A Celebration of Creation
Part 2, (Return to part 1)
This year’s global celebrations of the 150th anniversary of Darwin’s book, On the Origins of Species, and the 200th anniversary of his birth might seem like cause for alarm, but Reasons To Believe (RTB) scholars see the increasing focus on evolution as an opportunity for pastors. Congregations can be inspired to celebrate their Creator and share the good news with others.
Charles Darwin
RTB is a science-faith think tank where scientists and researchers show why science supplies much stronger support for biblical creation than for the theory of biological evolution. For more than 20 years RTB has used scientific evidence from various disciplines to equip believers for evangelism. Darwin-day events scheduled throughout 2009 (see http://www.darwinday.org/events/listing.php) make this an unprecedented opportunity for reaching out to the secular community.
In this second part of a 2-part interview, Astronomer Hugh Ross, Ph.D., founder and president of RTB; biochemist Fazale (Fuz) Rana, Ph.D., vice president, research and apologetics; and philosopher/theologian Kenneth Samples, senior research scholar are leading authorities on science/faith issues and have written on related topics. Patti Townley-Covert, RTB’s executive editor, asked them questions with which many Christians struggle.
What does astronomy offer that helps explain the fossil record?
HR: Nothing seems more reliable than sunshine. No matter what happens, the sun’s light and heat appear to remain the same.
Appearances can be deceiving, however. The sun’s heat output has significantly increased over the past 4 billion years. Nuclear fusion in the Sun’s core turns hydrogen into helium. This production of helium increases the density of matter in that core. The increased density causes the sun’s nuclear furnace to burn more efficiently. Hence, the sun’s heat output has increased by about 15 percent over the past 3 billion years.
Such huge changes in the sun’s heat would normally exterminate all life on earth. However, by creating the just-right life-forms at the just-right times and in the just-right amounts and diversity, God was able to perfectly compensate for all the variations in the sun’s luminosity.
Different life-forms modified the chemistry of earth’s atmosphere and the rate of geological erosion and burial in different ways. Thus, while the sun grew brighter, life lowered the quantity of greenhouse gases in earth’s atmosphere by the precise amount necessary to compensate for the sun’s increased brightness. The creatures that paleontologists see in the fossil record are exactly the life-forms required at different times throughout earth’s history to perfectly compensate for changes in the physics of the sun.
As a result, earth can sustain the maximum biomass and biodiversity for the maximum time. All this maximization yields enormous reserves of biodeposits to launch and sustain a global affluent high-tech civilization. Such a civilization permits humanity to efficiently and rapidly carry out the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18–20).
Resource: Creation As Science
What scientific evidence supports the idea that life’s origin was a miraculous event?
FR: Historically, two key expectations for the origin of life have been the long-time scale required for life to emerge and the relative simplicity of the first life-forms. Origin-of-life researchers have traditionally maintained that a percolation time of hundreds of millions of years (maybe even a billion years) would be necessary for abiogenesis and that the first life to emerge from this process would be extremely simple.
Neither prediction has any scientific support. Instead, origin-of-life researchers recently uncovered unequivocal evidence that life first appeared early in earth’s history, as soon as the planet could even remotely sustain life. Prior to this time, earth existed largely in a molten state unsuitable for life. The oldest rocks yet discovered date about 3.9 billion years old. Researchers have identified several chemical markers left over from the first living entities in these rocks that indicate life was present at least 3.8 billion years ago.
Remarkably, just prior to this time, some type of gravitational disruption in the solar system caused asteroids from its outer reaches to rush toward the inner solar system planets. During this “late heavy bombardment,” giant impactors pummeled earth with more than 17,000 collisions. This barrage should have vaporized earth’s oceans and melted its surface and subsurface rock, obliterating any and all life. Then, as soon as earth recovered, life appeared instantaneously.
J. William Schopf, a leading authority on early life, states in his book, The Cradle of Life, “no one had foreseen that the beginning of life occurred so astonishingly early.” And, these single-celled bacteria appear metabolically and biochemically complex.
