Why Creation Matters

Set aside for a moment the question of the age of the earth and evolutionary mechanisms.  For a moment, imagine that the point of the first two chapters of Genesis is something other than answering historical scientific questions about the formation of the universe.  Instead, imagine that this passage in Genesis is there to teach us something about God, and how God relates to humans.

‘In the Beginning…’ A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation
and the Fall, by Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI) is such a reflection. 

The Moral Importance of Creation

Consider, just for a second, the following possibility. Over a very long period of time, there was an evolutionary process which resulted in homo sapiens emerging on earth.  Then the question is, “How did this process happen?” 

One answer is that it was pure random chance. 

But, again, imagine just for a second, that there is something about the evolutionary mechanism, something about the way that species evolve over time, something about the initial conditions for this evolutionary process which made it inevitable that homo sapiens would emerge on earth.  In that case, we could say that humans were created; not directly in a flash, but created nonetheless.

Would this fact of creation mater?  Absolutely. Ratzinger writes:

Human life stands under God’s special protection, because each human being, however wretched or exalted he or she may be, however sick or suffering, however good-for-nothing or important, whether born or unborn, whether incurably ill or radiant with health—each one of us bears God’s breath in himself or herself, each one is God’s image.  This is the deepest reason for the inviolability of human dignity…

This point is far too rarely appreciated in the grand debates about evolution.  Which matters more: 1) how humans arrived on earth or 2) the moral status of human life?   

If humans are purely a product of blind chance, then there is nothing inherently worthy about your life or mine.  Then there is also nothing inherently wrong with valuing some lives more than others.  Indeed, there is no reason not to privilege some lives more than others. 

But, if everyone is equal in moral status because everyone was created somehow, someway in the image of God, then there is good reason to treat everyone with dignity, accord everyone the moral status of being fully human.

Creation of the Non-physical World

The theological importance of creation is not limited to how it affects our conception of the moral worth of the individual.  Creation also has enormous implications for what we think of as “Nature.” As Ratzinger notes, there are two ways to think about the term:

Nature is understood exclusively in the sense of the object of science; any other definition of the world is dismissed as meaningless.  Theological arguments about the “nature of humans” or “natural rights,” resting as they do on the concept of creation, meet a look of blank incomprehension; in fact, they seem nonsensical, the relic of an archaic “natural philosophy.”

The only natural things that emerge from a blind evolutionary mechanism are the brute facts about the physical world.  But, if the world is created, if those evolutionary mechanisms were somehow predetermined in the very fabric of physical matter, then it is possible that there are other, non-physical, things that are also part of nature.  If creation is real, then there may be a natural philosophy and natural rights and human nature, all of which are every bit as much a part of nature as the tree growing by a river in a forest.

Far too many Christians have lost sight of the importance of Creation.  When creation is treated as a weapon in the war over the existence of God, then creation is not very interesting.  The first two chapters of Genesis do not prove the existence of God, nor is that their intention.  By looking at these chapters purely as expressions of the mechanism of creation, Christians and non-Christians both miss the point.

Why Creation Matters

In the beginning, God created…us.  Since we are beings created in the image of God, we owe both to our Creator and to all those others who were also created in the image of God all the love and respect and dignity we can give. 

We are a part of a created order, not just a physical order, but a moral and spiritual order as well.  When we live our lives in accordance with that natural order, when we live our lives as part of this created order, both physical and non-physical, we live our lives as fully human.

You were created.  You were created in the image of God.  Live your life accordingly.