Frivolous Devices and Punctilios

All mankind, Calvin says, has within them some notion that there is a God. This kernel of recognition that God has endued us with is constantly renewed and, as Calvin says, occasionally enlarged by the one who planted that seed within us in the first place. Since God has planted this idea within each person, all persons are responsible for how they will respond to God. In some, this germinal idea will be developed by the Holy Spirit and will produce the sort of faith that causes a man, woman, or child to declare that they belong to God and they wish to live for him. Further transformation of life and spirit ensues.

In others, however, this idea of God's existence is recognized as a foe and opposed. By flight or by fight, the idea of God is cast aside because if true--which, at some level, Calvin says, they know it is-- they are not their own. They are not the captain of their ship, but a deckhand working beneath the watchful eye of the true captain who will issue them orders for the good of the ship. Personal autonomy-- the right to rule one's self-- dissolves the second the idea of God's existence is affirmed, and so rather than affirming it, many push past it and give only vague recognition to the whispers of God. 

To this point, Calvin makes the following recognition:

"For while the whole life ought to be one perpetual course of obedience, they rebel without fear in almost all their actions, and seek to appease him with a few paltry sacrifices; while they ought to serve him with integrity of heart and holiness of life, they endeavor to procure his favor by means of frivolous devices and punctilios of no value."

Book One: Chapter Four
John Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion. Translated by Henry Beveridge (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2008), 14.

Calvin's insight is very much applicable today and, quite astutely, warns against a danger that confronts our own hearts. Speaking of those who have suppressed their knowledge of God, Calvin says that they reject God's authority to govern their lives and judge them for their thoughts and actions; instead, they try and please God-- and silence onlookers-- by offering "a few paltry sacrifices". They attend church. They give money to charity. They are, by their own account, good people. This misses the point. Instead of submitting to God's authority with a heart that sincerely wishes to live in a manner that is shaped by divine directives, there is a temptation to put God in their pocket by paying him with things he has no desire for. Those who suppress God try and buy the right to rule their own life by making payments in moral monopoly money. 

Calvin warns that God gives up such people to further blindness and confusion. Their hearts, in the biblical sense, are made into concrete. Their spiritual arteries clog. Their life drains away. They asked for their own way; and in the end, their way leads to death.

It would be wrong for professing Christians to think that such threats are not their concern. Those who deny God, according to Calvin's argument, are not just those who jeer at his existence on social media or write angry books against theists, but are those who deny a God of power and judgment. They are those who attempt to buy God off with wads of useless game money-- trying to buy their way with a currency that has absolutely no value before God. 

What God desires is for our hearts to long for, and work towards, obedience; and for a heart that is contrite and repentant when that obedience is imperfect.