Schopf details the problem this complex early life creates for naturalistic origin-of-life explanations saying:
“[I] would prefer a simpler evolutionary story, one that told us these oldest fossil organisms were capable only of primitive ways of living and that advanced metabolic lifestyles evolved much later. But the evidence seems strong, and what one might ‘prefer’ shouldn’t matter.”
Schopf’s exasperation makes evident that the early, sudden appearance of complex life makes little sense from an evolutionary vantage point. However, this data finds ready explanation within a creationist paradigm. If God introduced first life, it’s reasonable to expect it to appear on earth suddenly and in a complex form. (See http://www.reasons.org/resources/fff/2001issue06/index.shtml#origin_of_life_predictions_face_off) for a more detailed description of the RTB creation model for the origin of life.)
Resource: Origins of Life
But, if the creation “days” were billions of years, would not that make evolution true?
FR: Because the universe and earth measure 13.7 and 4.5 billion years old, respectively, does not necessarily mean biological evolution is true. Earth’s age has no bearing on whether mechanistic processes could originate life and generate large-scale biological transformations. These are two separate issues.
From a scientific standpoint, it’s not clear if 4 billion years was enough time for life to originate and evolve into human beings. Some Christian apologists assert that evolution would require much more time to produce creatures like human beings. In reality, there is currently no way for science to know this.
Biologists do not understand how the genetic make-up of organisms translates into biological structures. Biochemists do not understand the rules that dictate how assemblages of life’s building blocks combine to form the structures of functioning biomolecules. These are active areas of research. Until this understanding is in place, it’s not possible to say whether evolutionary mechanisms could have yielded life’s complexity in 4 billion years. Still, evolutionary biologists own the burden of proof to show there was enough time for evolution to generate life’s origin and history.
The best way to determine whether evolution occurred over the last 4 billion years of earth’s history is to look for patterns that might reflect evolution at work.
Contingency is one pattern that should be prominent if indeed evolution accounts for life’s history and diversity. Chance governs the evolutionary process at its most fundamental level. Because of this, it is expected that repeated evolutionary events would result in dramatically different outcomes.The concept of “historical contingency” embodies this idea and is the theme of Stephen Jay Gould’s Wonderful Life:
No finale can be specified at the start, and none would ever occur a second time in the same way, because any pathway proceeds through thousands of improbable stages. Alter any early event, ever so slightly, and without apparent importance at the time, and evolution cascades into a radically different channel.
Gould’s metaphor of “replaying life’s tape” asserts that if one could push the rewind button, erase life’s history, and let the tape run again, the results would be completely different. The very essence of the evolutionary process renders evolutionary outcomes as nonreproducible (or nonrepeatable). Therefore, repeatable evolution is inconsistent with any available mechanism to bring about biological change.
The idea of historical contingency suggests a powerful way to test for evolutionary process operating in the biological realm. If life is exclusively the result of this process, then biologists should expect to see few, if any, cases in which evolution has repeated itself.
Instead, biologists have discovered a large number of instances in which it looks like evolution did repeat itself. (See http://www.reasons.org/resources/fff/2000issue04/index.shtml#repeatable_evolution and http://www.reasons.org/resources/fff/2000issue04/index.shtml#convergence for a couple of articles on “repeated” evolution.) This evidence doesn’t make sense from an evolutionary standpoint, but finds explanation in a Creator who brought life into existence. It makes sense for a Creator to repeatedly employ a common set of solutions to address a common set of problems facing unrelated organisms in their quest for survival.
As time goes on, scientists should continue to uncover more examples of repeatable evolution. Each new discovery of this phenomenon weakens the evolutionary paradigm and strengthens the case for creation. (See http://www.reasons.org/tnrtb/2008/06/26/deja-vu-again-part-2-of-2/ for a description of additional recent discoveries.)
Resource: The Cell’s Design: How Chemistry Reveals the Creator’s Artistry, Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008.
What, if any, scientific evidence supports the biblical account of human origins?
FR: One of the most remarkable advances in human origins research has come from genetic diversity studies of people groups around the world. Geneticists can use genetic variability to reconstruct early human history and in doing so have stumbled upon powerful evidence for the reliability of the Bible’s account.
