sorrow, be angry yet unperturbed by anger. Thou canst change works Thou hast made but Thy mind stands
changeless. Thou does find and receive back what Thou didst never lose; art never in need but dost rejoice in Thy
gains, art not greedy but dost exact interest manifold."
and a.8. Basic Writings, Vol. I, p.959-61, and the relation of prayer and providence in Summa Contra Gentiles, III,
ch. 95 and 96. Basic Writings, Vol. II, 184-189.
itself is concerned with things that exceed human reason; it is therefore belittling to it to have to prove such truths
with the inferior faculty. Second, proving with logic what belongs to faith will lead to the presentation of arguments
that are invalid and result in ridicule by unbelievers who can see the fallacies. Let us be content, he says, that "what
faith teaches is not impossible." Cf. I.II.q.32.a.1. 317-8.
on predestination, and 9 on providence.
Gilson, History of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages (New York: Random House, 1955), 534-540.
thinking, each member of a pair of contraries "has its own limits. In fact one might be even more precise and say
that one is not merely inevitably tolerated in conjunction with the other, but rather is accorded its own proper
function as a result of this conjunction and distinction." p.142
III.xxiii. pp. 947-964.
salvation, III.ii.41.
problems they posed for reason. "Doctrines that are clear in themselves, but logically incompatible with one
another, are placed side by side because Calvin finds them so in Scripture. He developed each doctrine as he found
it to its logical end, no matter how violently the conclusion might be controverted by some other theme similarly
developed. In this pursuit Calvin was one of the most relentless of theologians and was sometimes called upon to
borrow words from Augustine or Bernard to express his own wonderment before these antinomies (sic) of his
thought that were to him none other than the mysteries of God's will." Edward A. Dowey, Jr., The Knowledge of God
in Calvin's Theology, expanded. ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1994), 37. Yet Calvin refused to accept that
these truths were genuine contradictions. He was no irrationalist, but valued human reason (within its limits), and
used it vigorously to solve logical problems where possible. "While Calvin as an exegete was a virtuoso at
harmonizing surface inconsistencies in Scripture, he never conceived of his theological task as an effort to
harmonize the deeper paradoxes of Scripture or to explain what he regarded as its central mysteries." op. cit. p. 40.