Day 15 — Institutes I.5.§3 [직강]

Yesterday Calvin moved from the heavens to the human body — a Galen's skill to map it, and yet all men read the design on its face. Today, §3, he tightens the lens to its sharpest setting: man himself, the microcosm — the little world that holds the whole creation in miniature. Look at the logic of the whole chapter so far: cosmos (§1) → the two arenas, heavens and body (§2) → and now man as a compend of God's wisdom (§3). The proof keeps getting closer. And Calvin's punch line is the closeness itself: God "is not far from every one of us" (Acts 17:27). If the evidence is inside you, then sloth has no alibi — "what excuse can there be for the sloth of any man who will not take the trouble of descending into himself that he may find Him?" Underline that rhetorical question. It is the inculpatory engine of the entire chapter, now aimed point-blank.

But watch the surprise ending. After stacking proofs — Paul, David, infants, Aratus, the heathen poets — Calvin does not conclude "therefore the argument is airtight, now believe." He ends on the heart: "No one … will voluntarily … devote himself to the service of God unless he has previously tasted his paternal love." Knowledge is necessary; it is not sufficient. Mark the turn — it is pure Calvin.

Grammatically, today is nominative-absolute day — Calvin keeps hanging a noun + participle off the side of his sentences ("every man having …," "the excellent gifts … attesting …"). Plus the rhetorical-question-with-anticipatory-it, and the strict no one … unless condition.

Today's 3 Big Points — mark them now:

1. The nominative absolute (noun + participle, detached): "every man having within himself undoubted evidence …" (S2) and "the excellent gifts … attesting that he is our Father" (S7). A noun and a participle, grammatically loose from the main clause = "with X doing Y." It adds a circumstance without a conjunction.
2. Anticipatory it fronting an infinitive + rhetorical question: "if … it is unnecessary to go farther than ourselves, what excuse can there be for the sloth of any man …?" (S3). The it holds the place for to go; the question expects the answer "none."
3. Strict necessary condition — "no one … unless" + "adj + enough / sufficient + to V": "No one … will … devote himself … unless he has previously tasted his paternal love" (S9) = only on that condition. Pair it with the result-infinitive: "wonders sufficient to occupy our minds" (S1), "tongues eloquent enough to proclaim" (S5).

Three engines. Lock them in. Now read.

Hence certain of the philosophers have not improperly called man a microcosm (miniature world), as being a rare specimen of divine power, wisdom, and goodness, and containing within himself wonders sufficient to occupy our minds, if we are willing so to employ them. Paul, accordingly, after reminding the Athenians that they "might feel after God and find him," immediately adds, that "he is not far from every one of us," (Acts 17:27); every man having within himself undoubted evidence of the heavenly grace by which he lives, and moves, and has his being. But if, in order to apprehend God, it is unnecessary to go farther than ourselves, what excuse can there be for the sloth of any man who will not take the trouble of descending into himself that he may find Him? For the same reason, too, David, after briefly celebrating the wonderful name and glory of God, as everywhere displayed, immediately exclaims, "What is man, that thou art mindful of him?" and again, "Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings thou hast ordained strength," (Psalm 8:2, 4). Thus he declares not only that the human race are a bright mirror of the Creator's works, but that infants hanging on their mothers' breasts have tongues eloquent enough to proclaim his glory without the aid of other orators. Accordingly, he hesitates not to bring them forward as fully instructed to refute the madness of those who, from devilish pride, would fain extinguish the name of God. Hence, too, the passage which Paul quotes from Aratus, "We are his offspring," (Acts 17:28), the excellent gifts with which he has endued us attesting that he is our Father. In the same way also, from natural instinct, and, as it were, at the dictation of experience, heathen poets call him the father of men. No one, indeed, will voluntarily and willingly devote himself to the service of God unless he has previously tasted his paternal love, and been thereby allured to love and reverence Him.

