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Why the Natural Man Cannot Understand God | John Calvin · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Our little audio cue Reformed
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  Thinking really sets the table for what we're getting into
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  today. It does.
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  We're going right to the source. And it's a dense one.
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  We're picking up a piece of theological writing that I think
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  really cuts against the grain of centuries of human pride.
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  Especially intellectual pride. Today's deep dive is very
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  targeted. We're zeroing in on one central
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  and I think difficult question, which is what is the spiritual
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  capacity of the human mind? I mean even the most brilliant,
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  most educated human mind before God intervenes.
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  Right. It's a conversation that gets to
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  the very core of what it means to be human.
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  And you know how salvation actually.
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  Works exactly the nature of man and the doctrine of salvation.
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  And for this, we're using a single, very specific source.
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  We're in John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian
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  Religion, Book 2, Chapter 2. And even more specific than
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  that, we're really focusing on sections 18 through 21.
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  It's just a few pages. But in those few pages, Calvins
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  goal seems to be to just strip away every ounce of confidence a
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  person might place in their own intellect when it comes to
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  knowing God. That's right.
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  So our mission for you as you're listening, is to walk away from
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  this with a really clear picture of Calvin's doctrine of
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  spiritual inability. We want to understand not just
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  that the unregenerate mind is blind, but why it's blind.
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  What kind of knowledge is just completely off limits to it?
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  Because the conclusion he pushes us toward is that the Holy
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  Spirit's illuminate. It's not.
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  It's not an optional upgrade. It's an absolute necessity for
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  any true knowledge of God. And for salvation itself.
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  And for salvation. OK, so let's start by, you know,
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  mapping up the territory. What are the limits of human
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  reason when we start pointing it toward God?
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  Well, Calvin kicks off section 18 by by setting up the goal
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  posts, so to speak. He defines 3 crucial areas
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  within what he calls the Kingdom of God.
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  And these are the areas where spiritual discernment is
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  required. Right.
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  And if the natural mind wants to prove its worth, it has to
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  succeed in all three, not just one or two.
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  So the first one is it's the most abstract really.
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  It's the knowledge of God's nature.
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  Can we look at the world, use our reason and figure out the
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  attributes of a creator? This is where you know the
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  philosopher's have always played natural theology.
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  OK, so that's bucket #1. Then the second area, and he
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  flags this one immediately is the big failure point is the
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  knowledge of God's paternal favor towards us.
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  What he calls our salvation. Exactly.
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  This is the relational part. It's not just knowing that God
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  exists, but knowing that he is for me, that I'm accepted by
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  Him, that I'm redeemed, that assurance.
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  That's a big jump from the first one, from abstract attributes to
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  personal assurance. Huge jump.
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  And the third area is the method of regulating our conduct in
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  accordance with divine law, so practical righteousness.
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  Can we just by reason figure out what God wants from us and then,
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  you know, actually live that way?
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  And the whole argument really hinges on that second point.
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  Calvin doesn't really allow for a partial credit situation here.
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  He says that men, even the most ingenious thinkers, are blinder
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  than moles when it comes to that assurance of divine favor.
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  We have to stop on that phrase blinder than moles.
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  That is such a strong metaphor. It is.
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  A mole isn't just a little nearsighted.
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  For all practical purposes, it's sightless.
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  So he's suggesting a kind of a built in structural flaw in our
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  spiritual senses. It's not about trying harder to
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  see. The faculty itself is broken.
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  That's it. You have to remember the context
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  here. Scholastic philosophy based on
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  Aristotle was still a huge deal. And it taught that human reason,
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  while Fallen, could still kind of work its way up to God.
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  Right. It could ascent to divine
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  truths. It could contribute to its own
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  salvation. And Calvin comes in and says
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  even your most brilliant philosopher is blinder than a
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  mole. He's basically leveling the
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  playing field. It's an aggressive rejection of
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  that whole way of thinking. He's saying your IQ, your
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  ability to argue logic, your scientific knowledge, it means
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  nothing here. Nothing.
