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Creation Evolution Course
This course is designed for those who may not have a science background,
however, be forewarned: I will be dealing with quite a bit of science. But as I go I
will explain terms and concepts so as to be understandable to all who might listen.
On a one to ten scale, ten being the highest, my interest in this subject has always
remained about a 2, but once I learned that there’s a boat load of people out there,
mostly unbelievers, who value it around a 10, I decided to do some research in the
subject to help dispel misinformation and inform those who may need more
information. Of the top ten reasons unbelievers dismiss the bible as true, 6 of them
revolve around the first few chapters of Genesis. We will be discussing these
chapters in depth.
My background is molecular biology, microbiology, vaccine development,
and biochemistry. I am currently a researcher at The University of Montana
investigating the mechanisms of mutation in human, yeast, and bacterial genes. I
have a Ph.D. To do this course right one really should be expert in five fields:
physics, geology, theology, philosophy, and evolutionary biology. I’ve had some
physics on the college level, including some relativity and nuclear physics; a few
college level geology courses, extensive self research in theology; I’m two courses
short of a bachelors degree in philosophy, and I have quite a bit of expertise in
genetics at the molecular level. This doesn’t make me an expert on any of the five
levels, but I like for you to know where I’m coming from and weigh it in your
minds accordingly. Whenever you listen to someone discuss this subject you
should always get a handle on their background. There are a lot of well meaning
people out there that speak what they know not of, unfortunately, even from the
pulpit. As I go along I will make comments as to the depth of my knowledge on
any given subject. Some of the physics concepts I discuss are frankly over my
head, so I’m basically repeating what I hear experts in the field say about it.
Which brings me to the next subject. In the past I considered myself a socalled young-earther, that is, a Christian who believes the earth and the universe
are only about 10,000 yrs old. Many years ago now, I came across Hugh Ross, a
former radio astronomer turned Christian evangelist who convinced me that
modern science and the bible are indeed compatible and that the earth and
universe are on the order of 4.5 and 13.7 billion years old, respectively. His
seminal book, Fingerprint of God, is the basis of this course. I will be referring to it
frequently. His web site is called reasons.org. He has a molecular biologist and a
Christian philosopher on staff also. He has a weekly podcast and a weekday
online devotional. His web site is a huge database of information. He and his staff
speak frequently across the globe and in many universities across the US.
If you are of the persuasion that the earth and universe are young – like I
once did – give this course a chance. At the very least see why folks like me
believe the way we do. Fortunately, whether you believe in a young or old earth,
the way to the Father is still through the Son and believers can be on either side of
this issue and still be born again, going to heaven, believers. It’s a huge mistake, I
believer, to make this issue a dividing factor in the church. The scripture says let
everyone be fully persuaded in what we believe, but we don’t need to let differing
beliefs divide us to the point that we can’t fellowship with one another over it.
Included in your packet of material is a syllabus and a suggested reading
list. If you are listening to this lesson by the Internet, there is a button to view
these figures in Word format. As I go through this course I will be referring to
these figures.
Alright, so before I launch, I should lay out a few definitions that will be
helpful. Cosmology is the study of the cosmos, or the physical universe: how it
came to be. Creationism is the theological account of origin. All major religions
including Christianity have an origin account. I will only discuss briefly other
religions and center mainly on the Christian biblical account. I need to explain
exponential notation: if you recall your high school math, log base ten, e.g., 102 –
the number 10 with a little 2 written up and to the right of it – means 10 times 10
or 100. 1023 means 1 with 23 zeros after it. When you multiply exponential
numbers you simply add the exponents, so, for example 102 times 103 equals 105,
or, 1 with 5 zeros after it. This kind of notation is helpful when dealing with very
large or very small numbers.
10-2 equals .01. Another way of saying this would be 1/100 or 1 with the
decimal place moved to the left two places. So 10-23 power means 1 with 22 zeros
in front of it. This is a very small number. Got it? If not, hopefully as we go some
of the data and figures it will become more understandable.
Alright let’s begin. Everyone has basic assumptions they make. These
should be laid out in front so everyone knows where they’re coming from. I will
make two assumptions in this course: the first is that the bible is true. I’m not
going to spend any time trying to prove this. There are many books written on the
subject that you can read on your own. One of them is in the suggested reading
list by Josh McDowell. I will be referring to many scriptures in this course. I
assume they are all true. The second assumption is that we can understand these
scriptures. There is a whole discipline in philosophy called epistemology which
delves into this most important topic of knowledge. Unfortunately in this course,
we don’t have the time to explore it. I’d also like to point out that in this course I
will only be dealing with things we observe in nature. I won’t be dealing much
with speculative things that have not been observed but still might be believed in
by some.
The basic premise of this course goes like this: science observes nature;
scientists makes theories and create experiments based on those theories to
explain what we observe. It is undeniable that western culture has seen great
gains in this discipline especially in the last 400 years. This does not mean they get
everything right, but, on the other hand, their track record is pretty good. What
we observe in nature and how we interpret what we observe can, however, lead us
astray at times. Scripture is unfortunately subject to the same flaw: what we read
and how we interpret what we read can lead us into different directions. If God
created both nature and inspired the Bible to be written, then these two disciplines
must cohere. If they don’t, something must be wrong with our interpretation of
nature, our interpretation of scripture, or both. They CANNOT disagree – so this
is big right here – get this point: the whole course stems on this syllogism.
The bible has some science in it but not much: it was never intended to be a
science book. Science does not really address the question of why or who so much
as what. Putting these together, science can be a sort of 67th book of the bible. It
can help us explain some things that are left out of the bible, and, the bible can
help us explain the who and why’s of science. Together we get a better picture of
what’s going on then if we just use one or the other exclusively. As this course
unfolds I hope to convince you that these two disciplines are indeed compatible
with one another. My premise is not to meld these on purpose, or try to force
them to cohere, but that they do so without that much trouble on their own.
Again, the same Author – God – made them both so one would expect them to
dove tail nicely with one another.
Now it is possible that science can violently contradict theology (theology is
the study of God and the bible and includes many interpretations). For example,
St Augustine, an eminent church father of the third century, maintained that the
earth was flat. He based his interpretation on Isa 40:22 which says, “It is he that
sits upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers;
that stretches out the heavens as a curtain, and spreads them out as a tent to dwell
in”. The word curtain connotes two dimensions (flat) but the word tent connotes
three dimensions (sphere). Science can also misinterpret data. For example, the
disease of malaria: it had been known for some time that the disease always
seemed to occur in swampy areas that tended to stink. Malaria means “bad air” in
Latin. For centuries people believed that it was the bad air around swamps which
caused the disease. It turns out this is merely coincidence. There is no direct cause.
It happens that the mosquito, which carries the microscopic parasite, likes to
breed around swampy areas.
Bible and facts of nature must concur because the same Person created
both: if there is a contradiction between the two, there must be a problem in
interpretation or perspective. The bible declares God created the universe (Gen
1:1, Heb 11:3); God is responsible for the words of the bible (2 Pet 1:21,22);
therefore no contradiction between the facts of nature and the facts of the bible is
possible, otherwise God is a liar or inconsistent. God states in the Word (the bible)
that one of the reasons He created earth and nature was to testify of His existence,
to proclaim the Gospel. Any apparent contradiction must stem, then, from human
misinterpretation. (See Figure 1).
Man makes mistakes. We increase our probability of getting it right by
using both natural and supernatural revelation. But in doing this we get ourselves
in a lot of controversy and emotion. We can avoid this by not just looking at Gen
1&2 for the creation story but to the whole bible.
Alright, so much for the intro, let’s move on now into the first large section
of the course which is cosmology. The reason I deal with this topic up front is
because, of all the topics discussed, this one has the most data and is the most
definitive. I’m putting my best foot forward. So, cosmology, again, is the study of
the universe, its structure, origin and development. Just as an aside, cosmogony is
a similar subject but is more philosophical in nature than physical.
Looking at the history of the subject, Figure 2 gives a graphic of man’s
perspective of the size of the universe over time. At the beginning of recorded
history western man thought the universe extended no more than what stars
could be seen at night, sort of at the outer reaches of the earth’s atmosphere. The
early Greeks, who lived around 500 B.C., did some experimenting to discover that
it was larger than that. Figure 3 shows a few of these experiments. They used
simple geometry to give a fairly accurate estimate of the distance from the earth to
the sun. In southern Egypt they dug a deep well and notice on certain days of the
year at solstice, there was no shadow in the well because the sun was directly
overhead. But at the same time in northern Egypt there was a 7o shadow from
vertical. Accounting for the distance between the two locations, about 500 miles,
they calculated the distance to the sun. They also looked at the 1st and 3rd quarter
moons, to measure the same distance but by a different means. The number they
arrived at wasn’t as accurate but they figured the sun was 20X’s further away
from us than the moon. They concluded that the sun, being 1/2o of an arc unit, was
much larger than the moon and the earth. Based merely on its large size, they
surmised the sun was the center of the universe. This is not true but this
knowledge did expand man’s thinking of how large the universe is. They looked
at a lunar eclipse (see Figure 4), and measured the curvature of the shadow to
calculate the relative size of the earth and moon, and how far away the moon was
from the earth. They were only 1o off.
They also noticed the stars exhibited no parallax. Parallax can be
demonstrated by the following: close one eye and hold one finger out in front of
you at full arm’s length. Now close the one eye and open the other. See the shift in
position of your finger? That’s called parallax. If you do the same thing when
looking at something way off on the horizon, you won’t see a shift because the
objects on the horizon are too far away, relative to the distance between both your
eyes. Since they saw no shift in star positions when the earth had rotated half way
around its orbit, they concluded, rightly, that stars must be very far away. We can
see parallax with closer stars with our modern telescopes but the shift is very
slight and requires very precise equipment and measurements to detect this
movement. Obviously the Greeks didn’t have this advantage.
So back to Figure 2, the graph shows a jump in perceived size of the
universe around this time. Well, along came the great philosopher Plato, who
lived around 400 B.C. He was not an engineer, or scientist. To his thinking, such
folk were not in the same league as philosophers. He rather looked down on such
thinking. He was more given to pure reason as the way to truth. Since philosophy
was the greatest discipline and only humans could engage in it, the earth where
they lived must be the center of the universe. This is known as the geocentric
universe model. Since Plato was so hugely successful and influential, this notion
stuck and trumped earlier thinkers. Now our idea of how big the universe shrunk
a bit, as is shown on Figure 2, and for the next 1500 years or so, the universe
wasn’t very big in the thinking of man.
The early Church was heavily influenced by Plato and Aristotle, one of
Plato’s most eminent students. The geocentric universe became dogma.
Well, moving forward several hundred years to Augustine (400 AD), he
came up with five arguments for the existence of God to defend various false
doctrines that were floating around at the time. These arguments are still germane
today. The first is the cosmological argument, which states that the effect of the
universe’s existence must have a suitable cause. This codifies the law of cause and
effect: every effect MUST have a cause. God is the First Cause. Figure 5 lists these
arguments. The second argument is called the ontological argument. Ontology
means the nature of being or reality. It states the we have a god-consciousness;
this implies a God who imprinted such a consciousness on humans. (Even atheists
think about God – where did they get the concept?). This is a very powerful
argument in my opinion. Ps 139 speaks of this, and Ecc 3:11 speaks of the sense of
eternity which is in everyone’s heart. A missionary named Dan Richardson wrote
a book on this subject named Eternity in our Hearts (Regal). He had been involved
with several indigenous ancient people groups over the years and noted that they
all, even though they were not Christian, had this consciousness, corporately and
individually.
The third argument is the moral argument. This is the idea that the law of
God, capsulated by the Ten Commandments, is written on our hearts, regardless
of geography, culture or history. Rom 2:14-15 corroborates. This must have been
implanted in our conscience by a Higher Being. Paul argues with all three of these
arguments with the Greeks in Acts 17:24-31. Figure 6 lists scriptures which
support these three arguments. The fourth argument is the rational argument
which states that the operation of the universe works according to order and
natural law. This implies a mind behind it. There is a modern day movement
along these lines called Intelligent Design. If there is a mind there must be a
personality because it has never been observed in nature the presence of
intelligence without personality. If there is a personality, there must be a divine
being. Roger Bacon, a great thinker of the early Renaissance, took this premise and
formed the now famous scientific method. His ideas revolutionized society and
science. The effects of this are felt even today. The last argument is called the
teleological argument which states the design of the universe implies purpose or
direction behind it.
Well, moving on to the 12 century, with a man named Maimonides, a
famous Jewish philosopher, he subdivided the cosmological argument into 5,
making 9 arguments total. Thomas Aquinas of the 13 century, the great Catholic
champion of the church, plagiarized these for his writings in his day. (Back then
plagiarism was common place and not thought to be wrong). These are shown on
the bottom half of Figure 5. The first says that motion presupposes an original
mover. This presaged Newton’s laws of motion. The second said an infinite series
of causes, it is impossible to conceive, therefore there must be a first cause, i.e.,
God. And even if it is infinite, something must have caused it. We have no
evidence in life of an uncaused effect. If you come upon the scene of an accident,
for example, the immediate response is, what happened? No one thinks the
accident occurred spontaneously without cause. (There is an exception taken to
this in the subatomic world which we will treat on later in the course). The third
argument states the conditional demands that which is absolute, or a noncontingent being. One of the three primary names of God is Jehovah which means
the self-existent one. The fourth argument says where there are degrees of
perfection, there must ultimately be absolute perfection, which is God. Plato
popularized this idea over a millennium earlier but did not incorporate the idea of
a Creator God, separate and distinct from the created universe as the bible
teaches. The fifth argument stated there is design and government in the world;
hence there is ultimately a first designer and a first governor. Objects and events
have the appearance of being controlled by an overruling design as an arrow
being shot by an archer.
Up to this time western society was more or less homogenously Christian.
Beginning with the Renaissance, people began seriously questioning the existence
of God and the validity of Christianity. Emmanuel Kant (1724-1804) was a
mathematician, astronomer and philosopher. He tore down these arguments one
by one, though he never attacked all nine as a whole. His arguments were circular,
but back in 18th century Germany, certain things could be accepted without proof.
Circular reasoning, or begging the question, is the case where the proposition to
be proved is assumed implicitly or explicitly in the premise. Kant’s unstated
fundamental axiom or premise is: God’s existence in not provable. For this type of
thinking we get derive our modern idea of agnosticism. Therefore he suggested, 1)
man’s knowledge is limited to that which he can obtain through the five senses. 2,
a cause can never be proved from its effect; 3, no existence beyond the humanly
experienced dimensions can be proved; 4, no absolute can ever be established to
exist; 5, miracles are illusory and cannot be proven to be true. Conclusion: God’s
existence lies beyond the reach of man’s knowledge.
One of the problems with philosophy is that it tends to center up on the
mind and side lines the heart of man. This is a huge mistake. The scripture says
the natural mind is enmity against God and subject to His laws (Rom 8:7); it also
says we perceive God with our hearts (Eph 2:8,9) and that eternity is written in
our hearts (Ecc 3:11). So trying to apprehend God with the mind is like trying
smell with the eyes: it is the wrong organ to use. This is not to say that Christians
must through out their minds in order to believe. No, the scripture says we are to
worship God with all our minds as well as our hearts. It also says, however, we
must renew our minds and let it be transformed, or changed supernaturally by
His spirit within us. Initially, it is necessary to go with the heart despite the
misgivings of the head. Later on, after the born again experience, the mind can be
changed to think like God thinks. The objection to this is that we must be
somehow brain washed, and that’s bad! But this assumes the natural world is
good. It is not. God has told us in scripture that the world is presently cursed, and
that we humans caused this to happen. Sin was not God’s idea. Really, heaven is
normal; the Garden of Eden was normal. We will discuss these things in more
detail later.
Kant’s ideas had the following implications in cosmology, combining them
with Newton’s Laws of motion. His ideas implied: the development of the
universe is strictly mechanistic, or worked by cause and effect of physical matter
and forces; 2, the universe has no beginning in time; 3) the universe is infinite in
extent, 4) time and space are strictly relative, 5) everything about and in the
universe can be explained by the laws of physics, ergo, what do we need God to
explain anything? These ideas are tabulated on Figure 7.
Kant introduced differential calculus. He demonstrated that with one set of
data points one could predict acceleration and deceleration of objects forward or
backward in time. Thus the history of the universe could be explained and the
future predicted. To his credit, he hedged by saying we don’t have accurate data
points yet to do this. In 1775 he published a theoretical book on the development
of the universe. He said the universe must be infinite because nothing less would
fit an infinite God – he still believed in God, in an abstract sort of way. His book
Critique of Pure Reason written 30 years later uses philosophy to prove the
universe is infinite, therefore we don’t need God. He laid the philosophical basis
for Darwinian evolution. Given enough time and materials, he implied, I’ll give
you German philosophers, but nothing less than an infinite universe will do. As
we’ll see shortly, this is not the case.
Interestingly, Kant bought the moral argument for the existence of God.
But his (and our) awareness of God is necessarily subjective, that is, whatever you
think about God is valid. This led to the ideas of modern day behaviorism,
existentialism, fascism, Freudianism, hedonism, humanism, libertarianism,
Marxism/communism, pragmatism, relativism, neo-Darwinism.
Well, the next several decades after Kant actually saw support of his ideas.
Looking on Figure 8, in the 1830’s William Herschels was a famous English
astronomer. In his day larger telescopes were being built that enabled us to look
further and further out into the universe. So, back to Figure 2, we see an increase
in the perceived size of the universe all the way up to the infinite, thanks to Kant.
What we’ll be seeing very soon now after this is a decrease from the infinite to our
present day assessment of the size of the universe, which is 13.7 billion light years.
More on that later. So Herschels started counting stars in specific areas of the sky.
He noticed an asymmetry of density, that is, stars were clustered in groups which
were encompassed by areas of empty space. He noticed that our sun, which is a
star, is embedded in a gigantic lens-shaped system of stars. Thus our probing of
the universe was revealing more and more stars that could not be seen without
the aid of a telescope. This supported Kant’s idea of an infinite universe with an
infinite number of stars, solar systems, galaxies, galaxy clusters, larger clusters,
super clusters, etc. Before telescopes, people thought there were only about 6,000
stars (number of visible stars in the sky). The universe is huge!
Newton’s laws of motion seemed to explain the movement of every and all
objects, both in the heavens and on earth. This lent credence to the notion of
infinite time because these equations predicted with such accuracy bodies in
motion, it must be the case that one could project backwards and forwards in time
to infinity. Newton, who was himself a believer of the Bible, came up with the
idea of an infinite universe. Later philosophers and scientists, including Kant,
picked up on this idea. As a side note, even though someone is expert in one field
does not mean he or she is expert in all fields. We see this in modern day popular
books by physicists and astronomers. They may be great physicists but that
doesn’t make them great philosophers. The same is true for philosophers: be ware
of their science.
The planet Neptune was predicted to exist before it was ever observed,
based on the movement of other plants nearby. Astronomers found it the same
night they predicted it on paper. This gave further credence to an infinite universe
and Kant’s cosmology. (see Figure 8)
A phenomenon called Olber’s paradox gave further support to his
cosmology. The idea was first proposed by Diggs in 1576. He noted that at night,
the sky is dark, but how can this be if the universe is infinite? If infinite, the sky
should be bright at night for the following reason: If you were to count all the
stars at a given distance X from the earth, there is given off a certain amount of
light from them. Call this the first shell or sphere of light. Now double that
distance out from the earth and count the number of stars in the second shell, and
add this with the number in the first shell. Since the three dimensional volume of
a sphere increases by the power of three relative to the diameter of the sphere,
there should now be X3 more stars and more light than with the first shell. Since
the intensity of light falls off in intensity as the square of the distance, the net
effect is twice the amount of light. Now do the same calculation for 4x’s the
distance, then 8x’s, etc., etc. Do this an infinite number of times and you’ll get an
infinite amount of light. But this is not what we observe, therefore the universe is
not infinite in extent. This is called Olber’s paradox (see Wikipedia.org for a more
detailed explanation). Ed Halry in 1715 popularized Digg’s argument. Cheseaux
(1744) and Olbers (1823) came up with the answer: dust absorbs light, therefore
the universe really is infinite. Robert Trumpler (1930) found evidence for this dust
and found that it did indeed absorb light, sometimes by a factor of 10.
