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THE QUESTION: Science tells us that the earth is billions of years old, but the creation account in Genesis seems to indicate that the earth is really.

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Presentation on theme: "THE QUESTION: Science tells us that the earth is billions of years old, but the creation account in Genesis seems to indicate that the earth is really."— Presentation transcript:

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2 THE QUESTION: Science tells us that the earth is billions of years old, but the creation account in Genesis seems to indicate that the earth is really just thousands of years old. How can the Bible be true if it can’t get that right?

3 “The problem is getting [people] to reject irrational and supernatural explanations of the world, the demons that exist only in their imaginations, and to accept a social and intellectual apparatus, Science, as the only begetter of truth.” - Richard Lewontin, Harvard Geneticist “I am all in favor of a dialogue between science and religion, but not a constructive dialogue. One of the great achievements of science has been, if not to make it impossible for an intelligent person to be religious, then at least to make it possible for them not to be religious. We should not retreat from this accomplishment.” - Steven Weinberg, Physicist “Any debate with creationists would give them the oxygen of respectability.” - Richard Dawkins, Evolutionist/Atheist

4 “In some ways these chapters [Genesis 1-11] are the most important ones in the Bible, for they put man in his cosmic setting and show him his peculiar uniqueness. They explain man’s wonder and yet his flaw. Without a proper understanding of these chapters we have no answer to the problems of metaphysics, morals, or epistemology, and furthermore, the work of Christ becomes one more upper-story “religious” answer.” - Francis Schaeffer, Genesis in Space and Time

5 Primary Cause Secondary Cause TheismNaturalism Theistic Creation Theistic Evolution Naturalistic Creation Naturalistic Evolution

6 1.Naturalistic Evolution – No God involved in creation; things emerged by pure, natural processes. 2.Naturalistic Creation – No theistic Creator beyond the world; only a creative Mind within the universe that creates. 3.Theistic Evolution – God directly created the universe, but living things emerged under His control by largely natural processes. 4.Theistic Creation – God directly created the universe, living things, and human beings. How many things were originally created and how much time it took to create them is debated 4 Basic Views of Origins

7 1.Time 2.Force 3.Action 4.Space 5.Matter Herbert Spencer on categories of reality “In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the earth.” – Genesis 1:1 Time Force Action Space Matter Spencer was an evolutionist and coined the phrase “survival of the fittest”

8 I.Young Earth – Earth is thousands of years old. 1.Standard Six-Day Creation 2.Ideal-Time II.Old Earth – Earth could be millions/billions of years old. 1.Long ‘Days’ 2.Revelatory-Days 3.Day-Age 4.Literary Framework 5.Gap View 7 Orthodox Views of Theistic Creation

9 Young earth category Interprets Genesis literally and chronologically Natural reading of the text presents the case that the six days in Genesis 1 are six normal 24-hour days The normal use of the word ‘Yom’, the numbered series, and the repetition of ‘evening and morning’ support six days of creation Six-Day Creation View Comparison with a six-day work week (Ex. 20:11) supports six days of creation

10 Young earth category All things were created with the appearance of age. For example, Adam may have looked 30 years old when he was created but was only seconds old Applies to all things including the earth, trees, etc. Would cause certain scientific tests to arrive at incorrect conclusions Ideal-Time View

11 Old earth category Proposes both biblical and scientific evidence to support the view that the ‘days’ of Genesis are actually long periods of time ‘Yom’ (Hebrew word for day) often means more than just a 24-hour period of time. “Day” is from God’s perspective Long ‘Days’ View "This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made earth and heaven." (Genesis 2:4) Seventh “day” has been thousands of years long (God still resting

12 Third day may be longer than 24 hours. "The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit with seed in them, after their kind; and God saw that it was good." (Genesis 1:12). Process seems to be natural, not supernatural Sixth day may be longer than 24 hours. Land animals, man, woman created, and Adam names the animals Long ‘Days’ View Speed of light and rate of expansion of the universe Scientific dating of rocks and the rate that salt runs into the sea and the amount of salt there seems to indicate long ‘days’

