Latest / Reformed Thinking / What Humanity Was Before the Fall | John Calvin

Transcript

What Humanity Was Before the Fall | John Calvin · Reformed Thinking

0:00
Welcome back to Reform Thinking. It's great to have you with us
0:02
again as we continue our walkthrough of the Christian
0:05
faith. Good to be here.
0:06
We're doing something today that feels a little like like
0:11
archaeology, but for the human soul.
0:13
We're sort of digging through the ruins to find the original
0:16
blueprints of who we are. It's a great way to put it,
0:18
yeah, dusting off all the debris to see the structure that was
0:21
originally there. And to do that, we're cracking
0:24
open John Calvin's Institute's of the Christian Religion again.
0:27
Specifically, we're diving into Book 1, Chapter 15.
0:30
The whole topic on the table today is, well, humanity.
0:33
The creation of man. But you know, this isn't a
0:36
biology class. We're not talking about cells or
0:38
DNA. We're talking about the
0:40
faculties of the soul, the image of God, and that that mysterious
0:45
perfect state that Adam lived in before everything went off the
0:48
rails. This is what theologians call
0:50
original integrity. And you know, this specific
0:53
section of Calvin is, I think, often overlooked.
0:56
People tend to want to jump straight to predestination or
0:59
the atonement. Right, the big ones.
1:00
The big ones, exactly. But Calvin's anthropology, his
1:05
study of what it means to be human, it's kind of a hinge that
1:08
a lot of those other doctrines really swing on.
1:10
He starts with that famous hook, doesn't he?
1:12
The very beginning of the Institute's You can't know
1:15
yourself unless you know God. But here in this chapter, he
1:19
sort of flips the coin. He seems to be saying that to
1:23
understand our current mess, we actually have to understand our
1:26
original perfection. First, precisely.
1:29
That is the absolute core of what he's arguing here.
1:32
Caldon's point is that if you look in the mirror right now,
1:34
you're seeing a distorted image. You're seeing the car after the
1:37
crash. Yeah.
1:38
And if you try to figure out the nature of a car by just looking
1:42
at the wreckage, you're going to assume that cars are designed to
1:45
be, you know, crushed metal and broken glass.
1:47
Which is a terrible assumption to make.
1:49
A terrible assumption. So Calvin says we have to look
1:52
back the factory settings. We have to know that we were
1:54
created spotless to really grasp the magnitude of how ruined we
1:58
are now. You know, that brings us right
2:00
to the mission of this deep dive.
2:02
As I was reading through these sections, I got this distinct
2:04
feeling that Calvin is trying to strip us of our favorite defense
2:08
mechanism, which is the excuse the whole I was Born This Way
2:12
argument. Oh, absolutely.
2:13
It's the oldest trick in the book, isn't it?
2:15
We love to blame our nature. You hear all the time, oh, I
2:19
have a bad temper, it's just my nature.
2:21
Or I have these lusts. It's just how I'm wired.
2:24
And Calvin is having absolutely none of it.
2:27
None at all. He is going to take a
2:29
sledgehammer to that entire line of thinking.
2:31
He wants to force us to look at our original design to to
2:36
validate God's justice. Because if you blame your sin on
2:39
your nature, you are, even if you don't realize it, implicitly
2:43
blaming the one who designed that nature.
2:45
That's a really dangerous game to play.
2:47
You're effectively putting God in the dock and then acting as
2:50
your own defense attorney. And Calvin is stepping in as the
2:52
prosecutor to say, objection. That is not how you were built.
2:56
OK, so let's get into the evidence.
2:57
We're starting with segment one, the original purity and this
3:01
this whole blame game. Calvin kicks off with a very,
3:04
very strong assertion. He says man proceeded spotless
3:07
from God's hand. Spotless is the word that's the
3:10
key. When God finished creating man,
3:13
there was no defect. There was no glitch in the
3:15
system, no hitting malware, Calvin says.
3:18
This creation was the noblest example of God's justice and His
3:22
wisdom and His goodness. OK, so if we start out spotless,
3:26
walk me through the logic of this blame game.
3:29
How does human impiety, as he calls it, twist all this?
3:33
Well, just think about the psychological relief you feel
3:35
when you can attribute A flaw to something that's outside of your
3:38
control. You know, if I'm late because of
3:40
traffic, I feel almost no guilt. If I'm angry because that's just
3:43
how my brain chemicals work, I feel less responsible.
