Part 7: Weaving a wicker basket god (1.4)

The knowledge of God is freely available to anyone with a microscope, telescope or just the naked eye. But we commit something awfully criminal to this knowledge. We see the image of God displayed in the universe, but similar to a weaver twisting wicker into a basket, we twist the inclination towards Him into our own image of who we think He should be. Our twisting and distorting of God produces our own flimsy and crunchy god.

The knowledge of God is all around us. Our consciences tell us He exists. We cannot run away from Him. So what causes us to twist the knowledge of God? This is the next step in Calvin’s thought.

Calvin says every sinner twists the knowledge of God because we don’t want to humble ourselves to fear and love the God who is holy, just and absolute.

1. All sinners weave their own god (1.4.1)

Calvin writes, hardly one in a hundred sinners fosters the knowledge of God implanted within, and for these few that do, there is no permanent fruit that results. At best, the sinner’s search to know God is fruitless. Sinners compare and contrast themselves to the god of their imagination and seek to make a god in their own image.

Sinners “do not therefore apprehend God as he offers himself, but imagine him as they have fashioned him in their own presumption” (47). We naturally measure God in our “by the yardstick” of our own “carnal stupidity” (47). In the end, the sinner does not worship God but a “figment and a dream of their own heart” (48). Or to say it another way, sinners like myself, worship our own twisted wicker baskets.

2. Weaving an unjust and untrue god (1.4.2-3)

Here Calvin begins to talk of atheism, but not because God’s reality is in question. Remember Calvin showed us (and Scripture defends) that no eraser can remove the knowledge of God etched into our hearts. True atheism is not possible. So why does Calvin here talk of the atheist?

For Calvin, “atheism” is not the erasing of all religious inclinations from the soul but stripping and twisting the character of God into a ‘new and improved’ non-god. The justice God displays in condemning sinners guilty of this is proof enough that it happens (Ps. 50:21). God hates it when we fashion our own understanding of who He should be.

Naturally, all sinners run away from God to avoid judgment for our wickedness, and all sinners run from the light of truth (see John 3:16-21). When we feel a religious inclination bubbling from our hearts, we weave a god who is not holy, who is not angry towards sinners and who rests content with sinners living in their own sin.

But God hates sin and judges sinners. As Calvinist D. Clair Davis wrote, “Don’t be misled by that talk about how the Lord hates sin, but loves the sinner. It’s people he gets angry with and sends to Hell, not boxes full of sin” (The Practical Calvinist, p. 31). All sinners know they should bow and worship the just God of creation. God has shown Himself to them (Rom. 1:19-20). But we do not honor Him or give thanks to Him and so our thinking becomes futile, our hearts grow darker, we create wicker gods and tumble further and further into sinfulness (Rom. 1:18-32). This is the radical depravity of the sinner’s soul.

The path towards atheism is clear to Calvin. First, a sinner indulges in sinful living. Second, the sinner must either be faced to repent and turn from that sin or weave a god who isn’t bothered by his sin. Once the sinner lives in sin and fashions a god who is “okay” with that sin, atheism is birthed. It’s not a total denial of the divine (that’s not possible) but because – in the mind of the sinner – the true God has been gagged and handcuffed. This is atheism!

Calvin writes, “whoever heedlessly indulges himself [in sin], his fear of heavenly judgment extinguished, denies that there is a God” (48). Atheism is a moral conclusion rooted in the sinner’s sought out freedom to sin (see Ps. 14:1; Matt. 13:14-15; Isa. 6:9-10; Ps. 36:1, 10:11). Yet God will constantly bring these sinners back to His judgment seat and ever remind them that He is here, He is un-gagged, He is just, and He is angry towards sinners.

So central to God is His perfect holiness and power to judge sinners that a denial of these is to be miles away from knowing Him. It is to be an atheist.

So don’t be deceived by religion. Sinners worship wicker-basket gods. We all naturally create gods suitable to our own sinfulness, fashioned in our own sinful suppression of the truth. False gods are non-gods (Gal. 4:8). And Humble Calvinism reminds us that atheism frequently disguises itself under a “zeal for religion” (49). Thus genuine religion must be determined by its truthfulness.

