Dr Albert Mohler, a past president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, in a Ligonier conference, does a great job of answering the question “Why Does the Universe Look So Old?” What follows is a mixture of his words and mine.
Many “experts” think this question is unimportant, so let’s begin there. Dr. Mohler, looking at it from a Biblical perspective, says the question is “extremely important; and we need to be ready to give an answer” to defend what we believe. So let’s find out why.
Here are relevant verses from God’s Word: Genesis 1:1-5, 21-23, 26-31, 2:1-2, 4a:
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. 4 And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day……21And God saw that it was good. 22 And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” 23 So the evening and the morning were the fifth day.
26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over ]all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28 Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth”; and it was so. 31 Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
2 Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. 2 And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day….4 This is the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created….
Dr. Mohler stresses that the emphasis on each "evening and morning" strongly suggests two things: 1) there was a sequence of creation, 2) Scripture strongly suggests seven, 24-hour days. If you start with the seven 24-hour days, and then add up generations in Scripture, and their lifetimes, it also suggests the creation of man was under 7,000 years ago; so it disagrees with what scientists surmise, which is that homo sapiens have some 200,000 years as an intelligent being. But a study of population growth using the "scientific" view suggests that when evolution says we became “hominoids,” in the millions of years that have passed since, we should be totally overrun with people. A younger earth hypothesis, in 7,000 years, comes closer to explaining current population, given past trends (we tend to repeat wars, famines, with regularity).
The younger earth, as suggested by Scripture, was believed almost unanimously by the church until the early 1800s. But challenges to the traditional reading of Genesis have emerged in the last 200 years:
1) The discovery of the geological record as a result of expeditions going to new corners of the globe after the Enlightenment of the late 1700s, led to questions. Fossils, and their strata, "seemed" to be telling a story different from Scripture, per the scientists of that day.
2) Then we had the emergence of Darwin’s publication on evolution, in 1859. Dr. Mohler reminds us that evolution was only a hypothesis already in circulation before Darwin; and since he really was motivated by pushing it and not Scripture, he therefore was not using scientific protocol in his level of assertion. A true scientist approaches a theory objectively, with no favorites. It's also true that science relies on repeatable observed events, so it is IMPOSSIBLE to have a theory of creation (since it is non-repeatable) that advances any further than speculation. To suggest anything further is not science, nor is it objective. It is tainted by the hypothesist's bias. Then why was evolution accepted with such acclaim? I maintain that people WANTED the theory to be true. As is the same today. Then they have no God, so they have no accountability to God for their behavior.
3) They discovered ancient Near Eastern parallels to Genesis, such as the Enuma Elish (a Babylonian epic of creation), and the Epic of Gilgamesh. Scholars began to think they were all the same; they were just man’s speculations on creation. There are a hundred reasons why the Bible is so far superior to the others, but they didn't explore that.
4) The development of higher criticism began to dominate thinking in the late 1700s. It’s also called the “documentary hypothesis.” They wanted to treat the Bible as a merely human document (with no thought about how supernaturalism does provably exist). They asserted that the writers did not receive inspiration from the Holy Spirit, so it is not inerrant. They attacked particularly the first five books of the Bible (the Pentateuch). One of their proofs is, Moses didn’t write all of the Pentateuch, as Scripture and Jesus asserts. The books have different writing styles (their proof on that is weak), so there were different writers. They thus called God a liar. They also insisted that some Books were written later than was previously believed, because it contained impossibly precise prophecies that came true. So they deny God's Word because they deny God, or they deny that He is interested in humanity--a low version of God's love for us, His creation. They can't accept God had a purpose in creating us. That's a low opinion of mankind, too.
Here's a case in point: The Book of Daniel, since it is filled with prophecies that came true after he died—is clearly implying these prophecies had to come from God, who knows the future--because of the specificity of the prophecies. So God was telling Daniel what to write, which upholds the Bible as inerrant in the original, and contains all Truth. Well, science had to attack this Book. Even though Daniel is listed as the writer in 4 places (chapters 8-10), and we all agree that he lived around 570 BC, they refused to accept those dates or him. So with an all-consuming desire to leave God out of it, when you look up Wikipedia on the Book of Daniel, they say it had to be written around 167-164 BC, which was “conveniently,” I add, after the last prophecy in the Book was fulfilled. So Wiki says an “anonymous writer,” was really just writing history, and pretending to be the "prophet" Daniel. Did you readers know that Wikipedia uses modern scientific cohorts for what they call "truth," and has constructed the name “Bible Wiki” to its version of the bible, which are often anti-God? They also say that part of Daniel is “legendary,” which suggests old-age oral transmission, thus full of errors. Of course, they don’t point out which part was “legendary,” but that way they get away with smearing Scripture anyhow, while avoiding confrontation if they were called out.