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  It completely strips away that intellectual hierarchy.
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  If the philosopher is just as spiritually blind as the farmer,
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  then the difference between someone who sees ease and
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  someone who doesn't, well, it must be supernatural.
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  OK, but even with that really harsh condemnation in Section
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  18, he does acknowledge what he calls a natural light.
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  He's careful, it seems. He is.
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  He's not just dismissing all human intelligence.
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  He admits that philosophers come up with, and these are his
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  words, shrewd and apposite remarks on the nature of God.
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  He says God has given them a slight perception of his
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  Godhead. So if it's not for salvation,
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  what's the point of this light? What does it do?
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  It's not salvific, it's judicial, Calvin argues.
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  This light exists only so that these thinkers can't plead
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  ignorance as an excuse for their impiety.
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  So it's enough light to make them accountable.
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  That's all. And this is the devastating
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  part, he says. These glimmers of truth should
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  be their own condemnation. The little bit of light they
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  have just confirms their guilt for not following it to its
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  source. That completely reframes how we
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  think about, say, a brilliant atheist philosopher who writes A
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  compelling moral argument. Calvin's view would be that the
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  truth in that argument doesn't help him.
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  It condemns him if he doesn't respond in submission to the God
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  whose moral law he's borrowing from.
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  And this leads right into his analogy about the failure of
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  this kind of discernment. Yes, he says that the
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  philosopher's limited grasp, even though it feels like
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  seeing, is actually like seeing nothing at all.
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  He compares it to a a bewildered traveler.
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  The one who sees a flash of lightning.
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  Right, a flash of lightning that lights up everything for a split
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  second and then vanishes back into the total darkness before
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  he can advance a single step. Let's stick with that image.
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  A lightning flash is intense. It's brilliant.
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  It shows you the whole scene, the road, the Cliff, the forest,
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  but it's gone in an instant. And because it's gone, it hasn't
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  given you any real direction, it's only given you a snapshot
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  of just how lost you are. The Flash confirms the reality
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  of your situation, but it gives you 0 guidance on how to get out
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  of it. Exactly.
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  It's a difference between an intellectual acknowledgement
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  that say, a destination exists and having the actual map and
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  compass to get there. The natural mind only gets the
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  flash. And on top of that, he says,
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  it's not even a pure flash. He talks about contamination.
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  The philosopher doesn't just deliver a small, clean piece of
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  the truth, he mixes these minute particles of truth with
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  monstrous falsehoods. So the whole system of thought
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  he builds is a contaminated well.
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  You can't trust it. So when you put it all together,
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  the ultimate failure isn't in raw intellect, it's in achieving
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  any kind of spiritual assurance. Calvin is adamant that not one
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  philosopher ever got close to that assurance of the divine
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  favor without which the mind of man must ever remain a mere
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  chaos of confusion. A chaos of confusion.
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  That's a pretty intense psychological diagnosis.
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  It's suggested without knowing you were accepted by God, the
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  human soul just can't find rest. It can build systems, it can
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  find distractions. But that deep spiritual unrest,
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  that chaos, it's always there. So human reason fails on two big
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  relational questions. First, what God is in himself?
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  His Holiness, His sovereignty, all that.
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  And 2nd, and this is the one that really matters for us, what
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  He is in relation to us. His grace, His love, His
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  acceptance. You can spend your whole life
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  studying God's attributes like a science project, but if you
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  don't know how you stand in relation to that God, you are,
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  for all practical purposes, still completely in the dark.
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  And I think this is a key take away for you listening when you
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  hear these very complex secular arguments about meaning or
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  morality. You have to remember their
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  limits. If human wisdom can't solve its
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  own deepest problem, that need for assurance, for acceptance,
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  then we should be very skeptical of its ability to define our
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  ultimate purpose. It can't lift itself out of the
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  chaos. So Calvin isn't throwing out
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  human intelligence across the board.