3:45
It becomes a shield against guilt.
3:47
It's a shield, and Calvin calls this impiety.
3:50
He says when we claim that our defects belong to our nature,
3:53
we're setting up a defense mechanism.
3:55
The logic, whether we say it out loud or not, is this.
3:58
If this defect is natural, then the author of nature must be
4:02
responsible. It's a really subtle way of
4:04
trying to acquit ourselves by indicting our creator.
4:06
Yeah, you made me this way, so you deal with it.
4:10
That is the bold move. He says we are contending with
4:13
God himself, and Calvin just cuts right through it by making
4:16
a vital distinction. He says we have to distinguish
4:19
between nature as it was created by God, which was good and pure
4:24
and functional, and nature as it was corrupted by Adam, which is
4:27
depraved. So the nature we experience
4:30
right now is not the original factory setting, it's a
4:32
corrupted file. That's the perfect analogy.
4:35
And if you don't make that distinction, you end up
4:37
insulting God while you're trying to excuse yourself,
4:40
Calvin says. We must cut off every shift,
4:42
every attempt to shift the blame in order to vindicate God's
4:45
justice. To illustrate this, our
4:48
position, he uses this beautiful kind of paradoxical imagery.
4:52
The earthen vessel, yes. This is classic Calvin.
4:55
He loves holding 2 truths and tensions.
4:57
So on one hand, man is taken from earth and clay from dust.
5:01
That's where our humility comes from.
5:02
It should bridle our pride. We live in houses of clay.
5:05
As Job says, we're fragile. It is hard.
5:08
To be arrogant when you realize you're just animated dirt.
5:10
It should be, it really should be.
5:12
But then on the other hand, God chose to place an immortal
5:15
spirit inside that clay. So Adam had this incredible
5:20
dignity. He could glory in his makers
5:22
liberality. He was dust, yes, but he was a
5:26
dust that housed a soul capable of knowing God.
5:29
It's a balance. Then.
5:31
If you focus only on the dust, you can become a materialist or
5:33
a nihilist or just meat sacks, right?
5:35
But if you focus only on the spirit, you might become
5:38
arrogant and start thinking you're a God.
5:40
Adam held both of those things together.
5:42
And that leads us directly into the engine room of the human
5:45
being. What is that spirit?
5:48
Calvin spends a significant number of pages just defining
5:51
the constitution of the soul. He does, and reading this it
5:54
felt like he was fighting a battle on 2 fronts.
5:57
He wants to define what the soul is for the believer, but he also
6:00
seems to be fighting against people who don't believe the
6:02
soul even exists. Oh, the materialists were alive
6:06
and well in the 16th century, just like they are today.
6:09
So first let's define it. Calvin says the soul is an
6:13
immortal yet created essence. It's the nobler part of man.
6:18
Before we get to the proofs, he clears up some terminology that
6:20
I think always trips people up. Soul versus spirit.
6:24
You hear them used in the Bible, sometimes together, sometimes
6:26
separate. Are they actually different
6:28
things? Do we have two different ghost
6:30
parts inside us? Calvin says no.
6:32
He argues they are used interchangeably in Scripture.
6:36
Now. Sometimes they're distinguished
6:37
for a bit of nuance, but usually they mean the same thing.
6:40
When Ecclesiastes says the Spirit returns to God, or when
6:44
Jesus commends his Spirit to the Father, he's talking about the
6:47
soul. OK, so we don't need to get hung
6:49
up on a tripartite view of man, body, soul, and spirit.
6:52
It's three totally separate, distinct substances.
6:55
Calvin avoids that complexity. He focuses on the duality, just
6:59
body and soul. But here's the big argument he
7:01
has to make. He has to refute the
7:04
materialists who say the soul is just breath.
7:06
You mean like the air in your lungs?
7:08
The air in your lungs or physical force.
7:11
Think of it like a battery and a toy.
7:13
The electricity animates the toy, but the electricity itself
7:16
doesn't have a personality. And when the battery dies, the
7:19
power is just gone. It doesn't go anywhere.
7:22
And Calvin calls this opinion stupidly blundering.
7:26
He really does not mince words, does he?
7:28
He never does, but he always backs up his insults with
7:30
arguments, and he uses proofs from nature, things we can
7:35
observe without even opening a Bible.
7:37
And then he brings in proofs from Scripture.
7:39
OK, let's. Look at the natural proofs,
7:40
because I found these assassinated.