Thus for 150 years Kant’s ideas went unchallenged. In figure 9 we progress
to the future with Einstein just around the corner and we experience some
problems. In 1879 Joseph Stefans published results of experiments on black body
radiation and thermodynamics which seemed to contradict the so-called
resolution of Olber’s paradox. Black body radiation is a theoretical concept which
has no real counterpart in nature but serves as a useful ideal. If any type of
radiation impinges upon an object, that object will absorb some of that energy into
itself and then, in turn, radiate it back out into space again, releasing what energy
it absorbed earlier, like the sidewalk on a hot day will absorb sunlight and heat
during the day then radiate it back off at night in the form of heat. Well, a black
body radiator is an object that absorbs radiation completely and radiates it back
completely, without any lose either way. Theoretically, the amount radiated back
out must equal exactly the amount that is absorbed. Black bodies are idealistic, but
without much mathematical adjustments, the same model fits any body, or real
object in space. Thus, dust, the so-called answer to Olber’s paradox, must radiate
back the same amount of energy it absorbed. Again, we should see no darkness
during night time hours, yet we do.
Herman Bondi pointed this out in 1960. Therefore the universe can’t be
infinite. How simple! Yet science overlooked this concept for decades.
At this time I think I would like to introduce the electromagnetic spectrum.
This is Figure 10 in your handout package. So I’m laying a little more science on
you that’s necessary before I proceed. Electro-magnetic energy is a fancy name for
light. It comes in many flavors, or more specifically, wavelengths. Visible light, the
wavelengths the human eye sees, is only a very small part of a much greater
whole. If we use a meter as our unit of length, visible light is measured in
nanometers, which means a billionth of a meter. That’s extremely small. We can’t
see that small. Moving to the right on the scale, we find ultraviolet light. This is
also known as UV or black light. It looks a rich purple to our eyes. It’s the
wavelength of light that is harmful to be in when tanning on the beach. After this
is x-ray, which of course is used in x-ray machines, and finally gamma radiation.
This is a very harmful form and can cause cancer and even death, as in an atomic
blast. Moving to the left of the visible light spectrum, we have infra-red light. This
is heat. The heat lamps you see over fast foods are this kind of light. Next to the
left is microwaves, like in your microwave oven, and then radio waves by which
we send out music over the air to our receivers at home. Our sun and all stars give
off all these wavelengths of light in various degrees and intensities. This is
important background information for future reference. Alright, enough of that
hard core science stuff.
Another problem with Kant’s cosmology involved the gravitational
potential paradox. Newton had the tools to do this, as did other astronomers since
his time, but never bothered to do this rather simple calculation. In 1871, Johann
Zollner stated that if Newton’s equations are correct, and there is an infinite
universe, then it should be impossible to determine the force of gravity at any
point in the universe, yet it is possible. His paper was ignored. In 1896 Seeliger
and Neumann verified Zollner’s findings. Obviously we can calculate the gravity
of any system, therefore something is wrong with our assumption of an infinite
universe. They said there must be some repulsive counter-balancing force to
account for this discrepancy. An interesting idea, but, at that time there was no
observational data to support it.
Let me make another aside at this point. Science, in the last 400 yrs, has
been published publicly in specialized journals devoted to very specific
subcategories. For instance, Mutation Research, is a journal devoted to research
that specifically deals with mutations in genes and organisms. These journals are
peer reviewed. This is very important. This means that other scientists within your
field have to look over your paper that you wish to publish to check for
conceptual and other errors before it can be published. This process tends to weed
out bad research or erroneous ideas from getting into the collective literature. This
system isn’t fool proof, but it’s a lot better than Reader’s Digest. Incidentally, it
costs the scientist about $500 these days to publish in a journal. It’s a lot of work to
get published. Once it’s published, however, like law, it becomes precedent and
you and others can quote it with authority to bolster your point. When you try to
get published it is often rejected at first for revision or some other errors. This
makes science vigorous and robust. Alright, enough of that. Let’s go on.
Now we enter so-called non-classical physics. At the end of the 19th
century, physicists were saying they were done. There is nothing lift to explain.
All the work had been done, so they thought. Maxwell had described
electromagnetism, Newton had described gravity. All that had to do was push to
the next decimal point of accuracy to verify what was already known.
Michelson and Morley, a duo who won the Nobel Prize in 1907, did an
experiment in 1887, at Case Western University, that shook the foundations of
physics. It really was a rather simple experiment. They wanted to measure the
speed of light relative to the motion of the ether in which they thought the earth,
and all other heavenly bodies, past through in their respective motions. They
anticipated a Doppler type effect but found none. The Doppler effect in sound is
the phenomenon of hearing a train or car coming at you with a certain higher
pitch then when it passes you buy. Sound waves travel relatively slowly (on the
order of about 700 mph). The car or trains speed contributes to the speed of the
sound waves it produces, let’s say from a horn blast. This increases the frequency
of the sound which makes it sound higher in pitch than it would if the train were
at rest. Then, as it passes you buy, that same speed takes away from the speed of
sound of that horn blast, and this decreases the frequency of sound and it sounds
lower in pitch to our ears.
Well, light can actually do this to. We’ll discuss this more in detail later.
Sound needs air molecules to work. In space there is virtually no air molecules so
consequently there is no sound in space, contrary to popular Hollywood
depictions. “Ether” was the name given to medium through which people thought
light had to travel, analogously to air and sound waves. Well, depending on
where the observer observes, light waves should compress and decompress like
sound waves do in air, through this ether. Well, they found no such compression.
They tried there experiment at different times of the year and all possible angels.
The results were always the same. For the next 20 yrs astronomers tried to use
classical physics to explain their results without success. The inescapable
conclusion was that the speed of light is constant to all observers.
Well, along came Einstein. He was a non-academician, he was audacious,
no compunction, nothing to loose – he had a can’t fire me kind of attitude. This
gave him liberty that others in his field didn’t enjoy. But, he was also a genius. In
1905 he published his theory of special relativity. The top half of Figure 11 shows
how the length, velocity, mass of an object and even time itself could change
depending on how fast the object is going. The equation is simple: v stands for
velocity and c is the speed of light (186,000 miles per second). If you do the math
you’ll find that the so-called dilation factor is essentially “1” when you’re going as
fast as a car or even a jet. But when you start approaching the speed of light,
funny things start happening. Time slows down, things get heavier. Many many
experiments have been done over the years to verify the veracity of this theory – it
works. To mention one, when John Glenn first orbited the earth 7 times, they put
an atomic clock on board his space craft. He was traveling the speed of satellites
which is about 18,000 miles per hour. The clock was accurate to 12 decimal places.
They calculated that he was actually 1/10,000 of a second younger when he
returned, than had he stayed on earth for the same length of time. Time had
dilated for him when he traveled at that high rate of speed. Approaching the
speed of light, it would appear to us looking at him that it would take 100 yrs for
him to lift a fork to his mouth!
Now it actually didn’t take genius to figure this out back then. If Einstein
hadn’t come up with it there were others who would have very soon after. His
real genius came with the publication of his general theory of relativity which
included acceleration, which is the change of speed relative to time. As you
accelerate onto the freeway, for example, your speed changes over time. Once you
reach highway speed you stop accelerating, even though you are still traveling at
a certain speed.
The equations shown on the lower half of Figure 11 are said to be the most
beautiful equations ever written and discovered. I’m not going to try to explain
them in detail – I couldn’t even if I wanted to – but I would like to point out some
startling points. Let’s focus on equation (3) first: the numbers and letters to the left
of the equals sign is the acceleration term. On the other side of the equals sign are
4 physical constants: c is the velocity of light, P is the pressure of the universe, p
(rho) is the density of the universe, and G is gravity. All four of these are positive
values, but notice there’s a negative sign in front of the whole mess. This is key. A
negative sign means the universe is decelerating, like when you take your foot off
the accelerator and your speed starts to decrease. The density (P) over time is
decreasing. Putting these two things together, the universe is expanding and
decelerating at the same time. This is the description of an explosion, like a hand
grenade going off and the fragments expanding out from the point of the
explosion in all directions eventually slowing down and simultaneously
expanding as the shrapnel spreads out in space. This is the origin of the idea of a
Big Bang. It implies a Creator! This is huge. Actually Einstein, although a Jew, was
very uncomfortable with this. He wanted a static universe, one without beginning
or end, kind of like Kant’s infinite universe. An explosion implied a beginning and
an end. This is the principle of cause and effect. We see the effect, we infer a cause,
i.e., God. This was a direct challenge to the Newtonian-Kantian infinite universe
model. And direct proof for the existence of God. Einstein was not very audacious
asserting this. So to retain a static universe and eliminate origin, he proposed a
fudge factor: a fifth force of physics. (the four known forces of the universe are:
electromagnetism, strong and weak nuclear forces, and gravity). Looking at
equation (4) in Figure 10, if you compare it with equation (3) you’ll notice another
ditty at the end - that’s his fudge factor. It’s a repulsive force that would cause two
masses to oppose ea other: when close, the force is weak, when far away, it’s
strong. Kind of like anti-gravity. If this were true he could have his static, infinite
universe.
Well, his theory was tested a few years later in Pasadena California at the
100” Mt Wilson telescope. Edwin Hubble looked for general movement of
galaxies. By 1949 he had made 40 measurements. His results: the further away a
galaxy is from us, the faster it moves! This could only be true of the universe was
expanding. To get a handle on this, if you take a balloon and make a few marks on
it, two marks close together and another further away, then blow it up, you’ll find
that the two closer marks are closer to one another relative to the third mark that’s
further away.
So Hubble’s data was in perfect agreement with Einstein’s original
equation (3) without the fudge factor. Einstein was shown the results. On the spot
he admitted that he was wrong. He referred to it later as the greatest blunder of
his career. Thereafter, he never used it. He then asserted that the universe must
have a beginning and a Beginner. He espoused a Spinoza type god: intelligent,
who creates but is not personal, and does not care for the human race (this is in
contrast to the God of the bible who is transcendent but personal and intimately
concerned and involved with humans).
Rabbis in Einstein’s time said this is inconsistent: how can God be creative
and intelligent and not personal? This is a contradiction. There is never been an
observation in real time of a being who was intelligent but impersonal. Einstein
said, if that’s true why is there so much evil and suffering in the world? For 25 yrs
they said nothing in response: only God knows, they said. This is a shame. (I will
be dealing with evil and suffering later on in this course). The Bible is the only
holy book that addresses this question and gives answers to this paradox. The first
three and last three chapters of the bible pretty much says it all: the first three
chapters treat on the origin of the universe, earth and sin, the last three treat on
the resolution of all things back to a state better than the original before sin
screwed things up.
Most physicists, having looked at the facts, come up with a Spinoza type
God and not the biblical God because of the evil and suffering issue. Einstein
admitted God existed, in the face of Kant and unbelieving peers – to his credit
(whether he was born again I do not know. One hopes). Einstein’s peers admitted
that his fudge factor didn’t work but castigated him for giving up too soon. They
still wanted a static universe. To this day there are still a few hold outs, but most
astronomers believe now in the Big Bang origin of the universe.
In the last decade or so some remarkable discoveries have been made that
might resurrect Einstein’s fudge factor, though it is unlikely to upset the Big Bang
scenario, though it will probably refine it. Astronomers simulating the normal
gravitational forces of a galaxy notice that it quickly flies apart. There simply is
not enough gravity, given the amount of mass in the galaxy, to hold it together. In
the 1930’s an astronomer named Fritz Zwicky proposed “dark matter” as an
additional source of gravitational force necessary to hold the visible masses of the
universe together. Well, we now have discovered this stuff called dark matter,
indirectly. It does not behave like regular matter, we can’t see, but we can see its
effect of gravity on things we do see. About 80% of matter in the universe is dark,
while only ordinary matter, only about 20%. So dark matter is the “glue” that
really holds galaxies together.
Even more bazaar than this is stuff called dark energy. Like dark matter we
don’t really know what it is. It is a repulsive force, kind of like anti-gravity. It
makes the universe actually accelerate in its expansion rate. It accounts for
approximately 74% of the mass-energy of the universe. Time will tell how this
affects our understanding of the origin and fate of the universe. If the universe
were to be allowed to run its course in time, the universe will either end up as a
cold dark bunch of ash because all the usable energy will have been consumed
and entropy maximized (entropy is the measure of disorder and the amount of
unusable energy), or the very dimensions of time and space will fly apart and the
universe will literally rip to shreds. Bazaar hah? We don’t need to worry about all
that. Its billions and billions of years in the future, and more than likely the Lord
will have created and new heavens and earth by then.
Alright, moving on. A Belgian priest named George Lemaitre, and associate
of the famous Sir Arthur Edington, schooled in astronomy, took Hubble’s
measurements and calculated a date of the creation event. He came up with 2
billion years ago. He made the disclaimer in his paper that his date is approximate
since the data points were poor. In our day they are incredibly poor (by a factor of
10). They thought at that time that the age of the earth was about 3.5 billion years
old, so how could the earth be almost twice as old as the universe itself? So he
said, no, the universe isn’t 2 billion yr old, its longer. He proposed, through
Einstein’s math and fudge factor, a near static intermediary time (see Figure 12).
During this time galaxies would form, which would then bring about an
expansion phase again, in which we are now a part of. We can make this
intermediate period arbitrarily long to accommodate the age of the earth. (Though
this doesn’t work because galaxies must form before earth can form).
Eddington, who was an atheist, proposed this intermediary phase time
interval to be infinite. He referred to God as anti-chance. This model was accepted
for 60 yrs. Only relatively recently have we come up with data to refute this
model. In 1974 Iranian-Armenian astronomer Vahay Petroshian in a now classic
paper stated: if the universe has any pause period, it can’t be longer than a certain
diameter; at red shift distance of 2.5, quasars and galaxies would peder out. At
that time no one had seen any objects over 2.5 red shift. (Red shift is a jargon term
referring to the Doppler effect of light as the object emitting the light is moving
away from the observer, causing a shift in the light wavelength to longer than it
would if the object was not moving). In the 1980’s objects with red shifts of 4.1
were observed. This is the edge of the universe. At 4.0, the object is calculated to
be about 15 billion light years away. This proved there was no pause state.
Josef Silk and Ken Brecher later showed that if there were a static time of
more than a trillion years, galaxies would form but there would also be a rapid
collapse of the universe. Obviously this isn’t happening, therefore any stationary
phase must be less than a trillion years. This is a very small number for NeoDarwinists. (we will discuss this more in detail later). In Ross’s book Fingerprint of
God, there is mentioned other evidences against the so-called hesitation model of
the universe (see pgs 95,96). Figure 13 summarizes these.
The prevailing and enduring theory is the so-called Big Bang model. One
alternative proposal by Hoyle, Gold, and Bondy in 1948 was a universe that
continually created new matter. This would account for observed data and allow
new galaxies being formed from this new matter. Some simple physics was
ignored here. In 1922 James Jeans, commenting on this concept, proposed a simple
test: measure the age of stars in galaxies: there should be a wide range of very
young to very old stars. What we actually observe are very young stars, such as
are found in the Orion nebula, and older stars up to about 17 billion yrs. This
argues against continual creation. There are actually stars in existence now that
have enough fuel to burn up to 100 billion yrs. We don’t see these anywhere, thus
the universe cannot be any older than the oldest stars observed.
In 1986, Donald Hamilton generated data to show that all galaxies are
about the same age ±2 billion yrs. The only reasonable explanation is that the
creation event is in the relatively recent past. Vahe Petrosian pointed out in the
same paper that the steady state model predicts galaxies and quasars should be
out to red shift values of infinity. Because the rules of general relativity, you can’t
see objects that far off because light curves back onto itself after a certain distance.
If the universe has a creation event in relatively near past, one should see red
shifts from 2 to 50, most probably 4 to 5. This is what we observe. This eliminates
the hesitation and steady state models. Today, no one buys these models. Many
“obituaries” were written in astronomical circles. Figure 14 summarizes the
results.
Let’s talk now about the oscillation theory. The model postulates many
beginnings. This is based on the effect of gravity and the sufficient mass in the
universe to cause a gravitational collapse. So, after the initial event, mass explodes
out into the universe in all directions, it slows down because of the gravitational
pull from itself, it stops, reverses direction, and eventually implodes back into
itself. It then, according to the theory, recycles the same event over and over again.
This would allow enough time for Neo-Darwinism to work, which is the concept
of molecules eventually evolving into man. We are simply on the lucky bounce
that made us by chance. Richard Tolman in the 1920’s was the first to propose this,
but it actually goes much further back in Hindu culture and religion 3,000 yrs ago.
The Hindu’s proposed a periodicity of 4.5 billion years. Physicists say it would be
more like 30 – 40 billion years. The Hindus weren’t really that far off, if its true.
But Tolman said, thermodynamically, each bounce would result in a slightly
bigger diameter universe each time because gravity isn’t quite as effective as the
previous bounce. Figure 12 shows this in graphic form. But if you connect the
bounce diameter maximums you find only a finite number of bounces are
possible. This is because the amount of mass stays the same but the amount of
usable energy decreases over time. Further more, no one has ever come up with a
bounce mechanism, that is, a way to explain how this implosion/explosion
transition could occur. In 1983 Alan Guth and Marc Sher proved the impossibility
of this theory in an article in the journal Nature, one of the premier journals in
science. The next year, Sydney Bludman, again in Nature, postulated the universe
could be treated the same as an oscillating engine. The universe is actually
extremely inefficient (e.g. 1/100,000,000% vs 25% efficient gas engine). He
concluded that the universe is far too inefficient to afford oscillation. In addition,
in the last few years, we are able to calculate the mass of the universe, including
dark matter. The so-called Friedman constant determines if oscillation could work
on the basis of mass alone. If the number is greater than one, it does; if exactly one,
the mass would eventually stop movement outward altogether and just hover at
that position; if less than one, there is insufficient mass to slow itself by gravity
and movement would even continue outward. The calculated value is between .2
and .4. At the present rate of expansion the universe will end in a heat death in
about 150 billion years and all matter would be at a chilly -454oF or 3oK. Figure 15
summarizes the results.
In the 1960’s Penrose, Hawking – the author of Brief History of Time – and
Ellis took Einstein’s general relativity equations and went further. They proved
not only that matter had a beginning at the Big Bang but time also. This
corroborates Gen 1:1 which says, in the beginning God created heaven and earth
or matter. At that time our data supported the equations to 2 decimal places (=1%
accuracy). This isn’t quite convincing. By the 1970’s we could confidently say that
99% of the universe was governed by the laws of relativity and 1% by unknown
forces. Since then we have verified his equations to 5 decimal points in accuracy.
This is convincing.
The bible is the only holy book that describes a truly transcendent God.
Figure 16 tabulates scriptures that corroborates this fact. Other holy books use the
term transcendent, but if you examine what the authors means it does not suggest
extradimensionality as the Bible does. Science tells us that there are a minimum of
nine space dimensions necessary for us to come up with a universe we see today.
We are familiar with three. Six of the original nine are thought to have “curled up
on themselves” very early on in the formation of the universe. They also postulate
one time dimension. God is said to operate in at least one other time dimension
called eternity, yet is capable of interacting with our time dimension and space
simultaneously. The concepts of trinity, free will vs predestination, eternal
salvation only make sense when one invokes more dimensions that the four we
operate in here on earth. It is trivial, for instance, for Jesus to walk through a wall,
which he is said to have done in the Gospels, if he could operate in 6 space
dimensions. His twelve disciples concluded that this was the spiritual Christ that
just went through the physical wall but He said, no, it was His whole being; he ate
bread and fish to prove it. He was physical.
There is a mathematical theorem which states the one cannot visualize
phenomena in dimensions you cannot experience. This explains why other holy
books, written by men and not god, do not describe God transcendently. It also
explains why no Christian can adequately explain the Trinity. If it were a manmade concept someone could do so. 2 Tim 1:9 and Tit 1:2 say that the grace we are
now experiencing was put into effect before time existed. This is cause and effect.
One must have time for this concept to work, but a time independent of our time,
ie. Eternal time. All other holy books talk about time being one dimensional and
existing forever but physicists say time does not go on forever. The bible describes
a new heaven and earth being formed in the future by God whose physics is
nothing like what we are now subject to. Mathematics, on paper, shows that
upward of a million space dimensions are possible. Maybe God operates in these.
Perhaps there are spirit dimensions also. This kind of thinking answers a lot of
seeming absurdities in the bible like Jesus walking on water. It says in Philippians
2:6,7 that he emptied himself of his divine power, however, He appealed to the
extra dimensional God to intervene on His behalf continually.
