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How the Knowledge of God Gets Smothered and Twisted | John Calvin · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to Reform Thinking, and welcome back to the Deep Dive.
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  This is the place where we get into the theological literature
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  that shapes so much of Western thought today.
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  We're doing a a really substantial analysis of
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  corrupted faith. We've got a stack of sources
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  here that focus entirely on the writings of John Calvin.
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  That's right. Specifically, we're looking at
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  key excerpts from his Institutes of the Christian Religion.
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  And our material today, it's really focused on one of the
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  most, I think, sobering concepts.
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  Calvin introduced the critique of the census divinitatus.
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  OK, what's that? It's this inherent sense of
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  divinity, this awareness of God that is by nature engraven on
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  human hearts. So what we're analyzing is the
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  systematic and Calvin would say predictable ways that humans
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  distort or suppress that knowledge.
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  So it's a critique of how we mess things up.
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  It's a sharp, unflinching critique of practical human
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  sinfulness. Yeah.
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  And it all relates to the divine knowledge that he says already
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  exists inside of us. OK, let's unpack that then.
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  If we start with the premise that God has sown a seed of
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  religion, this basic awareness of a higher power in everyone,
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  then why does the resulting crop, you know, look so bad?
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  What happens to that seed in practice, and why does Calvin go
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  so far as to assert that outside of true faith, no real piety
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  remains in the world? I mean, that is a sweeping
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  condemnation. It is, and the justification for
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  it rests on human accountability, the severity of
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  his claim. It comes from this idea that
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  humanity has the light but chooses to put it out.
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  OK the sources they show us it's not about accidental mistakes,
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  it's about moral failures that create 4 very specific pathways
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  of corruption. And these pathways, they ensure
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  that this innate awareness of God, the seed, yields only, as
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  he says, the worst fruits. And what are those 4 pathways?
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  Well. We're going to breakdown how
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  this degeneration shows up, first through the sin of
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  superstition, then conscious turning away, then the error of
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  fashioning God to your own whim in worship, and finally the
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  internal rebellion that is hypocrisy.
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  This sounds less like a study of religious error and more like a
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  detailed criminal profile of spiritual self sabotage.
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  That's a good way to put it. All right, let's jump in.
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  Let's start with the existence of that seed itself.
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  We have to begin there with the core theological premise.
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  God has sown a seed of religion in all men.
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  This is a mechanism of general revelation and make sure that
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  the awareness of a higher power is universal.
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  That's not something you have to learn from a book necessarily.
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  Exactly. It's not just from cultural
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  transmission or special revelation.
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  It's intrinsic. This innate sense gives everyone
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  a universal inclination to recognize a creator and a judge,
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  and that's what sets the stage for universal accountability.
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  That's the key for Calvin's whole argument, isn't.
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  It it is, humanity can't just plead total ignorance.
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  So the potential is there. The resource is internal,
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  God-given. But the sources?
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  They immediately hit you with a sobering observation that this
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  seed almost never grows correctly.
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  The text is just brutal in its assessment.
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  It says that scarcely one man in 100 is met with who fosters it,
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  and none in whom it ripens. It sounds like an internal
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  resource that's just universally corrupted or or neglected.
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  It's actually worse than neglect, it's active corruption.
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  The observation here moves right from potential to a universal
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  failure. This natural knowledge of God is
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  meant to lead to worship and piety, but instead humanity
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  degenerates from the true knowledge of Him.
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  And it happens in one of two ways.
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  Two distinct ways, yes. They either let the knowledge
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  evaporate in their own superstitions, which means they
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  distort it, or they deliberately and wickedly desert God, which
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  means they actively suppress it. That distinction is really
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  interesting. It covers both sides of the
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  spectrum. You know air that comes from
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  misguided searching and malice that comes from active
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  rejection, right? But either way, the outcome is
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  identical, isn't it? The true knowledge of God is
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  lost, and the sources say that no real piety remains in the
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  world. That's the core of the moral
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  charge. The outcome is the same.
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  And what's more, the source insists that those who fall into
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  that first category, the ones who erroneously slip into
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  superstition, they are still held fully accountable.
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  They are not free from blame. See, I have to push back there a
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  little bit. I mean, from the perspective of
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  someone listening, that might sound incredibly harsh.