3. Weaving an easily-pleased god (1.4.4)

Sinners weave a god who is pleased with religious ritual. Calvin writes, “lest they should everywhere seem to despise him whose majesty weighs upon them, they perform some semblance of religion” (50). All sinners feel the weight of God, and we are driven to do something. But to preserve our sinfulness, we reduce religion to rituals. “Where we ought to serve him in sanctity of life and integrity of heart [that’s piety], they trump up frivolous trifles and worthless little observances with which to win his favor” (51).

Atheism flows from the desire to avoid God’s justice, but a true knowledge of God (you will remember) flows from genuine piety towards God. We must be driven towards God to find humility and victory over sin. If our god does not produce humility and give victory over sin, our god is “scarcely even worth being called a shadow” (50). Growth in godliness is not optional to the child of God, it’s a very tangible evidence of genuine piety. It’s the one certain evidence that ‘religious atheism’ has been destroyed by the Gospel.

Our lives are transformed! Hopefully you love and fear God. He invaded our atheistic hearts by His sovereign grace. “Frivolous trifles” of religious devotion are now insufficient for our hearts. We want the Cross! We want to die to the world as the world died to us. We want to kill sin and boast in the foolishness of God! A fear and love of God drives our lives. This is to be bound to the genuine God!

The alternative is atheism – resting upon “frivolous trifles” of religion to please the wicker-basket god twisted into your own image. So to be religious but not godly is the hypocrisy of the ‘religious atheist.’

Calvinistic meditations …

1. Our natural atheistic hearts must drive us to the Word. I frequently think of bible reading as a hobby, of something I want to do more often (like playing more basketball). Scripture frequently becomes a routine. Humble Calvinism shows us the necessity of Scripture – we must be driven back to Scripture to understand the biblical God. Frequently we need Scripture to smash our wicker-basket-gods. Why do people not read the Old Testament? Because God seems to be different than we suppose He should be. Smash! We need to approach the Bible, not to be theologically comforted, but to receive theological correction. God hates it when sinners think He is just like us (Ps. 50:21). And that’s exactly what happens when sinners are left to their own. We cannot overstate the importance of Scripture to worshipping God in truth. We must humbly and persistently ask ourselves if the God of Scripture is the God we worship.

2. The gospel and the sinner are steaming towards a head-on collision! Why is evangelism hard? Because we are breaking into sinners’ worlds with the message that they must give up the one thing that gives them pleasure (sin) because the Cross has something so much better for them! The gospel meets ‘religious atheism’ like a meat mallet coming towards a tough steak. The gospel (lovingly) pounds our hearts soft and this directly confronts our sinful addictions. Pray that God would sovereignly bless your evangelism to be fruitful, but don’t expect evangelism to be easy. And likewise we should never expect the church – which is the pillar and support of God’s knowledge in the world – to be a place where sinners feel comfortable to bring their wicker baskets. Invite sinners to church in the hopes that God will reach out His sovereign foot and step on their basket. As soon as we twist our evangelism and sermons because we think sinners will be offended, we’ve bowed in admiration to the wicker baskets coming in the front door. Let them collide.

3. Unbelievers are not unreligious. We are all religious. The question is this: Are my religious beliefs confirmed by the revelation God gives us about Himself? In my experience people get really nervous when you look beyond the trifles of religious observance to look at the truth claims behind one’s beliefs. There is an overwhelming pull in the American church to separate life and doctrine, to say that one is a good and religious person without asking ‘what is the doctrine they believe?’ How many funerals have you attended where one’s life accomplishments were listed? How many funerals have you attended where one’s personal doctrines of God were listed out? Both are equally important in the end. Life and doctrine must go together: “Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers” (1 Tim. 4:16, NIV). Being religious without being humbled under the theology of God’s holiness, justice and wrath is ‘religious atheism.’