Collectively, the consensus that emerges from a large number of studies indicates that humanity originated recently (about 100,000 years ago) from East Africa (near the location theologians ascribe to the Garden of Eden) from a small population. Amazingly, studies using mitochondrial- and Y-chromosomal DNA markers trace humanity’s origin back to a single man and woman. These studies also indicate that humanity’s migration around the world began at or near the Middle East.
Though these results are often presented and discussed within the context of the evolutionary paradigm, they have profound biblical implications. Evolutionary biologists refer to this account of humanity’s origin as the Out-of-Africa hypothesis. Yet if humanity’s genesis happened the way Scripture describes, the genetic diversity patterns observed among the world’s people groups would be very similar to those discovered by geneticists and anthropologists. Science is validating the biblical scenario — that Adam and Eve actually existed and gave birth to the rest of humanity.
Resource: Who Was Adam? A Creation Model Approach to the Origins of Man, Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2005.
If that is true, then what were the hominids and why would God create them? Is there any scientific evidence that links these creatures to humans?
FR: A great wealth of hominid fossils and archeological remains covering a wide range of species (like Neanderthals, Homo erectus, Homo habilis, ‘Lucy”) have been discovered throughout East, Central, and South Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. And more discoveries keep pouring in. For the general public, each new hominid find appears to fill in the evolutionary tree and increasingly clarify the pathway human evolution took over the course of the last 6 million years.
But, there is another way to think about these creatures. The hominids can be regarded as animals created by God. They walked erect and possessed some limited form of intelligence and emotional capacity. These traits allowed the hominids to employ crude tools and even adopt some level of culture much like baboons, gorillas, and chimpanzees. Still, not one of these animals were spiritual beings, made in God’s image. This status applies only to modern humans.
It’s reasonable to expect the hominids to have anatomical, physiological, biochemical, and genetic similarities in varying degrees, just as the great apes do. But their cognitive capacity, behavior, technology, and culture should be clearly distinct from that of human beings. The hominids simply existed for a time and then went extinct.
Some of the most recent advances about the hominid relationship to humanity give Christians even more reasons to question the notion of human evolution. In 1997, German scientists recovered fragments of Neanderthal mitochondrial DNA from a 40,000- to 100,000-year-old skeleton. When compared with the corresponding fragment of human DNA, the results severed any possible evolutionary connection. They showed that Neanderthals did not contribute to the genetics of humans.
Since then, paleoanthropologists have isolated this same DNA sequence from 15 other Neanderthals. Each gave the same result as the first. The same is true for DNA recovered from the Neanderthal genome. There was no relationship between humans and Neanderthals.
Indirect genetic comparisons recently eliminated Homo erectus from human ancestry as well. In addition, new fossils have eliminated Homo antecessor,‘Lucy’(Australopithecus afarensis),and the Taung Child(Australopithecus africanus) from the human evolutionary lineage. New discoveries have also raised questions about how Homo habilis fits in with the evolutionary account.
Over the last few years evolutionary biologists have been forced to completely abandon the traditional view of human evolution presented in biology textbooks. Neanderthals, Homo erectus, Homo habilis, “Lucy,” and the “Taung Child” are nothing more than evolutionary side branches and dead ends.
So why did God create hominids? As yet, we do not understand enough about their ecological role while they existed. But we can speculate.
God may have used hominids to help prepare animals for humanity. Human beings have caused wide-scale damage to the environment and have triggered the extinction of many large mammals. When people first migrated into Australia and the Americas, they devastated many species. Interestingly, human migrations into Asia, Europe, and Africa did not precipitate the same ecological disasters. This area happens to be where hominids existed. Perhaps as hunting developed, animals became more wary of two-legged creatures.
Resource: Who Was Adam?
What is macroevolution and has it ever been observed?
FR: Macroevolution refers to purported large-scale biological transformations driven exclusively by natural, mechanistic processes. Proposed examples include the transformation of a wolf-like animal into whales and the evolution of birds from dinosaurs.
It’s true that macroevolution has never been observed. Evolutionary biologists readily admit this point. They rightly maintain that it’s impossible to observe these types of evolutionary changes because of the timescales involved (millions of years). In all fairness, whether macroevolution can be observed has no bearing on its legitimacy. Scientists cannot directly observe many things, yet that does not negate the confidence that they exist; things like electrons for instance.
