Lesson 9 - Works of God (Creation)

Question 1

How does the doctrine of creation bring understanding to the relationship between the Creator and the creature?

Answer 1

1. ) The doctrine of creation also concerns the defining relation between God and creatures: the Creator-creature relation/distinction.
2. ) We are not God; but we were created to worship Him.
3. ) We were created to behold and reflect God’s glory, to receive and rejoice in his bliss—as collaborators, yes, we too were created to work; as vice-regents, yes, we too were created to rule; but above all as worshippers: ultimately we were created to lead the chorus on God’s creatures in praise to their Creator: “Let everything that has breath, praise the Lord” (Ps 150.6)!

Question 2

What attributes of God are displayed in his act of creation?

Answer 2

1. ) Motive/Cause of Creation - God’s goodness
2. ) Directive cause of creation - God’s wisdom
3. ) Executive cause of creation - God’s power
4. ) Final cause of creation - God’s glory

Question 3

What does it mean that creation in its original state was “very good?”

Answer 3

1. ) God created all things “very good” (Gen 1:31; 1 Tim 1:1-5; contra Manicheanism)
2. ) Not innately sinful, created out of the fullness of the goodness of God.

Question 4

How do the various views of the days of creation relate and differ?

Answer 4

Augustine

a. ) Creation comes into existence in one instance.
b. ) Became the prominent view in Western Christianity.
c. ) 6 day literal view is not the orthodox view. (Not until 12th c. - Bonnaventure)

Calendar Days
a.) 24 hour periods (popular view in Reformed Tradition/Western evangelicalism)

Day-Age

a. ) various ages/periods of time.
b. ) Concordism - trying to take biblical tradition in accordance with science.
c. ) least convincing view

Framework

a. ) Form and Fullness
b. ) Creation is literary frame to show how creation came about.
c. ) Framework view is consistent with many other views.
d. ) Can be both/and 24 hours days and framework view.

Analogical Days

1. No one understands what they are talking about view
2. Bavinck’s view

Question 5

What are the common characteristics of creatures?

Answer 5

1. ) Creatures are contingent - creatures exist and continue to exist only because of God.
2. ) Creatures are marked by movement - we are teleological, meaning that we are all purposeful and moving toward a goal: fellowship/communion with God
3. ) Creatures are characterized by place - God made creatures in and with time. They inhabit particular spaces and defined by specific natures.

Question 6

How does the theory of evolution threaten the biblical doctrine of creation?

Answer 6

Potential points of conflict and/or concord

1. ) Evolution (strict naturalism) and God
   - - Theistic evolution as oxymoron
   - - Evolution = only natural explanations of everything (by definition this excludes God)
2. ) Evolution and creation from nothing
3. ) Evolution and God’s mediate act of creation
   - - God’s providential mechanism?Isn’t evolution just a mechanism by God.
4. ) Evolution and the age of creation
   - - Young Earth Creationism/Old Earth Creationism –
5. ) Evolution and creaturely kinds
   - - Evolution contradicts kinds.
6. ) Evolution and Adam - biggest issue today
   - - Did we come from multiple kinds?
7. ) Evolution, the fall, sin, and suffering/death
   - - Evolution requires the suffering of sin and death before the Fall.
   - - Romans 5:12 compresses Genesis 3 and Genesis

“The orthodox view includes the following elements (Scripture is clear on these issues and significant doctrine is at stake):

1. ) that Scripture is the inerrant Word of God and self-interpreting,
2. ) the full historicity of Genesis 1-3, (This is how Chronicles and Paul reads it in the NT)
3. ) the unique creation of Adam and Eve in God’s image as our first parents, and Adam as the covenant head of the human race.
   - - Great conflict between Christianity and Science today.
   - - We have great reason to trust in God, because He was there. I wasn’t.
4. ) A necessary corollary of this view is the fact that the curse and the resultant discord in the universe began with the sin of Adam.”
   - -Sin is a historical and moral problem that entered the world through the Fall. Solved by a historical and moral solution of Jesus Christ through Redemption.
   - - Creation and Salvation always go together because there are the works of the one true God.