WCF 4

Chapter 4 - Of Creation

I. It pleased God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,(1) for the manifestation of the glory of His eternal power, wisdom, and goodness,(2) in the beginning, to create, or make of nothing, the world, and all things therein whether visible or invisible, in the space of six days; and all very good.(3)

I. In the beginning, God(1) was pleased, for the manifestation of His eternal power, wisdom and goodness,(2) to create all things visible and invisible from nothing. This He did in the space of six days and declared it all very good.(3)

A little rearranging and shortening. I removed "the Father, Son and Holy Ghost" because the footnote makes it clear all three were present. The Confession has already established the truth of the Trinity so I don't see a need to bog this first sentence down by making them explicit. I think this section could benefit from including a bit about how God created from nothing rather than leaving it simply at that He has created from nothing. I'm also not sure about the benefit of keeping "in the space of six days" given the current debates about the subject. Two spring immediately to mind for me: (1) the semantic range of the Hebrew word for "day" and (2) the literary genre/style of the creation account. There are other ontic and linguistic issues involved but these two generally seem to stand out above the rest. I might render the last sentence in this section this way: "This He did according to His will and declared it all very good." Such a rendering preserves the truth of the section without favoring a particular stance on the ontic and linguistic issues.

II. After God had made all other creatures, He created man, male and female,(4) with reasonable and immortal souls,(5) endued with knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness, after His own image,(6) having the law of God written in their hearts,(7) and power to fulfill it:(8) and yet under a possibility of transgressing, being left to the liberty of their own will, which was subject unto change.(9) Beside this law written in their hearts, they received a command, not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,(10) which while they kept, they were happy in their communion with God, and had dominion over the creatures.(11)

II. After God had made all other creatures He created man, male and female.(4) He created them in His own image(6) giving them reasonable and immortal souls(5) endued with knowledge, righteousness and true holiness. They had the law of God written in their hearts(7) and were endowed with the power to obey.(8) Beside the law written in their hearts, they were given a command: do not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.(10) Under this possibility of transgression they were left to the liberty of their own will which was subject to change.(9) While they kept this command they remained happy in their communion with God and had dominion over the rest of creation.(11)

I did a decent amount of moving around in this section as can be seen from incorrect order of the parenthetical numbers. Those numbers, remember, are the footnotes to the Scripture proofs in the original Confession so I have simply moved them along with their respective sentences. I think this ordering makes more sense and is more coherent. I changed "power to fulfill it" to "power to obey" because that's what is really being said and I think it should be made clear. I moved "Beside the law written..." to precede "Under this possibility of transgression..." because it flows better and increases the overall consistency of the section; I do not think this substantially affects the content. I also changed "had dominion over the creatures" to "had dominion over the rest of creation" because it wasn't just the fauna they were given. I have some issues with this section as well (surprise!) but the only one really worth mentioning is my concern over the phrase "giving them reasonable and immortal souls". I don't dispute that reason and the soul are linked but there should be qualifications about the supposed immortality. Since only God is self-sufficient it is, then, a mistake to describe the soul as immortal. However, this criticism only applies if we understand "immortal" to mean "imperishable" or "not subject to death/decay."