The validity of macroevolution depends on finding patterns in the fossil record and among living organisms that match the expected patterns if evolutionary processes account for life’s history and diversity.
Evolutionary biologists point out that: (1) the fossil record shows that past life on earth is different from life today; and (2) simple life preceded complex life-forms. For many scientists these general features indicate that life on earth must have evolved.
These observations, however, do not demand an evolutionary account. The work of a Creator who created in stages, bringing different life-forms into existence at different times in earth’s history could just as easily explain such features. This pattern accords with the Genesis 1 and Psalm 104 creation accounts.
The most problematic features of the fossil record for the evolutionary paradigm are the big bangs. Every time biological innovation occurs it happens explosively based on the fossil evidence. This pattern is much more compatible with the work of a Creator than evolutionary processes.
Another difficulty for the evolutionary paradigm is the virtual absence of transitional forms in the fossil record. This absence explains the excitement felt by evolutionary biologists when occasionally fossils are unearthed that can be interpreted as transitional forms. One recent example is the feathered dinosaurs that supposedly represent intermediate forms between therapod dinosaurs and birds. The difficulty with this interpretation is that all the examples of feathered dinosaurs appear in the fossil record well after the first true birds appear (see http://www.reasons.org/resources/connections/200604_connections_q2/index.shtml).
Evolutionary biologists also point to the shared features among organisms that are related as evidence for evolution. A prime example is the structure of the vertebrate forelimb. A bat’s wings, a horse’s hooves, a whale’s flipper, a dog’s paw, and the human hand all are built around a common design. Evolutionary biologists argue that all of these mammals must have shared a common ancestor. As this ancestor generated separate evolutionary lineages, the forelimb evolved to yield a variety of structures.
Again, the structures shared among related organisms do not demand an evolutionary interpretation. A Creator who used a common blueprint to design organisms with different structural features could easily account for them from a creation vantage point.
The shared features found in unrelated organisms are deeply troubling for the evolutionary paradigm. From this standpoint these shared characteristics can only be explained by assuming that evolution repeated itself multiple times to independently yield the same outcome repeatedly. Yet evolution should not repeat because it constitutes, in principle, a series of random chance events that will never occur in the same way if repeated. The patterns observed do not match those expected for macroevolution.
Do bad designs in nature provide evidence for biological evolution?
FR: This question has become one of the most significant challenges to the case for intelligent design and/or creation. Evolutionary biologists frequently point to so-called bad designs in nature as evidence that life must stem from evolutionary processes.
Most scientists acknowledge the appearance of design in biochemical systems, but argue this design is not true design. Rather they claim it’s an artifact of evolutionary processes. According to these detractors, the appearance of design in biochemical systems stems from natural selection operating iteratively on random, inheritable variations over vast periods of time to fine-tune biochemical systems.
But, the blind, undirected, chance processes of evolution are just as likely to produce jury-rigged structures as they are to produce fine-tuned structures. From an evolutionary standpoint, if a design somehow works — even imperfectly — then there is really no basis for it to further evolve. So even though biochemical systems are replete with elegant design features, an assortment of imperfections in life’s chemistry could undermine the case for intelligent design. Any all-powerful, all-knowing Designer would never produce faulty designs.
Still, imperfections may not be as big a problem for the biblical Creator as they appear at first blush. For example, faulty designs could result from the outworking of the second law of thermodynamics, which introduces defects into elegantly designed biological systems through genetic mutations.
And, some bad designs may not be bad at all. Seemingly poor designs just might represent the intentional actions of the Creator. When engineers design finite, multiobjective, complex systems, they face trade-offs and may carefully introduce suboptimal features to achieve over-all optimal performance.
This important design principle, which human engineers rely on, appears to be in full effect in the cell’s chemistry. Recent advances have made it possible for biochemists to identify trade-offs in a number of biochemical systems. (See http://www.reasons.org/resources/fff/2001issue06/index.shtml#inefficiency_by_design for an example.) Prior to these new insights, life scientists considered many of these systems to be cumbersome and inefficient. All too often, evolutionary biologists are quick to pronounce sentence on the quality of life’s designs without fully understanding their structure, function, and interrelationship to other biological processes.
