In the beginning, God created the heavens and the
earth. And the earth was without form,
and void…
One of the things I love about how God created the world is
that He both created from nothing, spoke things straight into existence, – and also
formed things. This is something true of
God. He is abundantly powerful, and
everything has its source in Him. He is
the Alpha. And also, He is a God of
life, of living and growing and progressing and moving. He is the Omega, both Beginning and End. He is the eternal I AM, but He created a
world of experience - not just existence.
When God created the world, He began a story. When God created Adam, Adam was fully formed
and when God breathed into him the breath of life, that is when Adam became a
living being. But God started with Adam
a dominion, a mandate, a command, a purpose.
That purpose is being unfurled still, across the generations, covenant
to covenant. Each life is like this,
too. God forms us in our mothers’
wombs. He begins our stories, and we don’t
come into this life “finished” or complete.
Our purposes are yet unfulfilled.
I don’t always like it, that God takes time. That God begins with seeds that must sprout
and grow and blossom before they bear fruit – that is hard for me to wait
on. But it is beautiful. It is glorious in that we get to partake of
imitating God, of acting and producing.
These thoughts coalesced as I thought about Pope Francis’s
recent comments about the nature of evolution.
I don’t know the intent of his comments; I’m pretty sure I disagree with
some parts of them. Maybe he was
pointing out that even evolution and the big bang don’t have an explanation for
the beginning of things. But the concept
of evolution: that things once started do tend to develop – this is not
inconsistent with what we know of God.
He starts things that change. “He
created beings and allowed them to develop according to the internal laws that
He gave to each one, so that they were able to develop and to arrive and [sic] their
fullness of being,” said Pope Francis, “… [God is] the Creator who gives being
to all things.”
I don’t believe God started the world with the Big Bang. I don’t believe He started humanity from a single-celled organism in a primal soup. Maybe, though, the appeal is for all of us, evolutionist or creationist, to recognize this truth about our world as God has set us in it: that we’re progressing towards the end of the story. And, as Pope Francis went on to say, “Therefore the scientist, and above all the Christian scientist*, must adopt the approach of posing questions regarding the future of humanity and of the earth, and, of being free and responsible, helping to prepare it and preserve it, to eliminate risks to the environment of both a natural and human nature. But, at the same time, the scientist must be motivated by the confidence that nature hides, in her evolutionary** mechanisms, potentialities for intelligence and freedom to discover and realise, to achieve the development that is in the plan of the Creator. So, while limited, the action of humanity is part of God's power and is able to build a world suited to his dual corporal and spiritual life; to build a human world for all human beings and not for a group or a class of privileged persons. This hope and trust in God, the Creator of nature, and in the capacity of the human spirit can offer the researcher a new energy and profound serenity…”
To God be all glory.
I don’t believe God started the world with the Big Bang. I don’t believe He started humanity from a single-celled organism in a primal soup. Maybe, though, the appeal is for all of us, evolutionist or creationist, to recognize this truth about our world as God has set us in it: that we’re progressing towards the end of the story. And, as Pope Francis went on to say, “Therefore the scientist, and above all the Christian scientist*, must adopt the approach of posing questions regarding the future of humanity and of the earth, and, of being free and responsible, helping to prepare it and preserve it, to eliminate risks to the environment of both a natural and human nature. But, at the same time, the scientist must be motivated by the confidence that nature hides, in her evolutionary** mechanisms, potentialities for intelligence and freedom to discover and realise, to achieve the development that is in the plan of the Creator. So, while limited, the action of humanity is part of God's power and is able to build a world suited to his dual corporal and spiritual life; to build a human world for all human beings and not for a group or a class of privileged persons. This hope and trust in God, the Creator of nature, and in the capacity of the human spirit can offer the researcher a new energy and profound serenity…”
To God be all glory.
*I suggest this applies to humans, to Christians, and to
Christian scientists; it is not exclusive to researchers (see Genesis 1:28)
**I am not sure whether in the context, the term “evolutionary”
is exclusively referring to the scientific theory of evolution. I am inspired only by the aspect of evolution
in this definition:
“any process of formation or growth; development”.
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