John Calvin opens the 1559
edition of his classic book, Institutes
of the Christian Religion, with a discussion of how we know anything about
God. According to Calvin, a true and full knowledge of God is only available
through Scripture. However, Calvin insists that a natural knowledge of God is
possible, which prepares the way for the full knowledge of God, and eliminates
any human excuse for being ignorant of God’s existence or nature. Note
especially Calvin’s argument for an implanted sense of divinity within human
beings:
“There
is within the human mind, and that by natural instinct, a sense of divinity
(divinitatis sensus). This we take to be beyond controversy. So that no-one
might take refuge in the pretext of ignorance, God frequently renews and
sometimes increases this awareness, so that all people, recognizing that there
is a God and that he is their Creator, are condemned by their own testimony
because they have failed to worship him and to give their lives to his service.
If ignorance of God is to be looked for anywhere, surely one is most likely to
find an example of it amongst the more backward peoples and those who are
really remote from civilization (ab humanitatis cultu remotiores). Yet, in fact
(as a pagan has said) there is no nation so barbarous, no people so savage,
that they do not have a pervasive belief that there is a God…
There has been no region since the
beginning of the world, no city, no home, that could exist without religion;
this fact in itself points to a sense of divinity inscribed in the hearts of
all people…
There are innumerable witnesses in heaven and on earth that declare the
wonders of his wisdom. Not only those more arcane matters for the closer
observation of which astronomy, medicine, and all of natural science (tota
physica scientia) are intended, but also
those which force themselves upon the sight of even the most unlearned and
ignorant peoples, so that they cannot even open their eyes without being forced
to see them.”
THINK BIG.
START SMALL. GO DEEP.
References:
1) Institutes, I.iii.1,2; in Joannis
Calvini: Opera Selecta, ed. P. Barth and W. Niesel, vol. 3 (Munich: Kaiser
Verlag, 1928), 37.16-46.11.
2) The Christian Theology Reader, edited by Alister E. McGrath
(Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 1995), pp. 57
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