Alright, let’s go on with some other scenarios beside the Big Bang. Looking
at the bottom of Figure 16, there is a concept called quantum creation. Listed are
it’s so-called loop holes which would bypass the Big Bang. The initial creation
event is called the Singularity by physicists. 10-43 sec after this event, the standard
big bang model needs a little help. There needs to be a hyperinflationary period in
order to explain what we see today. Between 10-43 and 10-34 seconds there is an
exponential inflation. At 10-43 sec, the universe is smaller than a subatomic particle;
at the end of this period it was the size of a grape fruit. This gives explanation for
inhomogeneities of the universe: without this there would not be clumping of
matter into galaxies interspersed with virtually empty space, as we observe. At
10-43 seconds we are in the realm of quantum mechanics, the physics of the very
small. Unfortunately as the temperatures and pressures we know must exist at
this time, our present day atom smashers cannot reproduce these conditions.
Physicists can make educated guesses but science is only science if it can be
experimentally verified or denied. Physicists make lousy philosophers. There is a
lot of wild speculation out there about what happened from the Singularity up to
this point.
The first scenario listed is called quantum tunneling. Paul Davies, author of
many popular books including, “God and the new physics”, argues against God
of the bible in exchange for the god of quantum mechanics. In these kind of books
its best to skip the technical talk and look at the philosophy. Is it sound or not? He
said we know that God could not create the universe because the space time rules
of general relativity prove to us that time has a beginning. This rules out God
because God creates through cause and effect, but cause and effect need time, but
time has a beginning, therefore God could not have created the universe. He said,
instead, it could be quantum mechanics. Because of the Heisenberg uncertainty
principle, which states that it is impossible to know both the velocity and position
of a subatomic particle, it is possible to get subatomic particles out of absolutely
nothing (there’s actually a calculated small chance that this occurs, and has in fact
been observed). This does not violate the 1st law of thermodynamics which states
that energy can neither be created or destroyed, because quantum mechanical
rules also state that these “created” particles must go back to nothingness in 10-9
sec. So one cannot keep this mass to create a universe. Davies argues that the
universe at 10-43 sec popped out of nothing. There is a flaw: we can’t keep virtual
particles, so we can’t keep a virtual universe. Another flaw is that this proposal
requires time to elapse for it to occur. The Singularity is zero time, therefore there
is no time for it to occur. If there were infinite time then it is certain to happen.
When we talk about the creation event, the time element is zero. The bible makes
it clear that God is not confined to our time dimension. It speaks about cause and
effect before time. In successive books, Davies evolved his thinking to a more
transcendent, personal God – this is biblical and not found in other holy books.
Figure 17 shows the limits of quantum mechanics. The most obvious is that
the rules of quantum mechanics don’t apply to the macromolecular world we live
in. For example, it is trivial to ascertain both the velocity and position of any
object, something that cannot be done in the realm of the subatomic. It has become
popular, even within certain Christian circles, that we can “create” things with our
faith, something which can be explained by quantum mechanics. This is a
misunderstanding of physics. When the observed chooses to observe one aspect
over another, different outcomes occur. His choice did not create the outcome,
merely it masked the alternative outcome from being observed. I fully believe that
the faith of God and his promises can affect the physical world, but only because
God ordained it through His word and covenant and the spirit He gave us. If this
were merely a quantum mechanical phenomenon, what need is there for God? He
becomes irrelevant, and this is not so.
The second loop hole listed is called infinite chances. Richard Goth, in 1982,
published a paper at Cal Tech. He stated that if the universe perfectly inflates,
there is a total washing out of all information before 10-43 seconds [but it doesn’t
perfectly inflate; this was written before science knew this]. He said it would be
impossible for us to use observation to determine what happened before this time.
This being the case, we can hypothesize anything we want. He suggested an
infinite number of universes, and we are in that one that chance allowed
evolution. (Goth didn’t actually say this but others took his thoughts and
extended them this way). (We should always argue the creation/evolution debate
from things we know, not from speculative things we don’t know). Perhaps we
don’t know what happened before 10-43 sec but whatever it was it was rather small
and hot and incapable of life (atoms didn’t even exist at this point). Goth says
even if we have an infinite number of universes they are incapable of contact
between each other and can’t influence one another. So we still are left to explain
how life evolved in 13.7 billion years.
Steven Hawkings in his book Brief History of Time, invokes the idea of
quantum tunneling to explain the inception of the universe. To do this he has to
make up what he calls imaginary time (this is on pg 139 of the book if you have it).
If this imaginary time is real, one could indeed come up with the universe we
observe without the need for God to create it. He concedes however, to his credit,
that his proposal is deduced from no other principle of physics. It’s simply an idea
based on no none physical observations. Many physicists disagree with him.
Another idea proposed is man as creator. As we go along here the ideas
become more and more far out. This was first proposed by John Wheeler based on
delayed choice experiments (see Figure 18).He proposes that the observer actually
causes the event. He induces from this experiment that we humans caused the
universe to come into existence by observing it. A problem with this experiment is
that it implies the rules that govern the quantum mechanical world of the
subatomic also govern the macromolecular world we observe with our eyes. This
patently absurd. The Heisenberg uncertainty principle, one of many rules of
quantum mechanics, for example, states that one cannot observe both the velocity
of an object and its position simultaneously. This is trivial in our world. We can
know the position and velocity of a car traveling down the road. The observer
cannot create the response but rather chooses what aspect of reality he wishes to
observe.
The last proposal I will review is the idea that the universe is becoming
God. John Barrow and Frank Tipler further proposed that, simultaneously, we
humans are becoming God and God Himself doesn’t exist yet. Their book was
called “The Final Anthropic Principle: Omega Point.” Commenting on the
absurdity of this thesis, one writer wrote, What should we make of this quartet of
WAP, SAP, PAP, and FAP (acronyms of sub-proposals in their scheme). In my not
so humble opinion I think the last principle is best called CRAP – the completely
ridiculous anthropic principle. No one takes these ideas seriously today.
OK. So hopefully I’ve convinced you there is indeed necessarily a
transcendent personal God that created the universe, but he doesn’t seem to be
involved or personal. Is God concerned about us?
To answer this question we will now delve into the so-called Anthropic
Principle, originally named so by John Wheeler, as mentioned above, but used in a
completely different way than he originally proposed. It is the idea that the
universe was uniquely designed for life, specifically human life. The idea
originally started with cosmologist and popular scientist Carl Sagan and Josef
Shlovsky in 1963. Their book was called “intelligent life in the universe”. They
limited their parameters for life down to two parameters. We have discovered
over a more hundred since that time. Kant basically said, give me enough time
and atoms to work with, and I’ll give you German philosophers (i.e. people). This
is Neo-Darwinism. Well, it turns out having enough time and creating atoms isn’t
so easy as was once thought. Figure 19 lays out a few of the parameters necessary
for life. I want to go over the list together with you. The first is called the
gravitational coupling constant. This determines the degree to which stars can
form: if stronger then more efficient, larger stars would form but not many small
ones would; if the constant were smaller, gravity would be less efficient, and most
stars would be smaller than our own sun. We observe a range of stars whose
masses are between .1-100X that of our own sun. This is only at the present value
of this constant. The first stars formed were made of almost all hydrogen with
some helium mixed in. When very large mass stars burn with this composition of
components, they exhaust their fuel rather quickly, cosmologically speaking, and
actually blow up in a massive explosion called a super nova. The ashes remaining
from these star explosions is spewed out over a large area of space, eventually to
be captured by gravity into new stars. These so-called second generation stars
have more massive components than the first generation stars, containing
elements such as carbon and iron, and not just hydrogen and helium. The next
generation stars have even heavier elements. Our sun is a third generation star.
(Don’t worry, it’s too small to go super nova!). Life as we know it is not possible
without heavier elements such as metals and radioactive elements. Third
generation stars did not appear on the scene before 10 billion years after the Big
Bang even. In biblical parlance I equate this to, “In the beginning God created
heaven and earth”. Only third generation stars can produce rocky planets, such as
ours. This factor alone is huge.
The second parameter listed is called the strong nuclear force coupling
constant. This is a very sensitive force which governs the degree to which
nucleons (large atomic sub particles) stick together. If smaller, only hydrogen
could exist in the universe – no life can be based on pure hydrogen. If stronger, all
particles would stick together and there would be no hydrogen. No life is possible
without hydrogen, if for nothing else then stellar burning. Quark theory says if
this valued differed by more than ±2%, life would be impossible any time in the
history of the universe.
3. The weak nuclear force coupling constant. This force governs
radioactivity, that is the evolution of atoms of one element forming atoms of
another element. If larger, all hydrogen would be converted to helium. Stars
would form heavy elements but there would be no light elements necessary for
life. If smaller, helium would not have formed within the first 4 min of the
existence of the universe and thus no heavy elements would have formed. Again,
no life would be possible under these conditions. There is a just right value for all
these parameters. One might object that the values of these parameters are what
they are precisely because life exists and the universe exists. But this is begging
the question. Scientist, mostly atheists, came up with this idea of the anthropic
principle, not religious folks. Scientists are amazed that the values we observe for
these parameters are what they are, implying they could indeed have been other
than what we observe. Why are we so “lucky”? Why do we exist in a “just right”
universe? Let’s go on.
4. The electromagnetic coupling constant: Molecules can’t form by covalent
bonds if this were some other value. If stronger, electrons can’t be shared because
attraction forces are too strong. If weaker, electrons would not remain in orbit
around atoms.
5. The ratio of electron to proton mass. If larger, no chemical bonding; if
smaller, no chemical bonding.
6. The expansion rate of the universe: if too quick, galaxies can't form
because gravity can't condense mass; if too small, galaxies will form but will
attract each other and cause collapse prior to star formation. This is quite a
sensitive parameter (Robert Dicky calculated that if it differed by more than 1:1055,
no life would be possible). If too quick, collapse will occur before 10 bil yrs.
Another astronomer likened it to having 10,000 sharpened pencils standing on a
table and none of them falling down.
7. The entropy level of the universe. This governs the degree of how fast
energy is dissipated into non-useful forms, or how fast heat goes from hot to cold
bodies. If increased, there would be an increased tendency to disorder: galaxies
wouldn't form. There would be a fragmentation problem: the universe would
fragment into small pieces. If too small, we wouldn't get fragmentation into stars you want galaxy plus stars (proto-galaxy formation).
8. The mass of the universe (or density). This acts as a catalyst: the more
dense the more efficiently fusion will take place in the 1st 4 min; if larger, too
much deuterium (or heavy H2) forms after initial creation event. This acts as
future catalyst to generate 2nd generation stars - these would burn too rapidly. If
too small, not enough He will form in the first 4 min. and no heavy element would
form. There are a trillion galaxies in universe, ea w/ about 1011 - 1012 stars. The
creator had to make this many stars for earth to exist - that's how much he loves
us! That’s quite a lot of bother to allow humans to exist.
9. The age of the universe. Life is only possible at a certain age. If too
young, solar-type stars are not yet formed. These must be in a stable burning stage
to sustain any kind of higher life forms (on the order of 109 yrs.) Our sun took
about a 109 yrs to become stable. If older: no solar type stars in the right region of
galaxy: only those in middle radius can support life and these only form at a
certain epoch of the history of the universe.
10. The uniformity of the universe. This determines how evenly matter and
energy are distributed: it too uniform, don't get galaxies to form - need clumping.
If too coarse, all matter forms into black holes. Black holes are super dense
accumulations of matter which exert so much gravity that even light is affected
and cannot escape. They appear black. We have not actually ever observed one,
but we have observed their effect on many occasions. There is one at the center of
our Milky Way galaxy.
11. The average distance b/w stars. If you can imagine a star as the size of a
grapefruit, on average they appear about 4,000 miles away from ea other. (This is
equivalent to 40 trillion miles in real life). If closer, gravity would disturb orbits of
planets revolving around stars. Any life-sustaining planet must have a stable orbit
for reasonable life conditions to exist on their surface. If further apart, not enough
ashes of dead stars would have formed to make new stars.
12. The solar luminosity. This is the parameter of a sun’s brightness and
consistency of light-emitting rays. The first 109 yrs of a life-sustaining star’s
burning is erratic, then it becomes steady and stable. Over time during the stable
phase it slowly increases for the next 9-10 bil yrs: at any given distance the temp
also increases. This is presently happening with our sun. It’s a tad bit brighter and
more intense then it was 10,000 yrs ago. Sagan/Sklovsky point out that life support
planets can't vary in temp more than a few degrees (Consider ice ages on our
planet in the past varied in temp by only - 5oF). The so-called green house effect is
governed by atmospheric CO2/H2O atmospheric ratios. These gases inhibit infra
red light from being re-radiated back out into space. If these gas concentrations
are too high we roast, like as in a green house. If too low, we would all freeze. In
early earth history the ratio was much greater than it is presently. Geophysicists
explain this as counter balancing the increase in our sun’s luminosity: as green
house gasses slowly decreased from plants and animals, luminosity increased
proportionally to maintain a fairly even temperature. If too soon, runaway green
house; if too late, frozen oceans.
13. Fine structure constant: this parameter is a function of three other fundamental
constants: Planck's constant, the velocity of light, and the electron charge. If larger, no
stars more than 0.7 solar masses are possible; if smaller, no stars less than 1.8 solar
masses would exist. If the speed of light changes, then the fine structure constant
changes and life is not possible.
14. 12C to 16O nuclear energy level ratio: if larger, insufficient oxygen; if smaller,
insufficient carbon: need both for proteins. Sir Fred Hoyle, commenting on the fine
tuning of these physical parameters said, 'a super intellect must have monkeyed with
the physics as well as the chemistry of biology". He was an atheist.
15. The decay rate of protons. This one is really wild and I don’t really get it but
here goes. The universe is only about 1010 yr old; protons, given enough time, decay. In
the 1st 1032 yrs we're OK, but eventually all matter decays. There are two types of
protons: regular protons and anti-protons. As these meet, there results a lot of energy
but no matter: the early universe is calculated to have consisted of ten billion and one
particles to 10 billion anti-particles: 1 particle left is what our universe is made of today.
If too much proton decay, the resulting radiation would be lethal to life. In my body, 1
proton decays in the course of seventy years - our body can just barely handle that - if
more, than our body couldn't handle the radiation or our life span would be shorter
than 70 yrs. If too slow, insufficient matter in the universe for life. We enjoy a just-right
rate of proton decay.
16. The carbon dioxide and water vapor levels in atmosphere: if greater, we get a
runaway green house effect, that is, these gases would trap so much heat in the
atmosphere that the surface temperature would be unlivable. Venus is like this but
different gases are involved; if less, insufficient green house effect and the oceans
would freeze, leaving only rudimentary life forms to survive.
17. The ozone level in atmosphere: this gas protects life from harmful UV
radiation from the sun. It also has an insulating effect. If greater, surface temp would be
too low; if less, surface temp would be too high; too much UV radiation at surface.
18. Atmospheric electrical discharge rate: lightning fixes N2 in soil (also
bio-fixation). If greater, too much fire destruction; if less, too little nitrogen fixing in the
soil.
19. Seismic activity: need earthquakes to recycle nutrients. If greater, destruction
of too many life forms; if less, nutrients on ocean floor would not be uplifted and
recycled.
There are many more parameters than these listed. To sum up the anthropic
principle, George Greenstein from Cal Tech, in his book The Symbiotic Universe: Life
and Mind in the Cosmos” writes, “as we survey all the evidence the thought instantly
arises that some supernatural agency or father Agency must be involved. Is it possible
that suddenly without intending to, we have stumbled upon scientific proof in the
existence of a supreme being. Was it God who stepped in and so providentially crafted
the cosmos for our benefit.” Keep in mind this is an unbeliever speaking. Now he does
not adopt the biblical God but opts for the Hindu god based on misconceptions of
quantum mechanics. Paul Davies also corroborates in his book “The Cosmic Blueprint”
by saying these measurements betray a fine tuning of the cosmos.
Geophysicists picked up on this idea, originally proposed 50 yrs ago by Carl
Sagan, and asked how much could change and there still be life, that is, life as we know
it. Could there be other forms of life? (So, not just humans with 4 eyes or horns, but life
based on different chemistries – ours is based on carbon). What is the minimum
complexity just to have reproduction is the key to what answer we give. Carbon, silicon
and boron are the three elements possible. (One might object that in other parts of the
universe there are totally different elements that we are unaware of. As stated at the
beginning of this lesson, we will not deal with things we have not observed. What we
have observed with our telescopes, however, is that wherever we look, we see the same
elements and rules of physics anywhere we look as those observed here on earth. This
includes going back in time to very near the beginning of time).
It’s basically a problem of what kind of molecules are capable of carrying within
itself the information necessary for life to function. Silicon is a very abundant element
on the surface of the earth. There are clay-based models of life proposed, but one can
only obtain proteins out to 100 amino acids with silicon. This is not complex enough.
There has never been observed life based on either silicon or boron, only carbon.
Conditions for boron chemistry are very similar to that of carbon, but its abundance is
less. Not enough research has been done to make any definitive statements about this
element.
Turning now to the parameters for coming up with a design for earth, looking at
Figure 20, listed are 15 considerations which I will go through. On Reasons.org web site
are listed many more parameters than these. This data was actually generated many
years ago and since then, many more have been discovered. At the end of this section I
will discuss the probability of finding another earth-type planet in the universe. The
number we will arrive at is very small but there would still remain a small chance of
finding some. Now the numbers are so small that it is categorically impossible of
finding another earth-type planet in the entire universe. We are alone. We are unique.
Earth had to have been created by God on purpose because the probability of such a
planet as ours forming on its on, given the many necessary parameters for life, is zero.
The first parameter listed on Figure 20 is the number of star companions. There
are a calculated estimate of 1022 stars in the universe. An earth-type planet needs at
least one star to orbit around to maintain heat and light of its surface, and for chemical
reactions to occur. Half of all stars in the universe occur in pairs (binary). The gravity of
these binary system disturb planetary orbits, making life impossible. This eliminates
half of all stars from the possibility of sustaining life as we know it. This sounds like a
lot, but with exponential numbers, its actually quite small. It means there are
approximately 5 x 1021 stars that are not paired and so potentially capable of sustaining
life. That’s a lot of stars!
2. Parent star birth date. A star must be born at the just right time relative to the
age of the universe for it to sustain life as we know it. If born too recent, the star would
not have yet reached the stable burning stage where life can still exist in its higher
forms. If less recent, the star would not contain the necessary heavier elements to form
rocky planets necessary for life.
3. Parent star age. It must be middle age. If older, the luminosity would not be
sufficiently stable and too bright; if younger, luminosity would also not be sufficiently
stable and be still too dim.
4. Parent star distance from the center of the galaxy. At the center of our galaxy,
and probably many if not most others, is a black hole. The gravity and radiation of
black holes is enormous. If the star is too close to the center, the density of stars is too
great and radiation too intense for life. [Just as an aside, the Mormon religion says a
planet called Caleb is at the center of our galaxy and is where life came from. This
could not be true for the aforementioned reasons]. If too far out from center, not
enough stellar ashes from dead stars essential for rocky planets could have been
accumulated to form our solar system. We are in the just right zone.
Our star is in a spiral galaxy. About half of all known galaxies are of this type
and the other half are called elliptical (amorphous ball of stars). Only the spiral galaxies
are capable of life because elliptical galaxies have stopped star formation. A life
sustaining star must be only 5-10 billion years old. This is fairly young for a star.
5. Parent star mass. There is a just right star mass necessary for life. Too big, and it
burns too iradically; too small and the life range of life is too small. For liquid water
one needs a planet to be fairly close to its sun, but tidal action increases with the one
divided by the distance to the fourth power. This breaks the rotation period of the
planet down to weeks and months, like our moon and earth system. Venus and
Mercury have long rotation periods which is not conducive to life. As time goes on, our
orbit has decayed, that is, earth is very slowly slowing down in its rotation. This is on
the order of microseconds per year. We can calculate that at the beginning of earth’s
existence, its rotation was only a few hours, not its present 24 hrs. Eventually our moon
will collide with earth. This is billions of years in the future. Sagan& Zolksky calculated
(in 1963) that only 1 or 2 stars in our galaxy would fit their two parameters. As one
increase the number of parameters, the probability decreases. They also noted that
distance to the sun was important. We are 93 million miles from the sun. If we were
closer or further out by 500,000 miles, earth could not sustain a water cycle and
therefore life would be impossible.
6. Parent star color. If redder, insufficient photosynthesis response; if bluer,
insufficient photosynthetic response.
7. Surface gravity. If stronger, plant’s atmosphere would retain huge amounts of
ammonia and methane, like Jupiter. If weaker, planet’s atmosphere would lose too
much water.
8. Distance from parent star: if further or closer than the just right zone, a stable
water cycle is not possible.