13 Old earth category Asserts that the six days were 24-hour days of revelation that God gave to Moses who wrote Genesis Just as God used visions to reveal future events to his prophets, this view asserts that God revealed a past series of events to Moses regarding creation Some say “asah” used in Exodus 20:11 can mean “reveal: Revelatory Days View “For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and made it holy." (Exodus 20:11)

14 Old earth category Asserts that the six days were 24-hour days of actual creation Between each day there was a long period of time where things took place Third day indicates a process may be involved that took longer than 24 hours. Day-Age View "The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit with seed in them, after their kind; and God saw that it was good." (Genesis 1:12)

15 Old earth category Asserts that the six days were an ancient literary device that was sometimes used to frame certain periods of time in order to encapsulate them in literary form much like we use a ‘chapter’ in a book to do the same “Morning” and “Evening” were natural ways to point to a beginning and an end Literary Framework View Held by Augustine who believed God created everything instantly, but used a allegorical framework to convey His work However, Genesis doesn’t seem to be the genre of poetry

16 Old earth category Thomas Chalmers early champion States that there is a gap of time either between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 or there was a gap of time that occurred prior to 1:1 Lucifer was originally given dominion of the earth as the ‘covering cherub’, but when he sinned, God judged both him and his domain Gap/Ruin-Reconstruction View The six days of creation in Genesis are not an original creation, but a reconstruction of the earth God then granted a new steward – man – to be in charge of the remade earth

17 Gap/Ruin-Reconstruction View Original creation of Heavens and earth; Lucifer given dominion Untold number of years Fall of Lucifer; he and earth judged by God Gen. 1:1 Untold number of years God remakes earth and gives it to Adam Gen. 1:2-31Is. 14:12-14 Ez. 28:12-17 2 Peter 3:3-6 Human history up until now… Fall of man; Satan regains earth ?of years Gen. 3

18 " In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters." (Genesis 1:1-2) Gap/Ruin-Reconstruction View “formless” = “tohuw”; literally “a wreck/chaos” “void” = “bohuw”; literally “a waste” "For thus says the Lord, who created the heavens (He is the God who formed the earth and made it, He established it and did not create it “tohuw”, but formed it to be inhabited), “I am the Lord, and there is none else." (Isaiah 45:18) Only used in 2 other places (Jer. 4:23, Isa. 34:11); describes divine judgment

19 I.Young Earth – Earth is thousands of years old. 1.Standard Six-Day Creation 2.Ideal-Time II.Old Earth – Earth could be millions/billions of years old. 1.Long ‘Days’ 2.Revelatory-Days 3.Day-Age 4.Literary Framework 5.Gap View 7 Orthodox Views of Theistic Creation

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21 The Only Options “There are not many options – essentially just two. Either human intelligence ultimately owes its origin to mindless matter; or there is a Creator. It is strange that some people claim that it is their intelligence that leads them to prefer the first to the second.” - John Lennox, God’s Undertaker

22 Naturalistic/Evolutionist View Creation An eternal universeAn eternal Creator Ultimate reality is impersonal matter – no God Ultimate reality is an infinite, personal, loving God Everything we know came about by chance, with no ultimate purpose Universe lovingly created by God for a specific purpose Man is the product of impersonal matter plus time plus chance. Consequent result is that man has no ultimate dignity nor any meaning than what is subjectively derived Man is created by God in His image and is loved by God; therefore all men are endowed with eternal value and dignity which is not derived from themselves but from the Source, transcending themselves Morality is defined by every individual according to his views and interests. It is ultimately relative as every person is the final authority for their own views Morality is defined by God and is immutable because it is based on God’s unchanging and holy character. The afterlife brings personal annihilation and extinction for everyone The afterlife involves either life with God or separation from them. The Core Positions

23 The Big Questions… Evolution contributes nothing to answering this question as it involves the supposed change that occurs in already existing biological entities. Evolution tries to explain how something works, not why something exists. “It is self-evident that only mind can create mind.”, J. S. Mill Such as case violates what we know from the study of causation, namely that a cause cannot give what it doesn’t have.

