The Creation

In the beginning, God created. How did God bring into existence the heaven and earth? Creation is not yet complete, what God starts, He must finish, there is still work to be done in God's plan of liberation. God is in His rest right now and has left the creative process to us. The human part of the creation had been spoiled by sin and through the redemptive process, we are whole again. Judgment is coming, retribution and reward administered and a time of peace, holiness and justice to look forward to. This is a creative process and the kind of attitude and eschatological outlook found everywhere in the New Testament.

A conception of an unfinished creation is important. The conflict that religious and scientific explanations of creation have left is a centuries-old legacy of suspicion which today has erupted in the nation's classrooms and courtrooms with extremists and bigots on both sides. A bridge between religion and science in the last few years has gained momentum but nonsense such as the "Big Bang Theory" which teaches that in the beginning there was nothing which then exploded, should be given little consideration.

Pope John Paul II, in a 1988 message, heartily endorsed interaction between science and religion. "Science," said the pontiff, "can purify religion from error and superstition, while religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes." That's a far cry from the traditional medieval animosity of scientific inquiry. There is the way that science and faith work together but it is the opposite poles of extremism that have the sway today.

Ancient civilizations have their stories of the creation. The Chaldean Legends purport to give the stories of creation and the Babylonian Legends are supposed to carry the story of Cain and Abel, certainly the deluge. "In the beginning" belongs to all peoples and brings us immediately into a world of space and time and through our evolution, history.

St. Augustine warned against taking the six days of Genesis literally, he claimed that while God created everything in the beginning, some things were made in a potential form, so that in time they might become the way we see them now. He took a dim view of interpreting Scripture in ways that conflicted with nature. One such attempt at reconciliation is the day-age theory - the idea that creation was gradual, occurring perhaps over millions of years and that the "days" of Genesis actually were geological ages until the final day when man was created and God rested in the seventh day. Biology does not make sense without evolution. Those that believe that creation days are 24 hour days have never studied the first chapter of the Bible; day and night were not even daily periods until before the fourth day. It is a damaging ideology that says that anyone who believes in evolution cannot accept the biblical record of creation." The scripture is not wrong, the interpretation is faulty.

Albert Einstein once wrote that good science is created only by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration towards truth and understanding. The same must surely be applied to good theology. Science is based upon faith and logic, but not limited to either. Inductively derived hypothesis into deductive reasoning can at most be highly probable. In Genesis, God creates not out of nothing but out of chaos. The word day is an indefinite term meaning a certain lapse of time. The Creator rested on the seventh day. The 7th day was not 24 hours in length, we are still in the 7th day. God still rests and we believe the revelations that this period of rest is to last until this present world ends, and the new creation of the new heaven and earth is unfolded.

After creation, God worked into time from eternity and communicated knowledge to man who was in time. Creation is the reality of the true God in breaking into time simply for our benefit. Something was there before creation: God was there; love and communication was there. Gen. 1.1 evidently puts the origin of the universe in the dateless past, allowing for all the ages outlined by the science of geology. The Bible and science confirm each other. Archbishop Usher, who rightly observed the unbroken succession of father son relationships in the genealogical lists of Genesis 5 and 11 puts the creation at 4004 BC. I have worked it out myself, it is certainly the age of man that is recorded here but to assume that the first day of creation began the same week is absurd.

The work of God was such that He brought together out of chaos the existence of heaven and earth, including both the material and the spiritual worlds. God alone is eternal. The system or systems of the material universe, as well as matter itself, also spiritual beings, except God, had a beginning. This belief underlies all true recipients of faith, for only when we apprehend the Scriptures upon this subject can we fully commit ourselves unto a creator God who is a rewarder of those that diligently seek Him.

The creative process covers vast epochs of time. It begins when God by his first fiat first spoke order out of chaos, and he rested only when He formed man from the dust of the ground into his own image and likeness.
[153, US News, 125, 323, 351, 366, BD]



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