What It Is to Know God

By John Calvin

By the knowledge of God, I understand that by which we not only conceive that there is some God, but also apprehend what it is for our interest, and conducive to His glory, what, in short, it is benefitting to know concerning Him. For, properly speaking, we cannot say that God is known where there is no religion or piety.

I am not now referring to that species of knowledge by which men, in themselves lost and under curse, apprehend God as a Redeemer in Christ the Mediator. I speak only of that simple and primitive knowledge to which the mere course of nature would have conducted us, had Adam stood upright. For although no man will now, in the present ruin of the human race, perceive God to be either a Father, or the Author of salvation, or propitious in any respect, until Christ interpose to make our peace: still it is one thing to perceive that God our Maker supports us by His power, rules us by His providence, fosters us by His goodness, and visits us with all kinds of blessings, and another thing to embrace the grace of reconciliation offered to us in Christ.