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Natural Laws Don’t Cause Origins or Existence
Natural Laws
When you look at the world and space around it, you are not seeing the result of natural laws. The natural laws, such as the law of gravity, do not explain the origin of the universe. When one football player flies out of bounds after a collision with another, a natural law did not cause that. The second player caused the first one to move out of bounds. You could say that a defender forced him out. Natural laws didn’t bring about the event.
Force, as one player forcing another out of bounds, expresses Newton’s second law of motion, which says:
The acceleration of an object depends on the mass of the object and the amount of force applied.
Something applies force and it isn’t a law itself that does it. Newton’s law, a natural law, explains the force, but it isn’t what sent the offensive out of bounds. Someone pushed him. The law explaining the momentum that carried a football out of bounds didn’t make him quickly and explosively leave the playing field.
Category Error
Before nature existed, the laws of nature did not exist. Laws explain how nature operates, not what caused it to get here. In his 2010 book The Grand Design, Stephen Hawking wrote that the universe can and will create itself from nothing because of the existence of laws like gravity. He said:
Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist.
In an accurate way, people call this mistake, a “category error.” It is my normal practice to attempt to give someone the benefit of the doubt. According to 1 Corinthians 13:7, this is ‘hoping all things.’ However, it is very hard to believe that these men really do think that the universe arose from laws that depend on an already existent universe. Space and matter precede natural laws. No one should believe or advocate for this deluded concept declared by Stephen Hawking. It is so bad, this idea that laws actually do things, that it really should be a laughing-stock.
God the Cause for Everything
Every year, people fall from high elevation and die from hitting the ground below. The news does not report that the law of gravity caused their death. Again, there is a law of gravity, but the law itself doesn’t cause anything.
God both caused and sustains space, matter, and energy. The laws that explain their function themselves proceed from His intelligence and design. Assigning their cause to laws is just a futile attempt to eliminate God and man’s accountability and obligation to Him.
The Purposeful Contortion and Confusion of End Time Truth
A primary way Satan keeps people deluded about life and the world is by his contortion and confusion of either origin or end time truth. God reveals with pristine clarity the beginning and ending of everything. Both of these revelations are vital for faith and practice. Satan wants people deceived on how they got here and what will happen to them in the future.
Naturalism breeds more lust. I like to say, it means we got here by accident. No one’s your boss, so you’re your own boss. That sounds great to most people, doing what they want to do. Since they just happened, no design, they aren’t accountable to anyone or anything. They live like they want, which, based on the nature of man, means following lust.
Origins
Even if someone contemplates a possibility of God, that isn’t strong enough to replace the dominion of lust in a life. All the truths about God transmit from Him as origination of everything. Other truths about God diminish when He didn’t create us. The elimination of God creating man for HIs glory greatly decreases the power and importance of everything else scripture says.
The perversion of beginnings relates most to its compatibility with the theory of evolution. Modernists of the nineteenth century began rethinking the meaning of Genesis to fit with Darwinism. An allegorical interpretation of the first three chapters of the Bible allows to read evolution and an old earth into Genesis.
With people unsure about the beginning, it’s no wonder they doubt the ending. Even theologians turn eschatology into a non-essential now. They relegate prophecy to ambiguity. Many churches have removed most of their eschatology from their doctrinal statements. You don’t need a position to fit into a church. It’s too uncertain to require for even professing Christians.
Endings
On a recent prophecy post I wrote here, an anonymous commenter (whom I did not publish) called crazy (he used “nutjobs”) churches that talk about or preach prophecy. Opinions and speculation abounds on end time events.
The doctrines of Christ, salvation, man, and angels dovetail with prophecy. When Jesus arrived in the first century, very few were ready or awaited His coming, because they had detached from prophetic reality. The promises of God become of no effect as people falsify what He says will happen in the future. This then deadens their anticipation and smothers their hope.
History functions in a chiliastic manner. You could call it “going full circle.” Paradise lost and paradise regained. The destruction of the first necessitates the destruction of the last. This renders meaningless everything in between. Why believe anything if you can’t know how it starts and how it ends?
Many theologians and church leaders have capitulated to the attack on the origin and the ending. This relegates most everything to what people call, living in the present or living in the moment. I understand that concept in a positive way to a certain degree. Living in the moment requires mindfulness and focus on the task at hand and perhaps gratefulness for what you’re experiencing in the present. However, God wants futuristic living for the saints, an outlook of expectation.
