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Monday, July 21, 2008

K-D: THE CREATION OF THE WORLD Part 9

But if the biblical account of the creation has full claim to be regarded as historical truth, the question arises, whence it was obtained. The opinion that the Israelites drew it from the cosmogony of this or the other ancient people, and altered it according to their own religious ideas, will need no further refutation, after what we have said respecting the cosmogonies of other nations. Whence then did Israel obtain a pure knowledge of God, such as we cannot find in any heathen nation, or in the most celebrated of the wise men of antiquity, if not from divine revelation? This is the source from which the biblical account of the creation springs. God revealed it to men-not first to Moses or Abraham, but undoubtedly to the first men, since without this revelation they could not have understood either their relation to God or their true position in the world. The account contained in Genesis does not lie, as Hofmann says, "within that sphere which was open to man through his historical nature, so that it may be regarded as the utterance of the knowledge possessed by the first man of things which preceded his own existence, and which he might possess, without needing any special revelation, if only the present condition of the world lay clear and transparent before him."

By simple intuition the first man might discern what nature had effected, viz., the existing condition of the world, and possibly also its causality, but not the fact that it was created in six days, or the successive acts of creation, and the sanctification of the seventh day. Our record contains not merely religious truth transformed into history, but the true and actual history of a work of God, which preceded the existence of man, and to which he owes his existence. Of this work he could only have obtained his knowledge through divine revelation, by the direct instruction of God. Nor could he have obtained it by means of a vision. The seven days' works are not so many "prophetico-historical tableaux," which were spread before the mental eye of the seer, whether of the historian or the first man. The account before us does not contain the slightest marks of a vision, is no picture of creation, in which every line betrays the pencil of a painter rather than the pen of a historian, but is obviously a historical narrative, which we could no more transform into a vision than the account of paradise or of the fall.

2 comments:

Healyhatman said...

Again, correct me if I'm wrong.

You're saying that the only way the creation story could have been written is if it was directly from God? Man could not have come up with it on his own, only God?

Or are you saying that only God could have given man the bible, since the bible is completely true?

neil moore said...

Healy, for my part, there are five days of the creation week and part of the sixth day when man did not exist. For this period at least, man is dependant on God for understanding because God was there and did the creating. Therefore, I am of the view that God told man of the creation week events and I am even more inclined that God told Moses at Sinai. For Moses to rightly record exactly what God told him, Moses would have to have been inspired by Holy Spirit. I wonder at how accurately Moses had to remember all the fine detail for the making of the Tent of Meeting/Tabernacle and implements. It must have been with the inspiration of Holy Spirit. This is not unique because the Lord Jesus told His disciples that Holy Spirit would teach them and remind them of all that He told them when with them.

Now, that said, you want to go somewhere (attack?) with that belief of mine. Pray tell, what is it?

Neil Moore