Young-Earth Creationism Defies God's Prohibition (Romans 1:18-20)

 "They...examin[ed] the scriptures daily to see if these things were so" (Acts 17:11).

When adherents to young-earth creationism (YEC) assert that the earth was created in six 24-hour days about ten thousand years ago, they are making the following four claims:

1.     Genesis chapter 1 teaches that creation happened recently and in rapid fashion.

2.     For the reason that scientific researchers are like the rest of us, sinful; scientific know-ledge must be deemed an unreliable indicator of the truth of the history of creation.  Therefore science should be viewed with suspicion. 

3.     Because the Bible is the inspired and revealed Word of God the Creator, it alone is competent to educate finite and sinful humans about the origin of the cosmos.

4.     Consequently the Bible deserves the final say about natural history despite science’s reliable investigative methods with the assistance of trustworthy instruments.

 

One critical aspect of science is thereby undermined every time YECs assert the right of their interpretation of Genesis to trump the authority of scientifically-established facts.  This is especially so when the data that is in question has been roundly-confirmed by a broad range of testable astronomical observations which have absolutely nothing to do with Darwinism. To be both specific and relevant, in order for YECs to maintain their position, they must reject the 13.7 billion-year age of the cosmos despite the fact that that same data is embraced even by leading YEC scientists. The question then, which must logically follow from the YEC stance is: “Is YECs’ denigration of scientific authority authorized by the Scriptures on which they take their stance?”  The basic answer from the Bible is, absolutely not!  To the contrary, insofar as YECs dismiss scientific facts on the grounds of their allegation that they conflict with their YEC interpretation of the first chapter of Genesis, they are employing a posture which the Bible expressly forbids.

 

            Not a single Bible passage authorizes or encourages pitting Scripture against the facts of nature.  Indeed, in John 9 Jesus chastises His skeptical audience for their resistance to His public miracles.  Further, in Romans 1:18-20 St. Paul condemns suppressing the witness of nature with respect to its bearing on God’s existence.  He writes under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit,

 

¹⁸ “For the wrath of God has been revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of those who, by their wickedness, suppress the truth.  ¹⁹ For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them.  ²⁰ Ever since the creation of the world [God’s] invisible nature, namely his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made.  So they are without excuse.”

Notice the following five implications which follow from St. Paul’s statement.

You me finish this article (including footnotes) at my website: www.christianityontheoffense.com/articles

What do "Scientists" who Snub the Big Bang Know?

   

            “Nothing,” is the correct answer of this specific context.  Although scientists as a whole are often lauded by the public as the “most trusted” societal subgroup; just like the rest of us they too are vulnerable to lapsing into error.  Was the scientific method compiled just for the fun of it?  Of course not!  What scientists actually “know” as the outcome of their research is the result of rigorous scientific scrutiny which sharpened over time by anticipating further potential investigative traps.  Indeed the more attuned a scientist is to avoid snares, the more likely they are to succeed in their research targets.

Confusion over this matter centers on the distinction between “science” as a disciplined research method and agents who pursue such endeavors.  The former in part specifies the very objects that science has the capacity to study.  The latter concerns questions of the integrity of the researcher in terms of competence, intellectual understanding, and commitment to parameters that science itself prescribes.  That stricture relevant to addressing my title entails phenomena that includes physical entities and interactions that can be detected by one or more of our five senses.  Science also acknowledges possible objects such as those too tiny to perceive with either our senses or our most advanced technical instruments for the reason that (for example) specifically force-fields were initially the only avenue  for surmising the existence of sub-atomic particles.

               The above examples, however, aren’t the problem that emboldens the “scientists” that trigger my title.  Instead it is out of their belief in a multiverse (m-v) that they are driven to deny creation - by the Big Bang (BB).  See the article, “10 Reasons the Multiverse is a Real Possibility,”  where every point falls short of a solid declaration.  The reason behind the hesitations is the impossibility of actually witnessing potential other universes.  Whatever you have either heard or read about “multiverses” is pure speculation void of substantial factual evidence.  This is not to belittle the competence of specialists who construct complex mathematical formulas, etc., but instead to recall that m-v conjectures have no possibility of being tested by alleged outer-space speculations that no earthly-speculator has access to.  Scientific American magazine states, “All parallel universes lie outside our horizon and remain beyond our capacity to see, now or ever, no matter how technology evolves…[so that] none of these claims…can be directly substantiated.”  So then, does the MV qualify as interesting fantasy?  Maybe.  But can they know it to be so?  The answer is emphatically No; Not ever!