A Forward Look
Scripture requires a forward look. Paul in Philippians said, “reaching forth unto those things which are before” (3:13) and “we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (3:20). Jesus said, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God” (Matthew 6:33). If we can’t know our beginning or ending, we lose the basis for living like scripture says. An ultimate motivation for Paul was “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:10).
‘Putting on the helmet of salvation’ (Ephesians 6:17) relates closely to last days events. Salvation is complete in the future. If people can’t be sure about most of the details, what can and do they mean? How would we be sure that these uncertain things could be true? This is where it stands in most ways today in eschatology.
Spiritualizing
The fastest growing view of the future is to spiritualize or allegorize the future. People allegorize almost all of the prophetic passages and they take on numerous different possible meanings. This has become not just possible but the preferred take in many places.
Now men spiritualize and allegorize the first few chapters of the Bible and the last book of the Bible. People can make it mean what they want. It’s no wonder people won’t take God’s Word seriously and churches are apathetic. If people can’t really know the beginning and the ending, why care about everything in between?
Answers to the Racist Race Question: White/Black or Human/American?
Scripture teaches that there is only one race–the human race. Furthermore, Biblical teaching condemns racism and, when consistently applied, results in the abolition of chattel slavery. Consequently, I do not appreciate the renewed push, especially on the left, for making everything about race. Critical race theory is both contrary to Scripture and (unsurprisingly) does not reflect reality, reflecting in many ways a worldview that is contrary to what God has revealed in His Word.
Furthermore, since when surveys ask me about my “race,” I am going to be judged by the color of my skin and not the content of my character, I know that if I answer the way the survey wants me to I will give the “wrong” answer. Since my skin is on the lighter side of the spectrum of human pigmentation, making less melanin than some others whose ancestors came from warmer regions, I am supposed to answer “white,” and then feel guilty for the oppressive role that my ancestors played in human slavery in the USA (even though they weren’t even here, but immigrated to the USA after slavery was already abolished, on one side of the family fleeing the slavery of communism). As someone who is “white,” I am oppressing Barak Obama, Kamala Harris, Michael Jordan, and other incredibly powerful, wealthy, and influential people who are “black.” If I answer “white,” I will be discriminated against in the name of “equity.” My area will get less federal and state funds. It will just be worse for my community and for me as a person, and I will be contributing to dividing my nation over race, when the amount of melanin made by one’s skin is one of the least important features of a person.
I have consequently decided to answer surveys on race in one of two ways. When a survey asks about “race,” I will use the “other” checkbox and say:
1.) “Human.” I am part of the human race.
or, alternatively,
2.) “American.” That would seem to be as legitimate a choice as Nigerian, Norwegian, Japanese, Cuban, etc.
The only exception for me would be on a medical form where it could actually make a real difference, as people who are descended from Japheth are more likely to get some diseases, and less likely to get others, than descendants of Ham (and the same goes for the descendants of Shem). If the question actually serves a legitimate purpose, I can answer it the way they want me to. But if the form is simply to promote “equity” by punishing some groups to favor others based on the color of their skin, I am going to answer “human” or “American.”
Furthermore, since a man can really be a woman now, men can get pregnant, many children in public “schools” are identifying not only as the other gender but even as “furries” or other animals, it should be no difficulty for me to identify as whatever I want for race. If men and women are not determined by biology, my race could be Mutant Ninja Turtle, or I could be a pigeon.
So there is certainly no reason I cannot truthfully answer “human” or “American” on the “race” question.
I would also encourage you to think about the divisive and racist race questions that come up in many settings. Think about whether we would be better off if a very high percentage of the population started answering “human” to these questions and started believing what the Bible says about race and racism.
–TDR
The Gospel In the Stars and the Gospel in the Bible
The Gospel in the Stars!
The gospel is in the stars! So say a number of books, such as the Lutheran minister Joseph A. Seiss’s The Gospel in the Stars and the Anglican ultradispensationalist soul-sleep advocate and flat-earther E. W. Bullinger’s The Witness of the Stars, following Ms. Frances Rolleston’s book Mazzaroth: the Constellations. (Amazon affiliate links). These advocates have been copied in modern times by people like the Presbyterian evangelical D. James Kennedy and Institute for Creation Research leader Henry Morris.