The recognition that several examples of bad design are, in fact, optimal neutralizes one of the most potent challenges against intelligent design. These discoveries also make it distinctly possible that other imperfections may actually be perfect when more fully understood.
What is the most compelling evidence for a Creator from biology?
FR: Of all the sciences, biochemistry offers the most compelling evidence that life must stem from the work of a Creator. Over the last decade molecular biologists, biochemists, and biophysicists have developed a wide range of techniques that give us an unprecedented view of life’s operation at a molecular level. And with this new understanding comes the most remarkable evidence for intelligent design.
One thing I find absolutely mind-boggling is the recognition that the salient characteristics of biochemical systems are identical to those features we immediately recognize as evidence for the work of a human designer. The close match between biochemical systems and the artifacts produced by human designers logically compels the conclusion: Life’s most fundamental processes and structures stem from the work of an intelligent Agent, one who made man in His image.
For example, biochemists have discovered that many proteins operating within the cell function as molecular-level machines. Many of these machines bear a striking resemblance to man-made machines replete with driveshafts, camshafts, turbines, clamps, lever arms, bushings, stators, and rotors.
The production of these molecular machines resembles a manufacturing process with the proteins produced in an assembly-line fashion. I find it astounding that the manufacture of proteins employs quality-control checkpoints at key stages in the process. Even though the biomolecular pathways responsible for protein synthesis are well designed, mistakes inevitably creep into the operation because of the inherent nature of chemical and physical processes. Without quality-control procedures, life would not be possible.
Biochemical quality assurance further highlights the remarkable ingenuity that defines the cell’s chemistry and reinforces the conclusion that life has a supernatural basis. Effective and efficient quality-control procedures do not just happen. Rather, they are characterized by an intentional foresight.
Sound quality-control systems require careful planning, a detailed understanding of the manufacturing process, the product, and the way that product will be used. All these features are evident in the cell’s quality-control activities. In protein biosynthesis, quality-assurance checkpoints are placed at strategic stages in the production process. This precaution ensures reliable protein production while generating manufacturing efficiency.
The close correspondence between the quality-control operations designed by human engineers and the quality-control procedures found in the cell strengthens the biochemical intelligent design analogy. In this context, the cell’s quality-assurance systems logically compel the conclusion that life’s chemistry emanates from the work of a Divine Engineer.
How did God leave His fingerprints on the heavens?
HR: God’s handiwork upon the universe is so ubiquitous and abundant that agnostic astronomer Paul Davies wrote in his book, The Cosmic Blueprint, that “the impression of design is overwhelming.” Davies referred to what astronomers call the anthropic principle — the observation that the presence of humans require physical laws that are both constant and finely tuned. The structure and history of the universe, the Milky Way Galaxy, the solar system, Earth, and its moon must be fine tuned as well.
The most rigorous and compelling scientific evidence for God comes from our ability to detect and measure the radiation from the cosmic creation event. These measurements, combined with the space-time theorems of general relativity, establish that a causal Agent beyond space and time created our universe of matter, energy, space, and time.
God not only left His fingerprints on the heavens, He placed humanity at the one moment in cosmic history and the one location in cosmic geography where humans could discover their imprint. If humans had arrived any earlier than about 14 billion years after the cosmic creation event, light from that event would not have had adequate time to travel over the space surface of the universe to reach astronomers’ telescopes. With a later arrival, dark energy would have accelerated the regions displaying the radiation from the cosmic creation event to velocities beyond the speed of light. So, that radiation could never have reached telescopes either.
We live at the only epoch in cosmic history when humans can observe 100 percent of the universe’s history. We also live at the one location in the vastness of the cosmos where it is dark enough to see God’s fingerprints. Anywhere else in the Milky Way galaxy or the universe where advanced life conceivably might exist is so illuminated by bright heavenly bodies that the night sky would hide many, if not most, of those impressions from view.
Resource: Why the Universe Is the Way It Is, Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008.
Why is the old-earth/young-earth debate such a divisive issue among evangelical Christians?