Let's point out a sore spot for science; they like to state a "truth"--but then they have to change it later. So science is a moving target, changing dates and order when new knowledge arises. Over the years, the universe’s birth date has been changed to older and older. The scientific consensus “right now” is that Earth and our solar system are approximately 4.5 billion years old. (These high numbers are convenient for evolutionists: they allow us to speculate gigantic changes in animal life, leaping out of families to a totally different "kind," for instance. (vs. Scripture, which stresses that every generation is “in its kind.” See above Genesis verses.)) They even have the audacity to suggest that apes evolved to man. That way they don't have to believe in a soul, or belief in a Higher Power's judgment over us. Of course, that’s just the way they like it. So even if we never see any bones suggesting such linkages or changes (and there ought to be millions, according to their theories), they insist we believe in science, not God, because they want us to be illogical and allow that it could happen, Given Enough Time. The universe is 13.5 billion years of age, they say. The difference between those two numbers is due to how the “Big Bang” hypothesis worked out. I hasten to add that the Big Bang theory is only 90 years old, and it began from a Catholic Jesuit, Georges Lemaître. A warning: other blogs show you I don't trust those men. Dr. Mohler notes that much of this scientific data comes from “physical extrapolation”—i.e., “walking back” using current cosmological trends and direction, and timing. This is using a theory called “uniformitarianism,” the idea that you can safely walk back millions of years, assuming that physical processes measurable now have always been measured the same, so you can measure them the same way in the past. Except evolution, of course, since leapage into other "kinds" ignores"uniformitarianism."
It’s easy to blow holes in uniformitarianism; processes don’t stay the same. A perfect example is the Flood. Despite how scientists suggest it was a local phenomenon, Scripture says it covered the whole earth, above the tops of the mountains. (Every ancient civilization we’ve “dug” had a story of a gigantic flood; if it were local, that wouldn’t have happened. Are we supposed to believe that all the writers’ imaginations from different points on the earth thought the same “fantasy” at the same time? No, because it’s not a fantasy—it really happened). Imagine how that Flood moved the strata; imagine the tremendous pressure under 25,000 feet of water; God could have generated oil in that one year. Ask any submariner about water pressure even 2000 feet down; he gets real nervous. Considering the changes that could be made under miles of water, we don't have to believe things were “uniform” (as science assumes) over the earth’s history.
It’s possible that the weather changed tremendously before and after the Flood. Christian scientists have proof all over the earth by digging up well-preserved mammoths and such that the Flood flashed a tidal wave of Ice Age freezing and a tsunami of frozen mud that preserved ancient creatures; you can even dig them out and see their blood vessels. Their fat, their skin, clearly show that they lived in the tropics—but they were discovered in the Arctic. No, they didn't float. I'm saying the temperatures in the Arctic were different before the Flood. So, no uniformitarianism on weather. Consider how the sun’s rays could gigantically differ before and after the Flood, assuming that the sky was blanketed with clouds, which then emptied themselves. That, it so happens, affects Carbon-14 dating, relied upon by scientists today to back up dating their speculations. Carbon-14 is effected from cosmic ray action, which is used to date bones and such. They like to assume cosmic rays have been uniform, but they weren’t. (Carbon-14 is only remotely accurate dating things to 60,000 years back, as scientists will admit; why they publish really old dates for some bone “using carbon-14” is an outright lie.) Scripture also records a drastic drop in average human life after the Flood, compared to before, with people living over 800 years, which suggests that there were heavy clouds sheltering us from toxic rays of the sun before the Flood, but we’re exposed to them now, so it shortens our lives.
Dr. Mohler now backs up and asks “why are we asking all this now?” His answer is the liberal shifting going on amongst “Christian” intellectuals and seminaries who are swallowing modern science whole (even though it is populated by anti-God agnostics) and which leads people to not trust God or Christian evangelicalism. Here are his cases in point:
1. Bruce Waltke (Reformed Professor of Old Testament at Dallas Theological Seminary and four other Christian seminaries) made a video and said that unless evangelicals accept evolution, “we will be reduced to the status of a theological cult.” So our occult leader is Jesus. Well, the Pharisees had the same unforgivable sin, attributing Jesus’ miracles to the occult father, Satan.
