The Question of Creation
When I speak as a Bible teacher and I open up the conversation for questions, I typically get questions in one of two directions – sex or science.
Periodically, I travel and speak to a group and am introduced as an atheist (the listeners actually are in a skit in which they are led to believe that I am an atheist) and the audience and I have a conversation in which they are allowed to ask the atheist anything they want to ask. By far, the most common issues are about science.
I have been troubled by the incredible lack of scientific understanding that most people who claim the name of Christ have.
I know that not everyone is a scientist and not everyone needs or has to be a professional, but this world that God has created is amazing and fascinating! In my opinion, everyone is a theologian… some are bad at it and some are good at it. I believe the same thing about science. You are a student of the natural world and you have opinions about it.
You may have no idea what you are talking about, but you have opinions.
I believe that Romans 1, among other passages, reveals to us that God’s creation reveals a lot about Him! It is a wonderful thing when a Christ follower is enchanted enough with God’s creation to systematically study it… and that is what a scientist is.
I know it isn’t just Christians, but probably everyone in the Western world… but we should be motivated! When God is introducing Job to His power, He points to the natural world – animals, stars, etc.
This level of serious ignorance causes Christians to say scientifically very silly things, like:
References to the “fact” that men have one less rib than women do because of God using a rib from Adam to make Eve.
I will give you a second to count them…. Same number of ribs in both genders.
or
“God would never start with a single cell to create a human.”
Let that marinate for a second.
…..
Pretty sure that every single time a human being comes into existence, God starts us as a single cell which we call a zygote.
* * * * * * * *
However, I think I understand why many Christians, who know little of science, have a science-phobia. They have bought into the idea that if we can understand the process, the designer/creator is explained away.
This is very silly. It borders on being nonsensical, in my opinion.
It is bad enough when secularists buy into this “god-of-the-gaps” mentality; a god who can be explained away with something as simple as a process is not a sound theological concept.
It is much crazier, and much less excusable, for believers to make this mistake.
Isn’t it your experience that the more complex a process is, the more likely it is intentional?
A watch, a gun, a car, etc… these operate by complex processes. Would it be rational to accept the assumption that they had no designer? That there was no intentionality behind their existence?
Does understanding the processes by which a revolver operates in any way indicate that Col. Colt did not exist? Does 
understanding how the combustion engine works does not somehow explain away Henry Ford? Of course not. Aposteriori (with experience) thinking shows us clearly that complex processes, at least typically, have a designer.
I say this only because in this world, it is becoming common for secular scientists (Sam Harris is famous for it) to present any belief in God as essentially mental illness. Quite the contrary, it is very rational to believe in a designer/creator.
As a believer, I should not be threatened by understanding a process theory – a theory that explains “how” something happens.
Knowing the rain cycle does not mean that it is not God who “makes it rain.” (Jer 5:24) In fact, the incredible complexity even of something as simple as the water cycle motivates me to ask “why” and “who.”
Some secularist are so uncomfortable with these questions, that they seem unable to accept that the questions exist at all! I talk more about this in the series that series is here.
I understand why many in the secular world, whether scientific in their mindset or not, think of theistic thinking as the enemy. Though I understand how many theists have gotten to the point of thinking as scientific thinking as the enemy, it should not be that way.
Both the “natural” sciences and theology are seeking the true statement. The purpose statement of both are completely integrate-able. In fact, there are many who have made a point of showing the obvious and perhaps necessary connections between good theological thinking and the roots of good scientific thinking.
The two paradigms are not contradictory. For centuries, this has been the case. Why, then, is has there become such a divide?
We will pick up there next time… click here for part II
Just because we believe that God isn’t “in the room” to interact with us on our discussion, doesn’t mean he hasn’t already addressed it. He warns against “traditions of men” and “science falsely so called.” The theory of evolution has been around in one form or another for millennia – it’s nothing new.
To your point about the water cycle. This is a repeatable, observable and measurable cycle, and has nothing whatsoever to do with origins, which are not repeatable, measurable or observable. They are in the past, and so require a completely different method to approach them. For example, can I scientifically prove that Abraham Lincoln was President? No, I cannot place Lincoln in test tube or bring him into a lab for observation. The method to prove his existence is completely different, and requires a legal/historical (forensic) approach to the evidence.
