Brian’s Reflection: Tuesday, July 10, 2007


God preordained, for his own glory and the display
of His attributes of mercy and justice, a part of the
human race, without any merit of their own, to eternal
salvation, and another part, in just punishment of their
sin, to eternal damnation.

- John Calvin, Reformation thinker, born on
this day, 1509, in Noyon, France

Oh, give me a break! “Mercy”? “Justice”? Is God some kind of Eternal Narcissist, or Fascist?? (Actually, now that I think about it, the way God is portrayed throughout history is often one or the other!). What about Divine Grace? Free will? Compassion? Repentance? Kindness? Love? It is amazing, is it not, the utter nonsense that we human beings can come up with?? Talk about psychopathic projection. Perhaps I should have listened to Freud a little more.

However.

However many blessings we expect from God,
His infinite liberality will always exceed all our
wishes and our thoughts.

- Yep; you guessed!

Apparently even John Calvin’s! JC must have been having a better day when he wrote these words. Maybe his conscience had quieted a bit from all the people he was burning at the stake. And it just goes to show, doesn’t it, just how weird we human beings can be - and how even God can become the victim of our wierdnesses. Good to remember this. If we are in a bad mood, God gets a bad rap. If we are in a good mood, God knows She’s had a close call. I sometimes have the tingling thought that God is going to go ballistic one day and change all the rules!

Our understanding of God is only as good (in both ways) as we human beings permit. What will it be? Mean and spiteful, or loving and generous? How we choose to understand each other is how we see God.

It’s up to us.

Brian+