Guest Blogger: John Calvin

“There is within the human mind, and indeed by natural instinct, an awareness of divinity....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. Every renewing its memory, he repeatedly sheds fresh drops...of a sense of deity inscribed in the hearts of all.” (1.3.1)

“...this conviction, namely, that there is some God, is naturally born in all, and is fixed within, as it were in the very marrow....[This] is not a doctrine that must first be learned in school, but one of which each of us is a master from his mother’s womb and which nature itself permits no one to forget, although many strive with every nerve to this end” (1.3.3).

"For how can the thought of God penetrate your mind without your realizing immediately that, since you are his handiwork, you have been made over and bound to his command by right of creation, that you owe your life to him?--that whatever you undertake, whatever you do, ought to be ascribed to him?" (1.2.2)

~The Institutes of the Christian Religion,

If you ever get the hankerin' to read through Calvin's Institutes (and every Christian should before s/he dies), you might find Tony Reinke's site helpful. He is blogging his way through the institutes, has some cool graphics and nice summaries of Calvin's thoughts.