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  He's not saying don't build bridges or write novels.
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  Not at all. He's drawing a line.
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  He's marking A boundary around the spiritual realm and saying
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  your reason, your intellect, your passport is invalid here.
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  And that boundary forces the shift we see in Section 19.
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  If he'd only made a philosophical argument, he would
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  just be one more philosopher in the debate.
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  Right. And he knows that his arguments
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  alone won't convince someone who is, as he puts it, intoxicated
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  with a false opinion of our own discernment.
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  That intellectual pride is a powerful thing.
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  Maybe the biggest barrier, I mean, think about it.
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  We've mapped the human genome. We've put people on the moon.
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  We've built this global communication network.
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  And the mind that did all of that is supposed to be totally
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  incapable of understanding a spiritual truth.
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  It feels counterintuitive. It does, which is why Calvin has
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  to move from his philosophical critique to what he sees as
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  absolute proof from divine revelation.
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  He has to appeal to a higher authority.
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  So he turns to Scripture, and his key witness is John the
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  Gospel writer, specifically John chapter 1, verses 4:00 and 5:00.
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  In him was life, and the life was the light of men, and the
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  light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it
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  not. That is such a loaded passage.
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  It sets up this this fundamental conflict.
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  It does. The light is Christ.
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  It illuminates everything but the recipient.
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  Unregenerate humanity is defined as darkness.
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  The Spirit is saying that this darkness is completely empty of
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  any spiritual intelligence when it comes to God.
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  The original Greek word there for comprehended can also mean
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  overcame or grasped. Right.
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  The sense is that the darkness lacks the faculty to even
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  interact with the light. The failure isn't about effort,
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  it's about nature. The unregenerate mind is the
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  darkness. And how can darkness grasp
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  light? It's a category error.
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  We have to understand what darkness means in this
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  theological sense. It's not just a lack of
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  information, no. It's more than that.
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  It implies a positive alienation from the light, even a hostility
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  towards it. It's a condition of spiritual
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  death, which in Reformed thinking means an active
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  inability. Which is why Calvin immediately
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  connects this to the need for a new birth.
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  He has to. He goes right to John 1.13.
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  Believers are born not of blood, who are the will of the flesh,
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  nor of the will of man, but of God.
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  And that verse really seals the case against human ability,
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  doesn't it? It does.
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  The flesh here just means our human nature without divine
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  grace. And Calvin's point is that this
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  nature has no capacity for such sublime wisdom as knowing God.
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  The wisdom is too high, the mind is too low, too dark.
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  So the only way to perceive the light is to be radically remade,
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  to be born of God. Because look at what that verse
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  excludes. It's not from your family tree,
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  your blood. It's not from your own effort,
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  the will of the flesh. And it's not from being
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  persuaded by others the will of man.
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  All human avenues are cut off, only birth of God is left.
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  And to really hammer this home, he brings in Peter's great
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  confession in Matthew 16. Right.
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  Peter had been with Jesus for years at this point.
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  He'd heard all the sermons, seen the miracles.
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  He had the best seat in the house and when he finally says,
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  you are the Christ, the Son, the living God, what does Jesus say?
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  He says that this insight didn't come from flesh and blood, from
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  his own observation or intellect.
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  It was a special revelation from the Father.
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  And that's a staggering point. If anyone had access to the raw
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  evidence, it was Peter. The evidence was walking and
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  talking right in front of him. But even just recognizing who
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  Jesus was required a divine act, a revelation from the Father.
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  It shows that even the most basic spiritual recognition is a
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  supernatural gift, if the perfect teacher, Jesus himself,
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  wasn't enough to produce this saving knowledge on his own.
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  Then no human teacher, no book, no argument can ever hope to
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  achieve it. It really undermines the whole
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  idea that if we just had better arguments or more compelling
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  evidence, people would believe. Peter had the best evidence in
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  human history standing right in front of him, and he still
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  needed special revelation. The problem isn't a lack of
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  information. It's a lack of perception.
