Chris Center Classics and moderns Creation and Science Love 3/98
�In The Beginning God Created.�
�IN the Beginning God created the heavens and the earth. � �He was with God in the Beginning. � �Through him all things were made, without him nothing was made that has been made. � �And the spirit of God was hovering over the waters. � All three elements of the Godhead are involved in the creation of the world. The ancient Hebrew communities view of God was primarily concerned with God as redeemer, later writing down the creation account. Thus our understanding of creation should encompass more than the origin, but the continual creation of God in His entirety from our beginning to our end.
�My ways are not your ways, and my thoughts not your thoughts, just as my ways are above your ways, so are my thoughts above your thoughts. � The mystery and awe of God must be written in a way we can understand it. As Christ spoke in parables the artistic expression only attributable to God Genesis is a majestic and living saga. Theology makes doctrines. Science makes theories. There is a difference between either and Biblical revelation. The Bible�s life has a flexibility of forming a person. Theology can help by pointing to essentials. Science can �purify religion from Error and superstition .� But they both can hurt it by ideas which are developed by people. IN studying the creation account the complexity and vastness of God and the world has left theologians and scientists bewildered. Yet, it can be read simply by a child in an accurate, clear and concise story possessing elements that science and philosophy sometimes loose.
Jesus says �I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. � There is an element of innocence and clarity that one finds in accepting it for what it says. All the complexity and intricacy is included, yet condensed . From this point of simplistic acceptance one can grow in the understanding of the world. From the world you can not make sense of it, but from it you can make sense of the world.
God made the earth, stars, moon, sun, animals, cattle, and people. God said not to eat the fruit. They ate the fruit. Everything was messed up after that. Jesus came said what to do to make it right, died on the cross and then rose from the dead and went to heaven where we go to when we die.
Ex nihilo
�According to the classical Christian doctrine, God creates ex nihilo, out of nothing. � Nothing is not refering to unformed material. �All things were created by Him. � This includes both substance and form. The opening verse of Genesis states that �In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.� The following verse states �now the earth was formless.� It does not state that God created the heavens and the earth from the formless pre-existing substance, but rather that once He had created it, it now lacked form. Keeping in mind the writing style of this account in which time periods are presented progressively, the doctrine of creation ex nihilo appears coherent with Biblical revelation.
A God who creates out of nothing expresses a more powerful and miraculous Diety than one who merely forms something from pre-existing material. Such a doctrine better expresses His absolute sovereignty and power. It is more coherent with the revealed Divine character of a God who raises life from non-existant death. Different from the creatures of the universe such as you and I, God is the all-powerful creator.
"You are from all eternity, " states the psalmist of God. "Where were you when I laid the earth's foundations? " asks God of Job. Alongside the doctrine of creation ex nihilo, these passages further demonstrate that there was a point in which God existed without the world. If He existed without it, He is not dependent upon it and He is distinct from it. He is not merely evolving or progressing with the world.. He is not contained within the limits of the universe. He is transcendent. "Against pantheism, it asserted that the world is not divine or part of God. ". Holding an existence without a world shows that He did not create it out of a need of His own, but out of His unsurpassing love in an expression of His grace. God had no need for the world. He had existed without it. However such theologans as Ward display other purposes for a self sustaining God to create the world. Ward states that God was fulfilled before the creation. He did not created it to fill some selfish need. Ward sugests (in Divine Action) the ideas that God created it for new values that would not have otherwise existed or for more and new subjects capable of valuing the world. He states God could create new sorts of values. (such as taking a walk for instance) which He otherwise would not have experienced. ----
In the opening verse of Genesis, the word create appear in it's first of 7 occurrences. This word perfectly and purposefully seems to stand to show a difference between other selected words in the Genesis account. It comes from the Hebrew word bara, a verb "uniquely connected only to God's bringing something completely new and unheard of into existence. " "God created the heavens and the earth ." "God created the creatures of the sea ." "God created man in His own image .� The word form comes from the Hebrew word yatsar, meaning "to form frame or fashion. " "The earth was formed out of water . " Unlike the Babylonian creation myth where the world is formed out of a watery chaos, God creates and He forms.
