The Creed - I Believe In Creation

I BELIEVE in God the Father Almighty, Maker
of heaven and earth: And in Jesus Christ his only
The Creed
Son, our Lord; who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born
of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified,
dead, and buried; he descended into hell; the third day he rose
again from the dead; he ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the
I BELIEVE in CREATION
right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence he shall come to
judge the quick and the dead. I believe in the Holy Ghost; the holy
catholic church; the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins;
the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. Amen

I BELIEVE in God the Father Almighty, Maker
of heaven and earth: And in Jesus Christ his only
Son, our Lord; who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born
of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified,
dead, and buried; he descended into hell; the third day he rose
again from the dead; he ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the
right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence he shall come to
judge the quick and the dead. I believe in the Holy Ghost; the holy
catholic church; the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins;
the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. Amen

" In the beginning God created the
heavens and the earth.”
- Genesis 1:1

The Creed – I Believe in Creation

“Astronomy leads us to a unique event, a
universe which was created out of nothing, one
with the very delicate balance needed to provide
exactly the conditions required to permit life, and
one which has an underlying (one might say
‘supernatural’) plan.”
- Arno Penzias, Physicist, Nobel laureate


“Out of nothing didst Thou create heaven and
earth – a great thing and a small – because Thou
are Almighty and Good, to make all things good,
even the great heaven and the small earth. Thou
wast, and there was nought else from which
Thou didst create heaven and earth.”
- Augustine, Confessions


What about Evolution?
“An atheist before Darwin could have said,
following Hume: "I have no explanation for
complex biological design. All I know is that
God isn't a good explanation, so we must wait
and hope that somebody comes up with a
better one." I can't help feeling that such a
position, though logically sound, would have
left one feeling pretty unsatisfied, and that
although atheism might have been logically
tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it
possible to be an intellectually fulfilled
atheist.”
- Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker

Question: Does evolution answer the question of existence?

What about Evolution?
“It seems to me that Richard Dawkins
constantly overlooks the fact that Darwin
himself, in the fourteenth chapter of The
Origin of Species, pointed out that his whole
argument began with a being which already
possessed reproductive powers. This is the
creature the evolution of which a truly
comprehensive theory of evolution must give
some account. Darwin himself was well aware
that he had not produced such an account. It
now seems to me that the findings of more
than fifty years of DNA research have
provided materials for a new and enormously
powerful argument to design.”
- Anthony Flew, philosopher and former atheist


Key Question…
“How did God create all
that we know?”


Three Possible Creation Scenarios

1. Ex Materia
2. Ex Deo
3. Ex Nihilo

Christianity teaches an Ex Nihilo creation


Ex Materia – Out of Existing Matter
Plato taught that matter was eternal and in his
work Timaeus , he gives posits the Demiurgos
(although there is some foreshadowing of this
being in previous works) who is the world
former of the Good that Plato writes about in
his work the Republic. The Demiurgos works
in an ex materia way. He is also a producing
cause and not a purposing cause. Finally, the
Good is not a personal God of any kind to
be worshipped nor is it a creator. Plato is the
only Greek philosopher to believe time had a
beginning.

Key Points: Matter is eternal; creation=formation; Demiurgos is a former not
producer; God is not sovereign over everything.

Ex Materia – Out of Existing Matter
Aristotle posited the one he called “The
unmoved mover”. To Aristotle, the universe is
eternal and the unmoved mover or “First
Cause” was Pure Form or Actuality and not
infinite. Like Plato’s Good, it was also not a
being to be worshipped, but unlike Plato’s
Demiurge, the First Cause is a final and
purposing cause, but still should not be
equated to the same efficient/producing cause
of Christianity that brought the universe into
being out of nothing since Aristotle held to an
eternal universe.


