The Creation as Proof of the Being and Goodness of God

"For thus says the LORD, who created the heavens (He is God!), who formed the earth and made it (He established it; He did not create it empty, He formed it to be inhabited!): 'I am the LORD, and there is no other'" (Isaiah 45:18).

I think the verse above is one of the most beautiful in Scripture. But more than its beauty is its fullness. In just two sentences, it defines and applies all of natural theology, i. e., what we can know about God from the Creation. 

The Prophet here repeats some of what we already know from Genesis 1. Like Moses, Isaiah begins with God. However, he tells us more than Moses did. He specifies that it is Yahweh who is doing the creating. We know from other places that Yahweh is the name of the preincarnate Christ. Thus, the Prophet is telling us what Paul would later repeat: "By Him [i. e., Christ] all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through Him and for Him" (Colossians 1:16).

Then Isaiah announces - twice! - that the events he is describing show that He is God! And we know from the rest of Scripture that He is God the Son. He made the whole physical universe, thus excluding even the possibility of other gods. And He created purposefully! God's interest has never been in dirt and grass. The goal toward which His work of creation was aimed was always Adam, and in him, the rest of the human race. Where Moses built up step by step to the crowning creation of man, Isaiah makes straight to the point: The creation came into existence not for its own sake, but as the ideal home for mankind. To state that truth is to pronounce doxology, as we see from Isaiah! 

There is also a significant philosophical declaration in Isaiah: the creation was purposeful, with mankind as the goal, bringing into creation the image of God. In contrast, the humanistic philosophy of evolution claims that all occurred by chance, including the coming of man, so that a man has no more significance than a flea, or a weed, or a rock. 

That distinction has consequences. For example, because of our understanding of man as the image bearer, it has been Christians historically who have built schools and hospitals. Education and medical care make no sense if men are merely a random and temporary conglomeration of chemicals.

There is also an apologetical element in Isiah's statement. The atheist thinks that he is clever when he demands proof for the existence and goodness of the biblical God. The Christian knows that all that the atheist claims for evolution actually points to God. and the Scriptures tell us that the atheist knows this, too, but has suppressed that knowledge (Romans 1:18-21).

The Dominion Covenant, the New Earth, and the Defeat of Satan

In the opening of the Bible, we read, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. the earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep" (Genesis 1:1-2). So, God's first step in creating the physical universe was to create the earth, but as a formless and empty ball. The physical universe was a place all of chaos. The remainder of the creation passage describes God's organizing and filling that creation, with both celestial objects and with life, culminating in His creation of man.

And then what was God's plan for man, as expressed in His creation mandates to that man? "Then God said, 'Let us make man in Our image, after Our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping them that creeps on the earth...  be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth" (Genesis 1:26, 28). So God's plan for mankind was that we would extend His work of converting chaos into productive order. Men don't have the ability to create ex nihilo, so the expression of that was to be the use of the other living things to become productive under the rule of God.

However, that plan was interrupted by the Fall of Adam and Eve into sin. The consequences of that Fall included the disruption of God's order, and descent into disorder: "The Lord God said to the serpent, 'Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.' To the woman He said, 'I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you.' And to Adam He said, 'Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return'" (Genesis 3:14-19). 

Fist, notice who is speaking here, the Lord, i. e., Jehovah. This is the first appearance of this name, the covenant name of the preincarnate Son, who here first appears in His mediatorial role. After the Fall, all of the interactions between the triune Godhead and men occur through His mediation alone. He first curses the serpent, i. e., Satan, as the instigator of these events. The preincarnate Son curses the foe of the Church. Then He proclaims for the first time the covenant of grace, the promises to His church of His own work on our behalf, to defeat this foe and redeem us from the conseque4nces of the Fall. Then He turns to Eve, the first to sin, and pronounces a curse on the essence of her womanhood, childbirth. And last, He turns to Adam, the head of creation, and pronounces a curse on all of Adam's work in fulfilling his role as the viceroy of God. 

This first announcement of the hope of the Gospel will then be expanded in the rest of Scripture. For example, we have the promises of Yahweh of new blessings on agriculture in Isaiah. See, for example, Isaiah 44:3-4, which explicitly unites both childbearing and agricultural blessings with spiritual blessings: "For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour My Spirit upon your offspring, and My blessing on your descendants. They shall spring up among the grass like willows by flowing streams. This one will say, ‘I am the Lord's,’ another will call on the name of Jacob, and another will write on his hand, ‘The Lord's,’ and name himself by the name of Israel." 

