Posted on 11/30/2006 9:08:05 AM PST by xzins
"To charge the intellect with perpetual blindness, so as to leave it no intelligence of any description whatever, is repugnant not only to the Word of God, but to common experience. We see that there has been implanted in the human mind a certain desire of investigating truth, to which it never would aspire unless some relish for truth antecedently existed. There is, therefore, now, in the human mind, discernment to this extent, that it is naturally influenced by the love of truth, the neglect of which in the lower animals is a proof of their gross and irrational nature. Still it is true that this love of truth fails before it reaches the goal, forthwith falling away into vanity."
The actual URL for the attributed quote is http://www.island-of-freedom.com/CAQUOTES.HTM, and the author of the quote (as said on the URL) is John Calvin.
Because I couldn't verify the quote and the website also includes those who like the Bagavad Gita, etc. I searched for it, but couldn't find it. Figured it was better to put up a good quote, than to ascribe it to someone when I couldn't prove it.
See #3
Also, Since Calvinists in the Tradition of Arminius have great regard for John Calvin, I would have gladly included Calvin's name.
Arminius considered Calvin one of the greatest of bible scholars.
However, in case the quote was a distortion or not really from Calvin, I didn't include the name given by a website that has other questionable things included.
IMO if the authorship is in question, I would have refrained from posting the quote altogether, or at least provided a disclaimer with the source's information, and at a minimum I would have posted a valid URL so that readers can check on it for themselves. Instead, you removed the citation info, made no mention of it's removal, and provided an inaccurate/incomplete URL back to the source. What exactly were you searching for, that would lead you to a (possibly fictitious) John Calvin quote, hosted by a website that has "other questionable things included" that would lead you to strip the authorship info and hide the web source? Was the quote too good to pass up?
I would imagine that since "(moderate) Calvinists In The Tradition of Arminius" hold Calvin to be "one of the greatest of bible scholars", there would be better-accessible, better-verifiable, devotion-worthy materials that could be posted instead of this admittedly questionable material?
Consider my questions rhetorical, in any case. If this is what the "(moderate) Calvinists In The Tradition of Arminius" consider to be devotional material, then I won't challenge it further, so long as the (professed) authorship and URL info is corrected.
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/institutes.toc.html
CHAPTER 3. - THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD NATURALLY…
THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD NATURALLY IMPLANTED IN THE HUMAN MIND.
Sections.
1. The knowledge of God being manifested to all makes the reprobate without excuse. Universal belief and acknowledgement of the existence of God.
2. Objection—that religion and the belief of a Deity are the inventions of crafty politicians. Refutation of the objection. This universal belief confirmed by the examples of wicked men and Atheists.
3. Confirmed also by the vain endeavours of the wicked to banish all fear of God from their minds. Conclusion, that the knowledge of God is naturally implanted in the human mind.
1. That there exists in the human minds and indeed by natural instinct, some sense of Deity, we hold to be beyond dispute, since God himself, to prevent any man from pretending ignorance, has endued all men with some idea of his Godhead, the memory of which he constantly renews and occasionally enlarges, that all to a man being aware that there is a God, and that he is their Maker, may be condemned by their own conscience when they neither worship him nor consecrate their lives to his service. Certainly, if there is any quarter where it may be supposed that God is unknown, the most likely for such an instance to exist is among the dullest tribes farthest removed from civilisation. But, as a heathen tells us, there is no nation so barbarous, no race so brutish, as not to be imbued with the conviction that there is a God. Even those who, in other respects, seem to differ least from the lower animals, constantly retain some sense of religion; so thoroughly has this common conviction possessed the mind, so firmly is it stamped on the breasts of all men. Since, then, there never has been, from the very first, any quarter of the globe, any city, any household even, without religion, this amounts to a tacit confession, that a sense of Deity is inscribed on every heart. Nay, even idolatry is ample evidence of this fact. For we know how reluctant man is to lower himself, in order to set other creatures above him. Therefore, when he chooses to worship wood and stone rather than be thought to have no God, it is evident how very strong this impression of a Deity must be; since it is more difficult to obliterate it from the mind of man, than to break down the feelings of his nature,—these certainly being broken down, when, in opposition to his natural haughtiness, he spontaneously humbles himself before the meanest object as an act of reverence to God.