Ex Deo – Out of God
Plotinus’ cosmogony is that God is ‘one’ that
created the world ex deo, that is, out of himself.
This act is a process of emanation, where the
One unfolds itself as a seed unfolds into a
flower. His attempt to explain unity and
diversity:
• Many beings exist
• All multiplicity is based on prior unity
• There must be an absolute unity that is the basis
of all multiplicity
• This absolute unity cannot be a being as it is the
source of all being and being involves multiplicity
• This One absolute unity must necessarily unfold
itself to produce self-consciousness, called
Intellect
• As the One unfolds itself outwardly, it produces
the World Soul, or the “many”

Comparing Greek and Biblical Views

Biblical Plotinus Plato Aristotle
Ex Nihilo Ex Deo Ex Materia Ex Materia

Separate Beings
Initiator Father One Good Universe
One Being

Creates by Son Intellect Demiurge Unmoved Mover

Gives Life Spirit Soul World Soul Soul

Remember that the Greek thinkers arrived at their conclusions via
General Revelation alone.


Biblical Creation
" In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The
earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of
the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of
the waters.“
(Genesis 1:1-2)

Herbert Spencer was an evolutionist/scientist who said all reality is made up of
5 components: Time, Force, Action, Space, Matter

Time Force Action Space Matter

“In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the earth.”

The Creed – I Believe in God

Correct Way to Think about Creation
God is to creation like a painter is to their
painting, or a sculptor is to their sculpture… He
created the world and manifests Himself in it.
The universe and world are not “of” God
(pantheism) but distinct from Him.

Creator Creation
Uncreated Created
Infinite Finite
Eternal Temporal
Necessary Contingent
Changeless Changing


Apologetic Proofs for Creation
Kalam Cosmological Argument – Originating Cause

• Everything that begins to exist must have a cause
• The universe began to exist
• Therefore, the universe had a cause

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”
- Genesis 1:1


Vertical Cosmological Argument – Sustaining Cause

• Everything in the universe is dependent (contingent)
• If every part of the universe is dependent, then so is the
whole
• Therefore, the universe is dependent right now on some
independent / Necessary Being for its present existence

"He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together." Colossians 1:17
"And He ... upholds all things by the word of His power..." Hebrews 1:2-3


Teleological Argument – Argument from Design

• Behind every complex design is a designer
• The universe has a complex design
• Therefore, the universe has a designer

“Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed,
but rather evolved.”
– Francis Crick, co-discoverer of DNA


Teleological Argument – Argument from Design

1. Anthropic Principle
2. Irreducible Complexity
3. Specified Complexity

“...as I became exposed to the law and order of the universe, I was literally
humbled by its unerring perfection. I became convinced that there must be a divine
intent behind it all... My experiences with science led me to God. They challenge
science to prove the existence of God. But must we really light a candle to see
the sun?” (Dr. Wernher von Braun, the father of rocket science)


Teleological Argument – Anthropic Principle
• Oxygen currently makes up 21 percent of the atmosphere. Were it 25
percent, fires would erupt everywhere and if it were 15 percent, humans
would suffocate.
• If gravity was altered by
0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000001 percent, the sun
would not exist and the moon would crash into earth. Further, if the
centrifugal force of planetary movements did not precisely balance the
gravitational forces, nothing could be held in orbit around the sun.
• If the universe was expanding at a rate one millionth more slowly than it is, the
temperature on earth would be 10,000 degrees.
• If Jupiter was not exactly where it is, earth would be bombarded by space
material that would threaten life on the planet.


“Now some people have tried to avoid this conclusion by saying that we
shouldn’t be surprised at the incredible fine-tuning of the universe because if
the universe were not fine-tuned, then we wouldn’t be here to be surprised
about it. Given that we are here, we should expect the universe to be fine-
tuned. But the fallacy of this reasoning can be made clear by means of an
illustration. Suppose you’re traveling abroad and are arrested on a trumped
up drug charge and dragged before a firing squad of 100 trained marksmen to
be executed. The command is given: 'Ready. Aim. Fire!' You hear the
deafening roar of the guns. And you discover that you are still alive, that all
the 100 trained marksmen missed! Now what do you conclude? 'I really
shouldn’t be surprised at the improbability of them all missing because if they
hadn’t missed, then I wouldn’t be here. Since I am here, I should, expect them
all to miss.' Of course not! You would rightly conclude that they all missed on
purpose, that the whole thing was set up, for some reason, by someone. In
exactly the same way, given the incomprehensibly improbable fine-tuning of the
universe for intelligent life, it is rational to conclude that this is not the result of
chance, but design.”
- William Lane Craig