               On the other hand the BB is solidly substantiated.   See Dr. Hugh Ross’s book, The Creator and the Cosmos, where he states that the resistance to the BB by certain astronomers “is based not on what observations and experiments they can test but what observations and experiments can never test…[They] engage in metaphysics rather than in physics” (boldface mine).

You may also read this article that includes footnotes at my website: www.christianityontheoffense.com/articles

The Big Bang is Scientifically-Substantiated as True

                The mounting body of scientific data today “proves beyond a reasonable doubt” that the universe came into existence out of nothing in a manner consistent with Genesis 1:1 which states, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”   The technical synonym of the term, “proves,” defines “knowledge” as “justified true belief” because no claim about physical circum-stances can be fully proved.  Neither the sciences nor biblical claims can be proved analytically.  Yet since Courts of Law deal with consequential events as opposed to abstractions; criminal verdicts demand  reaching full-resolution by a body of evidence that is validated as true “beyond a reasonable doubt.”  Revisiting then my opening statement; does the claim of my paper’s title rest on adequate grounds deserving  our trust as a foundation that is sufficiently solid to stand on?  Consider the following: 

1)       The laws of rationality state that everything which had a beginning must have been caused by a source entirely separate from and outside the universe itself.

2)       Our universe is currently expanding just as it has been ever since its beginning.

3)        The entire contents of the expanding cosmos had its source from its zero-volume-beginning.

4)       Because “zero-volume” indicates the absence of matter, energy, space, and time, prior to its begin-ning point there was no conceivable means by which “science could have produced it.

5)    If skeptics instead posit that a "cosmic egg" gave birth to the cosmos, they must explain how that immeasurably-substantial package remained stable while retaining its capacity to form a functional cosmos (3, above).

6)       From its start, its expansion slowed down until near the mid-point of our cosmic history when it  mysteriously began accelerating.

7)       Ever since its “Big-Bang” (BB) hot blast, the cosmos has been cooling down.

8)       Likewise the galaxies continue to spread farther apart from each other.

9)       The afterglow of the BB was discovered in 1972.  Preceding that point scientists reasoned that if the BB was true, there would be a detectable “black-body” hum.  That happenstance cancelled the “oscillating-universe” and “steady-state” theories as they failed to reconcile with mounting scientific facts.  The BB there-for stands alone as the only known viable accounting of our cosmic history.

You may also find this articles with footnotes at my website: christianityontheoffense.com 

No 24-Hour Creation-Days in Genesis 1

 “You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it.” (Deuteronomy 4;2) 

The bold claim of Young-Earth-Creationism (YEC) that the Days of Genesis 1 (G1) are 24-hours each, entails gaslighting and bears false-witness (Exodus 20:16).  It isn’t malice that drives my paper but rather the urgent need to cancel its pseudo-claim that “poisons the well” by thwarting scientific data that is ironically biblically-championed (Romans 1:18-20).  YEC’s depiction of G1’s days is exegetically false.   While Leviticus 23:32 marks calendar days as being “from evening to evening,” G1 closes every creation “day” with the non-durational refrain, “There was evening and there was morning.”  Indeed NO 24-hour-day-metric appears anywhere in Genesis 1 and for that reason, YEC’s self- vaunting of their “faithfulness” actually highlights their textual indifference.  At the very least, the fact of the lack (above) is sufficient to cancel YECs’ 24-hour-creation-days mandate since G1 is void of decisive indicators that could enforce their imperative.  

Likewise, YEC’s aversion to science as a whole disregards the Bible’s valuation of nature.  For example, they insist the world is less than 10,000 years old for the reason that “the Bible says so,” despite Holy Scripture, to the contrary, pointing to the cosmos as actual revelation of God’s material creation (Romans 1:18f).  Indeed,  despite YEC’s denial, Genesis 1:1-2 fully reconciles with BB cosmology.  Furthermore the Bible assumes the validity of classical logic as demonstrated by obeying it.  And with respect to  history, it narrates even hostile crowds becoming convinced of Jesus’ resurrection by having witnessed undeniable signs (Acts 2:22,32,41).  Jesus participated in elevating miracles even as He urged seekers to  follow evidence where it leads (John 10:37, 14:11)  while at the same time, consistently, He rebuked his disciples when they failed to do so (Mark 4:40).  In summary Scripture doesn’t claim to be the authoritative lens through which we perceive historical events on a terrestrial stage.  Because it decries those who ignore what natural phenomena manifests before our five senses (Rom. 1:18f.) we may rationally surmise that God commands our direct attention of every aspect of His earthly-works through the lens of His verbal revelation in the Holy Bible.    

