June 28
Knowing God: The Creator and General Revelation
Please read:
Psalm 19:1-14 and Romans 1:18-23
Calvin says, “There is within the human mind, and indeed by natural instinct, an awareness of divinity. This we take to be beyond controversy.”
The psalm tells us that the heavens declare God’s glory and Paul asserts that humanity is without excuse when it comes to a basic knowledge of God as Creator. While general revelation is finally inadequate, it is often provides our first encounter with the Holy.
In the Institues (1.5.1) Calvin writes, "we cannot open our eyes without being compelled to behold him. His essence, indeed, is incomprehensible, utterly transcending all human thought; but on each of his works his glory is engraven in characters so bright, so distinct, and so illustrious, that none, however dull and illiterate, can plead ignorance as their excuse. … Hence, the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews elegantly describes the visible worlds as images of the invisible, (Heb. 11: 3,) the elegant structure of the world serving us as a kind of mirror, in which we may behold God, though otherwise invisible.
In the class we will refer to two articles which may be worth reviewing prior to the class.
The first is the transcript of a five-part NPR series "The God Chemical"
The second is a Christianity Today account of the conversion from atheism to theism by the British philosopher Anthony Flew
As you prepare for Sunday at 8:01:
- How have you encountered the Creator God in the natural world?
- Do you agree with Calvin that Paul is arguing for an innate God-awareness in human persons?
- How would you answer those who suggest that an awareness of God in creation is only a matter of brain chemistry?
- What idols are the neurochemists worshiping?