HR: I am persuaded that what’s at stake is the desire of many evangelicals to keep scientists out of their churches. Telling scientists that they must believe in something that has less scientific credibility than either the flat-earth hypothesis or the concept that the sun and all the planets revolve around earth is a very effective means for discouraging them from getting involved in the church.
Another reason why the old-earth/young-earth debate is so divisive among evangelicals is that the Church has typically ignored or avoided the controversy. In Acts, Luke records that it was not until the leaders of the church dealt with the controversy head-on that it subsided. The New Testament is replete with instructions on how to settle these disputes. God is waiting for the Church to courageously tackle the controversy and settle it in a godly manner.
Resource: A Matter of Days
As a scientist, is there a satisfactory explanation for the fossil record from a young-earth perspective?
HR: The young-earth interpretation attributes most of the fossil record evidence to Noah’s flood. This idea presents serious scientific challenges. One is that the sheer quantity of fossils and biodeposits present in earth’s crust is far too great to be explained by an event that lasted only 13 months. It was physically impossible for earth to sustain that quantity of life within such a short time.
In addition, to credit the fossil record evidence to a single flood forces the hypothesis that virtually all of earth’s geologic features formed during that time. To explain how so much life could be converted into biodeposits and how so much geologic activity could be squeezed into just a few months, young-earth proponents often claim that all the physical impossibilities could have been removed if God radically altered the laws of physics during the Flood.
There are three problems with that appeal. First, the Bible states that the laws governing the heavens and the earth are fixed (Jeremiah 33:25, for example).
Second, if the laws of physics had changed during the Noahic flood, many signatures of change should remain on the record of nature. Their absence speaks volumes. Spectral analysis of the light arriving from stars at light-travel-time distances corresponding to the time of Noah’s flood also testifies that no alteration in the physical laws occurred. Likewise, isotope abundances of the daughter products from radiometric elements on Earth of differing half-lives establish that the half-lives have not changed.
Moreover, ice cores in central Antarctica and central and northern Greenland present an unbroken record of annual ice layers covering the past 800,000 years. We know these ice layers must be annual because the dust signature of volcanic eruptions that took place in recorded history lie in layers where the number of layers between the eruptions corresponds exactly to the number of years recorded on the historical calendar. The physical constants measured in each of the Antarctic’s 800,000 layers show no alteration in those constants.
Third, the changes in the physical laws required by young-earth models would have brought instant death to all life on earth. Genesis 7–8 records all life on board Noah’s ark suffered no ill effects. From a scientific perspective, the young-earth model lacks a credible explanation for these challenges.
Resource: The Genesis Question
Is the Noahic flood a scientific problem?
HR: Not at all. Genesis 6–9 are not the only chapters in the Bible that address the extent of Noah’s flood. Job 38; Psalm 33 and 104; Proverbs 8; and 2 Peter 2,3 do so as well. All these chapters indicate that the Flood was universal. The Noahic flood impacted every human being and all the birds and mammals associated with humanity.
However, if humanity was not globally distributed at the time of Noah, there was no need for a global flood. As Peter explains, God “brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly.” Genesis 11 suggests that at the time of the Flood the ungodly had been resolute in disobeying God’s command to multiply and fill the earth. Thus, God did not need to flood Antarctica, Greenland, or much of the rest of the planet to deal with the known world of humanity.
Several of the Bible’s creation accounts address the events of the six creation days of Genesis 1. Psalm 104:6–8 describes God’s creative work in forming the continents. Psalm 104:9 declares that once God transformed earth’s surface from a water world into a world of oceans and continents, from that time forward “never again will they [the waters] cover the earth.” Such an explicit statement rules out any possibility that the Noahic flood could be global in extent. This conclusion finds additional support in Job 38:8–11; Psalm 33:6–9; Proverbs 8:24–29; 2 Peter 3:6; and Genesis 8:5,9.
Genesis 8 informs us that the Noahic flood lasted just 13 months. Such a short duration flood covering a limited geographical region would leave no geological evidence for modern scientists to uncover. For example, all the discoverable geological evidence for a flood 50-feet deep in some places, that covered much of the Mississippi Valley for several months, was erased in less than 20 years. Consequently, what the Bible teaches about the flood of Noah in no way conflicts with the findings of science.