2. John Stott (Anglican cleric, at one time at the forefront of the evangelical movement), in the 1980s, suggested that Adam was “an existing hominid” that God plucked out of evolution’s slow progress as it went from hominid to hominin to homo sapiens, going from ape to man. Thus, God adopted him instead of creating him. God then ensouled him. (But that would suggest that God didn’t ensoul many of the same level of homo sapiens. Sounds like Calvinism “over the top” to me). He felt that Protestant beliefs became, unfortunately, “inward looking”--ie, separated from the real world. He was on a “holistic (combining) mission” to merge Christianity with secularism as much as possible. Scientists may have liked parts of Stott, but never will a scientist suggest that God gave men a soul; that would be to suggest that he was in the image of God. Maybe they’ll admit that if there were a God, He just gave Adam improved surroundings.
3. Denis Alexander (on National Committee of Christians in Science for almost 30 years, a prolific writer for Huffington Post, et al.), in his book, Creation and Evolution: Do We Have to Choose (spoiler: the answer he gives is NO--thus denying the truth of Scripture), has an intriguing quote: “God in His grace chose a couple of Neolithic farmers (!) to reveal Himself in a special way…so they might know Him as a personal God.” This “scientist” has, with such a quote, won acceptance by his scientific brothers. But the quote is an Insulting, Non-redemptive, and vague and aloof pronouncement. Thus he reveals more “modern scientist” and far less Christian. Don’t expect balance between those two approaches to data; there isn’t any. As any history buff will tell you from World War I; middle ground is only for dead people. Our Congress is learning that too, as they try to please everybody on the subject of abortion.
I could go on and on about other weak “evangelists,” but let’s comment quickly on the mainline scientists:
Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and formerly Christopher Hitchens (who has died) were the “four horsemen of new atheism.” Three of them are scientists. Dawkins said that Darwin has allowed him to become an “intellectually fulfilled atheist.” They argue that evolution is the “final nail in the coffin of theism (belief in God)." Of course, they cannot answer the simple question: “Where did the original matter come from?” You can’t generate a big bang from nothing. Here’s a scary quote: Dawkins says that deniers of evolutionary theory “should be scorned and marginalized as Holocaust deniers.” Ah, the elitist left, ready to mess with freedom of speech again. He says that it is “arcane” if anybody still calls evolution a “theory.” It is a fact that no intelligent person can deny, they tell us. Evolution is “the universal acid.” It destroys every belief we have about Christianity and creation.
So you can see that the scientists are cocky. Dr. Mohler cites an article in the New York Times, where the elitist author concludes: “I am frightened to live in a society where there are more people who believe in the virgin birth than in the fact of evolution.” You’ll be even more frightened on Judgment Day, friend.
The intellectual “Christians” also urge us to get "with it." Dr Peter Enns, a frequent author writing in BioLogos (an outgrowth of Biola “Christian” University) says we will “lose credibility in sharing the Gospel if we do not shed ourselves of our anti-intellectualism.” So God and His Word are anti-intellectual. (Do these people fear God at all?) Well, in partial answer to that, evolution suggests millions of deaths of half-ape/half-men (of which we can’t find a single bone without a hoax), all before the appearance of Adam, or a person in his eon of time. But Scripture clearly indicates Adam brought about sin, and that led to death. (Romans 5:12). Scripture thus says "no death until after Adam." None of his "progenitors." This placement of death is extremely important; shall we shoot the lethal effects of sin backwards a million years, and throw away a critical part of the Gospel? Evolutionists say death had to happen before Adam. Which do you believe? In God's Plan, it was Upon Adam that we have the whole doctrine of sin nature, and its dire result; it’s important to get that right in represting the Gospel. Go with Scripture, I say.
What do the "compromisers" say, who want to "respect" Scripture, yet be more "scientific"? Scripture does not leave ground to compromise: Consider Gen. 2:4, which bluntly says: “this is the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created.” There are many more scientific proofs to the Scriptural order of events, too (See AnswersinGenisis.org for a much better treatment).
2. We need to look at the compromiser theories, so we know what to expect in case we want to evangelize someone that tries to combine science and the Word. Let's start with their "Day-Age” view. This says the Hebrew word “yom” (day or Day) does not always mean 24-hours. Each “yom” could be millions of years. God could have taken millions of years to do His thing. That leaves them room to throw in evolution, which throws in death before Adam. Just because a million atheist scientists say something, I am not intimidated to deny my belief in God's Word, which has hundreds of prophecies that have come true, and a thousand other facts enshrining its supernatural truth. I will not deny my Lord who has saved me from hell.
