God Created the Heavens and the Earth
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Genesis 1:1
In a recent interview, American theoretical physicist and popular science writer Michio Kaku identified the two greatest mysteries in science today. The first, he said, is what happened before creation. Why did we have a Big Bang? What exactly was it that “banged”? This has to do with outer space. The second, he said, has to do with “inner space.” What goes on “behind your eyeballs”? “We have a 100 billion neurons” in our brains, he said. This is as many as the stars in the Milky Way galaxy. And each neuron is connected to 10,000 other neurons. But we still don’t know that answer to the question, “What is the brain?”
Dr. Kaku has put his finger on two very important questions to which Christianity has answers. To the question of what existed before creation, Christianity answers, “God.” The Bible opens with this affirmation: “In the beginning, God.” Before there was anything else, there was God. Before creation and before anything else existed, he was there. What did God do in the beginning? He caused the universe and the world to come into existence. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1).
The question of what existed before creation is also asked by the classic philosophical question, “Why is there something instead of nothing?” If no God exists, it would seem more likely that nothing would exist. But something does exist, and why is that? Why is there a universe? Why did anything “bang” in the beginning? Who set the universe in motion? Because of the nature of the Big Bang, which was a beginning from a singularity of matter and energy, science may never be able to answer the question of what came before it. This is where God speaks to us about things outside our realm of knowledge. He has revealed the answer to the question. God is the one who was before creation and who has set all the things that exist in their courses!
The Bible also gives us a compelling answer to the second question, which is the question of intelligence and personhood. Why did intelligent beings develop in the universe? What makes a human soul? How is it that we can think, imagine, love, feel, create, and strive? The Bible has a clear and compelling answer. We are more than merely the complex interactions of a 100 billion neurons. That we have life, a soul, and personhood is a gift from God. The book of Genesis says that God breathed into mankind the “breath of life” (Genesis 2:7). God went beyond that, however. There are a number of things that have life in them, such as plants and animals. The book of Genesis says that God elevated humans beyond mere life. He made us in his “image and likeness” (Genesis 1:26).
Someone has suggested that our lives are lived in “brackets.” Inside those brackets we can explore and discover. But there are questions that can only be answered from outside the brackets. These are beyond our ability to discover. If we are to know these things, they must be revealed to us by God. That is what we believe God has done. Science will continue to reveal the mysteries of the physical universe. But only God has spoken to us from outside the brackets about things science cannot know. He tells us who we are, why we are here, and who created all things.
What a wondrous thing life is, and what a majestic God we serve! Thanks be to God that he has made his presence and his will known to his people.