“Our circumstances are all in opposition to the promises of God. He promises us immortality: yet we are surrounded by mortality and corruption. He declares that He accounts us just: yet we are covered with sins. He testifies that He is propitious and benevolent toward us: yet outward signs threaten His wrath.
What then are we to do? We must close our eyes, disregard ourselves and all things connected to us, so that nothing may hinder or prevent us from believing that God is true.”
—John Calvin, commenting on Rom 4:20, in Thomas Schreiner and Ardel Canaday, The Race Set Before Us (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001), 282
This quote sounds to me like the definition of blind faith. While the book of Hebrews describes faith as the conviction of things not seen, Calvin seems to describe faith as conviction of the opposite of what we see. At that point, what hope have we to believe anything we think or see? We may as well stop thinking altogether.
Heb 11:1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
Ray,
Calvin means that we live in the ‘not yet’ between God’s promise and complete fulfillment. On their own, our circumstances often seem to say that God is against us. But we know, not by an irrational act of faith but on the solid basis of God’s word, that he is for us in Christ.
Bart