Belonging to Christ IX God The Father

Our catechetical series continues, drawn now from the second section of the book, I Am His: Learning from the Prayer Book Catechism, All that a Christian ought to Know and Believe to his Soul’s Health

Catechist. Rehearse the Articles of thy Belief.
Answer. I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth…
Question. What dost thou chiefly learn in these Articles of thy Belief?
Answer. First, I learn to believe in God the Father, who hath made me, and all the world.

Creator

The Creed teaches us to “believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth” – a infinite power of fatherly goodness which is the source and origin of all things from beyond all things. Pagan myths often taught how the world gave birth to the gods, and so the gods are “super-creatures”, very powerful beings but within the world, what the Bible calls “principalities and powers” – angels, or demons. The central confession of Israel is that God made the world, and therefore God is not a creature, nor even a super-creature, but something utterly other than a creature, their Creator. 

A carpenter needs wood and a sculptor needs stone, but God created all things out of nothing, by the wisdom and power of his Word and Spirit (Genesis 1:1-2:3; cf. Isaiah 64:8; Acts 4:24; 1 Corinthians 8:6). The doctrine of creation is not an explanation of how God made the world, but that he did: it answers the question – and what other answer could there be? – why is there anything at all, instead of nothing? It affirms that everything that exists, is dependent for its existence at every point upon God’s power as Creator and Preserver.

As the very ground of being, all creatures depend on him but there is no need of his which they could supply. It is of sheer goodness that he makes the world and everything in it, sheer goodness that he wills there to be creatures, and he made everything “good” and all together “very good”, without defect or flaw (Genesis 1:4, 10, et al., 31). When evil enters into the world, it is as a privation or corruption of the good; when sin enters the world, it is (as Genesis 3 shows us) through a perversion of the will, an abuse of rational freedom God gave angels and men.

Evolution & Creation

In our time, it is often supposed – by some scientists, by some atheists, and by some Christians – that the religious doctrine of Creation is incompatible with the scientific doctrine of Evolution. What is not so often recognized is that other scientists, and other Christians (including the Roman Catholic church!), consider them entirely compatible. It all depends, of course, on what you mean by them.

If you suppose that the Bible is a cosmological treatise, a kind of handbook of natural science, then you may conclude that there is no place at all for the origin and development of living species by natural selection (the core idea of evolution). But is that what the Bible is? The Bible itself testifies that the scriptures were designed to make us “wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 3:15). Exactly how does natural science contribute to saving faith?

And if you suppose that evolution has a convincing answer for the question of why there is anything at all, rather than nothing, you will think that there is no place for the doctrine of a God the Creator. But does evolution have any such answer? Even a great Broadway lyricist knew better than that – although it was first argued by the Greek philosopher Parmenides: “Nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever could…” Evolution may have lots to say about what happened after there was something – but it cannot tell us why there is something, and not anything at all.

In truth, the Christian doctrine of Creation is one of the hidden historical and logical presuppositions of modern natural science, and Christians at least ought to recognize and rejoice in this dependence. The Christian religion and natural science have much to talk about with each other to the advantage of both. Unfortunately, too often the debate is carried on by individuals on each side who seem to have little knowledge either of the position they attack or even of the position they defend. Instead of a vigorous debate clarifying the issues, we get the argument of screech against scream.

Man the Creature

The doctrine of Creation is also a doctrine of Man. In the well-ordered, coherent world that God made, man, both male and female, has a special authority and vocation: made in the image and likeness of God, to exercise dominion over the creatures, as shepherds and stewards of his creation, in obedience to his Word (Genesis 1:26-28; 2:4-25; Psalm 8). And there is a hint, just a hint, that man has a unique role to play in the unfolding of God’s design for his world. For if each thing is made “good”, and all things are made “very good”, there is a hint that the “best” is yet to come, a sharing in the Sabbath rest of God himself (2:2-3). Man is created in pilgrimage, to use all creatures for the sake of God’s glory. “Lord, thou hast made us for thyself”, says St. Augustine, “and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee”. It is this ordering of man to his eternal good, this “original righteousness”, which is lost in Adam’s fall. Sinful men “changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator” (Romans 1:25).

The Fatherhood of God

In what sense is God “Father”? This does have some reference to his work as Creator, as the fatherly origin that stands before and beyond all creatures. As St. Paul says, “we are also his offspring” (Acts 17:28). And it is in this sense of the Father as Creator that the ancient canticle Te Deum Laudamus begins its praises: “All the earth doth worship thee, the Father everlasting”. Yet in Scripture and in theology, the Fatherhood of God is not primarily found in his relation to the creatures, but in his relation to his Son (as St. John’s gospel constantly testifies) – and to those who share his Sonship, his chosen people (Exodus 4:22-23; Galatians 4:4- 7). It is in and through his fatherly love for his “beloved Son”, that we know God as our Father. And so we cannot rightly grasp this first Article of the Faith without going on to consider the second.

But, to “believe in God the Father”, as the one who “has made me and all the world”: this “is a short way of saying that I believe that there is no existence … which has any other origin than the will of God. It is to say that all things are embraced by a paternal providence which sustains, and guides, and governs; that nothing, whether visible or invisible, can fall outside that providence”. As an old hymn puts it, “This is my Father’s world / Oh let me ne’er forget / That though the wrong seem oft so strong / God is the ruler yet”. The world is not a lottery or a struggle of blind forces; I am neither pawn nor victim of arbitrary powers; the power that rules everything – both good and evil, both great and small – is the power of fatherly love. And therefore, “all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28); and even evil itself is in his hands an instrument of his good purpose: “ye thought evil against me” says Joseph to his brothers, who had sold him into slavery, “but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive” (Genesis 50:19). Entrusting myself to him, I am free to live without fear, for “our help standeth in the name of the Lord, who hath made heaven and earth” (Psalm 124:7). Acknowledging my entire dependence upon him for any good I have, I owe him my thanks, praise, and obedience.

The Only Saviour

We have seen that God is not the author of evil, which originates in a perversion of the will and is the corruption of his good creatures. He is powerful to preserve the world from destruction, and by his almighty all-wise providence works in and through evil to accomplish his own good purposes for creation. Yet we must say something further: that in the face of the ruin that threatens the world by man’s rebellion against the Creator, God in his love for the world goes to war against the powers that oppress, corrupt, and seek its ruin, and by his wisdom and power comes to deliver, rescue, restore, and perfect the world. We see God as the Savior over and over again in the history of his people, archetypically in the exodus from Egypt, and in the return from exile in Babylon. That is to say, once again, that is in and through his Son he sent into the world to be its redeemer, that we know God as the Saviour of the world he made. And so, once again, we cannot rightly grasp this first Article of the Faith without going on to consider the second.

Further Reading

• Genesis 1:1-2:3 – God the Creator and Man as his chief Creature
• Isaiah 43 – Israel’s only Savior
• Psalms 95, 103, 146-150 – Praises of God as Creator
• Acts 14:8-18 – Paul’s testimony to the Creator at Lystra
• Venite, exultemus Domino, Prayer Book, p. 9; Benedicite pp. 11-13 – praise of God as Creator

Questions for Review

• How sets apart the Bible’s account of God from those of pagan myths?
• Does God depend on anything else for creation?
• What question does faith in the Creator answer? What questions does it not answer?
• Why does God create? 
• Is the world he created defective? does it include evil?
• What is the cause of evil?
• What is providence?
• For God to stand up for his creation in the face of evil, what must he do?

Questions for Discussion

• There have been many fierce arguments between “evolutionists” and “creationists”. Is evolution compatible with the doctrine of creation? Is “creationism” the same as belief in God the Creator?