CHAPTER VII

WHAT I BELIEVE ABOUT THE ORIGIN OF EVERYTHING

The fact that no human being was present when the heavens and the earth
came into being means that no person really knows how these things came to be.
Yet, there are many people who are searching for the answer to this question.
A trustworthy authority is needed to provide a firm foundation for what
one finally believes about the origin of everything.
A belief in the evolution of the species allows each person to be his or
her own authority since there is no personal God to be responsible to.
A belief in a God who created everything makes God the authority.
I believe that man is more limited in his ability to find the answer to the
origin of everything than he thinks he is.
I believe that an act of revelation from God is the only sure way to know
about the origin of everything, and about God, Himself.
I believe that God has caused the Holy Bible to be written, by many men
over a period of approximately sixteen hundred years, as the revelation of
what we need to know about the origin of everything, and about Himself.
I believe that the Holy Bible is the trustworthy authority that provides a
firm foundation for what we believe about the origin of everything.
While I have developed a definite belief concerning the origin of everything,
it seems to me that intellectual honesty requires that I acknowledge other points of
view on this matter and state my problems with those points of view. The belief in
the evolution of the species seems to be the most common view of the origin of the
species. I cannot escape the conclusion that something had to always exist in
order to produce all of the other things. No matter how far I try to go back,
something was already there to get things started. What was it? Was it rocks? Or
gases? My problem with believing that it was rocks or gases is that I observe a
type of life and intelligence in people and animals that rocks and gases have never
manifested in their existence. Is it possible that that, which has never manifested
the type of life and intelligence that I observe in people and animals today, could
have created it? It just doesn’t seem logical to me to believe that. It is more
logical to me to believe that it is a living intelligence that always existed, and
that that living intelligence created all that we can see or perceive in any way,
and an infinite amount more that we can’t see or perceive in any way. To me, this
Living Intelligence is God.
Some believers in the evolutionary origin of everything concede that a
power, that might be God, originally created the basic materials and basic life, but
then left it to evolve as it would. The problem that I have with this view is that

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each species is dependent upon several other species, both plant and animal,
for its food and shelter. From the very beginning there had to be an unknown
number of different species existing together for survival. I don’t think that
evolution could have produced the balance of nature that we observe today
whereby an untold number of species, both plant and animal, can survive and exist
far beyond the life span of any individual member of the species. It is much too
slow, and starts out with just one species that supposedly slowly evolves into an
ever higher species. What did it survive on? What was its food? Did it need
shelter, and if so, what was it? These questions defy an answer. Even though I am
sure that I don’t completely understand it, the account of creation in the book of
Genesis in the Holy Bible does offer an answer to these questions. It confirms
that, for there to be the balance of nature that we observe today, everything
was created in a specific order, and in a specific way, in a relatively short
period of time.
The Biblical account of creation states in Genesis 1:1 --- “In the beginning
God created the heaven and the earth.” It doesn’t say how long this took, but it
does say that the earth was void of life, and in complete darkness. Also, it appears
that water covered the whole earth. (Compare Genesis 1:2 with Genesis 1:9.)
The first day of creation:
Genesis 1:2 tells us that all was in darkness when the earth was created.
Genesis 1:3 tells us that God created light.
Genesis 1:4 tells us that God divided the light from the darkness.
Genesis 1:5 tells us that God called the light Day, and the darkness Night,
and concludes by saying, “And the evening and the morning were the first day.”
The second day of creation:
Genesis 1:6 & 7 tells us that God created a firmament (the air immediately
above the earth’s surface) to divide the waters that were on the earth from the
waters that were above the firmament.
Genesis 1:8 tells us that God called the firmament Heaven, and concludes by
saying, “And the evening and the morning were the second day.”
The third day of creation:
Genesis 1:9 tells us that God gathered the waters that were on the earth in
one place and raised areas of dry land.
Genesis 1:10 tells us that God called the dry land, Earth, and the waters that
were gathered in one place, Seas.
Genesis 1:11 & 12 tells us that God created grass, and herbs, and trees.
Genesis 1:13 simply says, “And the evening and the morning were the third
day.
The fourth day of creation:

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 Genesis 1:14-18 tells us that God created lights in the heaven, the sun, moon
and stars, to be for signs, and for seasons, days and years.
Genesis 1:19 simply says, “And the evening and the morning were the
fourth day.
The fifth day of creation:
Genesis 1:20-22 tells us that God created all of the fish and other creatures
that live in the sea, and also all of the birds that fly in the air.
Genesis 1:23 simply says, “And the evening and the morning were the fifth
day.
The sixth day of creation:
On the sixth day God created all of the creatures, both warm blooded and
cold blooded, both vertebrates and invertebrates, that would live on the dry land.
Genesis 1:25 says, “And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and
cattle after their kind, and every thing that creeps upon the earth after his kind: and
God saw that it was good.
Genesis 1:27 says, “So God created man after his own image, in the image
of God created he him; male and female created he them.
Genesis 28-30 records some instructions that God gave to the man and
woman whom he had created.
Genesis 1:31 concludes with the words, “And the evening and the morning
were the sixth day.
The seventh day:
Genesis 2:2a says, “And on the seventh day God ended his work which he
had made; ---.”
Some believe that these “days” of creation could have been longer
periods of time than twenty-four hour days, but after God began to create
plant life on the earth, there was an immediate need for days and seasons, and
also for animal life, so I believe that the days of creation were twenty-four
hour days, and that the six days of creation were consecutive days, one day
blending into the next.
Note: This next part is going to be a record of what I think I remember from my
studies at Baptist Bible Seminary over fifty years ago. I may not have remembered
accurately, and I simply do not have the time left to restudy it. I would encourage
my readers to study this out for themselves.
There is a difference, even among Bible scholars, in their estimates of how
long ago God created the earth and all of the life on it, including man. I have
accepted an estimate that God created life, including man, upon this earth about
eight thousand seven hundred years ago.
This creates a discrepancy between what the Bible scholars believe and
what many of the geologists believe.