7:42
He starts with the conscience. This is such a powerful point.
7:46
He asks a really simple question.
7:48
How can a non material motion fear a spiritual judgment?
7:52
Think about guilt. I mean, if we are just biology,
7:55
just a series of chemical reactions, why do we feel this
7:59
deep, haunting dread of guilt that goes way beyond just the
8:03
fear of getting caught by the police?
8:05
It's that feeling of being accountable to something higher,
8:07
isn't it? Even if no other human being
8:08
knows what you did. Right.
8:10
The body fears physical pain, the body fears prison, But the
8:14
soul fears spiritual judgement. That fear implies there's an
8:17
essence inside of us capable of receiving that judgement.
8:20
If there's no soul, there's no bucket to hold that guilt.
8:23
That is a strong wrong argument. Then he moves on to the
8:26
intellect. He points to the human mind's
8:28
ability to spend time and space. Animals operate by sense
8:31
perception, what's right there in front of them.
8:34
A dog smells food. He wants the food.
8:37
But humans, we remember the past.
8:40
We arrange things in order. We infer future events.
8:43
We conceive of invisible things like God and angels and abstract
8:47
justice. Yeah, a dog doesn't sit around
8:49
contemplating the concept of justice or the nature of angels.
8:53
Precisely. The body cannot grasp the
8:55
invisible. Your eyes can't see justice.
8:57
Your hands can't touch logic. The very fact that we can
9:00
conceive of the invisible proves there's something invisible
9:03
within us, the seat of that intelligence.
9:05
And then he brings up sleep, which I found really interesting
9:08
because usually we think of sleep as the time when we're
9:11
least active. It's a brilliant observation.
9:13
When you sleep, your body is effectively offline.
9:17
It's been numbed, and yet your mind is active.
9:19
You dream, you conceive thoughts, you sometimes have
9:23
presentiments of the future. It shows that the mind's
9:26
activity is not strictly dependent on the body being
9:28
awake and active. It suggests a kind of functional
9:31
independence. So those are the natural proofs.
9:34
But for the believer, of course, Scripture is the final word, and
9:38
he stacks up quite a few references here.
9:40
He does. He goes right back to that House
9:42
of Clay metaphor. Paul talks about putting off the
9:45
Tabernacle of the flesh a tent. Which implies that the you
9:48
inside the tent is different from the tent itself.
9:51
You don't become the tent just because you live in it for a
9:54
while. Correct.
9:55
And then he points to Peter calling Christ the shepherd of
9:57
souls. That's a logical slam dunk for
10:00
Calvin. If souls don't exist, if they're
10:02
just battery power, then Christ is the shepherd of nothing.
10:06
His entire office is void. He's shepherding wind.
10:09
That would make the entire gospel absurd.
10:11
And then there's the warning in Matthew 10.28.
10:14
Feel him who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.
10:17
That distinction is so key. Both soul and D body.
10:21
Right. If the soul isn't a real thing,
10:22
you can't destroy in hell separate from the body.
10:25
And finally, of course, he points to the parable of Lazarus
10:28
and the rich man. Oh, right, The rich man is in
10:32
torment, Lazarus is in bliss. Their bodies are buried in the
10:35
ground, but they are conscious. It proves consciousness after
10:39
death. You can't have torment or bliss
10:40
if you don't exist. So Calvin establishes it firmly.
10:44
The soul is an immortal essence created by God, and it is the
10:48
primary seat of our humanity. OK, so we've established the
10:51
vessel. We have the body, which is the
10:53
clay, and the soul, the immortal essence.
10:55
Now we get to the crown jewel of human creation, the thing that
10:59
really makes us distinct from the animals.
11:01
The Imago Day. The image is gone.
11:03
This is one of the most debated concepts in all of theology, and
11:06
Calvin really wants to bring clarity to it.
11:08
He starts by locating it. Where?
11:10
Where's the image of God? Is it in our thumbs?
11:13
Our upright posture. Primarily, he says, it's in the
11:16
soul. Now, Calvin does grant a little
11:19
concession. He says, yes, our body
11:20
distinguishes us from the animals.
11:22
Animals look down at the ground. Man has an uplifted face, you
11:26
know, gazing at the stars. And that reflects a certain
11:29
dignity. I've always liked that image,
11:31
the posture of looking up. It's very poetic, but Calvin
11:34
insists don't get confused. The true image is spiritual.
