From: Graham E. Morbey (gmorbey@wlu.ca)
Date: Wed Jun 25 2003 - 07:34:15 EDT
The Belgic Confession
Article 2: The Means by Which We Know God
We know him by two means:
First, by the creation, preservation, and government of the universe,
since that universe is before our eyes like a beautiful book in which
all creatures,
great and small, are as letters to make us ponder the invisible things
of God: his eternal
power and his divinity, as the apostle Paul says in Romans 1:20.
All these things are enough to convict men and to leave them without excuse.
Second, he makes himself known to us more openly by his holy and divine
Word, as much
as we need in this life, for his glory and for the salvation of his own.
Guido de Bres, preacher of the Reformed Churches of the Netherlands,
1561. He died a martyr to his faith in 1567.
Steve Bishop wrote:
>> Perhaps this has been answered before on the list, but when was the "two
>> books" analogy first used? As Ted points out, it's obviously in Bacon
>> and Galileo
>> but did it originate in late medieval or early modern Scholasticism?
>> What
>> were the historical/theological circumstances that prompted its
>> introduction?
>> Are there patristic sources?
>>
>> Karl
>
>
> Augustine was perhaps one of the first to formulate an early version
> of what could be construed as the two books metaphor:
>
> "It is the divine page that you must listen to; it is the book of the
> universe that you must observe. The pages of Scripture can only be
> read by those who know how to read and write, while everyone, even the
> illiterate, can read the book of the universe” .
>
> St. AUGUSTINE, Enarrationes in Psalmos, XLV, 7 (PL 36,518).
>
> Cited in http://www.usc.urbe.it/html/php/tanzella/nature.rtf
>
> Cheers,
>
> Steve
>
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