Baptists, however, have traditionally held with conservative Protestants that general revelation in creation is not saving. It reveals God’s power and glory (Romans 1), but the gospel is only revealed through His special revelation in Scripture. The “heavens declare the glory of God,” but only through special revelation does salvation come: “the law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul” (Psalm 19:1, 7).
It is clear that the Baptists are wrong and the Lutherans, ultradispensationlists, and women Bible teachers are correct. After all, just look at the picture above. You can just look at it and understand that Jesus Christ, the second Person of the Trinity, became Man, died a sacrifical death for the sins of the world, and then rose victoriously from the grave, so that you could receive eternal life by repentant faith alone in Him (1 John 5:7; John 1:1-18; 1 Corinthians 15:1-4; Romans 3:23-28).
Right?
Or maybe not?
The picture above is from the constellation called The Southern Cross. Without my telling you that–in words–would you have even known that there is supposed to be cross in that picture?
Let’s say you could see that some of the stars there have the shape of a cross if you squint just the right way. Would that mean that you understand the gospel? How many Catholics that worship before a crucifix understand the gospel? Would anyone understand the gospel by simply looking at the picture of a cross, or would someone need to explain to him in words what the cross means? Have people understood the gospel by looking at a cross on a church building?
How many people do you know have been truly born again by looking in the sky and understanding the “gospel in the stars”? How many heathen have rejected their idols and astrology and false gods because of the “gospel in the stars”? What if the number is “zero”?
Let’s say another group of stars in the sky forms a circle, so someone decides that it looks like the fat belly of an idol of Buddha. Does that mean “the gospel of Buddha” is written in the stars? What is another group of stars looks like the letter “Q.” Is that predicting the Quran? One can draw lines between stars that look like anything.
The Gospel in the Bible!
Does the Bible tell us that the gospel is in the stars as well as in Scripture? The word “gospel” appears 104 times in 98 verses in the Bible: Matt. 4:23; 9:35; 11:5; 24:14; 26:13; Mark 1:1, 14–15; 8:35; 10:29; 13:10; 14:9; 16:15; Luke 4:18; 7:22; 9:6; 20:1; Acts 8:25; 14:7, 21; 15:7; 16:10; 20:24; Rom. 1:1, 9, 15–16; 2:16; 10:15–16; 11:28; 15:16, 19–20, 29; 16:25; 1 Cor. 1:17; 4:15; 9:12, 14, 16–18, 23; 15:1; 2 Cor. 2:12; 4:3–4; 8:18; 9:13; 10:14, 16; 11:4, 7; Gal. 1:6–9, 11; 2:2, 5, 7, 14; 3:8; 4:13; Eph. 1:13; 3:6; 6:15, 19; Phil. 1:5, 7, 12, 17, 27; 2:22; 4:3, 15; Col. 1:5, 23; 1 Th. 1:5; 2:2, 4, 8–9; 3:2; 2 Th. 1:8; 2:14; 1 Tim. 1:11; 2 Tim. 1:8, 10; 2:8; Philem. 1:13; Heb. 4:2; 1 Pet. 1:12, 25; 4:6, 17; Rev. 14:6.
I have listed below all the references where the word “gospel” is associated with looking at the constellations in the sky:
If you didn’t get it, here is that complete list again, in bigger font:
The gospel is not in the stars. The books at the beginning of this post do cite Scripture sometimes, but they take it totally out of context when they attempt to prove that the gospel is in the stars. The gospel is not in general revelation–it is in special revelation. General revelation condemns; it cannot save. The idea that the gospel is in the stars is unbiblical and false. If you have picked it up somewhere, reject it, along with the other evil teachings of those promoting the gospel in the stars, such as Lutheranism, ultradispensationalism and soul-sleep. Be thankful for Henry Morris’ defense of creation, but reject his false idea that the gospel is in the stars, as well as his willingness to work with the Seventh-Day Adventist cult and anyone else who accepts creation and rejects evolution, pretty much no matter what heresies they believed in on other matters.
If you don’t understand the gospel, click here to find out what it is in the Bible. Search the Scriptures to understand the gospel–it is there, very clearly, all over the place. Thank God for His wisdom and power when you look at the stars, but do not expect to find the gospel where He has not revealed it.