So if in this context (the historical past) God claims that he did something but we claim that he did not, we can be sure that God is not sleeping. He has asserted that his testimony is accurate and we are coming behind him to claim that it is either incomplete or inadequate? Think about if we witnessed something and testified to it in court, but another witness came forward to refute our claim by “forensic reconstruction”. We know what we saw, we were eyewitnesses to it. The other “witness” wasn’t there and didnt’ eyewitness it. Which version of history should carry more weight?
And if the jury took sides with the forensic version, they are essentially calling you a liar. It’s that simple.
There is plenty of scientific evidence available today to dismiss the idea of an old earth and cosmos, and to refute evolution. People only cling to these concepts becaue they will not accept the alternative. They will hold out hope that another scientist will find the answer, but they will not conclude that God exists.
So let’s not mix the contexts. Origins is a forensic exercise. The problem is, we cannot even use the method of a Crime Scene Investigator because the CSI has a known baseline of experimental data that he references in order to deduce the forensic conclusions. He will, in his labs, repeat certain conditions or observations, and then apply their outcomes to either validate or falsify the crime scene conditions and conclusions. We have no such baseline of evidence to compare anything to. There is no other planet with a known age of millions of years. There is no “universe #2” with a known age that we can use to validate the claims of the age of our universe.
The point however, is that a CSI will tell you that the trail grows cold with every passiing moment. And if the crime isn’t solved within 24 hours, the passing of time washes away the context of the evidence. It is not the evidence that gets lost, but the context. Once context is lost, the evidence is meaningless. What does this say about tens of years, thousands of years, or millions of years. The context is utterly lost, and we need something to provide a context for it all. What does the evolutionary narrative have? Nothing – it is self-validating. Can we compare what scientists find in the earth and see if it dovetails with the Genesis account? We can,and we do.
The problem here is “starting points”. If I have an atheistic starting point, this will be the lense through which I view all data. If I have a creation-centric starting point, this too will guide my conclusions. There is no such thing as a human mind that is free of bias.
Case in point, if you look at me and have no way of knowing how old I am, the only thing you can do is compare me to other humans who look similar to me, provided that you can objectively determine their age also. If I have the “progeria” disease, then I will look 90 years old when I am only 10 years old. Age is not an intrinsic property of matter. It is assigned by a human mind after a process of comparative analysis. Even if we have a birth certificate, this document exists outside of the object under consideration, and itself was produced by the minds of other humans. It remains that age is not a property of matter.
In the case of “old earth” theories, there is no baseline of comparison (nothing on the earth can be accurately or objectively measured beyond a few thousand years). If we want to take this measurement method backward in time, we are accepting on faith that this will yield an accurate result, but there’s no way to independently test it.
More importantly, there’s no way to know “what else happened” to the evidence over the course of the millions of years. Did the processes to create the evidence change? Did the processes preserving the evidence remain the same? These are all open questions for all evidence, most especially fossils. If a CSI should misstep or lose custody of evidence, the chain-of-custody is broken and there is no objective trail leading back to the crime scene. What of the chain-of-custody of things that have been in the earth for (purportedly) millions of years? With the earth (even today) exhibiting violent and even catastrophic behavior, can we truly rely on the notion that those fossils have remained “undisturbed” all this time? Not even water percolation or other processes have affected them? We can presume this, but it’s not science -it’s a matter of faith.
The evolutionary narrative suggests that an animal dies, falls over and gets covered with dust, and later fossilizes. This sounds reasonable until we compare it to the real world, where animals die, fall over and are eaten or decay before any of these processes can even get started. The vast majority of fossils were buried rapidly, in water-laid stone, by the billions. This strongly suggests that a catastrophe of epic proportions buried them in mass quantity.
Is this what you mean by looking at the evidence in the earth? A creationist says that the fossils are the product of a fairly recent, global flood, and is a record-of-death. An evolutionary thinker would claim that the fossils were laid down gradually and represents a history-of-life.
