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CREATION
is regarded as belonging to the most extraordinary order of
causation. Many dismiss it as an impossible idea, or, at least,
extremely unlikely. This is because creation requires a personal
Deity, Whose capacity or work is not measured by mathematics,
physics and chemistry. Creation, it is certain, cannot both be
beginning and end. Nor is it the limit of the One Who originates
it, though it is the primary evidence of the Creator. Not only
is the commensurate intelligence and volition required, but also
One Who is creation's Superior, and Who gives both reason and
purpose to it, in love and in righteousness.
It must be realized that
creation is not the simple question of the material side, which
we know so intimately. In all our knowledge and analysis of it,
we barely start to understand what reality lies within
creation's mode. That of which creation is the mode remains all
too vague. This seems to be so because the mode is not regarded
as the achievement of the imperceptible power and divinity of
Him Who would, by creation, descry His invisible attributes. To
accept such knowledge from Him at once directs us to find the
basis of creation to be out of Deity.
In His first movement, the
Deity gave character to His creation, for the Original of
creation was the Son of God's love. This thought concerning
creation is one which humans rarely entertain. In fact, its
perception requires a penetration which only revelation can
alert. The creation of God's Son, as the prelude to the whole of
creation, presses the mind into its proper place; humans must
exercise faith and believe God. To creation His Son gives
spiritual character and righteousness for from Him flows all
which makes creation to accord with the divine.
In the creating following Him
Who was His creative Original, God did not specifically express
His Sovereignty. That must always remain integral and implicit
in His creation. It is left for His creatures to discover to
themselves whether they are self-sufficient, or, alternatively,
that there is need and reason to control and rule them,
directing them toward His purpose. This position is both
requisite and important, for it serves to edify the creatures,
not only concerning themselves, but, pointing them back to Him,
it affords that situation whereby God will show His glory and
its multifarious wisdom, and, in addition, His love.
Humans are baffled in the
quests concerning the universe. Their theories are evidence of
this. Yet they are carried along by them. They seem to find
support, for their formulations and deductions appear to give
them results, of a kind. Success entices. Does seeming success
also delude? Is it not obvious that even such an axiom as "like
begets like" is but the true expression of a straight line which
could never start? It should be discerned that, in its simplest
and most profound aspect, creation manifests God's imperceptible
power, and also the qualities of divinity which pertains to Him.
Astronomy seems to have
carried the day, and philosophies of the universe have been
moulded to comply with the cosmologies required by the changing
outlook of astronomy. The concept of a primeval atom is now a
vogue; in fact, it is accepted almost as an idea competing for
acceptance or preference with continuous creation. The primeval
atom is not only moulded by astronomy, but it seems to be
modulated by the required methods of that science. Hence, the
theory of an expanding universe is now propounded to comply with
the claimed observations as to space. With such ideas it is
customary to associate time. Is the primeval atom, together with
time, intended to allow a beginning? If so, does the beginning
still remain nebulous and without purpose?
The expanding universe is
announced with much disregard to the point that an atom, to be
such, must really be in a "steady state." The quantum is needed
to cover the change in the atom, unless the expansion is to
become evidence that the electrons of the primeval atom refuse
to be restricted to their orbits? Is equilibrium, after all,
non-existent, or is it an impossibility to human thought? Must
humans prefer to think in terms, which, though named "steady
state," are, after all, but the obverse of evolutionary thought?
The supposition, that the
earth's history originated from the cooling of primeval gas, is
an idea as crude as the chaos it is thought to produce. Chaos is
an idea which is far from practicable in relation to creation.
The idea, as proposed, of the earth arising from the cooling of
such a gas, is but an endeavor to avoid admitting creation. Not
only are we left to discover the origin of the primeval gas, and
its qualities, but the proposition is that present experience
and phenomena are the limits from which creation could come. It
is a proposition of a supposed chance occurrence amid the spiral
nova.
Must we suppose that creation
would produce a chaos? A cooling gas certainly would produce a
chaos. To extrapolate the uniformity of physical law is not
admissible in the field of creation. That range of uniformity
was wrought into creation. It is the Creator Who has wrought the
uniformity of law into the material mode.
The gamma ray, seemingly
emanating from the depths of distant galaxies, when detected,
brings no news which can be interpreted for faith. Yet that
spirit, which originated the element out of which the ray
arises, that spirit has, in the Scriptures, spoken much more
clearly of creation and of its values. In the words of that
spirit, we read very definitely of God and His ways, and learn
of that Obedient One, the Firstborn of Creation, Whose
humiliation will lead every knee to bow and every tongue to
acclaim to the glory of His Father.
The notion that God created
out of nothing is veritably absurd. There must be something
fundamental from which to create. The opposite couples well with
the chaos usually present in the human mind when thinking on
this subject. We dismiss such a thought, not only as being
irrational, but also because it is truly unscriptural. The
Scriptures plainly assert that all is out of God, and this, of
necessity, includes creation, in all of its categories. We
should investigate scriptural statements which, so far as this
is possible, will lead us to understand creation, not merely as
a term, but as the method which belongs to Him Who would thereby
reveal Himself. Creation is a divine matter and method.