4. Churches that understand the inclination of the sinful heart will place great stress on biblical preaching and theology. I fear many churches get bored with scriptural preaching and offer only ‘practical’ messages on finances, children, marriage, etc. because they fail to see the inclination towards ‘religious atheism’ in our hearts. Nothing is more central to Christianity than a proper understanding of God that brings humility and fear of Him. Preaching about God’s wrath and holiness and judgment upon sinner, preaching about His Son Who lived a perfect life and died a wretched death because I lived a wretched life and want a glorious death … These doctrines bring us back to the love of God and humble us for a life of godliness. Theology – a true knowledge of God – requires a life-long re-calibration of the sinner’s mind and heart.

Humble Calvinism forces introspection. Have I been broken under the holiness, wrath and justice of God? Has God crushed my wicker-basket god? Have I been illuminated to the forgiveness and love of God in the Gospel? Do I boast in the Cross? Do I hate sin? Am I drawn to, or repelled by, the God of Scripture? These questions of Humble Calvinism are central to understanding our authenticity before God.

Humble Calvinism humbles, because it reminds sinners like myself of our theologically twisted past. In some landfill in Nebraska rots the crushed wicker basket I formerly called ‘god.’ Such amazing grace!

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Part 6: The implanted knowledge of God (1.3)

There is no proper understanding of culture, man, belief, unbelief, evangelism, sin and preaching without a theological substructure. A truly effective methodology of ministry must begin with truly biblical theology. Calvin understood this well.

If you are a pastor, evangelist, or just a Christian who loves the lost, your great conviction is to share the truth of God to others. Before we begin considering how others come to know God as their Savior (and even how we ourselves came to know God as Savior) it’s critical to understand how God communicates Himself to all sinners. In chapters 3-9, Calvin forces us to wrestle with a biblical understanding of the knowledge of God. If we miss this foundation, we will seek to communicate God to others in a way built upon a false method of ministry.

The knowledge of God is etched on every soul (1.3.1)

We will soon look at Calvin’s understanding of a universal knowledge of God in the hearts of all sinners. But first Calvin tells us why God has “etched” this knowledge into every heart. “To prevent anyone from taking refuge in the pretense of ignorance, God himself has implanted in all men a certain understanding of his divine majesty” (43).

The word “theology” literally means “knowledge of God.” I remember a pastor sitting in my living room just after God sovereignly saved my soul at the age of 22. I told the pastor I wanted to learn theology. He said, “you already have a theology, you mean you want to foster a biblical theology.” Yes! He was exactly correct. Since birth I have understood something of God. Theology is not a big book with lots of Scripture references, but something we are born with. Why?

God implants this knowledge in all sinners to “prevent anyone from taking refuge in the pretense of ignorance.” So ask a sinner, “Why do you not love and follow God?” Sinners can say they love sin more than God, they can say they hate God, they can say they want to live without God’s authority in their lives, but NO sinner can say ‘I don’t follow and love God because I don’t know anything about Him.’ The argument of ignorance is “pretense.”

Calvin writes, “a sense of deity” is “inscribed in the hearts of all” (p. 44). Thus, because “one and all perceive that there is a God and that he is their Maker, they are condemned by their own testimony because they have failed to honor him and consecrate their lives to his will” (p. 44).

As sinners, we are all aware of God and know we must submit and love Him. We respond by running away from Him. We, who are created to worship God, substitute Him with the worship of money, sex, alcohol, work, children, and religion.

Proven by the masses and wicked (1.3.2)

Because some knowledge of God is etched in the hearts of all men, women and children, it follows that we should see evidences of this in our culture. We see this first in the masses who are drawn to religion. The “inclination toward religion springs as from a seed” (p. 45).

Lenin and Marx both said religion is the “opiate of the people.” But religion would fall on deaf ears without first the seed of God implanted the heart. The most persuasive deceptions come from religious leaders (like some TV evangelists and all false religions) who foster lies from the religious inclinations of people. Masses of people will follow the “opiate,” false religions and deceptive false teachers, only because they first know God exists. (However, it should be noted that following false religions shows a sinner seeking to appease his conscience without repenting to the true God.) All sinners know something of God.

Second, Calvin says even the most wicked, God-ignoring sinners are (at times) overwhelmed with a sense of God’s judgment. They seek to erase the thought from their minds and run from God but the sense of His judgment ever returns into their conscience and “rushes in with new force” (p. 45). “The impious themselves therefore exemplify the fact that some conception of God is ever alive in all men’s minds” (p. 45).