Both cannot be correct – they are polar opposites to one another.
So to your point, yes we can use science to measure a water cycle. We cannot use science to measure things that have happened in deep-time. These require a forensic/reconstructive model that cannot rely on the required observation, repetition and measurement. Nor do we have a known baseline to compare them against. Nor can they be falsified (a requirement of science) because there is no means to go back in time to repeat the event and gather evidence that would serve to falsify the theory. By this, the practice of science is very, very limited.
Take a look at the “scientific method” on Wiki, you will find that the scientific method can be used to falsify, but cannot be used to “prove”. People generally misunderstand how truly limited science is.
I noted in another response some measurable processes that defy evolution and the notion of an old earth. There are hundreds of these kinds of observations, all across every discipline of science. The secular scientfic community is aware of them, but they dismiss them in the hopes that another scientist will “figure it out” and provide a reasonable refutation. In short, they take evidence that falsifies their theory, and holds out hope that another scientist will falsify the falsification.
I must be unfamiliar with the phrase “science falsely so-called”… I guess that is the KJV of I Timothy 6:20. I do not see how in the context Paul was warning against Empirical evidence or historical knowledge. Just because it is not a believer who discovers something accurate, that does not make it inaccurate. All Truth is God’s Truth… no matter who states it.
Incidentally, I see you are very familiar with Hamm’s scientific knowledge vs historical knowledge theory. I have never been able to subscribe to this beyond anything other than a division of Epistemology that is not necessary. As I mentioned in the original text… they are both efforts at doing to knowledge and truth.
The primary reason why people do not wish to engage the debate is that they don’t think origins matter. They say – what does it matter how we arrived? Now that we’re here, let’s get to work.
I recall a skit where we conscripted four teenagers. One of them came into the big group and introduced the second one as her visitor. A third one stood up and said that the visitor had come with her. They started fighting over which one had brought the visitor to the class. The fourth one stood up in the audience and asked “why are you fighiting? what does it matter how he got here?” This is when the first and third teenagers turned on the fourth: “Are you calling me a liar? Is that what you’re saying?”
When this was well-lathered, we stopped everything and hung placards on each of the first three: God, Adam, Man. Both God and Man have words to say about how Adam (or at least “mankind”) arrived on earth. If you take sides with one, the other one defacto calls you a liar. Both of them have specific words to say about how man arrived. We cannot choose to accept both, because neither will tolerate it. God asserts that he specifically and deliberately made man in his own image. He does not say that he formed man over many eons through accumulating cells. Nor does he say he engaged a wastefule and cruel process to bring about something he would eventually call “very good”.
Moreover, John Sanford’s book Genetic Entropy and the Mystery of the Genome makes the case that the human genome is decaying over time and that mankind, as are all living things – are devolving to extinction. Even today the major scientific groups who monitor biology and ecosystems say that we are witnessing the greatest extinction event since the dinosaurs. The animal populations are not dying because of poaching – they have always been poached. They are dying because their reproducitive cycles are slowing down and are less productive. This is a loss-of-function we would expect if their genomes are decaying. Based on Scripture, which claims that this heaven and earth will pass away and be replaced with a new heaven and new earth, we can surmise that God never intended this heaven-and-earth to last forever. That the genomes are decaying is to be expected. In evolutionary terms however, this cannot stand.
So which is it? Are the genomee getting better with time, or getting worse? In one science textbook, it says that all sciences recognize the effect of decay, except for biology. Why? “because evolution is true”. Well, now we see that science will set-aside universal truths if they challenge their belief in evolution. But what if evolution isn’t true and biology isn’t exempt? Things aren’t getting better with time, but are getting worse.
Do a google search on cancer and miscarriage. The rates of cancer in humans are rising out of control. As are the rates of miscarriage. And this is worldwide. Both of these are indicative of a loss-of-function centered in generational genetic decay.
God claims to have built each animal and plant deliberately and specifically, and this is exactly what we see in the real world. There are no cross-overs between types of animals or plants. If evolution were true, the fossils and the living systems would be so replete with transitional forms we would not be able to tell the difference between them.
