Christians believe that creation was an immensely powerful and yet warmly personal act by the Creator. All of God - Father, Son and Holy Spirit - was fully involved and fully committed. There was a definite end point to this glorious first phase of the divine work: we are told in Genesis 2:2
“By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work” (NIV).
The legacy of the original creation remains breathtaking to this very day.
At the beginning of each day I have a clear reminder of the differences in efficiency between humans created by God and artifacts created by man. Not everybody is instantly alert on waking up. Some are downright drowsy. They moan and groan and turn over, longing to snooze on. They resist getting up until the very last minute and take quite a while to get into the day. Others are morning people. They bounce out of bed, alert and ready for anything straight away. I am somewhere in between. When I wake up, I may not feel refreshed, but at least I still become quickly aware of myself and my surroundings.
With my mobile phone, however, it is quite different. I leave it switched off completely overnight. When I turn it back on in the morning, it takes ages to come into full operation again. Partly this is because its contents are encrypted for security’s sake. But basically, like any computer, it has to remind itself each and every time what it is, what its different parts are for, and how they all work together. Only then can it even begin to burst into life. You would think the computer marks a high point in human creative ingenuity. Yet compared to humans it is comically slow and stupid.
You will now understand why I smiled when I read this extract from an evangelistic booklet by John E. Davis:
Have you ever stopped and marvelled at the wonder of the human body? When was the last time you woke up and had to remind your heart to start beating or your wounds to start healing? The Bible says "… in him we live, and move, and have our being …" (Acts 17:28). Have you considered the workings of the human eye or the complexity of the human brain, which is far beyond the capabilities of any computer? The human body is truly amazing, beyond our comprehension, no wonder David in the Psalms wrote "I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works”.
(Remember, this is simply a comment on the first creation! It says nothing about how, in Jesus Christ, God has a long-term programme of re-creating us spiritually following the fall from grace of our first ancestors.)
Science goes on making amazing discoveries about the human body, some of which unfortunately lead a number of scientists to think they can “play God” with the physical matter that constitutes us. This has potentially disastrous consequences.
A bit of due humility is called for here. I once asked a scientist, a committed Christian to address a church Men’s Supper Club gathering on Creation. I fear this audience was sceptical, even hostile. But what stuck with me was the faithful scientist's parting comment.
“The most we can do,” he affirmed in his closing sentence, “is think God’s thoughts after Him.”
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