If there was a creation, there must also be a Creator. This is what we call God. In understanding that creation is the way things came to be, we must then begin to understand the one who brought it all to be. This forces any intelligent person to raise a few very important questions and to seek answers. Here are just a few.

1. If God created the universe, wouldn't He have the power to do things with it?

2. Wouldn't He have the power to do things with us?

3. If so, shouldn't we give some serious consideration to what He might have done to us?

4. If we had someone in our neighborhood, powerful enough to do great damage to families and houses, cars and cops, friends and foes alike, wouldn't we be inclined to find out how not to be his next victim?

5. How much more so if the one in power has the power to create and destroy worlds?

If we are to look at what He may have done to us, then we should first look at who or what He is, in order to try to determine how He may deal with us and why. Let's avoid such ridiculous ideas as God being simply another human, elevated to a higher plane, or some sort of a magician who manipulates things to appear as one wishes them to appear. For this purpose and discussion, I am willing to concede that there are a couple of thoughts in defining God that you have probably already assimilated, but may continue to argue against. Here goes anyway.

I would suggest that by definition God has the power to do several things that can be done by no other. We will start with those and work onward.

To begin with, I would suggest that because natural law applies only to those things natural, that they do not apply to God. I assert this as validly assumable reality because the evidence justifies it. So, first, God has the power to truly create and truly destroy.

This is no small matter because in all of history and beyond, no one of the human race has ever been able to either truly create or totally destroy anything. Matter can be converted into different forms, such as ores into metals and wood into heat and smoke, but it is all still there in another shape. Sometimes matter may be converted into energy and sometimes into another form of matter, but it is still all there. The same is not true of God. The ability to create something from nothing is a known attribute of God and one that has indeed been witnessed and attested to by people both inside and outside the Bible. As for the ability to destroy, well, that has been witnessed too. There have been enough doctors who have done x-rays on people who had tumors or parasites (things which caused an expansion of mass within a closed area called a human body), confirmed their diagnosis with second opinions and x-rays or ultra-sound, and discovered the day of or the day before the required operation that it just wasn't there anymore. It is a standard procedure to check the exact location of such as a tumor, lesion or parasite with x-rays or ultra-sound right before an operation. In some of these cases, matter has just disappeared. It happens with such regularity that doctors no longer even mention it in journals and never even try to explain it with such an idea as the system simply passing it out as a gall stone. Sorry, no such easy answer. By definition, God has the ability to create and destroy anything He wills.

Another attribute of God I would assert is lack of a need for time and lack of restriction by it. God lives outside of time and enters time at will as you or I enter a room or several rooms within a building. Because of this attribute He is able to observe the "future" first hand and act upon it in the past as if the "future" were the past. Time is a restraint created for our convenience, so that everything that would happen would not happen all at once. With time we have the opportunity to learn and grow instead of just come and go. By definition, God supersedes time.

Another attribute I will assert is the ability to KNOW. He not only knows what was in the headlines today, but what was in the minds of the people who made the headlines. Not just the reporters, but also the bombers, the gymnasts and heroes. He has the ability to do that which the thought police only dreamed of, but with a far better and more practical motive. His is not a motive of wishing to keep control, but relationship. By definition, God is infinitely aware, even to such a degree as would allow Him to know your thoughts as if they were being teletyped to Him.

Further, I will assert Wisdom. Wisdom is knowledge rightly applied and, I believe, the infinitely complex simplicity of all natural order testifies to that. Have you noticed how so many of the creatures of the world have similarities that drop them into groups? For this reason, a veterinarian can treat virtually any mammal, and do so with skill and cunning regardless of whether it is a Chihuahua or a Clydesdale. The difference is essentially a matter of which chart to use regarding vital statistics. Notice how simple things become for a herpetologist because most reptiles are pretty much the same. How every form of life and every group and sub-group is so drastically different is amazing; but the similarities are equally profound. Then when we get into the inside of any of these creatures something absolutely astounding occurs. The Bible was right; there is a notable and undeniable difference between the flesh of all different "kinds" of animals. Bird flesh is distinct from ma mmal flesh, right down to the molecular level. And fish are different from fowl. Apes are different from men and monkeys. And the flesh of "clean beasts" is far different from that of unclean. Further, on a molecular level, in the anatomical studies process, we find that there is a very minute difference in the structure of a cell in the human eye from one in the foot. Again there is very little difference in the cells taken from brain and bone. But that minute difference makes a big difference in how the different part of the body function. So, for all you or me or anyone else may know, the second or third cell of development of a child may well be brain tissue. There is no authority who can honestly say otherwise. And it is His wisdom that makes all this possible, even if we super macro out to look at the universe, and realize that it greatly resembles most scientists' conception of the atom. All is spheres orbiting spheres. Interesting simplicity of infinite complexity. God is, by definiti on, in possession of Wisdom.

