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.
I don't think I'd characterize them as "big bangs", but they did result in 2 great sons. ;)
On a more serious note, the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC), may answer some of the questions surrounding that issue.
“One point of the miracles is that faith doesn’t come from them. Saving faith is a gift of God.”
Agreed, but we have free will to reject or accept this gift. The miracles, and so much else in the Bible is an attempt to illustrate the meaning of faith. At least, in my humble opinion.
Hey, whatever floats your boat..
Psalms 90:4
Of course, if the speed of light can change up or down, the 24-hr “days” of Genesis 1 could have been microseconds.
The miracles show the character of God, the sovereignty of God, the kindness of God, the power of God, the mercy of God, etc.
Some will reject the gift, as you say, But our faith is in the substitutionary attonement. A perfect sacrafice for our sins, given by a holy transcendant God.
Free will in these matters is over-rated. The only freedom that matters is freedom from sin. Rejoice that you have it. But I don’t want to take this to a Calvinist / Arminian rant.
For which he offers, nor can he offer any proof.
You never hear of them slamming the Muslim theory, whatever the heck it is.
Try the Native American theories about foxes and eagles and crawling out of the ground creation stories. Attack those why don’t you, weenies.
You know, diversity.
Did it escape you that the article itself is what made the debate specific to Christianity, right out of the gate?
That the light that takes billions of years to reach earth from distant stars, much less galaxies was put into place all at once several thousand years ago just to mislead us...
That makes sense... The universe is clearly billions of years old. Dinosaurs once roamed earth. I don't believe God is the great deceiver.
You are probably wasting your time. Some people have God on a very specific timeline and part of that timeline holds that the earth has to be about 6000 years old. They know the specifics of the timeline, which is something even Christ professed not to know. So it should be a simple trick for some people to know more about the speed of light than Einstein ever knew.
The only ones that are deceived are the fools that wish to believe the Earth is old. All of the observed evidence fits the young earth perfectly.
Right...
It is sad. Rather than preaching Christ, some get sidetracked into bizarre timelines. I maintain that some sincere Christians get sidetracked into matters that are not fruitful (I am often guilty of the same thing). But I have been told that I cannot be a Christian if I think the universe is ancient.
Yes, I agree with you.
I just got called a “fool” three posts up...
“Did it escape you that the article itself is what made the debate specific to Christianity, right out of the gate?”
Apparently so. Thanks for the nudge.
Beg pardon for the rant.
I’ll save and use it another day.
Best,
Well DUH!
Satan will cloud the minds and hearts of God's closest children... all to de-focus them into not having that moment-to-moment symbiotic relationship with the Spirit that this whole thing was created in the first place for.
Genesis 1 has the plants created bfore the Sun, and the moon before the stars. It also has water before land, and birds before dinosaurs. In fact, Genesis 1 pretty much teaches the exact opposite of modern science.
The great contention is how to define a “day”; whether epoch or 24-hour period, or some other
The only ones who want to make it not read as a simple 24 hour day are those who want or need long epochs to accomodate so-called scientific ages of the earth.
Get a reputable Bible... Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Where is the SUN?
verse 2 of Genesis 1 continues with A N D the earth became without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.....
Please note NO date or time stamp given, verse 3 begins the description of what I term the grandest environmental clean up this earth has ever had. And the clean-up took more than 6 literal in our time 24 hour days.
And NO I do not believe in the darwinist fairy tale, old Darwin was ticked off at God and decided to strike out on his own.
So the rocks in which the fossils were found are X years old because the fossils found in them are X years old...
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