� God made the expanse and separated the waters......and it was so... God said �Let the water be gathered into one place and let dry ground appear�... and it was so....God said, �let the land produce vegetation�... and it was so... � God made some instruments and started conducting by Hi word. His spirit animated the chorus.
"It is not good for the man to be alone ." "God created a world in which there is a coexistence and interdependence of all created beings . " God gave man a place in nature to coexist with the rest of creation. And as the world is dependent on it's parts, so it is dependent on God. "We did not bring ourselves into existence, and we cannot guarantee our continued existence It is a sense of being dependent here now, always and everywhere, on the creative power of God." As the book of Job states, "If it were his intention and he withdrew his spirit and breath, all mankind would perish together and man would return to the dust ." Through hardship and celebration we are often reminded of our dependence.
"God saw all that He had made and it was very good ." To say it is good, does not mean that it is perfect. There are certain creatively limitations. Sometimes living creatures bump into each other. "When faith speaks of the goodness of creation, it refers not simply to the value of the reality brought into being at the beginning but also to the additional value this reality is given by virtue of God�s continuing and costly love for it ." All bad things aren�t the result of evil, but the fall certainly has it�s affects. (When I say bump into one another I would suggest in respect to such things as the chaols theory in a world consisting of creative self-willed creatures such as you and I)
God decided to bring something new into the world. So "God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teams. " God created life. And in the crown of His creation "God created man in His own Image ." "God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life . "
Unlike panenthism, God didn't need the world. He existed eternally without it. God is love. �God is eternally disposed to create, to give and share life with others. " God was not compelled to create the world. It is an act of free grace. God wanted to give. "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the earth ." "Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and every living creature that moves on the ground .".." He brought them to the man to see what he would name them. " �Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything " And because man was given so much and this special position in the world, he ought exposes it with thanks in a relationship with God.
With the creation of humanity one can see the deepness of His strength as King. It is strange power. It is not the poser of force but the power of Spirit He didn�t have to build huge fortresses and armies, for simply by His word He could wipe out any enemy. His strength came in His sacrifice. With all of these elements of nature obeying His commands, He decided to make something with a mind of its own, something with free will. He was going to create a being to love and commune with. One of the angels told him, �they aren�t going to listen to you� �It won�t be good for them and it will break my heart,� God replied, �I�ll take their pain, I can hold it.� � �some of them are going to abandon you Lord, and others are going to despise you.� God�s heart beat louder as His eyes stared at the cross �the word became flesh and dwelt among us.� �No greater love hath a man than this, that He lay down His life for His friends.� He lowered Himself to the least so that He could lift us from beneath. �Thus the doctrine of creation is the magna charta of human freedom. God is the graciously liberating God who wills community in freedom .�
Karl Barth shows God�s in this respect. While debated by such people as Devany may argue against Barth�s ideas the greatness of Barth�s work is existent, his fault was in not paying a great enouph emphasis or explanation of such things as the Work of God through word and Spirit, analogies, etc. This is where my professors Dissertation was helpful if anyone is interested in reading it contact St. Olaf College website I�m sure they will get you a copy. But anyway in Barth�s work He displays that God is what all are grounded in despite their attitude towards God. Surely it is easier and more benefiscial to a man to accept the graceful provision of God (which in no means is restrained or in competition or forced to exist within the laws of nature) yet God is still the source of existence for non-believers. In my next essay which I will put on here one of these days, I compare it to a dream I had where a person who accepts God�s grace and rely�s and trusts on His COMPLETE and UTTER soverienty, is like a person flying on a bike without effort yet can soar through the air like the kids in the movie ET. A person who lives and doesn�t pedals hard up a hill yet the gravitational field is not as so to completely collapse the system. What seeks the destruction of the person are in Barth�s words the Das Nitchige. This is the realm of a death God did not desire, sin, the devil, etc. As Barth would say this exists as a sort of third party as that which God excluded when He called creation into being. God�s ultimate power is seen not in His strength to defeat huge armies. The forces of NATURE, chance, etc are in no competition with God�s ultimate rule. Where the greatest power is seen is when God, who cannot be destroyed volunteered to die on a cross and face death and triumph. His Power was in His love. He could love ultimately without being destroyed. He could be crucified, die and be burried and yet rise again. His power is in His sacrifice. Barth states that God accomplished for the creature what the creature could not do for itself. I would interpret this as because God existed within the realm of the das Nitchige by reliance on God and not ourselves who are not able to defeat it�s power we can too exist and also be risen through Christ. Because He provides at all points for our preservation. Barth goes much more into God�s providential activity however I�ll leave this much for now.
