On the Christian Life — self-denial, the cross, and the future life (Institutes III.6–10, printed on its own)
John Calvin
The devotional heart of the Institutes, cut loose and pocket-sized, because it is the part a reader actually lived in.
Every stat is a checkable fact about the actual book, not a designer's mood. Bars are drawn against the highest value any book reaches.
The game's own explanation, as a reader sees it in the backpack.
Five chapters, pulled out of the middle of a much larger book and printed alone because this was the part people wanted to carry.
It does not argue with an opponent. It tells a Christian how to live, and the demand it makes is total — which is its own kind of force.
Self-denial, patience under the cross, a mind set on the life to come. Little of it is new, and almost none of it can be answered without simply refusing it.
The most reprinted piece of Calvin there is, under a dozen borrowed titles in a dozen languages, because it is short and it is not about a controversy.
These are five chapters from Calvin’s Institutes of 1539: on the Christian life, self-denial, bearing the cross, hoping for the life to come, and using this life rightly. Printers soon published them on their own, and they have stayed in print that way ever since, often read more widely than the whole book.
A book develops as it is read — the fragment becomes the work, the work becomes the corpus.
By levelling up. A book that develops keeps what it knew and learns the rest on its new schedule.
| Lv | Move | Type | Cat. | Pwr | Acc | PP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | We Are Not Our Own | Spirituality | Argument | 80 | 100% | 10 |
| 1 | Random Verse | Bible | Argument | 10 | 100% | 30 |
| 30 | Bearing the Cross | Spirituality | Argument | 74 | 100% | 10 |
| 38 | Chapter… | Bible | Scripture | — | — | 12 |
| 40 | Rest | Spirituality | Rest | — | 100% | 5 |
| 44 | Imputed Righteousness | Soteriology | Argument | 95 | 100% | 10 |
| 50 | Speak Latin | History | Status | — | 100% | 5 |
How to read these. In Scholar’s Dream, books argue with each other. Each thing a book can do in a debate is a move, and most moves carry a real quotation — the words the book puts on the table when it uses that move.
Strong against lists the opposing books and arguments a move was written to answer. Used against one of them, it hits much harder than usual: ×2 means twice the normal force, ×4 four times. It is the game’s way of saying: this is the sentence that answers that argument. Open an entry to read why.
“We are not our own; therefore, neither is our own reason or will to rule our acts and counsels.”
Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion III.7.1 (trans. Beveridge, 1845), public domain.public domain
In the gameThe whole ethic of the Christian life folded into one clause: the self is not the thing being served. Nothing in it is up for negotiation, which is exactly why it lands.
“…to bear the cross patiently is not to have your feelings altogether blunted, and to be absolutely insensible to pain…”
Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion III.8.9 (trans. Beveridge, 1845), public domain. (trimmed quote)public domain
In the gameChristian patience is not the Stoic hero who feels nothing. The pain is real and is felt in full; it is borne anyway. That distinction is the move.
“In peace I will both lay myself down and sleep, for you, Yahweh alone, make me live in safety.”
Psalm 4:8 (WEB).
In the gameBreak off and rest. Stamina is restored in full and any trouble is slept off, but the book is then ASLEEP for a turn (two turns, one time in five) while the other side does as it likes.
“justification, as the acceptance with which God receives us into his favor as if we were righteous; and we say that this justification consists in the forgiveness of sins and the imputation of the righteousness of Christ.”
Calvin, Institutes III.11.2 (trans. Beveridge, 1845), public domain.public domain
In the gameCalvin defining the verdict in two halves, and the second half is the one Trent condemned by name. Sins forgiven, and a righteousness that is not the sinner’s own CREDITED to him. Not poured in, not grown into. Reckoned.
Canon XI condemned this by its own name. Here it is said plainly, by the man whose book they were answering.
A sentence two doctrines can shelter under is answered by saying exactly what yours is.
