John Calvin - The Soul = Understanding + Will

This post is part of my year long study of Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion.  To facilitate this course of study, I am following along with Princeton Theological Seminary's  "A Year with the Institutes", which also includes an audio reading of the text.

Calvin's Institutes of Religion:  1.15.3-8

<-----Light bulb (in photograph) represents Understanding, with reason its tool.

<-----Gears (in photograph) represent Will, with choice its tool.

Calvin continues, in his instruction regarding the soul, once again, with something that I have never really given much thought to.

That is, when the the Bible speaks of us, created in God's image, it is not, most specifically, speaking of our bodies:  "Also, a reliable proof of this matter may be gathered from the fact that man was created in God's image [Gen. 1:27]. For although God's glory shines forth in the outer man, yet there is no doubt that the proper seat of his image is in the soul. I do not deny, indeed, that our outward form, in so far as it distinguishes and separates us from brute animals, at the same time more closely joins us to God. And if anyone wishes to include under "image of God" the fact that, "while all other living things being bent over look earthward, man has been given a face uplifted, bidden to gaze heavenward and to raise his countenance to the stars," I shall not contend too strongly-provided it be regarded as a settled principle that the image of God, which is seen or glows in these outward marks, is spiritual."

Furthermore, Calvin reminds us that even though this image of God remains in us, it is corrupted by the Fall:

"Nevertheless, it seems that we do not have a full definition of "image" if we do not see more plainly those faculties in which man excels, and in which he ought to be thought the reflection of God's glory. That, indeed, can be nowhere better recognized than from the restoration of his corrupted nature. There is no doubt that Adam, when he fell from his state, was by this defection alienated from God. Therefore, even though we grant that God's image was not totally annihilated and destroyed in him, yet it was so corrupted that whatever remains is frightful deformity. Consequently, the beginning of our recovery of salvation is in that restoration which we obtain through Christ, who also is called the Second Adam for the reason that he restores us to true and complete integrity."

Now that we have come to an understanding of the soul, Calvin discusses the various faculties of the soul.  Philosophers, such as Plato and Aristotle, have divided the soul into "minutiae", but Calvin prefers to see the soul in two divisions:

"We are forced to part somewhat from this way of teaching because the philosophers, ignorant of the corruption of nature that originated from the penalty for man's defection, mistakenly confuse two very diverse states of man. Thus let us, therefore, hold-as indeed is suitable to our present purpose-that the human soul consists of two faculties, understanding and will. Let the office, moreover, of understanding be to distinguish between objects, as each seems worthy of approval or disapproval; while that of the will, to choose and follow what the understanding pronounces good, but to reject and flee what it disapproves."

Calvin instructs us that the tool of our understanding, is reason, and the tool of our will, is choice.  These tools will be explored much deeper in later chapters.  For now, I am happy to have a more clear understanding of who I be!  :)

Have you come to any new understanding from these teachings?