The same prophet gives another promise of God with relates it back to the promise of Genesis 3:15: "They shall not labor in vain or bear children for calamity, for they shall be the offspring of the blessed of the Lord, and their descendants with them. Before they call I will answer; while they are yet speaking I will hear. The wolf and the lamb shall graze together; the lion shall eat straw like the ox, and dust shall be the serpent’s food. They shall not hurt or destroy in all My holy mountain" (Isaiah 65:23-24). As men experience the restoration of peace to the creation, we will also see the curse carried out of that old foe, the serpent. 

In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul picks up the same theme: "For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience" (Romans 8:20-25). He personifies the physical creation as waiting impatiently for the Church to reach her glory, because the creation, too, will be released from the curse under which our sin has brought it. 

And Paul makes it explicit that these blessings flow from that first declaration of the Gospel in Genesis 3:15: "The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet." As the body of Christ, we the Church are credited with the victory of Christ through us, finally bringing the chaos we created back to the order which God intended. 

When will these times be seen? Only God knows. However, we can enjoy the hope today that they will come.

The Fall and the Dominion Covenant

In Luke 17:10, Jesus makes a surprising comment: "So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, [should] say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.'" This is the nail in the coffin for any works-righteousness religion. If a man were to perfectly fulfill the law of God, then he has still not earned eternal life, because he has only done what he was supposed to do. It is like the employee who completes his assigned duties. Should his boss, therefore, give him a bonus? No, he has only done what he was required to do, and has contributed no additional value beyond what his wage has already purchased.

Think back to the first days of man. The one recorded restriction given to Adam was not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (Genesis 2:17). And the Fall occurred when Adam broke that one restriction (3:6). Adam forsook all of the blessings of Eden by that particular sin. Yet, was he thereby promised eternal life if he refrained from eating that fruit? No, he retained his probationary status as long as he did not eat. But His assignment in Eden was far wider than that. Rather, he was to make it fruitful through the practice of agriculture (2:15), to exercise dominion (1:26) and to have families (1:28). Adam actually had an extensive list of responsibilities. The difference here was that the command not to eat the fruit, even if it had been obeyed, would not have advanced the purposes of God. Jesus, the Second Adam, talked about this, too, in the Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14-30). The servants who are praised are the ones who took the master's talents, invested them, and returned a profit. The servant who is cursed is the one who returned what he had been given, with no advancement - no loss, but no profit, either.

"It is only to the just that the confirmed state of blessedness, which the Scriptures mean by life, is infallibly promised. Obedience to the law, righteousness, is the indispensable condition of God's everlasting favor. If, therefore, the scheme of redemption had done nothing more than deliver us from the curse of the law, though it would have conferred an incalculable benefit upon us, an unutterably great salvation, it would not have done all, that the necessities of the case required, to secure the perfection and blessedness of our nature" (James Henley Thornwell, "The Necessity and Nature of Christianity," emphasis in the original).

The Irrational and Self-Refuting Worldview of the Secularist

That our modern world, with life in its multitudinous forms is the result of chance has become dogma in the United States, taught in public schools and accepted as the educated belief in the media. To deny the secularist orthodoxy is to place yourself in the inbred gap-toothed hillbilly camp for most people.

Okay, so it is orthodoxy, but is it true? Are their rational reasons for denying it? Is there a possibility for the self-respecting Christian to hold to a different worldview?

Yes, too all of those questions.

Science and education require a consistent, rational, predictable universe, exactly the opposite of chance. Yet the secularist blocks that incompatibility from his mind, lest the foundations of his worldview be shaken.

The creation is intelligible exactly because it was created by a personal, rational God. Chance could not produce an understandable universe. It is just as we know that the straight furrows of a farm require an organized mind to have made them. Unbelievers avoid this basic logic because it implies an absolute God to whom they are accountable. They want a self-existing universe because then there could be no morality or accountability. Yet reason requires a rational universe. Therefore, they depend on the biblical worldview to provide a context for reason and morality, but then deny that same worldview to maintain their myth of autonomy. 

