Note from Guru Kurt: The story of creation given in the Bible is less accurate than the one which occurs in Hindu scriptures, and this discrepancy must be righted. It may be that no Christian will accept my interpretation, but that is not my concern. I can only present my own views; it is for others to decide for themselves whether I am a suitable authority. From where did all these creation stories come in the first place? I wonder, sometimes.
To the Creationists:
I was looking through your website and found a section I
wish to applaud, but also to comment upon, at http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/3804.asp.
The section concerns whether Jesus was in fact the Creator of earth or not. I
agree with you, that he certainly was this. I merely wish to embellish upon your
statements to a small degree.
You begin the page with the following quotation: “The
Bible affirms in several places that Jesus Christ is the Creator God. For
example, 'All things were made by him [the Word,
in Greek logoV (logos),
= Jesus Christ]' (John 1:3), and 'For by him [Jesus
Christ] were all things created' (Colossians 1:16).”
I agree with both these statements from the Bible. Jesus
called himself the Son of God, yet in some mysterious way that defies
explanation he and the Father are one. I wish to clarify this. God embodied
himself in a human frame for the purpose of teaching and leading mankind along
the path toward happier and more fulfilling life. Jesus was but a fragment of a
much larger spiritual entity, who is called the Father. The Father did not
include the entire sum of his cosmic knowledge within the mind of Jesus at any
one time. Thus, when Jesus spoke, all that was in the surface level of his mind
was the words that he was speaking. Nevertheless, he had continuous access to
the entire trove of knowledge that the Father possessed. He merely pulled out a
few pearls from the vast treasure chest of wisdom that was his, and gave them to
man for his spiritual advancement. The Father is the Almighty source of the
entire universe, including man. He embodied a fragment of his own consciousness
as Jesus, and this is why they appear separate when they really are united.
While eating bread, for instance, Jesus was not concerned about the orbits of
Pluto and Saturn. He was not worried about galaxies colliding millions of light
years away. He merely ate and enjoyed the food. The Father poured as much of his
spirit as a material frame could hold into the divine being known as Jesus, and
this is why people are correct to worship him as the Father and Creator of all.
As the embodiment of the Father, Jesus’ mind was
ever-pure, free from all the lust and negative emotions of humanity like
irrational anger and fear. He did not think at all like a human, for his mind
was truly divine and filled with glorious thoughts of eternity and his mission
on earth. When he wept at Gethsemane, he wept for the ignorance of man, not for
his own potential rescue. The world is not the beautiful place it was meant to
be, because of the fallen state of man, because of man’s arrogance, ignorance,
and greed. This burden never left Jesus all during his life, for he knew that
all the tools were present to make a very happy earth, but the people insisted
on lying to one another, on cheating, stealing, and on killing. He did not weep
for himself, but for the lost souls he came to save, that they should live in
such violence when peace and brotherhood were possible.
On the website, you then list
four characteristics that prove Creatorhood. I wish to discuss each one in
detail. First you state:
It is true
that God the Father created all matter in the universe, but it is not true that
he did this instantaneously. To create matter takes considerable time and an
enormous energy expenditure on the part of God. It takes thousands of years to
create the matter for even one planetary system, such as our own solar system.
The immense amount of energy packed into matter is summed up in Einstein’s
equation, E = mc2. The process is not instantaneous, an idea which is
ludicrous given all that particle physicists have discovered, and continue to
discover, about the intricate and subtle structures lying at the heart of atoms,
such as quarks, muons and the like.
It is a real
creation made entirely by a real and mighty God, yet only in the imagination
could it be instantaneous. The question becomes, why was the creation story
revealed to the ancient Israelites in the way that it was? The answer is
two-fold. First, humans are reticent and slow by nature when it comes to
thinking about things that are beyond their normal everyday existence. In those
days, one was lucky even to have enough food to eat, let alone begin to ponder
the mysteries of where we all came from. Scripture was revealed to have an
immediate impact, with dramatic force! It was intended to capture the
imagination of primitive, superstitious people and inspire them with awe about
the real God, who does exist. It was very successful in this endeavor. The
encroachment of science upon the superstitious mind of man has made a stronger,
and more realistic revelation necessary. There is nothing that scientists have
discovered, or will discover, that contradicts true religion. God has made
everything, of this have no doubt. But He made it the way that scientists are
gradually discovering.
The second
reason that creation was revealed to the Israelites in the way it was is that
there is no better way to convey the awesome power of God when the society knows
nothing about the true nature of matter and the universe. God is all-powerful,
but they knew nothing about the size of the universe, which contains hundreds of
billions of galaxies, or about the hundreds of millions of atoms in a drop of
water. God revealed his immense creative act in a way that would convey some of
his truly majestic nature to these illiterate folk. In this way people
understood that there was an almighty being who created everything. To have told
them what I just explained, that God takes thousands of years to pack intense
energy (imagine even one atomic explosion, or the megajoules released every
second by the sun) into matter, and he created not just the earth, but an entire
universe filled with billions and billions of galaxies in a relatively short
period of time, they would not have comprehended at all! Most of them did not
even have a clear concept of what the number one thousand was, much less one
billion. They did not know that each galaxy contains hundreds of billions of
suns just like our own. They did not know that God created all these galaxies
simultaneously. So you see, it is possible to convey the mighty nature of the
creative acts of God in today’s language, in a way that would have fallen flat
in ancient times.
