The more I learn and am involved in life, I see the book of Genesis everywhere, including in pagan cultural icons. It one thing I love about God: you can’t escape Him. Even though many of the images and pictures of Genesis that remain in culture are certainly corrupted, the mere idea of such things had to come from somewhere; that somewhere is the actual history that Genesis records. What things? Let’s explore.
The Chinese language itself embeds the account of Genesis directly into its language. Here are some examples: “boat” is built from "eight people in a vessel." “Covet” is built from “two trees” and “women.” “Create” is the combination of “speak, dust, life, walk, and mud.” Where would that idea come from? The only logical answer is the history from Genesis. No, the Chinese people did not read Genesis and get the idea from there. They actually got it passed down their lines that literally trace directly back to Japheth, one of the survivors of the Flood, whose descendants populated that part of the world.
Don Richardson was a missionary to the tribes of Ira Jaya and Papua New Guinea. In his books Peace Child and Eternity in Their Hearts, Richardson noted how in many of these tribes, there not only was a knowledge that a true God was out there, but that their origin stories had a lot of similarities to what Genesis says. The skeptics point to the Flood similarities between Gilgamesh and Noah as evidence that Genesis got its ideas from Babylon, but how did the other cultures all around the world get the same ideas? It wasn’t from local catastrophes because local catastrophes don’t do what these myths come close to doing. Even with exaggeration, it would never compare. The only logical conclusion is that all these tribes heard from their ancestors about the same events.
But it gets more interesting. I am a video game player. I won’t call myself a heavy gamer, but I still play. I recently noticed a variety of Genesis references in a number of the games. Tales of Symphonia was originally released for the Nintendo GameCube, and today it is released for the Switch. The story centers around the “Tree of Mana.” There is a series of games called the Mana series because they have titles like “Secret of Mana,” “Legend of Mana,” “Dawn of Mana,” and others. But this “mana” has a source: a tree. In all these games, this legendary tree is so big, strong, and mighty that is known to be the source of life. Mana itself in these games is symbolic of life and the building blocks of life. And it hit me where they got this idea from.
Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (Switch) centers around the “World Tree” where the “Architect” dwells and where one can reach “Elysium.” I am not sure about the etymology but this “World Tree” or “Tree of Mana” has another name: Yggdrassil. The list goes on. All seem to have one thing in common: a reference to the Tree of Life from Genesis. It’s not the same thing, but the idea of a tree bearing the source of life and being primarily inaccessible through most of the game sure has some striking similarities.
These games do not pull from Christian themes very much. They purpose to not represent Christianity specifically, though some games do play on somewhat Catholic themes such as Tales of Symphonia where the world is run by the “Church of Martel” headed by a “Pope,” or Final Fantasy X where the world worships “Yu Yevon” with their own priests calls “maesters.” Some games like Xenoblade Chronicles have “gods” as the primary villains, but I notice that each of the gods that play villains never demonstrate to be like a true God, but a corrupt being that only has great power, but not limitless power.
There are movies and games that reference Noah and the Flood. The movie 2012 was a disaster flick about the end of the world as predicted by the Mayans (not really, that’s just when their calendar ran out of space), and to save life, the governments built “arks” from a “global flood” that wiped out everything except Africa. The game Astral Chain is about the last remnants of society living on an island called “the ark,” and then the final boss is named Noah. Again, this is a corruption of the account, but where would one get the idea of an “ark” that would save mankind from a disaster? It does not make sense unless there truly was a historical event in which a man named Noah did save all life via an ark from a worldwide aquatic disaster.
There is the Garden of Eden itself. I already referenced to Xenoblade Chronicles 2, which centers around the search for Elysium – paradise, where the Architect lived so they could find out what was wrong with the world as life was dying. There was even a movie that came out a few years ago called Elysium where there was an ideal, perfect utopia, only to find out that underneath was where all the garbage lay and the outcasts who didn’t play to the ideal system. In both cases, the dream world turned out to be a farce and a façade.
Even the time-traveling adventure game Chrono Trigger, considered one of the best video games ever made, centers around Evolution’s history as seven heroes seek to defeat a world-destroying parasite named Lavos. In one of the side quests, the characters debate how they got on the adventure, and they suggest that some “entity” wanted them to see all those events and resolve some regrets. Even in the evolutionary worldview games, there still seems to be some notion of a God out there and the history that is recorded in Genesis 1-11. Again, it is corrupted, hardly resembling the real thing, and often attempting to overthrow or discard such systems, but the mere mention or fact of these things out there shows that God hides the truth about Him in all these different cultures so that no one has an excuse.
This brings a whole new meaning to how it is Jesus who lights up the world, and that every person is given some light. Some games follow the religious aspects, and some games reject them and seek to show the overcoming of such things, but the fact is that God and the history of Genesis 1-11 are embedded into every culture, including in video games and movies. They can’t escape God even if they tried. Even if they make the Christian symbols the bad guys, they cannot escape God. When I started making these connections, I began to worship God and how amazing He is, and I hope you do too.
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There is a huge debate and controversy these days about whether Scripture should be our primary authority or not. After all, there are a lot of scholars who have come up with some pretty compelling theories regarding science that are hard to argue against. Or so goes the claim. How can we take the Bible seriously when we have all these scientific studies that show things differently than what the Bible says? Are the studies of nature wrong, or is the Bible not meant to be taken as written, and what God actually meant would be revealed through nature? Since “creation” and “Scripture” “cannot contradict,” is the science wrong or is our understanding of Scripture wrong? Which way do we turn?
In the Christian community, there are “Old Earth Creationists” who comprise the bulk of the academics today, the seminaries, and universities who consistently and adamantly bow before the “man of knowledge,” the “scientist,” because there is nothing in this world that trumps modern academia today. Last week, I wrote about this “man of knowledge,” quoting Martyn Lloyd-Jones about it, and I basically asked this question: why are these scientists, who predominately do not consider God in any of their thinking, given such high platforms, other than they had been chosen to be the ones to replace God? Who made these scientists so prominent? They did. Who taught these scientists what they know? They did. It’s all a self-promotion and a deifying of self in this system. Now to be fair, there are genuine and true scientists still out there seeking what God actually did when He created this universe and then judged this planet with a global flood during Noah’s time. But they are few today.
What does the Bible say about creation, namely man’s studies of creation because they are not the same? One thing should be clear: the Bible always puts Scripture ABOVE any of man’s academic studies and the fields themselves. Never is Scripture shared with any other authority. You never find such a notion, and anyone who claims it can always puts that authority above Scripture. They are never held equal even when tried. It doesn’t matter what the authority is or the field of study. Any attempt to make it equal to Scripture has failed because either Scripture won outright, or the false authority was put ahead by false teachers.
Many people cite Psalm 19:1, “The heavens declare the glory of God” as a prooftext that God created the earth over millions of years. The logical leap in that claim is simply astounding, but I would argue that they should read the rest of the Psalm. The first six verses of Psalm 19 describe what the Psalmist sees in his day and calls it part of God’s creation. But then look at vs 7. “The Law of the Lord is perfect….” Perfect. That term is never used to describe creation, especially after the curse of sin. “Very good” is used, and while God did a perfect job, creation, obviously, was corruptible. But Scripture is not. Many try, however, and what they put forth is a product that does not resemble what God did. Man’s sin brought a curse upon the earth. No amount of human tampering can actually harm the Bible – individual physical books maybe, but the actual content of the message, no. Not in the long run.
People don’t realize that this physical creation we study is going to burn in fire. Even when that happens, God’s Word is going to remain until all is fulfilled. The only time any of us will not need a Bible is when we are in paradise with God being with Him and enjoying Him forever. All our scientific studies are just wood, hay, and stubble. They will burn, too. They gain us nothing. And I say that as a science teacher. I love science. I love studying and learning how things operate. But what good does it do us? We have technology, but that has both its benefits and problems. If our technology suddenly died, we’d all be dead. We wouldn’t know how to live or breathe. How did people for 5900 years survive without air conditioning? Think about that.
