Jacqueline’s Space: He Also Made the Stars

Of the 823-word biblical story of creation, only five words, 0.61% of the entire chapter, is devoted to the creation of everything in the entire universe beyond our solar system. 

Genesis 1:16 says, “He also made the stars.”

In those five words, the Bible recounts the creation of every star, planet, nebula, galaxy, black hole and dark matter.

Yet the rest of the 818 words, 99.39% — paragraph after paragraph — is devoted to our very small corner of the universe: the sun, moon, Earth and life. 

Genesis 1 is the central text in the young Earth versus old Earth debate. Young Earth scientists hold to a strictly seven-day creation period and put the Earth’s age at 6,000 years old. Old Earth scientists put Earth’s age at the more scientifically accepted 4.5 billion years. Either viewpoint can make its scientific case based on stable ground and convincing arguments.

But from a theological standpoint, I find fault in both arguments. Analyzing Genesis to understand the mechanism focuses too much on the question “how.” What we should be asking is the question “why.”

Whether or not it is scientifically and historically accurate to say God spent 99% of his time creating the Earth, there is a theological truth that God is trying to show us through His emphasis on Earth found in Genesis: we are His special creation, and He has created this world to sustain life. Here we find our “why.”

This “why” is evident even in a cursory look at the science behind our planet. Scientists may not agree on how the world came to be, but almost all, Christian and atheist, admit that there is something special about the place we call home. Scientists have termed it the “fine-tuning” of the universe.

We live on a planet 93 million miles away from the Sun where it is neither too hot nor too cold and where water flows as a liquid.

Our planetary neighbor Jupiter absorbs any asteroids that could pummel Earth.

We are on a planet with a 23.5-degree tilt which allows for a moderate climate all around the Earth and an atmosphere with a perfect ratio of oxygen to nitrogen to support life.

And these qualities only scratch the surface.

To explain this fine-tuning phenomenon, atheistic scientists have theorized the multiverse. As Brian Greene, a theoretical physicist explained, “We find ourselves in a universe with a particular amount of dark energy we have measured simply because our universe has conditions hospitable to our form of life.” In other words, we are here, on this Earth, simply because this is the only place our form of life could be.

But isn’t that exactly the point? Even this most atheist standpoint, that our universe is just one of millions of others, can have a “why” rooted in God. Those millions of universes declare His glory and yet we still find ourselves here, alive, in this perfect balance.

Viewing Genesis under this perspective of “why” reveals a depth so much more in-tune with the rest of the Bible and particularly the Gospel. The world God made was fine-tuned not just for us to inhabit, but also for God made flesh, Jesus Christ, to inhabit. This world was fine-tuned as a place where God would become incarnate, experience the human condition on this world He made and die for every human life so that they may have eternal life with Him. 

The Genesis account reveals that God took the time, whether over seven days or billions of years, to create a world inhabitable for human life so that we may live and we may know Him. So that we may be the expression of Him in the way we work, play, learn and love. 

To me, this is a far more profound argument, and one far worthier of being spread, than a seven-day or 4.5 billion-year creation. 

Of course, this by no means diminishes the importance of scientific discovery as evidence to an old or young Earth. We must explore, learn, question and grow in our understanding of our world and how it came to be. But no matter the “how,” the Gospel must be the “why.”

Hale is the editor-in-chief. Follow her on Twitter at @HaleJacquelineR.