What does God being the creator mean to you?

Faith & Science Conversation
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I’ve noticed often that many of us use the term creator.

I 100% get why those who believe in intelligent design uses the term. They believe either life, the cosmos or the laws requires some sort of master kind behind it. Inside the term creator as well, though I mostly use it as a name common for God. I think perhaps God has some sort of supernatural part that’s so far back in time, that maybe it even predates time. Whatever the very first event is that set things into motion out of nothingness from the very first universe ( if there are more ) but that at the moment it’s beyond what we can detect with science. I’m not even certain if God existed before the universe or if some kind of intelligence arose along with laws. It’s something that goes beyond what I can think of.

To me it seems to be a gap and we like placing God in gaps to bridge the unknown to the known. So far, everything I look at seems to have a natural explanation behind it.

So I don’t think God literally made me. I think I was made through procreation. I think everyone in my family hostler all the way back to single cell organisms were made through a biological means. Though we don’t know how, I believe eventually abiogenesis will have a solid theory on how non living things became living things. I don’t think God literally made the earth, moon and stars. I think cosmology gives decent insight into this. I don’t think time magically occurred. All the scientific laws seem to have scientific concepts behind their development. No we say energy cannot be made or destroyed. Just transferred. So I’m not sure how energy developed. So in this area is what starts to feel like a gap with no good science to fill it in. I think God can be safely used here as a creator, though I think eventually science will answer it. Then a new gap will occur.

So for me creator is mostly just a title that has very little to do with intelligent design.

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If we go back to basics, the existence of anything is beyond comprehension. An eternal being with no beginning seems the only possible solution. We then get the conundrum of what sort of Universe God would create/ And, how much of it would He (She.it) want to control? We can only answer this in human terms and values.
The history of religion shows a need to understand our creation. Worshipping the unknown or powerful was a logical start, with sun worship and the like. The early pantheons were very human in construct with squabbles over power and leadership until we end up with the persistent faiths of which the Judaism/Christian(Muslim?) is only one.
Having concluded that God exists we can still only use human values to postulate how He would create, but clearly He must have at least a nominal part to play.
As a human it makes little sense to just start the ball rolling and then sit back and watch. I am not sure i know of any artistic movement based on that methodology. The human urge is to create things of either use or aesthetic value, often incorporating both.
As I see it God would have some sort of end model in mind but how much would He leave to chance? It is an impossible question to answer without asking Him.
So we are ultimately left with our own view of what constitutes creation and/or design.
I do not see design as some sort of power or control. Design is just answering the demands of a situation or problem. If your goal is something that is independent that becomes a parameter. Humanity appears to have self control rather than being some sort of puppet or automaton and so that becomes part of my view.
I do not see ID as anything other than this. But the alternative to ID is a mindboggling series of coincidences and flukes to create something that seems to be almost perfect in its balance and self-maintenance. I guess you could claim that for the thing to survive it must reach hat level of stability so statistics or plausibility go out the window, so one way or the other the fact that the Universe exists proves anything is possible.
But, to answer the question:
A creator God, for me, is just the obvious extension of being God. The fact that I can live as I wish (within obvious parameters) implies that God has given creation its independence from Him. I would assume that God wants some sort of thanks and worship, but that is still a human value and reaction. But the fact that it is voluntary makes all the difference to me. So the moment people start imposing the need for religion and God they are contradicting this innate freedom that God seems to have wanted us to have. Even the sending of His son has been misconstrued as some sort of insistence of belief or essential for living whereas it would seem to be providing an answer to a guilt or need that some people have found impossible to reconcile. “Your sins are forgiven” is not the statement of a God hellbent on justice and allegiance.
Some people like the discipline of an ordered faith such a Islam, or maybe the mental discipline of Bhuddism. So let them follow that path. Others see no need for God so why must we impose one. It seems to me that God created an infinite realm of possibilities that some humans are trying to restrict, or regulate or dictate. instead of leaving each to their own values. Yes there are certain basic ideas about life and property and morality that need social laws but I am less convinced that we should dictate beyond that. If the way of life works and is not harming anyone/thing then let it be. There is no need to send them to Hell for not believing in their creator, when He has given them the choice not to believe.

