Our Account Of A Higher Being Exists In Our Minds

For the wrath of God is revealed

from heaven against all 

ungodliness

and unrighteousness of men,

who suppress the truth 

in unrighteousness,

because what may be

known of God is

manifest in them,

for God has

shown it to them.

Romans 1:18-19

      To give clarification in regards to the previous blogs on the Sovereignty of God we must ask questions, i.e., is the existence of God an intuitive truth? Is this truth given in our very constitution of our nature? Can our very nature assent and have revealed these truths and is such so that we can do nothing less than to assent to its truth? Is it universal, and necessary? Speaking of truth as being universal it must be noted that what is being implied here is that the universality is applied in this case only to those truths which have their foundation or evidence in the constitution of our nature. The external world, if it be true that ignorance be universal, error may be universal. An example: there was a time when men believed that the sun revolves around the earth; but because it was universal that belief was no evidence of its truth.

     When it is asked as to whether or not the existence of God is an intuitive truth what is being actually asked is the belief in His existence an intuitive truth that is universal and necessary? Now, if it be true that all men do believe there is a God, and that no man can possible disbelieve His existence, then His existence is an intuitive truth. Therefore, it is given in our constitution of our nature making is so that no man can fail to know and to acknowledge that there is a God.

     This is not a new thinking on the part of man for it has been the thinking from ages past. It was the common opinion as Cicero in 45 B.C. aptly describes in DE NATURA DEORUM ACADExMICA book 1, sec. 17: ...their (God(s) my interjection) existence is therefore a necessary inference, since we possess an instinctive or rather an innate concept of them ;

esse deos, quoniam insitas

eorum vel potius innatas cognitiones habemus

Tertullian (c. 160 - 225):
states that: "the heather of his day, the common people had a more correct idea of God than the philosophers. John Calvin in his Institute of Religion book 1, chpt. 3, sect 3 states: 
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 45in 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. (italics mine).

The tendency in our modern days is to render the existence of God is purely a matter of intuition and this then leads a person to disparage any argument in proof of it. Yet, it is to be found that this tendency does not in any way justify the denial of a truth, this truth that is so important as that God has not left mankind without a knowledge of Himself and His existence, further, His authority. 

 

     Like so many important terms or words god is used in a very wide sense. For the Christian the sense is that God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, an immutable being, his wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth. No human mind has the power of itself to attain such ideas, so sublime intuitively or discursively, except it be under the divine light of supernatural revelation. The philosophers will give dignity, to motion, force, or some vague idea of the infinite, and use the name God to describe those ideas. But, in neither of these cases is the sense of the word so used and to be said to be innate, or a matter of intuition. We must understand the fact that in the general sense of a Being is to be found on whom we are dependent and to whom we are responsible, and that idea is asserted to exist universally, and of necessity, in every human mind. We we discern God in this manner we can only assert that God is a Person, that He possesses moral attributes, and acts as our moral governor. All that is being stated is that what is maintained is that this sense of dependence and accountability to a being higher than themselves exists in the minds of all men. 

Let the peoples praise You,

     O God:

let all the peoples praise You.

     Oh, let the nations be glad

and sing for joy!

     For You shall judge the people

righteously,

     And govern the nations on

earth.

                      Psalm 67:3-4

God be Merciful to Us

Richard L. Crumb