Origins
Hebrews 11:1-3
September 9, 2012
“The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be”. Carl Sagan, Comos, p.4
“By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made o9ut of what was visible.” Hebrews 11:3
The Greatest commandment is to “Love the lord your God, with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.
One of the challenges we face is to give a reasonable answer to why we believe in God. We do more looking and we do less thinking than in previous years, because it is much easier to watch the TV than to read a book. It is much easier to put a bumper sticker on your car, or repeat one with your words, than it is to conduct an intelligent conversation.
So I want to have a sort of conversation today about the Origin of all things. What does the Bible tell us about origins? Do we have any kind of reason to believe in God other than to take a leap of faith? Is there truly a conflict between science and faith?
I. Conflict?
It is a common idea that science and faith are in conflict. We usually get this from people making an argument against faith from a scientific standpoint or against science from a faith standpoint. Issues and people are brought out as evidence: The Trial of Galileo, the Scopes Trial, School Book selection in Texas on the one hand, and Atheism, the new morality and relativism on the other.
I want to say two things about this.
1. Science is not only compatible with faith; it is really something that God calls us to be part of.
2. Science should be seen as part of the answer of how the world works. By its nature is cannot be the total explanation of everything.
Science:
Cultural Mandate: We have a mandate to do science in the Bible. Did you know that? Now the bible does not say this with 21st Century language. Yet it does in a variety of ways call us, the image bearers of God to know this world that is our home and that is the creation of God.
Some theologians call this the “cultural mandate”. They mean that God has left to us to discover the world, to order our lives and to find a way to bring peace and well-being to the earth. We have done amazing things as human being, and we have obviously fallen short of peace and well-being.
Genesis 1:28 – “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.”
In order for people to take their role as God’s image bearers in the world, we must learn how the world works. In order to rule over it we have to understand it. So we need science for that.
Many have noted that Faith in God gives us a reason to believe that our thinking is real. It gives us reason to discover a world that is reasonable, because it was designed by God in a mindful way. Science is seen by believers as learning what God has done.
Genesis 2:15 – “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and to take care of it.”
Eden was created by God and Adam was called to care for it. So Adam had to learn about trees and plants, water and soil, seeds and roots. Sometimes Theologians wonder how much greater this first Man was than us. He did not have an I Phone or a chainsaw. Yet he was not fallen into sin. Fred Strand used to note that we only use 10% of our brain power – what if Adam had a greater capacity?
We can trace this line through scripture. We find those who found cities, those who make musical instruments, those who create tools, those who read and write. Solomon encourages us to look at the Ants and the Birds around us. God gave Job a science lesson later in the book, as he described the amazing variety of creatures on the earth. Ecclesiastes discussed the water cycle. Jesus talked about seeds.
2. “Science Says”.
Now while we are on this topic we need to notice a reality about science. Science does not speak with a single voice. There are at any one time thousands of men and women studying parts of this world. On many topics there are active debates. For example is there one or are there multiple universes? On any one subject, there may be a consensus, but there is not unanimity
Science is a process not a completed work. The scientific method, we were taught in school has to do with observing, theorizing, testing, and adjusting our thinking. It is best if studies are repeated and tested.
Science is always on the move. Everybody believed in one kind of model of the solar system, until Copernicus and Galileo came around. The philosopher’s all said that the Heavens were perfect, so all things travelled perfect circles. However, Galileo thought to look through a telescope and he found that the Heavens were imperfect. Planets move in ellipses, and that there are sometimes collisions in space. In the early 20th Century we thought that Atoms really did look like that symbol you see of a nucleus with little planetary electrons. Then came Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg, and we found that at the atomic level, things are as confusing as a New York City intersection at rush hour.
Debate is necessary in Science because it is a process not a conclusion.
Faith:
Trust: What is faith? It is defined in our Text:
“Faith is the evidence of what is hoped for and the certainty of what is not seen.”
You will hear skeptics and believers say, “there is no evidence; just take a leap of faith.” That is not what the Bible says. It says that we have reason to believe. The creation as a whole is seen to declare the glory of God and to show us his character.
Faith is not a blind leap. It believes the word of the Creator.
If you go to Sears and buy a new power drill, it will come with a manual. Now do you take as a leap in the dark that you should follow the instructions? Or do you simply trust that Sears know how to operate this tool that they designed and sell?
Faith is trust in God. It is knowing, and it is believing. It is trusting that God exists and that he communicates clearly.