Richard

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Knowingly or unknowingly, you appear to be trying to merge philosophical naturalism with theism. You are ending up in the realm of deism and oddly at the same time with a God that should probably be spelled with lowercase g. That is not the Biblical God most Christian’s and Jews believe in. That is just another component of the created order and completely at odds with what Genesis 1 and countless other scripture intends to teach. This is just made up Christianity.

And that is the problem. You think natural explanations preclude God. Instead you should view them as how God, who sustains the universe every instant of its being, creates and does things.

Col 1:17 is talking about Jesus but says:

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For (x)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 through Him and for Him.17 He (y)is before all things, and in Him all things (z)hold together.

Also, I never read Psalm 139 and thought that the author wasn’t aware he had a mother or father who impregnated her:

Where can I go from your spirit?
Or where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there;
if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
9 If I take the wings of the morning
and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
10 even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me fast.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and night wraps itself around me,”[a]
12 even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is as bright as the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
13 For it was you who formed my inward parts;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
that I know very well.

Likewise, when I thank God for creating me I am not denying the existence of my mother and father. Knowing how God creates is not a replacement for God. Don’t confuse atheism with Christianity.

There is also the question of souls to discuss but based on your comments I’m guessing you reject them as antiquated ideology.

There are so many things about God and the ultimate nature of reality we don’t a could never possibly know. If the future open? Does the whole of human history exist at the same time to God, known as he has extra-dimensions of time? Is this suggestion just a made up flight of fancy? At the end of the day we see everything as in a mirror dimly lit and could never even begin to disprove the idea that we are just AI living in a simulation.

The bottom line is most Christians believe the Bible contains Revelation from God ( and many that it’s straight up the word of God). It is one mode of knowledge and if it is truly from God, what it intends to teach does not play second fiddle to anything, science included. God is my highest authority. Balancing Scripture with what we learn about the world through science is the whole point of this forum. It seems many forget the first half of that. Including scripture in the discussion and taking what it narrates seriously.

Vinnie

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I’m not a deist at all. They believe that God just made everything and left. I’m also not a pantheist who believes God is in every component of life. I don’t have to divorce the two. But I agree, god is spelled with a lower case g. It’s how I normally spell it, since it’s not a name but a title. I don’t worship the god God, I worship the god El/Yahweh. But again, I think that’s just names to accommodate Jews.

Not at odds with anything. I’m showing why just adding a layer of supernatural to it does not help. It does not hurt. But it’s not helping. It’s like saying mushrooms grow in part because of God as this sustaining life force that falls apart without it. I just don’t see that. I don’t think that’s how the Holy Spirit operates in the natural world.

I don’t think anyone here ignores the Bible or God. Except the few atheists or those not part of the Jewish Christian faith. But what some do is as I keep mentioning, take it less literally and see the working of the Holy Spirit as doing something different from hanging stars in the skies. I think “fixing stars in the dome “ was an accommodation. It was a concept they could understand. I don’t think stars are actually tiny things fixed into a dome like the bible says.

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Did God create the earth? I’m assuming you’re going to say yes.

So did God use supernatural means to make earth or can we look at the natural world and determine how the world was made?

If you say both, then clarify which is which. Which part is the natural and which part is the supernatural?

If you can’t show how God just magically holds it all together then you are wanting me to do a plain text reading like y’all and then use that to fill in this imaginative gap.

If you agree, we can use regular naturalistic means to explain how the earth was formed and how weather works and how babies are made, then why do I need to create imaginary gaps for the supernatural.

If I don’t need to, then that means just like a lot of the Bible, the world creator of earth is not a literal statement. It’s symbolic. It’s a title that does not I only anything scientific.

If it’s a symbolic title then it took this long for us to get to this offshoot point from another thread to just agree with what I originally said.

