Bible Contradiction? Who created heaven and earth?

For today’s post we will tackle the question the Skeptic Annotated Bible asked: Who created heaven and earth?

Here are the two answers which the skeptic believes indicate a Bible contradiction:

God the Father did it all by himself.

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1)

“Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, and the one who formed you from the womb, “I, the Lord, am the maker of all things, Stretching out the heavens by Myself And spreading out the earth all alone,” (Isaiah 44:24)

Jesus did it.

“There came a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness, to testify about the Light, so that all might believe through him. 8 He was not the Light, but he came to testify about the Light. 9 There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man. 10 He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him.” (John 1:6-10)

“For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him.” (Colossians 1:16)

Both of them did it.

“yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him.” (1 Corinthians 8:6)

 

(All Scriptural quotation comes from the New American Standard Bible)

Here’s a closer look at whether or not there is a contradiction:

 

1. When dealing with skeptics’ claim of Bible contradictions it seems one can never be reminded enough of what exactly is a contradiction.  A contradiction occurs when two or more claims conflict with one another so that they cannot simultaneously be true in the same sense and at the same time.  To put it another way, a Bible contradiction exists when there are claims within the Bible that are mutually exclusive in the same sense and at the same time.
2. One should be skeptical of whether this is a Bible contradiction given the website’s track record of inaccurate handling of biblical passages.  See the many examples of their error we have responded to here in this post: Collection of Posts Responding to Bible Contradictions.  Of course that does not take away the need to respond to this post, which is what the remainder of the post will do.  But this observation should caution us to slow down and look more closely at the passages the Skeptic Annotated Bible cited and see if they interpreted the passages properly to support their conclusion that it is a Bible contradiction.
3. We need to evaluate if the claims stated by the skeptics are necessarily contradictory and also ask the second question of whether the verses cited by the skeptic demonstrate the claims the skeptics have asserted.
4. The skeptic tries to pit the first claim, “God the Father created heaven and earth all by himself” against the second claim “Jesus created the heaven and earth” and the third claim “God the Father and Jesus both created heaven and earth.”  However not all of these three claims stated by the skeptics are necessarily mutually exclusive against each other.
   1. The second claim that “Jesus created the heaven and earth” is not contradictory against the third claim that “God the Father and Jesus both created heaven and earth.”  The verses for the second claim that “Jesus created the heaven and the earth” could provide additional support to the third claim that “God the Father and Jesus both created heaven and earth,” specifically the portion of the third claim that Jesus created the heaven and the earth.
   2. In order for the second and third claim to be contradictory one or both of the claims have to have “only” in its claim.  For instance it would be a contradiction between the second and the third claim if the second claim was instead re-worded as “Only Jesus created the heaven and earth.”  But that is not what the skeptic has written here.
5. The first claim stated by the skeptic, “God the Father created heaven and earth all by himself” does contradict with the second and third claims since the nature of the first claim makes it exclusive that God the Father alone is Creator of the heaven and earth.  But the verses cited by the skeptic to demonstrate the first claim doesn’t support the claim that “God the Father created heaven and earth all by himself” and if the two verses cited by the skeptic doesn’t support the first claim then there’s no grounds for the skeptic to say there’s a contradiction here.
   1. The two verses cited to prove the first claim are Genesis 1:1 and Isaiah 44:24.
   2. Both Genesis 1:1 and Isaiah 44:24 does not establish the claim “God the Father created heaven and earth all by himself” since these two verses doesn’t even have the words “God the Father.”  It just refer to God and doesn’t necessarily mean its only God the Father exclusively as the referent.
   3. In addition Genesis 1:1 and Isaiah 44:24 does not establish the claim “God the Father created heaven and earth all by himself” since nowhere in both verses does it say God the Father created the heaven and earth exclusively by Himself.  Not the absence of words in these verses such as “only,” “all by himself,” etc.
6. Also the two verses cited to establish the second premise are John 1:6-10 and Colossians 1:16 and they also do not contradict the other passages since both John 1:6-10 and Colossians 1:16 do not use terms such as “only,” “all by himself,” etc, to make Jesus as the only exclusive creator to the exclusion of the other member of the Trinity.
7. 1 Corinthians 8:6 confirms that creation of the heaven and earth involves the work of the Father and Son.  The four passages the skeptics used to support the first and second claim are compatible when one realizes that 1 Corinthians 8:6 explicitly state the two members of the Trinity specifically the Father and the Son were involved with creating the heavens and the earth.
8. Concluding our study it must be stated again there is no contradiction here in light of all the above considerations.
9. We shouldn’t miss that worldviews are at play even with the skeptic’s objection to Christianity.  The worldview of the author of the Skeptic Annotated Bible actually doesn’t even allow for such a thing as the law of non-contradiction to be meaningful and intelligible.  In other words for him to try to disprove the Bible by pointing out that there’s a Bible contradiction doesn’t even make sense within his own worldview.  Check out our post “Skeptic Annotated Bible Author’s Self-Defeating Worldview.”