Nicole Bippen

May 1, 2010

Gaps in Creation Stories: The Search for Truth

            I have always been interested in different religions and their beliefs.  Admittedly, I did not know much about Native American creation stories until this course.  Before hand, it was just brief explanations given by other teachers that typically included phrases like, "well, they worshipped nature" or "they don't really believe in a God perse, so that's all you really need to know".  I was never handed or in this case, given web access to Native American creation stories until this semester.  Of course, I do know the Christian creation story because I was raised Christian and my mother often read the Bible to me.  However with both, I never really sat down to question any of it until this semester.  When I took mythology, Dr. Day told us that with the Greek and Roman creation stories, there are major gaps.  He further went on to say that this is true of a lot of religions including Christianity.  Curiousity won quickly and I looked through the Christian stories, mythology stories, and even the Native texts and discovered there are gaps! All of these struggle with the beginning of the universe, and I wanted to learn more.

            Admittedly, it was Dr. Day who posed the question and laid out the first evidence. He told us "that almost every religion struggles with creationism; even Christianity.  The Greeks and Romans were no different.  If you really look at these Mythological texts, you'll see that there are gaps."  He pointed out with the Christian stories that if nothing existed before God, where did God come from? Had He always been there? If He created man, who created God?  Mythology struggled with the same question, only instead of God, there were gods and Natives also struggled with this. "Where did these creative forces come from?" He asked.  We stared blankly until he shrugged and said "that's the part of religion that just has to be taken on faith alone."

            Well all apologies Dr. Day but faith does not satisify my curiousity alone. Although I understand that faith is fundamental to mythology, Christianity, and Native American creation stories, I decided to do my own research to figure out where the Christian God at least came from. I decided that if I could figure decipher the age old question of "well, if God created man, who created God" I could at least pair some of my findings with the other stories and might be able to fill in their gaps. I asked my mom and brother, and also did some internet research.  I found that http://www.carm.org/questions/about-doctrine/where-did-god-come really helped and although my family offered a lot of support, the site was probably the most helpful.

            My answer came from the site:

To us, the notion of time is linear.  One second follows the next, one minute is after another.  We get older, not younger and we cannot repeat the minutes that have passed us by.  We have all seen the time lines on charts:   early time is on the left and later time is on the right.  We see nations, people's lives, and plans mapped out on straight lines from left to right.  We see a beginning and an end.  But God is "beyond the chart."  He has no beginning or end.  He simply has always been.

  So that answered my question of where did this force come from so I went back and looked at the Mythological texts and Native American texts.  I discovered that this answer only filled in the blanks for Christianity but not necessarily the others.  Dejected, I wondered if I had asked the wrong question or if maybe there was no answer to this.  After contemplating for awhile, I realized that I already had the answer and had it all along: faith.  We all have to take these gray areas on faith alone.  I had successfully restored my faith in Christianity and answered that, but the site had not explained to me why there were gaps in mythology and Native texts.  Like Christians, we must take our religion based on faith and accept things for what they are.  Natives had never glimpsed the "skyworld" and had no true way of knowing if it existed or not; Greeks and Romans had never seen Zeus or Athena, they had to accept their presence on faith alone.  Although there are still gaps and I will never find hardcore evidence, I learned that even if I did continue my research the only answer I'm ever going to get is: it relies on faith. 

Works Cited

David Day's lecture material

Bippen, Carol.  Personal interview.  01, May, 2010.

Slick, Matthew J. "Where did God come from?." Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry. Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry, 1995. Web. 1 May 2010. <http://www.carm.org/questions/about-doctrine/where-did-god-come >.

Snell, James.  Personal interview.  01, May, 2010.