The third branch of spiritual knowledge is how to properly regulate behavior. We could also call this knowledge, “how to perform righteous works.” The human mind seems to have a little more discernment in how to this than the other two branches of spiritual knowledge (knowledge of God and knowledge of ourselves). The apostle Paul describes the ability of the Gentiles this way, “When Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them” (Rom. 2:14-15). If the Gentiles have the righteousness found in the law naturally engraven on their minds, then they are not totally blind to doing the right thing. 

In actuality, nothing is more common than people to do the right thing because they have been instructed by the “natural law” that Paul references here. We need to consider why this knowledge of the law was given to people. Once we discern its purpose, we can see how far it can go to guide people in the way of reason and truth. Let’s look at Paul’s argument carefully. He said a little bit before 2:14-15 that those who sinned with the law will be judged by the law, and those who have sinned without the law will perish without the law. It may seem wrong to hold someone accountable if there was no “law” to judge them by. But Paul immediately adds that the conscience of the Gentiles was guiding them instead of the law. Their conscience was sufficient for their condemnation. The outcome of the natural law is to render all people inexcusable before God. The natural law could even be defined as the conscience’s ability to judge between good and evil. It even convicts people of their own shortcoming, depriving people of an ability to plead ignorance of their actions. 

People are so self-focused that while they do evil, they attempt to suppress the idea of sin. The great Greek philosopher Plato claimed that sins could only be committed through ignorance. You could possibly even argue this way if our hypocrisy was so successful in hiding out sins so as to keep our conscience clear in God’s sight. But sinners still sin, even when they try to evade the judgment of good and evil which is implanted in them. People may try to keep their eyes closed to the truth, but can only do so for so long. Eventually, they will be forced to acknowledge their sin. Thus, it’s false to say that people only sin through ignorance. 

“Blogging the Institutes” is my on-going attempt to paraphrase John Calvin’s work, the Institutes of the Christian Religion. You can find out more about the series in the Introduction. For all the posts in this series, check out the Master List.