Creation, Facts, and Purpose

Spirituality Column #202
September 21, 2010
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Creation, Facts, and Purpose
By Bob Walters

In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth …
(Genesis 1:1)

Considering that Creation is among the hottest of contemporary, fightin’-words, flash-point topics in church, theological, political, scientific, cosmological, educational, philosophical and biblical circles, this could be a dangerous discussion.

However the intention here is to simply present a few non-combative thoughts on the how and why of Creation, not challenge anyone’s Christianity or second-guess God.

Neither is this an attempt to prove the “six day” teaching nor to bash evolution, but we will put the Bible in its rightful and true spot as God’s voice.

The truths we’re working with are that God exists, God is eternal and uncreated, God is the creator of all things, God had a reason for creating all things, God is omniscient (knows all) and omnipotent (can do all), and the Bible is what it says it is.

Let’s also clearly state that the world is real, we are real, we are alive, we are aware, and what we do matters. Plus, it is reliably entrenched in our human brains to ask how and why Creation happened, and how and why we are here.

Science and Philosophy (God created them, too) ask how and why all the time.

Science asks: How do things happen? What are the predictable and repeatable results? What are the facts?

Philosophy asks: Why am I here? Why are we here? What is truth? What is our purpose?

The scientific “How” leads to facts: we find out how God made things, leading to knowledge. And then, philosophically asking “Why” God made things leads to discovery of God’s purpose, leading to relationship and faith.

The Bible reveals little of “how” God created us, but is overwhelmingly packed with “why.” From Adam and Eve to Abraham to Moses to the Prophets to Jesus Christ to Paul, God describes His relationship with mankind, and the relationship He wants us to have with each other.

God’s purpose for Creation becomes clear as our faith grows, and that purpose boils down to one word: Love. God is love (1 John 4:8, 16), and his Son Jesus Christ entered this world to defeat death, remove our sin, and save us for eternal communion amid God’s love.

I appreciate science exploring how God does things, but am thankful beyond expression that faith is all we need to know why.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com, email rlwcom@aol.com) thinks science is God’s way of having us look for Him in Creation. Too often we think we see ourselves instead.

The Rationalism of Sin

Spirituality Column #131
May 12, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

The Rationalism of Sin
By Bob Walters

The first two chapters of Genesis and the last two chapters of Revelation – the front and back of the Bible – tell us that the world was created without sin and will end without sin.

The bad stuff starts in Genesis 3 when Satan appears and tempts Adam and Eve. Satan’s run ends in the lake of fire in Revelation 20. Bracketing the intervening Biblical chaos are Genesis 1-2 and Revelation 21-22, which describe sinless worlds far different than the one in which we currently live.

I love the Creation story, and deeply cherish the promise and hope of Heaven. In the beginning God created an earthly world He repeatedly declared “good.” In the end He describes an eternal heavenly home – The New Jerusalem – that offers perpetual communion and perfection in the company of Jesus Christ. No sin, no death.

But the reasoned reality of right now in the life all around us is the fact of sin and the fear of death.

Concentric to that reality is the world’s postmodernist, sliding-scale morality that assigns disbelieving relativity to good and evil, and mushy equivocation to truth and falsehood.

A Christian should be able confidently to describe good and truth as the light of Jesus Christ, and recognize evil and falsehood as the darkness of Satan. Alas, today’s prevailing intellectual winds paint assuredness in the divine unseen as irrational, and ascribe cultural tolerance and philosophical certainty only to self-truth and situational morality.

A hundred years ago, author G.K. Chesterton recognized the first glimmers of rationalist postmodernism and argued a somewhat brief yet brilliantly entertaining case against it in his classic 1908 book Orthodoxy. In 100 years, the book has never gone out of print.

Chesterton, now proven prophetic, wasn’t so much arguing against postmodernism as he was arguing for the reasonableness of Christian belief.

He paints reason in tones of openness of mind, describes doubt as a sure sign of sanity, and lists imagination and wonder as indispensable tests of mental function.

Some months ago I was enthralled by a centennial review of Orthodoxy written by Baylor professor Ralph C. Wood that appeared in the November 2008 First Things magazine (the article can be accessed for free at FirstThings.com, search Orthodoxy Chesterton).

Reason and rational thought, Chesterton assures us, are never the preemptive domain of those who claim sin and evil are irrational. It’s the believers who are sane.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) notes: the first and last chapters of the Bible have no sin, and Christ frequently describes himself as “the first and last.” Interesting, huh?