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  If the corruption is purely accidental, just an error in
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  observation, how can you be helpfully accountable for that?
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  It sounds like you're treating simple ignorance as a sinful
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  action. And Calvin is very careful here.
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  He argues that it is not simple ignorance.
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  The blindness that affects them, the source explains, is almost
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  always mixed with proud vanity and oxtinacy.
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  The corruption is self-imposed because it comes from a faulty
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  moral posture before God. When these miserable men try to
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  seek God, they do not rise above themselves as they should.
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  They're trying to measure an infinite God using a finite,
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  flawed human yardstick. So the initial move, the first
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  fault is pride. It's failing to seek God with
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  the right kind of humility. They're unwilling to humble
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  their intellect and their own presuppositions before the
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  majesty of God. So this act of spiritual
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  arrogance, measuring the divine by our own finite carnal
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  stupidity, that's the precise point where the ruin begins.
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  Precisely. The human mind is inherently
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  limited, and when we apply that limited mind combined with
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  vanity to infinite truth, we are guaranteed to distort it.
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  It's a matter of intellectual and spiritual arrogance, not
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  some passive misunderstanding. And that failure to get beyond
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  their own limited fallen understanding means they
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  immediately fall short of any kind of genuine, sober
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  investigation. They refuse to accept God as He
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  offers himself, and instead they try to reformulate him according
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  to their own presumptions. And what's crucial is what
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  happens next. The sources link this refusal to
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  a perverse desire to know more than is proper.
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  It's an intellectual failing driven by a moral flaw, this
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  unwillingness to be content with God's revelation.
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  Yes, they prefer to exercise their own, you know, arbitrary
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  intellectual authority over the divine realm.
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  That is the essential insight. The seed exists, it provides the
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  starting point, but it's degeneration is swift and it
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  comes from a conscious moral fault and unwillingness to
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  humble the mind before the reality of God, which leads them
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  to just fabricate their own reality instead.
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  And that self-imposed darkness is the precursor to the first
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  systematic sin. We need to talk about
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  superstition. So let's get into that Part 2
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  superstition. Superstition is the immediate
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  logical result of trying to measure the divine by human
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  standards. It is rooted entirely in that
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  pride and presumption regarding spiritual matters we just
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  discussed. It's the refusal to accept God
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  on His own terms. So if they refuse to rise above
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  themselves, the only place left to look is inward.
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  The sources say they measure him by the yardstick of their own
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  carnal stupidity and imagine him as they have fashioned him in
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  their own presumption. They are literally creating a
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  God in their own image. Or at least in the image of
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  their own faulty, corrupted intellect.
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  And that distortion is devastating, right?
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  Because it completely disconnects their worship from
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  reality. Completely.
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  When they seek God, they neglect sound investigation and they fly
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  off into empty speculations. They are seeking the divine, but
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  in the wrong way, driven by vain curiosity instead of genuine
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  piety, and they end up, as the sources say, worshipping not God
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  but a figment and a dream of their own heart.
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  That phrase a figment and a dream that really sticks out.
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  It's not just a theological disagreement, it's an indictment
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  of the actual object of their worship.
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  It's imaginary. It is.
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  So what does that imply about the utility of their religious
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  actions? Are they just worthless?
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  It renders them utterly useless. Any worship or service offered
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  to this self-made deity is described as futile in their
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  thinking. It can't be brought as tribute
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  to the true God. The religious effort is wasted
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  because the recipient is a phantom.
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  Which means that intense religious activity can in fact
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  be evidence of the absence of true piety.
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  It can be if the recipient is wrong, the ACT is rendered null.
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  And this failure to apprehend the true God, it opens up a
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  massive spiritual danger. The source uses this extremely
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  strong, almost spatial language to describe it.
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  When this gulf opens, in whatever direction they move
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  their feet, they cannot but plunge headlong into ruin.
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  Yeah. So superstition isn't just a
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  minor spiritual misstep, it's a total descent into chaos.
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  It's a spiritual catastrophe because once the object of
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  worship is lost, there's no navigational reference left.
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  If God is who he is, and you've replaced him with some
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  changeable figure fashioned by your own mind, then every single
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  decision you make after that about life, morality, eternal
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  destiny, it's all based on a lie.
