Self-knowledge can either drive a person inward toward pride or outward toward God, and today’s readings press that tension to its breaking point. Calvin insists that the deepest knowledge of self comes not from measuring what remains after the Fall, but from being stripped bare until nothing is left but dependence on grace, exposing how even our best instincts toward truth falter into vanity without God. Augustine echoes this inward collapse by showing how grief and friendship can temporarily mend the soul while still leaving it displaced, stitched together by loves that cannot finally heal. Together, these readings refuse every illusion of moral or intellectual self-sufficiency and force the reader to face a hard truth: only when pride is burned away does humility become not weakness, but the only place where mercy can meet us.

Readings:

John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion Book 2, Chapter 2 (Sections 9–12)

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How do we truly know the invisible God when nature alone leaves us prone to confusion and speculation? In this reading, Calvin explains why Scripture provides a clearer portrait of God than creation by itself ever could, grounding our knowledge of the Creator in the historical account given through Moses. He rebukes arrogant curiosity about time, eternity, and creation, urging humility where God has chosen silence, and shows how the six-day creation displays God’s fatherly wisdom and care. Calvin then turns to the invisible realm, addressing angels not to satisfy curiosity, but to guard against errors that diminish God’s sovereignty or divide creation into rival powers. Throughout, he calls us away from idle speculation and back to Scripture’s plain teaching, where true knowledge leads not to pride, but to reverence, faith, and worship.

Readings: John Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 1, Chapter 14 (Sections 1–5)

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of God? In today’s reading, Calvin carefully addresses this tension by showing how Scripture speaks of the Father and the Son according to order and role without dividing the divine essence. He explains Christ’s words as Mediator, clarifies passages that seem to imply inferiority, and demonstrates that the Son’s submission belongs to His redemptive office, not to His nature. Drawing on Irenaeus, Tertullian, and the broader consensus of the Fathers, Calvin dismantles claims that early Christianity knew only the Father as God, showing instead a consistent confession of one God in three persons. The result is a sober, historically grounded defense of Trinitarian faith that guards both Christ’s full divinity and the unity of God without speculation or distortion.

Readings: John Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 1, Chapter 13 (Sections 26–29)

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