Let us, for the sake of discussion assume that God has one more attribute that we have no access to: that of Perfection. God does not suffer the failings and frailties that are ours on a day to day basis. He does not make mistakes in either action of judgment. He does not grow old and feeble as we surely will if we last long enough. He does not suffer illness or injury. And further, but in the same vein, let us assume that this perfection is reflected in His goodness. He holds no ill will and contains no evil. Till we come down to His goodness, every religion of history has held most or all of the other attributes presented as being possessed by deity of all forms (except timelessness in some cases). Many of those forms have been decidedly evil in nature, but He is not. This is not a vain claim, but a reflection of truth based upon the evidence.

As for His goodness, I would suggest, even if one doesn't allow for His having created everything personally, that this is reflected in His allowing us to live on. I know I would have grown tired of it all long ago. His direct intervention in our lives has shown the same goodness. If one had infinite (or even just virtually infinite) power he could easily force His will on others if He were not good.

Winston Churchill once said "America is Great because America is Good. If she ceases to be Good she shall cease also to be Great." At the close of WW II, America had 11,000,000 men under arms, 20,000+ of armor and artillery, over 1,000 combat sea craft and over 25,000 planes of war. We had the power to force a US world peace on the whole planet that would remain in force until our grand-children would die away; but we didn't. We were at that time, the most noble people who had ever inhabited the planet. We dismantled our military might and sent our soldiers back to the farms and mills, rebuilt every nation damaged by our fire-power and called it quits. Do you have any idea why? I know, but you would never believe it. You may not even like it. But it is the reason that you have an America to live in today that is as Good as it is (though it could be far better). But Mr. Churchill was right, America was Good. And as we watch her goodness being stripped away, we also see her greatness f ollow.

If America had no simple goodness she would have forced that peace, and if God had not His goodness (from whence America got hers) then He could force His agenda as well; or just wipe the playing field clean and start again.

If God is wise and good, what are His dealings with men and why?

It would appear that there is an attachment to us that He cannot get away from. But we are so vile and foolish as a whole that this makes almost no sense. So, let's think about it in some everyday terms.

Why does a man keep a dog? Why does he put up with the dog at all? The beast will chew up his shoes, make a mess on his carpet, leave hair all over everything in springtime and more than once or twice he will bite the man. But still, a man keeps a dog. It cannot be that a dog is a tool that the man cannot live without. No, few dogs in America (or the whole world for that matter) actually perform any of the normal working services that dogs perform in the few lands where dogs are kept mainly for production and service. They don't usually pull loads, or even really serve in a security capacity. The dog is a pet, but even that word has the wrong connotation. The dog provides companionship.

There is a struggle for the owner to train the dog to be something more acceptable and lovable. There is pain on the side of the dog in making the transition from carpet wetting, slipper chewing mutt to being a friend of the family. There is usually some damage of the owners property and some breaking of the will of the dog. But in the end, the man and the dog get along just fine. Slowly but surely, the dog begins to conform to the image of the man. He eats a normalized and civilized diet, he relieves himself in an acceptable place and picks up behavior patterns that are acceptable to the man, many from exposure more than training, and finds obedience to be a wonderful way of life. The dog conforms to the man, but the man does not become conformed to the image of the dog.

The same is true of man's relationship with God, only this time man is obviously not the greater of the two. Man is the one that starts with the unsavory ways that must be brought under control. Man is the one who must be conformed to the owners will. And yes, I said owner.

Considering that man is by far more intelligent than a dog, and has the capability of communication in myriad ways, it seems foolish that (if God wanted to help us conform to His image as a master wishes for his dog) He would not use reasonable means to provide us with consistent training methods. He would have to realize that we need guidance that we can count on, and that such guidance must be reliable.

Have you ever met someone whose parents were very inconsistent in their discipline of the child? Have you noticed that this child became what they wished he would never be, but also exactly what they trained him to be? Did you notice that you probably could not trust him? Why? Because there was no standard that was spoken and lived.

A woman tells her daughter that she shouldn't have sex before marriage, but the daughter learns that she was conceived outside wedlock, and cannot help but notice that her mother sometimes goes out for a date with her boyfriend and doesn't come home till morning. Then the mother wonders why her teenage daughter is pregnant. The messages are mixed. God's messages are not mixed.

No, if God were wise, He would know that we need something that presents the biggest possible picture of what He expects of us, without variance. This isn't His need, it is ours. He doesn't need us at all, any more than a dog needs fleas; which is about how God could feel about us if He were not good. No, it is our need that compels instruction. So, God uses the best and least changing means of getting that message and training across to us, one that withstands time and memory. He uses a means that is not subject to moods of policy nor the application of wishful thinking. In other words, He makes it possible for us to have His guidance for our conformity in such a way that the telling of it does not change much at all; even over several thousand years.

It is called the written word.

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