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John Calvin on Creation

Courtesy of the Hultink Family Foundation, the Cántaro Institute is now the new home for the Reformational Digital Library (formerly known as the Reformational Publishing Project). All rights reserved.

Document: James H. Olthuis, “John Calvin on Creation”, ANAKAINOSIS, Vol. 7. No. 1 & 2 (n.d.).

Excerpt: Calvin has two planes along which humanity can come to a knowledge of God.  There is the special history of God’s covenantal purposes and the general history of God’s purposes with the entire world. Although these levels are distinct, Calvin does not separate them. The genius of his theology is his effort to rightly relate and interrelate these two levels. On the level of special history God reveals fully only in the Son made flesh, but also through the Mediator even before the Incarnation. On the level of general history God still reveals only through the Mediator, but it is the sustaining rather than the reconciling ordering of the Mediator. Redemptive history presupposes and implies the right ordering of creation by the Creator God.

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Anakainosis,_Vol. 7_No._1-2:_John Calvin on Creation – J.H. Olthuis.pdf