The Bible does not begin with an argument for God or an abstraction of God. The Bible doesn’t begin like a college or seminary philosophy textbook. If you are looking for all that heady, cerebral metaphysical jargon check with Aristotle or Thomas Aquinas not with God. The Bible begins with the assumption and assertion of God. The Bible says straight up that God came from nowhere, stood on nothing and made everything. The Bible has little patience with the skeptic who questions the existence of God. Check out Psalm 14: 1: The fool says in his heart, “God does not exist.” The truth of the matter is that there are few convinced atheists on the planet. There may be a number of agnostics who genuinely wonder about the existence of God but very few are prepared to say concretely that there is no God in our universe. The Bible is written to people who know intuitively that there must be a God back of all the contours of Creation (Ps. 19: 1; Jhn. 1: 9; Rm. 1: 19-20).
People sometimes suggest that it doesn’t matter if you believe the literal story of creation in Genesis. Well it does. If I can’t trust Genesis 1 – 3 to be true how do I know John 1 – 3 are true? While it is true that the Bible is not a book of history or science; whenever the Bible speaks about history or science it does so flawlessly. There were fanciful theories about the creation of the world floating around when Moses wrote Genesis but he included none of them. Moses reported the simple, direct testimony of God Himself about how He created the world and all that is in it. After all, isn’t science all about what can be observed? Your high school or college science teacher wasn’t around to observe the creation of the cosmos but God was! He is a reliable witness.
It is also important to accept the biblical account of creation because without it the whole drama of redemption becomes a senseless collection of meaningless facts. Without a conviction that the creation story is unquestionably true the day of Sabbath rest makes no sense. Without the accuracy of the Genesis record of the first man -Adam- the Bible’s presentation of the second man- Jesus- comes unraveled. Without the truthfulness of the Fall the need for a savior is unproven.
If Genesis 1 – 3 is true, and it is, then God created man and woman to enjoy ceaseless fellowship with Him and yet tragically they (and we) rebelled and forfeited that fellowship. Because we are His creation we continue to be accountable to Him but being His creation is very different than being His child. Knowing about God intuitively is a far cry from knowing Him intimately.
My prayer for you as you read God’s sixty-six love letters to you called the Bible that you will know Him intimately. Near the end of the Bible God says, I have written these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life (1Jhn. 5: 13).