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  The blindness is total. And this is the kind of
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  scriptural proof Calvin feels he needs to breakthrough that self
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  intoxication he talked about. Yes, the human mind can
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  understand Jesus historically, it can analyze his ethics, It
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  can even praise his wisdom. But to know him savingly as the
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  Son of God, that requires the Father to step.
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  In which proves that spiritual knowledge is never something we
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  attain, it's always something we're given.
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  And this leads us straight into Section 20.
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  Calvin shifts gears a little bit.
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  He moves from proving man's inability to confirming God's
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  exclusive ability. He kind of sets it up like,
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  look, if you really accepted what we just went through, that
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  our human nature has none of the required spiritual gifts on its
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  own, then this next part should be obvious.
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  There should be no room here for hesitation.
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  But he knows people do hesitate. The resistance isn't really
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  logical, it's psychological. We just don't like the idea of
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  being completely dependent. So he goes back to Scripture.
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  He points to what the faithful say in Psalm 36.9.
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  With thee is the fountain of life.
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  In my light shall we see light? That one little phrase just
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  perfectly captures the whole doctrine of illumination.
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  We don't make our own light. We can't find it on our.
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  Own We only see light because we are standing in His light.
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  It's entirely derivative. Our ability to see, to have any
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  spiritual vision, is sourced completely outside of ourselves.
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  And Paul confirms this right in First Corinthians 12.3.
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  No man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.
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  We hear that verse a lot, but what is Calvin getting at with
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  it? He's not just talking about
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  mouthing the words, obviously. No, he means a genuine,
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  heartfelt confession, the kind of recognition of Christ's
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  lordship that comes with submission and saving faith.
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  And that confession is the absolute dividing line.
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  Calvin argues that making that leap is totally impossible
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  without the specific work of the Spirit.
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  It's a core piece of evidence for the doctrine of total
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  inability. We are spiritually dead, unable
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  to even prepare ourselves to be made alive.
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  We even see this problem of relying on just teaching, even
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  the best teaching with John the Baptist.
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  Right. Galvin quotes him from John
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  chapter 3. Here's John the Baptist, the man
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  whose entire job was to prepare people for Christ, and he cries
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  out in frustration. A man can receive nothing unless
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  it be given him from heaven. He saw it with his own eyes.
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  He did. He saw how little even his own
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  disciples were getting from his powerful preaching until the
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  Lord acted. Kalzan's conclusion is that
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  John's words were of no effect unless the Lord enlightened
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  their understandings by His Spirit.
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  That's a sobering thought for any pastor or teacher, isn't it?
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  It has to be. You can craft the most perfect,
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  logical, biblically sound message, but if the Spirit
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  doesn't open the heart of the person listening, it's just
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  words. It's just rhetoric.
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  The Word is the seed, but the Spirit is what makes it grow.
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  And this isn't just a New Testament idea Calvin pulls from
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  Moses in Deuteronomy 29. Moses is recounting these
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  incredible miracles, the plagues in Egypt, the pillar of fire,
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  all of it. The most undeniable display of
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  God's power to an entire nation. The most vivid external witness
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  imaginable. And yet what does Moses say to
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  them after all that he says? The Lord has not given you an
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  heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear.
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  Unto this day let's. Just sit with the weight of
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  that. You saw the Red Sea part, you
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  ate bread that fell from the sky, and yet spiritually, you're
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  still mirror blocks. The outward spectacle, no matter
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  how amazing, is powerless without the inner gift of
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  perception. It totally refused that common
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  idea that oh, if God would just do some huge miracle, everyone
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  would believe. Calvin is using Moses to show
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  that's not true. God has to give the ability to
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  see the miracle for what it is, in addition to performing the
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  miracle itself. This need for God to step in is
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  promised, right? Calvin brings in the prophet
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  Jeremiah. Yes, Jeremiah 24.7 God promises
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  I will give them an heart to know me the.
