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bravjim -> RE: Is It possible to believe in God if you don't believe in Creation? (10/20/2008 11:26:02 AM)
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If you read the first chapter of Genesis, it is obvious that God was giving Moses the story of creation in a way that He and the people of Israel could understand it. They did not understand the world or the universe the way we do today. From the smallest atom and the laws of nature that goven it, to the universe and the way that the laws of nature governs it. It all points to an intelligent design and a plan. He started with chaos, and developed laws of nature to begin to bring order out of chaos. But how could He explain all this to Moses and the people of Israel in a way that they could understand it? Their scope of understanding of the laws of nature were primitive, just as our scope and understanding is still primitive compared to His knowledge of the universe. It is through creation that we know Him, and how He reveals Himself to us, even if He has the ability to work outside of the laws of nature, because He is beyond nature.
God reveals knowledge in increments, just as He revealed Himself to the world in increments. The more we learn about this universe, the more we learn about God. The more we learn about creation, the more questions we have about it, and it's designer. The complexity of it all is beyond our scope to understand. The fact that we learn more and more about it is evidence of His willingness to reveal the secrets of the universe, as well as more about Himself. As we learn about the universe we learn how wonderfully made it is, and we learn more about how powerful and intelligent and intricate He is. It gives us more reason to worship Him as we come to understand these complexities, and the effort that He put into creating us and this universe so that He could have a relationship with us. Remember that everything was created for His enjoyment, and ours; not to mention all the intricacies point to how intricately He planned for us. When you close your mind to this, you miss out on this knowledge of who He is, and thereby miss more of Him and just how complex He is.
If you want to choose to live like this, then that's okay. I would rather choose to investigate everything that I can about Him through His word and the universe and how deep His love for us that He would go through to all this trouble to provide a home for us. For me, it is just one more demonstration of how much He loves us.
With what I've written in mind, I want you to open your bible to genesis chapter 1. This is the evidence that I use in order to prove that He this account was an attempt to reveal to Israel the creation in a way that they can understand. Notice on the 3rd day that God created the grass, the plants, the trees, and the herbs. We know that the life of plants is seasonal yes? Well, look ahead to the 4th day. On the 4th day, he created the lights in the sky. (sun, moon, and stars). Since He was bringing order to chaos, His approach would have been logical, but this is not in logical order. The plants need the sun light in order to grow. Without sunlight, plantlife would die out. It wasn't until the 4th day that seasons came along. This is illogical. Now not everything that God does is logical to man, but He created nature to function logically. So why would He reveal it in an illogical order if He wasn't trying to just give the people the knowledge that He created it all in a way that they could understand it? With the primitive knowledge of their understanding, they could not understand everything that we do today about how plants grow, and how the cycle of life works. Like how plants create oxygen for animals to breathe, and animals create carbon dioxide for plants to breathe. It is a symbiotic relationship, but how could they ever understand that.
As for man being created in God's image, it is our spirit that is in His image. He is able to make us spiritually alive, or in other words the ability to live in relationship with Him. It is faith that makes us spiritually alive, and nothing else. It's like saying that if He is alive in our minds and hearts, if He exists to us, He is willing to reveal Himself to us. For those who refuse to acknowledge His existence, how can they live in a relationship with Him? Why would or should He reveal Himself to someone who doesn't believe that He is and that He is who He says He is.
I never at any point in any of my posts said that we evolved from apes, because I don't believe we did. We are a seperate species from apes. But as a species, we have evolved over thousands of years, both in knowledge and understanding, as well as physically. We are a unique species in that we have a relationship with God, as well as the knowledge of good and evil. Apes do not have that knowledge, and can only behave the way that God designed them to. We have an ability to think around corners or to reason, to imagine, and to be self aware, all things that no other species has. We can sit in a corner of a room and imagine what we look like from another corner of that room. No other species has that ability; we are unique in that way. Another way we are created in His image is that we understand logic, and this is a side effect of living in relationship with God, who is also logical. It is another form of His image that other animals do not have. They act on instinct, and so do many of us. The difference is that we can stop living by instinct if we choose to believe in Him and live in relationship with Him.
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