11:39
And this is where he gets into a really serious scrap with a
11:42
theologian named Oceander. Andreas Oceander.
11:44
We had to talk about it because Calvin spends pages and pages
11:46
just dismantling his view. What was Oceander saying?
11:49
Oceander had this this speculative idea that God's
11:53
image extended to the physical body because Adam was patterned
11:56
after the future Incarnate Christ.
11:59
Basically, the idea was that God knew Christ would have
12:01
eventually become a man, so when he made Adam, he designed Adam
12:05
to look like the future Jesus. You know, at first glance, that
12:07
sounds plausible. It almost sounds like it's
12:10
honoring to Jesus. It sounds pious, but Calvin
12:13
argues it's a theological disaster waiting to happen.
12:16
Why? What's the danger there?
12:17
Because it completely confuses the Trinity.
12:20
Calvin asked the question, if Adam is the image of Christ and
12:23
Christ is the image of God, where does the Holy Spirit fit
12:26
into all of this? It suggests that Christ is the
12:29
image of the Spirit, or that the Spirit has no image, it just
12:32
disrupts the entire order of the Godhead.
12:35
He says Oceaner mingles heaven and earth.
12:37
Right. And it relies on the strange
12:39
idea that Christ is somehow the image of himself.
12:42
It just gets messy. So Calvin says keep it simple.
12:46
Stick to the spiritual definition.
12:48
We do not need to drag the physical body into the essence
12:51
of what the image of God is. The image is about who we are,
12:55
not what shape we are. Then there's the linguistic
12:57
debate. Let us make man in our image
13:00
after our likeness. People love to drive a truck
13:04
through the gap between image and likeness.
13:05
Oh, they do. They try to say image means the
13:07
substance of the soul, and likeness means its moral
13:10
qualities. Or they flip it.
13:12
They build entire theologies on the difference between the
13:14
Hebrew words zelem and DeMuth. And what does Calvin say to
13:17
that? He effectively says stop it,
13:19
you're embarrassing yourselves. Simplicity again.
13:22
It's just Hebrew parallelism. It's a common literary device
13:26
where you say the same thing twice for emphasis.
13:28
Image is the noun, likeness is the explanation.
13:31
God is making man to be like him.
13:34
That's it. He calls the distinction a non
13:37
existent difference. He has 0 patience for
13:40
overanalyzing grammar to invent theology that isn't actually
13:44
there in the text. So if that's not the body, and
13:46
it's not some secret distinction between image and likeness, what
13:51
is the image of God according to Calvin?
13:53
This is the beautiful part. He defines it as perfect
13:56
integrity. In Adam.
13:57
It meant right understanding in the mind, affections that were
14:01
perfectly obedient to reason, and senses that were tempered
14:04
and under control. Adam mirrored God's glory and
14:07
his spiritual attributes. Right understanding obedient
14:10
affections. That sounds so distant from what
14:13
we experience now. It does, and that is exactly why
14:15
it's so hard for us to define the image of God by looking in
14:18
the mirror. Because when we look in the
14:19
mirror, as Calvin says, we see a fightful deformity.
14:21
That is a strong phrase. But it's accurate.
14:24
The mirror is shattered. So Calvin gives us a
14:28
methodology. If you want to know what the
14:30
image was, look at what the Holy Spirit is restoring in
14:32
believers. So look at the repair work to
14:35
understand the original blueprint.
14:36
Exactly. It's reverse engineering.
14:38
Calvin goes straight to Paul in Colossians 3 and Ephesians 4.
14:42
Paul says we are being renewed in knowledge, righteousness and
14:46
holiness. So logically, if we are being
14:49
renewed to knowledge, righteousness and holiness.
14:52
Then the original image consisted of knowledge,
14:54
righteousness, and holiness. That makes perfect sense.
14:57
We're being rebuilt into what Adam lost.
14:58
Yes, and Christ is the key. He is the second Adam.
15:02
We can't see the image clearly in ourselves, but we see it
15:05
perfectly in Christ. So if we are conformed to Him,
15:08
we are being restored to that true piety and that true
15:11
intelligence. Now does this does this mean the
15:13
image is completely gone? And unbelievers, is it just
15:15
zero? Not 0.
15:16
Calvin says. It's not annihilated, but
15:19
vitiated. Vitiated.
15:20
That means corrupted, right? Mangled.
15:22
Think of a beautiful painting that has been slashed with a
15:24
knife and covered in mud. The painting is still there.
