I hold to the six-day creation account of Genesis 1. The all-powerful, all-knowing, eternal God designed and built the entire universe and all living things according to His own sovereign wishes (Job 38-39). God chose to make things however He wanted – He was not bound by preexisting laws of physics or supply of energy and material. When we make something, we are always constrained by existing factors: item A’s maximum speed depends on component B’s minimum weight, making a genetic edit in one section of DNA has unwanted side effects somewhere else, or the laws of physics prevent condition A and B from occurring simultaneously. That wasn’t the case with the Creator (and still isn’t).
That’s amazing. But at some point I realized there are further ramifications to that understanding. If each of God’s design choices were arbitrary and if He is a God who seeks to reveal Himself in Creation, then each of His choices has something to say about the Creator. The Earth didn’t have to have water on it – God chose that. Humans and animals didn’t need to have blood – God chose that. The Bible is full of references to nature as examples of spiritual truth. It’s easy to think that those physical items were picked for convenience but I would venture to flip that around and say God designed the universe to include examples to use later.
That’s not to say that we can find deep spiritual meaning in the wings of a grasshopper or the alignment of the stars. We may not understand the meaning in each of the myriad aspects of the universe because humans are finite creatures and also due to the curse on creation brought about by the Fall. What we see around us now is a groaning version of what God called “very good” initially, plus our own faculties of perception and understanding are corrupted. I trust that in the new Heaven and new Earth we will be able to delve less hindered into the study of God’s design.
Let us not close our senses and mind to the universe around us that is pointing to the majesty of its Creator. It has much to say!