Day 16 — Institutes I.5.§4 [직강]

Yesterday the camera was loving: man the microcosm, the little world that holds wonders sufficient to occupy our minds, with God "not far from every one of us." Today the camera turns cold. Same evidence — opposite verdict. §4 opens with the hinge word of the whole section: "But." "But herein appears the shameful ingratitude of men." Calvin takes the very proofs he just praised and shows what fallen man does with them: not praise, but pride; not worship, but suppression. The factory of God's gifts inside us becomes the vantage-ground from which man wages "more audacious war with God." Underline the irony of the whole paragraph: the richer the evidence, the deeper the guilt. The microcosm that should burst forth in his praise instead swells with pride and uses the seed of Deity as a tool for suppressing the name of God.

This is the doctrinal pivot of the chapter — the seam where §1–3 (knowledge available) crosses into §11–15 (knowledge wasted). And watch Calvin's villain enter by name: Epicurus and the Epicureans, the ancient atheists who used the soul's own brilliance as a fortress against God. Keep that target in view; sentences 9–12 are a head-on assault on it.

Grammatically, today is "cannot help it" day — Calvin keeps saying men know God against their will and suppress him anyway. The three engines:

Today's 3 Big Points — mark them now:

1. "cannot but + bare infinitive" + "whether they will or not" = cannot help V-ing / like it or not (S4: "Whether they will or not, they cannot but know …"). A double-negative of compulsion: the knowledge is forced on them.
2. "so far from V-ing … that …" + rhetorical comparative = superlative: "is so far from obscuring the glory of God, that it rather illustrates it" (S11) — the construction that says "not only not X, but the very opposite, Y"; and "Can any thing be more detestable than this madness …?" (S7) = nothing is more detestable.
3. Inverted conditional with if omitted (subjunctive): "did not the Epicureans use it" = if the Epicureans did not use it (S9), with its counterfactual cousin "as if they were so many souls" (S12). When the if drops out, the auxiliary jumps to the front.

Three engines. Lock them in. Now read.

But herein appears the shameful ingratitude of men. Though they have in their own persons a factory where innumerable operations of God are carried on, and a magazine stored with treasures of inestimable value—instead of bursting forth in his praise, as they are bound to do, they, on the contrary, are the more inflated and swelled with pride. They feel how wonderfully God is working in them, and their own experience tells them of the vast variety of gifts which they owe to his liberality. Whether they will or not, they cannot but know that these are proofs of his Godhead, and yet they inwardly suppress them. They have no occasion to go farther than themselves, provided they do not, by appropriating as their own that which has been given them from heaven, put out the light intended to exhibit God clearly to their minds. At this day, however, the earth sustains on her bosom many monster minds—minds which are not afraid to employ the seed of Deity deposited in human nature as a means of suppressing the name of God. Can any thing be more detestable than this madness in man, who, finding God a hundred times both in his body and his soul, makes his excellence in this respect a pretext for denying that there is a God? He will not say that chance has made him differ from the brutes that perish; but, substituting nature as the architect of the universe, he suppresses the name of God. The swift motions of the soul, its noble faculties and rare endowments, bespeak the agency of God in a manner which would make the suppression of it impossible, did not the Epicureans, like so many Cyclops, use it as a vantage-ground, from which to wage more audacious war with God. Are so many treasures of heavenly wisdom employed in the guidance of such a worm as man, and shall the whole universe be denied the same privilege? To hold that there are organs in the soul corresponding to each of its faculties, is so far from obscuring the glory of God, that it rather illustrates it. Let Epicurus tell what concourse of atoms, cooking meat and drink, can form one portion into refuse and another portion into blood, and make all the members separately perform their office as carefully as if they were so many souls acting with common consent in the superintendence of one body.

Twelve sentences. Thesis (ingratitude) → the factory turned to pride → they feel the gifts → they know yet suppress → the proof is within, but they snuff the light → monster minds use the seed of Deity against God → the rhetorical horror (a hundred proofs → a pretext for denial) → not chance but "nature" substituted for God → the soul's brilliance would prove God, but for the Epicureans → if a worm bears wisdom, why deny it to the universe? → organs in the soul illustrate God, not obscure → Epicurus challenged to explain digestion by atoms:

[THESIS]    But — shameful ingratitude of men                              (S1)
[IRONY]     factory + magazine of God's gifts → instead, swelled pride     (S2)
[CONCESSION] they DO feel the gifts, know they owe them to God             (S3)
[CHARGE]    they cannot but KNOW these are proofs — yet suppress them      (S4)
[VERDICT]   proof is WITHIN; sin = putting out that light themselves       (S5)
[ESCALATE]  "monster minds" use the seed of Deity to suppress God          (S6)
[HORROR]    finding God 100×, man makes it a PRETEXT to deny God           (S7)
[MECHANISM] not chance, but "nature" substituted as architect             (S8)
[REBUTTAL-1] the soul's powers WOULD prove God — but Epicureans war on     (S9)
[A FORTIORI] a worm bears wisdom → shall the universe be denied it?        (S10)
[REBUTTAL-2] organs-in-soul ILLUSTRATE God's glory, far from obscuring it  (S11)
[TAUNT]     let Epicurus explain digestion by mere atoms                    (S12)

Examiner's Eye: the trap field is the direction of the argument from "organised faculties" (S9, S11–12). Calvin's opponents argue: the soul's powers are organised (tied to bodily organs), therefore the soul is just matter, therefore no God / no immortality. Calvin reverses it: the very fact that the soul's faculties have corresponding organs — that digestion sorts food into refuse and blood with a precision as if each member had its own soul — illustrates God's wisdom rather than obscuring it (S11). An option that makes Calvin agree that "organised faculties prove the soul is merely material" flips his actual claim. Second trap: S7's "finding God a hundred times … makes his excellence … a pretext for denying that there is a God" — the atheist's own excellence is the evidence he weaponizes; an option that says "man denies God because he finds no evidence in himself" reverses Calvin completely. The whole paragraph's logic is: more evidence → more guilt, never less.

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

Formula 1 — "cannot but + bare infinitive" (+ "whether … will or not") = cannot help V-ing:

S + cannot but + V(bare)        ⟺   S cannot help V-ing  /  S must V
"they  CANNOT BUT KNOW  that these are proofs of his Godhead"
whether S + WILL or not          ⟺   whether S is willing or not  (will = full verb)
"WHETHER they WILL or not, they cannot but know …"

⚠️ cannot but + V takes the bare infinitive (no to): cannot but know, NOT cannot but to know. And in whether they will or not, will is the main verb "to be willing," not the future auxiliary — read it "whether they want to or not." Drill: Whether he will or not, the sinner cannot but feel the seed of God within him.

Formula 2 — counter-expectation "be so far from V-ing that …" (+ rhetorical comparative = superlative):

X  is SO FAR FROM  V-ing(=expected effect)  ,  THAT  it (rather) Y-s(=opposite)
"…is SO FAR FROM obscuring the glory of God, THAT it rather illustrates it"
Can anything be MORE [adj] THAN Y ?          ⟺   nothing is more [adj] than Y
"CAN any thing BE MORE detestable THAN this madness …?"  = nothing is

⚠️ so far from X-ing that Y denies the expected effect X and asserts its opposite Y — do not read it as "it somewhat obscures." And can anything be more X than Y? is a rhetorical superlative ("nothing is more X"), not a genuine question. Drill: To trace each faculty to its organ is so far from burying God that it rather unveils him.

Formula 3 — inverted conditional, if omitted (subjunctive): "did not S + V" = "if S did not V":

…main (would/should) …  ,  DID/WERE/HAD + S + …    ⟺   …, IF S DID/WERE/HAD …
"…would make the suppression of it impossible,  DID NOT the Epicureans USE it …"
                                              ⟺  …, IF the Epicureans DID NOT use it …
counterfactual cousin:  AS … AS IF + S + WERE …    (unreal comparison)
"perform their office  AS carefully AS IF they WERE so many souls"

⚠️ When if is deleted, the auxiliary fronts (Did not the Epicureans use / Were it not / Had they not). Restore the if to parse. And as if + were is counterfactual — they are not souls. Drill: The soul's brilliance would silence every atheist, did not pride furnish him a fortress. (= if pride did not furnish …)

The structural turn of Chapter 5. Keep the architecture in mind. Beveridge's chapter-summary (printed before §1) tells you the chapter divides at §11: §1–10 show the knowledge of God displayed in creation; §11–end show that, because of human stupidity, those manifestations lead to no useful result. §4 is the first place that darker note sounds inside the "evidence" half. Calvin has just finished the microcosm praise of §3; now (§4–6, with §5 close behind) he confronts what fallen man does with the evidence — and the answer is ingratitude, pride, suppression. So §4 is a hinge: the proofs are real (he keeps building them) and the response is perverse (he keeps indicting it). This double-track — evidence accumulating, guilt accumulating with it — is the engine of Calvin's doctrine of inexcusability (Rom 1:20, anapologētous, the chapter's drumbeat).

