Calvin's Institutes, Chapter One

I don't have any commentary on the first chapter of the Institutes, so I'll just share my chapter summary.

The Knowledge of God and of Ourselves Mutually Connected---Nature of the Connection

Section One
Human wisdom is made up of knowledge of God and knowledge of ourselves. The two knowledges are connected, and so it is hard to tell which comes first. Knowledge of our own pitiful existence, as well as knowledge of the good in the world, directs us to God. People tend not to seek God while they are content, but once they know their true (sinful) nature, they will seek God.

Section Two
In order to truly know themselves, people must first know God. We think we aren't really that bad, simply because those around us are more or less equally bad, until we contemplate how good God is.

Section Three
Because of this tendency to think of ourselves as less bad than we really are, people in the Bible became fearful when they were in the presence of God because they realized for the first time the extent of their sin.

Quotes from this Chapter:

Thus, our feeling of ignorance, vanity, want, weakness, in short, depravity and corruption, reminds us that in the Lord, and none but he, dwell the true light of wisdom, solid virtue, exuberant goodness. We are accordingly urged by our own evil things to consider the good things of God; and, indeed, we cannot aspire to him in earnest until we have begun to be displeased with ourselves.

Book Review: The Lost Prince

The Lost Prince by Frances Hodgson Burnett
William Briggs, 1915 (originally published 1915); 216 pages

This is the story of a small fictional Eastern European country whose monarchy fell apart 500 years previous and of the people fighting to restore the crown. It centers on two boys, one an exile from the fictional country (the name of which I can't remember, even though I read the book this week) and one a street urchin from London, who travel from London to the fictional country, rallying loyalists throughout Europe.

If I had read this when I was a kid, it would have been one of my favorite books. It has everything I liked best: adventure, intrigue, a European setting, mystery, heroic children doing what adults couldn't, and long-lost royalty. Reading it as an adult, though, I saw every plot twist coming a mile away, particularly the climax of the story, which I nailed in the first or second chapter. A book like this isn't nearly as interesting when one has fairly well guessed all the answers. Also, the plot calls for almost impossible suspension of disbelief. Could two young children, not even high school age, travel from England to somewhere in the neighborhood of Poland? Even if they could, why would anyone fighting for the long-lost monarchy believe the boys? And what really made me wonder is why in every generation for 500 years, the heir to the throne wanted to return to the throne? Wouldn't it have been easier for one of the heirs somewhere along the way to become a doctor or a banker or a lawyer or something that didn't involve dedicating one's life to a cause one might never see accomplished? And how is it that every generation managed to have at least one son, all of whom were able to marry and reproduce before dying, considering the high infant mortality rates in all but the most recent century or two? And how come halfway through the book, these very European (very Victorian Male, really) people are suddenly revealed to be Buddhists? Weren't Eastern Europeans of the late 1800s/early 1900s much more likely to be Catholic or Eastern Orthodox?

Okay, so I'm probably overthinking a children's book, and I did enjoy the story when I didn't think too much. Still, if you're going to read Burnett, stick to A Little Princess or Little Lord Fauntleroy.

Top Ten Tuesday: Favorite New-to-Me Authors of 2012

Hosted by The Broke and the Bookish

It's a good thing I'm doing this for 2012 and not 2011, because I read so many new authors in 2011 that I'd never be able to narrow it down to 10. (Is this the upside of not reading as much as I'd like in 2012?)

1. Patricia C. Wrede: After I read the Magic and Malice series (Mairelon the Magician and The Magician's Ward), Wrede joined the very short list of authors whose entire oeuvre has been added to my TBR pile, no questions asked. (Others on the list include Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, C. S. Lewis, and Jasper Fforde, Charles Dickens, and Jane Austen. They're a motley bunch, but I love them all.)

2. Josephine Tey: I started the Alan Grant series earlier this year with The Man in the Queue. I'm taking Tey's mysteries slowly because she wrote so few of them and I want to make them last.

3. Joan Aiken: I think I would have enjoyed the Wolves series more when I was in late elementary school, but I still love it as an adult. It's a bit nonsensical, and deus ex machina or improbably chance figures prominently in the solutions to characters' problems, but the books are still creative and funny.

4. Elizabeth von Arnim: All you need to know is this: go read The Enchanted April. (It's free for Kindle, if you're into that sort of thing.)

5. Rex Stout: I started in on the Nero Wolfe series because I got Fer-de-Lance as a Christmas present in 2011 and because Stout is considered a Hoosier author, and I like to read books by my fellow Indiana people. However, upon further research, I don't think being born in Indiana but moving away at the age of six months and never moving back really counts as "Hoosier." But Nero Wolfe is still a great mystery series and a solid American contribution to the Golden Age of Detective Fiction.

