DAY 161: God and Viruses

DAY 161

Faith in the Midst of a Pandemic

A series of daily reflections for people of faith

by Rev. Robert Bayley, Interim Pastor

Patuxent Presbyterian Church, California, Maryland

pastorrobert@paxpres.org

Week Twenty-three Saturday 22 August 2020

God and Viruses

“We know God didn’t design viruses to kill living things (including us), so how could viruses cause so much global suffering and death? In the beginning, all viruses were very good. Even today, over 95% of earth’s viruses remain beneficial. Before the fall, some of today’s harmful viruses likely provided essential function to their animal hosts and to Adam and Eve. After the fall, some of the good viruses mutated and became bad. Slowly, over millennia, good viruses mutated into bad viruses causing diseases like Ebola, rabies, AIDS, smallpox, and COVID-19.” - From an article in a current Christian magazine by a Ph.D. in biology university professor

For years I have pondered the seeming disparity between the reality of the world in which we live and the specific account of the creation of all things in Genesis. While relegated in seminary to the literary genre of myths, it remains that it takes as much faith to believe that a gaseous pre-universe big bang contained within it all the incredible diversity exhibited in the sciences, literature, the arts, medicine and technology as it does to take at face value the creation account in Genesis. From the perspective of logic and reason the latter actually makes more sense.

From deadly snakes to deadly viruses to “why did God create mosquitoes?”, to remain firmly committed to the statement in Genesis that God created everything and declared it all “good” requires faith. If this seems reductionist in response it is indeed, for ultimately who we are as Christians and what we have staked our one life on this planet to believing is reducible to that which can neither be objectively demonstrated nor subjectively proven, only embraced by faith.

At the end of the day there are only two categories of worldview in general and regarding the creation of all matter specifically, that which is set forth in Scripture and then all others. To explore the former go to answersingenesis.org to learn more.

Reflective question: Does what you believe about creation strengthen or weaken your faith?

Reflective Scripture: John 1:1-3: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made without him nothing was made that has been made.” 

Reflective hymn:

“We Sing the Mighty Power of God” – Isaac Watts (1674-1748)

We sing the goodness of the Lord that filled the earth with food;

He formed the creatures with His word and then pronounced them good.

Lord, how your wonders are displayed, where-e’er we turn our eyes,

If we survey the ground we tread or gaze upon the skies.