The following are some additional resources on the claims of the Gospel in the Stars:
Dave Hunt, The Gospel in the Stars
Danny Faulkner, The Gospel Message: Written in the Stars?
Charles Strohmer, Is There a Christian Zodiac, A Gospel in the Stars?
–TDR
Christianity: Pro-Racism, Pro-Slavery White Man’s Religion–Reject it for Atheism!
I have written a pamphlet dealing with attacks upon the Bible and Christianity from its (alleged) racism and (alleged) support of chattel slavery, compared with the (alleged) anti-racism and anti-slavery position of atheism. It deals with the objection that “Christianity is the racist white man’s religion” and, as the Freedom From Religion Foundation claims, “[W]hite supremacy [is] interwoven with Christianity … inextricably intertwined.” (Sources for all quotes are in the pamphlet.)
Click here to read the pamphlet Biblical Christianity vs. Atheism on Racism and Slavery
You may think that such claims are so ridiculous that they do not deserve a refutation. You are correct about them being ridiculous—and, as Bethel Baptist Church, where I serve the Lord, is not majority white now and has not been for a very long time, reflecting the ethnic diversity of the area, it is indeed a very foolish claim. However, sadly, in secular college campuses and in liberal media these egregious falsehoods are regularly propounded. Not that long ago a very angry black man at a place where I was passing out gospel literature said that all white Christians were supporters of white nationalism. (He also said, ironically, that they all denied it when he said that to them. Hmm… ). He said he had a degree in religious studies. (Perhaps they should give him his money back.) In any case, the attack on Christianity from its alleged racism and pro-slavery position is very much out there.
The pamphlet demonstrates that:
1.) The Bible rejects racism.
2.) Christian churches in Bible times rejected racism—for example, the church at Antioch had a leader in the category of “prophet and teacher” whose name was “Simon the Black” and another born in Africa, while the rest were all from Asia; an African whose family became close to the Apostle Paul helped Christ carry His cross; etc.
3.) Christian churches and the wider realm of Christendom were profoundly impacted by Africa. Did you ever think about the fact that possibly the two most influential people in the history of Western Christendom were from Africa—namely, Tertullian and Augustine? Furthermore, the ancient Anabaptist movements, the Novatians and Donatists, were both led by African Anabaptists. Did you know that the Baptists were the first group of churches in the American South to come out against slavery?
4.) Christianity very rapidly spread from Israel to Africa to China to India to Britain.
5.) Ancient paganism was pro-slavery while Christianity was pro-slave (since it taught that “All Lives Matter,” and therefore the lives of slaves, people of darker and lighter skin, etc. all matter), and Christian influence, unique among world religions, led to the abolition of slavery.
6.) Modern racism actually stems from the Enlightenment and its rejection of Biblical Christianity, combined with the anti-creation philosophy of biological evolution. (This fact should be taught in all public schools, and at the very least every student in Christian schools needs to know this. Did you know it?)
7.) Slavery exists today in atheist countries such as North Korea and China, in accordance with the racism of people like Karl Marx, Charles Darwin, Hegel, and David Hume. Everyone should know that Darwin anticipated genocide by whites of “lower races”:
“The … Caucasian races have beaten … [others] in the struggle for existence. … [At] no very distant date … the lower races will have been eliminated by the higher civilized races throughout the world.”
Everyone should know Marx said:
“Let us … speak of the beautiful side … of the slavery of the blacks in the East, in Brazil, in the Southern States of North America. … [S]lavery is an economic category of the highest importance. Without slavery … you would have … the complete decadence of modern commerce and civilization. … [S]ave slavery … [c]onserve the good side of this economic category.”
8.) The pamphlet then explains how spiritual slavery is the worst problem people suffer today. It illustrates that the root causes of racism (pride) and slavery (covetousness) are sins that the reader has been guilty of, and how, through the ransom payment of Christ, they can become spiritually free from the control of the sins that lead to racism and slavery now and eternal hell fire in eternity.
I would suggest reading the pamphlet yourself, keeping the link or a few copies on hand for people who run into this objection when preaching the gospel. I would also suggest that Christian schools, in history class, when they teach the Enlightenment and the impact of evolution and its pre-and post-Darwinian influence in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, make sure students know that modern racism came from these movements. Missionaries in Africa, the Caribbean, and, frankly, on most of the globe should know these things and share them with those to whom they minister.