6. Robert A. Heinlein: I've heard that Heinlein gets really weird in his later writings, and honestly, even his earlier stuff has this really mechanical, workman-like quality about it. But the issues and themes he addresses makes at least the earlier writings worth reading.

7. Terry Pratchett: He is one of the few authors who makes it into my commonplace book because he is funny rather than because something he wrote struck me as profound. (Not to say that Pratchett is never profound, because he is.) The Discworld series is great!

8. Muriel Barbery: Read The Elegance of the Hedgehog. It's amazing!

9. Walter Scott: I put off reading Scott for a very long time, because I assumed his work would be difficult to understand. It's not. I did have to look some words up in the dictionary, but no more than usual. It helped that I read a Penguin Classics edition with footnotes to explain bits of sixteenth century English culture with which I was not familiar.

10. Margery Allingham: Not one of the absolute best crime writers I've ever read, but a good choice if you've made it through all of Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers already.

Honorable Mention: Deb Perelman: I've read Perelman's blog, Smitten Kitchen, for years, so she's not really new to me, but her first cookbook came out earlier this year, and it's brilliant. If I hadn't been a reader of her blog, she would have been on this list for sure.

Calvin's Institutes, Prefatory Address

Introduction

I have decided to read Institutes of the Christian Religion by John Calvin. Because it is so long and so varied in content (Calvin is setting forth systematically his theological beliefs on everything), I've decided to write a bit of commentary on each chapter, or possibly two related chapters together, rather than write a book review a year or more from now when I've finished the book.

In my edition of Institutes, the first chapter is the address Calvin wrote to Francis I of France to explain what Calvin and his followers believed. Calvin believed that if the king had correct information, he would stop the persecution of French Protestants. I'm not sure how much Calvin's writings helped the plight of the persecuted, but his short book grew over the years and the revisions into one of the foremost works of early Protestant theology and the originator of Reformed theology.

On the Dangers of Majority Rule

To make every thing yield to custom would be to do the greatest injustice. Were the judgments of mankind correct, custom would be regulated by the good. But it is often far otherwise in point of fact; for, whatever the many are seen to do, forthwith obtains the force of custom. But human affairs have scarcely ever been so happily constituted as that the better course pleased the greater number. Hence the private vices of the multitude have generally resulted in public error, or rather that common consent in vice which these worthy men would have to be law. (Institutes xxviii)

When I read this section of the address, I though Calvin's arguments sounded like something I'd read before. After a bit of thought, and the help of Google, I came up with this:

Complaints are everywhere heard from our most considerate and virtuous citizens, equally the friends of public and private faith, and of public and personal liberty, that [...] the public good is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties, and that measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority. (129-130)

Any guesses as to the source? Yep, good old James Madison, writing in Federalist #10. Calvin and Madison both understood that humans by nature seek out others of similar opinion on a given subject and that groups of likeminded individuals often seek to force their likemindedness on everybody else, even at the expense of truth or justice (or possibly the American way :)). They differ on the particulars of their respective arguments, though. In Institutes, Calvin addresses the danger of letting human custom rather than God dictate religious belief and practice. Madison, in Federalist #10, addresses the dangers of factionalism in a small, democratic country.

Interestingly, the two men also differ on the solution to the problem. Madison argues that even religious beliefs will not prevent power from going to people's heads, and so the people of New York need to ratify the Constitution. No ulterior motive in castigating majority rule here, folks! Still, I agree with Madison that even committed Christians can be corrupted by power, particularly since majority peer pressure is so strong. (Federalist 133)

Calvin, on the other hand, argues that by turning to the Word of God and by standing up for what it says, the worst of majority rule may be averted. He says that a true belief in God does influence how those in the majority lead others. (Institutes xxviii)

Works Cited:
Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion. Translated by Henry Beveridge. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2009.

Hamilton, Alexander, James Madison, and John Jay. The Federalist: The Famous Papers on the Principles of American Government. Edited by Benjamin F. Wright. New York: MetroBooks, 2002.