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  You're building on air. You are.
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  Let's dig a little deeper into this carnal stupidity.
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  The source lays the blame squarely on intellectual
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  arrogance, and it cites Paul saying that striving to be wise,
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  they make fools of themselves. What's the specific nature of
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  this wickedness that makes them deserve this self-inflicted
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  blindness? It's the pursuit of knowledge
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  divorced from reverence. The stupidity isn't a lack of
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  IQ. It's a moral sickness that comes
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  from vain curiosity and an inordinate desire to know more
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  than is fitting join with a false confidence.
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  So they reject the boundaries that God has set, the limits
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  that would protect them from error.
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  They do. They seek an arbitrary,
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  unconstrained knowledge, and in doing so they wantonly bring
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  darkness upon themselves through what he calls empty and perverse
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  haughtiness. So their downfall isn't that
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  they failed to grasp some complex intellectual concept,
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  it's that they were not content with sobriety and they claimed
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  for themselves authority over God's own definition.
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  Yes, and they love the darkness they brought on themselves
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  because it allowed them to define the roles of engagement.
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  They become fools in their empty and perverse haughtiness.
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  They're more interested in defining God than in knowing him
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  as he is. That is the fatal flaw of
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  superstition. It elevates human imagination
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  over divine self revelation, and once that spiritual standard is
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  rejected, it provides the perfect basis for the next
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  corruption which is even more active and hostile, the
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  deliberate turning away from what they inherently know to be
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  true. OK, so this shift is
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  significant. We're moving from error and
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  misguided, seeking superstition to active rejection and, well,
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  malice. It's a big shift.
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  This is an accidental misidentification.
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  Anymore. This is willful suppression.
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  The sources say that ungodly men extinguish the light of nature
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  and deliberately befuddle themselves.
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  What's the motivation for such an aggressive act?
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  The motivation is entirely about self preservation of their
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  sinful behavior. They have become hardened and
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  insolent and habitual sinning and this inherent awareness of
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  God, the census divinitatus. It's an internal witness against
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  their vice. So they.
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  Can't kill the sea. They can't kill the sea, so they
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  try to bury it. They furiously repel all
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  remembrance of God, so that they can heedlessly indulge
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  themselves without that internal restraint.
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  So the knowledge of God is a threat to their lifestyle, and
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  they have to eliminate that threat.
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  But how do they maintain a, you know, a facade of intellectual
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  sanity? They can't just deny God exists,
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  can they? Most don't deny his existence
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  outright. The sources clarify that this
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  conscious turning away is achieved by stripping God of his
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  essential nature and his attributes.
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  They deny him by spoiling him of his judgment and Providence.
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  That's the practical denial of God.
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  It is. It's making him irrelevant to
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  their current reality. They shut him up.
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  Idle in heaven. Essentially, they imagine God as
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  this remote, distant figure, believing he's abandoned the
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  government of the universe and is blind to the wicked deeds of
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  men. So if God is distant and blind,
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  then sin has no consequence in the here and now.
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  And that's the whole goal. If they convince themselves that
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  God neither sees nor judges, then the fear of heavenly
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  judgement is extinguished, and this allows them to proudly
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  applaud their own wrongdoing and just continue their chosen
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  indulgences without spiritual anxiety.
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  So their denial is fundamentally a denial of immediate present
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  accountability. It is this means that, according
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  to this critique, whoever heedlessly indulges himself, his
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  fear of heavenly judgement extinguished, denies that there
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  is a God. The act of indulgence becomes
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  the theological statement. Exactly this denial of the
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  active governing God is contrary to His very being.
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  God cannot cast off the government of the universe.
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  To believe He does is to fashion a powerless deity.
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  And even if they're forced to recognize some God, say, in a
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  moment of crisis. Right.
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  Even then they maintain this denial by creating a false
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  stripped down image. They strip him of glory by
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  taking away his power, and they fashion what the source is
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  called a dead and an empty idol. So whether they're worshipping
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  the figment of superstition or the empty idol of denial,
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  they're worshipping something that isn't the true God.
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  Both are acts of true denial because they contradict God's
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  self revelation as the active governing sovereign.