God created with meaning and purpose. The creative activity of God continues and has a goal. While the world could be meaningless, many seek for meaning it . And from this comes �God's continual activity of redemption and the freedom from bondage and internal freedom for the peace and joy of life in community with God and other creatures .� IN the end is the promised goal of redeemed creation and is described in the NT as a time of freedom, peace and festivity. It is" prefigured in the Sabbath rest that completes God�s creative activity, he celebration and festivity of perfectly realized and fully enjoyed fellowship with God and other creatures in the new heaven and new earth .�
When I think of meaning I think of things which one values and virtues people hold. C.S. Lewis does an excellent job of explaining how values and virtues do not exist in the world of logic and biology, but only in that which he attributes as the Tao a certain �other� in His book the abolition of man (which is an awsome book) he atributes this to a morality universal to all religions. His main arguement is that if we invent our own values and virtues we will eventually end up relying on logic and biology which are not the grounds for virtue. Instead of virtue what we will have is instinct. In relying on instinct man will not have conquered nature nor will he be in harmony with it. It will have mastered man. We would come to rely on instinsts which would lie in the hands of the people in the authoritative positions in relation to this paper it would be the genetic engeneers of the world of whom I might remind you if were allowed to operate would hold such prominant members as old Dr. Seed who is a lunatic and is funded by a cult of people who think the aliens gave him the seeds of whatever the heck their cult is into. Lewis displays that truth is not relative and sensual perceptions are not to be eliminated in deriving it but guided by something which is not holding its roots() in logic or biology but in that other which lewis denotes the Tao. Being a Christian (as Lewis obviously is) in Lewis�s demonstration of truth that is not rlative but ultimate someone propperly guided along the lines of any philosopher from confuscious on down would recognize that the ultimate is Christ. And I believe this is the best way to come to an understanding of Christ is through a trip down the path or road of value and virute understanding and alligning with them rather than making a dictatorship which would be the result of relativistic value systems. In doing so I hope anyone who reads this or anything else would come to realize why I would say such people as Billy Grahm and Mother Theresa simple yet giving and loving are better teachers than the logical positivists you see on this board even amongst many of the christians. In otherwords lesson one I would say don�t necesarily listen to me but certainly don�t listen to uwolf at his current state. Listen to the people who act like Jesus. But anyway I�m off on a tangent. Anyway that�s where you want to look.
�Can you fathom the mysteries of God? Can you probe the limits of the almighty? Were you there? �
"The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it. " "It is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. " To find treasure in a field, it is helpful to have the brush pushed aside providing a path to proceed. "The gate which leads to God is the Book of scripture and community which incarnates its understanding. But we will never get to that gate unless on a path we can see. " Allen does not say that there is only one path and that nature proves God. But He points that "nature points to the possibility of God" and acts as a "witness to Him . "
But to head down this path, "one must go as an interested seeker," motivated by vital human needs ." As God was first known primarily as redeemer before creator by the early Hebrew community as a redeemer before creator, perhaps it is through this redemption that the intention of nature's order can become seen.
What is contained within this pearl that would motivate one to ask is the universe ultimate, or is there more? And once one catches a glimmer of the light how does one get through the torrents of scientific explanations to see it more clearly. --A millionaire is never satisfied with the size of his house. A poor man is cold without shelter. Death is final. The scientific enlightenment was empty Marxism looks good on paper but we haven't formed Utopia. Capitalism seems the champion where seeking to fulfill goals is beneficial. Yet in seeking to obtain them, the top is never reached for it is infinite. --There is always the question �Then what? or "there's got to be more" All one can do is settle for contentment. Two of Allen�s vital needs deal with our inability to find fulfillment in the world and how we order our goals and aspirations. �The magnitude of human aspirations, needs and desires seems to be greater than the world can satisfy ."