Dealing with Jesus

Spirituality Column #79
May 13, 2008
Current! in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current! in Westfield (IN) newspaper

Dealing with Jesus
By Bob Walters

Ben Stein’s recent movie Expelled presents Intelligent Design/Creation as a salient life science subverted by 150 years of incomplete yet burgeoning and now pervasive Darwinian/Evolution worldview and education.

The 1996 PBS NOVA episode titled “The Ultimate Journey,” a video on evolution commonly shown in high school biology classes with fascinating microphotography of embryos, confidently asserts itself as “The Odyssey of Life,” a veritable highlight reel of how life works. The video contains this direct quote, “We don’t know how life began.”

How odd. I know how life began; God created life, and us. The Bible lays it out in plain terms in Genesis chapters 1 and 2.

The fact that there is life because God wanted there to be life – and our trying to figure out the how and why of life based on that – is entirely different and I daresay more satisfying than evolutionists stuffily saying “we don’t know how life began” and foregoing any explanation of why life exists.

To an evolutionist, there is no “why.”

Creationism is different. That’s because the Bible is different, and Jesus is different.

Our God-given human creativity and freedom to invent secular views like evolution, humanism, and broad and competing swaths of philosophy – or conversely, to discover God, life, love, purpose, salvation, relationships and truth in the Bible – too often create conflict, not understanding. For the record, I don’t think science is specifically secular or necessarily divisive.

Discussing this with a friend from church, wondering why so many people insist on separating science and scripture, she said, “The problem is that if you deal with Creation, you have to deal with the Bible. And if you deal with the Bible, then you have to deal with Jesus … and a lot of people don’t want to go there.”

So true. The thing is, we should recognize that our individuality, uniqueness and significance all come from Jesus, not Darwin. Evolution defeats all those ideas, and Darwin doesn’t demand that we act right and love each other.

We’d all be better off dealing with Jesus, even in science class. And by all means … go to science class.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) finds dinosaur bones and carbon dating quite fascinating, but not as fascinating as his relationship with God, Christ and the Holy Spirit.

Necessary Evil

Spirituality Column #72
March 25, 2008
Current! In Carmel (IN) newspaper

Necessary Evil
By Bob Walters

The Bible tells me …
Creation is real, Heaven is real, and Hell is real.

I don’t thoroughly understand any of them, but I do know that Creation and Heaven are not threats or warnings; they both embody God’s goodness. I’m fairly certain that ignoring them will only lessen the joy of my experience with God here on earth, not create eternal ramifications for my salvation.

The specifics of Hell, on the other hand, demand our undivided attention at least once in a while because if we miss God’s message on Hell, we can and very likely will stumble into very deep doo doo for all eternity.

Frankly, I don’t spend a lot of my Christian faith-walk fearing Hell because I wasn’t frightened into the faith by threats of damnation. I was intellectually drawn to Christ by a preponderance of both evidence and emotion that acted on my heart, mind and soul, telling me that access to God, through Christ, with the Holy Spirit alive within me, was how I wanted to live my life.

Now, none of that means I’m not a sinner yet today; I am. So it’s necessary to take a moment every now and then to contemplate the awfulness of sin and what, exactly, Hell is. “Eternal damnation” is a hackneyed church phrase that does not paint a cogent – or ugly enough – picture.

Hell is where sin plays its home games. Hell is inescapable once you’re there. It’s not just fire; it’s a furnace with intensified and perpetual heat. It is complete aloneness, hopelessness and shame. It is awake, not unconscious. It is death, and you are aware of it. It is where God, over and over again in scripture, promises that he vanquishes souls who reject him.

A lot of churches ignore Hell. Shoot, a lot of churches ignore sin.

But if the Bible is your standard of what God promises, study up on what scripture says about Hell.

A Christian blogger I like named Brent Riggs has a succinct four-part teaching on what the Bible says about Hell at seriousfaith.com, search “040722.”

I don’t follow Christ because I fear Hell, but it’s a special kind of crazy to ignore Christ because you don’t fear Hell.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) fully appreciates how uncomfortable it is to contemplate Hell. Can you imagine what it’s like to be there?

Natural Conflict

Spirituality Column #43
September 4, 2007
Current! In Carmel (IN) newspaper

Natural Conflict
By Bob Walters

Charles Darwin may have failed to accurately explain how we all got here, but his theories succeeded in creating a secular religion – Naturalism.

Naturalism is the accurate “ism” to describe the opposite of “Creationism,” where the Bible tells us God created the world, man, morality and relationships. Naturalism tells us that the creation is all there is, and that, essentially, creation created creation. God isn’t there, morality is a figment of our imagination, and love is a collection of brain waves.