9. Thickness of the crust. Too thick and too much oxygen transferred to the
atmosphere. Too thin and tectonic activity is too intense (too many earthquakes).
10. Rotation period. If too long, too great temperature differences for higher life
forms to exist. Think about a turkey roasting in a rotisserie that rotating too slowly: it
will burn. If too short or quick, one encounters too strong wind problems, like Jupiter
where winds are up to 1000 mph at a 9hr rotation period.
11. Gravitational interaction with a moon. Earth has a single moon. Astronomers
actually refer to the system as a double planet system. We have large tidal forces as a
result (more so than as a result of the earth/sun interaction). This tidal lunar force is a
good thing: it stabilizes the orbital obliquity of the earth; it maintains our 23.5o axial tilt
(relative the plane of our orbit around the sun, the earth is slightly tilted from a perfect
perpendicular). If the tidal forces were less or more than what it is, the resulting
temperature differences would make higher life impossible. If greater, tidal effects on
the ocean, atmosphere and rotational period would be too severe; if less, earth’s orbital
obliquity (a circle not quite exactly round) would change too much causing climatic
instablilities.
12. Magnetic field. Our so-called magnetosphere, the spherical magnetic field
around the whole earth, stops soft cosmic rays from our sun. If too strong,
electromagnetic storms would be too sever; if weaker, no protection from solar wind
particles making life improbable.
13. Axial tilt. If less or greater, surface temperature differences would be too great.
14. Albedo. This is the ratio of reflected light to total amount falling on the surface
of the earth from the sun. If greater, we would experience snow and ice as a result of
decreased temperature which in turn reflects more heat to be reflected away from earth
from the sun. This would result in a runaway ice age. If less, we would experience a
runaway green house effect.
15. Oxygen to nitrogen ratio in atmosphere. This governs the amount of energy
sent per unit time. If larger, life functions would proceed too quickly; if smaller, life
functions would proceed too slowly.
These are just but a few parameters for an earth-type planet to exist. There
are many more. I wanted to let you see that the business of life isn’t so easy. Paul
Davies, a rank atheist, said, “the impression of design is overwhelming”.
Figure 21 is a probability calculation for life. It includes some of the parameters we
have discussed. The probability for occurrence of all 23 parameters listed is ≈10-31. At
this time we have observed over 450 so-called exoplanets, that is, planets orbiting other
suns than our own. None of them are capable of sustaining life based on some of the
parameters we have just discussed. Based on the above calculation, there is less than 1
chance in 100,000,000 that one earth-like planet would occur anywhere in the universe.
More current calculations, elaborated on the reasons.org web site, the probability are
beyond 10-200. There are only 1080 neutrons and protons in the whole universe. Science
cuts off probability at 10-50. There is a calculated probability of the second law of
thermodynamics reversing itself at 10-80. It has never been observed. No one in the
scientific community thinks it will ever happen. The bottom line is, we are alone. There
is no rational probability that there exists another earth-like planet in the entire
universe. Most astronomers agree with these numbers. When the US congress was
shown these same numbers when considering refunding of the SETI project (search for
extraterrestrial intelligence) they said no. SETI is been funded privately now for several
decades.
Briefly, I want to discuss the possibility of life being found on Mars. Meteor
impacts, both on Mars and the Earth, result in very small particles from the surface
being wafted into the upper atmosphere. Solar wind, which is a sort of wind that
emanates from the sun, can force small mass material along with it out into space away
from the sun, away from earth and possibly falling on Mars. Thus it is inevitable that
microscopic life, in the form of spores and zygotes, will be found on Mars. The big
question will be where did it come from. Did it originate on earth or Mars? It has been
calculated that as many as 1,100 species of life are capable of forming small spores that
are capable of surviving the journey. Thus far no life has been found on Mars. Any
spores found on Mars does not prove life on Mars existed in the past, but it does prove
how prolific and hardy life is on earth. The surface of Mars is very forbidding. A drop
of water would evaporate in one second. The lack of atmosphere makes life very
formidable, and temperatures extreme.
I want to switch gears now to the topic of UFO’s. We have discovered that life only can
exist on earth, so what about reports of unidentified flying objects, or UFO’s.
Astronomers Alan Hynek and Jacques Vallee studied the phenomenon of UFOology
for thirty years, partly at the behest of the US government. They categorized encounters
in three separate groups. See Figure 22. The first kind of encounter involves seeing the
object, either with the human eye, with radar, by photographs or by hearing. They
catalogued a minimum of 700,000 sightings over the last several decades (some say
upwards of 10 million). Worldwide the figure, since WWII, is 10-20 million. These are
documented. There are no doubt many more undocumented. The second kind of
encounter involves physical evidences, such as burned fields, trees knocked down.
There are 800 of these documented in the US (this is actually quite old data I’m quoting,
so all these numbers are less than actual). The third kind of encounter involves claimed
personal contact. There are a minimum of 1,000 of these cases. Others say upwards of
50,000. A poll in the US suggested that 1 out of 10 adults and seen a UFO. Hugh Ross,
originally from Canada, was at one point in his career in charge of a radio telescope.
One of his jobs there was to handle UFO sightings, usually called in by the regular
citizenry.
The vast majority of reports, about 95%, can be explained by natural
phenomena, such as birds, phosphorus, fire ball or meteors. Many prominent people in
history have claimed to have seen UFO’s, including former president Jimmy Carter and
Christopher Columbus. One cannot simply dismiss all these claims out of hand as
being the fruitful imagination of nuts. Peter Millman, a meteorologist, wrote about
UFO’s in a peer-reviewed journal (see Figure 23). He came up with several maxims that
I want to go over briefly. The first is that this is not a new phenomenon – Pharaoh
Thutmose III claimed to have seen a UFO. The second involves optical illusions: seeing
something does not necessarily make it real, e.g. glare on a camera lens. 3. Instruments
can deceive: beware how you interpret the data; they could be explained by other
phenomena beside an extraterrestrial craft. 4. Hoax – there have been proven many
contrived phenomena made out of a small model suspended with a nylon string; Why
are the vast majority of photographed or videoed images out of focus? Sure some
because of the transient nature of UFO’s but almost all of them? Magazines and
newspapers are not a good source of information: they exaggerate and rarely retract
bad sightings. 5. records are incomplete, 6. men make mysterious machines, like stealth
bombers, supersonic hover crafts, covert military gear. 7. Nobody knows everything
that happens in nature. How about phosphorus dust on the wings of birds? 8. No
artifacts of a UFO has ever been recovered; no proven cases of physical contact, only
testimony. There is a rumor about a hanger in Arizona called area 51 that is
purportedly the place the US government stores the remains of supposed alien crafts
and or beings. If this is the case, why haven’t other countries come forth with physical
evidence? UFO sightings are international in scope. Do you really think the US
government could keep such a secret for so many years? It’s tract record for keeping
secrets is abysmal: Watergate, Iran contra-scandal to name a few. 9. the theory that life
evolves under natural circumstances is absurd, as we have just rehearsed (I will deal
with the biology of life later on in the course). If it couldn’t evolve here on earth, then it
can’t evolve anywhere else because the physics and chemistry of the universe is the
same wherever we look. Bernard Oliver, a scientist who speared headed the
exploration of the possibility of extra terrestrial life in this country said, “even if there
were as many as 1,000 advanced civilizations in our galaxy, each of these civilizations
would have to send out 100 billion exploratory space ships every year to account for
the bear minimum of 10,000 UFO visits observed each year on earth. This seems
excessive to say the least”.
10) the 5% of these phenomena that cannot be explained by natural means
appear to be non-physical in nature. Someone sees something but can’t photograph it,
or sees it but radar doesn’t pick it up or vise versa. These objects have been calculated
to be moving faster then the speed of sound yet there has never been recorded a sonic
boom or air resistance observed. This is not possible with physical objects. The top
recorded speed of an object was 18,000 mph, most around 1000 mph. Sound travels at
approximately 700 mph. When the space shuttle returns to earth, the tiles that cover its
hull glow red from the heat caused by air drag. There is no evidence recorded of UFO
showing these sorts of things. If they were physical they should evince similar physical
characteristics. People have claimed to have seen light beams that have a finite length.
This is not expected with the light we know about. Claimed phenomena often defy the
laws of physics, e.g. taking a right angle turn at 18,000 mph – a solid steel ball could not
withstand over a 5,000 mph force of such magnitude. It would sheer, or fly apart into
pieces. Sudden stops and stars are observed that are impossible for a relatively large
and heavy craft. UFO’s seem to change shape, color and size randomly. Physical objects
don’t do this. They may appear, disappear, disintegrate, reform into an object bigger
than the original. No electromagnetic waves of any kind have been observed
emanating from these objects, yet they have been observed to fly in formation. There
seems to be no physical uniformity to UFO’s – one would think interstellar travel
would demand a certain shape craft to function, e.g. all ships more or less look like a
ship. There are no high resolution images ever taken. They are all fuzzy, even when
observed by people. Real objects don’t do this. Strange things happen to radio gear.
Magnetic forces recorded often on the order of the earth’s magnetosphere (≈1 Gauss)
but phenomenon observed would require a magnetic force on the order of 10,000
Gauss. There’s no match up.
So what can we conclude from all this? Two researchers from the Spiritual
Counterfeits Project reported, “entities that operate with total disregard to the inviolate
laws of physics tracking at the speed of light or faster and having solved all their
problems would have to be classified as non-physical, that is, spiritual not physical,
semantic arguments not withstanding.” Real things are occurring: damage, 3rd kind
encounters, etc., - people are killed, bruised, raped, buildings destroyed. This is not
imagination, this is not within Peter Millman’s explanations. There’s nothing natural
about these phenomenon. This same conclusion was reached by every respectable
investigator, including Jacques Vallee and Alan Hynick. These phenomenon are real
but not physical. They stop there. Investigators at the Spiritual Counterfeits Project say
if these things are real and not physical, by definition, they must be spiritual. Bernard
Oliver at NASA’s said, “Any visitation or communication would have to come from
beings who had to learn to travel at least at the speed of light and probably faster,
perhaps to the point of being able to arrive at a destination by the time they had
completed the thought process of deciding to go.”
The nearest star is Alpha Centauri (4 light yrs). It would take 80,000 yr round trip
to travel there and back again with our present technology; beyond this there isn't
another star within 100 light yrs capable of biochemical evolution: Alpha Centauri is
the only candidate in the near vicinity (actually not because its not a bachelor star):
Conclusion: they must have found a way to travel faster than speed of light. This
violates the laws of physics. By this, they are conceding that these beings transcend
space and time, which makes them spiritual beings, in all practical purposes. They
must be spiritual beings. NASA assumes that such beings, if contacted, would have
technologies and philosophies which have allowed them to exist for billions of years
and would be worth our while to listen to them.
The Urontia Book is supposedly authored by 23 extraterrestrials. About 1/3 of its
content focuses on the denial of the deity of Jesus Christ, yet the message seems to be
benign/peaceful. John Keel, a co-worker with Jacques Vallee, said, "Demonology is not
another crack pot-ology. It is the ancient and scholarly study of monsters and demons who
have seemingly co-existed w/ man throughout history. Thousands of books have been
authored on the subject, many written by scholars, scientists, and clergy. An uncounted
number of well documented demonic events are readily available to any researcher. The
manifestations and occurrences described in this imposing literature are similar if not
entirely identical to the UFO phenomenon.”
It could be argued that the seeming violation of physical laws are simply advanced
technologies which are beyond our comprehension. If this is true then why so much
negative attention to Jesus Christ? Why do the phenomena recorded seem similar if not
identical to demonic activity? Figure 24 elaborates on some of these characteristics.
Between 1700-WWII in US we saw about 1 siting/10 mil people/yr; from WWII to
1966-67 this increased to about I siting/2 mil/yr; from 1966-67 this number has increased by
20X's, where it remains today: 12 sightings per yr per mil people. European figures are
similar. Why this sudden increase? Ruth Montgomery, biographer of Jean Dixon said her
guides declare there is a intergalactic fleet above the earth in readiness to evacuate key
individuals to help usher in new age. I believe people like this delve into the satanic world
of demons and communicate with them. This “invasion” would possibly give rational for
the coming rapture of the church to be explained away. The bottom line, I believe, is that
encounters with UFO’s are actually encounters with demons. This is the only plausible
explanation, given the nature of these sightings, and the implausibility of life existing any
where else in the universe.
This ends this section on UFO’s. For more information on this subject, Hugh Ross has
written a book on the subject called Lights in the Sky and Little Green Men which goes into
more detail.
Alright, now I’m going to switch a big gear and talk about Creationism. This part of the
course deals with the bible and its explanation of creation and evolution. There’s quite a bit
of emotion impacted within this subject. Russel Akridge, a theologian, has said,
“Astrophysicists and astronomers are high priests of the decades-old cult of the Bib Bang
myth who, as persuasive speakers, have deceived an unsuspecting public.” One the other
side of the argument, Michael Ruse, a biologist, says, “There are degrees of being wrong.
The creationists are at the bottom of the scale. They pull every trick in the book to justify
their position. Indeed, at times, they verge right over into the downright dishonest. Their
arguments are rotten, through and through.”
These sentiments on both sides are not rational but rather emotional and bitter. Figure
25 delineates both side’s respective points of view. Basically, science is materialistic – what
we can perceive with the five physical senses is all there is, while the biblical perspective
adds supernatural government on top of what is seen with the five physical senses. The
bible says we are a three part being: body, soul and spirit (1 Thes 5:23). When we consider
only the body and mind, for example, God is necessarily excluded from consideration. This
is to deny reality of who we really are. Eternity, it says in Ecc 3:11, is in our hearts, not our
heads. There is a sense in all humans of something beyond ourselves, beyond this life. To
deny this is disaster.
The bible still engages me to have many unanswered questions. Do I discard it because
of these? There are many unanswered questions left to discover in science. Do we discard
science because we don’t understand all the answers? No. Just as the relentless pursuit of
knowledge in the field of science as seen much fruit, so also we can apply the same principle
to biblical exegesis, that is the study of scripture. I know much more now about the bible
then when I first started studying it several decades ago. One caveat to studying the bible
should be kept in mind: unlike science, knowledge of spiritual things is through revelation,
not mental understanding. God does not tell us to throw out our minds in order to follow
him, no indeed, He tells us to worship him with all our minds. However, the spirit must
proceed the mental, not the other way around. To try and understand God with the mind is
like trying to smell with the ears: it is the wrong organ to apprehend with.
Alright, lets talk now about some of the major creation myths of the past. The Chinese,
6000 yrs ago, thought that there was a two dimensional flat starry canopy overhead and that
the earth was square, with China in the middle. The early Egyptians thought the earth was a
flat rectangle with a female goddess arching her back over the earth with 2 arms at two
corners and her legs at the other two corners. The stars, moon, sun and planets move up and
across her body.
The Germans thought the northern land was a land of extreme cold and fire, with a
chasm between the two. At the juncture, frost evaporates to form a mist, out of which comes
gods. One of the master gods gets killed by his grandson. Out of the corpse the grandson
created all that’s on the earth. This was Elder Edda. A popular African myth says Bem Beri
makes man before everything. The Eskimo’s believe men stretching, formed mountains, and
women urinating formed the oceans. They say the moon came from a man chasing a girl. In
Mesopotamia, the Acadians and Sumarians believed earth floating on the waters while rain
seeps through a solid dome-like atmosphere. On the surface of the dome are the stars. From
these traditions emerged the Enuma Elish. This was during the age of the Hammurabi codes
around the 18th century BC, corresponding roughly to chapters 14 and 15 of Genesis. Some
bible scholars claim the biblical account was morphed from the Enuma Elish. Figure 26 lists
the merits and demerits of this assertion. The merits, that is those points which are in accord
with the biblical account, include a water chaos precedes light; light precedes land, land
precedes celestial bodies, and celestial bodies precede beasts. Demerits, or things which
contradict the biblical account, include: man predates beasts, salt/fresh water precedes land;
nothing is created in the 2nd and 3rd day; gods get into fights – none of these are biblical nor
scientific.
The thrust of all these stories is not so much to describe the creation event as to
promote a political event or agenda, to elevate one group over another, e.g. plutocrats vs
plebeians. The bible has no such propaganda in its creation account.
Figure 27 lists the biblical creation account distinctives. The first is that the account is
matter-of-fact in style: it merely describes these events objectively. There is a rational
sequence of events without any poetical or mysterious prose. There is no attempt to deify
the elements of nature, e.g. god of ocean. The creator is truly transcendent: separate and
distinct from that which is created. Other religions describe god from various 3 dimensional
perspectives. Creation is ex nihlo (Heb 11:3), that is, from nothing that previously existed.
And lastly, the account is free from scientific error. The rest of the section will deal with this
proposal in much more detail. Other accounts are either out of correct order or are just plain
wrong. The Enuma Elish gets 4 out of 11 right, the biblical account is 11 for 11 correct, and 3
for 3 for initial conditions. The odds of Moses, or whoever penned the Genesis account, is 11!
This means 11 x 10 x 9 …. to 1. This equals 40 million to one. Not bad! These are listed in
Figure 28.
I want to talk now about the history of the creation/scientism debate, scientism being
the study of science as it relates to creation. Some of the people I’ll be talking about here
we’ve already discussed briefly. Plato, as you recall, valued pure reason over experimental
science. He despised engineers, or those we would today call scientists. He thought ideas
were supreme and philosophers were at the top of the heap. Earth was where philosophers
lived, so it must be at the center of the universe, and therefore the sun must revolve around
the earth. The Church, unfortunately, like Plato, also acquired a distaste for observational
science. Skipping forward several hundred years to Augustine, the great Catholic defender
of the faith. He was one of the first to write an interpretation of Gen 1,2 creation account. He,
unfortunately, argued more than he needed to. This was his undoing. Atheists of his time
believed in a spherical earth. One of their doctrines was antipodalism. This was the idea that
the earth was exquisitely balanced, such that, a person of the one side of the earth
counterbalanced someone else on the other side of the earth, their weights counterbalancing
one another perfectly. Ps 104:2 says that God stretches out the heavens like a curtain.
Augustine interpreted this to mean the earth was flat and two dimensional, like a curtain.
Therefore the atheists were wrong. Society bought into Augustine’s argument which
successfully crushed atheism for 1,000 yrs. Augustine misinterpreted the Hebrew word
‘yeriyah’ which means the ceiling, walls, floor of a tent – this is three dimensional. He also
failed to look at clearer portions of scripture, such as Isa 40:22 that describes God looking
down on the orb of the earth, like the 4 quarters or corners of the earth like an orange.
Moving on in time to the Renaissance saw an increase in the use and acceptance of
experimental science. This interest in nature as a study, Thomas Torrence argues in his book
“Theology and reconstruction”, was launched by the bible’s injunction to understand nature
and subdue it for the glory of God. Some have thought this same injunction led to some of
the Christian atrocities throughout history, such as the Crusades. One can take the bible, or
any other book for that matter, and make it say anything by conveniently quoting things out
of context and not wanting to look or mention other sections which give balance to the first
quote. Ps 119:160 says the whole of Your word is truth. We come up with half truths and
skewed understandings of the biblical themes by not following this precept. Genesis 2 talks
about God telling Adam to keep or tend the Garden. We are to take care of the earth, not
rape it.
Moving forward to Copernicus, heliocentrism was published posthumously because he
knew the Church would not countenance such an idea. Galileo gave us further evidence by
his observations that the sun, not the earth, was the center of our solar system.
Unfortunately, he was rude about it and made a lot of church people mad. His books were
on the Catholic band list until the 19th century and wasn’t officially forgiven until 1981.
Humility will get your point across more than content. He showed us the importance of
establishing the point of view.
Archbishop Ussher, in 1650 AD, calculated the earth’s inception date at Oct 3, 4004 BC.
He used genealogies of the bible to do this and added 6 days more for the exact date. People
started printing his date in the margins of bibles and it became dogmatic and entrenched.
He assumed no gaps in these family lines, which turns out to be not the case. He also
believed in a literal 24 hr creation day period.
The bible is quite clear on ‘who’ created the universe, while science in very unclear on
this point; the bible is a little less clear on ‘how’ it was done, while science is more clear on
this point; the bible is rather unclear on ‘when’ while science is very clear on this point. Most
historic court cases, like the Scopes trial, center more on ‘who’ and not so much on ‘when’ or
‘how’. The ‘who’ is most critical for Christianity. “How’ and ‘when’ are side issues.
