Institutes Book 1, Chapter 1

Section 1: Without Knowledge of Self there is no Knowledge of God.

In this section, Calvin argues that when we look to ourselves and see our weakness, our frailty, and especially our depravity and sin, we are led to God. Any goodness which we see in our selves and in our lives must come from somewhere else since there is so much that is bad in our lives as well. "Accordingly, the knowledge of ourselves not only arouses us to seek God, but also, as it were, leads us by the hand to find him."

Section 2: Without Knowledge of God there is no Knowledge of Self.

But to see ourselves as we truly are, we need to look to God. If we look only to ourselves and those things around us that are also fallen due to sin, "what is a little less vile pleases us as a thing most pure." It is only by looking to God and seeing his perfection and purity that we see ourselves in the proper light: fallen, sinful, depraved.

Section 3: Man Before God's Majesty.

"Man is never never sufficiently touched and affected by the awareness of his lowly state until he has compared himself with God's majesty," for often throughout Scripture are men and women stunned when they meet God, are afraid of dying because they saw the majesty and holiness of God.

Calvin will, in Chapter 2, focus on knowledge of God, rather than knowledge of humanity, as "however the knowledge of God and of ourselves may be mutually connected, the order of right teaching requires that we discuss the former first, then proceed afterward to treat the latter."

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This chapter brings to mind something that I have been thinking lately, arising out of my work on Genesis 37 (among other things). If we consider the fact of sin in the world, and the fact of evil (sin not only in ourselves, but also the bad things that happen in the world such as natural disasters), perhaps these are things that God uses to show people that everything is not right in the world. The world is not as it should be--this is not, as Leibniz would argue, the best of all possible worlds. The Lord, in his patience is waiting for the full number of the elect to come into the kingdom, and as he waits, he provides signs for those in the world that point to him. The depravity in our own persons, the disasters that befall us, these things show us that something is missing, and the only place to look to find it is with God who alone can redeem his creation.