The more I engage in academia and the more I see the futility of it, I see what Solomon saw: “Vanity, vanity! All is vanity!” Paul saw it. He looked at all his accolades and all his studies, and he would have been the top dog of the top dogs. None were his equal. And he threw it all away as dung because the search for the knowledge of Christ was so far above and beyond the rest. Just think about it. You can study science and creation for ten million years and long before that limit, you will hit the wall, the end of knowing all possible things regarding creation. It is finite. You can know all there is to know about biology, history, archeology, geology, astronomy, etc., and you will hit the limit. But if you study just Scripture, you could do so for all eternity and never begin to reach the depths of its riches. That’s just Scripture. What about God Himself? That is the one reason we will never be bored in heaven and in paradise: we will still be finite people learning about the infinite God.
Look at Psalm 29. This psalm alone is a worship song that puts the voice of God above all things seen in nature. The creation was never designed to be worshiped but to reveal the glory of God. What we see in nature gives us no excuse to reject God but points us to the fact that there is a God who left a record on earth. But God’s voice, His Word, is always superior to anything in nature itself, let alone our very feeble, weak, and low understanding of how it works.
I am not saying to not study anything other than Scripture, but I am saying there is a priority. Paul did not forget everything he ever learned. He simply put it in its proper place. Any knowledge that is not explicitly found in Scripture is only worth pursuing if it uplifts and proclaims Scripture and glorifies God. For me, the study of science is fun and awesome, not because it fills my head but because it leads me to worship. Many people today do not look at our world and worship God. They worship science, themselves, mankind, or the creation itself. God is an afterthought at best. They are not worth following.
Go after God. Seek Him and seek His knowledge. He has revealed His secrets of creation to those who have sought His face and His glory for the benefit of others, but He confounds the self-proclaimed wise and lets them think they are getting something when they actually have nothing. That is one of the reasons why the scientific community today has hardly done a thing in 100 years. Technicians have improved technology, but only condensing (making smaller) and improving what we have, not actually inventing anything “new” or discovering anything worth writing home about. God is not going to share His glory with another, especially that of His creation. Don’t feed those who demand that He does.
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God is the Creator. He made everything and He set the stage for the grand theater we call “life.” He wrote the script and made each and every one of us characters in this big play. I am an author of both fiction and nonfiction books, and in my fiction writing, I create characters through which I tell my story. Some characters are good, some are bad; some are redeemable, some are not. When I develop my characters properly, they begin to get their own voices and are able to tell me, the author, what they would do in certain situations. That directs how I move the story. Many authors have this saying, “If your characters don’t talk back to you, you haven’t developed them well enough.” God has fully developed each of us, knowing the number of every hair on our bodies and knowing our every thought. And that is what He uses to carry out this grand epic called “history.”
In order for God to showcase His glory, His might, His love, His grace, and His justice, He needed a stage on which to carry it all out. This is “Creation,” the physical universe that we all live in. God is the creator. There is no other option. All the proposed deities never created anything; they only manipulated what was there. Only the God of the Bible created “ex nihilo,” out of nothing. There was no physical anything – no time, no space, no matter, nothing. Then God who is outside this physical universe, just like I, an author, am outside the world I create for a story, spoke and it came into being.
I know it is not a popular notion among Christians, but I have a friend who plays Dungeons and Dragons. While I do not play myself, I have enough “gaming” background to actually understand the principles behind the game and how it works. I can say much of the backlash comes from a lack of understanding of what it is. I can see some legitimate concerns, but few have demonstrated an understanding of the game/system to correctly express them. The game is simple: players in a group choose a character to be, and they can pick and choose a variety of skills and traits that the character would have. They use that character to role-play through many different situations and scenarios set up by a Dungeon Master who is the master storyteller. The point in bringing this up is that the Dungeon Master can “speak” things into existence such as (to use my friend’s example), “It rained pink flamingoes,” and then it rains pink flamingoes in the game’s world. This is about as good of an analogy as I can give to explain how God creates by speaking things into existence.
God did not use natural means to create. He spoke it into existence. He also did it in six days, six normal days as understood by mankind. This is vital because it reveals the character of God as being holy, as being “other than” us. He created in a way that man would never consider if he were making up a story. He did not create over many long years of natural processes. Not only does science not support those models, but God is not going to share His glory with another. He is not going to allow man to figure out how He created lest we try to steal His blueprints and proclaim ourselves to be God in His stead. God also did not create instantaneously. While He absolutely could have done it any of these ways, He purposefully did not want to be deemed a super “magician” who just waved a magic wand. He was not going to let Himself be relegated to mythology easily. So He created in six days; everything in the natural universe was done and made in those six days. Nothing was done before and nothing was done after.
God also did something that none of the other models did with creation: He completed it as “very good.” The curse of sin was not present. Weeds and thorns did not grow. There was no hint or record of death of any kind upon the completion of creation. Everything served its purpose, demonstrating God’s creative power and mind, while also keeping track of so many intricate details that it completely surpasses man’s capability. Only a true God with all possible knowledge could create what we see in this universe.
Then to top it all off, God created mankind. Man is unique among all other creatures. Not only is man’s physical design so spectacular that he can do more things holistically than any other animal. True, man cannot fly, swim as deep as fish, or run as fast as cats or dogs, but we can climb, swim, run, use tools, fight, and do things that many animals who have their specialties cannot do. Above all that, man is made in the image of God. Unlike any other animal, man alone has the capacity to be a reflection and a picture of God on this physical earth. Man is the only being that has an understanding of “ought,” of morality, of “should or should not.”
The Creation gives us the backdrop for the greatest story ever told – the Gospel. Man is at the center of the story. The Gospel is about God’s dealings with man. But it goes deeper than that. God is a Trinity – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It has been said that the Father so loved the Son that He created mankind who would rebel against Him, and yet out of that rebellious population, a remnant would be chosen to be a bride for the Son whom He would get to enjoy for eternity. The Gospel is about how God comes to rescue man from his sin and displays the most creative and counter-intuitive manner to bring in salvation that only God could come up with. It makes no sense to those who think in the flesh, but to those who have been saved and look at eternity, it is the most glorious thing.
This week and last week have all been about the setup for the Gospel. Next week, we’ll introduce the villains of this great epic story: the devil and mankind.
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by Steve Risner
We’re in the fifth and final week on this topic of “Can you be a Christian and accept evolution?” which was a question posed by an article I found on sciencenetwork.uk. You can find that article here. You can also find the first four of my blog posts on this here, here, here, and here. Thanks for reading. Let’s jump right into it.
“Psalm 19 compels us to listen carefully to both science and the Bible on this issue.” No, it doesn’t. They’re giving equal footing to nature as they do the Bible. Again, this is very similar to paganism—the worship of nature. I suggest trusting the Lord and His clear teachings on this. Is God so inept He couldn’t communicate well enough to get the message across to us? He required atheists or, at the very least unbelievers or those who reject Scripture, to point out the truth to us? I find that hard to believe.
