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Signs of the Times Australia / NZ edition — lifestyle, health, relationships, culture, spirituality, people — published since 1886 |
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Signs of the Times Australia / NZ edition — lifestyle, health, relationships, culture, spirituality, people — published since 1886 |
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A cartoon of a monkey in a cage has its keeper outside, with the caption, “Am I my keeper’s brother?” Are we just super apes, or is there more to life?
The prevailing view in the West, taught in universities, colleges and schools, printed in most books on the subject and presented by mass media is evolutionary theory. That life is the product of time + chance + matter. Nothing else.
This is the predicament of today’s society. If we came from primeval mud, and are going to end up as food for worms, then what we do in between is of no significance at all. The worms won’t complain if we are immoral, steal or kill each other. Yet, somehow, as humans, we find that hard to live with.
Today, more and more scientists refute the idea that life is the product of blind chance. They support the idea of a “designer” behind the universe.
Astronomer Fred Hoyle, in New Scientist, states: “A commonsense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature.” His colleague Chandra Wickramasinghe concurs: “The chances that life just occurred on earth are about as unlikely as a typhoon blowing through a junkyard and constructing a Boeing 747.”
These are honest men, who recognise the limitations of science.
The story of Creation in Genesis 1 and 2 answers the important questions of Where did I come from? and, Why am I here? It’s perhaps the most important passage in the whole Bible for us in the 21st century.
Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
This verse gives the basis of the biblical world view. God is there and He acts in space-time history. He is sovereign. He made the universe, and while intimately involved He is not the universe, just as the builder of a house is not the house, but creator of it. It tells us the real nature of human beings. We are finite, dependent with delegated authority, yet unique, godlike, personal and of infinite worth.
John 1:1-3, 14 “Through him [Jesus] all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made” (v 3).
Genesis 1:26, 27 “So God created man in his own image . . . male and female he created them” (v 27).
Both men and women are created in the image of God as spiritual, personal beings, able to think and make choices.
Genesis 1:28-30 “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it” (v 28).
Revelation 14:7 “Worship him who made the heavens, the earth, the sea and the springs of water.”
We were created to have fellowship with God and to worship Him. The word worship comes from Old English “worth-ship”—God is worthy of our adoration and allegiance. This gives meaning and value to human beings.
Genesis 2:18-25 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh” (v 24).
Genesis 2:15-17 “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die” (vv 16, 17).
Being able to choose makes us moral creatures. The tree provided a test of obedience. Love doesn’t force. He wants us to obey Him because we love Him and because of His love for us.
Picture a young couple who find their dream home. They think the architect had them in mind when he designed it. Imagine them contemplating the nature of the architect—intelligent, creative, a lover of beauty. But what was the architect like as a person? Whatever they could learn about the architect by studying the house, some things they would never know—unless revealed from some other source. So it is with our Designer.
Just as the scientists can see evidence of design and intelligence behind the cosmos, so the Bible, as a revelation from God, tells us what He is like as a being—Someone interested in us!
Articles of interest:
Extract from Signs of the Times, May 2004.
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