All my years of reading Calvin (a weekly part of my sermon preparation) I have often found him much more consistent with a VanTilian way of looking at reason than other attempts that claim Calvin. In his commentary on John, he says the following about the source of sound understanding:
All that Scripture tells us about the Holy Spirit is regarded by earthly men as a dream; because, trusting to their own reason, they despise heavenly illumination. Now, though this pride abounds everywhere, which extinguishes, so far as lies in our power, the light of the Holy Spirit; yet, conscious of our own poverty, we ought to know, that whatever belongs to sound understanding proceeds from no other source. Yet Christ’s words show that nothing which relates to the Holy Spirit can be learned by human reason, but that He is known only by the experience of faith.
At the very least, we conclude that a) Human reason is full of limitations when it comes to divine things; and b) Calvin does not overlook the noetic affects of the fall.
3 Replies to “Calvin on Reason”