John Calvin’s God?
Published on Facebook, February 8, 2010
By Bud Powell
Robin, "God is
good."
Worm, "Huh?"
An atheist acquaintance of mine affirms confidently, “If god exists and he is
John Calvin's god, then I am bound by every moral principle and fiber of my
being to oppose this creature."
Another friend of mine said once, “Even the devil knows better than to tell a
barefaced lie.” Only a tiny bit of poison is required to turn good wheat into
rat poison. As Obadiah said to the king of Edom: “The pride of thine heart hath
deceived thee.”
Note the absurdity, “If god exists and he is John Calvin’s god….” The
conditional clause negates the second. If God exists He could not be John
Calvin’s god. He wouldn’t be any invention of anyone and would belong to
nobody. This is exactly what He said to Moses, “I am that I am.” John Calvin’s
god would be a “creature,” and yes, we would all have to oppose such a
“creature.” Nobody understood this better than John Calvin, for he championed
the independence and self-existence of God as much as anyone. He also warred
against human intelligence and inventiveness and insisted on a theology of the
Bible, not intellect and imagination.
For a person to say, “If god exists and he is John Calvin’s god,” indicates
that the person knows nothing of god or John Calvin. Calvin did not have a god;
God had John Calvin. We would expect this from the Creator, who would not be
put in anyone’s box.
This is to say the same thing as the Apostle Paul: “But as it is written, Eye
hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the
things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed
them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep
things of God”. –1Cor. 2:9, 10.
Then there is the absurdity and arrogance of the statement, “I am bound by
every moral principle and fiber of my being to oppose this creature.” If god is
the “creature” of John Calvin, then of course my atheist acquaintance is
correct. That which is created is not to be worshipped, even if it is but a
mental construction. But that noble profession is contradicted by the concept
“every moral principle and fiber of my being.”
Where does this “moral principle” and “fiber” come from? Out of the air? Out of
the vacuum of materialism. By observation of animals? Does the fox kill the
hare and her young by “every moral principle and fiber” of his being? Doesn’t
the “hare have moral principle and fiber” or do only the strong? The race of
hares survive because of their powers of reproduction, providing a ready supply
for foxes, coyotes, and other predators, but that is no comfort for the hare in
the belly of the fox.
How does he get to define what is moral? Must I bow to the imaginary god of his
self-professed morality? Am I to be so foolish as to be ignorant that he has
committed theft, theft from theism, for morality cannot arise from materialism?
Science is taxed to the limits to describe the “what” of things. It knows
nothing of whether something “should be.” It knows that robins eat worms.
Should they? Robins and worms will have different answers to that question, I
suppose.
When science can answer whether or not robins should eat worms, then let them
answer whether it is right for Muslims to kill Jews? If they cannot answer so
simple a question concerning worms, then why should the Jews trust them?
It is arrogance to steal a principle that belongs to theism and use it against
theism. The atheist usurps the place of God, decides that he has “moral
principle” and then pretends that he didn’t get it from theism and wars against
theism. It is a crooked as a dog’s hind leg. Shall you wrest the sword from the
hand of God and use it against Him? Good luck with that!
Oh, but he retreats into the rickety fort of “natural selection.” He would have
us believe that a process depending on chance develops morality. This is the
logic of the gambler. But the logic of the dice table never supports any idea
of right and wrong, unless right and wrong are determined by mathematical odds.
The more you gamble on the 30-1 line, the more you will lose, for the odds of
you losing are 36-1. The dice do not care that it is your rent money, or your
children’s college fund, or your tuition that you parents sent you. You are
more than a fool if you get “lucky” and think that the dice cared about your
children. The fox doesn’t care about your morality, either, as he rips the hare
to pieces.
Jesus said that the lilies of the field were well-clothed, but not because of
their ability to survive natural selection. They were well clothed because
there was Mind and Intelligence clothing them: Matt. 6: 28-9 “And why take ye
thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil
not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his
glory was not arrayed like one of these.”
Does anyone but someone desperate to flee from God think that the fine clothes
of the lilies of the field made them more moral than the lowly grasses that
wither in the sun.
It might be very comforting and self-righteous to throw yourself into the lists
against a figment of John Calvin’s imagination, but that is not the
proposition. The proposition is this, “If god exists, he is not John Calvin’s
god.” He is the property of no one. He is the Creator and moral governor of the
world and all morality comes from Him. We will not stand before John Calvin at
the Day of Judgment, and we will not be overwhelmed by the wrath and
righteousness of John Calvin
If John Calvin is a true witness of His attributes and glory, then all of
reality will bear witness to that truth. We will not need to borrow from John
Calvin to refute John Calvin. Archimedes is reputed to have said that he could
move the world with his lever if he could just find a place to stand. The
modern theological Archimedes will find that “morality” and “fiber” offer no
place for them to stand in order to pry God out of the minds of people. The
sleight of hand will not go unnoticed. The true God is frightfully offended if
you take His corn and wine and offer it to Baal. –Hos. 2:8. But then Baal has
no corn and wine, and atheism is likewise intellectually impoverished. Hence
they sneak into houses and steal the children’s bread.
Heb 4:13 “Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but
all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.”
The One with whom we have to do will not be John Calvin or anything John Calvin
imagined. In that day the intellectual schizophrenic who denies God and then
borrows from God’s morality to use as a weapon against Him will find that a
very poor plan.
