Science and logic conclusively and indisputably conclude that there is a supernatural creator of life on earth.
For complete details, see The Matter of Life & Death – Part 1.
It appears, however, that the study of nature does not tell us who it is. This supernatural creator apparently did not sign its work. We have not found a signature in the cells or in a strand of DNA that reveals the creator’s identity. We do know, however, that this supernatural creator will not be subject to the natural laws of our universe, nor bound by time or space.
A Supernatural Candidate
There is a field of study that does offer possible answers. Theology is the study of the supernatural, or, more generally, the study of religion and of deities. Religion simply describes a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe and, especially, of human life.
If there is one thing we know about religion, it is that there is a lot of it. There are at least four major religious faiths, which include Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Secularism (meaning nonreligious, agnostic, atheist). These four are part of a group of at least 22 major world religions, which include Judaism and Buddhism. Likewise, that group of 22 is just a small subset of the hundreds or thousands of religions all over the world.
Most of these religions have creation myths, stories about supernatural beings and the origin of life. Many of these religions have religious texts or sacred writings written by proponents of the religion, with or without the help of its deity. It would take far more space than we have available in this book to consider the claims made about each supposed creator, so we are going to focus on one of the more popular ones: the supernatural creator revealed in the Bible.
The Bible claims to have been written with the help of its God (e.g., Hebrews 1:1; Psalm 19; Luke 24:44-48; 2 Timothy 3:16).
The prophets did not think these things up on their own, but they were guided by the Spirit of God (2 Peter 1:21, CEV).
The Bible uses masculine pronouns to refer to God, so we will use that same construct here.
The Bible also claims that its God is a supernatural being, that He is not subject to the laws of nature nor bound by time or space, and that He has always existed. He claims to be an “eternal God” (Deuteronomy 33:27).
This sounds like the type of being that might meet our qualification for a creator god.
From everlasting to everlasting, thou art God (Psalm 90:2).
The everlasting God, the lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary (Isaiah 40:28).
The God of the Bible claims to be the creator of human beings.
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them (Genesis 1:27).
I have made the earth, the man and the beast that are upon the ground, by my great power (Jeremiah 27:5).
We are looking for a supernatural creator of life and have found a candidate in the Bible. The obvious question is, can we trust what the Bible says? How can we know that what it says is true? What differentiates the claims made in the Bible from the claims of the thousands of other religions?
Amazing Evidence
Many believe the Bible to be a book of stories, fairy tales, myths, or human wisdom. Others claim it is a book written by the inspiration of its God, Jehovah. As we have read, the Bible claims that Jehovah is the creator of Earth and all life upon it. This is an extraordinary claim and requires extraordinary evidence.
If the God of the Bible is who He claims to be, then He is omniscient, meaning He knows everything there is to know. He is omnipresent, meaning he is at all spaces and in all times. His omniscience, then, would include all knowledge about the past and the future. He would be able to see events on this planet at any point on its timeline of existence.
There is evidence of God’s omniscience in the Bible.
Some humans claim to be able to see the future. Not surprisingly, those who make this claim are never able to prove it. Today’s psychics use tricks and psychology to convince you that they can see the future. When subject to scientific scrutiny, they fail completely every time.
The God of the Bible claims to be able to see the future!
I am God. … I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come (Isaiah 46:10, NIV).
Jehovah here claims to have the ability to “make known … what is still to come.” If the Bible contains prophetic claims, we can test Jehovah’s ability to see the future by studying those prophecies and comparing them with human history.
Exhibit A
The book of Daniel records Daniel’s encounter with a pagan king named Nebuchadnezzar. This king has a dream that he cannot even remember. Desperate, he calls all his advisors to his palace. All his wise men and seers and prophets fail to reveal the dream and decipher its meaning. The king orders them all to be put to death, because none of them can do what they claim they can do. Someone in the king’s court familiar with a man named Daniel asks the king to talk to Daniel. The king summons Daniel, and Daniel promises to make known the king’s dream and the meaning of the dream.
After a short time of prayer and fasting, Daniel returns to the king with the events of the dream as well as the interpretation of it. The interpretation turns out to be a prophecy of the future history of the rise and fall of nations, starting with Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon. The prophecy accurately tells of Babylon’s fall and the rise and fall of future empires, including the Medo-Persian, Greek, and Roman Empires. Jehovah revealed to Daniel through Nebuchadnezzar’s dream that the last kingdom, Rome, would be split up into 10 separate nation states. (See Daniel chapters 2, 7, and 8.) In Isaiah 45:1–3, Jehovah names the warrior Cyrus to be the captor of Babylon. Jehovah also prophesied after Babylon’s destruction that it would never be inhabited again (Isaiah 13:19, 20; Jeremiah 51:37) and that Egypt would never again have a commanding position among the nations (Ezekiel 29:14, 15; 30:12, 13).
All of these prophecies came true, exactly as foretold by Jehovah.
If someone approached you today with the claim that they could tell you the rise and fall of nations for the next 450 years, what would you think? I know what I would think: you are crazy!
We know it is impossible for mere mortals to know the future. But it is not impossible for a supernatural being that is not subject to the limits of time and space of our universe.
Scholars have proven that these detailed prophecies were written before the historical events they foretold, and they all came to pass as written. These are not ambiguous prophecies that can be applied to any period of history. They specified and detailed the rise and fall of nations before it happened with precision down to the year. We can conclude from this that the Bible was written with the help of a supernatural being with the ability to see the future.
The God of the Bible meets our requirements for a supernatural God!
All scripture is given by inspiration of God. – 2 Timothy 3:16
Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure. – Isaiah 46:10
For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. – 2 Peter 1:21
With this extraordinary evidence, we can be confident that the Bible has a supernatural author who has personally influenced its content. Its prophetic claims prove that a supernatural entity was involved in its composition. Therefore, we can trust the other claims it makes, namely, that Jehovah is the creator God of humankind.
The How of Life
Science and logic reveal that there is a supernatural creator of life. The God of the Bible claims to be this supernatural creator, and this claim has been verified by the investigation of the prophecies written therein. Because the prophecies of the Bible have been proven accurate, we can then have confidence in the non-prophetic claims made in the Bible—namely, that Jehovah, the God of the Bible, is the supernatural being who created life on earth.
Therefore, the answer to our questions, How did I get here? and Who is the creator of life on Earth?, is this:
I was born to parents descended from the original human pair, Adam and Eve, who were created in the Garden of Eden on planet Earth by the Creator God of the Bible.
You might be wondering, How did God create humankind?
The answer is not revealed to us in the Bible, so it is impossible to know with 100-percent certainty. Likely, God used His divine power to bring together the components of life in just the right way and then infused them with energy.
The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being (Genesis 2:7).
One thing to note: God came down and created humankind with his hands. Everything else he spoke into existence. But with humankind, He grabbed the minerals of the ground and formed our bodies, then drew close enough to breathe into us the breath of life. This is an important image of the Creator God that you need to remember.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. – Arthur C. Clarke
To us, God’s creation of humankind–His kneeling in the dirt, fiddling with it, forming a human shape, and injecting a bit of energy into it–would resemble magic. To God, who created all matter and energy, it was a simple engineering process.
Now that we have answered, how did I get here?, we can consider our final question, Why am I here?
We will answer that in our next study, The Matter of Life & Death – Part 3.