By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible. Hebrews 11:3 (NIV)
St. Augustine said famously, “Seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand.”[i] No better application of that principle can be found than in the realms of cosmology and anthropology. If one rejects God, one rejects the ability to see the true origin of nature, including man.
This verse comes at the beginning of what is popularly called “the faith chapter.” It is not called “the blind faith chapter,” for its examples involve God’s revelation. God called Abraham (Hebrews 11:8). The Israelites stepped into a sea He had divided before their eyes (Hebrews 11:29). God validated Gideon’s mission by dampening a fleece (Hebrews 11:32; Judges 6:36-40). He is a God of evidence; His fingerprints are there to see.
So it is with creation. Through the centuries, Christian apologists have employed the teleological argument for God’s existence. They reasonably and confidently point to the exquisite order in nature, a sure sign that a wise and benevolent Creator is responsible. As English philosopher William Paley observed in 1802, if one finds a watch on the seashore, he properly concludes that it had a watchmaker and that it did not just occur by accident. Similarly, when one sees the intricate working of the eye, the procession of seasons, and the rounds of the honey bee, he should note this as handiwork, not happenstance.
Skeptics claim Hebrews 11:3 is perfect evidence that science can have nothing to do with religion. Religion, they say, has to do with blind faith and trust in things that cannot be seen, while science works with observable facts. But can any scientist say this with integrity? Although he may sometimes see the object under study, sometimes he does not. Especially in an age of quantum physics where quarks[ii] are both unpredictable and practically undetectable, it is an odd claim to limit knowledge only to what one can see.
Believers such as Abraham walked by faith because they trusted in the reliability of the God whom they served. Scientists trust in their craft because they believe in law. The reliability of law, however, has to be grounded in something. The Bible offers a perfectly sensible explanation: everything we see or experience was put in place by a personal lawgiver. Creation by the command of God is ex nihilo, out of nothing but His will. In contrast, human creation is simply rearranging the basic material God made outright. The most original human painter is simply applying God’s colors in God’s medium to a surface made of God’s material.
The world dismisses creationists as backward and irrational; God puts them in the company of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The faith chapter concludes with the note that some of the faithful endured “jeers and flogging,” that they were “persecuted and mistreated.” Today, it continues in the university classroom, the local museum, and the popular media—a clear sign that the world is still “not worthy” of the faithful. But faith is no slave to the world’s opinions and no victim of the world’s illusions.
//