Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

The heavens declare the glory of God;
    the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech;
    night after night they reveal knowledge.
They have no speech, they use no words;
    no sound is heard from them.
Yet their voice goes out into all the earth,
    their words to the ends of the world.
In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun.

• Psalm 19:1-4

since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

• Romans 1:19-20

Yet he has not left himself without testimony: He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy.”

• Acts 14:17

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

• 2 Timothy 3:16-17

You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me,

• John 5:39

“1. The true wisdom of man consists in the knowledge of God the creator and Redeemer.
“2. This knowledge is naturally implanted in us, and the end of it ought to be the worship of God rightly performed, or reverence for the Deity accompanied by fear and love.”
“3. But this seed is corrupted by ignorance, whence arises superstitious worship; and by wickedness, whence arise slavish dread and hatred of the Deity.
“4. It is also from another source that it is derived – namely, from the structure of the whole world, and from the Holy Scriptures.

• John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Aphorisms

John Calvin did not write these aphorisms.  They are a summarization of what he wrote in Institutes of the Christian Religion.  There are 100 aphorisms.  I will at least go for a few of them while I look through my library for another book.

I wrote the first four together, since they build on a theme.  If Calvin had written these aphorisms, maybe he would have used a noun rather than an indistinct pronoun… occasionally.

But I think this is saying that God reveals Himself to us in nature, the design of the universe, etc. and through Holy Scripture.

The AI search results may say that seeing God in nature is not enough, but Paul in Romans 1 would disagree.  I think David would with what he says in Psalm 19.

But the more evidence that is gathered, especially in deep space and in genetics, the intricate design of everything is impossible to happen by chance.  Darwin thought single-cell organisms were simple, but they are not.  And when millions of coding errors in the DNA have to happen simultaneously, it is much easier to believe in God than that level of supernatural voidness.

But then, in the Bible, we see God telling us things that we already know.  We all know that murder is not a good thing.  Yes, there are those that are decidedly broken, but they go against common sense.  How was that imprinted into us?  That is part of God physically breathing life into our ancient ancestors and making us in His image.  For those who have Jesus in their hearts, it all makes perfect sense.

For those who do not want to understand true wisdom, it looks like foolishness, until you give your heart to Jesus.

If you like these Tuesday morning essays about philosophy and other “heavy topics,” but you think you missed a few, you can use this LINK. I have set up a page off the home page for links to these Tuesday morning posts. I will continue to modify the page as I add more.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.