Impossibility of atheism (1.3.3)

A sense of God is permanently etched into the souls of sinners. We cannot erase it! Atheism – being convinced God does not exist – may sound pleasing to the ear of the unrepentant sinner but it will never bring peace to the “etched” conscience.

The knowledge that God exists is “not a doctrine that must first be learned in school, but one of which each of us is master from his mother’s womb and which nature itself permits no one to forget, although many strive with every nerve to this end” (p. 46).

Sinners are fully aware that God exists, that by not submitting to Him we are all worthy of judgment. So what prevents every sinner from coming to God, repenting and worshipping Him? That’s what Calvin addresses in the next chapter.

Calvinistic meditations …

Like Calvin said, learning about God is unlike academic learning. For example, a biology student begins in ignorance and through training begins to understand more and more of the field. Knowledge of God is different because sinners begin with the knowledge of God etched within their hearts! We are all fully aware that God exists and that His judgments are real. Unlike academic studies, there is no true ignorance of the subject. Sinners suppress the truth of God in unrighteousness (Rom. 1:18-32). To say there is no God is not intellectually ignorant, but morally foolish (Ps. 14:1). Without this foundation, we will treat sinners as ignorant learners, like those entering Biology 101 for the first day of class.

Scripture prevents anyone from “taking refuge in the pretense of ignorance” (p. 43). The truth is that all sinners know of God, but push Him away in their sin. This pushing away truth in preference of sin is the basis for God’s judgment of all sinners (John 3:19-20). We are not ignorant people needing further proof of God, but sinners who need the power of God to break us under our sinfulness. Our failure to seek God and submit to Him is “without excuse” (Rom. 1:20).

When we treat sinners as largely good people who are indifferent towards God, we introduce significant lies into our methodologies. We forsake the preaching of truth on Sunday mornings and use it as a time to introduce non-Christians to fuzzy stories and vague principles. We begin treating sinners as largely ignorant of God, rather than fully aware of God. We begin thinking elementary knowledge and proofs of God’s existence can replace pleading with sinners to repent from their morally culpable suppression of God’s self-evidence.

The methodology of the church is always bound with the theology of the church. That God etched a knowledge of Himself into every heart must be at the foundation of everything we do and say.

Only when we stop treating sinners as first-year biology students will we seek the sovereign power of God to open hard hearts through His means alone! That is exactly what Calvin was driven towards. And it is exactly why (by God’s generous grace) Humble Calvinism is so necessary today.

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Part 5: The all-sufficient God of Scripture (1.2)

So we lay in the dust of a dark cave in our filthy rages, covering our eyes to flee the presence of a perfect God. We are shattered. Our self-sufficiency has been replaced with a dread of God and our self-righteousness has been muffled by hopelessness. We lay in naked perversity before the holy God of the universe.

If we understand God and understand ourselves we become painfully aware of our empty hearts. In the last chapter Calvin wrote, “Each of us must, then, be so stung by the consciousness of his own unhappiness as to attain at least some knowledge of God” (p. 36). As sinners we become aware of our insufficiency. We cannot produce our own joy. We must fearfully seek our joy in the all-sufficient, unchanging God of Scripture.

Seeking the sufficient God (1.2.1)

Piety forms the foundation for all of Calvin’s theology. Piety is “that reverence joined with love to God which the knowledge of his benefits induces” (p. 41). Prior to understanding God’s motives and plans we must love and fear Him.

We will not run towards God until we are convinced that our joy depends upon it! Calvin writes, “it will not suffice simply to hold that there is One whom all ought to honor and adore, unless we are also persuaded that he is the fountain of every good, and that we must seek nothing elsewhere than in him … unless they [men] establish their complete happiness in him, they will never give themselves truly and sincerely to him” (p. 40).

It is here that Calvin showcases his experiential understanding of faith. We worship what promises to satisfy us. If we believe sex will satisfy us we worship sexual sin. If we think a beautiful appearance will bring us satisfaction we worship the outward beauty of others. If we think religion will satisfy us we worship our self-righteousness. We worship what holds the promise of our satisfaction. We will only come to God after being fully convinced our entire good rests in Him alone.

