A Study Guide to Calvin's Institutes

by Douglas Wilson

"Calvin is a cataract, a primeval forest, a demonic power, something directly down from the Himalayas, absolutely Chinese, strange, mythological; I lack completely the means, the suction cups, even to assimilate this phenomenon, not to speak of presenting it adequately . . . I could gladly and profitably set myself down and spend all the rest of my life just with Calvin." -Karl Barth, from Revolutionary Theology in the Making

Genres: Theology, Nonfiction, Christian

335 pages, Paperback

First published April 19, 2011

About the author

I write in order to make the little voices in my head go away. Thus far it hasn't worked.

Reviews

[Kyle Grindberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

This guide was extremely helpful to me in reading the Institutes. I will be using this again when I read the Institutes next time.

[Josiah Richardson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good and helpful guide to Calvin's institutes. When you read Calvin, there is inevitably going to be a brain barrier between you and Calvin if not for the language, grammar, and vocabulary that he writes with, then at least for the intellectual powerhouse that he is. Wilson helps to fill the gap by summarizing a couple paragraphs at a time into simple Q and A format. I truly feel like I would not have grasped a lot of what Calvin was saying and writing if not for this guide. This was originally written for a men's book study group that Wilson led, so it is not designed to go over your head, but rather into it.

As a note of personal usage, I went through this guide with a friend of mine who sees Wilson as on par or perhaps slightly worse than Voldemort. I didn't tell him where the questions were coming from or who wrote the guide, and he expressed that he thoroughly enjoyed it and found them immensely helpful. I don't know if I'll ever do a great reveal to him about how it was Wilson all along, but it should be noted that there really isn't any type of person who wouldn't benefit from this guide as they read through Calvin's institutes.

[Jeremy]

Bahnsen lectures here.

[Aurora Grace · Rating 1 out of 5]

In terms of a restatement of Calvin's theology, this is idiosyncratic but decent. The problem is that Calvin was a theocratic monster whose theology is a human meat-grinder.