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Let’s address a few misunderstandings or disingenuous statements made.

Deism is the belief that a supernatural creator made everything and then left and does not interact with the world.

That’s simply not describing me in any way. For one I think the title creator was simply a title god gave ancient Jewish that accommodated their way of thinking about the world. They would not have understood a modern scientific explanation. The other ideas floating around was the word was made from things like giant heads cut off or the blood of warrior gods and so on. The title is no more literal than the creation week.

Secondly I don’t believe our god is dead or missing. I think God interacts with humanity through the Holy Spirit. I think god interacted with humanity through Jesus Christ being on this earth. I think the Holy Spirit not only interacts with humanity but all life. Even the potential life on other planets or even in other dimensions of universes stacked around ours.

So I’m not a deist in any fashion. I’m not merely a theist in any fashion. I’m a Christian. I’m a Christian who actively goes to church, carry out the great commission, prays and studies the Bible. I study the Bible so much that I probably listen to 20-30 hours of podcasts or audiobooks on theology a week along with reading books in my house and reading the Bible.

That’s a link to god controlling the rain.

Does it mean I don’t believe the Bible just because I don’t actually think god is creating clouds and rain? That every cloud is purposely sent somewhere? No. That would be a very silly plain text reading.

Instead , despite it being mentioned dozens of not hundreds of times, I recognize its accommodation. It’s the holy sprit engaging with mankind through god breathed scriptures that accommodated how they thought. Accommodating is not a guise to ignore the Bible. It’s a lens that is heavily supported by biblical scholars as part of contextual analysis and biblical hermeneutics.

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This seems like a confused question.

Nature is just creation.so natural means would just be within the parameters of creation. How can the creation of Nature be anything other than by natural means?

The definition of Supernatural would seem to be mute if we are talking about God, seeing as He created Nature, anything he does is going to be natural.

The problem seems to be the definition of Natural. Things are only deemed natural if we can understand them. Things that used to be considered supernatural are now understood and have lost their mystery and therefore lost their supernatural status

Taking this to the logical conclusion there would be no such thing as supernatural, only natural that has yet to be understood.

Richard

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My question is not a confused question. My question is highlighting the plain text reading style that others are saying I just accept or either I’m rejecting the Bible.

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So whats the evidence God created earth?

Is the answer a scientific one or is it a Bible verse?
If it’s a Bible verse, and there is no scientific backing for it, then why should I accept by faith that he did create the earth versus accept by faith he is real and he explained creation that way to ancient people to accommodate them?

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Physically? None.

If God exists then chances are He created everything. If God doesn’t exist then the whole thing is academic.

But this is not about creation really is it? It’s abut the validity of Scripture. (and faith)

Scripture is supposedly the revelation of God to man. As such it is also about how much could be understood at the time of writing.

In a nutshell, yes. Even if the writers understood all the intracasies of the Universe and the relative position of the Earth to the sun it would have been pointless to write it down because it would not have served any purpose.

Scripture is about God, not the Universe. It is about faith not science. The point of Genesis 1 is not to describe how the Universe was made or even how it is constructed. The point is to declare who made it and that He has sovereignty over it (and us).

So Scripture is about faith not physics. Scripture assumes the existence of God. it does not try and prove God. God already is. Science on the other hand has a major problem with the existence of God because He is intangible and therefore invisible to it. Science cannot prove or disprove that God created the Universe because there is no data to base the decision on. Scripture just states it as a matter of course. You take it or leave it.
It is not a case of relying on a specific verse. That is a fallacy of using Scripture. Scripture is abut the whole, not the individual verse. Verses are for ease of reading and reference, they are not individual Bites that can stand alone or be quoted apart from their surroundings.
Genesis 1 is a complete work (to include the first 4 verses of chapter 2) The Devil is in the details.

Richard

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So what I read was basically this.

We don’t need the supernatural to explain the natural world. There is nothing in it where I need to say this only works if God is there. Natural explanations has the answers about the natural world.