“…is there a way to take both Scripture and science seriously and accept a mainstream view of evolutionary theory?” Not even close. The author says, “Well, yes!” like they’re excited to be a heretic. But the truth is if you don’t have reading comprehension issues, there is no way to reconcile universal common descent and the creation narrative in Genesis. It’s simply not possible. Suggesting you can reconcile these tells me you’re either not very bright, don’t understand what either are telling us, don’t care and just want to be able to walk both sides, or some combination of these. Yes, it seems quite evident that God made the biosphere capable of limited adaptation. That seems like something a loving God would do. It also seems like we can observe this happening in nature. But don’t be confused; this is not at all related to abiogenesis and universal common descent. Before you throw your hands up and say, “Abiogenesis isn’t part of evolution,” let’s be honest. First, this discussion is about far more than universal common descent. It involves the totality of the humanist origins myth from the moment of the Big Bang up until the emergence of man on the scene and all that allegedly evolved between the two. Secondly, abiogenesis is intimately linked to Darwinism and is taught alongside Darwinism in every textbook we have available to us on the topic.
“I suspect that after another century or so of good science and good Biblical scholarship we’ll be able to draw some firmer conclusions.” Again, the “truth” found in what this person is calling science is far from complete and will be changed many times over in the next 100 years. The Bible is the unchanging Word of God. This person wants to skew the meaning of Scripture to fit into some humanistic interpretation of nature that is misapplied to history. Atheism requires deep time; Creationism does not at all. There is no reason to believe in deep time unless you first have bought the humanist origins myth as true before looking at the evidence – then you HAVE to believe in deep time. But, again, the topic of origins cannot be a scientific one. The Bible is truth; I believe this, and I’m biased this way. Everyone is biased in some way, though many will deny it. Are you honest enough to admit it? But future scholarship of the Bible will only work to further the decay of the Church from the Truth found in Scripture. Many of the scholars who want to tell us about the Bible these days are secularists. They have no regard or love for the Bible and only look at it as a book of myths and legends with the occasional nugget of historical truth. Nothing supernatural. Nothing applicable to the human condition. Let the Word of God say what it says. Accept it or reject it, but don’t reject it and act like you’re maintaining some high regard for Scripture or the Lord who inspired it.
“But the very existence of these men and women – scholars committed to the authority of Scripture who also accept evolution – proves that it is indeed possible to be a faithful Christian and agree with the scientific consensus on this issue.” Not at all, but even if it did; so what? And, again, many if not most of these scholars are not believers. They are not “committed to the authority of Scripture.” Even while Paul was doing his missionary work, there were those who poisoned the Gospel or even slightly changed it, making it something other than what it was. The author is trusting now in the authority of men (although I’ve not heard of most of these people in their list) and position rather than in the written Word of God. There are some Christians who will say that abortion is okay—it’s a woman’s choice. Does the existence of these people mean this idea is good? Some Christians will say that the man is the dominating force in his home and if he sees fit to beat his wife and kids, that’s his right. Does the existence of these people mean this is right? Some Christians think there are other ways to heaven other than Jesus Christ. Jesus said He is the only way—that no one comes to the Father but through Him. Does the existence of these people mean it’s okay to seek God elsewhere? Some people, like Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses, think their faith and the faith described in the Bible are harmonious. Does that mean it’s true since they exist? I hope you’re seeing how utterly preposterous this is. The existence of heretics (not saying all these folks are heretics mind you) does not mean heresy is respectable and equal to the Truth.
“Paul’s aware of the complexity involved in interpreting God’s truth rightly, and he knows Christians will come to different conclusions on things.” These complexities didn’t involve creation, did they? He seemed pretty unwavering on that as did Peter and John. Jesus seemed convinced the Word of God was true on the matter of creation, too. Again, the way theistic evolutionists argue, they suggest we can’t know anything from Scripture. That’s simply not true, though it is a logical conclusion of their beliefs. It’s simply wrong.
“You don’t have to choose between two things that you hold dear.” This is such a strange statement to me. Who holds evolution or, more specifically universal common descent, dearly? The fact that the Lord Almighty built life with the ability to have limited adaptive powers is awesome. But I don’t see how someone would hold common ancestry dearly. Are we putting way too much emotion into something that is nothing more than man’s attempt to explain nature and life without God? Jesus tells us we can’t serve two masters. Our hearts can’t handle it. The two masters in this case would be Christ and nature. It just doesn’t work to worship the creation and the Creator.
“Paul’s emphasis in these matters is that we are free in Christ.” What a terrible misapplication of this thought. We are free from the power of sin. We are free in Christ to do what we ought to do. Prior to that moment of salvation, we were not capable of doing the good we ought to do. With Christ in us, we can. Freedom in Christ doesn’t mean we can believe anything we want. It doesn’t mean we can toss out any of the Holy Scriptures we don’t like. It doesn’t mean anything like what this person is suggesting it means.
“In Christ you’re free to hold to young earth creation and you’re free to embrace evolution. You’re free to sit somewhere in the middle, and you’re free to be undecided.” Just because I feel it’s worth stressing again: we are not “free in Christ” to believe anything we think sounds okay. In fact, we know the path is narrow. Compromise is not something the Lord appreciates in us. He tells us in Revelation He’d rather we were hot or cold, not lukewarm. We are not “free in Christ” to toss out entire sections of Scripture or foundational doctrines merely because a man or woman who was likely an unbeliever told us what they thought about origins that differed from the Bible. Again, do not be confused: origins is not science. You cannot observe one-time past events. You cannot make predictions about one-time past events. You cannot experiment on one-time past events. This is especially true if those events are surrounded by conditions we are in the dark about.
“…heeding Paul’s command to ‘accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you.’” This is what creationists tend to do. We do accept brothers and sisters who may be led astray concerning creation and the authority of Scripture. Some are fairly radical about it, but in general, we can accept them while simultaneously rejecting their bad theology. We have more similarities, in most cases, than differences and if we believe that Christ is the Son of God, that He lived a sinless life on earth and was crucified for our sins, only to rise again on the 3rd day and ascend into heaven where He sits at the right hand of the Father, we are brothers and sisters in a spiritual sense. But I would advise believers who have rejected what the Bible tells us about creation and the Flood to get a good footing because the slope is rather slick. I’ve witnessed too many who follow this path and eventually reject the Lord altogether.
The author then, in their notations, explains that St. Augustine of Hippo is on their side here. This is simply not true. While St. Augustine had a complex view of Genesis that evolved over time, he held to a literal interpretation. This author also says Augustine did not conform to a 24-hour day time frame for the days of creation while he did maintain a historical interpretation of the book of Genesis. This is true. Augustine believed it was possible the Lord used the word “day” in the Genesis account of creation when, in fact, He created on each of those days in moments rather than 24 hours. In reality, we have no reason to believe God required 24 hours each day to complete His work. But each day is marked by something that He did unique to that day, in a specific order and consecutively. While evolutionists like to use him by misapplying his statements, Augustine was very much a Biblical creationist. He had some questions concerning exactly what happened on each of the days of creation and how long each day took (was it 24 hours or was it only seconds or minutes?) but he held firmly to the historicity of the narrative.
I pray this series of posts has helped you, the reader, understand some of the ins and outs of this debate. Evolution is a thing that happens. But evolution is also a competing story for how God created everything there is. It depends on what you mean by “evolution” when you use the term. It can describe living things or the cosmos or any number of other things when we talk about it in this debate. God gave His creation the ability to adapt to different environments within a limited degree. He’s awesome that way. Praise Him for His mighty acts! He is worthy of all our praise!
This forum is meant to foster discussion and allow for differing viewpoints to be explored with equal and respectful consideration. All comments are moderated and any foul language or threatening/abusive comments will not be approved. Users who engage in threatening or abusive comments which are physically harmful in nature will be reported to the authorities.
by Steve Risner
This is week four on this topic of “Can you be a Christian and accept evolution?” I found an article with that says, “Yes” to this question, and I took issue with much of what they had to say. Before reading this post, I would recommend making sure you’ve read my other posts here, here, and here. This post will make more sense then. Let’s jump into it.
“We’re not free to disregard the Bible because it feels outdated.” So, why are you doing this? The Bible is timeless in its principles. And when it comes to history, how could anyone argue that changes? History happened. It was recorded. No amount of time passing can change what happened.
