These two chapters of the Bible are intensely interesting for more than one reason. They are arresting as narrating the creation of the universe, and reconstruction of the world in which we live. They are interesting as giving us the description of things before sin came in with its train of sorrow and suffering.
Further, they have been the object of bitter and persistent attack on the part of skeptics and modernists. Such would fain reduce the story of creation to the realm of a fairy story, folklore and the like. One thing is very evident. Such writers very generally show a wish to discredit the creation story. They illustrate the Scripture which says, " The carnal mind is enmity against God " (Rom. 8:77Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. (Romans 8:7)). Rom. 1:2828And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; (Romans 1:28) speaks of a class, which " did not like to retain God in their knowledge." The result is such that they approach the subject with a bias in their minds, a desire to prove the Bible untrue. Their treatment of the subject often lacks fairness and common honesty, and, be it said, oftentimes common sense.
To begin with, the accounts of the creation of the world, other than that of the Bible, are clearly uninspired and the fruit of guess work. How could it be otherwise? There was no witness of the original creation. The tiny substratum of truth that may lurk in these stories comes from the original Bible story, which becomes distorted and disfigured almost out of all recognition as it is handed down from generation to generation.
For instance, in the Hindu religion, it is taught that our earth was flat and triangular, composed of seven stories, supported on the heads of elephants, whose ungainly movements were the cause of earthquakes. Mohammed taught that the mountains were created to act as chains and anchors to keep the earth from moving. In Greek and Latin philosophies the heavens were said to be a solid vault over the earth, studded with stars. Plato held that the earth was an intelligent being. Thales, a Greek philosopher. (circa 636 B.C.) believed that water was the primordial germ. Heraclitus taught that fire was the primordial germ. Pythagoras (circa 500/600 B.C.) taught that number, whatever that might mean, was the primordial germ.
In what vivid contrast stands the dignified narrative of creation in Gen. 1 Even the modernist must concede this, or stand condemned as being so blinded by prejudice as to be incapable of sound and honest judgment.
In all the various accounts of creation, save the Bible's, GOD is very largely left out of account. Gen. 1 begins with the majestic words, " In the beginning GOD." Modernists often seek to hide God under such terms as " The Great First cause," " Nature," etc. In strong contrast to this, the name of GOD is mentioned no less than thirty-four times in the Bible narrative of creation (Gen. 1-2: 3).
Creation demands a Creator. Let the evolutionist, if he pleases, trace creation to a single bit of protoplasm, the question arises whence did that bit of protoplasm with its myriad potentialities come; or better still, from WHOM did it originate? Some scientists aver that from this bit of protoplasm comes the whale and the minnow; the elephant and the midge; the giraffe and the mouse; the noble oak and the sweet forget-me-not; the mighty Niagara and the gently falling dew; the lofty Mount Everest, on whose summit no human foot has ever trod, and the mote that floats in the sunshine. If all this were true, whence comes this marvelous bit of protoplasm, bursting with such varied and marvelous potentialities? Even Charles Darwin in the closing words of the Origin of Species, wrote, " There is a grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into the first forms, or into one." If what Darwin said was true, why does not every scientist bow the knee in adoring worship at the display of such power and wisdom, infinitely beyond the power of man to understand, save in a very feeble measure? Yet, alas! it is not so... Scripture gives the real reason, " Because the carnal mind is enmity against GOD " (Rom. 8:77Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. (Romans 8:7)).
We have often noticed how a noisy minority can keep up a strenuous propaganda, which is calculated to deceive the unwary, who take their propaganda at face value. The attack on Christianity has never been more virulent and persistent than at the present time, whilst the defense has been too passive. We can, however, point out outstanding names among scientists, who were firm believers on the Lord Jesus Christ-Sir Isaac Newton, the discoverer of the law of gravitation; Linnaeus, the great Swedish naturalist; Kepler, the great astronomer; Sir Humphrey Davey, the inventor of the miner's safety lamp; Sir Michael Faraday, the great chemist; Sir James Y. Simpson, the discoverer of the use of anesthetics in surgery, who, being asked what was his greatest discovery, answered, " I found out that I was a great sinner, and that Christ was a great Savior;" Lord Kelvin, who declared, " I am ready to accept as an article of faith in science valid for all time and in all space, that life is produced by life, and only by life."
Need we enlarge on this list? These names are sufficient to show that great men of science with attainments, reached by few have been found in the ranks of devout believers on the Lord Jesus Christ.