2. It is most absurd, therefore, to maintain, as some do, that religion was devised by the cunning and craft of a few individuals, as a means of keeping the body of the people in due subjection, while there was nothing which those very individuals, while teaching others to worship God, less believed than the existence of a God. I readily acknowledge, that designing men have introduced a vast number of fictions into religion, with the view of inspiring the populace with reverence or striking them with terror, and thereby rendering them more obsequious; but they never could have succeeded in this, had the minds of men not been previously imbued with that uniform belief in God, from which, as from its seed, the religious propensity springs. And it is altogether incredible that those who, in the matter of religion, cunningly imposed on their ruder neighbours, were altogether devoid of a knowledge of God. For though in old times there were some, and in the present day not a few are foun who deny the being of a God, yet, whether they will or not, they occasionally feel the truth which they are desirous not to know. We do not read of any man who broke out into more unbridled and audacious contempt of the Deity than C. Caligula and yet none showed greater dread when any indication of divine wrath was manifested. Thus, however unwilling, he shook with terror before the God whom he professedly studied to condemn. You may every day see the same thing happening to his modern imitators. The most audacious despiser of God is most easily disturbed, trembling at the sound of a falling leaf. How so, unless in vindication of the divine majesty, which smites their consciences the more strongly the more they endeavour to flee from it. They all, indeed, look out for hiding-places where they may conceal themselves from the presence of the Lord, and again efface it from their mind; but after all their efforts they remain caught within the net. Though the conviction may occasionally seem to vanish for a moment, it immediately returns, and rushes in with new impetuosity, so that any interval of relief from the gnawing of conscience is not unlike the slumber of the intoxicated or the insane, who have no quiet rest in sleep, but are continually haunted with dire horrific dreams. Even the wicked themselves, therefore, are an example of the fact that some idea of God always exists in every human mind.
3. All men of sound Judgment will therefore hold, that a sense of Deity is indelibly engraven on the human heart. And that this belief is naturally engendered in all, and thoroughly fixed as it were in our very bones, is strikingly attested by the contumacy of the wicked, who, though they struggle furiously, are unable to extricate themselves from the fear of God. Though Diagoras and others of like stamps make themselves merry with whatever has been believed in all ages concerning religion, and Dionysus scoffs at the Judgment of heaven, it is but a Sardonian grin; for the worm of conscience, keener than burning steel, is gnawing them within. I do not say with Cicero, that errors wear out by age, and that religion increases and grows better day by day. For the world (as will be shortly seen) labours as much as it can to shake off all knowledge of God, and corrupts his worship in innumerable ways. I only say, that, when the stupid hardness of heart, which the wicked eagerly court as a means of despising God, becomes enfeebled, the sense of Deity, which of all things they wished most to be extinguished, is still in vigour, and now and then breaks forth. Whence we infer, that this is not a doctrine which is first learned at school, but one as to which every man is, from the womb, his own master; one which nature herself allows no individual to forget, though many, with all their might, strive to do so. Moreover, if all are born and live for the express purpose of learning to know God, and if the knowledge of God, in so far as it fails to produce this effect, is fleeting and vain, it is clear that all those who do not direct the whole thoughts and actions of their lives to this end fail to fulfil the law of their being. This did not escape the observation even of philosophers. For it is the very thing which Plato meant (in Phœd. et Theact.) when he taught, as he often does, that the chief good of the soul consists in resemblance to God; i.e., when, by means of knowing him, she is wholly transformed into him. Thus Gryllus, also, in Plutarch (lib. guod bruta anim. ratione utantur), reasons most skilfully, when he affirms that, if once religion is banished from the lives of men, they not only in no respect excel, but are, in many respects, much more wretched than the brutes, since, being exposed to so many forms of evil, they continually drag on a troubled and restless existence: that the only thing, therefore, which makes them superior is the worship of God, through which alone they aspire to immortality.
Hardly. I gave the website from which the post originates. I gave the website to island-of-freedom.com's front page on which the quote can be found via the search that's PROMINENTLY presented. I've done it myself.
So, one has to wonder if this is an attempt to disrupt a devotional thread.
Incidentally, for what it's worth, when pressing the button to "post" this thread, the form came up with a message that I needed an 'http..." address. Since I had the concerns I've already listed above, I went ahead and stripped the "caquotes" thinking it would go back to the original page I had been on.
That was this: http://www.island-of-freedom.com/CALVIN.HTM
Not having paid attention to the address, since I went there from a link, I had assumed the front page to be the Calvin page that I just posted.
The front page turned out to be the search engine page that I just mentioned in my previous post.
Your post #8: I gave the website from which the post originates. I gave the website to island-of-freedom.com's front page on which the quote can be found via the search that's PROMINENTLY presented.
