Created back when at least before April 2008 https://andreae.com/category/personal-thoughts/spiritual-thoughts/
During my journey from one of not wishing to believe in the one of accepting the power and grace of God; I explored science and hoped science would offer all the answers and ultimately be able to explain everything. As my learning expanded, I came to appreciate that there was too much order in my eyes and my mind’s perception; I came to accept that only a creator could establish the order of the universe we live in.
When I reflect on the big bang and read Genesis 1:1-5, I see in those few words the fact that there was a Big Bang, and it was when God created the light. In those seconds and billions of years that followed, God set out to create the universe and eventually create the planet we call earth. All of that is the work of his “First Day.” If we measure it in our time, billions upon billions of years pass; God created dark matter and let fly particles of matter and energy in the great blast he caused. So great is his power and so glorious his vision was formed, the universe, galaxies, stars, suns, and planets all turning so that there would be a time of dark and a time of light. His first day’s work was done.
We know the foundation of all life on earth is made possible by the existence of air and water. On the second day, he created H2O and the air. With these two creations, he created the expanse between the water in the sky and the water on our planet. So ended God’s second day’s efforts.
On the morning of the third day, he created DNA and developed the structure of a plant cell. He then spent the balance of the day manipulating this creation into what we know as the vast diversity of plant life. He then blessed these various forms of vegetation to be fruitful, evolve, and multiple. On that day he set in motion the process that would allow these initial forms of vegetation to evolve into the multitude of plant life we are familiar with today. He wanted his various creations to evolve and enjoyed watching the new forms of vegetation emerge and recognized that some would not survive and in many cases decided to destroy those that were not pleasing to him. He saw that his creation of numerous plant species was good and saw that his third day of work had come to an end.
On the fourth day, he saw that for evolution to continue there must be times when the sun, with its great energy, would touch the earth. So he parted the waters of the sky to form what we now call clouds. He caused the planets to rotate and the sun to disappear and the other planets, stars, and galaxies to become visible. He set the earth’s rotation and orientation to align with all his other celestial bodies, causing there to be warm times and cold times. By setting the earth to tilt and spin at a certain rate, he was able to create the seasons which further stimulated the growth and evolution of his first creation, vegetation. The vegetation was now capable of following the cycle of life he set in motion when he created the passage of the seasons. By altering the strength of the light from the sun and the intensity of the light of the moon he added diversity to his creation. With this new process in place, it was time for God to rest the evening of the fourth day.
On the fifth day, God arose and decided to create creatures that would fill the seas and soar through the sky. By using his creation, DNA, he moved on and created animal cells. In the morning he created simple creatures to inhabit the sea and soar through the sky. He saw that this was good and he caused these creations to be fruitful, evolve and multiply. As the day progressed he continued to experiment and create more complex creatures by developing animal cells capable of performing different functions. God continued to relish in the creation of diversity. As he created each new species he continued to embed within them his concepts of evolution and enjoyed watching each evolve from its own kind and fill the sky and the sea with a diversity of birds and sea creatures. And it was time for God to rest the evening of the fifth day.
On the sixth day, he saw that the land was only filled with vegetation and saw that the richness of the vegetation of the land could support new forms of life. So in the morning, he caused the creatures that inhabited the sky and the sea to evolve and descend from the sky and crawl out of the sea. As the day progressed God further populated the land by creating new creatures. Like he had done on the fourth and fifth days, he blessed these creations of the land and let them be fruitful, evolve and multiply. As the day passed he noticed that some of his creations were so large that he could not allow them to continue to multiply. Slowly but surely God evolved his land-based creations to become what we know as livestock and wild animals. God was selective in his process of creation and enjoyed creating a wide variety of creatures. Yet, he also had an eye for beauty and diversity and would often determine that one or another was not fit to continue to exist. Those that were pleasing to him, he allowed to flourish, multiply, and evolve. Others of his creations, he saw were not good and he destroyed them. In all his thinking there was a plan to create a creature in his own image. As the creatures of the sea, sky, and air evolved he selected only those creatures which would be suitable for the world man would also inhabit. After a time he saw the success of his process of selection and planned evolution. His creations had evolved to the moment when he was ready to populate the world with a creature God could commune with.
So near the end of the sixth day – Genesis 1:27-28 – God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him: male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground”.
