Advent with Calvin: Day I. Scripture

 The first day of Coffee with Calvin is titled "Scripture: Our Spectacles" (p. 2) 

Just as old or bleary-eyed men… if you thrust before them a most beautiful volume, even if they recognize it to be some sort of writing, yet can scarcely construe two words, but with the aid of spectacles will begin to read distinctly; so Scripture, gathering up the otherwise confused knowledge of God in our minds, having dispersed our dullness, clearly shows us the true God. (Institutes I.6.1)

The comparison of Scripture and its function in how humanity knows God to a pair of corrective spectacles is one of Calvin's more famous statements. It is a compelling analogy for me because it helps us consider the relationship between Scripture and our capacity for vision. In other words, for Calvin, Scripture gives clear and corrective knowledge of God. 

It is clear knowledge because it is revelation from God's own Voice - God personally tells us about God's own self, and God's own character, in Scripture. 

It is corrective knowledge because human beings, as we live and have our being in creation currently, do not see or know God in a simple and direct sense. What is clear is our unclarity: in Christianity, it is taught we do not immediately recognize or know God. Even for non-Christians and non-religious people, it could be agreed that for most human beings, there is no universal, obvious notion for how to know what is good, how to be good, and how to enact what is good in the world. So here comes God with God's own Voice in Scripture to direct and correct what may be mistaken or distorted knowledge. 

So here comes the brilliance of this comparison for me. In making Scripture our spectacles, Calvin has related our capacity to know God to the motif of vision. The motif of vision is really important in Scripture. Human beings are seen as God's image. The authors of the Psalms constantly long to see God. Moses is privileged to see God on Zion. And God is seen in Jesus of Nazareth, the perfect image of God. 

In other words, Calvin has used the analogy of spectacles to point to a way Scripture itself discusses how human beings relate to God. Vision is a powerful motif because it is so basic for human functioning. Vision is a physical sense. It is a means of relating to something external to us, the world. Yet we are also live in and come from the created world. We need to look out into the world in order to properly understand how to be part of it. That is the paradox.

I sense that for Calvin, this externality is no different for how to relate to the God of Israel: we must learn to look out to God to understand how we come from God and live in God. 

I'll conclude by returning to Calvin's comment in the quote: that the spectacles help someone with weak vision comprehend "a most beautiful volume." In this analogy, God is the volume! This is curious. Let us imagine God as something beautiful, external to us, like an object of our sense. But also the metaphor helps us imagine God as something that has to be read. And to learn how to read, we require language. We require the help of a community. And the community that helps us read the language, in addition to the language itself, are products of culture. God, the Creator who lives "outside" creation and is not dependent upon creation, is thus in this metaphor also something beautiful that is manifest within or even as a creaturely reality. Fascinating. This seems to anticipate or echo the Incarnation and Person of Jesus Christ himself, "God in man made manifest," as the hymn says.

To sum up: I like thinking of Scripture as spectacles that help us in our weak vision read a beautiful book. I long to see God because I long to look at what is beautiful. I long to read the book because I long to learn how to listen for God's language and God's voice. But I can't do it alone. I need other people to make the glasses and teach me the language to read the book. I need other people to encultureate me and educate me to teach me how to further appreciate the beauty of the book. 

I long for vision. I long for beauty. I long for speech. Let us long for these things too.