This week we’ll go over what difference the doctrine of Creation makes
We’re using the “Handbook of Apologetics” by Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli to go over the arguments for the existence of God. Today, we will be covering an attribute of God in relation to the above title. Dr. Kreeft teaches logic in two major universities, so his arguments tend to be clear, concise and very helpful.
What Difference Does the Doctrine of Creation Make?
It makes a difference to our concept of God. If God is the Creator, he must be: (1) infinitely powerful; (2) immeasurably wise (to create this whole universe and all its parts, including its design, laws and structures); (3) a great artist (“Poems are made by fools like me, but only God can make a tree”); and (4) totally generous, since the all-sufficient, perfect Being couldn’t have created out of need (e.g., boredom or loneliness).
It also makes a difference to our concept of nature. If nature is created by God, it is (1) intelligible (it is no accident that science arose in the theistic West, not the pantheistic East); (2) good (thus Christianity has always condemned all forms of Manichaeism and gnosticism as heresy); and (3) real (the East often sees nature as an unreal illusion projected by unenlightened consciousness).
Finally, the doctrine of creation affects our concept of ourselves. If we owe our very existence to God, then (1) we have no rights over against God. This startling conclusion necessarily follows from the doctrine of Creation. Shakespeare has rights over against Marlowe, and Hamlet has rights over against Laertes, but how could Hamlet have rights over against Shakespeare? (2) Our existence is meaningful if we are in a play, a divine design, deliberately created rather than blindly evolved. (3) And if we owe God our very existence, we owe him everything. Nothing is our own—no part of our time, or our money, or even our thoughts.
No idea in the history of human thought has ever made more difference than the idea of Creation.
Kreeft, P., & Tacelli, R. K. (1994). Handbook of Christian apologetics: hundreds of answers to crucial questions (pp. 105–106). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.