24 The Cosmological Argument Everything that begins to exist must have a cause The universe began to exist Therefore, the universe had a cause “I never asserted so absurd a proposition as that anything might arise without a cause.” - David Hume, Scottish Skeptic “Nothing can come into being from that which is not”- Demokritos, Greek Philosopher

25 The Cosmological Argument "By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible." (Hebrews 11:3) Rebuke to Platonic cosmogony (Demiurge forming the world from pre-existent matter) Rebuke to theistic evolution

26 ConclusionsConclusions Creation is the best and most reasonable stance to hold when examining how everything we know came to be Primary reason natural man rejects creation is because an impersonal universe cannot call him into moral account like a personal Creator can The seven orthodox views of Genesis should not be a test for faith and do not violate any core Christian doctrine Young vs. Old Earth should not be a stumbling block you put before a person considering Christianity

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28 Is there any scientific evidence for a young Earth argument? Crab Nebula Photo: Courtesy of NASA Too few supernova remnants. According to astronomical observations, galaxies like our own experience about one supernova (a violently-exploding star) every 25 years. The gas and dust remnants from such explosions (like the Crab Nebula) expand outward rapidly and should remain visible for over a million years. Yet the nearby parts of our galaxy in which we could observe such gas and dust shells contain only about 200 supernova remnants. That number is consistent with only about 7,000 years worth of supernovas. 3

29 Comets disintegrate too quickly. According to evolutionary theory, comets are supposed to be the same age as the solar system, about five billion years. Yet each time a comet orbits close to the sun, it loses so much of its material that it could not survive much longer than about 100,000 years. Many comets have typical ages of less than 10,000 years. 4 Evolutionists explain this discrepancy by assuming that (a) comets come from an unobserved spherical "Oort cloud" well beyond the orbit of Pluto, (b) improbable gravitational interactions with infrequently passing stars often knock comets into the solar system, and (c) other improbable interactions with planets slow down the incoming comets often enough to account for the hundreds of comets observed. 5 So far, none of these assumptions has been substantiated either by observations or realistic calculations. Lately, there has been much talk of the "Kuiper Belt," a disc of supposed comet sources lying in the plane of the solar system just outside the orbit of Pluto. Some asteroid-sized bodies of ice exist in that location, but they do not solve the evolutionists' problem, since according to evolutionary theory, the Kuiper Belt would quickly become exhausted if there were no Oort cloud to supply it.

30 Rivers and dust storms dump mud into the sea much faster than plate tectonic sub-duction can remove it. Not enough mud on the sea floor. Each year, water and winds erode about 20 billion tons of dirt and rock from the continents and deposit it in the ocean. 6 This material accumulates as loose sediment on the hard basaltic (lava-formed) rock of the ocean floor. The average depth of all the sediment in the whole ocean is less than 400 meters. 7 The main way known to remove the sediment from the ocean floor is by plate tectonic subduction. That is, sea floor slides slowly (a few cm/year) beneath the continents, taking some sediment with it. According to secular scientific literature, that process presently removes only 1 billion tons per year. 7 As far as anyone knows, the other 19 billion tons per year simply accumulate. At that rate, erosion would deposit the present mass of sediment in less than 12 million years. Yet according to evolutionary theory, erosion and plate subduction have been going on as long as the oceans have existed, an alleged three billion years. If that were so, the rates above imply that the oceans would be massively choked with sediment dozens of kilometers deep. An alternative (creationist) explanation is that erosion from the waters of the Genesis flood running off the continents deposited the present amount of sediment within a short time about 5,000 years ago.

31 Too much carbon 14 in deep geologic strata. With their short 5,700-year half-life, no carbon 14 atoms should exist in any carbon older than 250,000 years. Yet it has proven impossible to find any natural source of carbon below Pleistocene (Ice Age) strata that does not contain significant amounts of carbon 14, even though such strata are supposed to be millions or billions of years old. Conventional carbon 14 laboratories have been aware of this anomaly since the early 1980s, have striven to eliminate it, and are unable to account for it. Lately the world's best such laboratory which has learned during two decades of low-C14 measurements how not to contaminate specimens externally, under contract to creationists, confirmed such observations for coal samples and even for a dozen diamonds, which cannot be contaminated in situ with recent carbon. 27 These constitute very strong evidence that the earth is only thousands, not billions, of years old.

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