We do not negate science by Faith. Faith is additional information. Faith is a word from the creator about our origin and purpose. Science tells us how things work. Some scientists speculate philosophically about origins and meanings, but that is not part of science. But Faith is now we learn the answer to the big questions: why are we here? What does it mean? Where are we going?
Change:
Here is a thought to challenge you. We know that God is unchanging. His word is eternal. So should we say that because we have the bible that we, believers, know everything?
No. I am sorry to say, that is not true. It is not true for two reasons:
First, because the bible dies not tell us all we know. There are no instructions in how to prune grape vines, or how to tune up an engine. These are things you might need to do. You will have to learn about those from experience or from teachers. The things that are taught in the Bible we hold as true. Not everything you need is there.
Second, we are imperfect. The bible tells us that human beings are deeply flawed and imperfect. We are rebellious and selfish. We are foolish and prone to get things wrong.
When the church went thought the Reformation with men like Martin Luther and John Calvin, they restored the Gospel to the church and cut out a lot of tradition that had built up. The reformation was like painting a house. First you have to scrape off all the old bad paint. Then you get to put on a fresh coat. Those of us who own a house know that there is no end to maintenance.
The Reformers had a saying. They said that we need to be constantly reforming.
We have not achieved perfect understanding. So our faith, our theology, our wisdom and our ways of doing things need to be examined by the light of the Word of God. So like Science, faith is not something firmly established in the past. Faith is a living relationship with God and a growing understanding of his Word. Faith also develops and receives correction.
One of the problems Christians have is that they can become too attached to their explanation of the Bible, or their theory of the bible. When Galileo looked into a telescope, he did not overturn the bible. He overturned the theological system of the church of his time. That system was made up of the Bible and Aristotle combined. The part that was the problem was the part about Aristotle.
Sometimes we add things to our understanding of the Bible from our experience, or because we heard it somewhere. We need to be willing to be corrected. If it turns out the Bible teaches something else, we need to be willing to change our understanding to conform to the Word of God
II. Spheres. There is another difference that we need to think about. This is very important. If we do not understand this we will be vexed and confused by trying to understand the Bible and Science at the same time.
Science and the Bible do not cover the same information in the same way. Science is about matter and energy over time. The Bible is the story of God’s work in the world. Let me explain.
Science: Science deals in the material world. The current theory is that everything is made up of matter and energy. Scientists also believe that both matter and energy are made up of the same thing – packets of waves or strings. Science observes in the 4 dimensions. Space has three dimensions – height, width and length. The fourth dimension is time. Science currently holds that time does not exist all by itself, but it is part of the created world.
I started with a quote from Carl Sagan. This is a famous one that you will hear sooner or later: “The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be”.
Carl Sagan was an atheist. He said there was neither God nor any need for a God. He said that everything that exists is in the material world. There is nothing else.
Is that a scientific statement? No it is not. It is a philosophical statement. He said, as a matter of his belief system, that matter and energy and time are everything. There can be nothing else. Did he have proof? No. He could not have proof, because we have no way of knowing from physical study of the world (science) if there is anything that is not physical. Sagan was speaking outside of science, not from science.
Faith: What does the bible say about this? Our verses from Hebrews 11 speak to this idea. What is seen is not made out of what is visible.
We hold that God created everything. The Bible begins with the Creation of Heaven and Earth. Throughout the Bible, God is known as the Creator and the sustainer. He started everything, and he remains actively involved with every part.
Both Genesis 1 and Hebrews 11 say that God created with his word. This is to say, that God came from outside of the three dimensions, and he came from outside of time itself. He caused all things to exist because he commanded them to exist.
We have the cosmological argument. This says, basically, that things that exist are caused by something before them in time. For example: A chick was born from an egg. The egg was laid by a hen. The hen came from another egg, etc. So somewhere at the beginning there was a first chicken or a first egg. But how could there be an egg without a chicken to lay it? How could there be a chicken if it did not come from an egg?
The Cosmological argument says that there had to be a first cause. It is illogical to say that the material world caused itself. Besides the material world is decaying over time – so it can have existed forever. Science agrees with this idea, there was a beginning to our universe.
We have a choice. The universe is eternal – somehow it caused itself to exist. Or the universe is temporal, and it was created by something else. We say it was created by god. The material work could not create itself, because it is not eternal.
God is eternal, spiritual and not part of the dimensions of time and space. So it is reasonable to say that God caused things to be. A few verses later we read this: Hebrews 11:6: “Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”
An acrostic is a poem where each verse starts with a subsequent letter of the alphabet. It is frequently used in the bible, often in Wisdom Literature. The book of Lamentations is made up of acrostic poems.
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