In the 1800’s, theologians were seeing problems with the facts of nature and Ussher’s
chronology. They chose to side step the issue. French physician Jean Astruc, and 50 years
later German theologians, basically said we can no longer defend the bible as a scientifically
accurate text. We therefore adopt the position that the bible did not reveal truth in science
and history but only in faith and practice. This I believe was a fatal error. Science found
many internal contradictions in Gen 2: for example the animals were created after man, but
in ch 1, man comes after the animals; the sun comes after plants – something that is
impossible since life cannot exist to any significant extent without the suns rays of light and
heat. They said no one is stupid enough to contradict himself in 2 chapters, therefore ch 1 &
2 must have been written by two different people while a 3rd party edited them and didn’t
notice the contradictions. The bible is filled with these disjunctive accounts which various
Rabbis through the years have tried to put together. The so-called German “higher criticism”
of the 19th century said we need trained theologians to tell us what is true and trustworthy
and what is not: man now is judge over the bible instead of bible judge over man. Elite
scholarly man are now judge over us laymen. Were back to the Dark Ages.
Alright, back to Jean Astruc. He tried to tackle the apparent contradictions of the first
two chapters of Genesis. He was born and raised in a evangelical Huguenot (protestant)
family. His father was a pastor. During Jean’s early years, there was great persecution of
catholics against the protestants – 2 million people were killed. His whole family held to
their faith and died for it, except for he and his father because they capitulated to the
pressure to convert. His father was miserable for the rest of his life. Jean wormed his way up
to the royal court as a physician. He had a reputation of going after older ladies, promising
them to take care of their estates, which he didn’t do after their decease. He became wealthy
and profligate and hated, but because of his money, respected. At the end of his life he tried
to justify himself by writing a commentary of Genesis. In 1753, at the age of 69, he published,
“Conjectures concerning the original memoranda which it appears Moses used to compose
the book of Genesis with remarks which support or throw light on these conjectures”. Back
then you could get away with such ponderous title.
For the order of Genesis 1, he thought there were two authors, and perhaps Moses was
editor. The order recorded is: creation of heaven and earth, then lights, then dividing of light
from darkness, formation of the firmament, separation of land from water, plants,
sun/moon/stars, animals, and finally man as male and female. The stated order of Gen ch 2:
heaven and earth, plants man (male only), animals, human female from the man’s rib.
Astruc points out an internal contradiction: animals appearing at different relative times in
ch 1 & 2. This basic commentary hasn’t changed really in 250 yrs.
In 1892, Howard Awsga, published a commentary on Astruc’s commentary. He was a
Presbyterian. He thought Astruc was rationalizing so that one wouldn’t have to believe in a
supernatural God to give an account to. This is at odds with the great German theologians of
the 19th century who were decidedly anti-supernatural. The bible says in 2 Pet 1:20 that
scripture cannot be interpreted privately, that is, I think it means such and such. Instead, we
are to let the bible interpret itself, comparing spiritual with spiritual (1 Cor 2:13). As you
may recall, at the beginning of the course, one of my stated premises was that the bible is
true. So I won’t go into a lot of explanation of this other than to say, it’s content bears
witness with our spirit way down in the heart of a man, it’s history has been verified time
and time again, its prophecies of future events been proven true, and the testimony of
countless individuals, including myself, recount of changed lives because of its content. For
example, I speak in tongues because I read about it in the NT, did what it said, believed it,
acted on it, and now I speak in tongues, whereas before having read those passages I could
not. Cause and effect. I’ve been physically healed many times by God, again based on what
He has said in scripture, acting on it and believing it.
Alright, enter Darwin, who published his famous Origin of Species in 1859. His data
seemed to fit with known natural history, stratigraphy, geology and paleontology of his
time. Huxley, Darwin’s so called bulldog debated Wilberforce a year later concerning the
matter of organic evolution versus biblical origin. Huxley was a young (36) and ambitious
biologist at Oxford. He had recently criticized published work of a professor Richard Owen
on comparative anatomy and also praised Darwin’s new book. Owen wanted to get back at
him so he hired the brilliant but aging orator Wilberforce to a debate on the matter.
Wilberforce was not schooled in biology and was only coached by Owen a few hours before
the debate. Huxley caught him at some fundamental errors. Thus orthodox Christianity lost
to the new biology. We are still using the same arguments and failing today as Owen and
Wilberforce did 150 yrs ago.
Darwin did not have a good mechanism for his evolutionary ideas. Genes had not yet
been discovered yet. A monk name Mendel gave us the knowledge of genes several decades
later. He also gave us the mathematics that came along with it.
Helmholtz and Lord Kelvin studied the stars. They thought if coal was the source of
their energy they would burn out too quickly, on the order of 5-10K years. They didn’t
understand about nuclear energy. They surmised, however, that if contraction due to
gravity was the source of their light and heart, burning heat would last up to 33 million
years. This scared geologists and biologist who insisted on much longer periods of time to
come up with what we see today. Helmholtz said the earth is cooling off and that it has a hot
molten center (he didn’t know where the energy came from to make it hot, namely
radioactive decay). He said it’s only a matter of time before the earth becomes cold. This was
more evidence to suggest that the earth was only millions and not billions of years old. The
Christian’s gloated.
In 1890’s Bequerel discovered radioactivity. This explained how the earth can be hot for
billions of years, and also suggested a source of energy for the sun (stars), even though they
did not understand the details at that time. Now the atheists gloated.
The 20th century saw a schism form between the church and science. This is actually a
fairly new phenomenon. The great leaders of science up to this point were usually
Christians who also held joint positions as scientist and professors of theology at their
respective universities. Newton, Linnaeus, Leeuwenhoek, Mendel, Gauss, Huygens, Harvey,
Curie, Tycho Brahe, Copernicus, Heisenberg, Faraday, Maxwell, Lavoisier, Gallileo, Pasteur,
Neils Bohr to name some of the greats were all professing Christians. Fundementalism
began in 1905. This movement had fives statements of belief, including the idea that God
created the heavens and earth in six 24 hr days ex nihlo, that is, out of nothing material.
They believed in God as a Creator. By 1919 the creation date had evolved into a recent date
of around 10,000 yrs ago. They didn’t have the systematic tools we have today to fight with.
They had only Ussher’s chronology. General revelation is the idea of getting a revelation
about God from nature. They admit this venue of information but assert that it is flawed.
Special revelation is the technical term for revelation knowledge gleaned from Holy
Scripture. As I claimed earlier, I believe the best approach is by using both. They must both
agree with each other because God is the author of both, and it is his stated desire from
Scripture that we discover him through both. Using scripture and science together is a good
way of checking whether your interpretation is correct. It is a good way of rooting out
misinterpretation, just as having 66 books of the bible helps us understand scripture as a
whole and not wandering astray by looking only at the NT, for example, to understand God
and scripture. We have access to the other 39 books of the OT to check our interpretation of
the NT scripture.
By the 1920’s genetic mutations were discovered which layer on top of natural selection
as a source for variation. Hans Beta laid the ground work for discovering nuclear fusion
inside our sun. This led to the development of the nuclear reactor between 1937-38 and
eventually the H-bomb. Then neo-Darwinism arose from Darwinism asserting that man rose
way back from molecules, thereby completely eliminating the need for God as Creator. The
details of the big bang were still being worked out which necessitated a creator. Creationist
societies formed: they used science to defend their position which angered the science
community. Many court cases ensued.
Today, among the Christian community, there is a time scale issue. Most believe in a
young earth and universe, on the order of about 10,000 yrs, while a small but growing
minority believe in an old earth and universe, on the same time scale as most scientists
believe (13.7 byo). There is also quite a spread in belief among Christians as to the veracity of
Scripture, anywhere from true for morals but unreliable regarding scientific fact, to
completely error-free, absolute, literal and consistent from Gen to Rev. This course assumes
the later position. Scripture says itself 8x’s that God cannot lie. If there is any contradiction
between scripture and science, as I stated earlier, then there must be a misunderstanding of
scripture, the scientific data, or both. The two cannot be mutually exclusive. Unfortunately,
the unbeliever assumes if Christians hold to the 'foolish' notion of a 6000 yr old earth, then
everything else they hold to be true must be suspect.
Let’s turn now to Figure 29 and talk about the biblical basis for long creation days, that is
on the order of eons instead of a literal 24 hour periods. The first stated point involves the
definition of ‘youm’, the Hebrew word translated ‘day’. Like most other words of any
language, words have multiple, accepted meanings. In Webster’s Dictionary, you look up
any word and you’ll find definition 1, definition 2, etc. The tricky part is knowing what
definition fits any particular passage. I have assembled a separated course on biblical
exegesis that can be accessed on my web site, brightstarministries.org, which you can listen
to for more details on this subject. One must look at the context of the passage, first use of
the word, cultural considerations, different versions of critical manuscripts; being born again
is extremely helpful so that the very Spirit of God can teach and guide your study. Various
Greek and Hebrew lexicons are available online now to help, since the original manuscripts
were in these languages. These are a few considerations. The word ‘youm’ can mean
daylight part of the day, so 12 hours; it can mean a complete earth rotation period of 24
hours; it can mean several years, e.g. ‘the day of the out pouring of God’s wrath (e.g.,
Daniel); or it can mean a very very long time period, longer than 10,000 yrs. In English we
have the words epoch, age, era would fit this description, but there’s no other Hebrew
equivalent for very long periods of time. There is the word rebabah (7233) which connotes a
definite or indefinite length of time; there is olem meaning a long time ago – this not specific
and not used for a specific periods of time. Therefore ‘youm’ is the only reasonable word
choice here to use. I suggest that very very long period of time be understood in this passage
for the various reasons already discussed and to be discussed further as this course unfolds.
Verse 5 of Gen 1 uses the Hebrew words ‘ereb’ translated evening and boqer translated
morning in most bible versions. These words can also mean beginning and end of
something, e.g. the dawn of a new era. Hebrew nouns don’t have the breadth that English
words do – they are more limited.
The second basis for understanding the biblical creations days are extremely long periods of
time is the fact that the 7th day is not closed out. We are still in it. God’s ‘day of rest’
continues to the present. There is no mention of the 7th day having a morning or evening.
(this explains why in our present time we are in the middle of a mass extinction of biological
organism and no significant speciation rate – this will be covered in more depth later). The
7th day elsewhere mentioned in the OT is spoken of, alternatively, as in the present, past, and
future tenses. Thus I conclude the 7th day is a long period of time, at least as long as man has
been around.
3. Genesis chapter 1 fits the form and hence the function of a biblical chronology, that is, it is
written in a way that is designed to allow the reader to discern a timed sequence of events.
It’s not just a list.
4. The syntax, or grammar and word order, of the sentences enumerating specific creation
days suggests indefinite time periods: e.g. “evening was, morning was – day 1st”; “evening
was, morning was – day 2nd”. Why is the verb used twice and subject compliment way over
to the right? The subject complement “day” is left dangling. This isn’t proof but indicative
that something unusual is going on here. In the Hebrew language, it has been observed in
scripture that whenever there is a sequential numbered event attached to the word ‘youm’ it
means 24 hour day. However, there is no such grammatical rule per se. There is no other
scripture in the OT that describes long periods of time. The creation event is obviously
unique. It may be unfair, in this case, to compare other biblical passages with this unique
event.
5. God’s eternity is compared to the longevity of the mountains and the foundations of the
earth (e.g. Ps 90:2-6; Pr 8:22-31; Ecc 1:3-22; Mic 6:2, Hab 3:6). All these passages suggest the
earth is very very old. If the hills and oceans are only 6,000 yrs old, than God’s eternity is not
much of a metaphor.
6. The events of the 6th day do not fit into a 24 hr period. Gleason Archer, the great Hebrew
scholar of our day, says this is the killer argument against the so-called day/age theory. In
this day, god planted a garden, it grows and matures, Adam is put to work tending it, god
brings animals to Adam to name them all, God makes Eve “at long last” (suggesting a bit of
time); Adam sees Eve (who is made from something from Adam’s side – the word is not
usually translated rib but side or chamber).
If the 6th and 7th days are more than 24 hrs then the other days must be longer than 24 hrs
also. The wording of Gen 2:4 speaks of a long span of time for the creation week. The
concluding remark about all 7 days uses the word ‘youm’, again suggesting more than 24
hrs day. In this verse the word day and generations are connected. Toleda (8435), translated
generations, means nothing less than 20 yrs or more, not 24 day. In Gen 1 the word “heaven’
is another word that has multiple meanings: atm, universe, or God’s abode.
7. Statements in the bible talk about the vast size of the universe. Multiply these numbers by
the speed of light and you roughly come up with the age of the universe. In the books of
Jeremiah, Genesis and Hebrews, the stars are said to be uncountable, like grains of sand in
the ocean. This is the right magnitude. On a good night one can count 6,000 stars. This is not
uncountable. How could the Hebrews no at that time that the extent of the universe was
much further than the eye can see? The calculated number of the number of stars in the
universe is about 1022 – that is, 10 billion trillion. If we take the largest Hebrew and Greek
number and add a factor of ten to it, let’s call that countless. The bible speaks of myriads of
myriads. Myriad means 10,000 and “of” means multiply. We’re talking in the 10 billion
range. If the universe has 10’s of billions of stars it must be fairly large. Stars are separated,
on average, by 40 trillion miles. Combining these two facts we come up with a very large
universe. Divide this by the speed of light and you come up with the age of the universe. (D
= V x T or T = D/V). This number far exceeds Ussher’s 6,000 yrs and discounts the 24 hr day
idea.
8. The Sabbath day for man and the Sabbath year for the land are based on analogy, not
identity, with God’s work week. The Hebrew word Sabbath has no connotation of a specific
time period, it just means intermission. Ex 20:6 says we should work 6 days and rest the 7th
even as God worked and rested – 24 hrs. The context here is Levitical Law, not creation
days. There is also mention of the Sabbath year rest for the land. Gleason Archer points out
that if analogy doesn’t hold then we are forced to assume the 8 day feast of Tabernacles
proves the Jewish wanderings in the desert lasted only 8 days. The fact that there are two
Sabbath periods mentioned in the bible indicates the use of analogy, not to be taken literally.
A 24 hr rest period for man makes sense; a 24 hr rest period for land makes no sense but 1 yr
out of seven does. If Sabbath can mean 24 hrs or a year, then the intermission could also
mean much longer period of time also.
9. The onset of “death through sin” places no restriction on the length of creations days.
Rom 5:12 says, “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death
through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned”. This is speaking of
spiritual death, not physical death. The bible speaks of 5 types of death: death to the law,
death to self, physical death, spiritual death, and death to sin. In English we equate death to
total incapacitation. Biblical death does not necessarily connote total incapacitation. When
plants and animals die, it’s not through sin because they can’t sin. Only humans are called
“sinners”. Rom 8:22 says that the created world groans until man is redeemed. One can’t
read too much into this. The present universe is temporary and predetermined. The purpose
of the universe is to bring man through redemption; after this a new one will be made. Our
sin can effect the 3rd and 4th generations after us. There are consequences to sin and we will
be judged for messing up the planet (Isa 24; Rev). Gen 1:28 says take care of the planet. The
second law of thermodynamics is not sin or evil (remember this laws describes how things
tend to go to disorder, e.g. a sugar cube eventually dissolves completely in a cup of water
making all the water sweet, not just the little area around it). This law also makes all
biological chemical reactions possible, even though the result is a higher global disorderly
state after the reaction has occurred than before. Thus death in nature is necessary for life to
be sustained, e.g. a dead animal decays and feeds insects and bacteria, which in turn, help
living organisms live. Death brings life; the death of man is actually God’s plan of mercy.
Some Christians use Rom 5 as suggesting there was no death before Adam, but this is
spiritual not physical. Most species of life, e.g. insects, bacteria, can’t survive 24 hours
without eating, and eating creates death of something. Fossil evidence suggests life occurred
millions of years before Adam appeared on the scene. Death existed before Adam. Some
believe the Garden, where Adam and Eve lived, was not governed by the natural laws we
see today on the earth. This, they believe, changed after the Fall.
Conclusion: the days of creation cannot be 24 hours but instead longer periods of time.
Josephus, Ireneus, Origin, St Basil, Augustine, Aquinas, all early church fathers, believed the
days of creation were much longer than 24 hrs. They did not have the advantage we have of
modern science. The 24 day thinking is relatively recent and initially popularized by Ussher
and the Fundamentalist movement of the 20th century.
The young-earth Christian camp includes a couple of alternative ideas concerning the
apparent age of the earth vs a 10,000 yr old earth. One of them is called the appearance of
age theory. This is the idea that, although there are various physical indicators in nature that
suggest a very old earth, God created his creation with only the appearance of age when in
fact it’s actually quite young, comparatively. The major problem with this thesis is its
implications about the nature of God. What would be the purpose of doing this? It seems
deceitful. The scripture says God does not lie. Furthermore it implies if one examines
creation analytically one should be able to deduce that God created it. Also, if God indeed
did create the natural world to appear old one would think one of our methods of physical
analysis, out of the hundreds we have, that one of them would have shown this. If
everything is mere appearance and illusion, why engage in science at all? What proof do we
have that we weren’t created yesterday, complete with memories and facsimiles of the past?
No one believes this.
Some argue that Jesus turning water into a fine aged wine is an example of the
appearance of age. This was a miracle to establish his divinity. The Hebrew culture of His
day had teachings that prophets could do certain miraculous acts but the Messiah, when He
comes, would do special works of miracles above and beyond this, like raising someone
from the dead after 4 days – a prophet could only do this three days or less from the time of
death.
The Gap theory is another popular idea among the young-earth community. There was
supposedly an indefinite period of time between verses 1 and 2 of the Genesis ch 1 that
could explain the old earth and still come up with 6 days of creation and a 10,000 yr old
earth. Ezek 28:13-19 is sited as the cause of a terrible cataclysmic event when satan, formerly
Lucifer, was cast out of heaven into earth. This physically devastated the earth and had to be
reformed by God, beginning at verse 2. There are several objections to this thesis. The first
involves the notion of re-creating the earth after it had supposedly been destroyed. Verse 2
uses the words “formless” (to-hoo, 8414) and “void” (bo-hoo; 922) for the basis of this. If
something has no form and it is void, then it follows that it must be re-created. These words
are used elsewhere in scripture together but only in respect to negative human situations,
not physical nature. Word use, therefore, would argue against this interpretation.
2. Verse 2 says the earth “became” void rather than “was” void, as some versions translate
this Hebrew verb. This is a forced translation. The more natural translation would be “was”.
The Gap Theory implies the Word says nothing about science and science can say nothing
about God’s word with respect to creation, yet many scriptures talk about the natural world
as an additional testimony of God’s creative acts. Although this Hebrew verb does have the
flexibility to be translated “became”, it is always translated was (the verb ‘to be’) unless the
context forces it to do otherwise and there’s no reason the context would dictate such a
change.
3. The theory eliminates scientific verification. There’s no overlap. Yet the bible implies we
should find an overlap if we look. Figure 30 enumerates a few more evidences for an old
universe.
Another argument young-earthers make to prove their position is to site the fact that the
observable erosion rate of the earth is less than 0.1 mm/yr. If the earth was 4.5 byo Mt
Everest should be worn down to nothing in 16 million yrs, yet there it stands, along with
many many other mountains substantially above sea level in elevation. What they don’t
consider is the fact that there is constant uplift from earthquakes and tectonic movements
(the surface of the earth are in fact a series of huge plates of earth that are constantly shifting
due to the heat of convection from nuclear decay of elements within the earth’s core). The
uplift rate of the San Gabriel mountains near LA, for example, is 9 mm/yr, 15 for the
Himalayas. Taking both of these forces into account one can explain why there are tall
mountains on the earth’s surface despite erosion.
Another argument involves the astronaut’s first landing on the moon. It was thought that
they might sink into the surface dust which presumably has been accumulating for billions
of years and that it might completely bury them. Instead it was quite shallow. Dust is
generated from meteorite impact and UV light degradation, compounded by the fact that
the moon has no atmosphere. It turns out that we over estimated the effect of UV light on
dust formation by 100 fold and no one considered that dust could escape the gravitational
pool of the moon as a meteor impacted the surface.
Our understanding of atomic bombs was obtained from the science of solar astronomy. The
same process that allows hydrogen to burn is the same basis for nuclear weaponry and
nuclear power production. Young earthers say because we have only found 1/3 the amount
of neutrinos (small subatomic particles) expected from the suns fusion, therefore it’s energy
output must be from gravitational collapse and not fusion. This energy would be exhausted
in 33 million years, therefore the earth could not be 4.5 byo. Neutrinos would not be emitted
by gravity collapse. An historic problem with our earth-based neutrino collectors is that they
see only the most energetic ones, the less energetic are not detected. Science still cannot
explain everything we see in the universe. Our understanding of neutrinos is limited. High
energy neutrinos come from the formation of boron 8. This formation is extremely sensitive
to core temperature of the sun. If our estimate of the core temperature is off this would
change the amount of neutrinos emitted. Improvements in detection methods have recently
made up the discrepancy of the missing neutrinos.