Nine sentences. Thesis (man = microcosm) → Paul's proximity (Acts 17:27) → the inculpatory question → David's witness (Ps 8) → infants as orators → infants refute the proud → Aratus (Acts 17:28) → the heathen poets → the affective turn (no service without tasted love):

[THESIS]    man = microcosm: rare specimen of God's power/wisdom/goodness   (S1)
[WITNESS-1] Paul: God "not far from every one of us" — evidence is inside    (S2)
[VERDICT]   so if God is found within, what excuse for sloth?                 (S3)
[WITNESS-2] David: "What is man…?"  — even infants ordained strength (Ps 8)   (S4-S5)
[WEAPON]    infants' tongues refute the proud who deny God                    (S6)
[WITNESS-3] Paul/Aratus: "We are his offspring" → God our Father (Acts 17:28) (S7)
[ECHO]      even heathen poets call him "father of men"                       (S8)
[TURN]      BUT none will serve God unless first tasting his fatherly love     (S9)

Examiner's Eye: the trap field is the relation between knowledge and love at the end (S9). Calvin spends eight sentences piling up evidence that God is knowable from man himself — then S9 says no one will actually serve God unless he has previously tasted his paternal love. An option that makes Calvin say "the proofs are therefore sufficient to produce devotion" overshoots — he explicitly says they are not; love must come first. An option that makes him say "the proofs are useless / leave no one accountable" reverses S3 (the proofs leave the slothful without excuse). Hold both: the witness is real and damning, and it does not, by itself, generate love. A second trap: S2 and S7 are quotations Paul makes (Acts 17:27 from Aratus context, Acts 17:28 from Aratus) — do not attribute "We are his offspring" to Paul as his own; it is Paul quoting the poet.

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

Formula 1 — the nominative absolute (noun + participle, detached):

…main clause…  ,  [ NOUN + V-ing/V-ed ]   = "with NOUN doing/done …"
"…he is not far from every one of us;  every man HAVING within himself … evidence"
"…"We are his offspring";  the excellent gifts … ATTESTING that he is our Father"
→ a noun + a participle, NOT joined by a conjunction or relative pronoun,
   adding an attendant circumstance (cause/condition/accompaniment)

⚠️ The give-away: a noun sitting right before an -ing (or -ed) participle, with no conjunction and no finite verb of its own — and it is not the subject of the main verb. Translate it "with X doing Y" or "since X does Y." Do not mistake the participle for the main verb. Drill: The proofs being lodged within us, no man can plead distance. (= Since the proofs are lodged within us …)

Formula 2 — anticipatory it + infinitive, then a rhetorical question = emphatic "none":

IT is + [adj]  + TO V …  →  the real subject is "to V …"
"it is unnecessary  TO GO  farther than ourselves"
…+ "WHAT excuse CAN there be …?"   ⟺   there can be NO excuse

⚠️ The it is a dummy place-holder; the true subject is the infinitive. And what … can there be? / what excuse can there be? is not a real question — it asserts the negative ("none"). Read the rhetorical question as a strong statement. Drill: If it is needless to travel for God, what defence can there be for the man who never looks within? (= there is none)

Formula 3 — strict necessary condition "no one … unless" (+ result-infinitive "adj + enough / sufficient + to V"):

NO one will X   UNLESS   Y (has happened)     ⟺   X only if Y first
"No one … will devote himself … UNLESS he has previously tasted his paternal love"
adj + ENOUGH + to V   /   adj + SUFFICIENT + to V   = so adj that it can V
"tongues  ELOQUENT ENOUGH to proclaim"   ·   "wonders  SUFFICIENT to occupy"

⚠️ No X unless Y makes Y the precondition of X — knowledge alone won't do it; the tasted love must come first. And enough / sufficient + to V is a result infinitive ("so … that it can …"), not a purpose ("in order to"). Drill: None will serve God gladly unless he has first tasted a love sufficient to win the heart.

Man as microcosm — an ancient idea Calvin baptizes. The label "man = a little world" (Greek mikros kosmos) is not Calvin's coinage; it is a commonplace of the ancient and medieval mind. Beveridge's own footnote here points to Aristotle (Hist. Anim.), Macrobius (Commentary on the Dream of Scipio), and Boethius. The thought: the human being recapitulates the whole cosmos — body from the elements, life, sense, mind — so that to study man is to study creation concentrated. Calvin's contribution is the theological re-aiming. He does not use microcosm to flatter human dignity for its own sake (the Renaissance humanist move); he uses it to multiply the evidence for the Creator and, with it, human accountability. Man is a rare specimen of divine power, wisdom, and goodness — and that specimen, lodged inside every person, is what makes God "not far from every one of us."