The word spirit can express
that abstract category termed existence. For this reason, the
word is suitable to describe the Deity in His own absoluteness,
as well as His essence (John 4:24) and the basis of His
achievements in creation. Spirit is back of the movement when
Deity begins to reveal Himself. By implication, the term
designates the divine power manifested in such invisible and
intangible operations.
Prior to these divine
operations, we accord to spirit all those personal qualities
which, in their nature, do not destroy themselves since they are
essentially benign. These qualities exhibit all the values of
intelligence and volition, such qualities as righteous action
would display. Thought and affection not only originated the
revealing, but they guided it, for purpose corresponds with the
beginning which obviously must be that of creation.
Creation must be out of Deity,
yet the creation cannot be any limitation of Him. The degree to
which creation moves away from the absoluteness of spirit is
outside estimation. Certain it is that not every value or
potency were impounded into the material creation. Rather is
creation a diminishing, a lessening of possible energy. Even so,
it is not a degrading of spirit. Rather it is a construing of
spirit, in order to reveal Him Who is Spirit.
Spirit then is the fundamental
of creation. As such, spirit was the absolute energy, that
energy which did not radiate. It was not kinetic, for it was
without discontinuity or rhythm. Around spirit, there was no
such idea as the quantum. It was neither corpuscular nor
vibratory, in any sense. We make plain also that it would be
inaccurate to deduce the inference that spirit must have any
static value comparable to inertia. Spirit was absolute, and
within it was the possibility of infinite mode. The absolute
must, due to precedence, deny the features of the relative.
In some sense, creation must
have made space to become evident. Thus we move from the
invisibility of spirit over to the tangible and visible, and so,
in a very distinct sense, to the category of the perception of
space. To this realm of tangibility came to belong the idea that
creation does occupy the heavens.
Space seems now to be regarded
as a vacuum. This finds its agreement with the idea that matter
is atomic, behind which lies a structure of electron and proton
particles. The discontinuity, which makes possible the energy
radiation of the atom, requires the conception of the quantum.
Quantum-mechanics seem to be at home in a logic which adds a
third value to the excluded middle principle. This is comparable
to the non-euclidian geometry of relativity. Have we not moved
to analogies akin to cobwebs without any background of time and
space?
Gravity is required to
complete and control such features. Thus cohesion is
complemental to gravity. At some periods, space was regarded as
a plenum, but the idea of gravity seemed to deny it, even when
ether was entertained as a compromise. Must it not be that, in
the ultimate analysis, space has no such feature as gravity?
There is no real direction to gravity, no vertical distance, up
or down, admitting of higher or lower, and so outer space does
not have the capacity which admits any equivalence to being on
varying planes or altitudes. Essentially, these are the
experiences related to the terrestrial. Truly, faith finds the
cohesion of the universe in Him in Whom all was created. This is
fully satisfying, for it leaves matters in the hands of His God
and Father.
To follow the human outlook in
respect of the idea of time, brings us into all the vagaries
which seek to express its infinity. The Scriptures speak of the
eons, and these have their relation to the system which God has
created. Duration and continuity can be measured by the movement
of the material objects of creation. Human vanity endeavors to
speak of the universe in terms of billions of years. One is
probed to ask; why so much? Or, why so recent? Does it not hide
that the vistas are so expressed to avoid the admission that, in
this relation, we also have met, head on, the idea of
absoluteness? Such is the impact that it stuns thinking,
preventing the vanity of the notions from being perceived!
To consider metaphysics or
ontology affords fleeting values. The very term "universe" has
deceptive aspects, unless we do realize, from the Scriptures,
that the universe is the contrivance or deed of God. Then only
can the term have values which are agreeable to sanity and
faith. With the Scriptures we must regard the Deity in terms of
the work He undertakes in order to reveal Himself. The word
"God" has but a vague content, and must be filled out by His
activities, gleaned from the Scriptures. Only then do we
consider Him subjectively. This is what the Scriptures enjoin us
to do. Yet first, the Scriptures in the use of the several
titles of Him, describe His operatings and show His wisdom in
them, thus indicating a revealed objective, in which He
delivers, justifies and reconciles His creation through the Son
of His love.
Our quest concerning creation
is that perception of it which the terms and statements of the
Scriptures give. We pass from the absoluteness of spirit,
through stages which arrive at the modes of matter such as
humans know today upon the earth. Creation requires spirit to
become the material of the universe. And, when creation of the
material stage is achieved, it requires the imposing of a
measure of spirit in order to give life to the creatures related
to creation's mode.
Spirit must first be made to
exist in what amounts to a concentrated form of energy. This
will describe the primordial state of elements. These primordial
elements must then be reduced in volume, yet still retain that
original force which constituted them at the moment they passed
from the realm of spirit.