Cancel culture should cancel Darwin, cancel Marx, cancel Biblical skepticism, cancel evolution, cancel atheism, and cancel agnosticism.
Everyone should recognize Christianity is the best friend of those who are against racism and slavery.
Click here to read the pamphlet Biblical Christianity vs. Atheism on Racism and Slavery
–TDR
Charles Darwin on Design in Creation
The Bible teaches that all men know God’s nature and power from creation, but they suppress that knowledge, leaving them without excuse. “All men” includes Charles Darwin, the incredibly influential promoter of the theory of evolution.
Scripture says:
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. (Romans 1:18-23)
Is there evidence in Darwin’s life that his study of the creation pointed the evolutionist to the Creator? In a conversation between the Duke of Argyll and Charles Darwin, in the last year of Darwin’s life, the Duke recounted:
In the course of [our] conversation I said to Mr. Darwin, with reference to some of his own remarkable works on the “Fertilization of Orchids,” and upon “The Earthworms,” and various other observations he made of the wonderful contrivances for certain purposes in nature—I said it was impossible to look at these without seeing that they were the effect and the expression of mind. I shall never forget Mr. Darwin’s answer. He looked at me very hard and said, “Well, that often comes over me with overwhelming force; but at other times,” and he shook his head vaguely, adding, “it seems to go away.” (Charles Darwin, Life and Letters, ed. Francis Darwin, vol. 1, letter to W. Graham, July 3, 1881 (London: John Murray, 1887), 316.
In public schools, when they teach Darwinian evolution, they should tell impressionable young people that in Charles Darwin’s studies “often,” “with overwhelming force,” the reality that the intricate design of creation is “impossible” to explain except as “the effect and the expression of Mind” struck the author of The Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection and The Descent of Man. This statement from Darwin should be pounded into them the way they pound atheism and socialism into them.
I’m not holding my breath.
You can share his sentiments, however, with those who believe that Darwinian evolution explains away the need for the Almighty Creator. They ought to know.
Learn more about God, science, and the Bible by clicking here.
–TDR
Appearance of Age and Recent Creation-John Frame’s Systematic Theology
The Bible teaches that the earth’s age is young; evolutionary long ages never took place. Arguments such as distant starlight and other scientific reasons allegedly proving an old earth have received good answers from creationist sources. I was both surprised and pleased to read the following in Reformed evangelical Presbyterian John Frame’s Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Christian Belief (affiliate link). I expected Frame to explain away Biblical evidence for the young earth and make old earth re-interpretations of Scripture. Dr. Frame said that the issue is not one to separate over (false) and downplayed the issue (too bad), but he actually admitted that the plain interpretation of Scripture is a young earth.
The point of this blog post is not mainly to point out my pleasant surprise from Dr. Frame’s book. It is the quote below, which gives an interesting take on the appearance of age in a newly created world. The quote does not explain everything alleged by old earthers, but it is a useful thought nevertheless:
My exegetical position at the moment is that the earth is young, rather than old. I argued above that the creation narrative suggests a week of ordinary days, and that there is no compelling evidence against that interpretation. That week begins a series of genealogies: Adam, Seth, and their descendants (Gen. 5) leading to Noah, and the descendants of Noah’s sons (Gen. 10) leading to Abraham. These genealogies may well be incomplete. Certainly that is true of the Matthean genealogy of Jesus (Matt. 1). But I doubt that there are enough gaps or omissions in these genealogies to allow for millions of years of human existence.
I think the only way, then, that one could biblically argue for an old earth, billions of years old, given a creation week of normal days, is to posit a gap between Genesis 1:1 and 1:3. Some theologians have argued that the text permits a long period of time there, though of course it is impossible to prove from the text the existence of such a period. The trouble is that during such a period the heavens and earth would have existed (1:1), but there would have been no light (1:3) or heavenly bodies (1:14–19). But most scientists would deny that such a situation ever existed. Therefore, the gap theory, whatever its exegetical merits, creates more problems with science than it solves.
A young-earth view implies the proposition that God created the world with an appearance of age. The Genesis 1 narrative certainly indicates that God created Adam and Eve, for example, as adults. They would have appeared to be, say, twenty years old, when they were actually fresh from the Creator’s hand. Some have said that creation with apparent age amounts to God’s deceiving us, but that is certainly not the case in any general way. Normally, when we see adult human beings we can estimate their age by certain physical characteristics. The adult creation of Adam and Eve implies only that these estimates are not always true. It shows us (as I argued in connection with miracle) that the world is only generally uniform, not absolutely so. God does not tell us in natural revelation that every mature person has existed more than ten years. So he cannot be charged with lying to us when he miraculously produces an exception to this general rule.