The two Areopagus quotations (Acts 17:27, 28). Calvin leans hard on Paul's speech to the Athenians, and it is worth seeing why it fits his argument so perfectly. On Mars Hill Paul argues from general revelation to a pagan audience with no Scripture — exactly Calvin's project in Book 1. "He is not far from every one of us … for in him we live, and move, and have our being … as certain also of your own poets have said, We are his offspring." That last line is from the Greek poet Aratus (Phaenomena, 3rd c. BC). Calvin's point is sharpened by the source: Paul, the apostle, validates a pagan poet's God-language as a true (if dim) witness — which is precisely Calvin's thesis that the sensus divinitatis surfaces even outside the covenant. So S7–S8 (Aratus, then "heathen poets call him father of men") are not decorative classicism; they are Paul's own apologetic method, extended.

Psalm 8 and the eloquence of infants. David's "Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings thou hast ordained strength" (Ps 8:2) is doing heavy lifting. Calvin reads it as: the least articulate humans — nursing infants — are nonetheless eloquent enough to proclaim God's glory and to refute the proud atheist. (The verse is the one Jesus turns on the indignant chief priests in Matt 21:16.) The rhetorical strategy is classic Calvin: the strongest case for God is made by the weakest witness, so that human pride has nowhere to hide.

Guardrail — note the seam between knowledge and love (S9). This is the most important theological point of the day, and the easiest to over-read in either direction. Calvin has stacked eight sentences of evidence — and then says flatly that no one will devote himself to God's service unless he has first tasted his paternal love. Do not flatten this into "the proofs produce faith" (they do not — they leave men inexcusable, S3, but do not by themselves win the heart). And do not flatten it the other way into "the proofs are therefore worthless" (they are real and damning). Calvin is marking the limit of natural knowledge: it suffices to condemn, it does not suffice to convert. That conversion waits on a taste of fatherly love — which, in the architecture of the Institutes, points forward to the duplex cognitio Dei (Day 4): the knowledge of God as Redeemer**, not merely Creator, and the work of the Spirit (Book 1, ch. 7; Book 3). Keep §3 in its place: it is still general revelation, read for piety where it can be and for inculpation where it cannot.

§3 is a tissue of quotations — Calvin is arguing from the apostles and the Psalter. Track them:

1. Acts 17:27 — "he is not far from every one of us" (S2). Paul on the Areopagus, the controlling text of the section. Calvin folds in the next verse's "in him we live, and move, and have our being" through the absolute clause (by which he lives, and moves, and has his being). How Calvin uses it: Paul's "not far" becomes Calvin's "the evidence is inside you," which grounds the no-excuse verdict of S3.

2. Acts 17:28 — "We are his offspring" (S7). Paul quoting Aratus (Phaenomena 5). Calvin's use: an apostolically-endorsed pagan witness to the sensus divinitatis — the heathen poet, by nature, named the true God's fatherhood, and the excellent gifts with which he has endued us attest it.

3. Psalm 8:2, 4 — "What is man…?" and "Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings thou hast ordained strength" (S4–S5). David's double cry. Calvin's use: man (even the infant) is a bright mirror of the Creator's works; the nursing child's "eloquence" both proclaims God's glory and refutes the proud (S6). (Note the NT resonance: Jesus cites Ps 8:2 against the chief priests, Matt 21:16.)

4. Acts 17:28b (again) / general — "father of men" (S8). The heathen poets naming God father of men is the natural-instinct echo of the same Aratus material — Calvin's claim that the semen religionis surfaces even in pagan verse.

5. Psalm 34:8 — "O taste and see that the Lord is good" (behind S9). Not quoted, but Calvin's verb tasted his paternal love is the Psalter's experiential idiom: knowing God savingly is a tasting, not a deduction. How Calvin uses it: to mark that the will is won by experienced love, not by argument alone.

문제 ① 어법 — 밑줄 친 부분 중 틀린 것은?

(A) Every man having within himself the evidence of grace, Paul says God is not far; and (B) if it is unnecessary to go beyond ourselves, (C) what excuse can there be for sloth? No one, (D) unless he will taste his paternal love, will serve God gladly.

