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NASB | Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God (Elohim) created [by forming from nothing] the heavens and the earth. [Heb 11:3] |
Subject: In the beginning |
Bible Note: Hi, keily... As I have read your discussion with HOTH, I was mindful of something John Calvin wrote. It took me a little while to track it down. Calvin wrote of "the darkness which overspread the minds of the philosophers." Although I could not remember the words, the image stayed with me. He wrote, "they sought for a complete edifice among ruins, and for beautiful order in the midst of confusion." Picture that... people studying an old, collapsed ruin, like a medieval castle. They do not understand that it is a ruin, but imagine it to be a proper structure. The broken walls do not make sense to them, so they develop theories to explain them as having been designed just as they appear. Without special revelation (i.e., the Bible), we cannot understand that when we look at humanity, we are seeing a complete distortion. (The imago Dei is hardly discernible. This is, at least in part, what we mean when we speak of total depravity.) If we do not start with special revelation, we cannot reason to a proper conclusion. We will get it wrong and utterly confused every time. In Him, Doc |