When Darwin saw different finch beaks in the Galapagos, he thought he was seeing “new” functions. If he had stayed long enough to witness one of their multi-year climate droughts, he would have seen the food supply change and the finch beaks all over the island change too. When the climate event ends, the beaks go back to how they were. The varying beaks are an adaptive feature of the finch – this adaptability is pervasive throughout the living systems. Now that it is decaying, they are less adaptable, and are specialized to their habitats. If the habitat substantially changes, they cannot adapt and go extinct. As God has built each genome, they were originally perfect ahd hyper-adaptive, like a Swiss-Army knife. The animal population could adapt again and again, specializing to habitats all over the world.
Once one fully investigates the claims of evolutionary scientists and compares their claims to the data – we reach a singular conclusion: evolution is poor science. The Big Bang even more so.
All that said, the evolutionary narrative is bankrupt. The argument for the origin of life on Earh is so lost now, that practically every scientist is looking to the stars for the answers – that life was “seeded” here from elsewhere in the universe because the laws of physics and chemistry on Earth preclude the possibility of it forming on earth.
Did God create the first cell and then “guide” the process? He claims that he created everythng in six days, no protracted cell-development required. If we want to try to forklift this account into the bankrupt theory of evolution – oh wait – why would we want to do this? Evolution is bankrupt and has been falsified in so many ways. Why would we want to take a theory that embraces death, struggle and cruelty, and attribute such a wasteful process to God? It is certainly more honoriting to God to accept his version of the account. And it is certainly more intellectually honest to reject the interpretation of secular scientists.
After all, we all have the same data and the same evidence. We don’t all have the same interpretation of it. An atheist will interpret the data in terms of a universe without God. A Christian will interpret the evidence in terms of a universe with God. The two will reach difference conclusions because they have different starting points.
Moreover, anyone who attempt to “clarify” Genesis One with a contrived account of origins, is simply saying that they don’t believe God’s words, that God’s words in Genesis One cannot be trusted to be a true account of origins.
And if it cannot be trusted to be a true account of origins, what do we do with Christ? He quoted from Genesis, mostly chapter One, more times than all other books combined. To him, Adam, Eve, One Flesh, Noah, Flood, etc were all real events and people, and he didn’t bother to correct anyone on their beliefs about origins (and we know that Jesus wasn’t shy about correcting the beiefs of another). If he had claimed (to the Pharisees for example) that God didn’t really create in six days, but used some other process – this would have been earth-shattering to them, perhaps even more so than claiming to be their creator.
Was Jesus a liar? Was he completely mistaken about how things started? Or was he telling the truth? We need to be careful how we answer these questions.
If Adam came from a pre-human, and humans in general are just advanced apes, then Jesus was also an advanced ape. And we can conclude that when God made Adam in his image, that God must look something like an ape as well, just a very advanced one. So not!
Origins matter.
Josh, of all your responses so far, this one is the one that I find most to disagree with. The exact case that I am making is that it may be that both of them brought the friend. Your understanding is that by definition if one says something, the other must see it as a lie. Your analogy is not accurate to the situation. The exact case that I am making is that this is not necessarily the case. A correct interoperation of the Genesis account does not require a 6 23 hour, 50 some odd minute day interpretation. The world claims that the water cycle explains the process of water movement… but the Bible says that it is God that makes it rain. Which one is lying about who brought the friend? Neither. However, if the believers claims that there is no such thing as the water cycle, he/she is in error. If the secularist claims that there is no God just because we know the water cycle, they are in error. I believe both are true and therefore avoid both errors. Of course origins matter. I am not sure what article you were responding to, but it wasn’t this one. Obviously I think origins matter… I wrote a multi-part series of articles about it.
Chris, you should invite Mom to one of your atheist things if you still do them, so that she can feel less guilty about all those years of fighting with you. It was good training.
haha – I may be doing it at Pine Cove at the Shores some this summer… I will have to do that. Does she feel guilty about it 😉
“can be integrated” or combinable, unifiable. “The purpose statement of both harmonize.” (coincide, correspond, go hand in hand) All of these are real words, big bro. better choices 🙂 love ya. good work 🙂