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  Promise of a new heart proves that the old one couldn't do the
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  job. Spiritual wisdom isn't a skill
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  you develop, it's a gift you receive.
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  The mind is only wise in so far as God illuminates it.
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  Which brings us to what might be the most doctrinally critical
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  verse he uses to seal a deal on total inability.
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  Christ's own words in John 6.44. No man can come to me except the
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  Father which has sent me draw him.
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  We have to unpack that one carefully because it's so
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  central to the Reformed view of grace.
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  The inability is total. No man can come, and the action
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  is entirely initiated by God. The Father draws him.
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  The word for draw there in the Greek helkuo.
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  It's a very strong word. It is.
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  It means to drag, to pull sometimes the irresistible
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  force. Calvin stresses that this isn't
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  a gentle suggestion that we can choose to accept or reject.
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  It's not just an invitation. No, the Father has to actively
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  and sovereignly pull us toward Christ precisely because our
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  inability to move on our own is total.
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  This is what we call the monarchistic work of God, God
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  working alone. I often hear that word draw
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  interpreted as more of a wooing or enticement, but Calvin's
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  reading, given the context of total blindness he's already
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  established, has to be stronger than that.
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  It has to be. The drawing itself is what
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  overcomes the inability. The drawing is what gives sight
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  to the blind and life to the dead so they can respond.
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  And Calvin points out that the context in John 6 proves this.
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  Jesus is giving this perfect sermon and many people are just
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  walking away. Why?
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  Because, as Jesus says, his preaching accomplishes nothing
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  unless the inner teacher, the Spirit, open the way into our
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  minds. So you need both the external
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  word being preached. And the internal work of the
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  Spirit to understand it. Without the Spirit, the outward
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  message just bounces off. The only ones who come are the
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  ones who have heard and learned of the Father.
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  And for Calvin, that hearing and learning is not just being in
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  the crowd. No, it's that special, powerful,
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  light, life giving work of the spirit that actually forms the
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  ear to hear and the mind to understand.
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  It's a creative act. So all of the scriptural
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  evidence really paves the way for Paul's explanation of why.
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  Why does the natural person find all this so objectionable?
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  Exactly. Calvin uses Paul's letter to the
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  Corinthians in the second-half of Section 20 to bring this
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  whole argument to its logical peak.
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  Paul starts by just condemning the whole wisdom of the world as
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  foolishness and vanity. It's not just incomplete, it's
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  worthless for knowing God. And Paul gives a name to the
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  person who relies on this worthless wisdom, who trusts in
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  that light of nature. He calls him the natural man.
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  That's in First Corinthians 2.1 fear.
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  And the result for this natural man is absolute failure.
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  The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God,
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  for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them,
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  for they are spiritually discerned.
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  That verse is just so critical. It's not that spiritual truths
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  are just really hard, like quantum physics.
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  It's that they are perceived as foolishness.
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  Yes, as irrational, absurd, nonsensical.
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  What does it mean for a truth to be received that way?
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  Well, it means that concepts like the Son of God dying for
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  his enemies, or the resurrection of the body, or grace instead of
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  merit, they don't just register as complex ideas.
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  You need to think about more. They register as offensive to
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  your logic. They seem unworthy of a rational
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  person's consideration. The mind compares God's wisdom
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  to the world's wisdom, and it finds God's wisdom lacking.
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  The world thinks grace is unfair.
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  It thinks salvation through one man is narrow minded.
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  It sees it as foolishness, and Calvin points out that no amount
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  of effort from the natural man can change this.
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  The failure isn't about not trying hard enough.
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  It's because the truths must be spiritually discerned.
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  And that phrase is the key. It means the mysteries of God
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  are completely hidden from human reason.
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  There are only made known by the revelation of the Spirit.
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  Without that specific illumination, these truths are
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  rejected. Which connects right back to
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  that chaos of confusion. The mind finds God's actual
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  solution to its chaos to be the most chaotic and foolish idea of
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  all. And this just confirms the
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  complete inadequacy of worldly wisdom.
