We discover what mysteries of our nature are elucidated for us in God's word. Without it, the whole person appears to be nothing but earth, without form, empty, and darkness on the face of the deep. Here is a deep that finite understanding cannot fathom, a deep on which the darkness lies, whose surface our eye is not even allowed to distinguish. If we wish to know anything, then let us ask the Spirit who hovers over this deep, who can transpose this unformed, empty, dark, mysterious world into beauty, fullness, clarity, and glory which, by contrast, makes the rest of creation appear to lose its radiance.
[Johann Georg Hamann, The Complete London Writings, Kleinig, tr., Lexham Academic (Bellingham: 2025) p. 98. This is from "Biblical Meditations of a Christian" on Deuteronomy 30:11.]
