What if it was God the Whole Time?
I am not afraid of truth. Science doesn’t scare me. It doesn’t shake my faith. It doesn’t matter what someone tells me, I believe God, Father-Son-Holy Spirit, is the Creator of the Universe. The only difference between my belief and countless other ‘creator stories’ is God.
In those days, while Paul was waiting for them in Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols. So he argued in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the market place every day with those who chanced to be there. Some also of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers met him. And some said, “What would this babbler say?” Others said, “He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities” – because he preached Jesus and the resurrection. And they took hold of him and brought him to the Areopagos, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is which you present? For you bring some strange things to our ears; we wish to know therefore what these things mean.” Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new. So Paul, standing in the middle of the Areopagos, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along, and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all men life and breath and everything. And he made from one every nation of men to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their habitation, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel after him and find him. Yet he is not far from each one of us, for ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your poets have said, ‘For we are indeed his offspring.’ Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the Deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, a representation by the art and imagination of man. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all men everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all men by raising him from the dead.” Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked; but others said, “We will hear you again about this.” So Paul went out from among them. But some men joined him and believed, among them Dionysios the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them.
Acts 17.16-34
When Saint Paul arrived in Athens, already having an unshakable faith in Christ, he was able to use what the Greeks already believed about the world to reveal that it was God, the Holy Trinity, they were worshipping. They just didn’t know it.
Every world religion has a creation story. If Saint Paul is to be our example, then we should be using what nonbelievers already believe as a starting point to help them find God. As Orthodox Christians we believe that God has left ‘His mark’ on every heart and every faith.
God used astrology to help astrologers (the Magi) to find the True God. Saint Paul used ‘an Unknown God’ to help Greeks find the True God. Why can’t we use evolution to help modern unbelievers to find the True God? Bear with me a for a minute.
Imagine if Saint Paul said, “Learned men of the University Academy. I see that you believe species evolved through trial and error into other species, and the whole creation has come suddenly, and without cause, into being. This I proclaim to you. It wasn’t random. It was God.”
If we believe God is the creator, then allowing variety of explanations for HOW God created should not shake our faith. Let’s face it. Nobody really knows. We weren’t there when God created. If we want to help others find God, we must allow their faith to evolve.
Saint Basil was a learned man of his day. His advice about science was that we shouldn’t bother arguing the science since it changes all the time. I’m not suggesting today that we ‘put all our eggs into one basket’ about creation or any other scientific matter.
God is the Creator of all. I believe that. I also believe that humanity, through God’s grace and help has learned (more and more) over the generations to understand HOW God’s creation works. Accepting the Sun doesn’t get ‘pulled’ across the sky doesn’t shake my faith.
Since God left His mark on every human soul, then we should expect that He left a trail for them to find Him. It was a star for the Magi. It was “the Unknown God” for the Greeks. It can be the evolution of species for modern science. God is truth, truth can never shake our faith.
Today’s blog isn’t just about creation. It is about evangelism. Saint Paul didn’t establish a new way to reach people. God has always ‘come to where we were’ to bring us to Him. His entire interaction with us centers around His ‘coming down’ to us, from the Garden until now.
We are called by God to “make disciples of all nations.” (Matthew 28.19). The only we can do that is to ‘go down’ to their level of belief and help them find their way to God. He left them a kernel of faith. He sent us to bring the kernel to life in their hearts.
When it comes to science, we don’t have to panic. Science continues to change the understanding about how things work. Let science focus on the how. We will focus on the WHO and the WHY. It was God the whole time!
