Excerpt from Calvin on Creation: Its Inauguration, Continuation, and Consummation – To read the full text, click “Download” below.
John Calvin, that greatest of all the Protestant Reformers, faithfully upheld the Triune and Biblical and Church-Historical view of creation. Indeed, he even put the trinitarian Genesis 1:1 “beginning” before the great global flood of Genesis 1:2.
He saw the start of earth’s formation week only from Genesis 1:3 onward. And he viewed the formation days as unequal periods of light (Genesis 1:3-31).
He insisted there were rainclouds and mountains before there were plants (Genesis 1:6-12). He called the primordial or pre-solar days “natural” (Genesis 1:3-13), and the later or solar days “artificial” (Genesis 1:14f).
