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In the Beginning God





The Bible and the Jewish Torah, both begin with the words "In the Beginning God." (Barshit Elohim). It does not say that in the beginning there was God. Rig Veda (1500 BC) on the other hand says, "In the beginning was God." (Prajapatir vai idam asit: In the beginning was Brahman or God.Tasya vag dvitya asit: with whom was the Vag or the Word). The difference should be noted here between the Eastern religion and Judeo-Christian belief. God does not have a begnning or an end; in fact He is the beginning and the end, the Alpha and the Omega. The Bible also says "In the beginning was the Word." (John 1:1). The beginning as we can comprehend is the beginning with the creation of the Universe, earth and all things in it.

The Soviet Union sent Yuri Gagarin to space. They announced "Why should you clutch at God? Look, Gagarin flew in space and saw no God". Steven Hawkins (Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, a post previously held by Isaac Newton) said in 2010 in his Book, The Grand Design. “ God was not needed to create the Universe” This is in contradiction to his earlier book 1988 “ A Brief History of Time”, where he said, "If we discover a complete theory, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason — for then we should know the mind of God. God had a part in creation, in fact agreeing with Isaac Newton." The futile attempt to see God in space and efforts to know the mind of God are evidential of man's incompleteness and limitation as a created human being. The creation will never be able to analyze the mind of the creator; rather the creation is a reflection of the mind of the creator.

The Bible teaches that God created everything out of nothing and "saw that it was good." The Beauty in creation is a reflection of God's mind as David says:" The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament His handiworks." (Psalm 8:1). The reason God created are at least two fold: one is because God is the creator; His job is to create. The other is because He saw creation was good. He continues to create good things from nothing. Man can only create things out of what already exist such as matter or energy. God is outside of creation, and can create new things out of a vacuum.

We live in a world where the faith in a creator God is declining steadily. If there is a God, then Where is He? When evil seems to take over and suffering becomes a norm, it is natural to doubt the existence of a God. We are tempted to look for God in the wrong places. A man came to a barber shop to cut his hair. He told the barber that he didn’t believe in God because there are so many problems around like poverty, misery, suffering, evil, corruption and so on. As he was about to leave, the barber pointed through the window towards street where there was walking a man with long hair and long beard. He asked, "Does that mean that there are no barbers around?"

There is good evidence that the universe had a beginning. Einstein's general theory of relativity, which has much experimental support, shows that time is linked to matter and space. So time itself would have begun along with matter and space. This can be shown from the Laws of Thermodynamics, the most fundamental laws of the physical sciences. 1st Law: The total amount of mass-energy in the universe is constant for a closed system. 2nd Law: The amount of energy available for work is running out, or entropy is increasing to a maximum. If the total amount of energy is limited, and the amount of usable energy is decreasing, then the universe cannot exist forever. That means it would eventually exhaust all usable energy ending in the 'heat death' of the universe. For example, all radioactive atoms would have decayed, every part of the universe would be the same temperature, and no further work would be possible. So the obvious corollary is that the universe began a finite time ago with a lot of usable energy., and is now running down as explained in a study that predicts the slow, inevitable death of the universe.  

We look for God at the places we think He will be. Billy Graham in a city of crusade - Walking around the city for a while, he came across a young boy. He asked the boy if he knew how to get to the post office. The boy gave Billy Graham the directions and before leaving, Billy said to the boy, “Come on over to the arena tonight and I’ll tell you how to get to heaven.The boy looked at him and replied, “How can you know how to get to heaven? You don’t even know the way to the post office!” If we don’t know our own origin, it is safe to say that we miss a lot of knowledge about our life. A car, or a machine or a building - in order to understand the car, you need to know who made it where it was made, the engine and the gears and components.

Are we product of just a random mistake? I refuse to believe so. Science teaches us that nothing happens by chance. Chance is merely a term indicating cause existing; but not recognized or perceived. Basic science is based on the theory that everything which has a beginning has a cause. Then the universe has a beginning, therefore the universe has a cause. A stone is dislodged from a mountain side and crashes through a roof of a house in the valley below. At first sight we regard this as a chance effect, but when we examine the matter we find a great chain of causes behind it. In the first place there was the rain which softened the earth supporting the stone and which allowed it to fall; then back of that was the influence of the sun, other rains, etc., which gradually disintegrated the piece of rock from a larger piece; then there were the causes which led to the formation of the mountain, and its upheaval by convulsions of nature, and so on ad infinitum. Then we might follow up the causes behind the rain, etc. Then we might consider the existence of the roof. In short, we would soon find ourselves involved in a mesh of cause and effect, from which we would soon striving in to the millions of causes and want to get out and do something else. We are all results of causes and effects. The universe (including time itself) can be shown to have had a beginning. It is unreasonable and unscientific to believe something could begin to exist without a cause.  The universe requires a cause because it had a beginning. God, unlike the universe, had no beginning, so God doesn't need a cause. God is pre-existent, co-existent and self-existent. 

In the beginning, everything is without form. The conception of a baby, a flower, a project all start with no form in the beginning. God creates meaning out of void. As God forms and moulds, it becomes more and more beautiful. "For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse." (Romans 1:20).   Paul writes, “For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities – all things have been created by Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:16, 17). 

The Bible Teaches us two great truths - 'In the beginning God' and 'in the Beginning was the Word'. “By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible” (Hebrews 11:3).  Man still cannot cannot explain life, death, sickness, cancer, natural disasters, grief and many other common events in life? We as frail humans do not comprehend them. When these things come upon us, where do we turn to? We turn to our Creator and our maker who has the answers. Elvis Presley sang it so beautifully:
Life here is grand with friends I love so well Comfort I get from God's own word 
But when my soul needs manna from above Where could I go but to the Lord?
But when I pass the chilling hand of death Where could I go but to the Lord?

There is no such thing as chance. The blind concept of chance has been abolished by reason. We are able to see now, with eyes made clear by knowledge, that everything is governed by Universal Law - that the infinite number of laws are but manifestations of the One Great Law. It is true indeed that not a sparrow drops unnoticed by the mind of The Great Creator, that even the hairs on our head are numbered. There is nothing outside of Him; nothing is beside Him, nothing happens contrary to His plans.

Blessings

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