3. The Gap theory. Let's observe Gen. 1:1, 2, written with the help of the words of Chuck Missler, an expert in Hebrew and real science:
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. But the earth became without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters
Looking at the underlined words, the verse should begin with "but," a better translation of the Hebrew. This suggests a change in the plan has interrupted. Since all God created was called "good" (see the verses above), how did the earth become "without form and void?" Without form and void, could also mean "confused" and "waste," further emphasizing that a change has taken place from God's good creation. This all suggests there was possibly some disaster that possibly ruined the earth, making it confused and waste, and perhaps God started all over again, making another perfect earth for Adam and Eve.
Finally, since we assume God created the angels as obedient servants, when did He do that? Job 38:4, 6, 7 tell us that at the beginning of time; they were with God at creation:
“Where were you (Job) when I laid the foundations of the earth? ...Or who laid its cornerstone,
7 When the morning stars sang together, And all the sons of God shouted for joy?
As the Septuagint tells us (an Old Testament used by the apostles), the "sons of God" were translated "angels," which were there aat our creation, all worshiping God at His marvelous feat, as the verse says. So all were obedient at that time, we can safely speculate. BUT, later, when God creates Adam and Eve, Eve is tempted by a "serpent," who may have been beautiful and standing prior to the curse which made him slither on the ground. This serpent was the evil Satan. He persuaded Eve to be disobedient to God. As other Scriptures point out (see Isaiah 14:12ff), Satan was an angel--a fallen one, an evil one. So the big question is: When did some of the angels fall? Possibly it was during the "Gap" between Gen. 1:1 and 2, if we speculate that the earth was their environment. God judged earth when He judged their disobedience when they fell. Then God started from the "void" and "confused" earth; He props up its orderliness again (but with scars), so now you can read the rest of Genesis, beginning with chapter 1:3, for the "non-hidden" creation.
Note that evolution is not required under the "gap" theory either, but they will throw it in to make it appear they are scientific.
Finally, there are two options which are pretty much alike in their anti-God symmetry; there is the “framework” theory, that suggests Genesis 1 is not history at all. It’s just a story, a literal way to express the providential creation by God. We are not to trouble ourselves by length of time, or if they are sequential. The other option goes farther; it denies the historicity of the entire book of Genesis, by suggesting that is simply a parallel ancient Near Eastern text, written for Israel. It is a creation myth, a mythological rendering that marks the beliefs of the ancient Hebrews.
But only a young earth maintains the historicity of Adam, from whom the entire doctrine of Sin, and of our sin nature, explains. Dr. Mohler, who believes as I do that the Bible is God’s inerrant Word, asserts that creation was in six, 24-hour days, even though that belief is scorned. His quote: “It seems to me that God gave us this text with such rich detail and sequential development” so we wouldn’t think His Word is “vague” on specifics, allowing us to stretch the truth or to “speculate.” How can we toss Scripture with such rich content, and accept a theory that ignores what God is specifically saying? Anyway, I totally agree with him. Of course, neither of us are scientists, so the scorning wouldn’t be by our workmates. If you’re wanting more science, a beautiful explanation of the Flood occurs on Youtube—look for: www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRoQL7W5jg8&ab_channel=YoungEarthCreation
The scorning still would come, from people that we try to bring the Gospel to. When you imagine Noah answering questions by neighbors asking about the giant boat he was making on land, he had many chances to speak about God and judgment and Old Testament Gospel (II Peter 2:5). Scripture records that he didn’t see a single soul saved. It was only his closest family that he was able to drag into the ark (I wonder if they even believed him). This age has parallels in people having no need of God; this is the Laodicean age, I believe (Rev. 3:14ff). Many people say that they are Christians, but they never consider retracting from the world, or changing their lifestyles of sin, or worry (or hear from their pastors) about judgment. They are not concerned about pleasing or forming a relationship with God, or obeying Him. This is hell-bound thinking (see John 15:1-6 for proof). They are equally deceived, and will scorn us too. Noah was peculiar; he feared God (see Hebrews 11:7). Nobody else outside his family did, and few people do now (Hebrews 12:25).