Some have argued that God would be “lying” to us if he made stars that appear to be billions of years old, but whose origin was actually only ten thousand years ago. Yet God has never told us that the methods that scientists use to calculate the age of stars are absolutely and universally valid. It is not as if the stars were a book that literally tells us their age. Rather, they are data by which scientists believe they can learn the age of bodies in many cases. Reading that data requires not only the data itself, but a whole body of scientific theory and methods by which to interpret that data. What scientists may learn from Genesis is that these methods do not work for objects specially created. So scientists may need to read Genesis in order to refine their methods to a higher level of precision. Of course, it is a general principle that science may not claim that its theories are without exceptions, unless it claims at the same time divine omniscience.
Anyone who admits to any special creations at all must grant in general the reality of apparent age. Assume that God simply made a bunch of rocks out of nothing and left them floating in space to generate the rest of the universe: even in this case, were a geologist to look at those rocks ten minutes after the creation, he would certainly conclude that they were many years old.
Or what if God made the world by a “big bang,” by the explosion of a “singularity”? Many scientists today think that we cannot get behind the big bang, since the big bang is the beginning of time and space as we know them. But the tendency of science is to ask “why?” and that question is not easily restrained. So some today are asking, and certainly more in the future will ask, where the big bang came from, how it came about. To them, even the elementary particles present at the big bang have an ancestry. Such scientists will pursue evidences in those particles (like the rings of the trees in Eden) that suggest a prior existence. Thus, even those particles, to those scientists, will appear “old.” My point is simply that any view of origins at all implies apparent age. If there is an origin, the things at that origin will appear to be older than the origin.
There are problems with the apparent-age view. One concerns astronomical events such as supernovas. Judging from the time it takes visual evidence of a supernova to reach the earth, most scientists would judge that these events happened long before what young-earthers regard as the time of creation. Why would God make it appear as if a great event took place when, indeed, that event could not have happened in the time available since creation? Here, though, we must remind ourselves that all apparent age involves this problem. Any newly created being, whether star, plant, animal, or human being, if created mature, will contain data that in other cases would suggest events prior to its creation. If Adam and Eve were created mature, their bodies would suggest that they had been born of normal parents by sexual reproduction. Their bodies would suggest (on the presupposition of the absolute uniformity of physical laws and processes) that events had taken place that in fact never happened. Why the apparent supernovas? From God’s point of view, just another twinkle in the light stream for the benefit of mankind.
If that is not a sufficient answer, we should simply accept as a general principle that God creates beings in a way that is consistent with their subsequent role in the historical process. If Adam had a navel, that navel suggested an event that did not occur. But it also made him a normal human being, in full historical continuity with his descendants. Similarly, the starlight that God originally created would contain the same twinkles, the same interruptions and fluctuations, that would later be caused by supernovas and other astral events.
I find the type of explanation given above satisfactory as an answer to most problems of apparent age. One problem I find more difficult to deal with is the existence of fossils that seem to antedate by millions of years any young-earth date for creation. If God at the creation planted fossilized skeletons in rock strata, skeletons of organisms that never lived, why would he have done so except to frustrate geologists and biologists?
James B. Jordan has made some observations worth considering in this respect:
But what about dead stuff? Did the soil [during the original creation week—JF] have decaying organic matter in it? Well, if it was real soil, the kind that plants can grow in, it must have had. Yet the decaying matter in that original soil was simply put there by God. Soil is a living thing, and it lives through decaying matter. When Adam dug into the ground, he found pieces of dead vegetation.
