Leibniz’s Question
Many years ago, a German thinker and writer named Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz asked what is probably the most basic and foundational question possible: “Why is there something instead of nothing?”
How do the following texts answer Leibniz’s question? Gen. 1:1; John 1:1-4; Exod. 20:8-11; Rev. 14:6, 7; Job 12:7-10.
It’s fascinating how in the Bible the existence of God is just assumed. Genesis 1:1 doesn’t start out with a bunch of logical arguments (though many exist) for the existence of God. It just assumes His existence (see also Exod. 3:13, 14), and from that starting point, God as Creator, the Bible, and all the truth revealed in its pages unfolds.
The doctrine of creation is also foundational to any Christian education. Everything we believe as Christians, everything, rests on the doctrine of the six-day creation.
The Bible didn’t begin with a statement about atonement, or about the law, or about the cross, or about the resurrection, or about the Second Coming. No, it began with a statement about God as Creator, because none of these other teachings makes any sense apart from the reality of God as our Creator.
Hence, again, a biblical worldview must emphasize the importance of the doctrine of creation. This emphasis, too, becomes very important, because the teaching has faced a full-frontal assault in the name of science. Evolution – billions of years of life slowly evolving by fits and starts, all by chance – has all but destroyed faith in the Bible for untold millions. It’s hard to imagine a teaching more antithetical to the Bible and to the Christian faith in general than evolution. That’s why the idea that evolution can somehow be made to harmonize with the biblical doctrine of creation is even worse that atheistic evolution. It can’t be done, not without making a mockery of the Bible and of the Christian faith as a whole.
God asks us to spend one seventh of our lives, every week, to remember the six-day creation, something He asks for no other teaching. What should that tell us about how foundational and important this doctrine is to a Christian worldview?
