[AI translation] We can also see from our reading of the Word that, in studying the Apostles' Creed, we have come to the part that perhaps causes the most difficulty for believers today: the doctrine of the creation of heaven and earth. Not only unbelievers but also many believers feel that it is here that biblical truth clashes most violently with the truth as we know it from natural science. For even the smallest schoolchild knows today that this world did not come into being in six days, but dates back billions of years; that the Earth is not the centre around which the Sun and the whole starry world revolve, but is only one of the smallest specks of dust in an infinite world of solar systems and light millennia; that man did not enter a happy garden of paradise ready-made, but has gradually evolved over thousands of years to the human level... Today, there is no doubt that Copernicus is right and not the primitive view that creates a world view for itself by being earth-centred. Also, the theory of evolution, although modified since Darwin, has generally been accepted in modern science. All this is not in dispute! But is the Bible not right? All that I have just read, that is, what God says in His Word about the creation of the world and of man, is all a fairy tale? Can we then believe the Bible? Because here faith and knowledge clash irresistibly! One excludes the other and vice versa...Well, then: no! Not at all! Let me try to illustrate with an analogy: there is no conflict between the Bible and natural science, for example, on the creation of the world, just as there is no conflict between a radio technical textbook and a radio magazine. Both relate to radio, but they deal with the same subject from quite different perspectives. In one I can learn about the structure, construction, components and wiring diagrams of my radio, and in the other I can find out what kind of broadcast my radio is transmitting, for example between 8 and 9 o'clock tonight... This is how science and the Bible relate to each other. From natural science I learn about the structure, construction and components of the created universe, and from the biblical creation story I learn what heavenly blessing, what heavenly programme this world is broadcasting to me, what God is saying to me, his child! And here again, a distinction must be made between the world view and the divine truth, the divine word, the message expressed in it. The worldview which sees the earth as the centre of the universe, which, like a floating disc, imagines heaven "above" the earth as a dome and imagines the underworld "below" the earth: this worldview is only a means, only a letter, the sounding board by which the word of God is expressed.
If I say, for example, "man", it makes no difference to the meaning of this word if I say it in Greek, Hungarian or Finnish, nor if I write it in old-fashioned cursive letters or in modern, plain, simple letters. In the same way: it makes no difference to the meaning of the Word of God if I formulate it in the language of the ancient or modern scientific worldview. The world view is different and the divine truth, the divine word, expressed in it is different. The ancient, biblical worldview must not be equated with the eternal truth it expresses. (This is where the Church missed the point in the Middle Ages: see the Bible's "Biblical and literal truth"). G. Bruno, Copernicus, later Darwin.)
God does not want to give a scientific explanation of what came to be when and after what: that is for biology, chemistry and astronomy. But the Bible speaks of God in the language of the worldview of the people who lived thousands of years ago, in the language of the worldview of that time. In the creation story, it is not about the creation of the heavens and the earth, but about its Creator. It shows the greatness and glory of God, who God is and who we humans are. In fact, the biblical creation story is a powerful and awesome proclamation that says, "I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth."
So, once again, the Bible is not about the structure of the world - science tells us that - but about the relationship of the universe and of man in it to God the Creator. What the Bible says is not how God created the world, but that God is the Creator of the world. The Bible is not interested in when the world and the animal and human existence in it came into being, but in the fact that all existence has a beginning and an end, and that God is at the beginning and the end of all existence, and that the whole cosmos is under Him at every moment, and could not exist without Him. Whatever the worldview of the cosmos, the point of the biblical creation story is not how big the world is, but that however big it is, it is everywhere bounded by the eternity of God, held by the rule of God, surrounded by the omnipresence of God. So the biblical creation story is not a religious view of nature, but a great call: people, take seriously God's rule over the created world!
Do you already sense that the biblical creation story is not about the how and the what of the creation of the world, but about a personal relationship with the Creator who created me! To whom, therefore, I owe thanks, praise and obedience. And in this way the whole question of the creation of the world is transferred from the sphere of theoretical contemplation, from the scientific high ground of the prehistory of the cosmos, to the line of everyday life. Of course, it really makes no sense for someone to say, for example: I am convinced that there is a creative will over this world, that there is an omnipotent God who created the peoples - but at the same time he himself lives a life that is not at all in tune with the will of this God who rules the world.