4. Young earthers argue that the speed of light is slowing down as time goes on. Much of the
data that suggest an old universe are based on the constant speed of light. They therefore
suggest this discrepancy could account for a much younger earth and universe. Young
earthers site older data that was collected hundreds of years ago, when the devices of
measurement were not as accurate as they are today – indeed they could be off by as much
as 0.5%. They try to fit an exponential curve through this small variation and suggest the
speed of light was much faster in the past and is decaying exponentially. This is not fair.
Any data will have some variation to it. If you measure the average height of humans there
will be some few individuals who are seven feet and some 4 feet. It would be disingenuous
to use 7 feet as representative of the true value.
Many more young earth arguments are addressed on Hugh’s web site if you are still
interested.
Now I want to tackle the individual days of creation as they are listed in chapter 1 of
Genesis. Reading the creation account in the bible is unlike other accounts in other holy
books for the singular reason that it doesn’t read like a myth or story. It reads matter of
factly – this happened and this happened, followed by this. It’s not mysterious at all, nor are
“gods” invoked to explain this or that. It’s all physical. In fact, as I hope to show, the order
of creation listed follows what science would have us believe the order of appearance of
various life forms and earth characteristics as time goes forward.
The most important and fundamental point that needs to be addressed before going
through this, and which most people neglect to take into account, is the point of view. Most
people assume the point of view of the narrative is from heaven, looking down on earth.
This is not the case. Looking at it that way is disastrous and leads to a complete reversal
from what science would have us think. The scientific method demands: 1) establishment of
the point of view, 2) initial conditions, 3) sequence of events or experiment, 4) conclusion.
The problem with Astruc’s commentary is that he didn’t establish the point of view. The
second verse establishes the point of view: the Spirit brooding over the face of the waters, up
in the atmosphere, instead of the traditional view of a heavenly perspective. (see Figure 30a).
The three initial conditions are: dark, the earth formless and void, and no life. It was dark
because sun light was being blocked by an originally opaque atmosphere full of dust and
debris. Verse 1 establishes that heaven (shamien) and earth (eretz) are already created. It
should be noted that the Hebrew language has a shortage of nouns, so there are many
meanings for any given noun. It does have many verbs. Astruc thought there was only 1
type of creative act going on in these first two chapters when in fact 6 types of verbs are
used. Shamien can mean the hydrosphere, cloud formation, rain, the first 4 miles of the
atmosphere; it can mean the physical universe and outer space; it can mean extra
dimensional spirit realm where God lives and operates (Paul, in 2 Cor, referred to this as the
third heaven). Eretz can mean the planet earth or it can mean dirt. When shamien and eretz
are used together in Hebrew literature it always is associated with the entire universe. All
commentators agree on this, conservative and liberal. Thus the sun and stars were created in
verse one already.
The word “created”, bara, means without the use of anything prior, or ex nihlo. This
corroborates science (also Heb 11:3). There was a beginning, before which there was neither
time nor matter. This establishes a transcendent God. No other holy book asserts this. They
may use the word “transcendent” but if it is analyzed a bit it is noted that it does not have
the same meaning ascribed as in the bible, namely above time and matter itself. Science
would say light appeared after the 1st few seconds of creation. Planetary formation theory
tells us the rocky planets accreted by spinning debris from the sun, forming, at first a
planetismal and then later a planet that is surrounded by dense, lighter debris which would,
after much time, settle out onto the surface or out into space again. The initial condition just
above the surface of the earth, where our vantage point has been established, would see only
darkness.
The spirit is said here to be “brooding” over the surface. This Hebrew word occurs three
times in the OT. In Deut it is used to describe a female eagle sitting on her eggs to hatch.
Some commentators say a better word might be “vivify”, which means to make alive. So the
spirit is “sitting” over the face of the water making it alive. Science tells us that life first
began in the sea.
Alright, day one. Light appears. The verb used here for “create” is hayah (1961), not bara.
Hayah means to be or is or was. A better English word here might be “appear”. As the
debris from the atmosphere begins to settle, the light that is already shining from the sun
and stars begins to appear through the now semi-translucent atmosphere. Verse 5 says night
and day appears. The earth is already rotating and the sun already shining. As the
atmosphere begins to clear the sun, day time and night, begin to make themselves known.
Jupiter and Saturn both still have an opaque atmosphere. If one could stand on the surface
of either of these planets, which is impossible because there’s no real surface on these gas
giants, and the wind speeds would sheer you, you would not be able to see sun light.
Everything would be darkness.
The second day, verses 6-8. Here the hydrocycle is established. We currently enjoy from
300 – 500 inches per year totally. Too much water or too little make life impossible. Light
and water are necessary for life. Someone might object by saying this is natural process
evolution, the idea that God created everything but then simply let everything change and
evolve naturally as it will. I submit this is only partially true. If God had not intervened at
various points since the initial creation event, natural process could not have come up with
what we see today. Our gravity is not strong enough to keep lighter gases such as H2, He,
methane, and ammonia from dissipating into space. This is actually good. This permits light
to penetrate to the surface. The gravity of Jupiter and Saturn are much stronger, thus
keeping these gases locked into the atmosphere of these planets. They also don’t have the
evaporation problem we have due to their distance from the sun. Their surface temperatures
are extremely low compared to earth. There is a delicate balance: gravity must be strong
enough to hold water from escaping, but not strong enough to retain hydrogen and methane
and ammonia. Change in gravity even as much as a few % would not allow a water cycle to
form and be stable over a 3.8 billion year period.
These first two days of creation events rule out all other planets in the universe. Earth is a
finely tuned set of parameters. By chance one would not expect an earth-type planet to form
from natural processes. This why God said to protect this planet because it’s the only one
we’ve got. We can’t build a space ship and find another one. God designed this one
exclusively for human habitation.
The 3rd day, verses 9-13. Now specific life forms appear. There may have been more
primitive life forms prior to this on land. The bible doesn’t mention this but it does not mean
it couldn’t have happened. Keep in mind the bible is not a science book. What it says is true
and verifiable, but, if it were fully comprehensive of the entire creation scenario, it would be
prohibitively long. Somebody once said the bible is basic instructions before leaving earth:
the bible was made for man to learn about salvation. The science info is just background to
help fill in the big picture. God did not intend for us to have a detailed, blow by blow
account of every minutia. Alright, so the land and water are said to have separated during
this time period, thus continents are formed. It doesn’t mention if one or several. Plate
tectonics suggests that there was one great land mass in the distant past, which has been
given the name Pangea (“all lands”). Later, science tells us it split into Ganzwanaland and
Laurasia. Then, the production of land plants is described. The word to create here is the
word “dasha” in Hebrew which means to bring forth (1876), not ex nihlo. So, God let the
land ‘bring forth’ plants. There’s a lot of discussion among commentators of this point: does
it mean God came down and created or natural processes evolved, or both? The verb itself
cannot give us the answer. Scientific observation says they appeared without previous
lineage. If science is our 67th book of the bible, so to speak, then we can opt for God
intervening here supernaturally, and rule against natural processes.
The word “seed” is first used here. Scientifically, it means any eukaryotic zygote or
embryo. It could mean any species, past or present. “Fruit” is material attached to the seed,
thus it could mean any primitive plant. “Tree” connotes plants with stalks, woody cellulose
or not. It does not mean conifers or deciduous trees necessarily. These three terms are
generic. Also of note is the first use of the word “kind” – everything reproducing after it’s
own kind. The Septuagint, the Greek version of the OT, uses the word genos for this word.
We get our word genus from this. As we’ll see later, living organisms do indeed reproduce
within their own species but can out breed to a certain extent, occasionally forming new
species, but I submit nothing beyond the genus level. We’ll address this in more detail later
when we talk about biology.
Day 4, verses 14-17. Here the atmosphere becomes completely transparent,
making visible the stars, sun and moon. Their light had previously shown through from day
2 already, like frosted glass allows light to pass, but actual images were not apparent. The
verb hayah is again used, thus there is no creation here but rather an appearing. Also the
verb asah is used, translated created, but it means “using what is already there” – not ex
nihlo creation from nothing previously there. There are no animals mentioned on the third
day, but this does not suggest they did not yet exist. The atmosphere began oxidizing from
the moment of creation but not to the extent that it is today (that is, oxygen was present but
in very small amounts initially but gradually increased in concentration due to
photosynthesis, which produces oxygen as a byproduct). Since vegetation was created first,
and very primitive animal life, oxygen was allowed to accumulate without being consumed
by significant numbers of animal life. Plants also consume carbon dioxide as a carbon source
for sugar so the concentration of this green house gas simultaneously decreased, thus
decreasing the surface temperature somewhat, which decreases the humidity. The advent of
oxygen also makes ozone gas now available in the atmosphere. Ozone shields us against
harmful radiation and is essential for higher life forms to exist. The earth rotation is also
decreasing over the billions of years of its existence (4.5 byo). It started out, scientists gage,
at 9 hr/day. This higher rate of rotation actually causes sea spray from the ocean, which
contributes to the green house effect. Thus as the earth rotation decreased, so did the sea
spray and green house effect.
There are only three verb tenses in the Hebrew language, as opposed to the Greek
language of Jesus’ day has upwards of 600, I understand. The verb “made” in vs 16 of this
first chapter of Genesis is in the complete tense. This means that it could be anytime in the
past. There is no suggestion in the context here than there is a sequence – it was all made in
Gen 1:1. There’s no need to address the “when” of the sun, moon and stars. This same
analysis holds true for Gen chapter 2.
Day 5, vs 20-23. There are two different kinds of animals mentioned. The first is
sherets (8318) which means swarms of small moving creatures. In modern terms this would
mean invertebrates and lower vertebrates, so mollusks (clams) on up. These need the sun for
their biological clocks to function, which of course is seen by this time. The second kind of
creature is nephesh creatures. These are soul-bearing animals. A soul is biblically defined as
the quality of having a mind, will and emotions; a creature who has personality of sorts and
has a capacity to form relationships with humans, such as a dog or bird would. These are
birds and mammals in our parlance. One can train these animals to do things or even have
them as pets. They have personality, they respond to authority, they transfer emotions, and
can give and receive affection.
Two verbs are used here. Asah, or made, is used as previously. God personally
came down and manifested these creatures from what was available. The second verb used
is bara. We’ve seen this one used once before for heaven and earth in the beginning. It is
only used three times in the creation account, this is the second. Both asah and bara imply
the same amount of personal involvement by God. This flies against the idea of natural
process as the cause for the appearance of these creatures (I’ll speak more of this in the
biology section of the course). Man is a nephesh creature, but he alone, among all other
nephesh creatures, has a spirit also. Spirit is the quality by which one can form a relationship
with God, who is also spirit. Nephesh creatures, other than man, were not given a spirit,
thus they cannot form a relationship with God. When Jesus came down to earth to preach, it
was never mentioned that he spoke or preached to animals. They cannot be born again like
humans can. The most value placed on the living creatures God created is man, or humans.
After that nephesh creatures, and then non-nephesh creatures.
The 6th day: Adam and Eve are created as are three other kinds of nephesh
creatures. These are: wild, not easily tamed, long-legged quadruped beasts; tamable, longlegged quadruped beasts; and those that “creep upon the earth”. These are all land animals.
The last category, creepers upon the earth, is thought by some to be insects, but insects don’t
have a soul – they are not nephesh creatures; furthermore, this would contradict the order
that science tells us living forms appeared in history. These are probably rodents and hares.
I want to address briefly how we are to understand cave men, Neanderthal,
Australopithecus, and other hominid creatures whose remains have been discovered in the
last couple hundred years. The distinguishing feature between these creatures and modern
humans lies in the aforementioned spirit. These creatures were nephesh creatures – they had
personality and intelligence – but there is no indication that they had spirit. How do we
know this? By the artifacts left along with their remains. They mourned and buried their
dead, but elephants and some birds are known to do this. This does not suggest any divine
communication. For a spirit to have existed in them we should expect to find some signs of
communication to a higher being, God. None has been found, only manifestations of soul,
like paintings inside caves. I will address this further when we get to the “sons of God”
section.
V. 28 commands that man manage the earth wisely. It’s the only one we’ve got.
We have the capacity to ruin it. Thus, this verse implies we are responsible for it and have
been given authority over it. The parable of the vineyard uses the word ‘lease’ to describe
our relationship with the physical earth. If you were to lease me your land, you would still
own it, but I would be responsible for anything that happened to your land, such as if I were
to have spilled some toxic chemical on it, I would be responsible to clean it up. The bible
says God owns the earth, but has leased it to us for our use. Chapter 2 of Genesis elaborates
on this theme some more.
Gen 2
Why are there two accounts of creation here? The difference of the two accounts
lies in the point of view. Remember we said in chapter 1 that the point of view was just over
the waters of the earth looking out and down. The point of view changes in 2:5, thus the first
account really should end there. (As an aside, chapter and verse designations of the bible are
not inspired; they were added much later and were not in the original manuscripts. They
just are helps for the reader. Occasionally, as is here in this case, their misplacement can
yield different understandings then was perhaps originally intended). The point of view in
chapter two is about responsibility and authority, instead of physical creation events. The
first is physical, the second is spiritual. Now there is some overlap, e.g. Gen 1:28, 2:5,19 – I
interpret it as background information.
This second account mentions 5 physical creation events. The intent here is not to
give a sequence of events, as in chapter 1. This fact is gleaned from the grammar used.
Neither is this account intended to be complete, like chapter 1, though even this account is
incomplete in regards to what we know now from science (if it were complete, the bible
would be 12 yards thick! For instance there is no mention of reptiles, dinosaurs or hominids
in the creation account). Many feel that the first five books of the old testament, the so-called
Pentateuch, was a compilation of many writers perhaps edited mostly by Moses. Whether
this is true or not I am not qualified to say. If it is, this does not disqualify it from being the
inspired, God-breathed, Word of God. The editing was inspired as well as the original
writers were inspired to write what they wrote. So, in summary, chapter two emphasizes
responsibility and authority of creation and has some background info from chapter 1. This
then qualifies what has been laid down in chapter 1. Creation, the earth, the universe – all
was made for man, not the other way around. We are to take care of it, not abuse and trash
it.
Let’s go on now to the problem of evil and suffering. Please refer to Figure 31
during this discussion. This subject, as I mentioned earlier, is a stumbling block for many a
potential believer. So, if god is so good why is there evil and suffering in the world, is
basically how the objection goes. This is a difficult topic, one which deserves much more
elaboration than I have time to go through here. I offer a few salient points to consider. It is
an emotional topic because most of us have loved ones, or know of loved ones who have
died and suffered without, it would seem, any intervention or concern by God. Yet God
speaks of himself as loving and caring.
Einstein wouldn’t accept the biblical God because of this issue. He was bitter
toward the Jewish clergy and their inability to resolve the paradox of free will and god’s
omnipotence. Fred Hoyle, Paul Davies and Steven Hawkings, all have or had this objection
also. To begin, it says in Isa 55:9 that God’s ways and thoughts are higher than our thoughts
and ways. This speaks of transcendence. We cannot judge this matter, therefore, by human
standards. One question you might ask yourself is, if you were God, how would you have
created a universe and earth with man having free will and there be no evil and suffering?
Someone might say I would not have made sin possible. I should say as an aside right here
that God did not create evil and suffering. Evil was first seen in Lucifer who was created by
God initially as flawless and without sin. He chose to be prideful and wanted to take over
the throne and dominion of God. Sin was found in him by his free will. Satan enticed Adam,
and beguiled Eve, to partake of his sin. So God didn’t do any of that.) Alright, having said
that, it is true God could have made us originally to be incapable of rebelling against his
authority. But then one could charge that we are not truly free to choose. God created man
and angles as free-willed agents. Love presupposes choice – the choice to respond, or not. 1
John 4:8 says God IS love. His purpose in creating was to manifest His love in us and that
we could also share in this capacity. Now it is true He could have made us without choice
and wouldn’t know the difference, but He would. This would be like creating robots for
your personal pleasure. I would be like programming a computer to be loving and
affectionate, etc. At first it would be great but after awhile it would get old and mechanical.
Love must be heartfelt and genuine for it to mean anything.
2. The first and last three chapters of the bible give a snap shot of the big picture.
Man was created flawlessly, without evil and suffering in an idyllic garden with no sickness,
death or want; he chose to go another route than what God had in mind for him; sin and
death entered the picture. God begins a plan to get man back to his original state. The last
three chapters tell us how God rescued man from his fallen state to a state which surpasses
what he enjoyed before the fall. A new heaven and earth are created where God personally
lives with man forever without sin, sickness or death. And all this within a fraction of a
second of time, relative to a 13.7 byo universe and eternity. This is what the skeptic wants.
Man, having gone through a msec of evil and suffering, is now allowed to be free of it for the
rest of eternity, yet still retaining his free will. God’s plan entails a linear progression from pt
A, the Garden, to pt B, the Fall and world filled with sin and suffering, to pt C, a new heaven
and earth and immortality. It is a mistake to try and resolve evil and suffering in the context
of B alone.
OK, so why is God taking so much time for then? In fact, God is resolving this
issue in an incredibly rapid pace: several thousand years that man has been around is trivial
compared to 13.7 billion years its taken to get man here in the first place. He had it all
planned out “before the foundation of the earth (space, time, energy and time) the scripture
says. It seems long to us because many evil events can happen within a 70 life span. On the
other hand, after Noah, life spans shortened significantly. Perhaps God did this to shorten
the amount of suffering we would have to deal with while here on earth. Remember, every
human will live forever, either in heaven or hell. When we die it is not the end of life but
merely a transition from one world to the next. We tend to think of death as the end of all
there is for any given individual. This is clearly at odds with scripture. 2 Cor 5:8 says to be
absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. When a believer dies he or she goes
directly to heaven to be with God. God’s plan for man is our choice: its completely our
choice whether we want to participate or not. Those who do not choose God are still loved
by God, and the consequences of that choice are also most loving, as I’ll discuss later.
Regarding free will and predestination, that is, the idea that God has chosen
before hand whether you or I are going to heaven and that it is not really our choice at all. If
predestination is true, it would seem god is not very loving and life is singularly cruel and
pointless. God tells us not to prejudge people, yet, if this concept is true, He’s doing the very
thing he told us not to do. Three responses: 1. god is not really a god of love: this is like
Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam – he doesn’t really care. 2. the bible is not true and can’t be
taken literally; 3. These phrases need to be reinterpreted: this is what the Mormons, Jehovah
witnesses, Christian Science has done. The problem with these three stances is that they are
looking from man’s perspective and not God’s. Let me offer an analogy. In the popular
movie Back to the Future, in I think the second movie of the three part series, Marty, the hero,
travels to the future in a time machine and returns, inadvertently, with an almanac. This
almanac, among other things, delineates horse race results, stock market trends, etc. Now in
his present time, this is like what we would call “insider information”. The bad guy in the
movie gets ahold of this almanac and makes a fortune in the stock market and other
ventures based on information of things that haven’t happened yet in the present. The bad
guy didn’t cause these events to occur, he was just privy to them through this publication. In
the same way, I submit, God knows what’s going to happen before it happens but this does
not suggest he caused them. From His transcendent perspective, everything is
predetermined. From our perspective nothing is predetermined and free will is alive and
well.
Theologians tend to say we are partly free or that we are partly predestined. The
scripture says we are 100% both! This is only possible if we invoke multi-dimensions, that is,
if we see things from a godly perspective. There are approximately 1500 scriptures which
say unambiguously one or the other of these options. There are a few that say both. All those
that speak of free choice are in the context of man’s frame of reference; from God’s point of
view its predestination. Only the bible speaks of free will/predestination, trinity, eternal
security: all these only make sense if God operates in other dimensions. There is a theorem
in math that says it is impossible to visualize phenomena in dimensions you cannot yourself
experience. Yet we see biblical descriptions of things which cannot be explained without
other dimensions. One can prove theorems in these other dimensions but you can’t visualize
them. How does God get us to the point of perfection? Both the Old and New Testament
scriptures say that every time we exercise our will to that of God’s, we get closer and closer
to this state. The converse is also true (see Figure 32). There are three components to this
dynamic: our will, the Holy Spirit conviction/will of God and satan and his influence (I
might add to this last, the curse on the earth and our unredeemed flesh nature). 2 Cor 10:4,5,
Phil 2:12,13, 2, 3:3-5, Rom 7:6 all suggest we become a captive of Jesus Christ as we willingly
submit ourselves to the will of God, and thus loose our capacity to rebel and disobey, as
Figure 32 depicts graphically. Conversely, Acts 8:20-23, Col 2:8, 2 Tim 2:22-26 all suggest we
are destined to be a captive of satan if we continue to walk in that direction, i.e., express
rebellion against God’s will.