Sitting by the shores of the sea, watching the seagulls fly and hearing a tune come in with the tide, one might be inspired to wonder who could paint such beauty? Is it a reflection of something beyond perhaps where disease and sickness don't lie? The last 2 of the vital needs Allen discusses deal with the beauty of nature and natural disasters. Seeing your worry and distress, A man with a boat one hears your thoughts "follow me and let the dead bury their own dead" Let it go. So you hop in the boat. The sky is bright.
"Without warning a furious storm came upon the lake . " The waves swept as our inquiry into the book of nature gave the appearance that nature operated on its own accord. Newton at the wheel cried out grasping his theories �God must be in there somewhere!� �There are irregularities in the orbits. God must be sustaining them!� Trying to steer the boat, the gaps in which God was stuck were getting filled with science. The specks of light are getting filled as the waves of reason hide the pearl beneath the sand crashing in with the tide.
�The waves swept over the boat" as Carl Sagan drops his pitchfork, �with the rise of science we no longer need God, because there is nothing left for God to explain " The music dims, the light flickers, as we're attacked by scientific imperialists (darn commi�s ). "Lord save us we are going to drown!" "But Jesus was sleeping, You of little faith, why are you so afraid? Then he got up rebuked the winds and the waves and it was completely calm. The men were amazed and asked, �What kind of man is this that even the winds and the waves obey him?�
Newton didn�t have to put God in a gap. When he did waves of science knocked him over, and He �reduced God from creator to a creature which acts in an established order .� �The continuing advance of science does not get us closer to answer to the question of why the universe is ordered one way rather than another, or why the universe exists at all." Newton had nothing to fear. Science is studying the motion of the winds and sea. When Sagan claimed that science would answer everything and there would be no room for God, he didn't realize that science was doing was studying God's laws, animated by God�s spirit.
Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? ON what were is footings set, or who laid it�s cornerstone-while the morning stars sang together....Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb, when I mad the clouds its garment and wrapped it in think darkness when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place when I said. This far you may come and no farther, here is where your proud waves halt. Have you ever given orders to the mourning?
"There is no way to observe connections between the physical universe as a whole and something outside of it ." Jesus could have told the winds to blow harder and science would be studying the laws that made them blow harder. "Science tells what is the case, not why the case Is ." Jesus did not leave a big trail behind Him which would point directly to Him. The only evidence the members on the ship had that He was involved was that they could physically see and hear Him. With Jesus on the ship, it is easy to recognize that the course of nature is intended, but it is not everyday that God incarnates Himself into a man which we can see physically. Without the physical Jesus in this spot there is a hole in which Allen attributes two possible answers, nature is "just is the way it is" with out reason, or "someone intended it" to be this way. Allen states that �Christianity does not claim that there must be a reason only that in fact it does .� Was Jesus standing there?
�Let there be light�
�In the Beginning God created - "Extrapolating backwards in time the universe seems to be expanding from a common origin about 15 billion years ago " At this origin the whole universe was the size of an atom today and the density was an incredible 10^96 that of water. " Science and religion seem to meet on common ground. The universe seems to have an origin. And then science says, "it started expanding." The Bible says He ordered it.
Newton's law of motion states that "an object continues in its initial state of rest or motion with uniform velocity unless it is acted on by an unbalanced, or net external force. " From first glance it appears that for the Big Bang to begin, some outside force would be needed. So what was this force? "Events at the time of t=0 are inaccessible to science, " The theories seem to change constantly to explain just what happened. The limitation of human reason may be the issue. We should not just insert God in gaps as Newton did. Yet nature seems to provide a fairly strong witness that what has been encountered is an impossible situation. "You still have what came before? " Was God standing there commanding it?
