From: co-westminster@yahoogroups.com Sent: Thursday, October 31, 2002 7:17 AM To: co-westminster@yahoogroups.com Subject: [co-westminster] Digest Number 111 ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Home Selling? Try Us! http://us.click.yahoo.com/QrPZMC/iTmEAA/jd3IAA/x.VolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> -To unsubscribe via e-mail, send an empty e-mail to: co-westminster-unsubscribe@egroups.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------ There are 4 messages in this issue. Topics in this digest: 1. Battles' outline of I.i.2 From: "Richard Bacon" 2. Study Questions for I.1.2 From: "Richard Bacon" 3. Re: Battles' outline of I.i.2 From: "Dr. Chuck Baynard" 4. Re: Questions for section one From: "C.R. McNinch" ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 1 Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2002 21:28:55 -0000 From: "Richard Bacon" Subject: Battles' outline of I.i.2 2. Without knowledge of God there is no knowledge of self A. If we hypocritically confine our contemplation to ourselves and do not go beyond to contemplate God, we complacently laud our own "virtues." B. But the moment our thoughts rise to God and His excellencies, we see our "virtues" as wicked, foolish, and weak. Richard Bacon FPCR Rowlett, TX ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 2 Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2002 21:30:41 -0000 From: "Richard Bacon" Subject: Study Questions for I.1.2 Section Two • In what sense did Calvin maintain that men cannot have a clear understanding of themselves without first "looking upon God's face?" • Can we ever be convinced of our own misery by looking only to ourselves? Why or why not? • What did Calvin believe was the danger of confining our minds to the narrow limits of human corruption? • Explain Calvin's illustration of "grey" or "dirty white" against a black background. • Why did Calvin think that men were altogether unfit for judging their own good? • Why should men compare themselves to God? Richard Bacon FPCR Rowlett, TX ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 3 Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2002 16:53:58 -0500 From: "Dr. Chuck Baynard" Subject: Re: Battles' outline of I.i.2 The real question then would be can man look at himself alone and not ever see the excellency of God? I think the answer ala Calvin is no. Chuck Baynard, LLD, ThD 1st EPC Clover, SC www.cloverepc.org Church -- check out our new Bible lessons www.christianobserver.org The Christian observer ----- Original Message ----- From: "Richard Bacon" To: Sent: Wednesday, October 30, 2002 4:28 PM Subject: [co-westminster] Battles' outline of I.i.2 ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 4 Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2002 02:45:57 -0500 From: "C.R. McNinch" Subject: Re: Questions for section one Our host, Richard Bacon posted several questions from Section One, concluding with the perennial -- >• Do you think Calvin's approach to apologetics in this first >section is a reasonable one? Should one always begin with Scripture, >or is it feasible to begin with self-knowledge? Dear friends; I would like to comment on the above (although I think my response takes in most of the other questions as well). I sincerely hope my communication is in keeping with the type of dialogue the List Moderator was hoping to engender, and I look forward to your thoughts. Is not the antecedent thought behind Calvin's proposition that wisdom can be divided into two parts, his Christian belief that the Bible teaches that -- "real wisdom is knowing God and knowing ourselves". Of course it is from a Biblical starting point that Calvin states his thesis -- that the knowledge of God and the knowledge of ourselves are so closely related, that in order to know either one of these ~properly~ we _must also_ know the other. This corollary proposition, is developed by Calvin in his assertion that man cannot think seriously about himself ~without~ thinking about the ONE who made him, and continues to give him life. Here again, Calvin echoes Scripture's claim that when man meditates on the wonders of his own humanness as well as the glories of the natural world around him, he can rightly conclude through the process of logical deduction that he has not made himself nor the universe - and in this way all men may come to the truth that human beings are derived. It is then no quantum leap for man to conclude two true things from this manner of thinking; #1. ~There must be a God~ and #2. ~Man is not God~. Calvin then asserts the proposition that because man is the recipient of so many things upon which his life depends, he _must_ somewhere in the course of receiving these gifts, consider something/someone greater than himself as the ~GIVER~. Correspondingly, as man seeks to relieve the various ~inadequacies~ he finds in himself, he is forced to consider ~divine assistance~ in his quest for ~better things~. (The development of religion is the outworking of man's intrinsic need for a ~higher order~ to replace the lack he senses both within and without.) But according to Calvin's understanding of the Bible, true religion and a right knowledge of ~ourselves~ is only possible in light of knowing God and first understanding how He sees us. Since the ~main part~ of our corruption as fallen creatures is human pride - which deludes a correct interpretation of the facts and fosters our denial of the truth - seeing correctly must be predicated upon the humbling experience of beholding God revealed as The LORD - the standard of perfection and true righteousness, against whom all else must be measured and in whose light alone, man may of grace discover his own hypocrisy, sin and error, that he may repent of it and turn sincerely to the truth. "The fear of the LORD" becomes the "beginning of wisdom" when man is enabled of grace to realize the depth of his own depravity by a spiritually compelling comparison with the majesty of God's worthiness. God has designed His Self-revelation in Scripture to be just such a radical ~corrective lens~. Calvin describes Scripture as the "spectacles" through which man may see, guided by the Holy Spirit, how blurred is his own judgment, how tainted is his desire for better things and how perverted is his knowledge of God and of himself. Calvin claims that while it is a fact of life that there is some thought of ~a god~ in every human mind, never-the-less, in order to rightly understand the information God the Creator has provided in His works of creation about man and about Himself, man, because of his fallen state and his innate propensity to sin, needs divine aid in the form of an objective standard of interpretation outside of himself-- this, (as Calvin writes in Part 1; Section 6) the Bible declares God the Redeemer has provided for man in sacred Scripture. C.R. "Chuck" McNinch Member, Covenant URC Kalamazoo, MI http://www.covenant-urc.org/ ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/