Saturday, June 28, 2008

know thyself ... and god

Symphony of Scripture brought my attention to this YouTube video of John Piper on the knowledge of God and of ourself.

“Our wisdom, in so far as it ought to be deemed true and solid Wisdom, consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.” ~ John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion



On the topic of knowledge, Piper just posted Knowledge Increases Mystery. While this may seem to be a contradictio, I think it makes a lot of sense. Piper notes that "God is more honored by worship that rises from what we know about him than by worship that rises from what we don’t know about him." He then builds on Jonathan Edwards' Essay on the Trinity to explain that, "the benefit of increasing mystery this way (rather than by means of preserving ignorance) is that what we do know gives direction to what we don’t know. We do not wonder if the mystery contains a sinister God, because what we do know directs us away from that speculation."

No comments:

reftagger