Chapter 5

Calvin has a great question that you may want to try at your next cocktail party:

"Can morons believe in God?"

If so much of faith is dependent on literacy and the ability to grasp intricate dogma, then how would some stupid fool ever know a thing about God?

Look around, says Calvin, there is evidence all over the place. The evidence is so obvious that he claims even the "most illiterate and stupid" person cannot "exculpate themselves by the plea of ignorance." To put it with a modern twist, "Even the cast of Jersey Shore should realize there is a God."

What are some of these obvious proofs of God?

Stars and planets, the might of nature, art and scientific advances, and of course... poop.

How could a mere collection of atoms, Calvin wonders, decide how to process food in such a way that divides some food into blood and some food into human excrement? Isn't such sorting evidence of a divine wisdom behind mankind. We should marvel at it!

Side Note: I have been joining the juicing craze (getting nutrients from straight veggy and fruit juice) and it tends to really flush you out. I can assure you, there is nothing marvelous about excrement. My faith falls into crises every time I enter the bathroom these days. 

Point being, even an illiterate moron has to poop! So, those idiots ought to realize God is the boss.

After establishing the principle of General Revelation, Calvin spends a long time arguing against ways that Antiquity's philosophers explained away the apparent wisdom behind creation. Some of it is interesting and valuable, much of it is too heavy handed to do any damage. But, I want to return to the poop. Well, not really. I want to return to the subject within which he mentioned our miraculous movements.

Calvin takes issue with the notion that the soul and the body are intertwined. Calvin is pretty passionate about the fact that they are and should be separate. In doing this, Calvin clearly aligns himself  with Plato and Augustine. Plato thought that our bodies were actually prisons that held souls captive and it was our job to get our souls out of our bodies. Augustine taught a Christianized version of this. Calvin falls right into line. He is scandalized by Aristotle's notion that soul and body could be so intertwined.

I read ahead and there is more to come on this later. But, for today, I was very surprised that Calvin stuck so close Augustine on this. He didn't have to. Aquinas didn't.