“We’re not free… to disregard science because its conclusions are inconvenient for our theology.” As many evolutionists are, the author of this article is confused. They think “science” is what we’re talking about when it’s nothing more than philosophy or religion. Scientific “conclusions” like gravity, pH, electricity, and so on are things you can bank on by and large. But stories about chemicals turning into life and that simple life form diversifying into all sorts of highly complex, very specialized organisms is a very naïve belief system. Feel free to discard any other religion’s take on origins if it conflicts with the clear teaching of Scripture. In short, if you read the Bible and you look at nature and they don’t seem to agree, you’re very likely misinterpreting nature. One of these revelations is a written communication from God Almighty. The other is essentially art, which can be open to a million different interpretations, and none may be correct or complete. When in doubt, side with the Lord and His Word.
“Psalm 19 urges us to take both science and Scripture seriously.” It actually does not do this at all, but theistic evolutionists want it to say this, so they feel justified in rejecting Scripture. Placing the two on equal standing is not a good idea at all. In fact, it’s a terrible idea and is akin to paganism. God gave us His Word for a reason. Nature, while able to point us to our Creator, does not speak divine truth to us. In fact, the nature we’re seeing now is cursed. The Fall was accompanied by a curse that God placed not just on mankind but on all of creation. In fact, Paul tells the Romans (and us) that “creation has been groaning” since the Fall. The creation is essentially ill. The story it may be telling us now is nothing like the story it would have told us in Eden before Adam and Eve disobeyed God for the first time, introducing sin into the world. So, taking fallen man’s skewed interpretation of a cursed creation over the perfect Word of God is insane, in my opinion. What rational person would suggest we can understand more or even as much about God from nature as we can from the book He gave us?
“At the same time, we’ve got to be realistic and humble about how good we are as fallen and limited people at interpreting God’s truth.” This is partially true. We don’t know everything from the Word of God. But we can read His thoughts in His message to us, and what He clearly tells us about creation is undeniable. Either believe what it says or reject the Word. It’s up to you and where you put your final authority. I hate to repeat myself so much, but the truth here is still the same. We are fallen, and they get that right in this article. But we also have the Word of God, which is what He wanted us to know, and He has preserved it for us. Trust Him rather than sinful man’s take on origins. Man has been at war with God for nearly 6000 years. Do you think you can trust him more so than the Creator of all that is? And, again, what is easier to believe: that we grossly misinterpreted the clear teachings of God from His Word which He left for us, or that we misunderstood something we saw in nature, or we drew the wrong conclusion about something we saw in nature or we went a little too far in that interpretation—going beyond what we actually know to be true?
“When it comes to science, we can only ever work with a partial data set, and it’s not like we can do repeatable experiments where we re-run the last 4 billion years to confirm our hypothesis.” This is why origins is NOT a scientific topic of any kind. It’s impossible, and people will assault the integrity of the tool that is science by trying to force it to be something it is not and cannot be. Universal common descent is not repeatable. It’s not observable. It’s not able to be experimented on. It’s not able to have predictive power since it’s historical (you can’t predict something that will happen in the past). They’ve demolished their entire argument here by being truthful about why universal common descent is not science. It is rare to find a theistic evolutionist so honest about this, and it’s refreshing. I’ve literally conversed with hundreds over the years. Many are hostile toward the Bible and those who believe what it says. I’m thankful this person is genuine here.
“When it comes to Scripture, we’re all too prone to bringing our own presuppositions and cultural baggage to God’s word and reading into it what we want to read.” Fortunately, as a Biblical creationist, I’ve not done this to the best of my knowledge. This is precisely what others (old earth creationists and theistic evolutionists) do all the time. You need not twist Scripture with your own cultural or whatever biases to understand the creation narrative and the rest of the history found in Genesis. The book literally spans 1/3 of all of history. It’s all very important for understanding our condition and the solution that the Lord has given to us. There is no way to justify abandoning what everyone in the Bible and for almost 2000 years after Christ understood about creation. None. The cultural differences do not change what the clear teachings of ALL of the Scriptures are concerning creation (a short and incomplete list can be found here). And the culture changed over time from Adam and Eve to Noah to Jacob and his family to Moses and then David up to the time of Christ. Different languages are represented in the Bible. Different time periods. Even different locations. What culture would we be speaking about if that dictates how we understand the Word of God? If anything, the lens of our culture would force us to toss out much of Genesis and other creation passages. Thankfully, we don’t have to be blinded by our cultural biases, and we can accept God’s Word for what it says. I’ve found no reason not to after over 30 years of looking.
“Though God has genuinely made truth accessible to us via both means, we could be (and probably are) making mistakes in how we read either science, Scripture or both (and we won’t necessarily know which).” If you think it’s possible to misunderstand Genesis, then you literally cannot accept or know anything found in Scripture. None of it is able to be grasped if the opening chapters are in question. A 7-year-old can read or hear Genesis and understand the narrative. It’s very simple. The creation account, the Fall, the curse, the Flood, the dispersion, the covenant – it’s all important, all right there, and all easy to understand. Do we have everything right from Scripture? Of course not. But the odds of us having a perfect understanding of nature are far worse than us understanding God’s written communication to us. Especially if what we are trying to force nature to say to us is 100% opposed to what the Bible tells us. When there’s a conflict, trust His Word over anything else.
Again, time has run out and we are out of space for this week’s post. I hope this has opened your eyes to some of the issues with forcing the idea of universal common descent (often referred to as simply “evolution”) into the Judeo-Christian teachings on creation. Take care and come back next week as we wrap up this series.
This forum is meant to foster discussion and allow for differing viewpoints to be explored with equal and respectful consideration. All comments are moderated and any foul language or threatening/abusive comments will not be approved. Users who engage in threatening or abusive comments which are physically harmful in nature will be reported to the authorities.
by Steve Risner
We are three posts deep into a reaction to an article I found at sciencenetwork.uk called “Yes, you can be a Christian and accept evolution.” The other two posts in this series are here and here. You may want to catch up with those before continuing with this one if you haven’t read them already.
Much of what we have discussed so far has revolved around the idea that “evolution” has a variety of meanings and some are even scientific while others are not. Let’s move on today and see what this author thinks.
“So in theory God could certainly use evolution as a means of creation.” In theory, yes. In reality, based on the clear teachings of Scripture, He did no such thing at all, period. Universal common descent is void of evidence from Scripture or the natural world and, frankly, makes no sense and defies experience and the laws of nature and probability. He could have, but this is nothing like “He did.”
“…what do we do if it feels like scientific evidence is pointing us in the direction of one mechanism for creation, but Scripture points us in another?” Trust God first. Where you put your final or ultimate authority is where you’ll land. If you think man is smarter than God, you’ll trust man’s currently popular version of the humanist origins myth which will likely change in a few years. Or if the Bible is your source of ultimate Truth, you’ll allow Him the privilege of being more learned than you and you’ll accept what He tells you. “Science” is in conflict with the Bible when that science is a religious notion built on piles and piles of assumptions and extrapolations. True science testifies to the beauty of God’s creative works and His marvelous deeds. Origins cannot be a scientific study; it just cannot. You can’t observe, test, or repeat one-time past events. This is not difficult to understand at all; this is history. One’s philosophy and/or worldview will dictate what story of origins a person believes, but none of them are scientific. So science cannot point us in a direction that is contrary to Scripture when it comes to origins. Science has very little to say about it.
The author of this article then focuses on Psalm 19, a psalm of David. Regarding that psalm he says:
“…the big point he [David] wants to make about the heavens is that they communicate something about God.” Yes. They proclaim His awesome power and greatness. His magnificence is beyond comprehension. They don’t utter nonsense about the Big Bang or universal common descent or anything like that at all.
