Cosmology

Basic Christian Doctrines 17

 

1.   God Created Time.

 

God is eternal and inhabits eternity (Isa. 57:15). We cannot really grasp eternity as such, since we are not eternal. But we can understand it a little by contrasting it with time. It would seem that eternity is an “eternal now”, unlimited by the boundaries of time as we know it. It is more than time without beginning or end. God alone is eternal. He created time. This is implied in Gen. 1:1 and John 1:1. In the beginning of creation, God already existed. He was before time, and therefore created time at the beginning of the creation of the universe. Since by definition time is not eternity, time had a beginning, which is creation. Since God is the creator of all things created, God created time.

 

2.   The Universe is Relatively Young.

How old, then, is the universe? How long ago was “the beginning” of Gen. 1? As we saw before, the days of Gen. 1 were 24-hour periods, not eons of millions of years, let alone eternity.  That is a major marker for our determining from the Bible how old the universe is. God also gave other useful markers in the Bible, especially the genealogies of Genesis, Chronicles, Matthew, Luke and a few other places. Many of these specify how old people were when they had certain children, and how  old they were when they died. Other passages indicate the time periods of the Captivities in  Egypt and Babylon, the desert wandering, and the period between the Old and New Testaments. Putting them all together, we discover that Creation occurred about 6000 years ago. The minor “gaps” in the genealogies were after Abraham, not before. A general chronology to remember would be this: Adam (4000 BC), Noah (3000 BC), Abraham (2000 BC), David (1000 BC), Jesus (2000 years ago). Also, there is no truth to the so-called “Gap Theory”, viz, that there was a gap of millions of years between Gen. 1:1 and 1:2. This was an unnecessary accomodation to Evolution, suggests there was death in the world before Adam (vs. Rom. 5:12), etc.

 

3.   The Universe is Not God.

 

The universe is created ; it is not the Creator. It is not self-created (Psa. 100:3). It does not have a soul. It is not composed of divine substance, for God created it out of nothing and not out of Himself. It is not eternal; it is relatively young. It is not infinite. God alone is infinite and omnipresent. The heavens and earth cannot contain the infinite God, and so it is not infinite (I Kings 8:27). Contrary to philosophers such as Plato and Bertrand Russell, the universe is not eternal. On the other hand, the universe is real. It is not a figment of our imagination, as taught by Buddhism and Christian Science. It exists because God created it.

 

4.   The Universe Has Two Parts.

Col 1:16 says that the universe has 2 parts or sides: the natural (heavens and earth) and the supernatural. One is visible, the other invisible. One is subject to scientific observation through our 5 senses; the other is not. The Bible says that there are 3 heavens: the atmosphere around the earth, outer space, and the immediate presence of God. The first 2 are natural, the 3rd is supernatural. Angels live in the supernatural realm.

 

5.    God Created the Universe with Order.

 

God is a God of order and displays this order in creation. It is not chaos. There is still order in spite of sin. He called the world "good". It is complicated, vast and wonderfully made. There are levels of order, and the glory of God is revealed in each in a wonderful manner.

 

6.   God Created Natural Law.

 

Part of the order which God has built into His creation is what is known as Natural Law. It includes what we call “the Laws of Science”, but more. The Declaration of Independence refers to "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God". These scientific principles indicate God's moral order. This is that part of General Revelation in which God uses the scientific order to reveal morality. Thus, Rom. 1 says that homosexuality is not only sinful but “unnatural”. It is against nature. Heterosexual fornication is wrong, but not “against nature” as such. In I Cor. 11:14, God says that it is unnatural and therefore wrong for men to have long hair like a woman. “Does not Nature itself teach you...?” This Natural Law overlaps with the Law written on our consciences (Rom. 2:14-15). 

 

7.   The Universe is a Network of Spheres.

Theologians and scientists discussed this point for centuries, but it was Abraham Kuyper who made the major contribution to this observation. God created the universe as a network of overlapping and intersecting aspects which we might call “spheres”. They would include things such as numbers, time, space, mind, life, matter, symbolism (such as language), value (such as money), justice, faith, ethics, beauty, etc. There are similarities and differences between them all. The more we study them, the more we are amazed at the complexity and wonder of them as parts of God's creation.

 

8.   God Delegated Authority to Man over the Universe.

Gen. 1:26-30 describes the “Cultural Mandate” which God gave to Adam and Eve and their descendants. God made us stewards over His creation. We have dominion over the earth. This was not abolished by the Fall, only made more difficult. Nor was it abolished or fulfilled by redemption. We are still to use the world which God created, for His glory. Thus, we can kill and eat animals, mine minerals and build buildings, start schools, etc. This is a “Cultural Mandate”, to develop the culture of creation. We are to work and produce. The world does not exist for itself or for our own luxury. We may not despoil it, but  must use it properly.

 

9.   Man is to Use the World to God's Glory.

The purpose of creation is to display God's glory. Unfallen man was to cultivate the world unaffected by sin for this end. The Fall made it more difficult, but not impossible. God grants us Common Grace to carry out this Dominion Mandate in part. The end is still the same: the glory of God. All we do is to be productive and to further the glory of God (I Cor 10:31). We are to work at our jobs as if Christ were our employer, for ultimately He is. We study at school for His glory, we raise our families for His glory, we are involved in society for His glory. The Bible is our guideline and grace is the enabler.

 

10. We Must Worship the Creator, Not the Creation.

God created the world for His glory, and He does not share His glory with anyone or anything, even His creation. He displays glory in and through it, but we are to worship the Creator and not the creation (Rom. 1). It is the mark of idolatry to worship Nature rather than Nature's God. It is also idolatry to worship Nature as God, such as Mother Nature, Mother Earth, pantheism, etc. It is easy to admire the beauty of Nature, but we must not allow ourselves to forget that God put that beauty there as a glimmer of His beauty and glory. We should see the glory and reflect it back to God. To ignore God in it is to fall into idolatry. God warned the Jews not to worship the stars of Heaven (Deut. 4:19). We should use Nature to worship Nature's God. Thus, worship is not only spiritual (e.g., prayer and Bible-reading), but material. We worship God at work when we do good work. To use Nature for ourselves is a form of self-idolatry. Let us worship the Creator in all we do with all He has made.