Thomas White stands in Blacktail Canyon, part of the Grand Canyon. He joined Answers in Genesis
and Canyon Ministries on their Christian Leaders Trip in summer 2016. (Photo by John Whitmore)
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Cedarville Magazine
by Thomas White
Perhaps no other verse in the Bible does more to
establish the foundation of a biblical worldview than
Genesis 1:27. Of course, the pinnacle of this worldview
and the story of the Bible centers on the atoning work of
Christ’s substitutionary death on the cross for our sake
and in our place. But, the foundation of understanding
a biblical worldview begins with creation.
ink about the worldview implications of the fact
that God created. Evolutionary theories and the religion
of secular humanism that pervade secular higher
education would have you believe, through a process
of natural selection over billions of years, that we are
cosmic accidents. Yet Genesis 1:27 states three times,
with poetic elegance, that “God created.” One might
imagine that an infinitely powerful God, who exists
outside of time, omnisciently knew that His existence
as the Creator would be challenged. To confront that
challenge, God leaves no doubt with a repetitive refrain
of “God created.”
e fact that God created the heavens and the earth
means that our very lives are a stewardship. We must
one day stand before our Creator and give an account
of how we have spent the gi of life we have been given.
A worldview based on the Creator means that life has
purpose and meaning beyond random chance. Psalm
139 tells us that God knew every one of our days before
any of them existed. We must not live this life merely
as the sum total of our existence, but rather involve
ourselves in His majestic eternal plan. Ultimately, God
created us for an eternal relationship with Him.
This God who created us made us in His image,
a fact repeated twice in Genesis 1:27. In the New
Testament, these words come back to us when Jesus
is approached about rendering taxes unto Caesar. He
responds by asking whose image is on the coin and tells
the audience to render unto Caesar the things that are
his and unto God the things that are God’s (Mark 12:17).
Jesus implies that image means ownership. A coin with
Caesar’s image meant the coin belonged to Caesar. Man
and woman created in the image of God implies that
God has ownership over our lives and will one day justly
pass eternal judgment upon us.
Being created in the image of God also brings
meaning to the entirety of life — from the moment of
conception until natural death. As image bearers of
the Creator, the physically or mentally challenged have
value. ose that society may cast aside have eternal
worth. Christ died for the autistic and the least fortunate
just as much as He did for you and me. Knowing that
we are created in God’s image, and considering the
unfathomable depths of His love for us, we despise
racism in any form, recognizing that one race ows from
Adam’s and Noah’s veins, and through the blood of Jesus,
believers are brothers and sisters in Christ no matter our
ethnicity. We recognize that our Savior Himself was,
in the eyes of man, an unplanned pregnancy who was
IN THE
BEGINNING
Genesis 1:27: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.”
Cedarville Magazine
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once a refugee eeing to Egypt. Altogether, a worldview
anchored in creation can handle some of the world’s
most dicult conversations with truth, grace, and peace
through the hope of the Gospel.
We understand from Genesis that Adam sinned as
our representative and that every human since that time,
except the God-Man, Jesus, has followed the rst man
in sinful disobedience as a traitor against the King of the
universe. In our sinful rebellion, we declare war upon
our Creator and pledge allegiance to our own will. Our
hostile action demands His judgment, but instead we
receive a reconciliation provided by Jesus Christ and His
death on the cross to all who repent and believe in Him.
Our worldview begins with a Creator, recognizing
sin nature in all humans that contradicts a secular
humanistic worldview. We must not embrace how we
feel, because we know that our sin nature causes us to
desire sinful actions that continue our rebellion against
King Jesus. We cannot trust our hearts because the
Bible tells us the heart is deceitfully wicked, who can
understand it (Jer. 17:9)?
Further, Genesis 1:27 tells us that God created us
male and female. In His innite wisdom, God put man
to sleep and, instead of making an identical partner,
God chose to make a woman. e relationship between
male and female beautifully points to something in the
Godhead and reflects our need for community. This
beautiful picture of love, further developed in Ephesians,
depicts the very love that Christ demonstrated by laying
down His life for the church.
The war of ideas currently taking place in our
culture begins at creation. If someone believes that
mankind resulted from evolution, then embracing his
or her inner nature is being true to themselves because
this life is all we have. One can easily see how sexual
expression becomes the very essence of humanity and
how denial of those feelings betrays someone’s identity.
Yet if you believe that God created us for more than this
life, and that our identity must be found in Christ alone,
then religious expression becomes more important than
sexual expression. Sexuality is then a good gi from
God, but not our defining distinctive. The Christian
worldview notes that Jesus, the perfect God-Man,
was not sexually active and that in heaven, we will
not marry, but we will be like the angels (Matt. 22:30).
Sexuality does not dene humanity. Our identity, and
our satisfaction, must be found in Christ alone.
Why is a biblical worldview of creation so important?
How you view creation shapes how you view and live
life itself.
At Cedarville University, we believe in a six-day
literal creation. We believe in a historic Adam and
Eve. We believe that mankind has a sin nature and
is fallen. This affects how we teach political science,
recognizing our sinfulness demands a system of checks
and balances. This affects how we teach psychology,
understanding that man is not innately good, but
that he possesses a sin nature and our greatest need is
the Gospel of Jesus Christ. is aects how we teach
science, with a creationist perspective and belief in a
global ood. is aects how we teach biology, which
points to a gloriously wise Creator rather than an
evolution of cells.
The foundation of the Christian worldview
depends upon the strong foundation of creation. In
this magazine, you will read articles that defend our
position on creation from dierent angles and articles
that describe in greater detail why this issue is central
for Cedarville University.
You’ll hear from Ken Ham, President and CEO
of Answers in Genesis, who will defend why it’s vital
for institutions of Christian higher education — like
Cedarville — to adhere to a literal six-day creation.
You’ll hear from John Whitmore, Cedarville Professor
of Geology and co-author of the first young-earth
creationist science textbook, who will reveal how the
rock layers in the Grand Canyon support Noah’s ood.
You’ll hear from Cedarville alumna Georgia (Hickman)
Purdom ’94, who will explain how genetic mutations,
rather than being a solid basis for evolutionary theory,
are a dead end. You’ll hear from Thomas Mach ’88,
Professor of History and Assistant Vice President for
Academics, who will survey the way biblical creation
is woven through the curriculum of four academic
disciplines at Cedarville. And lastly, Greg Couser, Senior
Professor of Bible and Greek, explains the importance of
biblical creation on sexuality and sexual identity.
In this issue, you’ll discover how Cedarville
continues to hold the Scriptures as the foundation for
all we do. Because, as always, what we do is for the Word
of God and the Testimony of Jesus Christ.
Thomas White became Cedarville’s 10th President in 2013. He
earned his Ph.D. in systematic theology from Southeastern
Baptist eological Seminary. He is the author and editor of
numerous publications, including the recently released First
Freedom: The Beginning and End of Religious Freedom
(B&H Academic).
Follow him:
@DromasWhite
facebook.com/DromasWhite
Subscribe at drthomaswhite.com
In this issue, you’ll discover how Cedarville
continues to hold the Scriptures as the
foundation for all we do.
