒤 하나님이 벌로 어둡게 하신다. 출제 의도: 실천적 무신론(B)과 S5/S9의 순서·정도 함정.

문제 ③ 영작 — Formula 1 적용.

"그들의 마비는 결코 그들을 심판에서 지켜 줄 만큼 완전하지 않다" — so … as to 구문으로 옮겨라.

✨ 답안 보기 (클릭)모범답안: Their stupefaction is never so complete as to secure them from judgment. 출제 의도: so + 형용사(complete) + as to + V(secure) 틀에 never를 결합해 "결코 ~할 만큼은 아니다"를 만드는 것. complete enough to secure them으로 풀어도 정답; so complete to secure처럼 as를 빠뜨리면 감점.

One-line summary: The "fool" of Psalm 14 is no philosopher but a self-drugger — he keeps a bare deity while stripping God of justice and providence, so that living without fear of judgment is virtually atheism; yet the stupor never fully seals, and you now own the inversions of degree and consequence (so … as to, the correlative as … so, and the nominative absolute + it follows that).

Homework (10 min):

1. Structure restoration: Rewrite S9's their stupefaction is never so complete as to secure them in base order using "complete enough to," and state what the never does to the meaning.
2. Composition: Using Formula 2 (as … so), write one sentence: "하나님이 자기를 부인하실 수 없듯이, 그분을 우상으로 바꾸는 자는 참 하나님을 부인한다."
3. Preview: Tomorrow is I.4.§3 — Calvin turns from the open atheist to the superstitious worshipper, and overturns the excuse "at least I have some zeal for religion." First words: "In this way, the vain pretext…"

Where we stopped: Book 1, Ch. 4, §2 끝. 다음은 Book 1, Ch. 4, §3 (Day 11).