This brings us to the question of “fossils” and “fossil fuels,” like oil and coal. Mature creationists have no problem believing that God created birds and fish and animals and plants as living things, but we often quail at the thought that God also created “dead” birds and fish and animals and plants in the ground. But as we have just seen, there is every reason to believe that God created decaying organic matter in the soil. If this point is granted, and I don’t see how it can be gainsaid, then in principle there is no problem with God’s having put fossils in the ground as well. Such fossils are, in principle, no more deceptive on God’s part than anything else created with the appearance of age.31
Jordan’s comments are bound to be controversial in some circles, but I think they deserve a thoughtful hearing. Other Christians believe the fossils can be completely accounted for by the dynamics of a worldwide flood. But I must exit the discussion here, to leave it in the hands of scientists operating with biblical presuppositions.[1]
31 James B. Jordan, “Creation with the Appearance of Age,” Open Book 45 (April 1999): 2.
[1] John M. Frame, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Christian Belief (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2013), 199–202.
The argument about fossils is, in my mind, less convincing than that for dead plants in newly created soil. Nevertheless, I thought it was worth pointing out and thinking about.
–TDR
The Chiastic Structure of the Bible and History and an Immediately Appearing Earth (Young Earth)
How did the physical universe get here? When you read Genesis 1, it reads like what I am titling, an “Immediately Appearing Earth” (IAE). In other words, the creation of or origin of the earth wasn’t a process. You will find many arguments for the young earth or immediately appearing earth. What does the Bible say? Or what does God say? Let’s admit, no one was there to see it, except for God, so we should trust what He said. God created the universe and He gave the account of what He did. If we believe He created it, we should also believe how He said He did it.
Genesis 1 doesn’t indicate a process to the origin of the earth. What we read is immediate appearance. The grammar and syntax of Genesis 1 show this, but the structure of the entire Bible also portrays it. The biblical authors very often wrote the narratives of Old Testament or Hebrews texts or passages in what is called a chiastic structure, also called an inverted parallelism.
The entire book of Lamentations takes the chiastic structure as well as it’s middle chapter. The chiastic structure of the whole book emphasizes the third chapter of five, and then the third chapter, the lengthiest of the five, three times longer than the other chapters, is also chiastic, giving a clue to the point of Lamentations. The central axis of the book is Lamentations 3:22-36. With none to comfort Jerusalem in her affliction, she comforts herself when she remembers that the LORD is merciful and compassionate, faithful and good to those who seek Him.
The Bible also point to an immediately appearing earth as seen in its structure. One could go much more detailed than the following, but consider this schematic.
The Bible starts with creation and ends with creation. The chiastic structure moves forward from the first creation, which is the doctrine of first things, and moves backward from second creation, the doctrine of last things. The Bible and history pivots on Jesus Christ. He is the beginning and the ending, the alpha and omega, but He is also everything in between. In the diagram above, the chiasm forms an apex, where Jesus stands at the top. That’s what this structure shows more than anything.
God creates in the first creation and in the second creation. They are parallel in the chiasm. If the second creation is an immediate appearing earth, which it is, then the first also is. It must be. Other parallels indicate all this is an existing structure. One that supports the position of an immediate appearing earth is that God provides the light for both the first creation and the second creation. It’s a kind of tip that says God doesn’t need our science. He does want our faith though.
Does anyone question the immediate appearance of the second earth? Does anyone posit a process for the future earth? They argue for a very slow process for the first earth and for reasons unnecessary if they believe in creation in the first place.
The ground out of which God formed Adam in Genesis 2:17 is the same ground out of which He formed the animals in Genesis 2:19, both Hebrew words for ground related to the Hebrew word for man, Adam. Animals appear instantaneously, as does Adam. None of this is a process. None reads like a process.
What makes Adam unique to the animals is the breath of God, the spirit in man (Genesis 2:7), breathed into him, which is the image of God in man (Genesis 1:26). This is not a development. Both animals and man appear with age at a necessary degree of difficulty, one of impossibility without the power of God, that is the same as the original appearance of the heavens and the earth. The Hebrew verb bara, to create something out of nothing, is used with heavens and earth (1:1), animals (1:21), and man (1:27).
Hebrews 11:3, “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.”
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I wanted to have the above post out last night and wasn’t sure I could write more. I want to point out at least one more chiastic structure that relates, I believe, to an Immediately Appearing Earth. Man immediately appeared with his own creation in Genesis 1 and the expansion on that account in Genesis 2. Man immediately is recreated in his resurrection and glorification. This structure matches that of the earth. Man waits for His redemption as does creation groan for its day of redemption (Romans 8:22).