3. We are not like the animals, we are different, we have a spirit. Q: OK, if
someone makes the wrong decision why doesn’t God snuff him out? A: We are made in the
image of God – spirits are eternal. It’s impossible, even for God, to destroy a spirit once its
created. (I don’t know why God did it this way, he just did). 7th day Adventists, JW’s and
other denominations believe in what’s called the doctrine of annihilation, that is, that after
some period of time in hell people are destroyed. So the damned are not tormented forever.
The sentiment behind this idea is basically, “I don’t like that”. However, if hell isn’t forever
then heaven isn’t forever because the same word is used to describe both eternal states. If
God took this option away from us we would no longer be spirits and would be no better
than the animals, which have no spirit nature. After death, that would be the end of
existence. The good news to this scenario is that God wants no one to be damned forever so
He sent his Holy spirit to: 1) convince all that there’s more to this life than what we see now
– this is why death is so terrifying to everyone; if this is all there is than there would no be a
fear; 2) judgment is forth coming to everyone; 3) we fall short of God’s standard: he does this
through our conscience. His standards are perfect. This is why we need a Savior; 4) he
restrains everyone from sin, e.g. you want to do something evil (sin) but felt restrained from
doing it (even before we were saved). Yet despite this there is still evil and suffering. There
is prophesied a future day when this influence of the HS will be taken away as a judgment
upon sinful man in general (2 Thes 2:7). 4) we are all evil. Ps 51:5 says this is so from
conception (John 3:18 says we are condemned as a result). But God has revealed His light of
salvation – the way out of evil and suffering – to all mankind. I don’t know how God can
give light to a fetus or someone in a coma or someone who has little brain capacity. Perhaps
they are given more “light” than the normal person. God, for example, treats a 2 yr old who
is going to die in a few days differently than a 2 yr old who will live till they’re 80. There is
also, some belief, in the age of accountability: some fairly early age, say on the order of 1215, under which people are not responsible to make the eternal choice for Jesus and would
automatically go to heaven should they die before this age.
A new born baby has very little capacity/faculty to express evil, but God can see
their heart; as it grows older, say about 8 months, one starts to see it. This behavior is
manifest in rebellion against the parents instruction and has nothing to do with culturation
or even the parents influence – its innate. As the child grows older it is more obvious to see.
This is why we’ve come up with the age of accountability, because we can’t see things from
God’s perspective and assume God uses ours to judge.
5/6. Life and death has purpose. Life is like an exam: we will judge angels (1 Cor
6:3) and we will be judged ourselves by God Himself in the future (Rev 20:12,13). Exams are
time-dependent; our lives here on earth have a finite time, after which we are dead. A king
of the OT named Hezekiah was dying at age 39. He asked God to extend his life, and was
granted the request, by 15 yrs – so he died at age 54. Looking back on his life, he would have
been better off dying at age 39 than 54. God was really being merciful by allowing him to die
at 39. Now at 54, he will have incurred more judgment than had he died at 39. God knows
the life span that will give you maximum benefit. So what is the purpose of death? One is
that it seals righteousness before evil may have a chance to creep in. By way of analogy,
taking away a students exam paper before the allotted time because you know as the
teacher, if you take it now, he’ll make the best grade (there’s a tendency to second guess
ourselves on tests and usually the second guess is wrong and first right). If the teacher
allows him to continue his grade will decrease. It seems unfair to the student from his
perspective. Isa 57:1,2 addresses these issues. God knows the torment the unbeliever faces.
God knows who will never repent: to take such people out at an early age is an act of mercy.
There are different levels of punishment in hell, and reward in heaven. Death limits the
amount of either. Furthermore, death limits the amount of evil that an individual can
express while here on earth – death is this case is an act of mercy for those who have to
endure someone elses evil. Long life spans benefit the wicked in that it gives them more
opportunity to repent.
At the time of Adam’s death there should have been about 5 billion people on the
earth, given a normal birth rate of 1 child per 5 yrs per couple and a 900 year life span (see
Figure 34). But they weren’t reproducing at this rate. The scriptures describes the people of
Noah’s day extremely wicked, particularly in the area of murder. Hugh Ross calculates the
murder rate at about 19 out of 20. God admonished Noah after the flood was all over about
murder and judgment (Gen 9:5,6), reinforcing the idea that murder was rampant and the
leading cause of death. Right now the murder rate in the US is about 1 out of 3. How many
people would a murderer kill if he lived 900 yrs vs lets say 50-70 yrs?
The skeptic says the externals are the problem: sickness, poverty, bad government,
lack of food – if these were remedied life would be good. God says the problem lies within
the human heart, not the externals. Adam and Eve had everything the skeptic wanted and
still sinned. In the future Millennium the same thing happens. People will live a long time
without any external objections: good government, no sin, no poverty. But people will still
defect. Satan will be released at the end to deceive and to test those who were never really
tested because they were born after the resurrection from the dead. God will be visible – no
faith involved in that! Yet many will fall away, the scripture says, even with perfect
externals. If the internal isn’t dealt with, the externals don’t matter.
Objection: if satan wasn’t around, life would be great. True, but there’s something
settling about having passed the hardest test and winning. Satan was God’s most powerful
created being: if you can pass that test you can face anything. Objection: what about hell? It’s
not very kind and loving to torment these people forever. The scripture is quite clear that
there is a hell, despite denominational objections. In hell, the presence and influence of God
is completely absent – this is what people there want. They want nothing to do with God
whatsoever. If given the chance to get out of hell, knowing they would be with God in
heaven, they would adamantly refuse to go, despite the torment. The reason hell is so awful
is because heaven is so fabulous – they are opposites. On earth, people in hell were fighting
the restraint of the Holy Spirit, now they are free from it. In hell, torment is used to restrain
people. This is like handcuffing 9 men in a one man cell so they won’t kill each other: the
restraint seems unfair torment but it restrains everyone from doing even more terrible and
evil things to each other.
The Flood. Gen 6-9 is not an account of hydrophysics and geology but of
judgment. Sin of man was the cause of this catastrophe. One question asked is if the flood
was global or regional. In either case, it was universal, meaning all life was affected by it
wherever area it effected. The idea of a global flood was not spoken of until 1923 and the
Fundamentalist movement. The concept became integrated with creationism. The challenge
by God to test or “prove” the things we read in the bible is found in Rom 12:2, Mal 3:10, 1
Thes 5:21. There is no other holy book that makes such a bold claim. The flood lasted 13
months. The water rose over mountain tops by 15 cubits which, depending on the measure
of the cubit, is 22’ to 45’. Gen 7:19 says the waters rose above the “high mountains”. In
Hebrew the word ‘high’, har, means mountain, hill or pinnacle – any kind of elevation on
the earth. There’s no indication, by the word alone, of how high high is. The Hebrew word
for ‘cover’ is casa. It has three possible meanings: 1) permanent deposition (most popular
choice); 2) run, moves over mountain – fits the context; or 3) deposit of water. Which do you
pick? Actually it doesn’t matter, all fit the context of destruction of basar, or flesh. A
relatively modern example of something like this on a smaller scale happened in a small
village in India once that had 4 feet of water fall in a few hours. There were no survivors.
The third definition can probably be eliminated because of what the text says about where
the water came from and where it went. The text says the water came from the atmosphere
(rain from clouds) and from underground aquifers. It returned to the same sources after the
flood subsided. This water did not come from outer space or some other place than earth,
nor did God supernaturally produce it ex nihilo. The earth’s hydro cycle demands that
water is continually recirculated: it evaporates from the oceans, becomes clouds, it rains, the
waters wash back down eventually to the oceans and the cycle begins again.
Gen 8 uses four verbs for the receding of water: shakok, shoob, chachar, and calal.
The water content of the earth from Gen 5 through 11 doesn’t change, it was constant.
Therefore there is a limit to the extent of the flood area. To cover Mt. Everest (29,000’) it
would take 4.5 times more water than the total water content now on the earth. (As an aside,
actually most of the water content in the lithosphere is locked away chemically in rocks. If
this water were somehow released from the rocks themselves, they would disintegrate –
they would lose their form and become dust. There is no evidence of this happening from a
geological point of view. To suggest that God somehow did this anyway and “covered up
the evidence” is contrary to scriptures that suggest that if we look we should find
corroboration of scripture.) Objection: maybe the earth was much smoother then with fewer
mountains and valleys? Astronomically speaking, the earth, as a planet, is extraordinarily
smooth compared to other rocky planets in our solar system. Its very difficult to have a
planet that’s much smoother than ours and have a diameter of 8,000 miles. If one was to
blow up a billiard ball to the size of the earth, the earth would be much smoother. If there
was some sort of massive plate tectonic event that caused this water to gush out of the earth
as was described in Genesis, the Ark would not have survived it. Furthermore, since the
flood wasn’t all that long ago in geological time, we would see evidence of such activity
today. We don’t.
Regarding the question of global or regional, a man named Price first popularized
the global idea in the 1920’s. There was an unfortunate tendency to associate global with
universal, which are two different meanings and should never have been glomed together. I
will argue for a regional flood for several reasons. 2 Peter 3:5-6 says about the flood, “…by
water, through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water”. The
word cosmos is used here, translated by the word ‘world’. Cosmos can mean 1. the universe,
2. the whole earth, or 3) a portion of the earth. This verse could be translated, ‘the portion of
the earth at the time the event took place”. This could be interpreted as local and not global
but still universal: everyone was wiped out, no survivors but those on the Ark. Remember
God’s intent was judgment against mankind, not animals.
So how local was local? Gen 1-11 all use geographical names within the
Mesopotamian flood basin area or just outside of it. There would be no need to flood
Antarctica, for example, because there were no one living there at the time. The flood
occurred before the tower of Babel incident. If you recall people were not moving out from
the original area of creation and God used this artifice to spread things out a bit. This would
suggest that, at the time of the flood, there were no modern humans in the Americas or even
in Africa or Europe and Asia. Since there were no humans there, there was no need to flood
it. What about Mt Ararat, which is 16,873 ft? The text actually does not say Mt Ararat, it says
the mountains of Ararat. Armenians scholars say this region covers 100,000 to 250,000 sq
miles. A wood ark was found on Mt Ararat several years ago but was radio-dated by the
carbon 14 method to about 300 AD +/- 2 yrs. This is way too late. Objection: how can the
water have stayed there for so many months and not have drained into the Persian Gulf or
evaporated or seeped back into the earth? This flood plain is very flat, like the San Jacquin
Valley in CA – this water in California stays flooded for several months of the year. The text
does say that the water did eventually dry up by wind evaporation (8:1). So the water did
not drain anywhere.
There are geological evidences of flood deposits in the Mesopotamian flood
plains. There is no geological evidence, however, for a global flood. There are evidences of
other large regional floods at various times throughout earth’s history. The deposits found
in Mesopotamia date to a similar time frame as when we think the flood took place.
Evidence for any floods in the past is difficult to find because of the nature of the event:
rushing water washes away all artifacts.
Another argument against global flood is found in Greenland and the poles where
ice caps have existed for hundreds of thousands of years. We know this through ice cores
taken. Water dissolves ice. If there were a global flood during this time there would be
evidence of it in the ice cores. No such evidence has ever been found.
A major problem for some people in these chapters concerns the long life spans of
people living during this time: on the order of almost a thousand years. After the flood
average life spans recorded are significantly less, on the order of 150 yrs or less. Some have
suggested the span of a “year” was different than it is presently. Ancient time keeping
considered a year to be 12, thirty day periods. This causes dates to be off by a few days at the
end of the year. They knew this so they just added a few days at the new year. Scholarly
exegesis of scripture tells us to take the narrative literally unless there is some cogent reason
to take it symbolically. If symbolic, it should be defined elsewhere in the bible. No such
explanations are offered in scripture. There is actually extra biblical evidence for long life
spans: Acadian and Sumerian records a king living for 1000 yrs. Some would say this was
exaggeration because of their royal position.
Let’s look quickly at what it would take to extend the human life span to such an
age. Looking at Figure 33, 1) God had ordained that man eat no meat, so everyone was a
vegetarian; meat absorbs heavy metals between 10 and 1000x’s that of vegetable matter. This
stricture was lifted after the flood, which is when life spans decreased dramatically. 2)
Ultraviolet light is attenuated by water in the atmosphere. There is indication that humidity
was much higher in the past. The extension of life span, however would be small, and UV
can be easily attenuated by cloths/hats; furthermore, cosmic rays, which are much more
harmful, are not effected by humidity. 3) carcinogens cause shorter life spans, but there
probably weren’t any to speak of back then; 4) disease: there were less people back then, so
less chance of transmission, so this is unlikely; 5) war/murder – definitely; any individual
could still live long, but if murders are everywhere, the chances of surviving to old age are
slim – perhaps the patriarchs tapped into the grace of God to circumvent this murderous
generation. 6) cosmic rays: a very real possibility. Cosmic rays can damage DNA and be
passed on to the next generation. Robert Brakenridge, in a 1981 Icarus journal article entitled
“Terrestrial Paleoenvironmental effects of a late quaternary-age supernova” suggested
cosmic rays may have hit the earth around the time of the flood from the Vella supernova.
99% of all cosmic rays comes from supernovae from the past. We see today about 100
remnants but one in the southern sky in the Vella constellation is 4x closer than the others –
its about 1000 light years away. For a few days, as it exploded, it would have been as bright
as the moon. Based on ejecta distance and velocity, it is dated to have exploded between
8,000 and 12,000 yrs ago. This agrees with the flood date of 8-14,000 yrs ago. Interestingly,
this may have been a similar time frame as the ‘days of Pelleg when the earth was divided’
(Gen 10:25). This could be the opening of the Behring straits with occurred around 12,000 yrs
ago. Brakenridge could not quantify the effect of the supernova cosmic rays biological life.
It’s hard to experiment with cosmic rays because its everywhere, even underground so how
do you design a control experiment without its presence? So, this theory that genetic
damage for supernova cosmic rays is no proof of the cause for shortened life span but a
possibility. Genetically, its not that far fetched. Two genes have been found in mice, which
together, can elongate their life span by a factor of four. The Vela supernova was
documented to have occurred in ancient Mesopotamian tablets. It was seen during the day
time.
Alright, back to the ark. Some balk at the idea of all animals being stowed in a
boat the size of a few football fields. If the flood was regional, this would mean only regional
animals needed to be saved. Furthermore, the text uses the word nephesh animals – this
means only birds and higher mammals in the area. This cuts down on the number even
further. The text also says God caused the animals to come to the ark, eliminating the need
for Noah to be some sort of wild life biologist, having to catch all these critters. Eight people
could handle feeding and taking care of that many animals for 9 months in such a craft.
So why bother with the animals if God is judging mankind? Looking at Figure 35,
sin defiles. Some sin is worse than others, e.g. sexual > stealing. The sinner receives
recompense, but his sin sometimes is great enough that if effects his children in a harmful
way. Ex 20:5 speaks of sin passing down to the 3rd and 4th generation. Some sin is so
egregious that it affects material possessions. We see this in Num 16:23-33, and even animals
(Josh 6:21). And finally the land itself can be effected, e.g. Sodom and Gomorrah, and also
Edom – these are still uninhabited today (Lev 18:24-28). Sin does not go beyond these limits.
The inhabitants of the land were described as reprobate. This means they were beyond hope
of repentance/forgiveness and recovery. They could no longer distinguish between good
and evil. Their sin had gone so far that it had even affected the animals, and the land had to
be purged of both man and beast. God apparently had picked those animals that had not yet
been infected. God told the Israelites, as they entered the promised land by conquest, to
variably destroy only the men, sometimes women and children also, sometimes animals,
sometimes to burn everything. This was contingent upon the extent of sin in any given
people group.
“Sons of God” is the next topic I want to tackle in these first few chapters in
Genesis. This has been a stumbling block for many. Gen 6:2,4 says, “The sons of God saw the
daughters of men, that they were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves of all whom
they chose. There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons
of God came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them. Those were the
mighty men who were of old, men of renown”. There are several schools of thought on who
these ‘sons of God’ were. 1. They were the line or lineage of Cain. Cain, was the brother of
Abel, Adam’s first two sons. Cain killed Abel out of jealousy. Thus murder was introduced
by him. God specifically cast him out of the area. God marked him with a special mark to
distinguish him. The thought goes that men of this lineage took normal women as wives and
their offspring were the Raphaim, also called Nephilim, Anakim or giants. These were
something like half human half demonic beings of enormous size and strength. 2. they were
demons who had intercourse with women, giving birth to these Rephaim. Because of
physics, very large men should be rather slow of movement, like the elephant and giraffe.
Since these guys were agile in battle, this suggests supernatural powers of some sort to
compensate for their naturally slower movements in battle. Goliath, one of these giant
beings, was recorded to be 9’9” tall.
In the NT, the term “sons of God” refer to human beings that have received the
baptism in the holy spirit, that were born again supernaturally. Jesus never referred to a
saint as a “son of God” till after Pentecost and Calvary. The one exception to this is in Hos
1:10,11 that talks about the ‘sons of god’ used to describe human beings but was prophetic,
looking forward to the new covenant and new birth. Therefore ‘sons of God’ in the Old
Testament must be referring to someone non-human, or at very least a human
supernaturally infected with a demon spirit, since the Holy Spirit was not available to come
into someone at that time. 1 Cor 11:10 warns wives to watch their behavior because of
demons that may take advantage of them. In Jude 6,7, it speaks of demons leaving their
normal estate, in regards to bestiality and animal demonic possession. We saw this with
Jesus and the herd of pig incident. But someone says, this doesn’t happen anymore! I would
argue perhaps not to the same extent as in the past, and that, perhaps because the majority
of people don’t believe in such things. The spirit realm, whether demonic or holy, operates
by faith, by believing. UFO encounters have been documented of female rape but no trace of
semen. People with these encounters are generally those who believe such things can and do
occur. 2 Pet 2:4 speaks of a place called Tartarus, in the Greek (5020). It’s translated abyss or
pit. It is a special place, distinct from hades or hell, were demons who cross this line are
imprisoned until judgment day. Demons Jesus cast out objected that it was unfair that he
send them there because they hadn’t raped a woman. This may be another reason why we
don’t see more of this sort of thing because those demons that did cross this line are already
there, never to escape, and there are not too many more demons willing to take the chance
of ending up there also.
Raphaim were so wicked that God specifically wanted them exterminated. They
existed before and after the flood. They were destroyed in the flood but apparently
additional demons infected more humans after that so God raised up warriors like David
and 30 of his mighty men who finally wiped them out. Objection: no archeological evidence
or bones have been discovered to support these creatures’ existence. Only rough historical
evidence from other cultures, but the bible is most detailed. An explanation of this is: 1)
there weren’t that many of them so finding bones of their dead bodies would be difficult; 2)
demons are really only interested in God’s elect, who at that time, were the Israelites. The
Israelites inhabited only a relatively small area of the world around Palestine. One wouldn’t
expect to find remains of Rephaim, therefore, in records or digs in China or Asia for that
reason.
Alright, I think we’re now ready to dive into evolution and biology of the creation
evolution debate. I’m going to define evolution in this course as change with respect to time.
The fossil record gives us definite evidence of life that existed millions of years before our
time. Science tells us the earth is very old based on radio dating methods. This is the
technique of chemically measuring the quantities of parent and daughter compounds that
are naturally found in bones, carbonaceous material, and rocks surrounding such material.
Uranium, for example, is a naturally occurring substance that is radioactive. Radioactive
means that the atoms that make up the substance are unstable. They are not in a steady state
of existence. They emit, photons, neutrons, electrons and other subatomic particles in order
to eventually achieve stability. Uranium eventually turns into lead after millions of years
which is stable. There are often more than once intermediary substance between the parent
compound and daughter compound. All these can be quantified chemically. The parent
compound is the beginning radioactive compound and the daughter compounds are those
elements it turns into upon decay. The proportionate quantity of parent to daughter
substances indicates how old the material is. The objection some have to this method is
manifold. One is that if the daughter compounds are themselves chemically unstable or
difficult to quantify then the date obtained will be inaccurate. For example if the daughter
compound is a gas, it could seep out of the material without being detected. There are
dozens of different radiometric dating parent/daughter systems. Each system has its own
strengths, weaknesses and range of accuracies. Generally 10 half lives is the range of
accuracy for any of these radioactive compounds. So, any time longer than the time it takes
half the parent compound to decay to form its immediate daughter compound, multiplied
by ten, is the limit of its usefulness in dating a substance.