Quantum physics is a fairly new arrival into the scientific world. It alters that traditional predictable world of physics and introduces an element of indeterminacy. �It makes only predictions of probability, the exact point at which a particular electron will hit can not be predicted " The mechanics to the theory as well cannot be understood "we do not understand the theory . " While it does not yet prove the existence of God, it seems to witness. God who orders the wind leaves us unable to know the very large or very small, yet orders those laws in our daily lives to connect and make sense so that we can exist as rational beings. In the very small it may exhibit lack of knowledge or humanities limited reason or it could be where God is standing. But in the very large, if the Big bang relied on quantum physics to begin and no outside force was involved, in an infinite time it would have began expanding an infinite amount of time ago and would have all been over and done with. Was God merely speaking a different set of orders and what appears to us is a miracle?
Before returning to my revamp on Aquinas�s cosmological I�ll talk a bit about quantum physics a bit more if you want to debate it debate it but no more oh you put an x instead of a ch junk. If you see an error something you won�t accept tare it apart and well look at it. But don�t do it out of mere hostility do it because of what is said not who might say it. Anyway..... Quantum phycics displays the aspect of an open universe it also displays the need for a wholistic understanding of the universe rather than the regular methods of scientific inquriry. But before I begin let�s discuss the first line of attack at this arguement. Your gonna say this is something beyond our understanding. It isn�t that it isn�t scientifically explanable it is just that we haven�t expained it yet. Basically that means we could have a God of the gaps like Newton. However I see this differently we also have the first cause big bang idea of Aquinas. Oh before time =0 it is beond the limits of science. It�s more than that. It is impossible by science. It couldn�t just start expanding without a cause. Quantum physics as well, you can�t have something which exists at two places at the same time. You can�t have two identical electrons which decompose at different times. You can�t have something which happens without a cause without a determination in a world of science. So how does it happen. You have to stop looking at the way you are looking at it. I my will soul whatever can somewhat operate and move the elements of my body to move a certain way. Rather than just the atoms or what have you move me a certain way. The same must be applied to science not as familiar with this way of viewing things. In looking at this in regaurds to quantum physics, the larger whole effects the smaller parts. This is where you come into contact with the chaos theory and butterfly affect and how these creatures not of lower level particles effect the larger but of a higher order cause effects within the physical world at the lowest subatomic level. The heisenberg effect basically is what they use to say that the quantum world cannot be studied in isolation as a scienfic study tries to do because us looking at the subatomic world causes it to react a different way. The higher level influences the lower level. If the higher level, for instance a human, influences the lower level. But what influences that human? The surrounding enviornment? The surrounding enviornment of what? Combinations of indeterminate partcles which we were the ones to effect? In this world of freedom and choice of cognitive higher level beings. What would be the result if the higher level being were left to it�s own natural divices? Back to the cosmological. We have a self conatined first cause. With the ability to exist self fufilled without need to effect either directly the Big Bang or the sequence of causes which eventually impacts the Big Bang. A first cause to cause it without a need to do so a cause to do so but yet a purpose to do so out of complete grace and tao. That other which neglected of any serious study outside of the religious realm ever wonder why?? Here is the other option.
Another theory on the universe is the steady state model. This theory "proposed that hydrogen atoms come into being slowly and continuously throught an infinite space and time ." While this may hold a key to the possibility of atheism, But in scientific acceptance, "Big Bang theories have truly won the day " This goes back to a first cause as well. Or else all is in a fate of the following.
One theory that science has suggested is that there is an oscillating cosmos. If the universe existed for all eternity without any outside force, the only possible means or cause for the expansion at t=0 would be itself. This would fall in lines with the concept of a Big Bang, Big crunch series. With this scenario, consider that humans as conscious beings having the ability to create change and make choices A striking feature of the new cosmological theories is that even a small change in the physical constants would have resulted in an unihabital universe... If the rate of expansion one second after the Big Bang had been smaller by even one part in a hundred thousand million million, it would have recollapsed before it reached it's present size. .. If greater it would have expanded too fast for the planets to form... The expansion rate itself depends on many factors such as the initial explosive energy.