You see, this is the terrible inconsistency of the so-called religious man, who wants God to exercise his dominion somewhere outside himself, in the cosmos and in the world of peoples, but to leave him personally alone! Just as it makes no sense for someone, for example, to gaze at the splendour of the sunset from the top of the Great Cold Mountain in the Börseg, and to be moved by the thought of God's creative power, wisdom and goodness, and then, a few hours later, to be distressed and outraged by a tragic news story, and to ask, almost reproachfully: How can God allow this?
The first thesis of the Apostles' Creed: "I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth" - does not therefore mean that I bow before all the details of the six-day creation story, but that I bow before the Creator God, Who sets me, His creature, His child, beside Himself, Who draws me into a personal relationship with Himself, and in the whole course of my life I reckon that God has for me a fatherly will and therefore all kinds of commands. I believe that the difficult destiny of my life and of my people is as much in His hands as the beauty of the Great Cold Mountain sunset... He has indeed shaped me and knows my affairs, I encourage my soul with this. So God is never an impersonal first cause in the process of the creation of the world, but truly the One to Whom we say in the Creed, "My Almighty God and Father! Luther is right when he summed up his explanation of the creation of the world in this sentence, "I believe that God created me!"
So let us now take a closer look at what the Bible says in our foundational verse about the creation of man? "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. So man became a living soul." This is not meant to be a scientific explanation, but a statement of man's nature and purpose, put into a form. Adam, whose creation is here spoken of, is not only the beginning of the human race, but MAN himself, in his littleness and greatness, MAN with his dignity and sins. That Adam is me, and you are you, and we are us! Now the Bible says: Adam, man - you and I - is in fact a being of the dust of the earth, which means that he is intimately connected with the other creatures, part of the cosmos, part of the natural world. His body is composed of the same matter as plants and animals. Its nervous system and blood circulation and metabolism are much the same as, and almost identical to, those of higher animals. And yet man is not merely the highest animal, but is essentially different, more, superior to all creatures: the crown of creation. Nowhere in the world is there such a statement about man as in the Bible: 'And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. So man became a living soul," we read. Man alone was created in the image and likeness of God. He alone knows about God and eternity. He alone is responsible to God for all that he does. Man alone is like God in that he, like God, is a person. Man, you and I, are citizens of two worlds, the heavenly and the earthly. A wanderer between these two worlds.
And this superiority of man over all creatures is not affected by whether he was created directly by God, whether he was wrought by his own hands from a few kilos of mud and clay, or whether he has risen to this point through long stages of evolution. It may have evolved through animal preforms into its present form, but in this course of development, of evolution, the miracle of man's becoming man was fulfilled, and it is precisely God's act of creating man that has been so clearly revealed. In other words, creation as a mystery continues to exist and the transition from the pre-human to the human stage is an eternal mystery. This is the elusive mystery of creation. It is, of course, that man, for all his biological affinities with the animal, is so completely different from the animal! What is it that makes man so very different? Our Word says: "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. So man became a living soul."
So this is the divine breath: this is the specifically human in man! It is in the midst of biological evolution that the miracle happens that God lifts man out of the animal level and calls him into communion with himself. And this miracle consists, to put it more precisely, in breathing into man his own breath: that is to say, that something happens to him which no evolution could have given to man. Therefore this breath means precisely that God has given a part of himself to man, that he has created man in his own image and likeness. If, then, we want to know what man is, what you are: we are not looking for where he came from, where he developed from, in terms of evolutionary history, but for what purpose God created man. Man's true being is not determined by his biological origin, but by his divine purpose, the purpose for which God created him, called him. And this is nothing other than to be truly human, that is, to be truly in the image and likeness of God in all his manifestations!
So, when I say, "I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth," by this profession of faith - if I speak the truth - I commit myself to the will to realize what God created me to do. This is precisely what makes us different from animals. A jackal, for example, is not faced with the decision of whether or not he wants to be a jackal, whether or not he wants to live his jackal-ness, a jackal is a jackal! But man is faced at every moment with the decision whether or not he wants to live his destiny as a human being, as a child of God, to fulfil his destiny? And that, in spite of sin, it may be possible for man who has become unworthy to become man again, and for you and me to become truly what God intended and created man to be. That is why God himself became man in Jesus Christ. But this is the next theme of our Creed, which will be discussed next time.
Amen
Date: 27 September 1959.
Lesson
1Móz 1,1-27