“Day and night, as we look up at the sky it is telling us something about the God who made it. The created world is like a letter from God to us saying ‘Look! I’m here! See what I’m like!’” This is why the unbeliever is without excuse. But it’s also a great reason not to hold hands with those unbelievers, trashing the Word of God and attacking Christians for their faith in Him and the truth of His Word. Don’t go beyond what is written. The Bible doesn’t tell us that nature will tell us the Gospel; it simply tells us that we have a Creator we are accountable to.
“It makes sense, then, for David’s mind to wander from one means of God’s self-communication to another.” Suggesting the “book of nature” is nearly as easy to understand or as clear a communication as the written Word of God is laughable and preposterous in my opinion. What we understand about nature is constantly revised. What we “knew” 10 years ago is hogwash today. What we “know” today will be tossed out in a few years. But the Word of God stands firm and is unchanging. He specifically tells us how He created, and less directly He tells us when He did that. There is no reason from Scripture—none at all—to hold a different view other than the one presented in the Bible. The only reason anyone does is because secularists and humanists have told their own tale of origins, and some Christians or churches have entertained it as possible even though the Bible is completely at odds with this origins myth. Nature does not tell us about the Gospel. It does not tell us any of God’s moral laws. It simply demands that we acknowledge our Creator and give Him the awe and respect He is worthy of as the Creator of everything.
“As nature illuminates for us something of what God is like, so does God’s written word, the Bible.” Again, acting like one is equal to the other is not only absurd, but it’s possibly a little blasphemous. Maybe that’s a little extreme, but I’d rather be accused by God of being zealous for His Word than being wishy-washy with it, allowing humanism to decide for me what the Bible means. I will correct this statement, however; nature does not tell us what God is like. Not at all. Nature tells us there is a God and that He’s awesome, that’s it.
“And Scripture goes further than creation can: it gives words to that which the heavens cannot articulate. The Bible spells out in detail God’s salvation plan for creation through Jesus, and gives us all that we need to know that salvation for ourselves.” Yes, I agree.
“So God uses both nature and Scripture to communicate with us about who he is.” Does nature really tell us truths about the Creator, or does it just make it clear to us that there is a Creator God? If it does speak truths about God, what are they? Are these the same truths as found in Scripture? If not, why not? If they are found in Scripture, why do we need to look to nature for them?
“The truth that we find in the pages of the Bible is God’s truth.” Why do you assault the Word of God by suggesting the clear teachings of Scripture are not true? That some other version of creation is more accurate and we needed light shed on this true version of our origins by atheists and other God-hating people?
“And the truth that we find by the study of the natural world using science is also God’s truth.” You cannot possibly argue that science discovers truth in many respects to nature. What we “know” now will be laughed at in the future as more knowledge is gained, much like what we “knew” 100 years ago is mocked today. That’s “God’s truth” in your mind? God’s Truth is the Good News, and what strategy for communicating the Gospel does not include some form of creation? To understand why we need a Savior, we need to understand creation and the events that transpired shortly after. The Gospel doesn’t make sense without a historical interpretation of Genesis. That’s just the way it is. Don’t argue with me about it; talk to the Lord who inspired His Word to be written the way it was.
We have come to a good ending point for this week’s post. I hope you’ve found this educational and thought-provoking. I always enjoy these. Take care and thank you for reading.
This forum is meant to foster discussion and allow for differing viewpoints to be explored with equal and respectful consideration. All comments are moderated and any foul language or threatening/abusive comments will not be approved. Users who engage in threatening or abusive comments which are physically harmful in nature will be reported to the authorities.
by Steve Risner
Last week, we began looking at a writing from sciencenetwork.uk in association with UCCF, talking about how being a Christian does not mean you must reject evolution. We started going through this article nearly line by line. You can view the first installment of this series here. Let’s pick up where we left off:
“[Evolution is] often implied to mean ‘the belief that all of the living world (and indeed the whole universe) came into being by a process of natural selection, genetic drift, etc. that was totally random, began purely by chance, and was absolutely unguided by any kind of Creator.’” Most evolutionists would take issue with this oversimplification. But, yes, most evolutionists believe in the Big Bang, chemical and stellar evolution, the emergence of solar systems and planets, and eventually abiogenesis leading to universal common descent from a single common ancestor. Show me evolutionists who don’t believe these things are natural occurrences. There are likely some but very few. And when one says “evolution,” this is almost always what is meant. Why hold hands with atheists and other secularists to disrespect the Word of God while claiming to hold to some sort of truth? Was God not capable of informing us of His work and how He produced the universe? Was He just waiting for atheists/secularists like Darwin and Lyell and Huxley to explain the truth to us? In nearly all conversations, when the term “evolution” is talked about, this is what the discussion is about. They will start with “evolution” as the adaptation or small change due to a variety of reasons and then jump to “evolution” meaning this more naturalistic and unscientific approach to the living world.
“Do you see how that last definition is very different to the previous two?” We covered the previous two in the previous blog post. In the minds of most evolutionists, these uses of the word are not that different. If they are different, then most of the evolutionists I’ve interacted with (which is probably thousands by now) are dishonest because they talk about one definition and then assume it means the other is true as well. It’s very often we hear about “evidence for evolution” and the “fact of evolution” while what is being talked about are slight changes in a population over time—often adaptive changes that swing back and forth like the beaks on the finches that Darwin noted. If you’re going to talk about “evolution” like this, don’t confuse it with universal common descent. They are not the same thing and are hardly related.
“Clearly, Christians have to reject the idea of a totally random, unguided start to life with no Creator!” Clearly, the author of this article hasn’t interacted with many theistic evolutionists since nearly all of them that I’ve spoken with do, in fact, believe that random, natural processes did ALL of it without the assistance of God or without Him after He wound it all up and let it rip. So “clearly,” while Christians should reject a completely natural/materialistic origin for the universe and life, many (maybe most) do not. For a lot of them, God is something they throw on top of the mess as an afterthought. “Yeah, evolution is true, and random, unguided processes account for the biodiversity we see on earth, but, I mean, God was there.”
“…if by ‘evolution’ you mean evolution without a Creator.” This is interesting because the only real difference between atheistic evolution and theistic evolution is the theistic evolutionist will insert a Creator while the atheist has no need for one. In other words, there’s no real difference apart from the theistic evolutionist inserting a creator because he feels good about doing so. One of these is what the Bible refers to as a fool to be pitied. The only difference between them and the other group is one is honest enough to admit there has to be a Creator. They just don’t like to believe what that Creator told us He did. The Word tells us the existence of the Creator is obvious to everyone and that we are all without excuse.
“But rejecting evolution as a complete worldview doesn’t mean we have to chuck out evolution as a scientific theory.” For most, the distinction is hardly noticeable. And if by “evolution” we’re meaning minute changes—adaptations, epigenetic changes, degenerative mutations, population isolation, etc.—then sure. We not only can accept this but we should. It’s what we see all around us. But if we mean something more like a slime ball in some warm pond somewhere that began to diversify into fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and then mammals until ultimately man; well, no, sorry. That’s not science. That’s not factual. That’s not even remotely plausible let alone likely.
“We have a God who’s big enough and powerful enough to create any way he wants to, right?” Of course, and He explained in a great amount of detail how He did this. On days 1-6, He was busy, creating the universe, earth, seas and land, sun and moon, and sea, sky, and all the creatures. Finally, He created man in His own image. This is written very clearly in Scripture. Anything that doesn’t work with this is in opposition to the Truth of God and His creative acts. He could have done it any way He chose. He chose the way He told us about in the Bible (not just Genesis). I love how theistic evolutionists like to take the angle that “God is big enough to do it however He wanted,” but in the same breath they say, “There’s no way He could make the universe in 6 days. What? Is He some sort of magician?” I’ve had people say this very thing to me—people who claimed to be believers. I’m not sure what they believed in, but it didn’t seem to be the Bible or the God found in its pages.