Epicurus and the Epicureans — Calvin's named target. This is the section where Calvin's polemic acquires a face. Epicurus (341–270 BC) taught that reality is atoms and void, colliding by chance (the concourse of atoms of S12); that the soul is itself material and perishes with the body; and that the gods, if they exist, are remote and uninvolved. For Calvin the Epicurean is the archetypal man who uses the soul's own brilliance as a weapon against its Maker — the Cyclops hurling crags at heaven (S9). Two moves matter. First, Calvin grants the opponents' premise — that the soul's faculties are organised, tied to bodily organs (S11) — and reverses its force: organisation displays the Designer rather than dissolving him. Second, he throws down the digestion-taunt (S12): if all is chance atoms, explain how food is sorted into waste and blood, each member performing as if ensouled. The argument from physiological design against atomism is ancient (Galen, cited in §2, stands behind it), and Calvin wields it as a reductio: the Epicurean's own body refutes him.

"Nature" as the great evasion (S8). Watch the word nature. The atheist will not say chance made him differ from the brutes — too crude — so he substitutes nature as the architect of the universe. Calvin is flagging a move he will attack repeatedly: dressing God's providence in the neutral robe of "Nature" so the name God can be quietly dropped. (In §5 he presses this further; in I.5.§§5–6 the soul's powers are marshalled precisely against this.) The point for us: Calvin is not anti-science — he praises astronomy and anatomy (§2, §5). He is against using "nature" as a name-swap that erases the Agent while keeping the design.

Guardrail — what this section does and does not prove. Do not over-read §4 in either direction. It is not a claim that the proofs from creation convert anyone (recall §3's seam: no one serves God unless he has first tasted his paternal love). Nor is it a claim that the proofs are weak — they are so strong that suppressing God would be impossible but for willful pride (S9). The exact thesis is narrower and sharper: the evidence is sufficient, the suppression is self-inflicted (S5, they put out the light), and therefore the guilt is total. This is general revelation read for inculpation, not salvation — the same limit Calvin drew in §3, now turned from the slothful to the defiant. (Later reception: this is the passage behind the Reformed insistence, against natural theology's optimism, that fallen reason does not fail to find God so much as suppress the God it finds — a line that runs to Barth's worry about natural theology and to Plantinga's "sensus divinitatis" damaged by sin.)

§4 quotes no verse outright, but it is saturated with Romans 1 — Calvin is essentially exegeting Paul's indictment of the suppressing mind. Track the echoes:

1. Romans 1:18 — "who hold the truth in unrighteousness" (behind S4). The Greek katechontōn (hold down, suppress) is the exact movement of Calvin's they inwardly suppress them. They know (compelled) and hold the truth down (willful). This is the verse the whole sentence dramatizes.

2. Romans 1:20 — "without excuse / anapologētous" (behind S5, S7). They have no occasion to go farther than themselves and finding God a hundred times — the evidence is so near and so abundant that no defense remains. Calvin's inexcusability doctrine is Rom 1:20 applied to the man who finds God within.

3. Romans 1:21 — "they glorified him not … neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations" (behind S1–S2). Calvin's shameful ingratitude and instead of bursting forth in his praise … are the more inflated and swelled with pride is a near-paraphrase: the failure to give thanks and glorify, replaced by a swelling of mind (emataiōthēsan, were made vain/inflated).

4. Romans 1:22–23 / Psalm 14:1 — the fool's exchange (behind S7–S8). Makes his excellence … a pretext for denying that there is a God and substituting nature as the architect echo the "professing themselves wise, they became fools" exchange — God's name swapped for a creature ("nature"). Cf. the fool of Ps 14:1 (Day 10) who says in his heart, "no God."

5. Acts 17:25, 28 (behind S5–S6). That which has been given them from heaven and the seed of Deity deposited in human nature lean on Paul's Areopagus claim that God gives to all life and breath and that in him we live and move — the gifts are given, so claiming them as their own (S5) is the theft that puts out the light.

문제 ① 어법 — 밑줄 친 부분 중 틀린 것은?

Whether they (A) will or not, men (B) cannot but knowing that these are proofs of God; and to hold that the soul has organs is (C) so far from obscuring his glory (D) that it rather illustrates it.

✨ 답안 보기 (클릭)정답: (B). cannot but takes the bare infinitive, not the gerund — Calvin's own wording is cannot but know. Cannot but knowing is ungrammatical; it must be cannot but know (Formula 1). (A) will is correct — the full verb "be willing" in whether they will or not. (C)/(D) are the correct halves of the so far from V-ing … that … counter-expectation construction (Formula 2). 출제 의도: cannot but 뒤 동사 형태(원형 vs. -ing)를 (B)에 함정으로 깔고, whether … will의 본동사 용법과 so far from … that 상관구문을 정답 분산용으로 배치.