15:28
It's not a blank canvas, but it is a ruin compared to its
15:32
original glory. It remains just enough to make
15:35
us human and to make us accountable.
15:37
We still have reason. We still have a will, but it's
15:39
all twisted now. The reason is blind and the will
15:43
is rebellious. Before we move on from the soul,
15:45
Calvin issues a pretty serious warning against a specific
15:49
heresy, the Manichaean error. This is about where the soul
15:52
actually comes from. This is crucial.
15:54
Some people read that verse. God breathed into his nostrils
15:58
the breath of life, and they think, oh, the soul must be a
16:00
piece of God. It's a spark of the divine
16:03
essence. Like we're little chips off the
16:04
old block. But literally a literal
16:07
emanation, Calvin says. This is a monstrous idea.
16:10
Why is it so bad? I mean, it sounds kind of nice
16:12
to be a piece of God. It sounds nice until you think
16:14
about the implications for even a second.
16:17
If the soul is a piece of God's essence, then God's essence is
16:20
subject to ignorance and sin and change.
16:23
When you sin, a piece of God's sins.
16:26
When you're confused, a piece of God is confused.
16:29
Yeah, that breaks everything. It completely destroys the
16:32
holiness and the immunobisity of God.
16:34
Calvin insists we are God's offspring by quality and by
16:37
gift, not by essence. Creation is ex nihilo, out of
16:41
nothing. God created the soul.
16:44
He did not break off a piece of himself and put it inside us.
16:46
That is a vital distinction, Yeah.
16:48
We are created beings through and through.
16:51
Even in our highest part, we are creatures, correct?
16:54
Okay, let's pivot a bit to how this soul actually works.
16:58
We're getting into what they call faculty psychology, how the
17:01
whole machine runs. And again, Calvin is sort of
17:03
battling the philosophers here, Plato and Aristotle, they have
17:06
these very complex long lists of faculties, senses, fantasy,
17:11
reason, passive intellect, active intellect.
17:14
And Calvin just says too much. He says it's too complicated for
17:17
upbuilding godliness. He wants a practical model that
17:20
helps us understand our sin and our need for God.
17:22
So he simplifies it all down to two main players.
17:25
Just two, And who are they? The understanding and the will.
17:28
OK, so let's meet the understanding first.
17:30
The understanding is the leader. It's the governor.
17:33
Its job is to look at the world, to distinguish good from evil,
17:36
and to present options. It includes our reason and our
17:39
sense perception. Basically it holds the map.
17:42
And the will. The will is the chooser.
17:44
It follows the judgement of the understanding.
17:46
It includes our appetites and our affections.
17:48
The will is the engine that moves us, but it moves based on
17:52
the map that the understanding shows it.
17:54
So in the original creation, back to that spotless state,
17:58
Yeah. How did these two work together?
18:00
Perfectly, the understanding ruled with clear sight.
18:03
It saw God, it saw truth, it saw what was genuinely good, and the
18:07
will. It obeyed perfectly.
18:09
There was absolutely no friction.
18:12
The mind said obeying God is good, and the will said I desire
18:15
to obey God. That sounds peaceful.
18:18
It was integrity. That's what integrity means,
18:20
Wholeness. No internal civil war going on.
18:22
But then comes the big question, right?
18:24
If the understanding was so clear and the will was so
18:26
obedient, how did Adam fall? And this brings us to the whole
18:30
topic of freedom and responsibility.
18:32
This is the hardest part of the discussion, I think.
18:34
Adam had free choice. Yes, Calvin is very clear here.
18:38
Adam possessed the power to obtain eternal life if he's so
18:42
willed. That little phrase, if he's so
18:44
willed, is doing a lot of heavy lifting.
18:46
It is. Calvin distinguishes between
18:48
posse, the ability to stand, and the necessity to stand.
18:53
Adam had the capacity. He wasn't programmed to fall.
18:55
He wasn't pushed. He wasn't a robot.
18:58
No, but he also was not immutable.
19:00
He wasn't unchangeable like God is.
19:03
His will was capable of being bent one way or the other.
19:06
So he had a steering wheel that worked perfectly, but he could
19:09
still steer into a ditch if he chose to.
19:11
Exactly. And he did.
19:13
Calvin says Adam fell solely by his own will.
19:16
The fault lies in his refusal to use the ability he was given.
19:20
Now here is the objection that everyone screams at this point.
