GOD & THE BIBLE: STATEMENT #1
I believe that if God created everything
that we have come to know as reality;
he also created things of which we have no knowledge.
We describe people as creative, but that is quite the humorous misnomer. We create nothing. We never have. And, we never will. We are nothing more than elaborate agents of arrangement. We take elements that already exist and assemble those elements in such a way so that something different can be experienced.
That is not to downplay the gift of alter-engineering, which allows us to refashion a naturally occurring component into something different (such as tree bark into string or a stone into a tool). This gift inexplicably separates human beings from the animal kingdom.
We work with what we’ve been given. As a writer, I work with words. I simply arrange commonly known expressions of language into a sequence so that a pattern of thought can emerge in the mind of the reader. But, I don’t create anything.
Creation is different. Creation is the power to bring into existence something that previously did not exist.
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”
Those ten words proclaim creation and give us the origin of three crucial components needed for anything to exist: TIME (the beginning), SPACE (the heaven, singular) and MASS (the earth or base elements that form discernible matter in either a solitary or combined state). Time establishes when. Space provides where. And, mass defines what.
Prior to this moment, none of the three existed. This is creation. From this moment forward, all other things are made or formed from the fundamental matter that existed as a result of these three components having been created.
I find it interesting that we are not told that light was created, but that it was established (v3).
Plants are brought forth from the earth on day three (v11) after boundaries are assigned to water (v9). Light, although established on day one (v3) is not given a specific place to reside until day four (v14). Fish and fowl are brought forth from water on day five (v20). And, land creatures are brought forth from the dry land on day six (v24).
This is an over simplification, but the biblical record that we have indicates that not one of these things was created from something that did not previously exist. They were shaped or formed from the conglomeration of elements – the MASS (The Earth) that was created according to verse one. Because TIME (The Beginning) and SPACE (The Heaven) were created in the same instant as MASS, all things had a place where they could exist and a time when they could exist.
We read through the first verse of Genesis as though it were commonplace. But, it is amazingly profound. Three vital components which previously did not exist were brought into being by an entity that possessed the power to do it.
The act of creation is infinitely beyond anything we could ever hope to do. And, if God created everything that we have come to know, then I believe he also created things that we have yet to experience.
Continue to: GOD & THE BIBLE: STATEMENT #2
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