In talking about the gospel, Justin remarked that “the gospel is rooted in creation”, because here our connection with God is shown; in creation it is also shown that the only ‘given’ is God. This is not stated in the Bible as in any way allusive, mysterious or open to reinterpretation, the text is defiantly objective with respect to the parameters of our existence: time, space and event and it is these parameters used to delineate the creation acts.
To think that Genesis 1 does not show the real and actual connection of God with us, means that there is some other basis for the connection, but one that must no longer be direct or tangible, one that does not come from the text, but from somewhere else; thus, the realism that is inherent in the Genesis 1 description instantly dissipates, allowing all sorts of alternatives to gain ground as the creation and our connection with God ceases to be delineated in terms that are congruent with the world as we know it...so, some other terms, but ones which we cannot secure in our life-experience, world picture, or conceptual world-frame.
But, the underlying danger is that these inevitably speculative alternatives no longer must have God as the only given; they make other things potentially givens, and our generative allegiance wavers across a field of possibilities, rather than being anchored in God: is time also a given? What about ‘chance’ or ‘matter’, or ‘energy’ or the cosmos, or some principle of self directed change, or a ‘life-spirit’ that God merely co-opts and which must then exist independently of him?
It’s all up for grabs…because God is no longer the hub around which the creation across time and space revolves, and does Jesus then uphold it all?