In other words, if the secularist worldview is true, then it must be false, because it cannot sustain itself. The secularist worldview can only be sustained if the biblical, Christian worldview is true. However, again, if the Christian worldview is true, then the secularist worldview is false. No matter how you examine it, the secularist worldview is unsustainable, and, therefore, irrational. 

Science Without God Results in an Irrational Universe

Science assumes that things can be understood because they operate according to rules, resulting in predictable and testable outcomes. However, a philosophy of science that excludes God introduces an assumption that some things, at least, and fundamental things, in particular, happen by chance, and are, therefore, neither predictable nor testable.

This results in an atheism (or a theism which assumes that God is not relevant, i. e., deism) that depends for its rational basis on holding two mutually-exclusive presuppositions simultaneously. That is, to use the terminology of logic, it holds "A" and "not-A" together, in violation of the Law of Non-Contradiction. This basic law of logic says simply that a premise and its contrary cannot both be true at the same time.

In contrast, positing God as the origin, not chance, provides the basis of rationality on which science depends. It is the biblical God who testifies that it is "in Him [that] we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28). It is His a priori rationality that gives order and comprehensibility to all other things: "He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together" (Colossians 1:17).

In other words, the logic of science requires, not the exclusion of the concept of God, but rather the assumption of the biblical God. When scientists perform their research or their experiments, they are assuming the very rationality of God, while repudiating it in their conscious statements. In fact, that is the only way that science can function, by acting on principles that it denies, while advocating principles which undermine its very existence.

The Eternal God: Against the Evolutionary God of Mormonism

"Of old You laid the foundation of the earth,
     and the heavens are the work of Your hands.
They will perish, but You will remain;
     they will all wear out like a garment.
You will change them like a robe, and they will pass away,
     but You are the same, and Your years have no end."
- Psalm 102:25-27 

One of the lesser-known doctrines of Mormonism is that God is only God here, not throughout the universe. Rather, he was once a man on another planet who was exalted to godhood by the God of that planet. In the same way, they believe that good Mormons will be exalted to godhood and receive their own planets. 

This is one of the most-explicitly antibiblical doctrines of Mormonism. The Bible explicitly tells us that the deity of God, the true, living biblical God, has always existed, and has always been God. Where the Mormon universe is eternal and self-existing (attributes of deity), the Christian, triune, biblical God is eternal and self-existing, and the universe has only a derivative existence: "In Him we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28).

This alone should be sufficient evidence to demonstrate that the Mormon claim to the Christian name is a deception.

What About Those Who Have Never Heard of Jesus?

This question gets asked by all sorts of people: atheists, universalists (both the liberal and the supposedly-evangelical varieties), annihilationists. Anyone who opposes the justice of God eventually pops out this question as a final trump card. It really isn't so much.

Consider the Psalms.

In Psalm 19:1-4, David wrote:
"The heavens declare the glory of God,
     and the sky above proclaims His handiwork.
Day to day pours out speech,
     and night to night reveals knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words,
     whose voice is not heard.
Their voice goes out through all the earth, 
     and their words to the end of the world."

In a poetic fashion, David here describes God's revelation of Himself in the creation. The inanimate creation doesn't use literal speech, obviously. However, the beauty, order, and balance of the universe tells us that it came from the hands of a God who provides both beauty and sustenance for His creatures. This is also described in Psalm 104:10-16, where various creatures are described looking to the hand of God to provide for their daily needs. Poetry, true, but does it not eloquently reveal that dumb animals have more spiritual sense that do most people?

An anonymous Psalmist made a similar point in Psalm 98:2: "The Lord has made known His salvation; He has revealed His righteousness in the sight of the nations." This time it isn't physical sustenance that is the topic, but rather the holy nature of God and the salvation that He has provided His people. That is, if dumb animals can depend on God for their daily bread, then men should know to look to Him, not just for bread, but for our spiritual welfare, too.

It is this latter revelation that the Apostle Paul describes in Romans 1:18: "The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth." But Paul looks at the other side of the equation. Where the Psalmists had described God's providential benefits to animals and to His people, Paul focuses on God's revelation of His wrath against unbelief. That is to say that there is no such thing as someone who has is ignorant of God, righteousness, and salvation or wrath. Rather, every man, woman, and child in the world has that information in every sensation coming to him from the world around him. However, the unbeliever hates that knowledge and suppresses it, puts it out of his consciousness, thinking thereby to avoid accountability for it.