Where I work in the lab we frequently use a radioactive phosphorus compound.
The half life of this substance is about 14 days. After six months it is considered to be
completely dead or non-radioactive. These compounds are artificially made in the lab we
buy them from. They do not occur naturally in nature. The decay rates follow the
mathematical formulas that describe them exactly. We began understanding radioactivity by
observing the sun. Our knowledge of radiation gave us nuclear power and atomic
weaponry. We understand these processes very well, is my point right now. We know that
each radiodating method has its pitfalls and limitations. Despite these, we can compensate
for them and still come up with accurate results. Young earth creationists will often site
outlier data to support the idea that this method is inaccurate. What they fail to mention is
the mountain of data that is quite accurate. When several methods of radiodating, using
different parent/daughter systems come up with a date that is similar, it’s reasonable to
assume the date to be accurate. All science has margins of error. If two people measure the
length of an object they will come up with very slight variations on the answer. Does this
make the measurement inaccurate? No, it just means everyone’s eye sees things slightly
different and, within a known margin of error, for example +/- 0.5%.
Another objection to radiodating and gaging the age of the geological column of
sediments is that the two depend on one another, thus making a sort of logical circular
argument – the one assumes the other is true without either of them proving their veracity
independently of the other. Support of the this notion is the geological evidence of vast
changes in the landscape occurring over extremely short periods of time as opposed to very
very long periods of time. This is called catastrophism vs gradualism. For example, a huge
canyon such as the Grand Canyon could have formed from a massive flood that occurred
over a few years vs the gradual eroding away of sediment over millions of years. It is now
recognized in geology that both these processes occur in nature. Radiodating would yield
faulty data if certain parameters that govern radioactive decay of atoms changed over time.
There is nothing inherent in these equations that would support this idea. Astronomers can
effectively look back in time billions of years because of the vastness of the universe and the
constancy of the speed of light. They observe the same physics billions of years ago as now.
They haven’t changed. Jer 33:25 says the laws of heaven and earth are fixed, or stable
through time. And again, God says if we look at nature we can be assured we will find
answers to support His existence. One exception to this is if there were an influx of radiation
from an outside source, such as the Vela supernova. This would indeed change the data, but
not by a whole lot. If these fluxes can be quantified or estimated, then the answers we come
up can reflect that influx to still come up with an accurate result.
Alright, back to evolution. It is assumed that change occurs through natural
causes, but there are two other possibilities: supernatural and intelligent intervention, either
human, divine, or other. Evolution is natural if the following conditions can be met (see
Figure 36): 1) there is a plausible mechanism to generate the change seen thru time: the
oscillating universe thesis failed here, for example, because there was no mechanism;
without a mechanism you have a hypothesis but no theory. (Mechanism is a scientific term
which means the nitty gritty way something actually works or happens); 2) are there
reasonable initial and subsequent conditions: does our understanding of these conditions fit
the hypothesis; 3) are there sufficient results per unit time; 4) are the survival statistics
reasonable; 5) is there real time verification though observation in individuals, populations
and extinction/speciation rates.
All these criteria are met in astronomy. We have observed all these phenomena in 6
thousand years of human existence using very simple systems of 19th century physics. We
can actually see past events through time. We do not need divine intervention to explain
rain drop formation or star formation. So is this true in the natural organic arena? No, it
would appear that both natural and supernatural causes are necessary to explain what we
see. Natural mutation, selection, nor somatic hypermutation cannot explain all the data. We
need intelligent cause to explain the rest. It’s not difficult to go from intelligent cause to God
cause. A book entitled “The mystery of life’s origins”, written by three Christian chemists
offers a detailed description of the problems involved in coming up with life with molecular
building blocks (this is book is pretty technical. You need some chemistry back ground to
understand. It is listed in the suggested reading list.). In the epilogue they note that natural
laws are insufficient to explain everything. We as humans or humanoid-type life, are
insufficient cause since we have not yet succeeded at making life. An exception to this is the
recent advancement of creating a unique bacteria that never existed before. But in order to
do this they had to take functional genes and other parts from other living organisms to do
it. It was not done from scratch so to speak. Also, the use of intelligence was required. God,
therefore, must be more creative and intelligent than man.
For natural evolution to work, we must start with molecules, and not just any molecules.
We start with the inorganic to get organic. The molecules of life are organic. They must
contain carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, sulfur, phosphorus, and nitrogen in various proportions
to qualify. Most of the earth’s crust is made of the other elements of the periodic table. How
did this process begin? Mathematicians have tried to tackle this problem for decades. Figure
37 shows calculations for the chance of a minimal life form, a bacteria, to spontaneously
arise. The average bacterium has about 1000 genes which code for the same amount of
proteins. Shown here is a low estimate of 239. Mycoplasma genetalium, probably the smallest
living organism that’s free living, has 482, so I am being conservative with these number
calculations. These numbers were obtained from Harold Morowitz, a non-theist. For life to
exist freely it must metabolize to obtain energy and reproduce. If we assume the average
protein contains 445 amino acids, and each amino acid position has twenty possibilities, then
the probability of coming up with life randomly is 1:20(445 x 239) ÷ 239! = 1:10137,915. (By way of
background, any protein of life is made up of a string of amino acids, like pearls on a
necklace. There are only twenty different types of “pearls” or amino acids possible for life as
we know it). This is an impossibly large number. No one, even evolutionists, think this
probability event could ever occur. There are also complicating factors with this scenario: 1)
one needs pre-existing enzymes for this assemblage to occur – where would these come
from? This is like the chicken or the egg dilemma; 2) you need ribosomes to assemble the
protein from the pool of amino acids. Ribosomes are a component of all living cells that are
absolutely essential for life. 3) only left handed amino acids work. This is called chirality. All
amino acids, with the exception of glycine, come in two flavors called right handed and left
handed. They are mirror images of one another. Right handed ones don’t work. In the
natural world, outside the bounds of a cell, we find 50:50 mixtures of both. This increases the
previous number by multiplying 0.5 19 times. 4) most mutations appear to be non-random,
that is, they occur at certain “hot spots” while very few or any at other places in the genome.
But random mutation is necessary to come up with new types of organisms. This is a
problem. Therefore, the chance of random assembly becomes less than 1 in 10100,000,000,000. This
is an impossibly large number. To give you a comparison, the probability of the second law
of thermodynamics reversing itself is 1080. This has never been observed. No one believes
that the second law of thermodynamics will ever spontaneously reverse itself.
If the entire universe was composed of amino acids, there would by about 1077 of them –
this is the actual estimate of the number of nucleons in the universe. If all these amino acids
were randomly linked once a second for the entire age of the universe, the chance of random
assembly of the simplest life form is 1 in 1099,999,999,905. The rational conclusion to all this is that
life cannot spontaneously occur.
Biologists are aware of these calculations. They say some of the assumptions are
incorrect. There is, for example, some slop in the sequence of an amino acid, that is, for any
given position in the amino acid protein, there is more than one amino acid type that can get
the job done. A mutation at this juncture would come up with a protein that would function
identically to the original. In fact, in nature, such substitutions, as they are called, occur quite
frequently. Radiation, chemical toxins, and replication errors can cause such changes to
occur. There is a built-in redundancy to the system. An organism can survive at a rate of 1
out of 100 changes, though this is not random. Some positions cannot tolerate any change
whatsoever and still maintain function. For example, sickle cell anemia in humans is caused
by one point mutation in the DNA sequence which equates to a switch from glutamate to
valine at position 6 of the hemoglobin gene.
Figure 38 is a cartoon showing the problems involved in random assembly of life. At the
first level, there are different types of amino acids, sugars, lipids and nucleic acids in nature.
There has to be some mechanism by which these others are eliminated and the correct ones
chosen. Then there must be the correct sequence of both amino acids in a protein and nucleic
acids in DNA (DNA is what genes are made of. It stands for deoxyribonucleic acid. It is
composed of four different types of so-called bases or nucleotides, that make up its alphabet,
as opposed to twenty in the protein world). Then there must be some way for the correct
components to assemble themselves chemically one to another in the correct sequence. In
real life this occurs by enzymes and ribosomes. (An enzyme is a protein that has a specific
function to do something, usually only one thing). Once assembled, if we’re only here
talking about proteins, there must be a way to activate it. In real life this is done by
modulating it chemically by bonding various other chemicals to it, like sugars. This is done
in the Golgi apparatus in the cell. It also must be transported to its final location in the cell.
This is accomplished by other enzymes already present. Then there is the issue of final
function of the protein. In the book “Darwin’s Black Box”, Michael Behe makes the
compelling argument concerning natural selection and function. He uses flagella as an
example. Flagella, in bacteria, are whip-like appendages coming off the cell wall into its
environment that propel it along, much like a propeller on a motorboat. It has upwards of
twenty component protein parts. Each part is necessary for function. A mutation in any one
part makes the whole apparatus non-functional. Darwin’s idea of natural selection stated
that at any given time within a population of bacteria, lets say, there are properties that
confer an advantage in the given environment they find themselves in at the time which
confers a competitive advantage for life and health over those individuals that do not have
this particular trait. Those with desirable traits, over time, will out reproduce those who
don’t have the trait, thus the trait become dominant in the population – it persists. His
famous study of birds on the Galapagos islands showed that certain beak sizes of finches
were more adapted than others relative to the food type available.
Behe points out that, since the flagellar motor has twenty some components, none of
which alone do anything that would confer and advantage to the cell – only together do they
confer an advantage - the idea of natural selection falls apart. How could twenty proteins
spontaneously occur to form anything functional? It has never been observed in nature.
What is observed in nature, in bacteria, is that genes that aren’t doing anything useful tend
to be kicked out of its genome. This is counter to what should happen with an organism
mutating to develop flagella.
In 1952 Urey and Miller conducted an experiment to simulate the conditions of the
primordial earth to see if they could chemically come up with the components of life. To
their surprise they did! Twenty two amino acids, lipids, sugars and some building blocks of
nucleic acids were formed from water, hydrogen, methane, and ammonia in a closed system
energized by an arc of electricity over the span of a week, simulating lightning. For this they
won the Nobel prize. 11 out of the 22 were the type used for life, but all were racemic, that is
equal mixtures of left and right handed. Since that time it has been determined that the
conditions they assumed to be extant on the primordial earth were incorrect. They assumed
a reducing environment (much hydrogen and little oxygen) when in fact it was much more
oxidative (more oxygen). In the game of life, oxygen is like gasoline. It’s highly explosive
and must be handled very carefully lest it burn and explode. Oxygen is necessary for life but
only in a controlled fashion. There are elaborate enzymatic system of the interior of the cell
to keep oxygen out. Oxidized proteins don’t work. Another problem with this experiment is
that it tacitly assumes that if all the ingredients for life are present, life will spontaneously
occur. This is niave. In our lab we have all the ingredients necessary for life. If you were to
add them to a beaker of water in whatever quantities you’d like, under whatever conditions
you would like, if you heat or freeze it … whatever you want to do with it, over however
long a period of time you’d like, life would never happen. Every biochemist knows this
intuitively. Life is much too complex for such a simple approach. In fact, even if one were to
fractionate, that is separate and isolate, every component part of a cell and then mix it back
together again, under whatever conditions you’d like, and even adding any enzymes,
nothing would become of it. It would just be a big mess. Functional living cells are much
more complicated than that.
Darwin didn’t know about genes in his day, nor did he espouse the idea of molecules to
man – that’s a so-called NeoDarwinist idea. Of all types of mutations that have observed in
nature, good, bad and neutral, the majority of them are bad. The rate is about 10-6.
Figure 39 points out some other problems with Neo-Darwinism. 1) gaps in the fossil
record are real. Darwin was aware of these but thought that more search would fill in these
gaps. This turned out not to be the case. What is seen in the fossil record is the sudden
appearance of a new phylum, e.g. Cambrian explosion, followed by the life forms with some
modification through time, perhaps a speciation event but nothing more radical than that – I
submit within the same genus, followed by extinction. Either that or the organism still exists
today as a species. There have been 6 explosions of life and five mass extinctions where
upwards of 90% of life forms go extinct. We are presently in the 6th. I submit these periods
are related to the 6 days or epochs of creation. Darwin advocated gradualism, that is, the
gradual change over time of life forms melting, as it were, into more advanced forms. This is
not observed in the fossil record. What we see in the fossil record is the emergence of new
life from seeming nowhere, continuance of these forms in more or less the same form,
followed by extinction. Then the cycle begins anew. Seeing this, biologist have coined the
term saltation or punctuated equilibrium to describe this. The problem with this hypothesis
is that there is no genetic mechanism for it to work. We have sequenced hundreds of
genomes, including the human genome and have found no gene or genes capable of creating
the change necessary to account for the fossil record. For a new phylum to emerge from
extant life, this would require thousands of genes to be formed in an extremely short period
of time. A phylogenetic change is like a reptile turning into a bird. Both these critters carry
on the business of life in very different ways. Neo-Darwinism would demand that the
genetic material found in the bird should be found in bits and pieces within the reptilian
genome. They aren’t there. Thus, divine intervention is necessary. Another problem with
punctuated equilibrium is that, for it to work, the numbers of the population mutating must
be low in order to sustain any changes that occur – this is a mathematical problem. But, if
numbers are low, the chances of survival and reproduction fall dramatically. If most
mutations are unfavorable, a large population is necessary to produce enough favorable
changes – a small population doesn’t have this advantage. Endangered species are
endangered precisely because their numbers are so low. They need intervention in order to
survive. Only species like bacteria, viruses, and perhaps insects have enough numbers to
make this all happen, on the order of 1015 individuals.
The fifth statement in Figure 37 says the neutral amino acid mutation rate is far below
the rate neoDarminism would predict. We are still not fully aware of all the ways mutations
occur in nature. One possibility has emerged recently from astronomy. The dinosaur
extinction that occurred some 60 million yrs ago is thought to have been the result of a large
meteor impact in the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico. The impact is thought to have caused
such a large plum of dust and ejecta that it rendered the atmosphere translucent for many
years, thereby greatly decreasing the rate of photosynthesis, eliminating the food source for
many of the larger creatures, making room for smaller mammals. Nine separate similar
catastrophes have been catalogues. Is there a match between these and the extinctions we’ve
noted in the fossil record of the past? Some of these catastrophes are radiation blasts similar
to the Vela supernova explained earlier. It is predicted by these events that cockroaches
should go extinct as a species (not as a genus) every 250 million years – this is what we see
in the fossil record; mammals would get it about every million yrs – we see this too. This
supports punctuated evolution but, again, there is no mechanism for this theory. Mutation
in regulatory genes has been proposed but doing this in the lab artificially does not even
create a speciation event, let alone a phylogenic change. The verbs used in the biblical six
days of creation do not suggest that at the beginning of each day God created but then did
nothing the rest of the day, rather, it was ongoing throughout the day.
People have looked at the mutation of many different bio-molecular indicator molecules
of apes and humans. Archeologist say we split about 7 million years ago from one another,
but the rates of mutation of these molecules are insufficient to account for this – there would
not be enough time for what we observe given 7 million yrs.
6. Natural selection produces only limited change in a species. For example the dog:
breeding over the centuries has produced a large range of shapes and sizes from Chihuahua
to Great Dain but we have never been able to breed a new species from dogs. There is only a
certain amount of variation possible. The two dog types are still within the same species,
even though in the wild, probably neither of them would survive because they are
unsuitably adapted. A “mut” would be the best fit for that. Given enough time and random
mating, if all the different dog varieties were allowed to interbreed randomly, in short order
all we would see are muts.
7. Genetic decay probably supersedes advances by natural selection. In other words, bad
genes tend to overwhelm good genes over time, eventually bringing the species to
extinction. For example, in humans today, we seem to be getting taller and taller. Some of
this is due to better nutrition, but some is not. It is a disadvantage to be too tall. Probably 5
feet is optimal. We are also seeing an increase in diabetes. This is no doubt due to some
extent to bad eating habits but some is not. Obviously an accumulation of these bad genes
would spell doom for our species.
8. The natural extinction rate is between .4-4,400 species/yr. There is ambiguity because we
still don’t know all the species that are out there – we are still discovering them. Two million
have been catalogued. It is estimated that there are over 100 million. It is arguable, even
among biologist, what a species is and whether or not a critter has speciated or not. The
formal definition of a species is that a critter must be reproductively isolated, which means,
if it mates with something other than its own kind, nothing will happen or the offspring will
be sterile, like a donkey and horse producing a mule. There’s probably is an extremely low
speciation rate now. No one I’m aware of has hazarded a guess at what that is. We are now
in the middle of a mass extinction of upwards of 27,000 species/yr. The over all fossil record
indicates that the speciation rate is higher than the extinction rate, i.e. the biosphere is
increasing overall in the number of species, despite five massive die offs. The bible says God
took 6 days to create everything. We are currently in the seventh day of rest from creating,
thus we see no significant speciation in recent past. The book of Revelation records that the
7th day of rest will end and God will resume creating again in the future.
Man’s Origin: this is a grey area both in science and biblically. Referring to Figure 40, man
was the last creature god created before he rested or ceased from creating. He is the only
creature with his spirit inside of him. This quality of spirit causes him to desire to worship
God through visible means, such as a temple, moral law, and ceremonies. These are not
evident with any other created being. Secular anthropologists say man is a biped, large
brained creature who buries their dead, uses tools and who expressed themselves by way of
art. There is no debate that earlier hominids, such as Astralopithicus, overlapped in time and
space with modern man. Neanderthal is thought to have overlapped in time and space with
modern humans but genetically, it has been determined that the two are distinct and that
modern man did not come from this creature. Cro-Magnon man could be considered a
modern human. This matter is not settle among the anthropologists. Hominids were real. It
is clear that they were non-spirit beings and that they went extinct. There is some discussion
in the bible about a pre-Adamic race (Isa 14:1-14, Jer 4:23-27, Ezek 28:11-17, 2 Pet 3:5-7).
These references are obscure and highly controversial. If this thesis is true, these may have
been these hominid creatures we call cave men.
The genealogies of the bible are somewhat ambiguous, though only from the western
perspective. When the text says “father”, in the Hebrew culture it was understood this could
mean father, or grandfather, or great grandfather – it was understood that such a word was
not to be taken literally. In the west we don’t do that, so lineages established by Ussher, for
example, suffer from this misunderstanding. It is therefore nearly impossible to pin down a
date for the birth of Adam. Estimates range conservatively from 10 -40,000 or 6-50,000 at the
extreme ends. It is interesting that genetic studies of the male y chromosome mutation rates
point to a single male progenitor dating to between 60,000-90,000 yrs ago. Using
mitochondrial DNA Eve, was dated to have been around between 50,000-80,000 yrs ago.
Although these numbers are a bit older than the biblical dates suggest, there are many
assumptions used in making the genetic dates which may be incorrect. These assumptions
may be amended in the future. Science continues to improve itself and replace old
paradigms with new improved ones.
The last sticky point I want to address in this lesson is the issue of dinosaurs. The bible
does not describe these creatures which obviously existed in the past. Again, the bible was
not intended to be a science book mentioning every minutia of detail. Some Christians assert
that man and dinosaurs coexisted. Science refutes this because the last dinosaurs went
extinct 65 million yrs ago. One reason they believe this is because of foot prints found in a
river bed in Poluski, Texas. A large dinosaur print was found to have a human imprint
within it. Since the discovery of these fossilized prints it has been determined that the inner
footprints were not human. Even young earth Christians have backed off on this apparent
evidence for their coexistence. Biblical support for the idea is found in Job 40:15 which talks
about “behemoth” (930; hypo) and in 41:1 ‘leviathan’ (3882, crocodile). The language is
colorful so interpretation tends to be broad. They say dinosaurs would have existed before
the Flood, before Noah. Some say Noah took some with him on the ark but that they rapidly
went extinct afterward as the earth’s atmosphere changed. The bible says these creatures,
behemoth and leviathan, are terrifying. Behemoth is said to be vegetarian, like a hypo, and
lives in a fresh water habitat. On the 6th day God created mammals. Dinosaurs were not
mammals, that is, were not warm blooded. The hippo is actually the cause of more deaths in
present day Africa than any other wild animal. This fits the description of a hippo, as does
the definition of the word in Strong’s concordance. Hippos often coexist with crocodiles.
This ends this lesson.