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  If God himself has declared the wisdom of this world to be
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  foolish, then we should never, ever think that wisdom has the
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  sharpness to penetrate the mysteries of God's Kingdom.
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  Paul even quotes Isaiah to back this up.
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  Right in First Corinthians 2.9. Yes.
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  I has not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the
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  heart of man the things which God has prepared for them that
• 20:29
  love Him. Worldly wisdom, then, isn't a
• 20:31
  telescope helping us see God. It's a veil.
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  It's a blinder actively hiding God from our sight.
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  It stops the truth from ever getting into the heart.
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  And if that veil is going to be lifted, Paul knows there's only
• 20:43
  one way he prays for it in Ephesians.
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  His prayer in Ephesians 1 is basically the theological
• 20:49
  admission of everything we've been talking about.
• 20:51
  He asks God to give the believers the spirit of wisdom
• 20:54
  and revelation, so that the eyes of your understanding might be
• 20:58
  enlightened. The prayer itself is the proof.
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  If their eyes need a new enlightening, then they must
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  have been dark to begin with. And he's praying this for
• 21:05
  believers, people who already have a measure of grace.
• 21:09
  He prays that they might know the hope of his calling.
• 21:12
  Well, if they need special illumination to grasp that hope,
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  then the natural person has zero capacity to know it on their
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  own. OK, so in the last section we're
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  covering Section 21. Calvin tackles a big objection,
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  one that still comes up all the time.
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  Yes, the prating polegians, as he calls them.
• 21:30
  The polegian error, in a nutshell, is the idea that we
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  have enough free will and ability to kick start our own
• 21:35
  salvation. And their objection here is that
• 21:37
  God already solved the problem of our spiritual stupidity.
• 21:41
  He gave us the Bible. Right, they say the doctor of
• 21:43
  the word, the law is a sufficient guide.
• 21:46
  Just just read the book and do what it says that.
• 21:47
  Seems like a very practical common sense objection.
• 21:50
  If the Bible have all the truth, why isn't reading it enough?
• 21:53
  And Calvin's refutation is just brilliant.
• 21:55
  He points to King David in Psalm 119.
• 21:58
  David already had the law. He had the whole revealed will
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  of God available to him. And yet he prays open thou mine
• 22:05
  eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.
• 22:08
  If the book alone were enough, that prayer would make no sense.
• 22:12
  David has the book. What he's admitting he lacks is
• 22:15
  the site to understand it properly.
• 22:17
  So the request itself proves that the law doesn't just
• 22:20
  explain itself in a saving way. You need an internal divine eye
• 22:25
  opening to see the wondrous things that are already there.
• 22:28
  The external revelation in Scripture is perfect and clear,
• 22:31
  but the internal tool for perceiving it is broken.
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  And this is where Calvin uses maybe his most powerful analogy
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  in this whole discussion. The sunrise analogy, He says the
• 22:40
  word of God shining on the world is like the sun rising in the
• 22:42
  morning. The light is everywhere.
• 22:44
  The world is eliminated, but but we get little benefit from it
• 22:48
  until he himself, who is for this reason called the Father of
• 22:51
  Lights, either gives eyes or opens them.
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  Let's just break that down, because the whole theological
• 22:56
  system rests on this point. The Bible is the sun.
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  Its light is perfect. But if we are all born blind,
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  the perfection of the sun doesn't help us one bit.
• 23:05
  The solution isn't a brighter sun, the solution is new eyes.
• 23:09
  Because, as he says, whatever is not illuminated by His Spirit is
• 23:13
  holy darkness. And this distinction is so
• 23:16
  important. It lets us hold to Sola
• 23:19
  Scripture, Scripture alone, without becoming rationalists
• 23:22
  who think the Bible is just an information source we master
• 23:25
  with our intellect. Scriptures authority is
• 23:28
  absolute, but our ability to read it is defective.
