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In the index of the Ford Lewis Battles translation of John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion, there are seven pages, with three columns on each page, of references to Augustine. In fact, there are more references to Augustine than to anyone else. Calvin learned a lot of his understanding of the Christian faith from Augustine.

Perhaps one of the things he learned from Augustine, as well of from the Bible, was the radical distinction between the creature and the Creator. The distinction is qualitative, not merely quantitative. God is God, and we are not.

Consider the following passage from Augustine's Confessions in which, in seeking to know who God is, whom he already loves, he asks the various creatures in the world who or what God is. Finally, they cry out together, "He made us!" Then Augustine knows that he is standing before, and exists only by the good will of, the Creator.

Augustine's Confessions, X, 6, 9  

 

And what is this [God]?
I put my question to the earth, and it replied, "I am not he";
I questioned everything it held, and they confessed the same.
I questioned the sea and the great deep,
and the teeming live creatures that crawl,
and they replied,
"We are not God; seek higher."
I questioned the gusty winds,
and every breeze with all its flying creatures told me,
"Anaximenes* was wrong: I am not God."
To the sky I put my question, to sun, moon, stars,
but they denied me: "We are not the God you seek."
And to all things which stood around the portals of my flesh I said,
"Tell me of my God.
You are not he, but tell me something of him."
Then they lifted up their mighty voices and cried,
"He made us."
My questioning was my attentive spirit,
and their reply, their beauty.

*Anaximenes of Miletus, sixth century B.C., had taught that all things came from air. 

 

Augustine, The Confessions, introduction, translation and notes by Maria Boulding, in The Works of St. Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century, Part I--Books, volume 1 (New York: New City Press, 1997), Book X, Chapter 6, paragraph 9, pp. 242-243.

 

Dr. James C. Goodloe IV Grace and Peace,

    Jim 
Dr. James C. Goodloe IV, Executive Director
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