You must
also realize that God knows all about atoms and molecules! He conceived of the
entire periodic table before he created his first atom. He knew all the
properties that would be necessary for matter, such as covalent and ionic bonds,
and the ability to form crystals. He knew life required the special attributes
of the carbon atom for its success. He knew water must form crystals that float
when it freezes, or the oceans would quickly become solid masses. He operates on
a subatomic level, creating all the tiny particles that physicists find. To me,
this is a mighty miracle. I will allow him his thousands of years. I will also
allow him to give poetic revelations to primitive people that inspire rather
than bewilder. When he is ready, mankind will be shown in more detail what has
occurred, and it will be even more awed by the reality than the ancients were by
the poetry. Your second point is:
The bible is
not very clear, it seems to me, about the nature of the soul and its relation to
matter, so I will tell you. Matter was made to service the eternal soul of man.
The soul is spiritual in nature, and matter is on a much lower level. God made
matter, and he also made the soul. In the womb, at the moment of conception, God
imparts the living soul into the zygote that is present. From this very moment a
complete being is ready to be born. For this reason, as you probably agree,
abortion is indeed murder. It is not only murder, it is the worst kind of
murder, for it takes the life of a complete innocent. Even a baby of less than a
year old has tasted life, and killing it after having tasted life is not so
heinous a crime as taking the life of an unborn zygote. Infanticide is not so
evil as abortion. There are two souls living in that body! The mother’s is not
the only soul there! All the tender work of God in placing the soul is undone in
a moment when the mother makes the cruel decision to terminate her pregnancy.
You must
understand that lifeless matter is lifeless matter. It can never be alive. When
the eternal soul is joined to matter by God the matter becomes animated in a
living being. God’s essential creative acts, then, are first to create matter,
and second to create souls. He then joins the soul to the body at the moment of
conception. We all owe our lives to God then in many ways, for he made our
bodies, and he also made our eternal souls. We owe our very existence to him. He
also made the earth and converted its atmosphere to oxygen, so that we could
breathe. He gave us trees to replenish the oxygen. He gave us a sun to keep the
earth warm, and an ozone layer to protect against the sun’s rays. He has given
us everything. Your third point is:
This is
again a poetic and dramatic description of the real act of creation. God is an
immense, and invisible spiritual being. He couldn’t say, “Then I used my
arms and hands to build a house.” He had to state that he exercised his
powers, but there is no physical analogy that he could use. Who can say in what
precise manner God acts? There is no one who understands him but Jesus himself.
Jesus was called, in John, the Word. This is to reflect the truth I revealed to
you above, that when Jesus spoke, the surface level of his mind was only
conscious of this speaking. He was indeed the living Word of God. As the Father,
he was also the Creator of this vast cosmos. Since Jesus is not separate from
the Father, it is correct to state that the act of Creation occurred by the Word
of God, or by God’s will. Again, this adds to the immediate impact, and
impressed the primitive mind with the awesome power of God. Your fourth point
is:
This is a
wonderful description of the purpose of God indeed! He is the glorious,
all-powerful Father, the Creator of all matter and life itself. This passage you
have written truly brings out the wonder and majesty of this Almighty being.
Yet, God wanted something else too. He wanted the spiritual beings that he
created, especially man, to attain happiness. He does not like it when men
dispute amongst themselves, wage wars, and have petty political disputes such as
about borders between nations. Although created in God’s image, and having the
capacity to live in peace and harmony, fallen man instead wreaks havoc in the
lives of all around, engaging in selfish and niggardly pursuits at the expense
of the world’s happiness. The Christian religion is an attempt to right this
state of affairs on planet earth. It is a glorious and soon to be successful
effort on the part of God to rid man of his worst tendencies, and learn to live
lives of peace and good-will toward all. He wants his children to be happy, not
just a few here and there, but all people living on earth, forever.
Finally, I
have some brief comments on your next statement: “Note: We should not expect
to find exact parallels between the miracles of Jesus and what happened at
Creation, as Jesus did not come to re-create the universe, but 'to
seek and to save that which was lost',5 and 'to
give his life a ransom for many.'6”
You must
realize that while as you state, “Jesus did not come to re-create the
universe,…” he nevertheless was continually engaged in the action of
creation even as he visited earth, for creation is taking place right now all
over the universe. Jesus, while aware of these acts of the Father, did not think
about them much while on earth, as I showed above. Just look at some of the
recent photos from the Hubble space telescope of giant clouds of dust where
stars are forming, and you will see where the creation of matter is occurring or
has recently occurred in our own galaxy, even as I write this e-mail. What is
more, the power that coalesces matter to form suns and planets is divine, as is
the power that moves the gigantic arms of the Milky Way galaxy around its
center. Scientists are looking for dark matter that they will never find, for it
is the awesome power of God that holds the galaxy together, not gravity as they
suppose.
You have
indeed pointed out the two main reasons for Jesus’ birth on earth. He came as
a divine act of mercy, to save lost souls from hell. He stands as the only hope
for man of avoiding eternal torment, the agony that never ends, which is hell.
Follow Jesus, and you will indeed enter the doorway to heaven. Ignore even him,
and hell is your certain destination. Jesus’ sacrifice of his own life at the
request of the Father revealed God’s eternal nature as a forgiving,
compassionate, and merciful being. Even the worst sinners may pray to Jesus and
be saved from hell. God wanted to show the world his mercy so much that he
allowed his only Son to perish at the hands of cruel and violent men, that the
world might know of his desire to bear all their sins upon his own back, and
save them from themselves.
I hope this
has been interesting. I may write more commentary on your website, if you do not
mind.
Kurt Jxxxxxx