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. Origins – where did I come from? 2. Ethics – how should I live? 3. Meaning – why am I here? 4. 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

Secondary Cause

Theism Naturalism

Four Core Views of Origins

1. Naturalistic Evolution – No God involved in creation; things emerged by pure, natural processes.

2. Naturalistic Creation – No theistic Creator beyond the world; only a creative Mind within the universe that creates.

3. Theistic Evolution – God directly created the universe, but living things emerged under His control by largely natural processes.

4. 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 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.

“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

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

One B

eing

Biblical Ex

Nihilo

Plotinus Ex Deo

Plato Ex Materia

Aristotle Ex Materia S

eparate Beings

Initiator Father One Good Universe

Creates / shaped by

Son Intellect Demiurge Unmoved Mover

Gives Life Spirit Soul World Soul Soul

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?

1. How we view God 2. How we view ourselves 3. How we view morality

It affects…

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

1. No God 2. No Life After Death 3. No Foundation for

Right/Wrong 4. No Meaning in Life 5. No Free Will

If Naturalistic Evolution is true, then there is:

- 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 Theistic/Biblical Creation An eternal universe An eternal Creator Ultimate reality is impersonal matter – no God

Ultimate reality is an infinite, personal, loving God

Everything we know came about by chance, with no ultimate purpose

Universe lovingly created by God for a specific 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

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 according to his views and interests. It is ultimately relative as every person is the final authority for their own views

Morality is defined by God and is immutable because it is based on God’s unchanging and holy character.

The afterlife brings personal annihilation and extinction for everyone

The afterlife involves either life with God 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