문제 ② 내용일치 — §4와 일치하는 것은?

(A) Calvin concedes that the fact the soul's faculties have corresponding organs proves the soul is merely material and perishes with the body. (B) Calvin argues that man denies God precisely because he finds no clear evidence of God within his own body and soul. (C) Calvin holds that the evidence of God within man would make atheism impossible, were it not that men like the Epicureans turn that very evidence into a weapon against God. (D) Calvin teaches that the proofs of God in creation are by themselves sufficient to make men devote themselves willingly to God.

✨ 답안 보기 (클릭)정답: (C) — S9 직역: the soul's powers would make the suppression of it impossible, did not the Epicureans … use it as a vantage-ground. (A)는 S11 정면 뒤집기 — 칼빈은 organs-in-soul이 하나님의 영광을 obscuring하기는커녕 rather illustrates it라고 함(반대 방향). (B)는 S7 뒤집기 — 오히려 finding God a hundred times … makes his excellence … a pretext for denying God; 증거가 없어서가 아니라 넘쳐서 부정한다. (D)는 §3 과대해석의 재등장 — 본문 어디에도 증거만으로 자발적 헌신을 낳는다는 말이 없고, §3은 명시적으로 tasted his paternal love 선행을 요구. 출제 의도: 논증의 방향(증거↔죄책, 물질론↔설계론)을 양방향 함정으로 검증.

문제 ③ 영작 — Formula 3 (omitted-if inversion) 적용.

"영혼의 탁월함은 모든 무신론자를 침묵시킬 것이다 — 교만이 그에게 요새를 마련해 주지 않는다면." — if를 생략한 도치 가정법으로 뒷부분을 옮겨라 (즉 if pride did not furnish …를 도치형으로).

✨ 답안 보기 (클릭)모범답안: The soul's excellence would silence every atheist, did not pride furnish him a fortress. (또는 …, were pride not to furnish him a fortress.) 출제 의도: 주절은 would + 동사원형(비현실 결과), 종속절은 if 삭제 후 조동사 did(또는 were)를 문두로 도치(did not pride furnish). if pride did not furnish로 쓰면 뜻은 맞으나 "도치형으로"라는 지시 위반이고, did not pride furnished처럼 도치 뒤 본동사를 과거로 쓰면 조동사+원형 규칙 위반. (S9의 did not the Epicureans use it 구조 그대로.)

One-line summary: "But" — the same evidence, the opposite verdict: man, a factory and magazine of God's gifts, instead of praising God grows the more swelled with pride (S2); he cannot but know the proofs and yet inwardly suppresses them (S4), putting out the light himself by claiming God's gifts as his own (S5); the monster minds even turn the seed of Deity into a tool against God (S6), and — most detestable — a man finding God a hundred times makes that very excellence a pretext for denying him (S7), substituting "nature" for the Architect (S8); the soul's brilliance would make atheism impossible but for the Epicurean Cyclopes who fortify themselves with it (S9), yet organs-for-faculties so far from obscuring God's glory … rather illustrates it (S11), and let Epicurus explain digestion by chance atoms if he can (S12) — you now own the day's three engines: "cannot but + bare infinitive" (+ "whether … will or not"), "so far from V-ing that …" (+ rhetorical comparative = superlative), and the omitted-if inverted conditional ("did not the Epicureans use it").

Homework (10 min):

1. Structure restoration: Take S5 — They have no occasion to go farther than themselves, provided they do not, by appropriating as their own that which has been given them from heaven, put out the light intended to exhibit God clearly to their minds — and (a) identify the main clause, (b) find the verb that provided … do not governs (hint: it is not appropriating), (c) rewrite the provided-clause as a plain as long as sentence with the spine …do not put out the light… restored.
2. Composition: Using Formula 2 (so far from V-ing that …), write one sentence: "각 능력에 상응하는 기관이 있다는 것은 하나님의 영광을 가리기는커녕 오히려 드러낸다." (Hint: That each faculty has its own organ is so far from obscuring God's glory that it rather displays it.)
3. Preview: Tomorrow is Book 1, Chapter 5, §5 — Calvin stays on the attack: "But my business at present is not with that stye" — he leaves the gross Epicurean "pigsty" behind and turns to the subtler enemy, those who by giving an indirect turn to the frigid doctrine of Aristotle try to chain the soul to the body and rob God of his rights. The taunt sharpens into a sustained proof of the soul's God-given powers apart from the body.

Where we stopped: Book 1, Ch. 5, §4 끝. 다음은 Book 1, Ch. 5, §5 (Day 17).