“Either mechanism for creation is totally legitimate for God to use if he wants to.” Sure, but one involves a beautiful creative act while the other involves death, mutation, and genetic destruction. Which seems more God-like? Which one seems “good”? Which one was described to us in detail by Him? Which one was attested to by numerous Biblical authors? Abiogenesis and universal common descent are nowhere to be found in Scripture. Not a single hint.
“He’s God, after all!” So let Him be God. Let Him be the authority on the matter. Stop calling Him a liar.
“There’s nothing in the theory of evolution itself which says it couldn’t be designed and directed by God.” In the minds of most evolutionists, this is false. In fact, the theory of evolution is built on naturalism. The Big Bang and all that comes with it is built on naturalism. Naturalism says nature is all there is and is responsible for all that happens. Again, the only difference between atheistic evolution and theistic evolution is one arbitrarily inserts a creator to fill in the gaps. That’s it. Because they want you to believe it’s scientific, many proponents of the theory of evolution will indeed claim there is no room for God in the theory because, by definition, the theory only describes nature. God is not natural; He’s supernatural.
We’ll pause here again so we can digest this all and think about the implications. Is God God? Is He honest? Is He sufficient? Is He able to do what He said He did? Is He able to tell us what He did?
This forum is meant to foster discussion and allow for differing viewpoints to be explored with equal and respectful consideration. All comments are moderated and any foul language or threatening/abusive comments will not be approved. Users who engage in threatening or abusive comments which are physically harmful in nature will be reported to the authorities.
by Steve Risner
After an abnormally long hiatus from writing, I had my interest piqued when someone online posted an article from sciencenetwork.uk about how it’s okay for Christians to believe in evolution. This platform seems to be an extension of the UCCF, University and Colleges Christian Fellowship. The article is titled, “Yes, you can be a Christian and accept evolution.” It was decently written and made some good points, but along the way, they often seemed to talk out of both sides of their mouth. As a Biblical creationist who has studied the topic for over 30 years, below is what I feel needed addressed from this article.
The article begins by saying that their title is controversial. They’re correct. But it’s only controversial because people have forsaken sound logic and given up basic reading comprehension skills to toss out what the Bible clearly tells us about creation and when it happened. They’ve accepted the humanist origins myth first and then tried to cram the Bible’s narrative into that—melding two different religious views on the subject of origins.
But they move on to say, “…[the biology students are] being taught in lectures seems to totally contradict what their Christian community has told them they should believe about creation.” This is disingenuous. It’s not that biology is teaching something contrary to some unfounded, odd interpretation of Scripture. This statement would be honest if it said, “…seems to totally contradict what their Bible has told them they should believe about creation.” This is obviously what the Bible shows us—God created the heavens, earth and all that is in them and He did it in 6 days. Adam was created on day 6, and from Adam to Jesus was about 4000 years give or take. Jesus lived 2000 years ago or so. This can be drawn from the Biblical text and corroborated with external sources. A belief in universal common descent is nowhere to be found in the pages of Scripture. In fact, much to the contrary.
“…it’s a choice between the authority of God’s word and the weight of scientific evidence.” This is why it’s hard to trust evolutionists. They say things out of both sides of their mouths, or they bait and switch, or they simply don’t understand what the basics are. It’s a choice between two competing worldviews. What they’re referring to as “science” is not science at all. Yes, evolution is a fact. But universal common descent is a fabrication and not scientific at all. This has been discussed ad nauseum, and evolutionists refuse to understand how the limits of science work. This is a clash of philosophy or, more accurately, religions. We don’t argue the facts or deny them. As Biblical creationists, we just understand that facts and opinions about those facts are not the same thing and don’t carry the same weight.
“But what if you don’t have to choose?” You don’t; this is a false dichotomy. Science and the Bible are not in conflict. However, the humanist origins myth and the Bible are seriously at odds.
“…evolution does make sense of the data.” I studied this for over 30 years in high school, college, and grad school. If you mean evolution as small changes in a population over time due to a variety of reasons, sure. If you mean evolution as in universal common descent, not at all. Not only does it not make any sense, but it’s also naïve. The number of perfectly timed and perfectly placed mutations necessary for real change to occur is beyond any reasonable person’s ability to stretch reality.
“…this doesn’t mean you have to give up on the God who inspired Genesis.” Sure. But believing in universal common descent does mean you have to reject what God said in Genesis, Exodus, Psalms, the Gospels, Paul’s writings, Peter’s writings, John’s writings, and a host of others. You are welcome to be inconsistent and carry internal contradictions, but don’t encourage others to follow you in this lunacy. As a follower of Christ and someone who trusts God’s Word, I reject the humanist origins myth—that is the Big Bang and all the cosmic evolution that had to take place after that, including abiogenesis and universal common descent from a single common ancestor.
“And if your non-Christian course mate thinks the gospel is compelling, but they couldn’t possibly believe that the world was created in the space of one week – that doesn’t have to stop them from following Jesus.” The Truth is offensive to those who are at war with God. Compromising the Truth of Scripture to win souls means you’re selling them a false Gospel. If you are embarrassed by the Bible and if you’re twisting the words of Scripture so you can win a friend, you’re not being honest with them or yourself. Can your friend believe a man dead 3 days rose from the grave under His own power and authority? It’s much harder, in my estimation, to believe in the Resurrection than it is to believe in the creation and Flood narratives.
“…you can be a Christian and accept evolution.” Very few people contest this, regardless of how you define evolution.
“In reality, we use the word ‘evolution’ in an everyday sense to mean any of a whole spectrum of related ideas.” This is what we’ve been saying forever. Evolutionists like to bait and switch or, more specifically, motte and bailey. It happens all the time. They say one thing and get you to agree and then, without indicating it, they use the same word but apply a completely different definition.
“‘Accepting evolution’ could just mean agreeing with the statement that organisms change and adapt to their surroundings over time, which is easy enough to observe in nature.” Few do not understand and accept. This is actually scientific. It’s observable. It’s demonstrable. Creationists do not argue against this at all. This is what most evolutionists will get creationists to agree to, but then they switch meanings (see below).
“…did everyone else look at peppered moths as a case study?” This is glorified as a wonderful example of evolution when it has nothing at all to do with it. Both colors of moth existed before and after “selection.” The relative numbers of each may have changed for a period. That is not evolution and is not at all related to universal common descent. And, as this article points out, it’s one of the best examples they’ve got, yet folks still believe this nonsense. If this isn’t indoctrination, I don’t know what is.
“Or we could use ‘evolution’ to mean the idea that all species, humans included, are descended from a single common ancestor, a single-celled organism swimming around in the primordial soup several billion years ago.” Yes, you can believe this, but it’s at odds with actual science and is completely at odds with what the Bible clearly tells us in multiple places about creation. Even the words of Christ Himself contradict this belief in universal common descent. Why trust man’s skewed interpretation of data he’s collected from a fallen world—beliefs that will be overturned by the next generation—rather than trust the Words of Almighty God who was there and told us about it? Do you believe Him or not? What other supernatural or historical events do you not accept from Scripture? Atheists, who are openly at war with God, need the Big Bang and universal common descent for their faith to exist. It’s the only reason such things are accepted. But to make their situation not look so utterly naïve, they slap the label “science” on it so they’re arguing from the smart guy’s position. It’s not true at all. Naturalism explains a lot, but it cannot explain origins, not even close.