Teleological Argument – Irreducible Complexity

Charles Darwin admitted that, “If it could be demonstrated that
any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been
formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory
would absolutely break down.” Scientists now know that many
such entities exist. In Darwin’s time, scientists could not see into
what biochemist Dr. Michael Behe calls “Darwin’s black box”,
which is the cell. Darwin thought the cell to be a simple structure,
however time and scientific advances have proven him wrong.
Instead, there is advanced complexity all the way down.


Teleological Argument – Specified Complexity
Darwinist Richard Dawkins admits that the message found in
just the cell nucleus of an amoeba is more than all thirty volumes
of the Encyclopedia Britannica, with the entire amoeba itself
having as much information in its DNA as 1,000 complete sets
of the Encyclopedia Britannica. The important thing to
understand is that the makeup of these entities is not random,
but instead the information is highly organized.
“It is important to understand that we are not reasoning by analogy. The
sequence hypothesis applies directly to the protein and the genetic text as well
as to written language and therefore the treatment is mathematically identical.”
- Herbert P. Yockey, Biologist

“Incidentally, is it not to be wondered at that our archaeologist
immediately infers intelligent origin when faced with a few simple
scratches whereas some scientists, when faced with the 3.5 billion
letter sequence of the human genome, inform us that it is to be
explained solely in terms of chance and necessity?”
-John Lennox, PhD, Mathematics, Philosophy

“If science is based on experience, then science tells us that the
message encoded in DNA must have originated from an
intelligent source. What kind of intelligent agent was it? On its
own, science cannot answer this question; it must leave it to
religion and philosophy. But that should not prevent science
from acknowledging evidences for an intelligent cause origin
wherever they may exist.”
- Dean Kenyon, Biophysicist

The Power of General Revelation

“But the basic reality of God is plain enough.
Open your eyes and there it is! ”
– Romans 1:19, The Message

The Creed – I Believe in God

Seven Orthodox Views of Creation
I. Young Earth – Earth is thousands of years old.
1. Standard Six-Day Creation
2. Ideal-Time

II. Old Earth – Earth could be millions/billions of years old.
1. Long ‘Days’
2. Revelatory-Days
3. Day-Age
4. Literary Framework
5. Gap /Ruin-ReconstructionView


Young/Old Earth Agreements /Disagreements

I. Agreements
1. Direct supernatural creation of all forms of life
2. Opposition to Naturalism (no supernatural cause)
3. Opposition to Macroevolution
4. Historicity of Genesis account

II. Disagreements
1. Age of the earth
2. Literal days/allegorical days view of Genesis account

Age of the earth should not be a test for orthodoxy


Days of Creation
FORM FULLNESS
Day One Day Four 1:14-19
1:3-5
• Speak light into existence • Speak Lights into the Expanse to
• Separate light/dark • Separate/Rule Day/Night for Signs,
• Ordered Time for seasons, for Days/Years light/dark
Day Two Day Five
1:6-8
1:20-23
• Speak to Separate Waters
• Speak Waters to Team with Fish
• Order: Waters below
Expanse • Separate Birds to Fly in Expanse
Waters above • Bless
Day Three Day Six 1:24-31
1:9-13 • Speak Earth to Bring Forth Living
• Speak to Separate Waters Below so Creation in Kind
Dry Land Appears • Let Us Make Man in Our Image
• Name: Earth/Sea • Let Them Rule
• Speak Earth to Sprout Plants • Bless
• Divide Plants

29

Scripture Refutes Macroevolution
“Then God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and
fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit after their kind with seed in them”; and it
was so. The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed after their
kind, and trees bearing fruit with seed in them, after their kind; and God saw
that it was good … God created the great sea monsters and every living
creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed after their kind, and every
winged bird after its kind; and God saw that it was good … Then God said,
“Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind: cattle and creeping
things and beasts of the earth after their kind”; and it was so. God made the
beasts of the earth after their kind, and the cattle after their kind, and
everything that creeps on the ground after its kind; and God saw that it was
good.”
- Genesis 1:11-12, 21, 24-25


