Author: Benjamin Dean

The world we inhabit contains an endless array of contrasts. Every human life is born out of crisis, proceeds in conflict, and invariably ends with irreversible loss. Yet, there is astonishing goodness. Between the boundaries of birth and death, breath-taking wonder combines with utter misery, sublime beauty with callous cruelty. Ecstatic joy, deep satisfaction, and heart-capturing tenderness, are bound up with terrible agony. Life is far worse than we ever feared and much better than we dare dream.
The first sentence of the Bible explains that God created both ‘the heavens and the earth’. This indicates that the environment that we inhabit is twofold. God’s world is comprised of two parts. The physical universe – ‘earth’ – has a counterpart in the spiritual universe – ‘the heavens’. There are then two distinct dimensions of created reality, two interlocking spheres, directly connected in some respects and more indirectly linked in others.
God’s life in himself is the fundamental condition of God’s work of creation. We start therefore with consideration of the identity and nature of the Creator, for biblical teaching about the act of creation grows out of what Scripture suggests about the perfect life of God. Clarity about the character of the Creator ensures that the relation between the Creator and his creatures is accurately represented.
The Bible makes colossal claims to knowledge. Its teaching about revelation treats the reasons for these claims and addresses various questions regarding them. Is God known to humanity, and if so, how? What is the origin and nature of our knowledge of God? How do we know about God, and how do we know that we know? Revelation is the biblical notion which responds to these and other issues concerning the origin and basis of affirmations about God, ourselves, and all other creatures in relation to God.
Whether it is a hardened atheist ... or an angst-ridden artist ... or in specifically religious contexts, we appear irresistibly drawn to spiritual questions that are personal and experiential in nature. And it is God, the Creator of our material and spiritual world, who confronts us in Genesis 1 and throughout this first book of the Bible.

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