Calvin starts with epistemology. What do we know? He comes up with two things: knowledge of God and knowledge of ourselves. But, the two have to go together, Calvin says.
Why? Well, if you look in the mirror, you'd be tempted to think you are pretty awesome. I'd be tempted to agree. But, Calvin says no; in fact you're a piece of crap. How does he know that? Because he compares us to God, who is truly awesome.
Then, he says that we can also see God through ourselves. But, since we're crap, we always respond to God with horror and amazement. He doesn't compute with us because of all our sin and crappiness. So, in a sense, our depraved state helps us truly appreciate the glory of God, because we see the vastness that separates us from his holiness.
Yuck. I don't like that at all. Doesn't that look like this:
More Depraved <--------------------------------------> Less Depraved
More Knowledge <------------------------------------> Less Knowledge
of God of God
I'm sure that is not what Calvin intended to say. He writes a lot of stuff about piety, and scripture as sources of knowing God. However, all such efforts need to be filtered through a memory of my own crappiness.
No comments:
Post a Comment