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  The severity of this rejection is highlighted by the sheer
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  hostility of the human heart. It's driven by a blind urge and
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  oh fish, forgetfulness of God, which causes them to struggle
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  against their own senses and even wish to destroy Him in
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  heaven. It's an active state of
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  spiritual warfare. It is that level of hostility.
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  The desire to destroy the source of your accountability is
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  horrifying, but it makes perfect sense if your highest moral good
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  is your own immediate indulgence.
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  And this self-inflicted denial, it eventually leads to a very
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  specific theological consequence that's described in the sources,
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  judicial blindness. Meaning what?
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  Their refusal to see becomes God's just punishment of the
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  wicked. The text sites scripture.
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  That fatness envelops their hearts, causing them to close
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  their eyes, their deliberate befuddlement, their malicious
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  denial. It gets reinforced by a judicial
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  hardening from God. So.
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  It moves from human stubbornness to a divine consequence.
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  They close their eyes and God seals the closure.
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  Yes, they try to extinguish the light of nature, and God allows
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  that darkness to become complete so that in seeing they see not,
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  Their denial is now rooted in a spiritual dimness that prevents
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  them from recognizing God's glory even when it's displayed
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  right in front of them. It's the ultimate consequence of
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  their stubbornness. It is they deny God's Providence
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  so they can sin, and their persistent sin causes God to
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  remove the ability to properly perceive Him.
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  So whether the corruption started as the era of
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  superstition or it escalated to the malice of conscious turning
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  away, the end result is the same misdirected worship and a denial
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  of God's true active character. Which moves us directly to the
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  critique of self fashioned religion as a whole concept.
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  Right. And this next section, it really
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  overthrows a very common human tendency, the idea that
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  religious fervor, regardless of its object or message, is
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  somehow virtuous. The idea that any zeal for
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  religion, however preposterous, is sufficient.
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  Exactly. That's often used as a defense
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  for superstition, but the sources make the standard of
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  true religion perfectly external and fixed.
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  True religion ought to be conformed to God's will as to a
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  universal rule. So the standard isn't the
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  intensity of your feeling, it's conformity to a rule.
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  Absolutely, and the necessity for conformity is tied directly
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  to God's immutable nature. God ever remains like himself
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  and is not a specter or phantasm to be transformed according to
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  anyone's whim. If humans are allowed to define
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  God, he becomes changeable, dependent on the whims of the
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  worshipper. Which is a theological
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  impossibility. And when this fixed rule is
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  ignored, superstition begins to mock God with pretenses.
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  The specific problem is substituting God's actual
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  commands, what he prescribes and enjoins as pleasing to Himself,
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  with human invention. It's the rejection of the divine
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  prescription in favor of human preference.
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  The sources outline the absurdity of this exchange.
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  The superstitious sees almost solely upon what God has
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  testified to be of no concern to himself, while ignoring his
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  actual requirements. They set up their own false
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  rights to God, and they effectively worship and adore
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  their own ravings. This seems to touch on the whole
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  realm of human invented rituals, external penance or complex
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  ceremonies that substitute for genuine internal sanctity.
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  That's a good way of putting it. Calvin is arguing here that they
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  must first have fashioned a God to match the absurdity of their
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  trifling, otherwise they would never have dared to trifle with
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  him in their worship. That's the logical sequence.
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  A corrupted view of God permits corrupted worship.
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  The false God is happy with superficial acts, so the
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  worshipper provides them. The moment a person disregards
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  God's commands, say a command requiring justice or purity, and
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  replaces them with self devised rituals, they've demonstrated
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  they're not dealing with the true God of Scripture.
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  They're dealing with a deity who validates their own religious
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  inventions. Right.
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  So if a community is extremely zealous, dedicating vast
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  resources and energy to worship, but that worship is detached
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  from God's self revelation, they are simply doubling down on
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  their self created idol. And that departure from the
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  truth results in a cursed idolatry.
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  It does. The sources cite lectanges here.
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  No religion is genuine unless it be joined with truth.
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  If you continually depart from the true God and forsake his
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  commands, you're left with nothing left except in a cursed
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  idol. The zealous act becomes evidence
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  of rebellion, not piety. And Paul, in his writings he
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  characterizes this vague and erroneous opinion of the divine
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  as just ignorance of God, which implies that religious fervor
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  and intense activity can exist side by side with profound
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  ignorance of the object of that zeal.