So, in response to the question asked in the headline above, I ask a different question: should ignoring the truth exempt a person from accountability for that truth?

The Problem of Evil Is Actually a Problem for the Atheist

There is a standard question that has been going around for hundreds of years, traditionally called "the Problem of Evil." It is stated to this effect: If God is all-good, and all-powerful, why is there evil in the world? If He is all-good, then He would desire to prevent it, and if He is all-powerful, He would be able to do so. Therefore, God must be either not all-good or not all-powerful. And, since those are both necessary attributes of the biblical God, He must disappear in a puff of logical smoke. Or so we are supposed to believe.

I will speak to the origin of evil below. For now, I am going to address the question itself, and why it actually demonstrates the illogic of atheism, not Christianity.

Mr. Atheist, what is evil? You probably answer something to the effect of "whatever hurts people." And I would certainly agree that hurting innocent people is evil. But then, on what basis do you decide that hurting people is evil? A cannibal would be fine with hurting people, because doing so feeds his family. On what basis would you say that he is wrong? Both Stalin and Hitler believed that shedding rivers of blood was good, because (in their minds) doing so benefited a greater number of others. Were they wrong? On what basis do you say so?

Those questions are my rhetorical means of making this point: a materialist worldview has no basis for deciding right and wrong, good and evil. We are, in the atheist universe, just DNA seeking to sustain its existence. What an atheist views as evil derives from his cultural heritage of biblical theism, i. e., Christianity. This is called "precept stealing." Therefore, for the atheist to ask the question with which I started this post is for him to admit - unconsciously, I admit - that Christianity is true. That is why I 

Richard Dawkins

described the question as a problem, not for the Christian, but for the atheist. For the atheist even to ask the question is to concede the argument! As Richard Dawkins, a leading and outspoken atheist, admits (The God Delusion, p. 266): "It is pretty hard to defend absolutist morals on grounds other than religious ones" [emphasis mine]. He is partly correct: It's not just "pretty hard"; it's impossible!

To the Christian who has been befuddled by the question, I will now turn to answering it. The problem is the assumptions that undergird it. It assumes that I, or you, or whoever - i. e., a finite human being - is able to judge what is good, above the ability of the omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent God. It assumes that I can know every possible way in which an act can be good, but He cannot. Or, put another way, it assumes that He cannot have a perspective that shows the goodness of His acts in a way that I cannot perceive.

Let me give a hypothetical illustration: imagine a wreck, in which a drunk driver kills a mother and her two children in another car. I am sure that we agree that this would be an awful thing, so how could that be good? Well, what we might not be aware of us is that there was a school bus full of kids the next block away, which would have been hit by the drunk driver, if he hadn't been stopped. When we accuse God of allowing evils in our lives, those are the things we cannot know. What would have happened otherwise, that I cannot foresee? To ask why an all-good God makes the choices He does would require us to have the same omniscience that He has. Why does an all-good and all-powerful God allow evil? To prevent greater evil. It is impossible for us to know any more than that.

The source of evil can be found only in the Bible. Atheists might ask the question, but they cannot answer it. The Bible, however, reveals that God created a world without evil. Yet He also placed a choice before Adam and Eve in that world. They could have eternal life without evil - the condition in which they were created - or they could choose to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and die. We all know the choice that they made: they ate of the fruit and brought disease, futility, hardship, and death, upon themselves and upon their posterity. Mankind chose the kind of world for which the atheist seeks to blame God. That is why there is evil in the world. You can read this in the Bible, in the book of Genesis, the first three chapters.

The wonderful thing is that the story doesn't end there, because Christianity doesn't answer just the question of the origin of evil, but also how it will end. That is another answer that cannot be found in atheism. Through the Gospel, as sinners are converted, change our lives, and then change our world, God is creating a New Heaven and New Earth, where there will be no more evil. This is described in a number of places, but start with Isaiah 65:17-25 and Revelation 21:1-4.

You can find other thoughts I have had on this question here and here.

A Fallen Creation in Adam, but a New Creation in the Second Adam

This biblical theology assignment was to trace the theme of the creation through the Bible. I found it a real joy to work through. My prayer is that it will encourage others as well.