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 Some geologists have found fossils of former life buried deep in the
sediments of earth, that, by carbon dating, they believe are many thousands of
years old, some possibly even a million years old. Also, the geologists have tried
to determine the age of the earth by comparing the total amount of erosion of the
earth’s surface with a measured amount of erosion over a much shorter specific
period of time. They believe that the earth is millions of years old, and that it
supported life long before the Biblical record. Some geologists believe that there
has been as many as fifteen periods of time in which there were distinctly different
forms of life on this earth. All of the geologists are agreed that there was little or
no life on earth in the first few periods of its development. This would be true
according to the first two days of the Biblical account of creation, but the Bible
says absolutely nothing about there being multiple creations of life in different
earlier periods of time on the earth.
If God has not caused it to be written in the Bible, it is either because it
isn’t so, or because we have no specific need to know about it.
A “want” to know about something does not constitute a “need” to
know about it.
At this point I’d like to mention the “Gap Theory”. It is the result of some
Christian theologian’s efforts to bridge the gap between the geologists’ belief that
the earth and some of the animal skeletons that they have found are millions of
years old, and the belief, based upon information found in the Bible, that this
present creation of the earth and its life is only about eight thousand seven hundred
years old.
As I understand the “Gap Theory”, it theorizes that God created the earth
millions of years ago, and that God has created a number of different creations of
life in different periods of time upon the earth before our present creation of life.
This theory requires a great gap of time between two of the days of the Biblical
account of creation. The theologians who believe the “Gap Theory” are not all
agreed as to which two days of creation to place it between, but it seems most
logical to me to place it between the fifth and sixth days of creation. However, the
scripture says absolutely nothing about the “Gap Theory”.
If we believe that God has told us what we need to know in the Bible,
then we must reject the “Gap Theory” because nothing is said about it in the
Bible.
How do we explain the difference in the earth’s age based upon information
found in the Bible, and the earth’s age based, at least partly, upon the rate of
erosion that the geologists have observed in such places as the Grand Canyon?
The geologists have compared what they believe to be the total amount of erosion
of the earth’s surface, since the earth began to be, with their observed rate of

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erosion in a known amount of time in a particular place, and calculated that the
earth must be millions of years old.
Have the geologists overlooked a factor that could cause their
calculations to be seriously in error?
Most of them do not believe the Bible, nor the account of the universal flood
in Genesis, chapters six through eight. According to the Biblical account, the
universal flood covered even the highest mountains over the entire earth. As this
flood developed, the rate of erosion of the earth’s surface surely was accelerated
tremendously. Many Bible scholars believe that the universal flood accelerated the
rate of erosion of the earth’s surface enough to eliminate the millions of years that
the geologists believe it took. A fellow believer and church member at Bethel
Baptist Church of Vestal, New York, Joel Beckley, told me that, in the end, it’s a
matter of faith. We choose to believe God and the Bible that He has given us,
while most of the geologists choose to believe in their own intelligence and ability
to reason. I have lived and observed my fellowman long enough to believe that
most people have a strong inclination to deceive themselves about their own
intelligence and abilities. I choose to believe God and the Bible. I do not believe
that the Bible is wrong.
I believe that it is NOT important for us to know if God created earlier
creations of life upon this earth before ours, or even to know exactly when or
how God created the life forms that we see and know.
But, it IS important to believe the Bible, which God has given us, as His
message to us, and to believe that God has created all that we can see and
perceive in any way.
There is another argument for believing in creation by a Living
Intelligence.
We know that our world is suspended in a vast space. We also know that
there are a number of other planets that, along with our earth, orbit a sun that
dwarfs any of its planets in size. The sun, the planets and their moons, altogether,
make up a universe, which is suspended in space.
I think that the manner in which each planet orbits the sun at a fixed
rate of speed, in a fixed orbital path, could not just have happened. To me it is
a strong argument for creation by an infinite Living Intelligence. I believe that
the space in which our universe is suspended, is an infinite space, and that the
infinite God has created an infinite number of other universes and suspended them
all in the infinite space.
I believe that God is the only Living Intelligence that created all that we
can see or perceive in any way, and an infinite amount more that we can’t see
or perceive in any way.

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 In the next chapter I will write about my perception of the characteristics of
God.

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