Gold Nugget 355 - The Originating Power

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      It is a fundamental axiom of science that everything that has a beginning must have a cause.  The universal testimony of experience is against the notion that existences could spring forth spontaneously from nothing, or that organisms could come of themselves from a lawless chaos. 

      The theory of an endless chain of causation is illogical.  If this is regarded as cyclic we have nothing to account for the motion of the whole cycle.  The notion is parallel to that of a wheel revolving because the several parts of the circumference press on those which are before them – a mechanical absurdity.  If, however, the chain is regarded as infinitely long, we have another absurdity.  Since it is made up of finite links each of which is no perfect cause in itself, we have not solved the question, we have only driven it back to the infinite distance.  It is the grand lesson of the first chapter of the Book of Genesis – whatever we may think of the details of that chapter – that it comes to our rescue with the assertion of a personal Creator, the only doctrine that will fit the requirements of the case.

      The rights of the Creator rest on the fact that all things were created by his energy.  We do not know what subordinate agencies God my employ.  But in any case the fundamental power must be his.  He cannot delegate powers of creation in the sense of investing any beings with them without any dependence on his power.  The power must be God’s, though the channel through which it flows may be some lower agency.  The doctrine of evolution would not touch this fact.

      The important question is not as to the method of creation, but as to the originating power.  This lies behind the question of design.  It is the question of primitive causation.  Whether with successive sudden emergencies or through gradual development, it is equally true that God has created the world by his great power and by his outstretched hand. 

 

The Pulpit Commentary, Jeremiah p. 575, Jeremiah 27:5, (W. F. Adeney)

 

Gold Nugget 355 

The Originating Power

 

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