“By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God” (Heb. 11:3). “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). “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 were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made” (John 1:1-3). “All things were created through him and for him” (Col. 1:16). The Son “upholds the universe by the word of his power” (Heb. 1:3), so that “if he were to withdraw his creative power, so to speak, from things, they would no more exist than they did before they were created” (Augustine, City of God). God was, and is, and is to come, before everything that he has made. He is the Real One, and any created reality has its reality only derivatively from his. He is distinct from his creation, he is over his creation, he is the source of his creation, and he is the purpose of his creation.
This does not, however, imply God’s distance from his creation. The Creed talks about everything that God has made in the terms “heaven and earth.” This biblical language frames all creation in terms of an arena for a meeting of God and humanity—a cosmic temple where Creator dwells with creature. Deism is wrong; God is not a Clockmaker who made everything to function independently of himself, wound it up and walked away. The true God, the Triune God, in himself is One who moves toward the Other. This God created according to his will, according to his nature, making the universe a place of “toward-ness” and “togetherness.” This creation as the place where God is with us has existence only because God in himself has existence as One with Other. “With-ness” is the divine reality that is behind and before creation. The best that an insecure human mind can do to establish its own existence with itself as a starting point is to say, “I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am.” Alternatively, to confess faith in the revealed “Maker of heaven and earth” is to say, “God loves, therefore we are.”
Why did God create? How will God’s purpose for creation be fulfilled?
How does the Bible describe the roles of the persons of the Trinity in creation?
Does the Bible require us to have a particular scientific view of the processes and duration of creation?
What value is there in trying to prove the existence of God from our observations of his creation? Should we attempt to reason our way to God with creation as a starting point? Is it possible to know a generic “Creator God” apart from the revelation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ?
Have you thought before of heaven as a created place, or more like God’s “native habitat”? What is God’s “native habitat”? What of God’s “native habitat” is reflected in creation?
When you think of Eternity, do you think of it in terms of your departure from creation, or God dwelling in and with his renewed creation? Why is this significant?
