Origins
“For since the creation of the world His
invisible attributes, His eternal power and
divine nature, have been clearly seen, being
understood through what has been made, so
that they are without excuse. ”
(Romans 1:20)
Origins
“For since the creation of the world His
invisible attributes, His eternal power and
divine nature, have been clearly seen, being
understood through what has been made, so
that they are without excuse. ”
(Romans 1:20)
Why Origins Matters
Questions All Philosophies/Faiths Ask
1.
2.
3.
4.
Origins – where did I come from?
Ethics – how should I live?
Meaning – why am I here?
Destiny – where am I going?
Another View…
1. Where did everything come
from?
2. What went wrong?
3. How can it be fixed?
“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
Where Did Everything Come From?
Primary Cause
Naturalism
Theism
Secondary Cause
Four Core Views of Origins
1.
2.
3.
4.
Naturalistic Evolution – No God involved in
creation; things emerged by pure, natural
processes.
Naturalistic Creation – No theistic Creator
beyond the world; only a creative Mind within
the universe that creates.
Theistic Evolution – God directly created
the universe, but living things emerged under
His control by largely natural processes.
Theistic Creation – God directly created the
universe, living things, and human beings. How
many things were originally created and how
much time it took to create them is debated
Three Potential Creation Scenarios
1. Ex Materia – out of
existing matter
2. Ex Deo - out of God
3. Ex Nihilo - out of
nothing
Plato and Origins
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 not producer
or eternal; God is not sovereign over everything.
Aristotle and Origins
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.
Key Points: Matter is eternal; creation=formation; “unmoved mover” is a former
not producer; “mover” is not sovereign over everything.
Plotinus and Origins
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”
The Biblical Account of Origins
The Bible states that the universe/matter is not eternal; only
God is eternal. And rather than creating out of Himself, God
created everything that is seen from nothing – an ex nihilo creation
process. The Bible also makes clear that the Father was the
initiator of creation, the Son was the instrumental cause of it all
and the Spirit implemented order and supplied life.
The Biblical Account of Origins
“In the beginning God created the heavens and
the earth.”
-Genesis 1:1
Is Genesis 1:1 an independent clause or a subordinate clause? A
subordinate clause would be: “When God in the beginning
created the heavens and the earth, the earth was void…” A
subordinate clause would indicate that something already existed
and God was simply forming matter that was already there.
Matter would, therefore, be eternal.
The grammar of Genesis 1:1-2 indicates that the first verse is
indeed an independent clause.
A Single, Eternal Creator
“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)
A Single, Eternal Creator
"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 is the Instrumental Cause of All
“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 is the Instrumental Cause of All
“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)
Matter/Universe is not Eternal
“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)
Comparing Accounts of Origins
Gives Life
Plotinus
Ex Deo
Plato
Ex Materia
Aristotle
Ex Materia
Father
One
Good
Universe
Son
Intellect
Demiurge
Unmoved
Mover
Spirit
Soul
World Soul
Soul
Separate Beings
Creates /
shaped by
One Being
Initiator
Biblical
Ex
Nihilo
A quick Word on the “Galileo” Episode
Certainly, the Church needs to avoid another
situation like what happened with Galileo.
Contrary to some opinions, though, the central
driving thought was not so much theological as
it was philosophical. Aristotle’s geo-centrism
was the prevailing worldview. When
Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo proposed
heliocentrism, it was initially supported by the
Catholic Jesuit Collegio Romano, but
opposed by the secular philosophers of the
day. However, the Catholic Church in general
also had embraced Aristotle’s teaching and
ended up opposing Galileo. But it was not so
much based on Scripture as it was on
Aristotle.
Good Advice from Galileo
“I do not feel obliged to
believe that the same God
who has endowed us with
sense, reason, and intellect
has intended us to forgo
their use.”
- Galileo
Why Does a Right View of Origins
Matter?
Why Does a Right View of Origins Matter?
It affects…
1. How we view God
2. How we view ourselves
3. How we view morality
How We View God
“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
The gods of the Greeks were
limited, not sovereign, and flawed.
The God of the Bible is the
antithesis of them.
How We View Ourselves
“Some part of our being knows this
is where we came from. We long to
return and we can because the
cosmos in within all of us. We are
made of star-stuff.”
-Carl Sagan
If human beings are just ‘star stuff’, then
they contain no intrinsic moral worth; they
are simply matter and nothing more. But
human beings created in the image of
God do contain intrinsic moral worth as
they reflect the image of God.
“You, your joys and your sorrows,
your memories and ambitions, your
sense of personal identity and free
will, are in fact no more than the
behavior of a vast assembly of nerve
cells and their associated
molecules.”
- Francis Crick co-discoverer of DNA
"We're just a bit of
pollution…. If you got rid
of us…the universe would
be largely the same. We're
completely irrelevant.”
- Lawrence Krauss, Physicist
How We View Morality
“Why do people believe in evolution?
