Institutes of Christian religion - Calvin - IV - Chapter 5 of Book 1

Required reading
Institutes of Christian religion by John Calvin (Available from Amazon or free here) - Read Chapter 5 of Book 1.

My summary
This week Calvin teaches us that knowledge of God is obvious.

Firstly we learn that God is known from creation: 'In attestation of his wondrous wisdom, both the heavens and the earth present us with innumerable proofs not only those more recondite proofs which astronomy, medicine, and all the natural sciences, are designed to illustrate, but proofs which force themselves on the notice of the most illiterate peasant, who cannot open his eyes without beholding them.'

Secondly we are taught that God is known by his providence: 'For in conducting the affairs of men, he so arranges the course of his providence, as daily to declare, by the clearest manifestations, that though all are in innumerable ways the partakers of his bounty, the righteous are the special objects of his favour, the wicked and profane the special objects of his severity.'

But then Calvin tells us that despite all the proof we have about God, we fail to worship him: 'Bright, however, as is the manifestation which God gives both of himself and his immortal kingdom in the mirror of his works, so great is our stupidity, so dull are we in regard to these bright manifestations, that we derive no benefit from them.'

What grabbed me
Such humbling reading. 

We have so much evidence about God and yet we fail to worship him: 'But while man must bear the guilt of corrupting the seed of divine knowledge so wondrously deposited in his mind, and preventing it from bearing good and genuine fruit, it is still most true that we are not sufficiently instructed by that bare and simple, but magnificent testimony which the creatures bear to the glory of their Creator. For no sooner do we, from a survey of the world, obtain some slight knowledge of Deity, than we pass by the true God, and set up in his stead the dream and phantom of our own brain, drawing away the praise of justice, wisdom, and goodness, from the fountain-head, and transferring it to some other quarter. Moreover, by the erroneous estimate we form, we either so obscure or pervert his daily works, as at once to rob them of their glory and the author of them of his just praise.'

We certainly are a disgraceful race.

Next week's reading
Read Chapters 6, 7 & 8 of Book 1.

Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.