Creation in Color

When I was a kid in the early 70s, television shows were just starting to be released in color. Black-and-white television was fun, but color was even better! It offered a more realistic view of how we actually experienced the world.

I first came to work for Reasons to Believe in 1999. At the time I saw the creation around me as black-and-white. Although I had received extensive training in theology, church history, and Bible exposition while in seminary, I didn’t know much about science. Even though I taught a course in apologetics, I was only vaguely familiar with Hugh Ross. If I remember correctly, I think I sat through one lecture on the doctrine of general revelation (God’s creation) in my Theology I class. All I knew could be summarized in one sentence: the heavens declare the glory of God. While this was accurate, my appreciation for the statement was fairly superficial.

It’s been fourteen years since I joined RTB. Looking back, I can see that my theology training only gave me part of the story. I was seeing the world in black and white. It wasn’t until I came to understand the depth and sophistication of creation that I began to see God’s revelation in full color.

Dr. Jeff Zweerink’s review of the complex sequence of conditions on the early Earth (see “God’s Great Symphony”) offers a great example of what I’m talking about. Nine years in seminary never exposed me to the complexities of Earth’s early history that scientists have discovered in recent times. I was familiar with the brief, but accurate, summary of the early Earth’s history offered in Scripture (cf. Genesis 1:2; Psalm 104:5–9; Proverbs 8:23–29; Job 38), but I did not know of the innumerable, amazing details science has revealed. What a beautiful world of color I would have missed!

In the last fourteen years, God’s handiwork in creation has become more than a theoretical idea. If I had only studied one of God’s revelations (special revelation or Scripture), I would have missed out on the grander vision of what God has done in history.

The complex processes involved in the faint-sun paradox, tectonic activity, and greenhouse gas reduction laid the foundation for Earth’s temperate climate that we now enjoy. Without these supernaturally fine-tuned processes, our planetary home wouldn’t be a place where Adam and Eve’s descendants could enjoy life and worship the true and living God. God’s love for humanity culminates in the work of Jesus on the cross, but it took a few billion years of complex orchestration in nature to get there! Creation coupled with Scripture stands as a full-color message of love, purpose, intelligence, and righteousness.