“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was empty a formless mass…” so begins the book of Genesis. The student faces a conflict: Whom to believe? Probably no other issue has drawn a sharper dividing line between religious and nonreligious thought in our society than that of the origin of the human race. Were we, as Genesis 1 and 2 state, placed here by SPECIAL DIVINE CREATION? Or did we, as many contemporary educators, philosophers, and others tell us, evolve from nothing into one-celled animals and on up the zoological chain into Homo sapiens? Or perhaps a third option, God created people, using the process of evolution as h is “laboratory”.

Many young people feel the uneasy tension that exists between these views. Their spiritual authorities, the Bible, the church stand firmly in the creationist camp, while the public educational system, their biology teachers, and probably the majority of their peers lean heavily toward the evolutionist view point.

Who’s right? The Bible doesn’t spell out in precise detail how human being came to be. It does, however give us some basic truths, first and foremost human beings like all the rest of the universe are creations of God.

The bible states that fact in the clearest of terms; God is mentioned performing some part of his creative work 31 times in Genesis 1 alone. The idea that we simply materialized out of nothingness is a logical and scientific impossibility.

The first law of thermodynamic tells us matter can neither be created nor destroyed by natural causes, for the strict naturalist\evolutionist, this is an insurmountable dilemma. If only natural causes are involved, how did nothing turn into something? And then, how did that something become something personal with intelligence, morality, personality, and spiritually? By chance? Impossible. Absolutely scientifically.

Intellectually, and logically impossible. The Christian, then turns the supernatural: GOD DID IT. its is a simple but utterly profound rationale. “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth…”and that’s sums it up, it does not rule out the possibility of some kind of God directed evolution; neither does it give any support. And frankly honest evolutionist will admit that their beliefs involve as much faith and speculation if not more as the creationist.

So the Bible and Genesis in particular gives us one bedrock fact about the origin of humanity: God created us in his own image, exactly how he did that remains a matter of faith, but the creationist position is as intellectually respectable as any of the alternatives.

Every one can draw strength and confidence and awe for his or her creator from knowing that.