External Awareness of God: His Creation (Part 2)

I want to divide our discussion of the external awareness of God into three parts. First, I will give you a pictorial clarification in order to elucidate what I said in addition to what I will say. Second, I will give you Scriptural confirmation to prove my argument is based upon Scripture. And third, I will provide a fundamental caution, or warning that comes from Scripture.

Those of you who know me well realize that these three points will be covered in a number of posts. How many? I have no idea. But I will try and keep you keyed in as to which part we are on.

So let me get started.

I. A PICTORIAL CLARIFICATION

I want to give you several images, or pictures that John Calvin uses to describe what I refer to as the external awareness of God present in His creation. These pictures help elucidate what I mean by "external awareness".

First, Calvin says that God's creation is like a mirror. When we look into a mirror our own image is reflected back. But when we look at the "mirror of creation" God's image is reflected back to us. And if that mirror could speak it would say, "God made me and you!" Thus, Calvin quips, "[T]his skillful ordering of the universe is for us a sort of mirror in which we can contemplate God, who is otherwise invisible."

Second, Calvin uses the picture of a dazzling theater to describe God's creation. Calvin uses this picture in more than one of his writings. However, he never really elaborates on it. Therefore, I am going to take the freedom to elaborate where he did not. As I am writing this, his picture hangs on the wall behind me. If I get it wrong he might slap me upside the head. I have no interest in portraits coming to life in ghost like form, therefore I will be careful with my musing. Nevertheless, it appears that Calvin is communicating that things in God's creation like trees, grass, mountains, clouds, etc. are like props on a stage. People and animals are like actors and actresses. On the stage of creation you might see a man mowing grass, a person walking their dog, and two neighbors having a morning conversation.

Now follow my line of logic. Every movie and play has one goal regardless of the genre, producer, actors/actresses, etc. That one goal is simply to demonstrate life lived out in various forms and various ways. The goal of a movie or play is to demonstrate this so well that one gets sucked right into the environment on the screen or stage. A good movie will do this. It will, if only for a few seconds, or minutes make you so convinced of the reality of what is happening on the screen or stage that you forget you are sitting on your couch or theater seat as a spectator of an unreal sequence of events. In fact, this happened to me last night as my wife and I watched a movie that we had never seen. As I watched, I could not help to place myself in Will Smith's shoes. I thought (several times during the course of my viewing experience) the pain, emotion, sadness, anger that Will Smith acted out by his mannerisms, words, gestures, and faces. I was trying to find a way of escape for myself...I mean Will Smith.

The stage of God's creation does the same thing except with this caveat: God intends to manifest His life (His existence) to us. In other words, the focus in God's dazzling theater is not the actors, actresses, or awesome backdrops. No, God's focus is God Himself. And when we look at creation it is as if we are watching a movie about God. The message of the movie: God made all of this and you!

Third, Calvin uses the picture of a painting to describe God's creation. God's paint strokes are all over the canvas of creation. Here is what Calvin says, "We must therefore admit in God's individual works but especially in them as a whole- that God's powers are actually represented as in a painting. Thereby the whole of mankind is invited and attracted to recognition of Him..."

So again allow me to sum up. All of these pictures are meant for you to connect the external reality with the internal reality. It works like this. As creation is observed and the conscience registers what is observed in creation it internalizes the evidence and concludes that God exists. This conclusion can be made because man has the reasoning capacity to make such a deduction. God made Himself "evident to them" and "within them" (Rom. 1:19-20).

In the next post we will consider Scriptural confirmation for what I am arguing.