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  It's an essential clarification. It makes little difference
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  whether one conceives of a single God or many.
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  If the conception departs from revealed truth, its idolatry.
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  This failure to conform to God's will means that all human
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  religious zeal, no matter how intense, is misdirected and
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  futile. And this reliance on one's own
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  religious creativity that leads directly into the third grade
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  corruption hypocrisy. Exactly.
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  So the hypocrite introduces a new element, the public
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  performance. Their attitude toward God is
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  described by compulsion, not reference.
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  They never consider God at all unless compelled to, and are
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  dragged there despite their resistance.
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  Yes, the outward show of religion is necessary, but their
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  heart remains antagonistic. And their fear is the defining
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  characteristic. It is, and it's crucial to
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  distinguish it from true piety. It's not the voluntary fear that
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  arises out of reverence for the divine majesty.
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  True reverence is joyful, willing submission.
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  The hypocrite's fear is a slavish, forced fear which God's
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  judgment extorts from them. So it's dread.
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  It is dread. This dread of God's escapable
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  power causes them to recoil from him, even to the point of
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  loathing. This forced submission sounds
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  like a very ancient primal impulse.
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  The source even quotes the observation that fear first made
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  gods in the world, and that aligns perfectly with the
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  hypocrites. Slavish fear.
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  Outward worship is just a survival mechanism against
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  anticipated punishment, not a desire for fellowship.
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  It's entirely transactional. Despite the outward show of
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  religious respect, the hypocrite is inwardly at war with God.
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  They are of a mind alien to God's righteousness.
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  They know that God's judgment seat stands ready to punish
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  transgressions, and because they can't submit to righteousness,
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  they greatly desire its overthrow.
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  They're rebels against the Lord, whose existence they are forced
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  to acknowledge. They are.
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  So the public performance, then, is purely strategic.
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  They perform a semblance of religion just to avoid openly
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  appearing to despise God, whose majesty weighs upon them.
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  Right, but the sources are quick to dismiss the value of this
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  performance. They call it but a vain and
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  false shadow of religion, scarcely even worth being called
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  a shadow. And that assessment is severe
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  because the pretense does nothing to restrain their actual
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  moral life. Not at all.
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  Even with this semblance of religion, they do not desist
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  from polluting themselves with every sort of vice.
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  They prefer to indulge their fleshly intemperance rather than
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  restrain it by the bridle of the Holy Spirit.
• 20:12
  They continue joining wickedness to Wickedness, hoping their
• 20:16
  external show will offset their internal corruption.
• 20:19
  They wallow blithely in their own sins, flattering themselves,
• 20:23
  believing they can violate God's law and still maintain spiritual
• 20:26
  standing through these external actions.
• 20:28
  The internal contradiction is where the true hypocrisy lies.
• 20:31
  And this rebellion is sustained by the substitution of genuine
• 20:34
  piety. Instead of serving God and
• 20:36
  sanctity of life and integrity of heart, which would require
• 20:40
  actual repentance, they substitute obedience with
• 20:42
  frivolous trifles and worthless little observances.
• 20:46
  What would be an example of a frivolous trifle that Calvin
• 20:48
  might have been thinking of? Oh, think of any practice that
• 20:51
  elevates a human command over a divine law.
• 20:54
  It could be ritualistic fasting done publicly for show, or
• 20:58
  reliance on purchased indulgences, or excessive
• 21:01
  devotion to Saints or relics rather than seeking purity of
• 21:05
  conscience. So they place confidence in the
• 21:08
  performative act. In the outward ritual, yes,
• 21:11
  believing these ridiculous acts of expiation can fulfill their
• 21:15
  duty toward God, and this misplaced confidence gives them
• 21:19
  a kind of spiritual license to sluggishly lie in their own
• 21:23
  filth. So these external actions aren't
• 21:25
  just mistakes, they function as a spiritual insurance policy
• 21:29
  allowing for continued self indulgence.
• 21:31
  Exactly, and this is coupled with a profound self-reliance.
• 21:35
  They neglect Him and rely upon themselves.
