Calvin now actually anticipates the (Neo-)Pentecostalistic objection to the above correct equating of ‘tongues’ with foreign but real human languages. Opponents, says Calvin, object: “But if somebody endowed with the gift of tongues, [always] spoke sensibly and intelligently” — so that at least he himself could understand his own words — then “it would have been pointless for Paul to say that ‘my spirit prays, but the understanding is un-fruitful!'”
Replies Calvin: “My answer to that is, that for the sake of illustration, Paul is taking a purely hypothetical situation, as follows. ‘If the gift of speaking in a tongue is kept distinct from the understanding — so that the speaker is a foreigner to himself as well as to others — what good will he do by stammering along like that?'” No good at all.