So since this is about theology and not science, when discussing the natural world, the role that God plays in it as a creator comes down to faith and bible verses. That means that we interpret the verses.

So for me, what that means is that given there is zero evidence of God making the world, then there is not this gap that needs magic to make it work. So since I believe in God, it means the interpretation I take away from it does not need to explain the natural world.

So that means I can look at the verses of god being a creator as literal , or I can look at it as not being literal. Seems to me there is no theological or scientific reason for me to take the title creator as literal when i can just as easily take it as accommodating.

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That is not what I said.

Genesis states God as creator. That is literal.

The details, the methodology, the structures, reported by Genesis do not have to be taken as scientific fact.

It is who, rather than how that matters.

If you believe in God then you would automatically believe that He created, wouldn’t you?

I do not see where this accommodation fits

Richard

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What does God being the creator mean to you?

I certainly believe in an omnipotent God, one who can do anything. But I do not believe omnipotence means being able to do anything by whatever means one chooses. The results are not independent of the means. If one “creates” in a logically inconsistent manner where there is no consistency between means and results, then what one has created is no more than a dream and not a reality. And since dreaming is something we can all do with the kind of omnipotence we have in our dreams, then I think this is a rather trivial sort of omnipotence and not what we mean when we speak of the omnipotence of God.

Therefore, real creation is not like creation of dreams, where not only is there no restriction to logical consistency but also the dream is dependent upon the dreamer and really has no existence apart from the dreamer. There is also the intermediate case of creation of stories which can be put in some permanent form but like the dream is not confined to logical coherence. But this is likewise too trivial to be a good description of God’s creation because this is also something which nearly anyone can do.

So the real creation of God is one of making things which exist and do things because and according what they are as God made them. And indeed this is what we see in the world around us. Accordingly, life is not something added to non-living things. Living things do what they do because of what they are and the essence of life is doing things for their own reasons. Thus the creation of life is one of setting up conditions under which things act for their own reasons and we see non-living processes in the world which has this characteristic. It is called self-organization and it is pretty clear when we study such phenomenon that it requires the automation of natural processes. This can be simulated in such things as the game of life.

I think this explains God’s creation of the physical universe which operates according to mathematical laws which are all part of its space-time structure. But that is not the whole story because quantum physics reveals that the laws of nature have limits and are not causally closed. Thus God not only made the universe with the automation of natural law to support the self-organizing process of life but also made it open to His involvement and interaction with events.

Thus while I totally agree with Mi that everything happens according to natural laws including procreation, evolution, and abiogenesis. I don’t agree that any of this excludes the involvement of God. No, none of these things happened magically but neither did they happen in a purely mechanical and material way either. God’s involvement and providence was a part of it also. Though I agree that intelligent design is not a good description of this involvement. Instead His role is that of a shepherd who participates in events and has a guiding influence. And further I would say that this gives substance to the feeling that things such as flowers and infants (in addition to the earth, sun and stars) are miraculous creations of God.

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So what should I accept that as literal and not as accommodation?

15

What do you mean by accommodation? What are you trying to accommodate?

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth…

Most of the rest is just padding

What matters is that the sun and the moon were created by God rather than self created or as beings in their own right.

The universe was created by God, the science was not understood, but that is not what matters.

Richard

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What is missing in this thread and the responses is an important Christian doctrine…Salvation.

It is all good and well to discuss whether or not God exists…but the real question is why do we need him and why should we follow Him.

Unless one is willing to accept the gospel:

  • that this world we live in was once created perfect and without sin,
  • Lucifer rebelled in Heaven and was cast out,
  • this world was given to Satan in order to test claims against Gods laws of love (His own character),
  • Christ died on the cross to make atonement for sin,
  • Jesus is coming again soon to redeem us back to God and to restore all creation back to its former glory before than fall of Adam and Eve…

That is what God being the Creator means not only to me, but that is what the bible tells us God is.

