Re: Romans 1:20

George - A question occurs to me - what might be the essential
difference between creating an inadequate mental model of God and
creating an inadequate model of God which includes a physical
interpretation as well (clay image or crucifix)? Thankfully, I think you
know me well enough to know I'm not trying to be ugly here. JimA

George Murphy wrote:

>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "wgreen8" <wgreen8@god4science.com>
> To: <asa@calvin.edu>
> Sent: Sunday, July 17, 2005 9:30 PM
> Subject: Romans 1:20
>
>
>>
>> Dear friends at ASA:
>>
>> Romans 1:20 says that God's "eternal power and divine nature, have been
>> clearly seen, being understood through what has been made...
>> (NASB)." Two
>> questions arise: What exactly does "divine nature" refer to, and how
>> are
>> these attributes of God made manifest in nature?
>>
>> I think that it is clear that humans have always had a tendency to
>> believe in
>> God or gods. In 1911, Brave Buffalo, a Sioux Indian wrote: "When I
>> was ten
>> years of age I looked at the land and the rivers, the sky above, and the
>> animals around me and could not fail to realize that they were made
>> by some
>> great power."
>>
>> Black Elk also said that it could be seen that the Great Spirit was
>> in all
>> nature, and "most importantly," He is above or greater than all of these
>> things (the sun, streams, all nature).
>>
>> Is this because humans perceive design in nature? Or is there some
>> other
>> rational perception? Or is this perception not rational, not based on
>> reason, but mystical?
>
>
> 19. That person does not deserve to be called a theologian who looks
> upon the invisible things of God as though they were clearly
> perceptible in those things which have actually happened. [Rom.1:20]
>
> 20. He deserves to be called a theologian, however, who
> comprehends the visible and manifest things of God seen through
> suffering and the cross.
>
>
> (Luther)
>
>
>
> Paul's point is not that people actually do know God from their
> experience of the world but that there is sufficient evidence for God
> to be known in that way. But in fact people distort that evidence and
> produce idols, as he goes on to say in the following verses. Our
> tendency to "believe in a God or gods" is what Calvin meant when he
> said that the human mind is "a factory of idols." Thus in the real
> condition of humanity in the world God must first be known in Christ
> (as Paul finally says in 3:21 ff after dealing with the universal
> problem of sin) before our experience of the world & reason can tell
> us anything about God. That is why Luther says that anyone who tries
> to understand God by starting with "those things which have actually
> happened" (or "the things that have been made"), echoing Rom.1:20,
> "does not deserve to be called a theologian."
>
>
>
> Shalom
> George
> http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
>
>
>
>
>
Received on Mon Jul 18 11:51:31 2005