In our lifetime, one’s stance on the issue of creation versus evolution serves as a virtual litmus test of one’s reliance on either reason or revelation as if the two were mutually exclusive. To believe in the literal, six-day creation evokes cries of evangelical radicalism, irrationality and idolatry in worshipping the “god of Creation,” even by many in the religious world. On the other hand, evolutionists (theistic and otherwise) find difficulties reconciling biblical revelation with both scientific assumption and observation leading them to reject one or the other while always managing to claim the most “scientific” view.
God’s Originating Creativity
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). The ensuing account of the creation of the world cannot be merely ignored or explained away. Indeed, it is the only account, both ancient and modern, which adequately describes the creation, fall and promised salvation of man since it has the Creator Himself as its author (2 Peter 1:19-21).
In the words of the Hebrews writer, “By faith we understand that the worlds have been framed by the word of God, so that what is seen hath not been made out of things which appear” (11:3). True faith in God requires believing in His word as the basis of that faith (Romans 10:17). Can we honestly say, then, that we trust Him in matters of salvation, worship and godliness but not in scientific truth? In doing so, do we not remove Him from his rightful position as “Lord of heaven and earth” (Matthew 11:25; Luke 10:21; cf. Jeremiah 32:17; Acts 7:49)?
It is because God created the universe from nothing that He is our Lord. Whether one forces God into the box of theistic evolution (which holds that God created the world through evolution) or totally rejects the entire biblical account in the name of “knowledge which is falsely so called” (1 Timothy 6:20), to do either is to deny God His rightful place as the Creator of all things and therefore also His power to save.
God’s Sustaining Creativity
Where most people err, however, is in limiting their discussion to His initial creation. We read in Genesis 2:2 that “on the seventh day God finished his work which he had made.” Some have taken this to mean that God has been in a state of constant rest since that time, having fully completed His creative work. This is only in true, though, in regards to His initial creation of the world.
God’s creativity is inherent in His divine nature.
The divine life is creative, actualizing itself in inexhaustible abundance. The divine life and the divine creativity are not different. God is creative because he is God. Therefore, it is meaningless to ask whether creation is a necessary or a contingent act of God. (via Peter C. Hodgson and Robert H. King, Readings in Christian Theology [Fortress Press: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1985], p. 141)
In other words, since God is both timeless and creative, His creativity exists not only in the past but also in the present and the future. It is this present and sustaining creativity that Paul speaks of when he writes of Christ as “the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him were all things created” and “in him all things consist” (Colossians 1:15-17). Creation is much broader, then, than the initial creation of the world, “It is the basic description of the relation between God and the [natural] world” (Hodgson and King, p. 141). God, then, is still our Creator (Romans 1:25) and we His creation (8:19-22).
God’s Directing Creativity
God’s directing creativity “is the side of the divine creativity which is related to the future” (Hodges and King, p. 145). God’s direction does not mean that He predestines every action that we make nor is He merely a spectator to our lives on earth. Instead, God is the Designer whose design we can be assured will ultimately be fulfilled.
The God that made the world and all things therein…made of one every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed seasons, and the bounds of their habitation; that they should seek God, if haply they might feel after him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us…. (Acts 17:24-27)
God’s design, then, is for man to seek, find and relate to Him in the way which He Himself has initiated. This design is ultimately made possible only through the sacrifice of His Son and the church that was built on that premise (Matthew 16:16-18; Ephesians 2:20) which were both known in the mind of God “before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24; Ephesians 1:4; 1 Peter 1:20).
It is our faith in God’s design as well as the conviction that He will ultimately achieve His will that we trust in His providence to see it through to the end (Romans 8:28, 38-39). We can be assured, then, that when the world ends it will not be for God’s lack of creativity but in the final culmination of His design for humanity, “but the heavens that now are, and the earth, by the same word have been stored up for fire, being reserved against the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men” (2 Peter 3:7).
Conclusion