Unless we believe those things the rest of this entire process of life is pointless beyond what we can get out of it in the here and now! I have been to funerals and one in particular i shall never forget. A chruch full of young people…i observed the sense of helplessness and loss of a large group of young people who lost friends in a car accident…they had no hope because they had no faith and therefore no future in which those lost friends may be seen again.

If there is a Godf (and i belie there is) then young people deserve to have the knowledge of Him. They deserve to know that if God really does exist,

Revelation 21 1Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth,a for the first heaven and earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

3And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying:

“Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man,

and He will dwell with them.

They will be His people,

and God Himself will be with them as their God.b

4‘He will wipe away every tear from their eyes,’c

and there will be no more death

or mourning or crying or pain,

for the former things have passed away.”

17

This life is not a rite of passage to the next.

And until Christians like you realise it, Christianity is doomed to failure.

Richard

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Trying to steer the discussion off topic again?

I prefer the gospel taught by Jesus and Paul to this gospel according to adamjedgar.

The gospel of the Gnostics… salvation by knowledge and works of the mind.

Salvation is not about a ticket to heaven. Nor is it about solving world problems like hunger.

John 6:31 Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” 32 Jesus then said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven; my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven, and gives life to the world.” 34 They said to him, “Lord, give us this bread always.”

35 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst. 36 But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. 37 All that the Father gives me will come to me; and him who comes to me I will not cast out. 38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me; 39 and this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up at the last day. 40 For this is the will of my Father, that every one who sees the Son and believes in him should have eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.”

41 The Jews then murmured at him, because he said, “I am the bread which came down from heaven.” 42 They said, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” 43 Jesus answered them, “Do not murmur among yourselves. 44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day. 45 It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’ Every one who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. 46 Not that any one has seen the Father except him who is from God; he has seen the Father. 47 Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50 This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die. 51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

52 The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” 53 So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; 54 he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. 55 For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. 56 He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. 57 As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me. 58 This is the bread which came down from heaven, not such as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live for ever.” 59 This he said in the synagogue, as he taught at Caper′na-um.

60 Many of his disciples, when they heard it, said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” 61 But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples murmured at it, said to them, “Do you take offense at this? 62 Then what if you were to see the Son of man ascending where he was before? 63 It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. 64 But there are some of you that do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the first who those were that did not believe, and who it was that would betray him. 65 And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.”

66 After this many of his disciples drew back and no longer went about with him.

Excited about the loaves and the fishes, people saw Jesus as an answer to their physical needs and worldly problems. So Jesus responded in a way which trashed their thinking and only made sense if you go beyond the physical to the spiritual reality.

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I don’t think Adam is necessarily trying to steer the discussion off topic by talking about salvation. “What does God being the creator man to you?” to me means asking the questions: Why did God make everything, and why did God make you and me, and it’s quite reasonable to think that His plan of salvation would be a key part of the answer.

Where Adam is going off beam is his implicit (and false) accusation that the rest of us reject important Christian doctrines such as salvation just because we don’t acknowledge that the earth is six thousand years old, that Noah had sauropod dinosaurs on board the Ark, and that the Flood reshaped the continents and created the fossil record.

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Thanks for your views. We think God must have been created (or had a beginning) because we ourselves had a beginning. That’s called anthropomorphising. This is something that we humans are really good at. It’s how we view things. You and I started off with an X and an X ----or an X and a Y…and that was no accident (well maybe the couple involved thought it was at the time), but rather something that came about through the habits of biology (shall we say).

Extracting from that the whole concept that “this is how we came about and there was no deity involved” or that the deity also must have had a start — is the same either/or side of the coin that YEC’s use.

People being formed through biological processes does not mean that God had no interest in it or did not know.

God “being the Creator” means pretty much what the biblical text says of it. The account in Genesis 1 begins with what some see as a statement of praise (to God) and not a discussion of “starting points.” The Name of God disclosed in Exodus 3:15 asserts an entity Who is not past or future – but just Is. That is the concept that is found from the earliest chapters of the biblical text (OT) and through the end of it. The perspective you presented is from a different mindset altogether.