how do you explain the universal need for Man to connect with God?
I don't recognize any such "need." That's gnosticism and new-age drivel -- that we all have a spark of the divine inside us. Look around you. Is the world striving for good or ill; charity or compassion; God or self?
Every age has its pretensions towards goodness. Certainly the 20th century pretensions were as corrupted as any, centering around "the psychology of self," and the largesse of the state, and the inherent goodness of the "natural" man.
The Bible tells us we are all fallen, everyone. Our "attempting to encounter the Divine," as you say, is simply chasing after our own shadow.
We do not "encounter the divine."
God "encounters" us, at His pleasure.
I do not think that is the question..man does not "universally" need to connect to God. There are men that choose to see themselves as god..
I think the question is how is it that some men have the need to connect with the God of the bible and others need to develop their own religion or have no religion? What is the difference? That is the question that interested Calvin ~I think~
Look around you.
I have, have you? You don't ever wonder why, no matter where you go or what time period you look at, there is religion. Why is that?
Every age has its pretensions towards goodness. Certainly the 20th century pretensions were as corrupted as any, centering around "the psychology of self," and the largesse of the state, and the inherent goodness of the "natural" man.
I wasn't talking about Mankind's "inherent goodness."
I don't recognize any such "need."
From the article: For, in the first place, no man can survey himself without forthwith turning his thoughts towards the God in whom he lives and moves; because it is perfectly obvious, that the endowments which we possess cannot possibly be from ourselves; nay, that our very being is nothing else than subsistence in God alone.
I believe Calvin, and Paul (Ro 1:19), may disagree with you.