It seems to me that If that which propelled the initial Bang was the force of the contracting universe and such precise impact measure was required, everything, including human choices and consciousness, which in the least effect the world around us, would have to be balanced out in a universal constant or our present could never be to cause our past. (Put away your aerosol cans.) If our future could be different and is undetermined, so would our present and we couldn't have one. It does not seem there could be change or motion in this system. It seems to hit heads with world of motion in evolution. While this option of cosmology seems more likely to allow for atheism due to the limits of human reason, �present evidence does not favor cyclical theories .�
I�ll go through this again. In a world with the chaos theory where conscious higher level beings have creative willfull abilities not completely determined by the mechanisms of the Newtonian era, we could choose a variety of paths and influence the world and universe around us in many ways. We would not be following a repeated circular line of histroy that has continued throughout eternity. If we were to do anything not completely of fate and deterministic methods our future would have influenced the world and universe that would not have brought our furure entergy and direction to impact the sequence that would be able to hit the big bang such as to cause it exactly as it is. Because of this, there would be nothing to cause that which we are now experiencing. I don�t know how to expain this nor do I have the desire to think any more on it. I love this concept so I�ll repeat myself. Picture it as a laser light in a circle everything would have to remain on that line. If our decisions chose otherwise we would not remain on this line there would then be nothing to cause anything that exists. If there is choice their is God. The next paragraph in my paper tells exactly how precise our future would have to match up to cause the Big Bang. How precise and determined and exact we would have to go without God for anything to be.
. With new theories coming and going, fudge factors, reliance on Einstein�s �greatest blunder,� and and the precise fine tuning required of the physical constants for an inhabitable universe it seems �The odds against a universe like ours emerging out of something like the Big Bang are enormous. I think their are clearly religious implications .� We are also left as the most supported theory that which seems most impossible to happen. It just started expanding. I would agree with Allen that it is possible to say that the universe does not have a purpose, but I find it hard to believe that it is possible to say, that it doesn�t have a cause. It is as though we come face to face along with Bildad, Whitehead, Zophar and Bohr, come face to face with the question �Where were you when I laid the earth�s foundations, tell me if you understand?..Surely you know. �
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While remembering that science relies so much on theory there do seem reoccurring obstacles which deserve attention."The earth is at least 4.5 billion years old ." "By tracking the biblical genealogies, some adherents estimate that the eat came into being just 10,000 years ago ." When science and theology seem to conflict both should be open to testing and revision. It certainly does not mean scripture is wrong, but it may well mean the interpretation is faulty .�
Who is right those who adhere to the young earth, or the more accepted science? Scientists find it hard to accept the New Earth theory based on geological differences attributed to Noah's flood. Then again no one listened to him very seriously when he warned of waters coming. But is there another option?
In 1905 Einstein introduced a new theory called relativity. Perhaps this is what relevant to Peter's words "with the Lord a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years are like a day ." On the fourth day God said "Let there be lights. ..., and let them serve as signs to mark the seasons." "to give light on earth" and �to give light on earth." There were 3 nights and days before this.
Before God ordered earth time, God said "Let there be light and it was evening and it was morning the first day ." Now in the old world, the sun and moon went to where the light was. But in light of relativity we know time is different considering your position. Who is this day light sequence relative to? Does this initial light stand as a larger more universal time frame before a time reference for humanity was created. If God hopped in His spaceship for a day at a high velocity and returned a thousand years could have passed. How does one measure time from the perspective of Omnipresent being?
Light in the Bible often means something more than sun moon or stars. Jesus said, "I am the light of the world ." It is something to see by or denoting something coming to life and not necessarily some measurable time frame. And it was evening and it was morning. It wasn't there and now it is
�Be Fruitfull And Increase In Number�
While it does make sense, I�ve never been truly able to accept evolution. As cosmology rests on theory so does evolution �there is no proof of the transmutation theory .� That which science holds mutates one species to another is not fact and it might just have been that God created similar creatures in the interdependent garden he planned so that we could have coherent connections. It seems interesting that scientists can now create in a lab some form of �life� of amino acids and say that they can make life, without life present. What are they? It seems in this simplistic copying of an existing thing that some sort of hand is needed in altering the elements. Did God form us from something else?