The Triune God Dwells WITHIN ALL who Receive Him

      The Extraordinary Liberation of the Post-Pentecost-Gospel 

To all who received him [Jesus]…He gave the privilege to become children of God.´(John 1:12)

“You know [the Holy Spirit] for He [now] dwells with you and will [soon] be in you.” (John 14:17)

“Whoever abides in me and I in him [or her], it is they that bears much fruit.” (John 15:5)

“I am in my Father, and you in me and I in you.” (John 17:20)

Jesus is praying to the Father, “The glory that you have given to me I have given to them [the disciples] that they may be one even as we are one, I in them… * that the love with which you have loved me may be in them and I in them.”(John 17:22-23, 26)

“I [Jesus] am with you always to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20)

In his initial Pentecost sermon Peter quotes from the Old Testament prophet Joel, “And in the last days it shall be, God declares, ‘that I will pour out my Spirit on [ALL] flesh.’” (Acts 2:17a)

“But if Christ is in you… your spirit is alive because of righteousness.” * If the spirit of [the Father] who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you (oikei en humin), He…will give life to your mortal bodies through His spirit who dwells in you.” (Romans 8:9-11)

“God’s Spirit dwells in you (oikei en humein)…and you are that temple.” (1 Corinthians 3:16,17)

“Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation,” (2 Corinthians 5:17)

“Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Christ is in you?” (2 Cor. 13:5)

“I have been crucified with Christ.  It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” (Gal. 2:20)

“In [Christ] you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God in the Spirit.” (Eph. 2:22)

"But we have this treasures in jars of clay [us]...so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our mortal flesh." (2 Corinthians 4:7,10).

“That He may grant you to be strengthened with power through [Christ’s] Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.” (Ephesians 3:16,17)

“…the riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” (Colossians 1:27)

“ Therefore as you have received Christ as Lord, so live in Him.” (Col. 2:6)

“For [Christ] who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. * Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him. (1 John 4:4, 15)

Jesus says, “If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and have fellowship with him.” (Revelation 3:20)

You may finish my article at my website: www.christianityontheoffense.com/articles

Ten Erroneous Skeptic-Dodges

 “We destroy arguments, and every imagination raised against the knowledge of God.” (2 Corinthians 10:5) 

Secularists routinely appeal to scientific assertions out of their beliefs that they render core tenets of Christian belief untenable.  This paper rebuts that claim.  As I will establish, their bogus claims (boldface opening of each section) cannot withstand scrutiny: 

1                         False: “Materialism (ms) correctly describes reality and since it holds that only matter and energy exist, it logically follows that minds and abstract communication are illusory.  Reply: That vision of existence contradicts what minds consistently observe and what we experience through our own conscious thoughts and feelings. So academic pretensions of teaching its views contradicts their very own oxymoronic worldview.   

2                         False: “Miracles cannot happen.” If materialism was true, obviously no personal agent would exist to perform miracles.  Reply: If an intelligent Being does exist outside of creation (as an author stands outside his/her writings), it is rationally possible and indeed reasonable for a transcendent intelligent creator to intervene in His creation. 

3                         False: “The laws of nature are inviolable and so impervious to interference by miracles.”  Reply: By what principle would that be so?  And how could it be substantiated that it is so?  Science is limited to researching how nature functions within the parameters of nature. So scientists have no competence to declare limitations on the capacity of an omni-potent Creator of the natural order and its physical laws, to freely intervene in nature for the purpose of judging sin and advancing a saving rescue from it. Indeed, the notion of divine intervention is a real threat to atheism as opposed to nature's laws.  

4                         “Miracles don’t happen.” Reply: In the 20^th Century, scholars began to notice aspects of the cosmos that led them to conclude the cosmos was expanding from a big bang (BB). They ultimately indicated creation came into existence from no physical source, consistent with Genesis 1:1. This hereby established (below) the BB as the largest miracle ever!  So it is also plausible that the creator (God the Father) raised Jesus from the dead! 

5                         False: Science can, without God, account for [phenomenal] existence, claimed atheist Dr. Peter Atkins in public debates.  Reply: Scientific observations indicate that prior to the “zero-volume” start of the BB, there was neither matter, energy, space, nor time.  Therefore there was no conceivable means for such alleged factors to play a role in the BB.  See my paper, “The Scientific Impossibility of Our Universe Creating Itself.”   

 

        To be continued. You my read my entire article which includes footnotes at my website: www.christianityontheoffense.com/articles