Cosmology, the Big Bang, and the Creation Description in Isaiah 40:22
Cosmology is not a degree in cosmetics, even though distantly related; it means “the science of the origin and development of the universe.” Kosmos is the Greek word for “world.” All forms of that Greek word are found 187 times in the New Testament, translated, “world.” With this in mind, I ask you to consider Isaiah 40:22 and 45:12 (also Is 42:5, 44:24; Jer 10:12, 51:15) :
It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in.
I have made the earth, and created man upon it: I, even my hands, have stretched out the heavens, and all their host have I commanded.
Scientists look at space, “the heavens,” and what they see there looks, acts, and interacts like Isaiah 40:22 and 45:12 describe. If you start with what you see, the physical universe, you would say that Isaiah 40:22 and 45:12 describe it. How did Isaiah know? He didn’t have the information that modern day astronomers and physicists possess. He didn’t own a telescope. However, I will say that he had the information. It was given to him by God, because God stretched out the heavens as a curtain.
Scientists see an effect that is what Isaiah 40:22 and 45:12 describe, but with a naturalistic presupposition or bias, the Big Bang as the hypothesis. All the scientists see is the effect. There is no proof a big bang occurred. Before the Big Bang theory, Isaiah 40:22 and 45:12 were written. However, supernaturalism answers all the questions, connects all the dots.
The language of “stretcheth out the heavens” in Isaiah 40:22 and 45:12 affirm an expanding universe. It is from a Hebrew term, which was used in tentmaking. If any of you have erected a tent, you know that part of the process is stretching out or expanding outward the tent material. If creation is treated as a hypothesis or theory, there is epistemic support in the beginning of a finite, expanding universe. Concerning the big bang, the physicist who won the Nobel Prize for his discovery of cosmic background radiation, Arno Penzias, said:
The best data we have are exactly what I would have predicted, had I nothing to go on but the first five books of Moses, the Psalms, the Bible as a whole.
I like to compare what we see to walking on to a crime scene. No one but the one who committed the crime knows what happens. Everyone else is looking at the same evidence. No one is neutral. With the science, a creationist still approaches the physical evidence like a scientist.
One illustration I’ve read is a wet car in the drive way. Why is it wet? It’s wet, but the road is dry. The sky is blue. Not only that, but a bucket with a wet sponge sets beside the car on the driveway.
The more evidence we get, the more clues we have, the better or the more likely the explanation of divine creation. It doesn’t get easier to give a naturalistic explanation.
Where Does the Bias Toward Alien Life Come From?
I was watching an Olympic event this week and a commercial came on screen for Netflix with an alien on its craft, watching a stream of shows from space. Some might say it was just a joke, except that it isn’t for many, many people. It works as a concept because people think life out there is paying attention to what’s happening on earth. It’s a tolerable option now pushed by multitudinous science fiction productions.
Richard Dawkins said publicly in 2008, caught for the film Expelled, that since we don’t know how life originated in the first place, an “intriguing possibility” is that alien civilization evolved elsewhere and then “designed” and “seeded” the first life on earth. He may have taken that idea from a scientific paper in 1973 by Francis Crick and Leslie Orgel, which they called “directed panspermia.” Crick later revised this position, but these speculations highlight the trouble with the existence of evidence of design in the massive amounts of genetic information in DNA, what Dawkins, the famous atheist scientist, slipped out as an apparent “signature of some kind of designer.”
I actually hear often the alien explanation for life on earth when I’m out preaching the gospel. People know it isn’t an accident that we got here or that we are who we are with all of our complexity. They are unwilling to say it’s because of God, but they also don’t accept that we evolved at least here on earth from a common ancestor.
Are aliens a good answer for the existence of the colossal and labyrinth of complicated information at the core of human existence? Where does that bias toward alien life come from? Is it scientific?
The reach for alien life as an explanation for human origins defers to intelligent cause. The presence of the functionally specified digital explanation in DNA infers intelligent design. Are aliens an even reasonable explanation as the designers behind life on earth? Are aliens an adequate cause with the known power to produce the kind of effect of large amounts of specified information?
In the search for extraterrestrial intelligence scientists start with presupposition then of specified information contained in electromagnetic signals coming from space. However, radio astronomers have never yet found such information bearing signals. All of life on earth does have such information inscribed even in its simplest living cells. No evidence exists that infers anything from space is the causal agent for life on earth.
The speculation of alien origin of life on earth springs from a bias against a divine causal agent. It isn’t science. No science backs alien origin of life on earth.
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