Which is it? The link in post #9 that you claim you went to, the "front page" you claim to have pulled the quote from, http://www.island-of-freedom.com/CALVIN.HTM doesn't contain the quote in question. Nor does the URL in post #9 contain a search engine, as you claimed it did in post #8. The only page that does is the one you referred to in posts #8 and #3, a page which you earlier claimed (post #4) contained "other questionable things". That would be the one you linked everyone to at the top of this thread: http://www.island-of-freedom.com.
Now you'll note that both URLs, above, are different from the URL/link that actually contains the quote in question, the one I located and mentioned in my post #2: http://www.island-of-freedom.com/CAQUOTES.HTM. I was going to let it slide, but seeing that you keep changing your story, and have yet to acknowledge the need to fix your bogus URL and the cited authorship, one has to wonder what the purpose of an intentionally anonymous quotation, indeed this entire "devotional" thread, was in the first place.
Thank you for making the correction to the URL and authorship originally provided at the top of this thread.
No further disruption on this devotional thread will be tolerated.
The difference is between what I thought was happening and what I thought was correct versus what actually happened and what actually was correct.
Put all those together and you've got it.
Thanks, RM.
Calvin concludes the chapter with an almost prescient understanding of the future as well as the past...
27. Those who ascribe our willing effectually, to the primary grace of Gods (supra, sect. 6), seem conversely to insinuate that the soul has in itself a power of aspiring to good, though a power too feeble to rise to solid affection or active endeavour. There is no doubt that this opinion, adopted from Origin and certain of the ancient Fathers, has been generally embraced by the schoolmen, who are wont to apply to man in his natural state (in puris naturalibus, as they express it) the following description of the apostle:—“For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.” “To will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not,” (Rom. 7:15, 18). But, in this way, the whole scope of Paul’s discourse is inverted. He is speaking of the Christian struggle (touched on more briefly in the Epistle to the Galatians), which believers constantly experience from the conflict between the flesh and the Spirit. But the Spirit is not from nature, but from regeneration. That the apostle is speaking of the regenerate is apparent from this, that after saying, “in me dwells no good thing,” he immediately adds the explanation, “in my flesh.” Accordingly, he declares, “It is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.” What is the meaning of the correction, “in me (that is, in my flesh?)” It is just as if he had spoken in this way, No good thing dwells in me, of myself, for in my flesh nothing good can be found. Hence follows the species of excuse, It is not I myself that do evil, but sin that dwelleth in me. This applies to none but the regenerate, who, with the leading powers of the soul, tend towards what is good. The whole is made plain by the conclusion, “I delight in the law of God after the inward man: but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind,” (Rom. 7:22, 23). Who has this struggle in himself, save those who, regenerated by the Spirit of God, bear about with them the remains of the flesh? Accordingly, Augustine, who had at one time thought that the discourse related to the natural man (August. ad Bonifac. lib. 1 c. 10), afterwards retracted his exposition as unsound and inconsistent. And, indeed if we admit that men, without grace, have any motions to good, however feeble, what answer shall we give to the apostles who declares that “we are incapable of thinking a good thought?” (2 Cor. 3:6). What answer shall we give to the Lord, who declares, by Moses, that “every imagination of man’s heart is only evil continually?” (Gen. 8:21). Since the blunder has thus arisen from an erroneous view of a single passage, it seems unnecessary to dwell upon it. Let us rather give due weight to our Saviour’s words, “Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin,” (John 8:34). We are all sinners by nature, therefore we are held under the yoke of sin. But if the whole man is subject to the dominion of sin, surely the will, which is its principal seat, must be bound with the closest chains. And, indeed, if divine grace were preceded by any will of ours, Paul could not have said that “it is God which worketh in us both to will and to do” (Phil. 2:13). Away, then, with all the absurd trifling which many have indulged in with regard to preparation. Although believers sometimes ask to have their heart trained to the obedience of the divine law, as David does in several passages (Ps. 51:12), it is to be observed, that even this longing in prayer is from God. This is apparent from the language used. When he prays, “Create in me a clean heart,” he certainly does not attribute the beginning of the creation to himself. Let us therefore rather adopt the sentiment of Augustine, “God will prevent you in all things, but do you sometimes prevent his anger. How? Confess that you have all these things from God, that all the good you have is from him, all the evil from yourself,” (August. De Verbis Apost. Serm. 10). Shortly after he says “Of our own we have nothing but sin."
I don't see it in there.
I've still not found it, but, whatever....
You have posted four sentences from a lengthy written work by Calvin which you say you haven't read. Did you read this part?
"...Away, then, with all the absurd trifling which many have indulged in with regard to preparation. Although believers sometimes ask to have their heart trained to the obedience of the divine law, as David does in several passages (Ps. 51:12), it is to be observed, that even this longing in prayer is from God."
Amen.
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