In The Beginning....

To start off the blog, let’s start at the beginning. I have it on good authority it is a very good place to start (Ok, Mary Poppins said – and sang - that but it is still true). Genesis 1:1 says, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” What do you think when you read this? Well, for those who believe in God, it means God existed BEFORE everything and from Him everything came. Many in the secular world believe there is no God. They say they believe science proves the universe was formed by the “Big Bang.” They say they only believe in what can be proven. One of the big questions they ask is “Who created God?” While they state believing in God requires faith, they fail to realize believing the big bang THEORY also requires faith. One of the central tenants of physics is that matter cannot be created or destroyed, only changed from one form to another. The premise of the “The Big Bang” is that all matter was condensed into a single point (called a singularity) of extreme density which exploded and not only created the universe but also time. The irony is that those who question the “beginning” of God never question the origin of the singularity, how long it existed before the explosion, nor why it would suddenly explode after an undefined time. Many aspects of what is assumed by science is not proven including evolution. While science can show species have gone through adaptations to their environments, they have not been able to show where species have completely changed from one species to another. Many aspects of the “scientific” view of creation cannot be explained. The old question “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” is casually asked by most people at some point, but it is really a perfect illustration of what science cannot answer.

Through God and His word, we can see how the world came into being. John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” When you read the first chapter of Genesis, you see that it states, “God said…” All that is required is for God to speak it. In the seventh chapter of Luke is the account of the centurion who sent for Jesus to heal his servant. As Jesus was on his way, the centurion sent some of friends to meet Him and tell Him that He only needed to speak the word to heal the servant. Jesus marveled at the faith of the centurion and healed the servant without being in the vicinity of the afflicted. With God, everything was perfectly formed. There are disagreements even within faith communities about the exact timing of the “creation story”. Some use a literal seven days while others claim 7,000 years referring to 2 Peter 3:8 which says, "But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." There is also the possibility that the events depicted in Genesis take place over a different timeline and the use of the term “day” is not truly defined. In reality, the exact timing of the beginning of the world is immaterial. Those who purport to believe in “science” believe those who hold to either of the two major biblical timelines (whether 7 days or 7,000 years) are comparable to those who believed the Earth is flat. As noted previously, science also relies on a certain amount of faith. The irony is that many scientists over the years were Christians.

How can a Christian believe in God and science? The real question is how can a scientist not believe in God? To believe that the universe, and the Earth, in particular, could be created by a massive explosion and every living thing on Earth formed from a single cell organism which evolved to create not only every animal but also every type of plant on the planet without the intervention of a powerful being requires a great deal of faith. God is the only logical explanation of how the planet and its myriad forms of life were created. He formed everything with thought, intention, and love. It is easy when reading the origins of the world in Genesis to believe that God only loved mankind because he formed Adam from the dust of the ground and breathed the breath of life into him. However, that is shortsighted. God took time to form every creature. Mankind may have been more personal but He still personally created all life. Revelation 4:11 says, “Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.” All things were created for His pleasure. Every detail, no matter how seemingly insignificant, was designed by God.

Many people today spend time and money trying to find the meaning of life. All you need to do is look to God. He is the reason for all things. Learning more about Him and allowing Him to guide our lives is the best way to find meaning. After all, if He can create a world so balanced whether it be the “circle of life” or the interactions of the various complex natural systems that exist then surely He can handle whatever situations arise in the lives of His creations. Scientists continually try to find answers to the origins of the universe trying to prove that God had nothing to do with it. They have their theories about how everything began and how life “evolved” but they can, at best, only simulate what God has done. They can “clone” animals using existing DNA but they cannot create life from nothing or the dust of the Earth. The best they can do is determine the existing rules of how things work but they cannot change those rules because they were created by God. There is nothing wrong with getting educated but we can never learn more than God. So, what do you believe?