Resource: The Genesis Question
From the testing you have done, what is the most compelling scientific evidence for an old earth?
HR: Scientists can marshal hundreds of compelling scientific evidences for an ancient earth and universe. Depending on our disciplines, we respectfully disagree on which evidence may be the most compelling.
What resonates for me (as an astronomer) is the existence of galaxies, stars, and planets. Today, no scientist doubts that we live in an expanding universe. A universe that expands too rapidly, in only millions or thousands of years, will never produce galaxies, stars, and planets. A universe that expands too slowly will produce stars but they would all quickly degenerate into neutron stars and black holes. Given the laws of physics, only a universe that has been expanding for billions of years will produce the galaxies, stars, and planets that permit the existence of physical intelligent life.
The scientific evidences that seem to be most compelling for laypeople untrained in the sciences are the ice layers and tree rings. Trees with annual rings provide a continuous record of the past 15,000 years. Ice cores give a continuous record of the past 800,000 years. Either earth is much older than 100,000 years or God is lying to us through the record of nature. The Bible repeatedly declares that nature’s record is a trustworthy and reliable revelation from God. Eight times the Bible tells us that it is impossible for God to lie or deceive.
Resource: A Matter of Days
Is there any compelling scientific evidence for a young earth?
HR: Outside of the church, there is no debate on the age of the earth or the universe just like there is no debate on earth’s shape. Scientists have testified under oath that the scientific evidence for this planet being less than a million years old is no more credible than the scientific claims made for a flat-earth.
Resource: A Matter of Days
Those who consider earth as being 6,000 years old generally do so because they are concerned about maintaining the integrity and authority of the Bible. Is it possible God could have created earth and living things with the appearance of age?
KS: There are at least two serious objections to the so-called “appearance of age” (it just “looks” old) argument:
First, this idea appears to be nonfalsifiable. In other words, because there is no way to test this proposition, nothing could ever count against it. Yet, Scripture tells us to “test all things,” (1 Thessalonians 5:21). A person could also assert that God created the cosmos “six minutes” ago with all the necessary implanted memories so people would think the world is much older. Given these assumptions, there is no way to falsify such exotic claims.
Second, it is one thing for God to have created Adam with the appearance of an adult or for Jesus to have created a wine as fine as one that’s aged, but in reality, Scripture describes both Adam and the wine as brand new creations. It’s quite different if God fashioned false images into sunlight and planted billions of dead animals in the earth’s sediment to merely deceive people into thinking that life was old. Scripture assures us that God cannot lie (Numbers 23:19). The evidence found in the physical realm is trustworthy.
So, is there also a problem with the young-earth creationist’s concern that if the Bible does not accurately describe the beginnings, we would not be able to trust anything else in it, including the Resurrection?
KS: This charge assumes that the only face-value or literal interpretation of the Genesis creation account must be a 24-hour calendar day. Most young-earth creationists would suggest that any other interpretation of the Genesis’ creation days must be inconsistent with the biblical text.
Many old-earth creationists take the first two chapters of Genesis just as literally. But we go even further and say this interpretation seems far more persuasive because it is both consistent with Scripture and matches the findings of modern science. It fits with the “two books” of revelation (nature and Scripture) as previously discussed. (See “8 Myths about RTB at http://www.reasons.org/about/8_myths_about_rtb.shtml or our Statement of Faith at http://www.reasons.org/about/sof.shtml).
Incidentally, the apostolic Christian church did not suggest that a person must first accept the Genesis creation account before he could rightly consider the accounts of Jesus’ resurrection. The apostles’ early preaching was all about Christ’s bodily resurrection (see Acts 1-4). Theoretically, an individual could become rightly convinced of the truth of Christianity via the Resurrection without knowing that every aspect of Scripture is exactly correct. Theologically speaking though, my colleagues and I heartily agree that the Bible is fully inspired and is without error in all that it asserts.
Many Christians say the age of the earth is an unimportant and divisive side issue that hinders the proclamation of the gospel.
HR: Earth’s age has no bearing on any of the biblical doctrines that pertain to salvation. Thus, it has no place in any doctrinal or creedal statement. Its absence from any church creeds underscores that point.