Given that he made man in his image, the man had the ability to think, the power of free will, and a rebellious willingness to create anew. God also knew that through time our knowledge of where we live and all that is around us would grow and he would have to chastise us often to remind us of his power and dominion over all.
I could venture into the question of Sin and ponder how the seven deadly sins: lust, gluttony. greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride fit into God’s plan. What we do know is that God can see everything that will and has happened. He knew Women would listen to the serpent and eat of the fruit of the Tree he had forbidden them to eat from. With this same clarity, God knows that at different stages in the growth of our knowledge of how the earth and the universe were formed some would see themselves as God’s equal and decide that there was no need to reverie the one God.
These foolish men would forget to continue to pursue knowledge and instead stop and come to believe that the little knowledge they had acquired gave them the power to see themselves as Gods and to think they could understand ALL.
Knowing all of this, when God spoke with Moses he offered the ten commandments and reminded us in the first four commandments that there is ultimately only one. He left us to recognize that if we bow down to science or other idols we will lose sight of the reality of creation. We would forget how God always intended there to be another question to ask, another space to explore, another particle to find, another marvel to ponder, and other theories to test. He understands, by dividing half by half over and over again, we would never reach zero nor by exploring the universe we would ever see the beginning and have a chance to see the end. For in the beginning there was God and in the end, there will be God.
As someone once explained “Something cannot come from Nothing”
He wants us to learn, yet he built something so complex in its character. One of being both infinitesimally small and infinitely large that we can and will never reach a time when there is nothing more to learn.
Any scientist that stops in his quest for knowledge has lost sight of his reason for being a scientist. Any human that accepts what he is told and does not continue to question will lose sight of the infinite power of God and become lost in a cloud of ignorance. God’s greatest gift is that we can always seek and learn and that we will always have more to learn and search for.
When I read Genesis I know I am reading the words of Moses and I know that Moses was listening to God telling the story of how he created all that we see around us. What is clear is that God knew that man was not ready to understand the complexity of what he had done and so he offered Moses a simply yet vastly complex picture of his six days of work, knowing that we could explore and learn yet at the same time accept and be certain of his power.
What is amazing is that when we listen to the great scientists, the ones that continue to look deeper into what it is they are exploring they find that in the end there are no final answers, simply more questions. This is exactly how God planned it. He wants us to explore, he wants us to learn how to manipulate and utilize that which is around us. What he also did was create something infinitesimally small and infinitely large so that through the reality of infinity we can and will never be able to find any other answer than the one written in Genesis, God created the universe and all that is within it, including the processes of reproduction, evolution, mutation, and destruction.
Yes, as I did at the beginning of this email, he allows us to interpret the words in Genesis and wants us to further our knowledge and understanding. He knows that through the ages we will understand some of the complexity of what he did. But at the core, the words that are in the Bible are the clearest way of saying everything and leaving us the responsibility to always question and learn. Through this responsibility, God knows that in the end, we will understand that only the creator could create the universe, in its complex glory.
Neither Chaos, Genetics nor Evolution will ever be able to help us understand why only four basic elements can be combined in such a variety of ways to produce so many complex life forms. The complexity of DNA and the cell and their ability to evolve are and will remain God’s greatest creation. The stars’ nebula and beautiful clusters that fill the telescopes we use to see into the distance only offer us a glimpse of God’s love of art.
The order and chain of life are so structured. Only the ONE has the knowledge and power to drive the creation of the universe and design the process of evolution, allowing the plants, birds, sea creatures, land animals, and those most primitive of elements: matter and energy; to continue to create new and wonders things. Only the one God has such intellect and power.
Of Jesus that is for another day. There the story is of God deciding that he had to finally come to earth to teach us how to live together. For, unlike other living things, we were given free will, and unless we accepted his guidance we will and can destroy that which surrounds us.
We must remember, God almost gave up on us. Remember how he destroyed all but those Noah took forward? Jesus came to offer us salvation and more importantly to simplify the Ten Commandments down to two – Love God and Love Your Neighbor. If we could simply do these two things then we would be at peace and like the other creatures of god’s creation live in harmony in God’s universe.
Our quest is simply to help everyone to understand that by living with those two commandments in our hearts and in our heads; we can live in peace and maybe one day return to the Garden of Eden. With respect for the one unimaginable God and together as the common inhabitants of this plant, we can work as a team to be better than how we operate as isolated individuals seeking dominion over someone else.
With God’s Love
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