We can never make sense out of life until we understand something of the origin of both ourselves as thinking, feeling beings as well as all the other people and objects in the world around us.
Ultimately there are only two answers: God and nothing. Some people begin with a vague idea of an Intelligent Designer. But it is only when we press on to the idea of a personal God who has revealed Himself to us through Scripture that we begin to gain traction. The alternative “nothing” explanation often is built on some variant of the theory of evolution and the Big Bang and sometimes shows itself as a vague commitment to someone popularly called Mother Nature.
The question is which of these answers is the most likely solution to explaining the world around us in all its beauty and complexity, including all that we know about ourselves as people who love beauty, are concerned about justice, and value quality relationships with others.
It is often observed that it takes faith to believe that God (and here I am thinking specifically of the God of the Bible) created us and everything else. Indeed, the Bible tells us this: “By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible” (Hebrews 11:3).
Creation out of nothing is very different from us building something—say like a shed—by going to a store and purchasing some lumber and other building supplies and assembling what we purchased. Creation out of nothing means that God did it all. God planned that there would be soil and water, plants and animals, and everything else we see around us—and then He created it all.
What is less obvious to most people is that all the other alternatives also require “faith.” It takes faith to believe that all the wonders of nature around us simply emerged out of nothing through some chance event popularly called a Big Bang. Some people have compared the likelihood of a natural origin of the universe to a whirlwind blowing through a junk yard and creating a fully functional Boeing 787 airliner.
Actually, this is not a fair comparison, because God created everything out of nothing, whereas this illustration of a chance theory assembling a new airplane assumes a whole host of pre-existing junk yard parts that were already in existence and somehow mysteriously join themselves together in just the right configuration. It is also not a fair comparison because human beings and all the other parts of this universe are far more complex than an airplane.
The bottom line is that every explanation of the origin of life requires faith. The only plausible explanation that is big enough to account for the marvels of the human body, all the differently colored birds that feed at our birdfeeders, and the wonder of the stars and solar system we see in the night sky, and it is the God of the Bible. Where are you going to place your vote of faith? What explanation of the origin of the universe makes the most sense to you? And remember that what option we choose has implications for many other areas of life as well, so choose wisely as your future destiny depends upon it.