    The creation is described, logically, in the opening verses of the Bible, Genesis 1:1-2:4. The actor is God, Elohim, not given as Yahweh. Again that is logical, since the revelation of God by His covenantal name would have no meaning in the then-absence of the subordinates in the covenant, i. e., mankind. I take the plural form as an indication of a united effort by the Godhead, not of the individual Persons, before the Spirit departs to His particular work in verse 2.

    The creation proceeds in a roughly hierarchical pattern, from the physical substrate, i. e., the earth in its chaotic state, to a primitive form of the surrounding universe, to the land and waters as organized elements. The God directs His attention to the first life, the vegetative element, and then its sustenance in sun and stars, to the self-motive element of sea- and air-life, the dwellers of the land, and finally Man. Its last day is a day of rest, of God’s self-religion of satisfaction in His works, for they were “very good” (1:31).

    To the crown of His creation, Adam and Eve, God gave the task of viceroyalty, to exercise dominion under God, ruling, organizing, and filling the creation. He gave the couple only one explicit restriction in their labor: they were restricted from eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. I am sure this was not the only rule of life that they were to obey. However, in their prelapsarian state, His law was naturally-engraved in their nature. The tree was added as a counter-intuitive law, a visible sign that their rule was not independent, but subject to the a priori government of God as their Maker and Owner.

    Job recognized this relationship among Creator, creation, and human headship in Job 12:7-10. He cites beasts, birds, vegetation, and fish, as witnesses “that the hand of the Lord has done this [i. e., the disasters that he had experienced].” In this book, probably pre-Mosaic, the writer is using the relationship among the branches of the Creation to give meaning to the losses that he had undergone, losing wealth and posterity. Later in the same book, Job 38:4-11, God does the same thing. Speaking as Yahweh, indicating, I think, the mediatorial involvement of the Second Person, He challenges Job and his friends: “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?” Obviously, Job wasn’t anywhere. “Who determined its measurements… and prescribed limits for it?” The answer to Job’s question, why had these things happened to him, was that he had neither capacity nor right to challenge what he had received from the hands of God, because he had neither the standing nor the experience from which to judge, nor even to understand the hand of God. In Job 40:15-24, God continues by describing just one creature in His creation, a creation beyond human understanding or control. Yet, Job expects to have the perspective from which to comprehend the actions of God?

    In the Psalms, David emphasizes the creation mandate to demonstrate the spiritual significance of mankind. In Ps. 8:5-8, he reminds God that He had “given him dominion over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet.” Of course, this ultimately refers to the Son of Man and Second Adam, Jesus Christ, who restores the dominion lost by Adam’s fall (I Cor. 15:27 and Heb. 2:8. In Ps. 65:5-13, David recalls God’s creation activity, creating the mountains, watering the earth, and prospering the fertility of land and beast, as proof that we can look to Him in prayer, and satisfy the elect with His goodness. Asaph makes the same case in Psalm 74. He refers to God’s victory over Leviathan (as He Himself did in Job), and especially the creation of night and day (v. 16) as a reminder of God’s faithfulness in the past, apparently during a time of God’s wrath. Ethan the Ezrahite makes the same case in Ps. 89:11: “The heavens are Yours; the earth also is Yours; the world and all that is in it, You have founded them.” He is exulting in the wondrous works of God as the undergirding of His promises to David. Moses applies that power to all the people of God in Ps. 90:2: “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever You had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting, You are God.” An anonymous sufferer repeats the words of Moses in Ps. 102:25-27: “Of old You laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Your hands… [for] You are the same, and your years have no end.” Doing great deeds of creation are passing moments to God, so doing great works on our behalf are easy for Him, not endangered by the flash-in-the-pan existence of mere men.

    The anonymous Psalm 104:5-30 makes extended use of the theme of God as creator. “He set the earth on its foundations… covered it with the deep. The mountains rose, the valleys sank down.” The birds and beasts are considered, along with the sun and moon. Leviathan makes his third appearance. The Holy Spirit goes forth. Why does the writer give this litany of the works of God? Verses 33-35: “I will sing to the Lord as long as I live… for I rejoice in the Lord. Let sinners be consumed from the earth, and let the wicked be no more.” All of the mighty works of God are signs. To the faithful, they give a basis for praise and assurance. For the wicked, they guarantee the certainty of judgment.

