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there can be no obedience without a known command given

Likewise, there can be no disobedience without a known command given. There can be no lawlessness where there is no law.

So, what aruanan seems to be saying is that, based on the above, Calvin realized there can be no sin without God's command, confirming what we (Orthodox/Catholic) have been saying on these threads all along: the Reformed God is the source of sin.

So, what aruanan seems to be saying is that, based on the above, Calvin realized there can be no sin without God's command, confirming what we (Orthodox/Catholic) have been saying on these threads all along: the Reformed God is the source of sin.

A problem with the command thing is that some are confusing Romans 5:13 (--for before the law was given, sin was in the world. But sin is not taken into account when there is no law) with what Calvin called God's command, saying apparently, "If God didn't specifically speak to someone and say, 'Hey, you, I know you don't want to, but I'm commanding you to sin" and then saying that if God didn't say that, then he really can't be said to have commanded their sin. However, since Calvin was talking about what God ordained/commanded from all eternity (meaning before he created anything at all), he wasn't referring to one specific point in time. And something doesn't have to have consciousness to be commanded in this way unless one wants to maintain that rocks and trees and all the rest of creation that Calvin says behave as they do exactly as God has commanded are conscious beings.

But all that aside, this quote from Calvin goes to what you were saying:

“The devil and wicked men are so held in on every side with the hand of God, that they cannot conceive, or contrive, or execute any mischief, any farther than God himself doth not permit only, but command. Nor are they only held in fetters, but compelled also, as with a bridle, to perform obedience to those commands.”
(Calv. Inst., b. 1, c. 17, s. 11.)

Calvin is inconsistent in that sometimes he appears to want to back away from what he said above by talking about God "permitting"* something to happen; however, in a deterministic universe such as he posited, there can be no free will, no obedience, no disobedience, not even the concept of truth or the ability to judge whether something is true or not. Even one's seeming perceptions of being able to choose are the effect of the initial cause--God. Since everything has been determined by God, to quote Waddington, I believe, "Whatever is, is right."

*"From what has been laid down, it follows that Austin, Luther, Bucer, the scholastic divines, and other learned writers are not to be blamed for asserting that, 'God may, in some cases, be said to will the being and commission of sin.' For, were this contrary to his determining will of permission, either he could not be omnipotent, or sin could have no place in the world" (Calvin, Inst. Book iii, chap. 21, sec. 7, p. 53).

Likewise, there can be no disobedience without a known command given. There can be no lawlessness where there is no law.

God gave Adam a law and he broke it. Because of that sin was inherited by all men following. The Bible says there was sin in the world before God gave the Law to the Jews, and that all have have sinned. God also tells us that no man has an excuse. So, it doesn't appear that sin works quite as you suggest.