Modern Christianity is a very complicated world. Instead of just the one “church”, we have Catholics vs. Protestants vs. Eastern Orthodox, Baptist vs. Methodist, even as far as morning service vs. evening service. While we are all followers of supposedly the same God and the same savior, we continue to divide ourselves based on geological regions and theological idiosyncrasies.
Granted, some division is logical. There are probably some tenants in Catholicism that would condemn all of the protestant churches to damnation, and that doesn’t really sit well with us protestants. Not that all Catholics believe we are all going to hell, but I’m honestly not sure about the particulars. But let’s take a look at one of the controversial issues “facing” Christians today: Creation.
There is an argument among all people as to whether there is a God that created the universe, or if we are just the product of some cosmic accident. I don’t know if there is any Christian that believes that God didn’t have at least some part in the creation of the universe, and I would argue that the fact that God created the universe should be a basic belief that all Christians should share. However, the big debate comes down to an interpretation of the bible. We can either believe that the heavens and the earth were created in literally seven days as it lays out in the bible, or we can believe… something else.
Now there are folks that believe very strongly both ways, and if you find the right person, they will be glad to talk your ear off to try and convince you of their point of view. On one hand, the bible does say that He created the world and everything in it in 7 days. However, it also says that He exists beyond all concept of time and space; therefore we could come to the conclusion that the representation of the 7 days is merely a logical concession so that we can more easily understand the idea that God created the world, in an amazing way. Either way, the creation of an entire world, the systems in the world that let it function, and the very fabric of life itself is on it’s own a pretty incredible feat.
My argument is that it doesn’t really matter what you believe. As long as you believe that the world was engineered and created by God, does it really matter how He created it, other then that it would be impossible for any of us? The importance of the story of creation is twofold; one, it gives us a view of the power of God. He can create a whole universe at will. Two, it gives us a place to look for God’s work. God is everywhere! Because He created the world, He is all around us and his work is in everything. Even the computer that you are reading this on was made possible because of the properties of the elements used, which were inherently designed by God for this to be possible. We have a giant project called the Human Genome project that requires millions of dollars of equipment and years of time to map the qualities mapped in Human DNA. God formed man with his bare hands, and he didn’t have millions of dollars of fancy equipment, he had a handful of dirt.
There is no question that however God created the world, that it requires a power greater then we can imagine. The idea that we should separate ourselves on a silly question like how, when we can’t really comprehend how to begin with, is just ridiculous. In the same way, we can argue to the end of the Earth about these little details about theology, doctrine and sacraments, or we can just do our best to recognize the why, the true question that gets us into knowing God instead of knowing about God. And knowing God is arguably the most important thing.
