Posted on 02/08/2009 3:10:04 PM PST by GodGunsGuts
The universe’s birth certificate
Once you let go of the Bible as history, all Christian doctrine begins to disintegrate. Dr Nigel Leaves, the Warden and Dean of Studies at John Wollaston Anglican Theological College in Perth (Australia), provides a typical example in The God Problem: Alternatives to Fundamentalism.1 He says ‘the major factor in the waning of the Christian faith is its continuing insistence on a supernatural God—the Almighty, the lawgiver and judge.’ He considers four alternatives to ‘fundamentalism’ (i.e. believing in the God of the Bible), saying, ‘Traditional beliefs about God cannot be sustained in the light of the latest scientific and critical thinking.’ And of course the ‘latest scientific thinking’ rests on the foundation of discounting the time scale of Genesis creation.
But the Bible gives us a measured time scale, an eye-witness record, of history, a foundation far more secure than any modern scientific estimate. A measurement wins over an estimate any day!
The earth’s ‘birth certificate’
My birth certificate gives me a measured time scale for my age. It is an eye-witnessed statement that I was born on 28 January 1946, and other eye-witnesses have maintained a record of the earth having circled the sun 61 times since then. Likewise, the Bible gives us a ‘birth certificate’ for the universe—an eye-witness statement that God created it in six ordinary-length days in the time of Adam. The family histories and patriarchal ages in Genesis continue this record. God then confirmed it to Moses and wrote it down with His own finger in stone in the Sabbath Commandment (Exodus 20:11; 31:18; 32:16).
Jesus then confirmed the authenticity of the OT scriptures—in detail and in its entirety2—by correctly predicting his own death and resurrection on their foundation. That is, death entered the world only as the penalty for Adam’s sin at the Fall, and Jesus, the last Adam (1 Corinthians 15 and Romans 5:6–21) took our place and paid that penalty for us, thus restoring us to eternal life. Once the penalty was paid, death no longer had any hold on Him and He rose from the dead. Jesus’ Resurrection authenticates Genesis as real history. The Resurrection of Jesus, an attested fact of history (Acts 17:31)3, is thus our guarantee of the measured biblical time scale for the universe (Luke 24:27,44).
Scientists must assume and infer
No scientist has any alternative or better ‘birth certificate’ for the earth or the universe. All scientific estimates of earth and universe age require a whole lot of assumptions. The key assumption is uniformitarianism, which is atheism disguised as science, because it assumes no miraculous interventions in history.4 Christians have no reason to accept, and every reason to reject, atheistic assumptions about the universe.
Jesus’ Resurrection validates the accuracy of the Bible, especially its history of Creation and Fall. No Bible scholar since Jesus has risen from the dead to validate any alternative point of view. Don’t let anyone steal from you this precious gift that God has given us in the Bible.
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)
ping!
About as convincing as Obama’s birth certificate.
Stick to religion.
LOL!
==Stick to religion.
Are you referring to the Temple of Darwinistic Materialism?
If thats your religion.
Funny thing, you know! The order of creation as described in Genesis I is exactly the order that science had determined. The great contention is how to define a “day”; whether epoch or 24-hour period, or some other
It’s not. But I’m glad you recognize it as such.
==The age of the Universe is +/- 13 billion years.
Is your contention observable and repeatable?
==The age of the earth is +/- 4.5 billion years.
Same question.
==The oldest undisputed fossils of primitive life forms found on earth appear in rocks dating from 3.2 billion ago.
Same question.
As far as you know ...
This moron is the archtypical loser!
No wonder the church in England is falling apart; what could the church be for without God?
Are arguing the earth is only 4,000 ish years old?
Dr Nigel Leaves would fit in well with the Obamination.
Try 5800 years.
Which one?
Sounds like a person who is going to be really surprised about one nanosecond after he dies.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.