Genesis 1
"It is no longer possible to believe in both the discoveries of modern science and in the traditional dictates of the church" wrote Danah Zohar in her book The Quantum Self in 1991. I have watched a number of programmes over the summer relating to the 25th Anniversary of the Moon Landings. One looked at the discoveries on the moon and at various theories relating to the formation of the earth. Again and again scientists were driven back to saying meaningless things like, "the problem is that life appears suddenly on earth - we can only draw the conclusion that life must have been seeded on earth by an asteroid or a passing spaceship." We also find that NASA is engaged in a multi million pound search using Radio Telescopes for intelligent life on other planets. Of course first of all they have find other solar systems with planets! Much of what seems to pass for science these days is based on myth. The hope and belief that the universe is teeming with highly advanced civilisations who if we can but contact them will give meaning to life. On all sides scientists and others are trying to find answers to the meaning, purpose and origin of life. Searching, always searching. And as they do they systematically for the most part ignore the teaching of the Bible.
Let me quote to you from Nick Mercer the Assistant Principal of the London Bible College, "Many of the newer ideas underline much of the Church's Biblical teaching down through the ages. As Christians, we are not surprised by Unified Theories, for from Genesis to Revelation he Bible teaches that there is a oneness and internal cohesion and simplicity about the cosmos, because it has its origins and consummation in Christ Jesus."
But rather than read for example Hebrews 11:3 which says, "By faith we understand the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible" rather they will make statements like the one made a year last July when 405 researchers gathered in Barcelona for the International Conference on the Origin of Life. Newsweek reported it thus in talking about the origin of life, "it's a classic chicken and egg problem. And it seems so intractable that some leading researchers, notably Francis Crick ... have suggested that life - not the ingredients of life, but something fully alive - arrived from space 3.5 billion years ago. That, of course, merely pushes the question of life's origins to another planet."
The plain truth of the matter is that scientists don't know the answer. And indeed can't know the answer. And all they work with are theories. It seems sometimes that their theories are presented as hard and fast facts when in truth they are not and the theories are usually proved wrong and changed. But for many people this is an unknown facet of the great world of science. Most of those involved appear to be highly intelligent until you find them spouting forth about the origins of life arriving on spaceships! Even Darwin and his theory of evolution with its transmutation of species has been abandoned by the scientific community as a whole although to listen sometimes to what is taught in schools and on TV and in the press you would think that Darwin's theories were facts and still believed.
I hope that you are still with me and I crave your forgiveness if I have lost you. I hope though that I am setting what we are going to say about Genesis into a proper framework and that you won't feel when we start to look at Biblical truth that in some way we have left the real world of science!_
It may for example be helpful to turn to today briefly to verse 20 where we read, "And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven." I have quoted from the AV version on purpose for despite its antiquated prose it presents the truth most effectively. For it says quite clearly that from the waters come the birds. Now that doesn't today cause us any problems whatsoever. Indeed it fits rather neatly into the current theories about how life evolved from the sea. So we can read that and pass on.
But not so in the days of Calvin! In those days the men of science laughed at such an idea. It seemed utterly silly and beyond reason that birds that fly in the air could have come from the waters of the sea. And Calvin with no science other than that could only reply, "But although there should appear no other reason but that it pleased God, would it not be becoming in us to acquiesce in his judgement? Why should it not be lawful for him, who created the world out of nothing to bring forth birds out of water?"
So Calvin and others stuck to their guns and said quite clearly this is what the Bible says God did - even if it seems silly to our present understanding shouldn't we trust and believe. And so four hundred and more years on we laugh at the scientists who got it so wrong! We might well think there is a lesson to be learned here for today as well.
When scientists stand back amazed at the fact that life appeared suddenly on earth without seeming explanation and can't figure out why I want to cry out read Genesis. I don't want you to think that I am against science - far from it - as you know it is my background - it is god given right for us to explore and seek to understand the workings of the universe. But let it be sensible science.
Now in the weeks ahead we must lay aside the fables of science and turn to deal with the great truth that we find in Genesis. There we will find the answers we seek to the meaning, purpose and nature of life. We will learn together great and sometimes hidden truths. We will on occasion come up against things that appear perhaps to fly in the face of current scientific theory - when that happens let us then take Calvin's high road and prefer the Word of God to the Word of Man. If we do that history will one day witness to our wisdom as it does now to Calvin's.
Let us also take the road of childlike faith for here in Genesis we will find Jesus as well and markers of salvation.a
Let me end then by quoting a letter that appeared in the August 1974 edition of the New Humanist,.
"Who made all this?" said my awed five year old while looking at a breath taking view of the Algarve. "That's easy", replied an even smaller child. "God did." Could your erudite contributors please step off their intellectual pedestals and advise a simple rationalist mum how to answer such questions?"
Our answer will however be that of the child of faith and we too will echo the words, "GOD DID!"