    The various authors of the Proverbs used the divine Creation to demonstrate the wisdom of God. Solomon, well-known for his own subordinate wisdom, says of God’s (Pr. 3:19-20): “The Lord by wisdom founded the earth; by understanding He established the heavens; by His knowledge the deeps broke open, and the clouds drop down the dew.” Notice that he couches the creation in a covenantal context, Yahweh instead of Elohim, drawing a relational aspect that Moses did not.In Pr. 8:22-31. Solomon continues this theme of wisdom, personifying it: “The Lord possessed me at the beginning of His work, the first of His acts of old… When He established the heavens, I was there… When He marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside Him…, and I was His delight…, delighting in the children of man.” Solomon gives an abbreviated description of the days of creation, culminating in the delight of Wisdom in mankind. Is this the pre-incarnate Christ? It uses the covenantal name of God, so I am inclined to say so. Nevertheless, it expresses a confidence in God, founded on His nature as revealed in His great acts of creation. And lastly, in Pr. 30:4, Agur, son of Jakeh, asks, “Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is His name, and what is His son’s name?” Not the petty idols of this city or that one, but the One God Who overrules them all!

    It is only a passing remark, but Solomon makes another interesting use of the Creation account in Ecclesiastes 3:10-13: “I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with.” He recalls the dominion covenant of Gen. 1:26-31. For, “He has put eternity into man’s heart.” That mandate has been incorporated into man’s nature. “I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live.” Human happiness is bound up in fulfilling the purpose that God built into our creation way back in Genesis. “This is God’s gift to man.” It isn’t drudgery; that is the curse. The calling brings contentment and fulfillment. He brings that principle up again in 12:1: “Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near of which you will say, ‘I have no pleasure in them.’” The physical breakdown of aging is also part of the curse, so find fulfillment in dominion before that inhibition makes your work impossible.

    The Prophet Isaiah relies on creation theology in much of the latter half of his prophecies. In Is. 40:25-31, God makes much the same case as in Job: how can a man or a people question Him, considering the lofty things that He has done? Of the stars, He says (v. 26), “[I am] He Who brings out their host by number, calling them all by name.” When the sinner seeks to comfort himself in his sin 9v. 27), He responds (v. 28), “The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary.” And, given that (v. 31), “They who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.”

    This same sustenance is promised to the Servant to come in Is. 42:5-6: “Thus says God, the Lord, Who created the heavens and stretched them out…, I will take You by the hand and keep You; I will give You as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations…” The God Who made all things will sustain the Servant, that He, in turn, may be a Savior for that same world. For (Is. 43:1), “thus says the Lord, He Who created you, O Jacob, He Who formed you, O Israel, ‘Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are Mine.” And again (Is. 44:24-28), “I am the Lord, Who made all things, Who alone stretched out the heavens, Who spread out the earth by Myself,... Who says of Jerusalem, She shall be inhabited, and of the cities of Judah, They shall be built, and I will raise up their ruins…” The promise of release from exile by Cyrus is sure, because (Is. 45:7) “I form light and create darkness,” and (v. 12) “I made the earth and created man on it; it was My hands that stretched out the heavens, and I commanded all their host.” Consider what I have done, and then you will understand that it is a small thing to bring to pass the release of Israel by the hand of Cyrus. The manifest power of God makes His promises secure.

    And, just as God made the heavens and the earth, He will recreate them, restored to their “good” state of Genesis 1:31, and even better. In Isaiah 65:17, God through the prophet says, “For behold, I create a new heavens and a new earth.” And v. 10, “Behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy, and her people to be a gladness.” He will reestablish His good creation with a renewed church to replace the failed viceroyalty of Adam. And the curse shall be undone. Verses 20, 23: “No more shall there be in it an infant who lives but a few days or an old man who does not fill out his days. They shall not labor in vain or bear children for calamity…” Thus, God recreates the world, in part, by undoing the exact curses as they were given to Eve, in her children, and to Adam, in his labor. The futility and hardship of both, consequences of their fall, will be undone by Him Who created it in the beginning. For (Is. 66:2), “All these things My hand has made, and so all these things came to be, declares the Lord.”