Dr. Mohler maintains that there is a “theological cost” of progressive evangelicals attaching to the "old earth" theories (the Gap and Day-age), which they are not thinking seriously about. They are not concerned enough of the need for integrity in interpretation, or to consider what they are messing with (a warning is in Rev. 22:18-19). Every word in the Bible is inspired by the Holy Spirit. Let me lay out the main guts of the Bible they’re playing with: We have, in Genesis 1-3, in as few carefully picked words as possible, God’s redemption narrative: namely, Creation, Fall, and Redemption (the redemption, in Gen. 3:15, tells that Eve, or a descendant of hers, was to bear a Son that would give a mortal blow to evil, and redeem man who loved God). Looking at the first 3 chapters, I can see why“the doctrine of Creation is absolutely inseparable from the doctrine of Redemption.” The same themes, plus the Consummation (Judgment to Hell, or New Creation), run together in that order throughout the Bible. Just as God had to kill an animal, and shed its blood, to provide a covering to wear for Adam and Eve’s sin, He knew from the earth’s beginning that the blood of His Son would have to be shed to provide a covering to protect us from His holy wrath.
Therewith, God shows us the answer to many questions: How everything came to be, and why. (It also shows that God is not at fault for the sad condition on earth). He created the angels originally with the power to choose; some chose evil, and went to work for Satan. God of course knew that some of the angels would fall--because He gave His creation freedom of choice. Do we choose to follow God, or Satan? Do we give glory to God, or do we choose the world, and cause Satan to laugh in God’s face, for our sinful behavior, as he does as the Accuser in Job (Job 1:6ff)? “It is a purposive account of why the universe was created. In the theater of His glory,” He is demonstrating, even before Creation, that He has a way of escape from what we deserve, and still be a Just God. In Redemption, we see His mercy and love as conquering all obstacles, even our sin--if we truly follow Him. A sovereign God creates each one of us with a soul, but being sinful we fall, but God has a plan, repeated over and over, for our release from the prison of sin. I wouldn’t want to mess with that.
I wouldn’t want to distract people from God’s truth, by getting on any sidelight of evolution. Ride with those four horsemen into hell? No thanks.
By the way: you cannot argue that “multiple translation and copying introduces errors.” As we find more ancient texts, they do not change one word of Hebrew, so there are not “other translations” to throw us off what is right in front of us. I think God, on purpose, knowing when we first consider His Word, that we might start with Genesis. He might introduce supernaturalism right away, and force us into a decision--supernatural, or rational?--right away: we have to decide, do we want to accept the world or Him, right in the first chapter of the Bible. Faith in Him, or not? He may want us to accept things that are peculiar or run against society, but that’s what faith is all about.
As you can see from above, we are opening, very widely, a Pandora’s box if we accept anything but 24-hour days. I might add that scientists should do more study, and publish more articles, that seriously consider the Bible account. There is a lot of science backing up the Bible, but it is censored from the media, and the accurate reporting still goes on, but only by several dedicated Christians with smaller audiences. So they are automatically considered wacko, and “real scientists” won’t seriously read past Page One of their publications. (Just try to write a graduate thesis that is "so non-scientific.") There is a good book, with articles written by 50 different scientists, where they deal with the "clashes" of Scripture vs. "science." Evidence for God: 50 arguments for faith from the Bible, it's called.
Truth is, believers were the first wave of true scientists in the Enlightenment, because Scripture, heavily read at the time, teaches us that revealed nature is intelligible. When the Catholics suppressed Scripture, people believed in superstition. The vast majority of people did not know that God told Paul in Romans 1 that His invisible attributes are clearly seen, and can be understood. This verse was a spur to science by the believers. Galileo, in the 1600s, said that the believer ought to be accountable to the book of nature and to the Scripture. We can only add this modification to improve on his statement: an idea is morally acceptable only if you start from the anchor of truth, Scripture, and measure happenings from that as your vantage point. If they don’t seem to agree, you dig further, simply as an explanation of Scripture. Now, the opposite seems to be the quest. The Flood is the best case in point, totally wrecked by “scientists.” One could wish that today’s scientists knew what they are fooling with; God’s wrath is also revealed from heaven in Romans 1 (v.18), and one could also wish that they knew the eternal cost of distorting the truth. Let’s give the relevant verses, which seems to fit most modern scientists so well:
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, 19 because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. 20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, 21 because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Professing to be wise, they became fools…who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them.
As is typical in the New Testament, “death” means hell. Fools and hellbound. Such is the destiny of many scientists who suppress the truth of Creation.
No comments:
Post a Comment