Institutes Book 1, Chapter 10: Scritpure, To Correct All Superstition, Has Set the True God Alone Over Against All the Gods of the Heathen.

Section 1: The Scriptural Doctrine of God the Creator.

In this section, Calvin sets forth what he wants to do in this short chapter: "now it is worthwhile to ponder whether the Lord represents himself to us in Scripture as we previously saw him delineate himself in his works." But he is not going to do a thorough job of it, but simply point out the fact that this is indeed the case: "I shall be content to have provided godly minds with a sort of index to what they should particularly look for in Scripture concerning God, and to direct their search to a sure goal." He will point to the nature of God, and not yet speak about God's more special relations to people through his covenant. In this chapter, he will deal quickly with God's character or nature by which he "governs the universe founded by him."

Section 2: The Attributes of God According to Scripture Agree With Those Known in His Creatures.

Calvin now turns to a couple of passages which clearly show the character of God in his dealings with the world. The first passage is Exodus 34:6-7. This is what Calvin has to say about this passage: "Here let us observe that his eternity and his self-existence are announced by that wonderful name twice repeated. Thereupon his powers are mentioned, by which he is shown to us not as he is in himself, but as he is toward us: so that this recognition of him consists more in living experience than in vain and high-flown speculation. Now we hear the same powers enumerated there that we have noted as shining in heaven and earth: kindness, goodness, mercy, justice, judgment, and truth. For power and might are contained under the title Elohim." [Elohim being the plural of the Hebrew word for God, El. This does not mean that God is more than one, but is a plural denoting the highest degree of intensity: God is the greatest of gods--the only God--it is an abstract plural.]

The next passage Calvin writes about is Psalm 145, and Calvin simply says that this Psalm 'precisely reckons' the sum of all God's powers, "and yet nothing is set down there that cannot be beheld in his creatures."

Calvin then turns to Jeremiah 9:24 which identifies God as "the Lord who exercise mercy, judgment, and justice in the earth." "Certainly these three things are especially necessary for us to know: mercy, on which alone the salvation of us all rests; judgment, which is daily exercised against wrongdoers, and in even greater severity awaits them to their everlasting ruin; justice, whereby believers are preserved, and are most tenderly nourished." And these attributes point also to their origin in God's truth, power, holiness and goodness.

"Indeed, the knowledge of God set forth for us in Scripture is destined for the very same goal as the knowledge whose imprint shines in his creatures, in that it invites us first to fear God, then to trust in him. By this we can learn to worship him both with perfect innocence of life and with unfeigned obedience, then to depend wholly upon his goodness."

Section 3: Because the Unity of God Was Also no Unknown to the Heathen, the Worshippers of Idols are the More Inexcusable.

Scripture, Calvin writes, excludes and rejects all the gods of the heathen in their adulterated religions. But men all along knew that God is one, "for men who worshiped a swarm of gods, whenever speaking from a real feeling of nature, as if content wit ha single God, simply used the name 'God.'" Justin Martyr and Tertullian both caught onto this and used it in their arguments against the heathen. This knowledge is not saving knowledge, of course, but simply serves to provide the unbeliever with no excuse for his or her unbelief. We are all called to worship the One True God. "For this reason, Habakkuk, when he condemned all idols, bade men seek God 'in his temple' [Habakkuk 2:20] lest believers admit someone other than him who revealed himself by his Word."

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Reflection: For such a short chapter, there is a lot of content here. What struck me here is the fact that God's revelation shows God not as he is simply in and of himself, but in his powers as he relates to his creation, "so that this recognition of his consists more in living experience than in vain and high-flown speculation." Believers, it seems Calvin is saying, are not to be 'arm-chair' theologians, just sitting and thinking about God intellectually. Instead, our knowledge of God is to be from living experience. But not, I will add (even though Calvin does not do so here) in the sense that we receive special revelation from God himself to ourselves concerning his nature and character. Rather, we are to experience the character and relation to us in our lives as we live them.

We can directly experience God's power when we look at the world around us. We can see God's mercy in our own lives, his goodness, his truth, etc. We cannot divorce these attributes from his relation to his creation and speak about them abstractly. God gives ample evidence of his attributes in our lives and in the world around us. To speak of these things in an abstract sense would be to rob them of life. Perhaps this is why Calvin uses, as his first text, that passage in which God appears to Moses on Mt. Sinai and announces his name. What Moses receives there is very special, but it is special because of its quantity, we could say, not its quality. What Moses receives is revelation of God that is available in creation, but God compresses it into one experience to encourage Moses as he leads the stubborn people of Israel through the wilderness. We receive the same revelation, but scattered throughout our life experience, not in one experience as Moses. I would love to receive such revelation, but am content with looking at God through the world around me.