creation as apologetic?

I have so many thoughts running through my mind these days concerning the nature of youth ministry and my purposes in youth ministry, and the means to accomplish meaningful ends. I generally appreciate calls from friends who want to hash through things such as: the youth ministry's connection to a church; the youth ministry's connection to the Church; mentorship; effective leadership; leader empowerment... and the like. Shoot me an email.

My dad has recently been thinking through the use (or more probably, the lack of use) of creation as an apologetic for God in the Old Testament. So often we today use the beauty of creation - the intricacy and sheer breadth of nature - as indisputable evidence of a creator God, or at least as the prime example of his declared might. On cursory reads, many texts in the Psalms or some minor prophets might lead one to think the Old Testament did the same.

But my dad, in a conversation regarding creation/evolution, made the comment that many theories of natural systems conclusively and completely account for the intricacy of creation and fly directly in the face of a Christian's claim for a creative apologetic. In fact, he stated that his study of the OT passages leaned away from being able to claim creation as an apologetic, and rather leaned toward character-telling statements: creation teaches us not that God is, but rather who God is.

This statement carries weight with recent research into Ancient Near Eastern thought. Many ANE societies (such as the Babylonian and Egyptian) featured, along with creation and flood myths, theogony myths (the creation of gods). In most societies, gods are birthed in wonderful and new ways. The prime counter-example is that of the Israelite society, which assumes YHWH's preexistence.

In this way, it should be inappropriate to use creation texts in the OT as an apologetic for YHWH, because YHWH's existence, in every instance, is simply naturally assumed. In the Israelite society, the omnipotence, omniscience, providence, omnipresence, superiority and goodness of YHWH were constantly under scrutiny as the people's circumstances changed. But never was YHWH's existence questioned.

These thoughts were going through my mind as I prepped for my Sunday School lesson on Saturday. We were to deal with providence (everyone's favorite argument), and I was reading through some note from my Systematic Theology class from early sophomore year. Buried in the scribbles, I ran across the following statement, taken from Dr. Trier's class notes:

"[Bear in mind] that Eph. 1 emphasizes the resurrection, not creation, as the quintessential act that reveals what God’s power is and what it means..."

In light of my musings concerning Scripture's lack of use of creation as an apologetic for God, this stark reversal of God's purpose and power seemed important.

If God's primary revelation of his power is through the resurrection which brings salvation, over and against his creation, then the primary point of apologetic for a Christian should become the transformative power of the cross.

This should shift a Christian's outward apologetic modus operandi from that of reflection (which I believe is also inherently flawed given the necessity of renewed understanding for conceptualization of Christian logic) to that of action: God's power is most manifest in his Church for the broken world when the church lives resurrectedly.

These thoughts will continue to run through my mind, but I would appreciate your help as I think through what "resurrected living" looks like for a 21st century church; also, please comment on the nature of the resurrection vs. creation as a means of apologetics. Post comments, or email me!

Thanks for reading through these things.