Scripture Refutes Macroevolution

“All flesh is not the same flesh,
but there is one flesh of men,
and another flesh of beasts, and
another flesh of birds, and
another of fish.”
(1 Corinthians 15:39)


Scriptures Speaking to Creation
“You alone are the Lord. You have made the heavens, The
heaven of heavens with all their host, The earth and all that is on
it, The seas and all that is in them. You give life to all of them
And the heavenly host bows down before You.”
(Nehemiah 9:6)

“The heavens are telling of the glory of God; And their expanse
is declaring the work of His hands. Day to day pours forth
speech, And night to night reveals knowledge. There is no
speech, nor are there words; Their voice is not heard.”
(Psalm 19:1-3)


Scriptures Speaking to Creation
"By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, And by the
breath of His mouth all their host.“
(Psalm 33:6)

“It is I who made the earth, and created man upon it. I stretched
out the heavens with My hands And I ordained all their host.”
(Isaiah 45:12)

“Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, and the one who formed
you from the womb, “I, the Lord, am the maker of all things,
Stretching out the heavens by Myself And spreading out the
earth all alone,”
(Isaiah 44:24)

Christ as Instrumental Cause
“ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All
things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing
came into being that has come into being … He was in the world,
and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know
Him.”
(John 1:1-3, 10)

“yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all
things and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by
whom are all things, and we exist through Him.”
(1 Corinthians 8:6)


Christ as Instrumental Cause
“For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on
earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers
or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for
Him.”
(Colossians 1:16)

“God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in
many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to
us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through
whom also He made the world.”
(Hebrews 1:1-2)


The Brilliance of Christ in Creation
John Polkinghorne, British particle
physicist and professor at
Cambridge, noted that the
expansion and contraction rates
were so precise in the nanoseconds
of the Big Bang, that it would be
like taking aim at a one-inch square
20 billion light years away and hitting
it bull’s eye on the first try.
“Gentlemen”, said Polkinhorne,
“there is no free lunch.”


Why a Right View of Creation Matters

1. Creation has a bearing on how one views the
Creator
Only God as described in the Bible is uncreated, infinite,
eternal, necessary, and changeless. A cosmogony position that
holds to anything else will be flawed in literally every direction in
which it expands

“The history of mankind will probably show that no people has ever risen
above its religion, and man’s spiritual history will positively demonstrate that
no religion has ever been greater than its idea of God.” – A. W. Tozer



2. A Good Apologetic Demands a Right View
of Origins
Every philosophical system and worldview must pass through the
same series of questions to determine where they stand in regard
to reality:

1. Where did all of ‘this’ come from and how did it come?
2. What has gone wrong with the world?
3. How will the world be set right from the state it is currently
in?


“Take away the first three
chapters of Genesis, and you
cannot maintain a true
Christian position nor give
Christianity’s answers”
– Francis Schaeffer
The God Who is There



3. A Correct view of Ourselves Demands a
Right View of Origins

“You and me baby me ain't nothin' but mammals
So let's do it like they do on the Discovery Channel”
- Blood Hound Gang


In Mary Shelly’s (who was not a Christian) book Frankenstein,
Dr. Frankenstein is a doctor who creates a perfectly benign and
peaceful being. The more the creation observes human behavior,
the more it begins to mimic human behavior and starts to become
evil. The creation confronts the doctor and tells him that when he
was brought into this world, he didn’t understand why people
needed government and controls and police, but as he observed
people and read history, he turned away in horror at what man was
capable of. People could be kind, but also evil. Why both –
where does that capacity come from? The creation concludes
this: you were created in the image of a perfect being, and you’ve
fallen away from it.


"By faith we understand that the worlds
were prepared by the word of God, so that
what is seen was not made out of things
which are visible."(Hebrews 11:3)


Originating Cause Sustaining Cause

“For from Him and through Him
and to Him are all things. To Him
be the glory forever. Amen.”
(Romans 11:36)
Final Cause


The Creed - I Believe In Creation

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