The God we worship is one true God is the creator of the world. That is really good news. We are not cast adrift in an alien environment. There\u2019s an old hymn that begins, \u2018This is my Father\u2019s world.\u2019 The strange beauty and power we sense in sunlight and starlight, in the majesty of a mountain or the tiny perfection of the smallest flower or insect \u2013 all this is the work of the Creator. The glorious sweep of his vast universe and the infinite attention to detail speak of one who has taken, and continues to take, delight in all that he has made. One psalm speaks of God making the entrance and exit of the day to praise him. Of course, the rationalist would have no difficulty explaining all this away, but the rest of us can quietly ignore such a shallow attitude and get on with enjoying the view.<\/p>\n
This is, of course, all assertion, not proof. I do not claim that I can look at a sunset and deduce a creator. But, as with everything else, that\u2019s not how it works. God is not an object in our universe. We are objects in his universe \u2013 and if that\u2019s true, it makes sense of the layer upon layer of wonder, delight, beauty, and joy that comes to us through the natural world.<\/p>\n
But how might we know it was true? The best answer must be, because of Jesus. Because, in Jesus, we see the same hand at work \u2013 and it is also at work addressing the principal problem in any account of God as creator.<\/p>\n
The problem have in believing this is that in this world of beauty and power, of sunsets and starlight, there are multiple layers of violence, bloodshed, and apparently wanton destruction. There are small creatures, rather a lot of them, who live as parasites inside other larger creatures and whose sole raison d\u2019\u00eatre appears to be to eat them alive from within. In fact, the problem can also work the other way. Theologians have written about the problem of evil, but atheists less regularly write about the problem of good. If everything, including my brain and emotions, is the result of random collisions of atoms, why do we find ourselves in such awe and delight at so many things in the world? Can it really all be explained as a legacy of our evolutionary biology? That seems to take reductionism to ridiculous lengths.<\/p>\n
However, as I say, it is Jesus who anchors all this. Jesus doesn\u2019t give an explanation for the pain and sorrow of the world. He comes where the pain is most acute and takes it upon himself. Jesus doesn\u2019t explain why there is suffering, illness, and death in the world. He brings healing and hope. He doesn\u2019t allow the problem of evil to be the subject of a seminar. He allows evil to do its worst to him. He exhausts it, drains its power, and emerges with new life. The resurrection says, more clearly than anything else can, \u2018There is a God, and he is the creator of the world we know, and he is the father of Jesus, Israel\u2019s Messiah.\u2019\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n That is some of the good news about God.<\/p>\n Adapted from \u2018Simply Good News\u2019 by Tom Wright\u00a0 ch 7 eBook<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The God we worship is one true God is the creator of the world. That is really good news. We are not cast adrift in an alien environment. There\u2019s an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,27,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith","category-good-news","category-theology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=229"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":230,"href":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229\/revisions\/230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}