Though we speak of spirit as
the basis of creation, yet spirit must not be judged by the
features which have come to exist in the mode. Apart from
invisibility, all other features will lead the mind astray as to
spirit. This is so even in respect of the term "energy ", for
the ordinary definition of energy requires ideas which are far
removed from absolute spirit.
Using the present formula of
scientific thought, the problem comes to pose the question; did
creation build by fusion from the hydrogen end of phenomena? Or,
is the view a fission from the opposite uranium end? There is no
real ideal other than that we, indeed, commence out of God, and
continue under His ordering. It is obvious that before creating
reaches values which belong to the atomic stage, it has moved
from spirit in its fundamental characterless mode. Preceding the
atom, creation moved to energy units which give the atom an
internal structure. None of the physical features of matter,
comprised within heat, light and sound or electronics, are
creative factors. Nor do their latent properties or critical
stages belong to creative possibility.
Creation is an orderly
procedure, out of the Deity, purposed and directed by Him at all
stages. The universe is viewed by the Scriptures as God's
contrivance. As such it was undertaken in wisdom. That wisdom
coincided with the beginning, and wisdom accompanied all the
stages of procedure, even the aforetimes of the earth
which produced the habitance. Ample evidence of the orderly
procedure of Ieue's work is stated in Proverbs 8:23-29.
In wisdom Ieue reached the top soil of the habitance. This was
before the submerged chaos, or the sinking of the mountains. And
Job 38 tells of creatures, designated sons of God, who
break forth into jubilation at what Ieue achieves, even at so
early a stage.
That position of creation is
reached which is summed up in Genesis chapter 1, verse 1.
The earth is not a chaos. It has the various strata, regular and
undisturbed, with the top soil of the habitance. The Deity has
controlled all features in His creating, and upon the earth's
surface can grow vegetation, in conditions which are ideal and
far different from those which now obtain. Yet there was no
human! The time of his making was not yet come.
Creation must be considered
and regarded as that which Ieue undertakes in order to reveal
Himself to creatures who will ultimately return to Him thanks
and praise and enjoy His glory. To this end His creatures must
have desire and will, but these must be educated and operated in
them ere they can operate to God's glory. Creatures whose
natural volition glorifies the Deity do not feature or comport
with the situation which the God and Father of our Lord, Jesus
Christ, seeks. He must be All in all. For this, humans though as
a first stage, made in the image of Alueim, yet by this they are
not immediately suitable to display the ultimate glory He will
achieve for Himself. The sentient is but first, and thereupon is
to be the spiritual.
For this reason, creation of
the heavens and earth was not the final. That was a beginning,
into which evil must be introduced so as to display the glory of
God's righteousness and love. Evil came to operate through the
Adversary and his office, and at a point much anterior to
Genesis 3. This was to promote God's glory, though
immediately, in appearance, it produced the opposite. The chaos
of the second verse ensued after that earlier stage of God's
creating had been reached.
The remainder of the details
of the first chapter of Genesis do not give more details
of creation, but rather are they explaining the readjustment
which, following the chaos that had ensued, made the earth ready
for humanity to be placed thereon. Even so, humanity thereafter
also came to be under the dominance of the Adversary. History
now proceeds to unfold. It is history which will ultimately
reveal the glory of our God. It will unfold until it makes
evident to all creation the Son of God in Whom are all the
treasures of wisdom and knowledge. These are, indeed, the
matters which reveal and glorify God. Such treasures explain the
why and wherefore of creation from spirit, through the material,
and forward to the higher glories of the new creation.
That new creation will be
displaying the spiritual excellences of our God. The pathway to
it, this has been incidental. Humans, at present, regard the
incidental as fundamental, and hence they give little attention
to the Son of God. His excellence lies in the fact that He is
Saviour. Humans will yet find that they require more than either
Example or a Teacher. God's Son is certainly both, in the proper
relation, but Saviour is the basic glory.
There is no dualism in the
foregoing. Nor is there any dualism in the Scriptures. There is
no fight between good and evil. God is not carrying on any
struggle in that regard or sense. God is revealing Himself in
creation, not only as to His power, but rather as to His love
and righteousness. Because this is the position, He needed His
obedient Son, Christ Jesus. Apart from Him not even one thing
came into being which has come into being. (John 1:3) It
is equally certain that all which has come into being will yet
glorify our God. God's Son should be, and must yet be, the One
in Whom we find our faith, and in Whom our faith resides.
This, indeed, makes it
possible, as well as practicable, for His God and Father to
become All in all. That is what God's obedient Son will achieve
for His Father and His God. That too is what all sons of God
desire. Our ultimate joy will be, not our blessings from God,
but rather that He is glorified in us. This is creation's
objective achieved through the blood of His cross.
E.
H. Clayton
Contents Page
"Grace
and Truth"
granted permission
to Martin Lee (GoodNewsGospel.info)
to copy and distribute this document.
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