John Calvin Commentary Romans 1:22

"Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools," — Romans 1:22 (ASV)

While they were thinking, etc. It is commonly inferred from this passage that Paul alludes here to those philosophers who uniquely claimed for themselves the reputation for wisdom. It is thought that the purpose of his discourse is to show that when the superiority of the great is reduced to nothing, the common people would have no reason to suppose they had anything worthy of praise.

However, they seem to me to have been guided by too weak a reason. For it was not unique to philosophers to consider themselves wise in the knowledge of God; it was equally common among all nations and all ranks of people.

Indeed, there were none who did not seek to form some ideas of God’s majesty and to make Him such a God as they could conceive Him to be according to their own reason. This presumption, I maintain, is not learned in schools but is innate and, so to speak, comes with us from the womb.

Indeed, it is evident that an evil which has existed in all ages is this—that people have allowed themselves every liberty in inventing superstitions. The arrogance, then, which is condemned here is this: that people sought to be wise in their own right and to draw God down to the level of their own lowly condition, when they should have humbly given Him His own glory.

For Paul maintains this principle: that no one, except through their own fault, is unacquainted with the worship due to God. It is as though he said, “As they have proudly exalted themselves, they have become infatuated through the righteous judgment of God.”

There is an obvious reason that contradicts the interpretation I reject: the error of forming an image of God did not originate with the philosophers. Rather, by their consent, they approved of it as received from others.