The age of the earth, however, is crucial for evangelism in the 21st century. For the first 18 centuries of the church, it did not really matter because no scientist could provide an accurate measurement for either the earth’s age or the universe’s. Today, scientists have determined the universe to be 13.73 billion years. The uncertainty in the universe’s age is just 0.12 billion years. The measured age for earth is 4.5662 billion years. Here, the uncertainty is a miniscule 0.0001 billion years. No scientific measurement disagrees with either date.
The problem then for a Christian insisting that the Bible teaches a young age is how can he convince a non-Christian that the Bible can be trusted on spiritual matters when it can be proved wrong on physical matters? The biggest barrier I have seen to faith in Christ for engineers, scientists, and the people influenced by them is the message that becoming a Christian requires belief in a young earth.
Resource: A Matter of Days
How can Christians better reach out to scientists, engineers, and other science-minded individuals?
HR: What scientists tell me they want most from the Christian community is a positive overture. They want Christians to stop bashing scientists and evolution. Instead, they prefer Christians to publicly express some appreciation for all the hard work scientists perform in their pursuit of new discoveries and understanding about the realm of nature. They would also like to see Christianity provide a positive case for creation, one that can be scientifically tested.
Most scientists and engineers are not unwilling to consider creation as an alternative to their evolutionary paradigms. However, they are unwilling to abandon their evolutionary models until they see creation models that offer superior explanations of the record of nature and demonstrate greater success in predicting future scientific discoveries. Science-minded people are waiting for Christians to produce and present such models. Then these nonbelievers will be more than willing to evaluate such models’ credibility and integrity.
It’s through engaging scientists and engineers rather than attacking them or ignoring them that we can win many to faith in Christ. Of all the people groups before whom I have presented evangelistic messages within the United States and Canada, engineers demonstrate the greatest receptivity. Scientists are not far behind.
Resource: More Than a Theory
Is their anything you’d like to add about the importance of using science for evangelism?
FR: Many Christians view science as a threat to the faith. They respond to this perceived threat by rejecting the claims of science and completely dismissing anything scientists have to say about origins instead of using it as an opportunity to engage them in a dialogue. Perhaps feeling overwhelmed by the details, most Christians show no interest in reaching out to scientists or abandon any attempt to evangelize this people group.
For Christians, too often scientists appear to be atheists and enemies that are a lost cause. As a result, most Christian apologetic efforts focus on attacking scientists and their ideas. Instead of choosing to build bridges to the scientific community, most Christians erect walls.
Instead, the Church needs to view the scientific community as a mission field. As Paul wrote to the church in Corinth (1 Corinthians 9:19–23), to be effective missionaries we must not be concerned with ourselves, but with those we want to reach. We need to figure out how to present the gospel in a way that is culturally relevant. We must become like those people we want to reach or support those within the church who naturally connect to people we don’t fully understand.
Does Darwin’s theory hold any credibility that should concern Christians?
HR: No. When biologists declare that evolution is a proven fact, they typically mean that overwhelming evidence exists that life has been present on earth for about 3.8 billion years and that life has progressed over that time from exclusively simple unicellular forms to the large-bodied complex species we see today. These ideas are entirely consistent with the biblical creation accounts, all of which teach a chronology of creation that begins with exclusively simple life forms and proceeds progressively toward more complex life.
When a biologist insists that all the progression toward more advanced life took place through strictly natural means, that’s where conflict with the Bible arises. Referring to all animal life, Psalm 104 proclaims, “How many are your works, O Lord! In wisdom you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.” However, the special creation of all animals by God does not mean that these animals were created without any capacity to adapt to changes in their environment. Part of God’s elegant design of these creatures was endowing them with the ability to adapt through microevolutionary changes to minor environmental changes.
The Darwinian claim that natural mechanisms can generate macroevolutionary advances within the time scales permitted by the fossil record has never been demonstrated. Experiments performed on bacteria (the most efficient natural evolvers) confirm the inadequacy of natural processes to explain the history of life on earth. Biblical creation does a far better job of explaining the origin and history of life and that should give every Christian good reason to celebrate.
Resource: More Than a Theory