• 23:31
  And the final crushing proof Calvin offers for this is the
• 23:35
  apostles themselves. I mean, if anyone could have
• 23:37
  relied on their education, it was them.
• 23:39
  They had the best teacher in history for three years.
• 23:42
  And still, after Jesus ascends, what are they told to do?
• 23:47
  Go, wait. Wait for the spirit of Truth.
• 23:49
  Who will complete their education?
• 23:50
  Who will bring to their remembrance all that Jesus
• 23:53
  taught them? So the spirit acts like an
• 23:55
  internal tutor, finally connecting all those external
• 23:58
  lessons to the reality in their hearts and minds.
• 24:00
  And this necessity is something we admit every time we pray,
• 24:02
  when we ask God for wisdom or for understanding of a passage.
• 24:06
  We are confessing that it's something we lack on our own.
• 24:09
  Our prayer is an admission of our natural darkness.
• 24:11
  So Cowan's conclusion is that no one should hesitate to just
• 24:14
  admit it. We can only understand the
• 24:16
  mysteries of God insofar as illuminated by His grace to.
• 24:20
  Claim anything more to claim you have some residual ability on
• 24:24
  your own. Is in His word simply to be the
• 24:27
  blinder for not acknowledging His blindness.
• 24:30
  The very first sign of the spiritual sight is admitting
• 24:33
  that you were born blind. That is a rigorous and I think
• 24:37
  for many a difficult conclusion, but let's try to bring this all
• 24:41
  into focus for you as we wrap. Up At its core, Calvin's
• 24:44
  argument is that human reason is great for earthly things, for
• 24:48
  science, for art, for philosophy, but it hits a
• 24:51
  complete wall when it turns toward God.
• 24:54
  A functional blindness, especially in three areas.
• 24:57
  Knowing God's true nature, gaining the assurance of
• 24:59
  salvation, and understanding how to live righteously before Him.
• 25:03
  And this blindness isn't a small problem.
• 25:05
  It's a total incapacity, a state of darkness that makes the
• 25:08
  things of God appear to be foolishness.
• 25:10
  This is the heart of the Reformed doctrine of total
• 25:12
  inability. And this condition is only fixed
• 25:14
  by a sovereign act of the Holy Spirit.
• 25:16
  He's the inner Teacher who regenerates us and provides that
• 25:18
  special illumination we need to open our eyes.
• 25:21
  Which forces us into a position of total dependence on God's
• 25:24
  grace, not just for the forgiveness of our sins, but for
• 25:28
  the a very ability to understand that we need forgiveness in the
• 25:32
  first place. Spiritual knowledge isn't an
• 25:34
  achievement, it's a gift. It is, and that leaves us with a
• 25:38
  really challenging thought to take away from this, since the
• 25:40
  natural mind sees spiritual truth as foolishness.
• 25:43
  Think about a debate happening in our culture right now.
• 25:46
  Maybe it's an academia or politics, or just a social
• 25:49
  issue, a place where human wisdom based on secular ethics
• 25:53
  or psychology is actively and scornfully rejecting a clear
• 25:58
  biblical teaching, maybe about sin or justice or what it means
• 26:02
  to be human right. How does Calvin's perspective
• 26:04
  help us frame that rejection? Is it just a failure of
• 26:07
  intellect, a simple disagreement over facts?
• 26:10
  Or is it what Calvin says it is a failure of illumination, a
• 26:13
  situation where an unrenewed mind literally cannot comprehend
• 26:17
  the light, and so it's only rational response is to dismiss
• 26:20
  it as absurd foolishness. That idea that the inability to
• 26:24
  see changes the entire nature of the disagreement, that's
• 26:28
  something to think about. It changes it everything.
• 26:30
  And it's something for you to ponder as you connect Calvin's
• 26:32
  16th century analysis to the debates happening all around you
• 26:35
  today. Thanks for joining us on the
• 26:38
  Deep Dive. We hope this has given you a
• 26:39
  clearer vision of where the boundaries of human reason
• 26:42
  really lie.