✨ 답안 보기 (클릭)정답: (D). The no one … unless condition takes a present-perfect of prior completion — Calvin's own wording is unless he has (previously) tasted, marking the taste as the precondition that comes first. Unless he will taste (future) breaks the "Y must already have happened" logic of Formula 3; it should be unless he has tasted (or simply unless he tastes). (A) is a correct nominative absolute (Every man having … the evidence, Formula 1). (B) is the correct anticipatory it + infinitive (Formula 2). (C) is the correct rhetorical question (Formula 2). 출제 의도: unless 조건절의 시제(선행 완료)를 (D)에 함정으로 깔고, 오늘의 세 공식(절대분사·가주어 it·수사의문)을 정답 분산용으로 배치.

문제 ② 내용일치 — §3과 일치하는 것은?

(A) Calvin argues that the proofs of God within man are sufficient, by themselves, to make men devote themselves willingly to God's service. (B) Calvin holds that because God is "not far from every one of us," the slothful man who will not look within himself is left without excuse. (C) Calvin claims that only trained orators, not infants, can proclaim God's glory from the evidence of creation. (D) Calvin attributes the line "We are his offspring" to the apostle Paul as Paul's own original composition.

✨ 답안 보기 (클릭)정답: (B) — S2·S3 종합: God is not far (Acts 17:27) and the evidence is within himself, so what excuse can there be for the sloth of any man who will not … descend into himself? = without excuse. (A)는 S9 정면 과대해석 — 칼빈은 명시적으로 no one will devote himself … unless he has previously tasted his paternal love, 즉 증거만으로는 충분치 않다. (C)는 S5 뒤집기 — 오히려 infants … have tongues eloquent enough to proclaim his glory without the aid of other orators. (D)는 S7 오귀속 — "We are his offspring" 는 Paul이 Aratus에게서 인용한 것. 출제 의도: 증거의 충분성/불충분성(지식↔사랑)과 인용 출처를 양방향·세부 함정으로 검증.

문제 ③ 영작 — Formula 1 (nominative absolute) 적용.

"증거가 우리 안에 자리 잡고 있으므로, 아무도 거리를 핑계 댈 수 없다" — 절대분사구문(noun + 분사)으로 시작하여 옮겨라.

✨ 답안 보기 (클릭)모범답안: The evidence being lodged within us, no one can plead distance. (또는 The proofs lying within himself, no man can plead distance.) 출제 의도: 주절의 주어(no one)와 다른 명사(the evidence)에 분사(being)를 붙여 접속사 없이 부대상황을 표현하는 절대분사 구문. Because the evidence is lodged … 로 쓰면 정답이지만 "절대분사로" 라는 지시를 어긴 것이며, 분사를 빠뜨리고 The evidence within us, no one … 로 쓰면 동사(being) 누락. (S2의 every man having within himself … evidence, S7의 the excellent gifts … attesting 구조 그대로.)

One-line summary: Man is a microcosm — a little world holding wonders sufficient to occupy our minds — so that God is "not far from every one of us" (Paul), and since the evidence lies within, the slothful man who won't descend into himself is without excuse; David's infants are eloquent enough to proclaim God's glory and shame the proud, and even heathen poets call him father of men — and yet none will serve God gladly unless he has first tasted his paternal love; you now own the day's three engines — the nominative absolute (noun + participle), the anticipatory it + rhetorical "what excuse can there be?", and the strict "no one … unless" condition (with enough / sufficient + to V).

Homework (10 min):

1. Structure restoration: Take S2's tail — every man having within himself undoubted evidence of the heavenly grace by which he lives, and moves, and has his being — and (a) name the construction, (b) identify the noun and the participle, (c) rewrite it as a full clause beginning with since (since every man has within himself …).
2. Composition: Using Formula 3 (no one … unless …), write one sentence: "아무도 그분의 아버지 같은 사랑을 먼저 맛보지 않고서는 하나님을 기쁘게 섬기지 않을 것이다." (Hint: No one will serve God gladly unless he has first tasted his fatherly love.)
3. Preview: Tomorrow is Book 1, Chapter 5, §4 — Calvin turns from the wonder of man to the scandal: "But herein appears the shameful ingratitude of men." The microcosm that should burst forth in his praise instead grows inflated and swelled with pride and uses the seed of Deity to suppress the name of God. The witness becomes the indictment.

Where we stopped: Book 1, Ch. 5, §3 끝. 다음은 Book 1, Ch. 5, §4 (Day 16).