Not a Creator? Darwin’s “Origin of Species” left even the author unsure as to whether his theories were accurate (read Lee Stroebel’s Case for a Creator). Though Darwin’s science, true to his own suspicions, was dreadfully flawed, it was the best alternative yet to God’s story of Creation told in Genesis 1 and 2.

Darwin obviated a need for “God” in the grand scheme of things. Hence we become, if not Creators ourselves, masters of our own morality. We decide what is good and evil; and it doesn’t matter, because we are all just accidents of nature anyway.

I think there is way more mystery, drama, magnificence and truth in the Biblical story, but our secular world has arrived at a place in history where the Bible is largely dismissed, God is easily ignored, Christ is routinely ridiculed, and the Holy Spirit has been morphed into a spirit of man rather than God.

What is the difference? And what does it matter?

This:

Naturalism rejects a personal God, rejects absolutes, rejects morality and ridicules faith. It gives us nothing and explains nothing of our spirit. Instead of faith, hope and charity, the natural order is survival of the fittest.

We have a great gift in God’s love and the transforming grace of Jesus.

Why, in God’s name, would anyone give that up?

PS – You don’t really think we crawled out of the slime and started thinking, by ourselves, do you? God created science, too.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) has made plenty of mistakes, but knows God doesn’t look at him as a mistake. That’s true of everyone. God wants us all.

Can you relate?

Spirituality Column #28
May 22, 2007
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper

Can you relate?By Bob Walters

To those who view the Bible as a guide book for our relationship with God, the Cosmos and other people, it is a liberating book of immeasurable depth.

If you try to make the Bible the full literal story of all history and the complete rules of life, you will be trapped by its smallness. There is no freedom in specific orders; there most definitely is freedom in Christ.

The Ten Commandments? Great rules. But do you mind if I work in my yard on Sunday?  For commandments that work all the time, I like “Love God” and “Love others.”

Genesis and Creation? Brilliant people on both sides of the Creationist (God created the world in six 24-hour days) and Evolutionist (we are mutated fish that crawled out of the primordial ooze over several billion years) debate will not give an inch on their respective views of Genesis 1.

Inasmuch as God, Christ and the Holy Spirit pretty much are Creation (done deal), there doesn’t seem – to me – to be a whole lot at stake arguing the topic of Creation / Evolution. It has already happened just as God planned it. Christ is all about faith, hope, love … and looking ahead.

As a believing (if personally flawed) Christian I will tell you that the main point, the sum-total of the entire Bible, is that we are to build a faith and relationship in Jesus Christ.

Can you believe in Christ without believing in Creation? I say, of course, because Creation isn’t the main thing in our relationship with God; Christ is the main thing. The Bible is crystal clear in saying Christ is the only way to have a relationship with God. The Holy Spirit will help your heart and mind sort out the details.

Instead of asking “How did I get here?” I’d ask, “How is my relationship with Christ?”

Now there is a deep question.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) is a Carmel resident who believes we are here for a reason … and it isn’t to prove that mutated fish can build hospitals and highways.

Science, The Bible and Dinosaur Bones

Spirituality Column - #16 - Feb . 27, 2007
Current! In Carmel newspaper

Science, The Bible and Dinosaur Bones

By Bob Walters

What is science if not the search for God?

Science is the study of how things work and why things are. How long can you study the cosmos before you realize that, a) it can’t possibly be an accident, and b) Darwin can’t explain how the dirt got here?

That’s the punch line to an old joke about the world’s smartest scientist who challenges God’s uniqueness as Creator. “I can create life,” says the scientist. “Oh? How?” says God. The scientist says “It’s easy. You just take some dirt and ….”

God interrupts, “Where are you going to get your dirt?”

Science and religion should be separate, a USA Today article by Tom Krattenmaker Feb. 4 said, because Creationism is so, well, stupid. I thought the article read like a long-winded excuse for sleeping in Sunday mornings.

Science and religion are different, sure; but they aren’t mutually exclusive. I can have God, the Bible, and a pile of dinosaur bones and see no conflict whatsoever. God and God’s word are perfect, and the dinosaur bones are sitting right there.

Just because we can’t figure everything out doesn’t mean dinosaurs obviate God and the Bible (or vice versa). That’s our problem, not God’s.

Religion is how I find God in my heart; science is how I find God in creation. What’s wrong with that? He wants us to discover him; he just doesn’t make it easy.

What I think is hilarious is how scientists are perceived to be busily working against the idea of God, when what many scientists come up with is a healthy appreciation for God.

The Grand Canyon probably did take millions of years to be cut (I wasn’t there so I can’t be sure), but when I see the Grand Canyon, I think of God, not Darwin.

Walters, a Carmel resident at rlwcom@aol.com, sees God as a fact of all life.