From Creation to Conscience to Chirst

From Creation to Conscience to Christ

The Greek creation myth began with chaos but it ends with order. Included in this order are many of the areas of human life and culture that these series of articles will identify as redemptive. These include children, work, and just laws all emanating from the hearts of men that reflect the heart of God seen in the glories of creation. These redemptive gifts are all contained in the Homeric hymn to Gaea, she is considered the “Mother of all things, Gaea is simply the source of life and all that is good in life.”

“I lift a song to the mother of all things, firm rooted Gaea, mother and nurse of whatever is born in life on the earth. Beasts of the shining land, fishes that swim in the waters, flying birds of the air-all feed at your bountiful breast. From you, O mistress of life, all fruit and increase arises mortals too must concur if you give them life or deny it. Happy the man you honor, on whom your benevolence settles. All his labors are fruitful: his field is heavy with corn, fat cattle graze on his pasture, good grain runs over his bins. Equality governs the law such men dispense in their village; fair women swell in the town, attended by riches and plenty. Children laugh and sing as the earth gives ever new bounties. Chattering girls run braiding new blossoms into their tresses; laughing, they dance in the soft and flowery grass of the meadows in steps to delight even you, O reverend, bountiful lady. Hail then, mother o gods, bride of the star studded heaven grant me, as pay for my song, a life of happy contentment, that I once more may compose another song of your praises.”

The Greek example is the one that we are most familiar with through education and our own cultural memory. Its philosophy has served as the bases for Western civilization for more than 2,000 years. It however is not the only example. It may not even be the best example. My purpose is not to grade cultures for they must of necessity develop within the generation, geography, and genealogies associated with them. They are not to be static or provisional either. They are to affect one another through the exchange of ideas, commerce, and intermarriage, and other means. The redemptive truths contained in non Christian cultures are being used by other world religions to reinforce a Universalism that competes with Christianity in the market place of ideas. The following is a quote from Bah’u’llah, the founder of the Baha’i Faith, that reflects a Universalistic tone that the church is competing with. It also captures the idea of redemptive truth being expressed within a generational and geographic context. Paul the Apostle incorporated these into his evangelism efforts, and John the Apostle incorporated them into the writing of his Gospel.

“There can be no doubt that whatever the peoples of the world, of whatever race or religion, they derive their inspiration from one heavenly Source, and are the subjects of one God. The difference between the ordinances under which they abide should be attributed to the varying requirements and exigencies of the age in which they were revealed. All of them, except for a few which are the outcome(s) of human perversity, were ordained of God, and are a reflection of His Will and purpose.”

Evangelical Christian theologian George Matheson, a contemporary of Bah’u’llah, agreed in part with the spirit of his conclusions when writing “Distinctive Messages of the Old Religions” more than 100 years ago.

“Confucianism, Buddhism, and the rest have stood for special and definite ideas, and how, as far as they are true these ideas are comprehended in Christianity, which in its turn supplements and completes them.”

The clarification of them and the completion of them is more than the adding salt to an unseasoned soup. These truths were discovered in individual cultural contexts because that is where they were needed and lived out best. Therefore, these truths are redemptive to the entire of body of Christ. The humility of the Gospel preacher to be a learner and not simply a teacher of truth results in truth being raised from the dead and not just embalmed in cultural traditions that have nothing to do with the truth of Gospel. Paul and John used the wisdom that was present in the geographic area in which they preached and within the generation in which they preached. The modern preacher in like manner should not be afraid to use contemporary music, cinema, or the new age, if the truths contained therein peppers the pizza the lead men to Christ.

God has always initiated the communication about himself with mankind. The understanding of a creator God is common among men; however, the response to God’s communication belongs to man. “Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God” Paul says in Romans 11:22 His indictment of those who suppress the truth of God seen in creation is stated clearly and in strong terms in Roman’s 1:18.

“The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” Romans 1: 18-20

Men in many places have suppressed the truth by their wickedness, but not in everyplace and not all men. These series of articles are not seeking to find those who have suppressed the truth but those who have sought it. Mattheson adds the following.

“The religion of Christ ought to have a peculiar interest in the faiths of the past. They are not to her dead faiths; … They are preserved inviolable as parts of herself; more inviolable than they would have been if she had never come. Christianity has claimed to be ‘the manifold wisdom of God.’ In this ascription she has been candid to the past, she has not denied its wisdom; she has only aspired to enfold it.”

Inviolable means, “incapable of being dishonored” It is synonymous with sacred, Merriam Webster online dictionary states that it means “secure from assault”. That is the attitude that the evangelist and the apostle should have toward any people group to whom we are sent. We are required to see the people we are called to as honorable. We are to view their God given wisdom as sacred, in as much as it is the light they retain of the knowledge of God. We are to view their cultures as free from assault, especially from those aspects of our culture that are sinful within them selves. Hinduism, Brahmanism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, and Islam, each of these religious systems has currently or has had in the past an external component or a concept of God that they worship as creator and each has an internal component that drives their personal ethics and responsibility within their consciences. What each of these religious systems did not have was a resurrected Christ. The Apostle Paul confronted the the issues I am addressing with these words to the nations.

“His purpose was for the nations to seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him—though he is not far from any one of us. For in him we live and move and exist. As some of your[g] own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ And since this is true, we shouldn’t think of God as an idol designed by craftsmen from gold or silver or stone.

“God overlooked people’s ignorance about these things in earlier times, but now he commands everyone everywhere to repent of their sins and turn to him. For he has set a day for judging the world with justice by the man he has appointed, and he proved to everyone who this is by raising him from the dead.”


Powell, Barry, Classical Myth, third edition; University of Wisconsin-Madison, copyright Prentice Hall Incorporated, 2001. Pg 74
Powell, Barry, Classical Myth, third edition; University of Wisconsin-Madison, copyright Prentice Hall Incorporated, 2001. Pg 74
Kauffman, Robert, “Baha’i Faith”. http://www.theharmonyproject.org/bahai.html
George Lorimer, The Argument for Christianity, (American Baptist Publication Society, 1894) pg 417
Lorimer, George The Argument for Christianity, (American Baptist Publication Society, 1894) pg 418
http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=inviolable