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The Glory of God as the Scope of the World and the Word 203
• God accounts for the intelligent design manifest in the macro
(galaxies) and micro (molecules and cells) universe—a fact as
manifest as the automobile testifying to the existence of man.
• God knows all. For he made and sustains all.
• God deserves to be reverenced and admired and thanked and
looked to for guidance and help. This follows from my innate
sense of moral judgment in view of everything seen so far.
• God sees me as guilty for failing to give him the glory and thanks
he deserves, and he thus gives ultimate explanation to the universal,
bad conscience in the world. This follows from the perfect
personal dimension in God and the defective moral dimension
in me, which my conscience reveals with unwavering constancy.
• God might save me from my guilt but would need to do it in
a way that overcomes my evil impulse to resist him and would
have to make a way for his glory to be sustained, while not punishing
me for treason. For it is manifested that I have belittled
his glory, and I cannot pay a debt as large as I owe, since I have
offended infinite goodness.
Again, the point here is not that anyone sees all this without the special
help of God’s Spirit. The point is: it is really there to see, and we are
responsible to see it.
Stunning, Self-Evident Things That I Cannot Not Know
All of this amounts to the deep and inescapable realization that God
made the world to communicate his glory—that is, the greatness and
beauty of his manifold perfections. And he made me to experience his
glory, and through this experience to glorify and thank him. I am created
to magnify the glory of God—not the way a microscope magnifies
(making small things look bigger than they are), but the way a telescope
magnifies (making things that appear small to the world look as
gigantic as they really are). And I know intuitively that thanking God
is a way of glorifying him. God’s glorious beneficence is magnified in
my humble, dependent, thankful witness to his goodness to me. This