The Bible says, first of all, that in the beginning all things were created by a personal-infinite God who had always existed.  So what is, therefore, is intrinsically personal rather than impersonal.  Then the bible says that He created all things outside of Himself.  The term ‘outside of Himself’ is, I think, the best way to express creation to twenty first-century people.  We do not mean to use the phrase in a spatial sense, but to deny that creation is any kind of pantheistic extension of God’s essence.   (Pantheism is the belief that reality is identical with divinity, or that all-things compose an all-encompassing, immanent god. Wikipedia)  God exists – a personal God who has always existed – and He has created all other things outside of Himself.  Thus, because the universe begins with a truly personal beginning, love and communication (which are a burden of twenty first-century men’s hearts) are not contrary to that which intrinsically is.  The universe began in a personal as against an impersonal beginning, and, as such, those longings of love and communication which man has are not contrary to that which intrinsically is.  And the world is a real world, because God has created it truly outside of Himself.  What He has created is objectively real; thus there is true historic cause and effect.  There is a true history and there is a true me.  And to find meaning and purpose to my life, the Bible gives me an answer as to why I can do what I must do – that is, to begin with myself.  I am created in the image of God to know God and have a relationship with Him.  There is a book which tells me ‘why’ I am here and ‘what’ I am to do.  The Bible explains the true reason and purpose for how and why we are here.       

Thoughts developed and/or taken from the works of Dr. Francis A. Schaeffer, Trilogy – Escape From Reason