In the Beginning, Part II: God’s Work of Creation
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
- Genesis 1:1
“The work of creation is, God’s making all things of nothing, by the word of his power, in the space of six days, and all very good.” That’s the answer the Westminster Shorter Catechism gives to the question, “What is the work of creation?’
It’s one of my favorite question and answer sets from the Shorter Catechism, for the same reason as the passage in Genesis on which it is based is one of my favorite passages of Scripture: it captures elegantly, and in a few words, the astonishing work of the creation of all things.
In the introduction to his commentary on Genesis, John Gill wrote, “In the Syriac and Arabic versions, the title of this book is "The Book of the Creation", because it begins with an account of the creation of all things; and is such an account, and so good an one, as is not to be met with anywhere else.”
Genesis is, as Gill implies in the quote above, not the only account of creation from the ancient world. The Greeks had a creation mythology, as did the Babylonians and numerous other cultures.
But creation mythology is not limited to the ancient world. In modern times, we have our own mythological creation account known as the Big Bang. This account, just like the ones from the ancient world, is a garbled version of the true account of the creation of the heavens, the earth, and all that is in them as set forth in Genesis chapter 1.
At this point, some may ask how it is I can prove that the Biblical account of creation is true and that the others are mythological and false. The short answer to this question is that the creation account given in Genesis is part of the inerrant, infallible, 66 books that comprise the revealed Word of God.
If you ask me to prove that the 66 books of the Bible are the revealed Word of God, my answer is that not only can I not prove to you that the 66 books of the Bible are the inerrant and revealed Word of God, but also that it would be impious for me to even attempt to do so.
Now before you think I’ve thrown in the intellectual towel and am simply trying to dodge a serious question about why I believe what I believe, let me explain this a bit further.
The reason that I cannot and will not attempt to prove that “the Bible alone is the Word of God” is that this is the axiom of Christianity. It would be both foolish and impious of me to attempt to prove the axiom of Christianity.
Why would this be foolish?
Because trying to prove an axiom is absurd. The reason it’s absurd lies in the definition of the term “axiom.”
In his 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language, Noah Webster defined “axiom” as, “a principle received without new proof.” Therefore, if one proves an axiom is true, it is no longer an axiom.
Another way of thinking about the axioms is to understand them as a first principle in a system of thought. Christianity is a system of thought. Platonism and Aristotelianism are systems of thought. Darwinism is a system of thought. All systems of thought, whether Christian or pagan, have one thing in common. They all have a beginning point, a first principle. As John Robbins once put it in an email to this author, all thinking must begin somewhere. The proposition that stands first in a system of thought is called an axiom. It is a first principle.
This may seem like an obvious point, but one of the most important things to remember about first principles is that they are, by definition, first. If a first principle could be proven, it would no longer be a first principle. The proof of the original axiom would then become the new first principle.
Gordon Clark well understood the necessity of unproven and unprovable first principles, writing about them in God’s Hammer,
Christianity is often repudiated on the ground that it is circular: The Bible is authoritative because the Bible authoritatively says so. But this objection applies no more to Christianity than to any philosophic system or even to geometry. Every system of organized propositions depends of necessity on some indemonstrable premises, and every system must make an attempt to explain how these primary premises come to be accepted.
The axiom of Christianity is, “the Bible alone is the Word of God.” As Christians, we begin all our thinking with this proposition.
As Clark indicated in the quote above, this leads us to another important question for Christians, why do we accept the premise that the Bible alone is the Word of God? There are, after all, other texts that many people believe hold divine authority. The Koran is one such example. There are others. The pronouncements of modern-day scientists hold much the same authority in the minds of many people in our time. Think about the how the climate change advocates present their case. “The science is settled,” they frequently tell us. If you don’t agree, you’re a “science denier,” a 21st century version of a heretic.
If you were to ask me why I believe the account of creation as set forth in Genesis – and just to be clear, when I say that I believe the account in Genesis, I do not mean this in some qualified way, such as those who advocate theistic evolution or some other scheme that denies what the Word of God plainly teaches; I believe it in the common sense that it was understood by Christians before the age of Darwinism; that is to say, I believe that God spoke the universe into existence out of nothing, in the space of six literal twenty-four hour days, and all very good - I could provide several subordinate reasons.
One I’ve already given above. The account of creation found in Genesis is astonishingly well written. It is at once simple enough for a child to grasp, yet profound in its implications such that Job was reduced to silence when the Lord questioned him, asking, “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?”
A second argument I could give for believing what the Bible teaches about creation is that it fits remarkably well with the rest of the Scriptures. Above it was mentioned that Christianity is a system of thought. This is an important point in the thought of both Gordon Clark and John Robbins. Christianity is not, as some seem to think in our own time, a grab bag of ideas all thrown together in a heap. Christianity is a logical system of thought.
Because Christianity is a system of thought, denying the account of creation as set forth in Genesis necessarily calls into question other Biblical doctrines which depend on a proper understanding of Genesis. For example, if we disbelieve Genesis, we call into question God’s character. In essence, we’re calling him a liar and saying to him that he really didn’t do the things he said he did. And if God lied to us about his work of creation, why would we trust him in other matters?
When we say that the various parts of the Bible fit together into a nicely consistent whole, and that this is proof that it is the Word of God, we’re using what is called the coherence theory of truth. That is to say, a system of thought is true because its various parts fit together much as a jigsaw puzzle does. The Westminster Confession calls this the “consent of all the parts” in Chapter 1.VI.
The two reasons I’ve laid out here for why I believe the 66 books of the Bible, including Genesis chapter 1, are true are, I think, good reasons. But they are not in themselves conclusive.
Indeed, the Roman Catholic Church-State did not find such arguments conclusive at the time of the Reformation, nor does it now. According to Gordon Clark,
At the time of the Reformation when Luther and Calvin appealed to the Scriptures, the Roman Church argued that it and it alone accredited the Scriptures, and that therefore the Protestants could not legitimately use the Scriptures without first submitting to Rome. People were supposed to accept God’s Word only on the authority of the church (God’s Hammer, 16).
But if the majesty of the style of Scripture – for example the remarkable literary skill already mentioned that one finds in Genesis – or the way the doctrines of the Bible fit together so well despite the many authors, circumstances and even languages in which it was written are not conclusive reason for believing the Bible is the Word of God. What is?
Clark answers,
Against this claim [that the Church-State’s authority was needed to authenticate the Scriptures] the reformers developed the doctrine of the testimony of the Holy Spirit. The belief that the Bible is the Word of God, so they taught, is neither the result of a papal pronouncement nor a conclusion inferred from prior premises; it is a belief which the holy Spirit himself produces in our minds (16).
Or as the Westminster Confession puts it,
Our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth [of Scripture] and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts.
That is to say, saving faith, which consists of both understanding and consenting to the doctrines of Scripture, is a gift of God, is produced by of the God the Holy Spirit regenerating our hearts.
Why do Christians accept what the Bible teaches about creation in Genesis 1 and reject the accounts of the ancient creation myths, the secular philosophers, and the modern Darwinists? Because God the Holy Spirit has caused them to believe the Bible and to reject other truth claims.