Institutes Book 1, Chapter 3: The Knowledge of God Has Been Naturally Implanted in the Minds of Men.

Section 1: The Character of This Endowment.

No one, Calvin argues (perhaps following Paul in Romans 1:19-20, albeit uncited), is without knowledge of divinity. "To prevent anyone from taking refuge in the pretense of ignorance, God himself has implanted in all men a certain understanding of his divine majesty." We can understand this, Calvin argues, because there is no nation or people that does not believe in a god, or contain "some seed of religion." He even points to the fact of idolatry to prove this point, saying that a person "prefers to worship wood and stone rather than to be thought of as having no God, clearly this is a most vivid impression of a divine being." Thus, the impression we have is that people know or are at least inclined to worship some divine being/thing, pointing to the fact that they know that God exists, even if they do not desire to worship the true God.

Section 2: Religion is No Arbitrary Invention.

Here Calvin is ahead of his time, arguing against Marxism which hadn't yet been invented: "Therefore it is utterly vain for some men to say that religion was invented by the subtlety and craft of a few to hold the simple fold in thrall by this device and that those very persons who originated the worship of God for others did not in the least believe that any God existed." While Calvin confesses that within religion such inventions have occurred, this cannot be said about religion itself. Concerning the 'supposed atheists' Calvin writes "If, indeed, there were some in the past, and today not a few appear, who deny that God exists, yet willy-nilly they from time to time feel an inkling of what they desire not to believe. ... Indeed, they seek out every subterfuge to hide themselves from the Lord's presence, and to efface it again from their minds." But, Calvin argues, they cannot rid themselves of such a presence, and there is "no respite from anxiety of conscience." Thus even the impious in some way give evidence that some concept of God "is ever alive in all men's minds."

Section 3: Actual Godlessness is Impossible.

Those who reject any notion of God have "the worm of conscience" gnawing at them from within, and all their work comes to naught: "though the stupid hardness in their minds, which the impious eagerly conjure up to reject God, wastes away, yet the sense of divinity, which they greatly wished to have extinguished, thrives and presently burgeons." Thus the doctrine of the existence of the Divine is transferred, Calvin argues, not by education but "from his mother's womb and which nature itself permits no one to forget."

Even though this knowledge is implanted in our lives, to let it thrive, to know God as he has revealed himself is no easy task, presumably, although Calvin never says it outright, because of the fall into sin, which affects every part of our being: "if all men are born and live to the end that they may know God, and yet if knowledge of God is unstable and fleeting unless it progresses to this degree, it is clear that all those who do not direct every thought and action in their lives to this goal degenerate from the law of their creation." Without religion, then, men are not 'like the brute beasts,' but are in fact less because they work against their own purposes.

"Therefore, it is worship of God alone that renders men higher than the brutes, and through it alone they aspire to immortality."

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Reflection: I am reminded, as I read this chapter, of the New Atheism that has sprung up in the last few years. While atheism itself is not really anything new, the New Atheism is called 'new' because, as I understand it, it is more aggressive in its atheism than previous atheist authors have been. Not content to show that religion is foolish or wrong, these new atheist authors struggle ever so hard to try to convince people that religious faith (especially Christianity) is in fact terrible and bad, and should be gotten rid of. But at the same time these authors (evolutionists all of them) do not go far enough. They do not get rid of the good of religion, such as the concept of human dignity (created in the image of God), compassion, live for the fellow man, but instead try to keep these without the framework in which they are to be understood. Their conscience, I assume, will not let them go the full distance of their convictions and so become 'less than the brute animals,' for naturalistic evolution as an ideology cannot but pit men against each other in an epic struggle for the survival of the fittest, nation against nation, brother against brother. Here we see the beautiful providence of God in his restraining of sin.

I am also struck by the number of quotes which Calvin uses in this short chapter from the Greek and Roman poets and philosophers. He has one biblical quote, and quite a few classical quotes to prove his point. I am not entirely familiar with many of these authors (known to me by name only for the most part), but Calvin puts them to good use. It is interesting that in a chapter expounding that the knowledge of God exists within each person, he uses unbelieving writers to prove his point. I guess he realized that if he used only Biblical quotes, he could be criticized as arguing in a circle, or assuming the truth of what he is trying to show.

In the next chapter, Calvin will show that this knowledge of God is being smothered and corrupted. In reading this short chapter, I was struck by the fact that I had difficulty with it. I agree with him that knowledge of God is in each person, but I agree intellectually. It is very hard to point this out in some one's life. However, when we take this chapter together with chapter 4, we get a fuller picture of what is going on.

What I myself take from this chapter is the fact that even though we have this knowledge of the divine implanted in us, we must work to cultivate it or else it will be unstable and fleeting. We must, as Calvin writes 'direct every thought and action to this goal' of knowing God. We cannot simply assume that it will grow and develop of its own accord. We have this knowledge by the grace of God, and also by the grace of God we have the responsibility (and ability) to develop this knowledge so that we know him more and more.

Even implanted knowledge gives us no excuse for laziness in faith!