In The Beginning God...

Today’s Reading: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. – Genesis 1:1

There is so much in these four words; so much that flies in the face of what many call wisdom and knowledge.

I, like many others, grew up in a world driven by logic. The strongest example of such logic of course is the scientific method. I love the scientific method and I believe it is a very reasonable way to approach understanding the world around us. But, this is one thing that it will never be able to grasp.

In the beginning God…

We base our process of understanding the world by looking at it from the perspective of what we can observe. We have spent thousands of years refining these tools of observation. We built telescopes to observe the cosmos and microscopes to uncover the mysteries of small things but no matter what we cannot escape the fact that our observations have a serious limitation.

They are limited by what we can observe.

Is there anything beyond our ability to see, hear, taste, touch and smell? If so then what is it? Are we even capable of observing such things, and if so are we capable of observing all of these things so that we may grasp an objective view of the world?

Though we may try of course the answer is no. We can only observe from our frame of mind and that capacity is limited by our perspective. So what are we to do with the beginning of things? How are we to understand them? This is something that bothered me for quite some time.

As I have grown in my faith I came to understand something very simple. When it comes to the beginning of things everyone, and I mean everyone, speaks from a place of faith. If you believe in God then you believe that God somehow is the author of the beginnings. If you believe in many gods then you believe that there is a narrative of that beginning that supports all existence. If you don’t believe that there is such a thing as a god at all then you have to believe in human understanding, even with its limitations.

What do I believe? I believe that in the beginning God created all things.

What do you believe? Why?