    In the New Testament, the creation is again taken up briefly by Paul. In Romans 8:19-23, he describes the creation waiting for the restoration of the people of God, as described by Isaiah. Paul says, “The creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God, for the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, in hope that that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.” And in II Corinthians 5:17, applying it to each individual, he adds, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old [creation] has passed away; behold, the new [creation] has come.”

    Peter also takes up this theme in II Peter 3:10-13. He reminds us of God’s promise through Isaiah in verse 13: “According to His promise, we are waiting for the new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.” The old creation, in which unrighteousness dwells, is to be wiped away (v. 10), again restoring the creation to it “very good” intended state.

    And finally the Apostle John in Revelation 21:1-6: “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be His people… He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” Jesus gives John a wonderful vision of the new creation, with the new people of God, with all the sorrows of the fallen old creation passed away.

    Thus, we have another full cycle, from a good creation from the hand of God, then brought under a curse of pain and futility through the sin of Adam, now restored to its original goodness in the Second Adam, freed from all the pain and futility. The secure knowledge of the latter is based on the historical surety of the former.

The Problem of Evil: A Biblical Answer

A common argument against Biblical Christianity goes something like this: A good, omnipotent, and omniscient God is incompatible with the presence of evil in the world. Ironically, this argument from atheists is something that a Christian can actually agree with: evil is incompatible with the nature of God! However, the atheist then goes a step further and adds, there is evil in the world; therefore, there cannot be a good, omnipotent, and omniscient God, i.e., the God of Biblical Christianity.

The biblical answer to this dilemma must begin in Genesis, where God creates both the physical universe and mankind. These creations, by His own testimony, were "very good" (Genesis 1: 4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, and 31). There was no aging, sickness, death, or futility, in the lives of men. However, Adam chose to reject the goodness of the world and rebel against God (Genesis 3:1-19). Thus, Man chose to bring the debilitation of age, sickness, death, and futility, both for himself and for the physical world over which God had given him dominion. See the explanations of these curses in Romans 5:12 and 8:22.

So, the response of the Christian to this challenge of the atheists is straightforward: God did not create a world containing evil. Rather, mankind chose to reject the good world we had been given, for a world of hardship. And, out of justice, God allowed Man to have the world he preferred.

Now, we can turn this question back on the atheist: by what standard do you claim that some of the conditions in this world are evil? Afterall, the atheist rejects the overarching authority of God to define good and evil. This is what apologists call "precept stealing." The atheist actually requires the truth of Christian theism to provide his understanding of evil. His very question assumes the truth of what he seeks to undermine! By positing the very idea of "evil," the atheist demonstrates the truth of Paul's words in Romans 1:18-19, "[They] by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them." That word "atheist" is a misnomer, in fact, a deception. The atheist knows the truth of the existence and righteousness of the triune God of the Bible. He then suppresses that knowledge, because he commits that sin of Adam all over again: he chooses to be his own god, but refuses to confess the consequences of that choice.

[This argument is borrowed, in part, from Scott Oliphint, the Professor of Apologetics at Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia.]

When "Why" Is More Important than "How"...: Christ the Creator

"He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities - all things were created through Him and for Him."
- Colossians 1:15-16

Paul here is repeating that transcendent truth also seen in John's Gospel (1:3), "All things were made through Him, and without Him was not any thing made that was made." Or it might be more accurate to say that John followed Paul, since the epistle was probably penned before the gospel. But notice what the two texts share: neither one gets bogged down in the mechanism of creation, but rather emphasize the and goal of creation. In both, the answer is Jesus Christ, the focal point of all things. I suggest that this is the error of modern apologists for theistic creation: they have adopted the agenda of the secularists in debating mechanism, as important as that is, rather than the goal, which is the foundational question.

Symington

The Scottish Reformed Presbyterian theologian William Symington gives weighty commentary on the centrality of Jesus in his book, On the Atonement and Intercession of Jesus Christ.

""Even the creation of the world, there is every reason to believe, was with the view of its being a theatre on which to exhibit the work of man's redemption by the eternal Son. It is the workmanship of His hand. This is the purpose which it serves; and that it was framed with a view to its serving its purpose is surely no disputable assertion." Then referring to Col. 1:16, he concludes, "He is the final as well as efficient cause of this world's creation."