• 21:37
  They're false acts of devotion or acts of self trust, placing
• 21:40
  confidence in their own religious ingenuity rather than
• 21:43
  in the Lord who governs. They've basically hired
• 21:45
  themselves as their own spiritual media mediator through
• 21:47
  invented rituals. That's a great way to think
• 21:49
  about it. So what's the final spiritual
• 21:51
  consequence for the hypocrite who lives in this cycle of
• 21:54
  feigned piety and indulgence? The final stage is intellectual
• 22:00
  and spiritual annihilation. They entangle themselves in such
• 22:03
  a huge mass of errors that their blind wickedness stifles and
• 22:07
  finally extinguishes those sparks which once flashed forth
• 22:11
  to show them God's glory. The hypocrite actively fights
• 22:14
  the light until it's finally put out by their own accumulated
• 22:17
  sin. They become completely hardened,
• 22:19
  having rejected the light both externally and internally.
• 22:21
  Yet even at this lowest point, this extinguishing of the light,
• 22:25
  the source, reveals a final persistent contradiction.
• 22:29
  The seed remains. It can in no wise be uprooted.
• 22:32
  This is the inescapable evidence of God's sovereignty over the
• 22:35
  human conscience. Even the reprobate is compelled
• 22:38
  to confess the seed in times of despair.
• 22:40
  When necessity forces a crisis, they're compelled to seek God
• 22:44
  and offer perfunctory prayers. Which proves their prior denial
• 22:47
  was just. Was just held back by
• 22:49
  stubbornness. The seed can't be eradicated,
• 22:51
  but in the state of total corruption, the source asserts,
• 22:53
  it produces only the worst fruits.
• 22:56
  The forced acknowledgement is not repentance, it is pure
• 22:59
  dread. A flash of recognition, but no
• 23:01
  change of heart. That is truly chilling.
• 23:03
  If we synthesize this thorough critique, we see a devastating
• 23:06
  arc of human failure. The seed of religion, this
• 23:10
  universal awareness of God, is corrupted, and that corruption
• 23:13
  is driven entirely by human pride and presumption.
• 23:16
  And this process, it shows up in four ways, the distortion of God
• 23:20
  by human limitation, which is superstition, the active denial
• 23:24
  of his governance, which is conscious, turning away the
• 23:27
  invention of self-serving worship, fashioning God to whim,
• 23:31
  and the resulting moral contradiction of performance
• 23:33
  driven by fear, which is hypocrisy.
• 23:36
  In the entire discussion it all points back to the absolute, non
• 23:40
  negotiable necessity of conformity to God's will, true
• 23:43
  piety. It takes its source from
• 23:45
  voluntary fear, a loving reverence for the divine
• 23:48
  majesty, and it requires sanctity of life and integrity
• 23:51
  of heart. It requires submission, not self
• 23:53
  invention. Any attempt to fashion God or
• 23:55
  worship Him outside of his self revelation is, according to
• 23:58
  Calvin's critique, A reckless flight into ruin.
• 24:01
  It results in the worship of a figment and a dream.
• 24:04
  So what does all this mean for you as the learner?
• 24:08
  The take away is the sobering insight that any religious
• 24:11
  practice not rooted in truth, not aligned with God's self
• 24:15
  revelation and His prescribed will is not neutral.
• 24:19
  It's at best futile, and at worst it's a deliberate act of
• 24:22
  hostility toward His judgement and His Providence.
• 24:25
  It is an attempt to create a safe dead idol to avoid facing
• 24:29
  the living act of God who demands accountability.
• 24:32
  And given that the seed of divinity is never entirely
• 24:35
  uprooted, it compels even the most hardened to acknowledge God
• 24:39
  in crisis through those perfunctory prayers.
• 24:41
  We have to consider this If the impulse toward God is inherent,
• 24:45
  but the results are universally corrupted, what does our own
• 24:48
  default spiritual inclination say about the degree to which
• 24:51
  our knowledge is ruled by carnal stupidity or by a willing
• 24:54
  conformity to the living God's will?
• 24:56
  Where does our own zeal originate?
• 24:58
  That's the essential question this deep dive leaves us with.
• 25:00
  Thank you for joining us for this deep dive into reformed
• 25:02
  thinking.