Looking at Natural History ...

Saturday, Oct 20, 2018. It is fascinating to look at the whole development of our world. When you visit some science museum, you will be amazed about the nearly incomprehensible time scales of developments which have led to the world as we know it today. We explore the beginning of the universe, with what we call a big explosion or big bang many millions of years ago. We can calculate the numbers - yet they are completely out of range of what we we usually can understand or get our hands on.

Where did we come from? …

But the story continues. All the millions of suns have formed in different galaxies. All the planets have a beginning. And then, on one particular planet which we know - our earth - the life we know has developed. We know fantastic plants and a diversity of animals. We explore their history. We find artefacts coming from millions of years ago. Still these scales are beyond our ability to fully understand them. But the story continues!

About 5000 years ago human history began. It seems it came out of nowhere. You find remainders of culture on China, in Africa, in the Middle East. History started, culture started, people developed language and writing. Humans learned to build houses, to settle, to become community. We try to grasp and understand our origin, our history, our nature.

As humans we live on the surface of a blue planet. Above us there is about 70 kilometers of atmosphere, but even at 8 km height it is to thin to breath. The planet has a radius of 6371 km on average, with 40.000 km if you travel around once. To get to the other side today you need to travel 20.000 km, which takes you about about 22 hours on a modern standard airplane at a speed of 900km per hour. This is our world, we live in! For a single human, it seems large. For mankind as a whole, it is a tiny place.

Creation Accounts …

Coming out of a science museum - or reading a good book about the worlds history - I am deeper and deeper amazed by the way the bible tells the story of creation. It puts it into a framework of seven days - “creation days”. Yet it summarizes the whole story in a way which is not that far away from the summary a typical evolutionist today would formulate – just without acknowledging God:

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. 3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day. […]

The bible sees a creation in what we observe as evolution today. It sees God at work in building the pieces and history which we perceive as fact. The creation accounts are putting into place the basic components of our world: the earth, night and day, time and development, plants, animals and the human race. It describes that it came into the world, step by step, made by an eternal creator. We are part of something fantastic, something great, something made in an unbelievable way. Let us take it that way, with awe and admiration. It tells the greatness of the maker, what ever you think about him. (Roland Potthast) ... further texts