We will rest here and pick it up again next week. I hope you find this quote-by-quote approach useful. I would encourage you, if you are interested, to search some of the key words in today’s blog post in the Worldview Warriors blog page to see other posts that have been written on the topics. Thanks for reading!
This forum is meant to foster discussion and allow for differing viewpoints to be explored with equal and respectful consideration. All comments are moderated and any foul language or threatening/abusive comments will not be approved. Users who engage in threatening or abusive comments which are physically harmful in nature will be reported to the authorities.
The driving force for me going to the International Conference on Creationism was the prospect of being able to present my own research. On a personal study, independent of the major YEC organizations, I have been investigating radiometric dating methods, the methods that mainstream scientists tell us how old rocks and bones are. I have been a skeptic of these methods for many years, but ten years ago, I decided I needed to take a deeper study into them.
In 2011, an article came out with new studies showing that DNA had a half-life of 521 years. The article then claimed that DNA would be detectable after 1.5 million years and totally decomposed after 6.8 million years. When I read that article in 2013, I immediately knew that was wrong, so I started crunching numbers. DNA, at that half-life, lasts only 19,000 years until complete disintegration. Their math was not only off, but it was off BADLY. And this passed peer-review. That got me thinking: What about radiometric dating? So that began my study.
I set out to do a mathematical internal integrity study of the whole system, testing to see if the published numbers actually agreed with each other. If that DNA math was off by that much, how much is this “darling” of everyone who believes in “millions of years”? I looked at various angles, but the one that really caught my attention was the measurement of the half-life. I did my studies, but a couple of years ago I hit a dead end because I didn’t have the equipment to do experiments to move forward. I needed help and advice, and this conference was the perfect place to get it. This is what my poster presentation would cover.
As I did my studies, I began learning that individual samples used to measure the decay rates were only being observed for minutes, hours, or maybe days with devices that had 20% efficiency rates, leading to requiring an 80% fudge factor. This led to calculations that these half-lives, that are supposedly billions of years, are being claimed using only 10 to 16 decimal points of a fraction of a sample space of the claim. The sample space was so small that no one could make a meaningful statement out of it without some extremely poor assumptions.
So, what do we do with that? We need to do some experiments. We could measure the physical amount of breakdown of the parent isotopes by calculating how much substance we have, then measuring again after a sufficient time has passed. For example, a 1000 kg sample of Carbon-14 would decay by one gram in three days, validating the half-life measurement of 5730 years. We could also measure how many counts we should be getting on the same sample and watch them get smaller over time to showcase an exponential decay pattern. From that, I suggested where my studied desired to go, such as figuring out if there is a consistent error factor in the calculations by the mainstream scientists determining the +/- factors that are presented, what could cause the decay rates to accelerate, and how water could pull these isotopes in and out of the system.
I proposed doing some experiments that test these measurements that I could not find any information about going into the conference. During the conference, I had a two-hour window to defend my poster and explain it, but I also got to explain it at various other times. Many people were able to follow the poster and when I explained it, they all pretty much agreed that these are things we should do. But then I got to talk to three of the scientists who were part of the RATE Team, who 15 years ago threw a bomb into the whole confidence in radiometric dating methods.
John Baumgardner said I had some good ideas but indicated that when the RATE team was doing their studies, there were many things they looked at which were not published because they did not get anything really conclusive. He did not say specifically, but I wonder if they did look at this aspect. Then Russel Humphreys came by, who is a physicist I highly respect. I really didn’t get a whole of useful information from him because he really wanted me to go look somewhere totally different, but he did make a specific comment about examining how our proximity to the sun during our orbit affects the decay rates.
Then the real help came from Andrew Snelling. He said I was on the right track and that the experiments I suggested needed to be done, but he also indicated that to at least some degree, they had already been done. I had not heard of any, but I got the impression that the direction I wanted to go was either a dead end or at a canyon without a bridge to cross it. He also made comments that when K-Ar dating showed to give wrong results compared to a Uranium date, they tweaked the half-life of K-40 to make it match. I could not get details on this other than a video presentation he had done, which was put on YouTube about five years ago.
However, before this, two of the full paper presentations really caught my attention. One was Snelling’s presentation on radiohalos. His presentation showed strong evidence of both accelerated decay and aquatic leaching because hydrothermal fluids (water and heat fluids) had to pull Polonium away from the Uranium to create the halos that were present in an extremely short time due to Polonium’s extremely short half-life. So, I had some pieces to the puzzle I was working on solving.
But even bigger than this was a presentation given by two college kids at Cedarville University. They did a statistical analysis of the published radiometric dates from the US Geological Databases, analyzing about 29,000 samples. They simply compared the results of the same methods to the same samples and different methods to the same samples to see how much they agreed. Using the bare minimum overlap as a “concurrence” or “agreement” (that is, if one method gave a range of 60-120 million years, and another method gave a range of 30-61 million years, that was a concurrence). Overall, their data showed that only 64% of the dating methods agreed with themselves.
After their presentation, Andrew Snelling gave some detailed feedback along with John Woodmorappe (most famous for his book Noah’s Ark: A Feasibility Study) on how they need to zoom in on their comparisons to separate the whole rock samples from isochron samples (don’t worry about that difference here) and from isotopes with a solid daughter product from those with a gas as a daughter product. Then I made a comment about those concurrences in how aligned they really were, whether a strong overlap or a just barely overlap. I spoke with both that I would like to take their study and take that step, and I also mentioned it to their mentor, Paul Garner, who initiated the thought for the study and then guided them throughout it. I now had a direction I could go.
What I learned in this process is how even in science, man can make his plans but God directs his steps. I got shut down from going the direction I wanted to go, despite all positive feedback, but I am not to go that direction, at least for now. I instead got a new direction I can look at and when these papers are released. When you take your academic studies and submit them to God’s will and God’s purpose, He will take you directions you could not imagine, and I am by far not done here. I’ll take some time to let things settle, while teaching gets going again for this school year, and once I get some time to review the papers of this conference, I’ll be able to start going down the next step of my journey.
The next International Conference on Creationism is slated to be at Cedarville University again in about four years. A LOT can happen between now and then, but my goal is to publish a full paper with my statistical analysis, and I am also considering doing a theologically based paper as well, possibly showing how a compromise in Genesis leads to compromise everywhere else individually or over generations. But we will see what God does and how He leads me as the dust continues to settle from this conference.
I want to leave this series with this note: science and the Bible are not enemies. They are allies, and as long as you let God direct everything and let Him get the glory, He will show you things beyond your imagination. You can believe the Bible as written and do proper science. You may not make many friends in the academic world, but if you tap into the mind of Christ, you can run circles around their whole departments. Do not fear them nor their mocking. Trust in the Lord and He will bless your studies, including in the sciences. He certainly has blessed mine, and I’m just getting started.
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The heart and soul of the International Conference on Creationism is the papers and abstracts. As this is the first and only professional conference I have been to, I do not have much of sample space for this type of thing as a whole, but it is my understanding that the general idea is not that much different in the mainstream or secular professional conferences.
At this conference, there were full papers and abstracts in which the author(s) got to give a defense of their paper before an audience composed of laymen and other professionals. Each paper and abstract still went through the peer review process, but here the authors got to present before the audience. The paper authors were given 50 minutes to give an overview of their paper and clarify things, whereas the abstracts were only given 20 minutes. You can watch this video to learn about some of these authors.
I am not going to attempt to describe the technical details of these papers here. The only reason I had a remote clue of what was going on in most of these papers was being already familiar with the topics and even then, a lot of it went over my head. What I will emphasis here is what I talked about two weeks ago. The Biblical Creationists are doing true, valid, and legitimate science. During the presentations I sat in, I saw legitimate science. I didn’t agree with every statement or every conclusion. But if Creationists are “not doing legitimate science” then NO ONE is. I’ve seen what is coming from mainstream journals and there is no evidence that science was ever done in some of their papers.
