Theology of Creation/Firm Faith in a Failing World

Truth emanates from the character and nature of God.” -Redlin

God Himself

“Common sense tells us that we are just playing a game.”

Why do we have something rather than nothing at all?

some say that reality is an illusion

This theory is summarized by the famous words of Rene Descartes, who said, “I think, therefore I am.” Descartes was a mathematician who argued that if he were thinking, then he must “be.” “I think…therefore, I am not an illusion.” You cannot doubt the existence of yourself without proving it.

Did you hear about the college student who said, “Professor, i’m not sure I even exist!” to which the professor said, “Who, then, may I say is asking?”

some say that reality is self-created

How does one create themselves?

Stephen Hawking: “Because there is a law like gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing.” If so, however, who created gravity? Eventually, you have to start at nothing.

You cannot start with gravity, motion, matter, energy, or space. Nothing is nothing. These are something and came from somewhere and created by someone.

“Nothing is what rocks dream about.” -Aristotle

A thing cannot be ontologically prior to itself. To create yourself, you must have existed prior to yourself. This is analytically false.

“Something exists. Nothing cannot create something, therefore a necessary and eternal being exists.” -Jonathan Edwards

3. some say that reality/matter is eternal

RC SPROUL:

Antony Flew was an English philosopher who, though known for his work in philosophy of religion, was a devout atheist for much of his professional career. In fact, in 1968, he published a book titled Reason and Responsibility, which contained an argument against the existence of God. His argument became known as “Flew’s Parable.” But at the age of eighty-one, Flew “converted” and became a theist, at one point saying, “I now realise that I have made a fool of myself by believing that there were no presentable theories of the development of inanimate matter up to the first living creature capable of reproduction.” Flew understood that, apart from this view, known as the “God hypothesis,” science itself would be impossible.

4. reality was created by something that is self-existent

WE NEED A REALITY CHECK!

Huxley, friend of Darwin: Christianity rises or falls on the Jewish historical scriptures.

“It becomes clear now that the whole justification of Jesus’ life and death is predicated on the existence of Adam and the forbidden fruit he and Eve ate. Without the original sin, who needs to be redeemed? Without Adam’s fall into a life of constant sin terminated by death, WHAT PURPOSE IS THERE TO CHRISTIANITY? NONE!” -Richard Bozarth, “The meaning of evolution,” American Atheist.

If Genesis is not true, we do not need the gospel.

“If Adam may be held to be no more real a personage than Prometheus, and if the story of the Fall is merely an instructive type, comparable to the profound Promethean mythus, what value has Paul’s dialectic?” -Thomas Huxley

Romans 5- Paul treats the story of Genesis as historical fact. The doctrine of sin is based upon a literal interpretation of Genesis.

Creation- laws, marriage, standards, meaning of life

Abortion- lawlessness, marital breakup, anarchy, suicide

Anglican- Garden of Eden is a myth- the myth contains great truths

“In no case could one person suffer every man’s punishment.”

Creation- Corruption- Catastrophe- Confusion- Christ- Cross- Consummation

REASONS WHY I REJECT EVOLUTION:

The worst expression of man’s depravity and rebellion against God

Romans 1:21: “Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.”

Darwin: “I am determined to escape from design and a personal God at all costs.”

“Huxley: August 8, 1860: “my good and kind agent for the propagation of the Gospel— the devil’s gospel.”

makes a god out of chance

“Man is alone in the universe’s unfeeling immensity, out of which he emerged by chance…chance alone is at the source of innovation, of all creation in the biosphere. Pure chance, absolutely free but blind.” Jacques Monod

they have made chance a force in the universe…i.e. in daily life

devalues human life

if man was not created in the image of God, then we are all products of that single-cell philosophy

if evolution is true, there truly is no meaning for your life

racism is an evolutionary idea

it is unscientific and irrational

“If the universe is a product of chance, then the scientific method could never be relied upon; the results of an experiment could vary from time to time. The scientific method depends upon a personal belief or faith in underlying principles for which the evolutionary theory of time + matter + chance does not allow.” -Dennis Gordon Lindsey, The Origins Controversy

science is based upon unchanging laws, which presupposes a God of order which gave these laws to the universe

evolution is irrational= ignore the scientific facts

Stephen Hawking: “The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life. But finely adjusted by whom— if not by God?”

Isaiah 45:18: “For thus saith the Lord that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, He created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the Lord; and there is none else.”

This universe was made for man to live in. It’s a very theistic design.

it is contrary to all of scripture

couldn’t God use evolution? Yes, but why would he need to? And, He did not do it nor claim to do it.

Scofield- relegate the fossils to the primitive creation, then you have no problem.

God Exists:

WHY DENY THE POSSIBILITY OF GOD?

-Hawking: “Many people do not like the idea that time has a beginning, probably because it smacks of divine intervention.”

-Dr. George Wald: “I will not accept that philosophically because i do not want to believe in God, therefore I choose to believe in that which I know is scientifically impossible.”

-Etienne Gilson: “But why anything at all is, or exists, science knows not, precisely because it cannot even ask the question. To this supreme question, the only conceivable answer is that each and every particular existential energy, each and every particular existing thing, depends for its existence upon a pure Act of existence.”

THE CREATOR MUST BE:

• He must be supernatural in nature (as He created time and space). • He must be powerful (exceedingly). • He must be eternal (self-existent). • He must be omnipresent (He created space and is not limited by it). • He must be timeless and changeless (He created time). • He must be immaterial because He transcends space/physical. • He must be personal (the impersonal cannot create personality). • He must be infinite and singular as you cannot have two infinites. • He must be diverse yet have unity as unity and diversity exist in nature. • He must be intelligent (supremely). Only cognitive being can produce cognitive being. • He must be purposeful as He deliberately created everything. • He must be moral (no moral law can be had without a giver). • He must be caring (or no moral laws would have been given).

“Essentially, I realized that to stay an atheist, I would have to believe that nothing produces everything; non-life produces life; randomness produces fine-tuning; chaos produces information; unconsciousness produces consciousness; and non-reason produces reason. Those leaps of faith were simply too big for me to take, especially in light of the affirmative case for God’s existence … In other words, in my assessment the Christian worldview accounted for the totality of the evidence much better than the atheistic worldview.” -LEE STROBEL