Creation

A couple different items caught my attention in recent days--both dealing with Christian views of creation. WARNING!!! Liberal views ahead!!!

The first item came as a news item included in an email from Christianity Today (CT.com). It was a short blurb that said basically, that a certain professor at a Christian college in Iowa (I think) was fired recently because he told a group of students that the story of Adam and Eve in Genesis was not a literal event.

My comment: Is there a problem with a professor telling his views on this? (But I'm getting ahead of myself.)

The second item came in a dvd we watched at our church this past Thursday night. On a side note: While I'm going to pick out 1 specific thing this guy said, his dvds are actually very good and I recommend them. We were watching a couple segments by a speaker named Louie Giglio. He was talking about the incredible Creator of our incredible universe. And he mentioned that some people say they wish they could have been there when God created the universe. To which Louie said, "No you wouldn't!" He went on to explain that when God said, "Let there be light," flashes and rays of light zoomed out of God's mouth at the speed of 186,000 miles per second (the speed of light).

Actually he made this kind of statement a few times during the 2 videos we watched. In addition, at one point when he was showing a pic of the sun of our solar system, he said that the sun came flying out of God's mouth during creation.

So after watching the 2 dvds of the evening, I asked someone from our church a follow-up question. I knew from comments they had made that they believe in the creation account as described in Genesis 1-2. They allow that there may have been a time gap between Gen 1:1 and 1:2. But other than that, they feel it is an account of a literal series of events.

So I asked them, "When Louie said that light came flying out of God's mouth at the speed of 186,000 miles per second, did he mean that literally?" After some discussion for clarification, they said, "No, Louie did not mean it literally."

All of that to lead up to this terribly dangerous question/issue... Dangerous because in our denomination apparently we still have to believe in the literal, 7 day creation and a literal Adam and Eve in a literal Garden of Eden.

When is anyone going to face some very basic facts?

Before I note those facts, let me go back to Louie's word picture. How do we know that he did not mean that statement literally? (A) God does not have a mouth; so (B) therefore light could not come zooming out of his mouth. But he never told us he was speaking metaphorically. He apparently thought it obvious that light did not literally come flashing out of God's mouth. (C) In addition, the sun did not come flying out of God's mouth, because if it did, then why does God keep those "star factories" going in the various galaxies today? If God can make suns/stars come flying out of his mouth (which he does not have), then what need does he have for star factories?

The point being: He willed and ordered these things to exist and they came into existence. How they came to be is another topic for a different field of study (viz., physics, astronomy, etc.).

Back to the creation story: Here are some facts that are fairly well known: (1) The name "Adam" simply means "man." And the name "Eve" simply means "mother." (2) The rivers that are named as the boundaries of the Garden of Eden never come close to each other. Granted the Tigris and Euphrates do converge; but the others do not approach them. (3) Serpents do not talk.

If I said to you, "A man died and went to heave and St. Peter met him at the Pearly Gates and said...," you would know immediately that I was telling a story that did not really happen. Maybe I intended it as a joke or maybe as a moral lesson. But I would not have to stop and tell you, "This is symbolic language. It did not really happen." We know from the verbal clues in the genre of the story that we are dealing with a symbolic story that has another purpose.

I contend that the same thing is true about the story in Genesis 1-2. It is not intended to be read as an account of a historical event. It is intended as a symbolic story that has another purpose. It's purpose is not to tell us how the physical world came into existence. It is intended to tell us that God brought the world into being and to begin revealing to us what kind of God we have to deal with.

So what are the verbal clues that tell us this is symbolic language? (1) You would not name your child "man" or "mother." These names tell us they are not literal people. (2) The fact that the rivers do not come close to each other tells us the author is describing an imaginary place.

When the ancients sat around the desert campfires and told this story, no one asked, "Father, did this really happen this way?" Their listeners knew from these (and other) verbal clues that they were hearing a symbolic story that carried a message.

And the message was: God made this world and we must answer to him for our lives.

What do you think?

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