Here are some highlights on a few of the topics. Tim Clarey expanded his published “Carved in Stone” research to showcase through five continents of mapping the six major “geologic megasequences” that the Flood did happen gradually over the course of the year-long event with the peak of the waters only around day 150 and then receding. Australia’s mapping wasn’t finished yet, but Clarey indicated that Australia could be the best of the six continents to show the Flood’s reach. Andrew Snelling discussed radiohalos and showcased how polonium had to be pulled away from uranium to produce their own halos. This would be evidence for accelerated radioactive decay and evidence that such accelerated decay would not produce the heat problem that skeptics insist upon. Steve Austin gave a presentation about Hopi Lake, which would be a great lake that would breach to carve the Grand Canyon.
There were other presentations about statistical comparisons about radiometric dating results, other radiometric dating topics, issues with the Ice Age and the Flood, discussions about animal longevity, and the list goes on – paleontology topics, genetic topics, more Flood geology topics, and even some theological topics. To try to describe them all would overwhelm almost anyone.
There were at least one or two papers that people said were unimpressive and likely should not have passed peer-review. There were papers that disagreed with other papers being shared, but science does that. There are competing ideas over the same central theme. There were other papers that were good enough for getting through peer-review but needed modifications and tweaks to further the study. I’ll hit one in particular next week as it related to my own research.
What was really cool though was despite the disagreements, the whole conference had a central theme: demonstrating the validity of the Bible’s accounts and seeking how the events took place. Some discussions did get heated, and we have to face the fact that we are not yet fully redeemed. There is so much we still have to learn, and some of what we think is going on now may not be actually happening. Some of the scientists have pointed out that they are on their third or fourth version of their models, tweaking things as they go, and would eventually reject the models if the evidence really turns against it. The creationists are doing all the legitimate science that the mainstream only boasts about doing. There is no valid reason to reject their findings on the grounds that “they don’t do science” or “they are biased.”
Next week, I’ll wrap up my series on the International Conference on Creationism by examining my personal experience with my own research and what happened as a result of the feedback I received.
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The International Conference on Creationism did something that usually is not done in many conferences. Instead of just one keynote speaker for each evening speaking for 1-2 hours, they decided to give multiple speakers the opportunity to speak on different subjects about where the science based on Creation is standing. There were eleven keynotes over three evenings. I will not be able to cover everything in this blog post, of course, but here are some of the highlights.
Bill Barrick from The Master's Academy International opened up discussing theology. He called out a few of the old earth teachers by name for poor theology but also called out some of the errors that young earthers have made too by using certain Scriptures out of context. He called for bringing back theology as the queen of the sciences and that every scientific study group or team should have a good, qualified (or proven) theologian on the team to show that the models are in line with what Scripture teaches.
Andrew Snelling from Answers in Genesis spoke about geology and listed 12 different fields of geology to be addressed. These included comparing the real geologic column in the physical earth to the textbooks’ models, to further studying where the Flood started and stopped, to dealing with radiometric dating and calling for a more complete model of radioactive decay that is in agreement with Scripture and the Flood.
Russel Humphreys spoke about physics and presented four different projects for future physicists to address. While I have greatly respected Humphreys and his work, I was rather disappointed in this one as one project called for a naturalistic explanation for supernatural events (the forming of galaxies) and another greatly misused a verse from Ecclesiastes where there is nothing new under the sun to suggest that time is “circular.”
Joe Francis from The Master's University spoke about biology with a strong focus on immunity and microbiology. He spent most of his talk explaining the immune system and how much it truly requires an intelligent designer, including how it can tell the difference between real and fake substances.
Douglas Petrovitch from Brookes Bible College spoke about archeology, focusing on the finds from the 2nd century BC. He was featured in the Patterns of Evidence series, namely on “The Moses Controversy” part. He pointed out that all the evidence points to Pharaoh Amenhotep II being the Pharoah of the Exodus, as he is the only king that meets all the criteria. He showcases several stone slabs where Israel is mentioned as a nation but some that actually date all the way back to Joseph with the early Hebrew alphabet, written by Joseph’s first son, Manasseh. He listed several other finds that showcase the Bible’s history and the evidence that Hebrew was indeed the first alphabetic written language in history.
Danny Faulkner from Answers in Genesis spoke about astronomy. He addressed how early on, creation research was more about Big Bang bashing than creating our own models, and he bemoaned that we lack in this area due to lack of qualified experts to study it, a lack of Biblical specifics, and the dangers of having that kind of great freedom to explore many other options. But he also pointed out some of our gains in examining cratering, aspects of Venus and Mars, and how the exoplanets (5700 of them) continue to showcase the uniqueness of Earth.
Then John Baumgardner from Liberty University spoke about Numeric Modeling. Most of his talk was how he used numeric modeling to create the TERRA program in Los Alamos Labs that the government uses today. It was numeric modeling that helped him create Catastrophic Plate Tectonics and various other things.
John Sanford from Logos Research Associates spoke about genetics, possibly for the last time as a focus of study, because another topic related to the sexual identity crisis has his attention. He pointed out five different geneticists who have made a tremendous impact, including himself with “Genetic Entropy” and Rob Carter on Mitochondrial diversity who was the first to discover that humans to trace back to a single woman. Then he addressed Liu-Y.G. (I did not get this full name) for showing how many viruses got their immunity, mentioned Jeff Thomkins (ICR) for his chimp vs human DNA comparison (showing only 84% similarity instead of the claimed 99% similarity), and concluded with Nathaniel Jeanson and his books Replacing Darwin and Traced.
Kurt Wise from Truett McConnell University spoke on paleontology and with much gusto and energy. He spoke about many fossils and said that studying fossils like studying living creatures. While I got where he was coming from, I could not really agree with him on that. He also made a point about horse evolution, just on a YEC time scale, and he is not in a lot of agreement with the rest of the YEC community on that one.
Matt McLain from The Master's University spoke about education. He tried to give it as much of a positive spin as he could, but only 14 colleges still teach YEC and only two of them have YEC-friendly grad school programs. It is critical for teachers to pour into the next generation, and he called for more YEC schools, more YEC programs, more students doing YEC research, more careers available to them, and a need to rethink what it means to prepare a student for success.
Then, finally, Aaron Hutchinson from Cedarville University spoke about chemistry, an often-neglected field in Creation with very few chemists. He suggested that solubility rates and studies would be a valuable field to examine. He pointed out that with many reactions being reversible, we should be looking at solution equilibrium and rock formation, how they form quickly. He specified dealing with carbonates coming from biology and from materials similar to salts. We should look at hot hydrothermal fluids as sources for metals, carbon, and sulfur, along with sorting by solubility going on. Of course, such experiments are quite dangerous as they can explode. As Dr Hutchinson said, as a chemist, he’s not exactly opposed to such notions. He concluded by pointing out that the conditions in which a rock formed could affect the ratio of stable and unstable isotopes regarding the dating methods.
So that is a quick summary of the content of the keynote speakers from the International Conference on Creationism. I’ll touch on the papers and abstracts and posters next week. My point in sharing this is that there is a lot of research being done to validate and verify the Bible’s account regarding origins, and there is still a lot more research to do. We are just starting to catch up to the Bible. We have a long way to go, and that is one of the fun parts of being a scientist who believes the Bible as written. We are finding so much that it is a shame we aren’t being recognized for it. Many of our finds are truly Nobel Prize worthy and beyond. More on this next week.
This forum is meant to foster discussion and allow for differing viewpoints to be explored with equal and respectful consideration. All comments are moderated and any foul language or threatening/abusive comments will not be approved. Users who engage in threatening or abusive comments which are physically harmful in nature will be reported to the authorities.