True piety is expecting full joy from God alone. Here Calvin says we seek knowledge of God by recognizing His all-sufficiency. So the act of seeking this all-sufficient God is not to be confused with saving grace. “It is one thing to feel that God as our Maker supports us by his power, governs us by his providence, nourishes us by his goodness, and attends us with all sorts of blessings – and another thing to embrace the grace of reconciliation offered to us in Christ” (p. 40).

But don’t miss this! Calvin has not yet brought us to the place where sinners are reconciled to God. That will come later. A conviction that God is our all-sufficient source of joy is not saving faith. It’s no wonder that Calvin lays great importance upon the sovereign grace of God opening the eyes of blind sinners like myself.

Seeking the revealed God (1.2.2)

Piety is seeking our sufficiency in the true God (not a god of our imagination). Piety involves a fear of God because God is what He is and not what the sinner deems appropriate.

Calvin uses one especially powerful example: Do we truly believe the “punishment of the impious and wicked and the reward of life eternal for the righteous equally pertain to God’s glory” (p. 43)? Clearly Calvin is building from Romans 9:22-23.

The god I naturally imagine is a politician polishing his persuasive speeches because his success rests upon a popular applause. This politician/god gets no glory from his enemies. Not so with God. Impenetrable divine wisdom uses the judgment of unrepentant sinners to exalt God’s own glory.

True piety pursues this sovereign God of Scripture, not the democratic god of my imagination. Calvin writes, “the pious mind does not dream up for itself any god it pleases, but contemplates the one and only true God. And it does not attach to him whatever it pleases, but is content to hold him to be as he manifests himself” (p. 42).

Without seeking the Scriptural God, a true fear will be replaced by “vague general veneration” of God (p. 43). Sinners can show respect for God without a fear of God. Here’s where the mere outward display of veneration in religious ceremonies becomes dangerous. A sinner may tip his hat at God without fearing Him. Without a genuine fear of God there is no genuine piety and without piety we will never truly know the saving knowledge of God.

We must fear and seek after God as He reveals Himself. Again, seeing this in the backdrop of my blinding, deadening sin I cry out as a helpless sinner dependent upon the sovereign work of God!

Calvinistic meditations …

1. A genuine fear of God authenticates our pursuit of the one, true God. True piety fears God because God is altogether different than we naturally imagine. The god of my imagination is a lot like myself. I don’t fear those who are like me (I only fear people who are larger than me!). “You thought I was altogether like you. But I will rebuke you and accuse you to your face” (Psalm 50:21, NIV). What shock must overwhelm the damned soul to be trampled under the winepress of God’s wrath after thinking He was a 5-foot-8 pushover.

Use your fear of God to gauge how well your imagined god is replaced by the sovereign God! It’s good to ask: Do I live with a healthy fear of God or a “vague general veneration” of God? Fear is piety, vague veneration is pride.

2. We must never rest content in general notions of God as our source of all joy. Every sinner using natural revelation and a natural sense of the divine can make this conclusion. It is something altogether different when sinners confess Christ is our “wisdom and our righteousness and sanctification and redemption” (1 Cor. 1:30).

In a secularized culture, the church naturally lowers its expectations of faith. If someone believes God is the source of their entire good, can’t we assume that they are genuine Christians? No. What false religion advertises an insufficient god? Believing God is all-sufficient is not itself saving. Salvation comes through faith in the very specific revelation we call the gospel. Jesus Christ died my death to pay for my sin by bearing my wrath to free me from the power of my sin.

The Reformed/Puritan tradition used the phrase “almost Christian” to designate those drawn to the all-sufficient God but who had not “closed” with Christ. When a vague understanding of God’s sufficiency is mistaken for saving faith in the Cross the phrase “almost Christian” becomes foreign, the doctrinal core of the gospel becomes vague, religious relativism runs rampant and the church begins reading books by mystics because they mistake an author’s seeking of joy alone in God with authentic Christianity. Humble Calvinism will not allow it.

We must not grow content with an ecumenical journey of desire but press on in pursuit of an all-satisfying righteousness that comes by faith alone, in Christ alone, from the Cross of Christ alone!

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