Book Review: The Man in Lower Ten

The Man in Lower Ten by Mary Roberts Rinehart
unknown publication info (free e-book) (originally published 1906); 204 pages

In the early-to-mid-twentieth century, American author Mary Roberts Rinehart wrote numerous mystery stories and novels, inventing the idea behind "the butler did it," creating a character who partially inspired the creation of Batman, and earning the title "the American Agatha Christie." In her first novel, The Man in Lower Ten, lawyer Lawrence Blakeley travels home by train after taking a deposition pertaining to a fraud case. When Blakeley goes to his berth (lower ten) on the Pullman sleeping car, he finds a drunk sleeping there and at the recommendation of the porter, sleeps in unoccupied lower nine instead. When Blakeley awakens the next morning, he finds the vital documents in his fraud case stolen and the man in lower ten murdered. Blakeley assumes that the murderer intended to kill him, since he was supposed to be in lower ten, and that the murder has something to do with the fraud case. However, because of circumstantial evidence, the police accuse Blakeley of the murder. He spends the rest of the book attempting to prove his innocence and to discover who the man in lower ten was and if he (the victim) was connected to any of the other passengers on the train.

I found The Man in Lower Ten to be a fun book, if somewhat implausible. Every time I thought I could see where the plot was going, Rinehart threw in another twist. Every time I thought nothing else could go wrong in Blakeley's attempts to prove his innocence, something else did go wrong. Also, because Blakeley narrates the book in first person as if he is telling the story to a friend, he sometimes gets ahead of himself and reveals facts too early. However, this happens only with facts pertaining to subplots. Rinehart uses this "first-person narrator who tells too much too soon" device in other of her books, so it may be typical of her work. However, this is the first detective novel to earn a spot on American bestseller lists, and despite its flaws, it is worth reading both as a piece of detective fiction history and on its own merits.

Rating: 4.0/5.0

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Wouldn't Mind Santa Bringing Me

Hosted by The Broke and the Bookish

There are so many books I want to own, although right now the question of what to get for Christmas is purely theoretical, because I haven't really got room for any more books. Still, here's the shortlist:

1. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (Everyman's Library edition): I read AK two years ago, and I think it's time for a reread. Everyman's Library editions are particularly lovely.

2. The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim: This is such a delightful book about four women who rent a castle in Italy. It technically falls under the "woman goes to Europe and finds herself" genre that I despise, but The Enchanted April isn't particularly dopey.

3 & 4. Persuasion and Sanditon and Other Stories by Jane Austen (Everyman's Library editions): These will complete my collection of the works of Jane Austen, all in Everyman's Library editions.

5, 6, & 7. Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength by C. S. Lewis: I love these books so much (okay, so I haven't finished That Hideous Strength, but I love what I've read so far), and the set I borrowed from my parents has such tiny print and cheap paper.

8. The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook by Deb Perelman: I got this from my library right when it came out and loved it, but I never can afford brand new cookbooks, because they're so expensive.

9. Kenilworth by Walter Scott: Just such a great book, and now I've got some Kenilworth Gardens tea to drink while I read it.

10. The OED: One of my life's ambitions is not only to own a complete OED, but to read the thing as well. I've already read several one-volume dictionaries, but I'm not getting any younger, so I probably need to get started on this soon.

Movie Review: The Philadelphia Story

The Philadelphia Story, MGM, 1940
Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, James Stewart
(^^This is me impersonating Remington Steele.)

Publicity-shy socialite Tracy Lord (Katharine Hepburn) is just a few days away from beginning her second marriage. Desperate for a story on the wedding, a celebrity gossip magazine editor contacts Tracy's first husband, C. K. Dexter Haven (Cary Grant) to try to gain access to the Lord household. Dexter shows up with a reporter, Macaulay Connor (James Stewart), who blackmails his way into being able to do a piece on Tracy's wedding. Mayhem and madness ensue, fueled by too much Champagne and too little rational thought. Eventually even the future of Tracy's marriage is in jeopardy.

The first half to three-quarters of The Philadelphia Story are incredibly screwball and I didn't much enjoy it. Hepburn and Grant engage in faster and furiouser verbal sparring, but they don't present much of the superbly witty repartee from similar movies of the period, such as His Girl Friday, starring Grant and Rosalind Russell. But as the plot progresses and Tracy begins to examine for the first time the way she chose to live her life, the movie develops into a bit of a commentary on the nature of love and honor. One particularly excellent scene occurs when a hungover Tracy is debating on marriage with her first husband on the morning of her wedding to her second husband. Unfortunately, just as the characters begin to develop, the movie ends.

One of the points made in The Philadelphia Story is that partners in a marriage must lay aside the idea their spouse will always be the ideal spouse if the marriage is to work over the long term. Tracy had impossibly high standards for Dexter, Dexter took up drinking because he couldn't live up to those standards, and Tracy filed for divorce because Dexter's drinking just proved that he was unworthy of her. Their reactions to one another made their situation worse because neither addressed the problems with their underlying expectations.