19:23
Why didn't God just give Adam a will that could not sin?
19:26
It's the why didn't God make us perfect, perfect argument.
19:29
Yeah, I mean, wouldn't that have been better for everyone?
19:32
Calvin actually admits yes, a nature that could not sin would
19:35
have been more excellent. That's what we will have in.
19:37
Heaven. So why not just start there?
19:39
Calvin's answer is blunt. God was under no obligation to
19:43
give man more than he did. He gave Adam a mediocre will.
19:47
Mediocre. Sounds like an insult to us
19:49
today. In Latin it just means middle or
19:51
sufficient. It wasn't the highest possible
19:54
will, which would be immutable, but it was not a defective will.
19:57
It was sufficient to stand. So God gave him a working car.
20:01
It wasn't a self driving car that refused to crash, but it
20:04
was a perfectly functional car. And Adam drove it straight into
20:07
a wall, Calvin says. To quarrel with God on this
20:10
point is iniquitous. We're blaming the giver for the
20:13
gift because it wasn't the absolute best gift we could
20:16
possibly imagine, even though the gift he gave was perfect for
20:19
its purpose. And Calvin touches on the
20:21
mystery of God's plan here, too. Doesn't.
20:23
He he does, he says the reason why God did not sustain Adam by
20:26
the virtue of perseverance lies hidden in his plan.
20:29
Predestination is real. But, and this is a huge butt
20:33
dish, we must not blame the Creator for the creature's
20:36
voluntary destruction. Adam didn't know about
20:38
predestination. Adam knew he had a choice, and
20:41
he made it. So the secret plan of God does
20:44
not negate the responsibility of Adam.
20:46
Correct. We are the ruins of a noble
20:48
palace. We destroyed the palace.
20:50
We can't blame the architect because he didn't build it out
20:54
of indestructible diamond. He built it out of marble and
20:57
we're the ones who took a sledgehammer to it.
20:58
That really brings us full circle back to the mission of
21:01
this deep dive, yeah, which is to strip away all the excuses.
21:04
It does. We are left without a defense.
21:07
We cannot blame our nature because our original nature was
21:09
created spotless. We cannot blame God because He
21:13
gave us everything we needed to stand.
21:15
So let's. Try to synthesize this.
21:16
We've covered a lot of ground here.
21:18
We have. We saw that man was created
21:20
spotless, both body and soul. We define the soul as an
21:23
immortal essence, proved by conscience and by Scripture.
21:26
We clarify the image of God. It's not physical is a spiritual
21:31
integrity. It's made of righteousness,
21:33
knowledge and holiness. And we simplified the
21:35
psychology, understanding, leading, will choosing.
21:39
And finally, we saw that Adam had the freedom to stand, but he
21:42
chose to fall. So why does this all matter to
21:45
the listener right now? Maybe they're driving to work or
21:47
doing the dishes. Why do they need to know about
21:49
Adam's original integrity? Because it validates God's
21:52
justice in your life today. It stops you from looking at
21:55
your own sin and saying, well, God made me this way.
21:57
No sin is an intruder. It is a corruption of your
22:02
design. And it tells you what you're
22:03
supposed to be. Exactly.
22:05
It sets the goal. If the image of God is
22:07
knowledge, righteousness, and holiness, then that's what the
22:11
entire Christian life is aiming for.
22:13
That's the target. And it sets the stage for the
22:16
hero of the story. The second Adam.
22:18
Since the first Adam ruined the image.
22:20
We can't fix it. We can't glue the shattered
22:22
mirror back together. We need a new Adam.
22:25
Only Christ can restore that image in us through the Spirit.
22:29
That's the hope. We're being renewed day by day.
22:32
Into the image of our creator. I want to leave everyone with a
22:35
thought to chew on. Kelvin talks about how our image
22:37
now is a frightful deformity compared to what it once was,
22:41
yet we still pride ourselves on our intellect or reason, our
22:44
humanity, we. Do we're very proud of our
22:46
minds. So the provocative thought is
22:49
this. If the image of God in US is
22:53
currently a ruin compared to Adams, and yet we still pride
22:56
ourselves on it, are we actually worshipping the ruins rather
23:01
than the architect? That is a haunting question.
23:04
Are we admiring the rebel while ignoring the one who can
23:07
actually rebuild the city? Something to think about.
23:10
Thank you for joining us on this deep dive into reformed
23:12
thinking. It's been a pleasure.
23:13
You will see you next time.