The reason we accepted Darwinism
even without proof, is because we
didn’t want God to interfere with our
sexual mores”
-Julian Huxley
“Where I stand will at once be the
foremost place … ‘all things are lawful’
and that’s the end of it.”
-Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
Without God, morals become either
totalitarian or emotive
“Natural selection can favor egotism,
hedonism, cowardice instead of
bravery, cheating, and exploitation.”
– Theodosius Dobzhansky
Ramifications of a Certain View
If Naturalistic Evolution is
true, then there is:
1. No God
2. No Life After Death
3. No Foundation for
Right/Wrong
4. No Meaning in Life
5. No Free Will
- William Provine, Evolutionist
Inconsistency in Evolutionary View
How does the evolutionist explain the loss
of meaning? In science, the 2nd law of
thermodynamics says that things
consistently deteriorate over time – they
move towards heat death. Things don’t
move from disorder to order but from order
to disorder. Biological evolution is
defended, though, by saying that the
biological parts moved against the entropic
stream (or against the whole). What applied
to the whole did not apply to the parts.
But with meaning, they reverse it and say
life ultimately has no meaning (the whole),
but it does apply to the parts – give your
day to day activities little meanings so that
there are meanings against an overarching
meaningless that is life.
Ramifications of a Certain View
Naturalistic/Evolutionist View
An eternal universe
Ultimate reality is impersonal matter –
no God
Everything we know came about by
chance, with no ultimate purpose
Man is the product of impersonal matter
plus time plus chance. Consequent
result is that man has no ultimate
dignity nor any meaning than what is
subjectively derived
Theistic/Biblical Creation
An eternal Creator
Ultimate reality is an infinite, personal,
loving God
Universe lovingly created by God for a
specific purpose
Man is created by God in His image and
is loved by God; therefore all men are
endowed with eternal value and dignity
which is not derived from themselves
but from the Source, transcending
themselves
Morality is defined by every individual
Morality is defined by God and is
according to his views and interests. It is immutable because it is based on God’s
ultimately relative as every person is the unchanging and holy character.
final authority for their own views
The afterlife brings personal annihilation The afterlife involves either life with God
and extinction for everyone
or separation from Him.
The Conclusion of A Purposeless Universe
If chance be the Father of all flesh,
disaster is his rainbow in the sky,
and when you hear
State of Emergency!
Sniper Kills Ten!
Troops on Rampage!
Whites go Looting!
Bomb Blasts School!
It is but the sound of man worshiping his
maker.
- Steve Turner, end of “Creed”
The United States & Creation
“We hold these truths to be self-evident[undeniable], that all men are
created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit
of Happiness .”
Not said in any other nation. Outside of the Judeo-Christian worldview, where is
this found? A moral term hinged on a creative act. You cannot define good without
defining purpose and you cannot define purpose without defining cause.
The results of Evolutionism
“Nature does not wish that…a superior race should intermingle with an
inferior one; because in such a case all her efforts… to establish an
evolutionary higher stage of being, may thus be rendered futile.”
- Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf
But the world learned its lesson … didn’t it?
The Future of Evolutionism?
At the 109th meeting of the Texas
Academy of Science at Lamar University
in Beaumont on 3-5 March 2006, Dr. Eric
Pianka presented a lecture on his concerns
about how human overpopulation is ruining
the Earth. Minutes before he spoke, the
person filming the event was asked not to
film or record Pianka because “the general
public is not ready for what Pianka is about
to tell us.”
Professor Pianka said the Earth as we
know it will not survive without drastic
measures. Then, and without presenting
any data to justify this number, he asserted
that the only feasible solution to saving the
Earth is to reduce the population to 10
percent of the present number.
The Future of Evolutionism?
And how would Pianka go about reducing the
population of the earth? AIDS is not an
efficient killer, he explained, because it is too
slow. His favorite candidate for eliminating 90
percent of the world's population is airborne
Ebola because it is both highly lethal and it kills
in days, instead of years. However, Professor
Pianka did not mention that Ebola victims die a
slow and torturous death as the virus initiates a
cascade of biological calamities inside the victim
that eventually liquefy the internal organs.
After praising the Ebola virus for its efficiency
at killing, Pianka paused, leaned over the lectern,
looked at the audience and carefully said,
“We've got airborne 90 percent mortality in
humans. Killing humans. Think about that.”
And what was the audience response…?
A Standing Ovation
“I still can't get out of my mind the pleasant spring day in Texas when a few hundred
scientists of the Texas Academy of Science gave a standing ovation for a speaker
who they heard advocate the slow and torturous death of over five billion human
beings.” – Forrest Mims III, scientist in attendance at the meeting.
How You View Origins Has An
Impact on Everything…!
Origins
“For since the creation of the world His
invisible attributes, His eternal power and
divine nature, have been clearly seen, being
understood through what has been made, so
that they are without excuse. ”
(Romans 1:20)
Why Origins Matters