With Biblical genealogies it seems hard to trace humans to an origin coherent with common scientific consensus. But can it coincide with evolutionary beliefs? In the opening of my paper I discussed the different terminology used in the creation story. IN the second creation account scripture states "God formed the man from the dust of the ground " But the Bible gives mention of people with parents coming from the dust as well, "Remember that you molded me like clay Will you now turn me to dust again? " It seems to me possible that Adam�s dust came from some ancestor as well. But God is not said only to form man,
"There is a point when the purely animal stock became man, just when and where we do not know. " Bishop usher estimated the origins at approximately 4000 years ago. "Approximately 5,000 years ago, the southern part, where the Tigris and Euphrates diverge again to a distance of up to 100 miles was the home of the first civilization. " �So the Lord God banished Him from the garden of Eden to work the ground .� This area seems to be the same one at the same time.
"God created man in His own image." God had no body, �God is spirit .� We could still have creation ex- nihilo when speaking of man�s spirit and consciousness. What is life? If you ask a scientist he'll probably argue, reproduction, metabolism, growth, and response to external stimuli. But not consider the aspects of hope, love and that contained in our consciousness. Evolutionist Howison admits that the theory of evolution �fails to bridge the gap between the inorganic and organic, explain origins, or explain man�s consciousness. � Process thought as well seems glide over the area of the emergence of consciousness to make it fit the theory. Social engineering during the age of scientific enlightenment failed for it �neglected emotion and imagination .� Allen claims that one of the human vital needs that leads them to ask if the universe is ultimate is that we cannot find fulfillment in it. Our spirits and inner lives is that most essential, yet that most often denied. Thus we fall.
�For When You Eat Of It You Will Surely Die�
�Did God really say �You must eat from any tree in the garden?... You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil? � In this event Adam and eve opened death to the world. �Having cut itself off from the source of it�s being, it had cut itself off from the source of power � speaks Lewis of the human spirit. In taking the apple �It had turned from God and become it�s own idol and though it could still turn back to God, it could do so only by painful effort and it�s inclination was selfward. � Man was created in the image of God, with a spirit much different from that of a beast, yet our bodies were of the dust. In the fall we moved from the goodness of unity in communion with God to our self centered impulses of the subsequent natural evolutionary process. No the devil did not put bones to deceive us into believing in evolution, he tricked us to adhere to our sinful nature and natural impulses in our self idolization and governing.
Augustine said that after Adam sinned, �our soiled, corrupt nature was already present in the seed from which we were to spring .� �By Darwinian lights classic sins, such as gluttony, lust, greed and envy are the unchecked expressions of impulses that arose by natural selection .� Both theology and evolution express that our sinful nature can be derived from our anscestors and grew as the seed progressed through generations as in the evolutionary process. As we evolved rather than harmonized and listened to it rather than Him, � the devil smoke spread. It apears that in the arival of Social Darwinism, we even came to worship him.
We developed such qualities because they were better fit for survival. Kindness is reserved for � kin, or non-kin who show signs for someday returning the favor .�
Evolution seems to provide an answer for the sinfulness of the world.
But within the cloudy world, the spirit of morality enlightened the dust covered world. The qualities evolving through natural selection, doesn�t account for such existing virtues as sacrificing love. existin the world which helps not the most fit for survival or the promotion of society, but the least. Perhaps the devil is seen in evolution, but not in providing bones.
�A New Heaven And A New Earth�
The inability of the world to provide one�s needs, the selfishness and sorrow which pulls inward, the sinfulness which is indebted in the evolution of man in Adam, the emptiness of knowledge without meaning. He orders nature and it listens, yet His power is in His death. He humbled Himself to the least and reached below us. In His resurrection He can lift us. Freedom is restored from those boxes which we were pulling to keep us inside are opened. His exit from the tomb turned darkness into light. �If anyone is in Christ He is a new creation. �