Worshiping God As Creator Series

That’s Why We Worship - Worshiping God As Creator

"Worshiping God As Creator"

Creation Joke: There were these three professionals sitting around a table talking about the oldest profession. The Doctor says, "well, the Bible says that God took a rib out of Adam to make woman. Since that clearly required surgery, then the oldest profession is medicine. The engineer says, "No, the Bible also says that God created the whole world out of void and chaos. To do that, God must surely have been an engineer. So engineering is the oldest profession. The lawyer smiles and leans forward and says, "Ah, who do you think created the Chaos?"

The Christian faith maintains as a foundational belief from the Bible that the universe was created by the infinite God, simply by speaking it into existence.

Revelation 4:10, 11 - "the twenty-four elders fall down and worship the One who lives forever and ever. And they lay their crowns before the throne and say, ‘You are worthy, O Lord our God, to receive glory and honor and power. For You created everything, and it is for Your pleasure that they exist and were created.’"

There is a battle today over the origins of the universe. The tension is really one between philosophical beliefs rather than scientific evidence. The famous Scopes trial was the beginning of the public battle, but it rages on even more furiously today.

- competing thoughts - evolution vs. Creationism - there is no ground for cooperation, and the true evolutionists understands this. Christians, in ignorance, often are willing to say, "I believe both can be true." But there is no legitimate mix. Why? Because the foundation of evolutionary thought is that there is no design or designer to our universe. All is governed by time, chance, survival of the fittest, mutations and natural selection that bring us to where we are today. The existence of a God posits purpose and design, and most importably dependance upon a God.

That’s why there is and always will be a fierce battle by evolutionists to keep any theory of intelligent design or creationism out of the classrooms. Their philosophical and unproven presuppositions demand it.

Take for instance the recent controversy with the decision of the Kansas Board of Education. Interestingly, the Associated Press voted this controversy as the top story of 1999. By a vote of 6-4, they voted to de-emphasize speculative aspects of evolution. They did not ban evolution from the classroom. To the contrary, they insisted on it, but they reacted to a new set of guidelines handed down in 1995 by the National Academy of Sciences calling for "dramatic changes" in the way public schools teach science. The guidelines insisted that evolution in the classroom be elevated from theory to "unifying concept" or in other words foundational truth on an even par with standards of measurements. That was too much for some on the state board. They were willing to increase the teaching of micro evolution -testable, observable variations in the world caused by adaptation, natural selection and genetics, but macro evolution - the "particles to people" variety, they regarded as theory, speculative. The wanted to give local districts the freedom to set their own standards for this. For that minor act of intellectual independence, the board members were castigated mercilessly. A Washington Post article called the "pinheads," certain to be eliminated through natural selection. Many other derogatory labels followed.

Many in the scientific community responded in like manner, but more quietly. Why? First, because what the board asked for was reasonable. Evolution is a theory, especially at the macro level, and even scientific proponents acknowledge this. But more importantly, they are careful not to reveal their motivations.

What is at stake here is the very definition of "science." Science has historically been defined as objective investigation (discovering and testing facts). But there is another definition held implicitly in the scientific establishment, which is the idea that science may legitimately employ only natural causes in explaining everything we observe. This is materialism or naturalism. The way this definition operates is to outlaw any questioning of naturalistic evolution. Darwinists don’t ask "whether" life evolved from a sea of chemicals; they only ask "how." They don’t ask "whether" complex life forms evolved from simpler forms; they only ask "how" it happened. The presupposition is that natural forces alone must account for the development of all life and material on earth. They begin with an unproven presupposition that they insist cannot be questioned.

Harvard biologist and renowned evolutionist Richard Lewontin gave the game away in a revealing article in The New York Review of books in January of 1997. While expressing skepticism for "unsubstantiated just so stories," he nonetheless accepts the standard story of evolution. Why? Here is what he said. "We take the side of science in spite of the absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, . . . Because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a divine foot in the door."