Faith and Science (2)

Our last session we discussed how indescribable God is. We looked at the known universe, the beauty of it, the size of it; how it was spoken into existence by God. Our sun and the millions of other suns in our galaxy came flying out of the mouth of God. He is amazing.

Application Point: We should love God with all our minds. Therefore, use our intellect to worship God.

Our last session we discussed how indescribable God is. We looked at the known universe, the beauty of it, the size of it; how it was spoken into existence by God. Our sun and the millions of other suns in our galaxy came flying out of the mouth of God. He is amazing.

We talked about the 7 days of creation; God said, and it was so.

In light of everything we know about the universe and God, we recognize that we are really, really, really small.

Significant Insignificance!

“Even though we are teeny tiny little bitty people on a little bitty speck floating through the vast cosmos He has made.…He knows us and is aware of us and loves us.”

So that is where we come from, our existence is from God. But what about those who don’t believe in the God of the Bible? What do they believe about creation and how they’ve come to exist?

There are 4 popular beliefs on the origin of life, earth and the universe.

Biblical Creation, Intelligent Design, Old-Earth Creation, Molecules-to-Man Evolution.

Origin of life, Origin of man, Origin of the earth and universe.

Biblical Creation - God created lifeforms “after their kinds” (not species). On Day 6 of creation, God made man from dust and woman from man’s side. God created it in six, approximately 24-hour days—heavens and Earth on Day 1 and heavenly bodies on Day 4.

Intelligent Design - Not agreed upon: 1. A designer designed the first life. 2. A designer designed several initial lifeforms. Not agreed upon: Could be any of the other views. Not agreed upon: big bang, Allah, Brahman, God, etc.

Old-Earth Creation

Gap Theory - Life was formed millions of years ago by God and wiped out by a Luciferian flood between and 1:2. Then God recreated life as He said in the rest of . On the sixth day of the second creation, God made man and woman supernaturally. God made the universe, perhaps with the big bang, and the present surface of the earth is the second that God created.

Progressive Creation - Life was created by God in spurts, and then as these lifeforms went extinct, God made other lifeforms to take their place. God made man supernaturally about 10,000–60,000 years ago to replace soulless hominids who seemed human because they buried their dead, played music and had religious activities, but they weren’t human. God used the big bang.

Framework Hypothesis - Not agreed upon: Most hold to the theistic evolution view, and some hold to a progressive creationist view. Not agreed upon: Most hold to the theistic evolution view, and some hold to a progressive creationist view. God used the big bang.

Theistic Evolution - God created the first life in the form of a single-celled organism. Man’s body developed from ape-like ancestors through God-directed, random mutations and natural selection. This animal became truly human when God supernaturally placed the image of God in it. God used the big bang.

Molecules-to-Man Evolution - Life accidentally formed from nonliving matter into a single-celled organism. Developed from an ape-like ancestor through random mutations and natural selection. The big bang or an eternal steady state universe.

Your worldview (how you view the world) will determine how you view of the origin of life, man, earth and the universe.

If you believe there is a God or a higher power, you’ll lean toward any of the origins beliefs except molecules-to-man since there is no need for a god or intelligent designer.

If you believe in the God of the bible, most will accept the Biblical Creation account. Although, there are many who would fall under the old-earth creation belief. Old-earth creationist typically believe in the God of the Bible and view the Bible as a moral authority but not necessarily a final authority. Old-earth creationist tend to reinterpret the Bible to aline with historical science. (We’ll get into historical science in a bit)

One would think that the intelligent design belief would require the belief in God or a higher power but don’t be fooled. Intelligent Design theory only came into existence after scientist began to understand the complexity of all life forms.

A true secular scientist doesn’t believe the biblical account of creation and will reject an old-earth creation account because it requires God or a god. Intelligent Design on the other hand does not. Intelligent design only requires an intelligent being, not necessarily God.

Molecules-to-Man evolution is the primary origins belief that is taught in our schools. Elementary, middle school, high school, college.

Molecules-to-Man belief views the Bible as errant, non-inspired and not authoritative. Secular science is the final authority and has no room for any god let alone the God of the bible.

This theory is taught as if it were fact. And that any other belief is rejecting factual logic.

If you do a side-by-side comparison of Biblical Creation and Molecules-to-Man beliefs, you’ll get completely opposing interpretations of the same data.

So what does all of this mean and does it even matter? As long as we preach Christ and his crucifixion, we don’t need to worry about this creation vs evolution stuff.

Here is the issue.

There are different thoughts of time, though. Some believe the six days of creation or six literal days; others believe your periods of time.

The only reason one would believe they are anything but literal days is because historical science states that the world is 4.5 billion years old.

If the world is really that old, then one could conclude that the Bible is fallible. So the old-earth argument tries to reconcile the difference of time by adding millions of years to the creation week.

If you took the six days of creation literally and followed the genealogies from the Old Testament to the New Testament, you roughly get about 6000 years.

So where is the problem?

Where does one add the extra 4.5 billion years? Before creation? During creation? After creation?

The only logical place to add 4.5 billion years to the biblical timeline is somewhere in the creation event. They do this so they don’t completely undermining the biblical timeline.

What are the herbs really that old? How can we know?

The Nature of Science video

Observational science

Historical science

There is no way to verify dating methods because you will need a credible witness who was there to state the observations are correct.

How old was Adam when he was created?

He was zero years old. He was a new born. Well, kind of.

He obviously wasn't created as an infant. He didn't have to learn how to walk or talk. If that were the case, he would've died within a day or so.

God created him with the appearance of age. This way; he could do what is necessary to survive. He could walk around, he could feed himself, get a drink of water. He was self sufficient.

God created everything, the planets, stars, plants, animals and trees with the appearance of age. If not, Adam would not be able to gather food to eat? He'd have to wait a long time for the plants to grow and for the trees to bear fruit. He would have died of hunger.

If we could go back in time to Adam’s first birthday, no one would believe that he was a one year old. He would look as if he were somewhere around 18 years old or so.

It would take a lot to convince me that he was a one year old. He doesn’t look one. I would need a credible witness stating his actual age? God says, “yes, Charles he is only one today. I created him last year but with the appearance of age.”

The earth and all that is in it (man, plants, animals, the universe) were all created with the appearance of age.

That’s one reason one might believe the earth is older than it really is.

Okay, so the earth looks old but how old?

It’s interesting how the earth seems to be getting older at a highly exaggerated rate.

1897 - 24 to 400 million

1899 - 90 to 100 million

1905 - 500 million

1907 - 1.64 billion

2019 - 4.5 billion

We’re told that science proves that the world is 4.5 billion years old. If you don’t believe that, you don’t believe science and you have flawed logic.

But, dating methods aren't pure science.

Radiometric Dating video

There are only a couple reasons one would believe the theory that the earth is billions of years old.

Before the 1800’s, it wasn’t common to think that the earth was over 10,000 years old. With the industrial revolution and increase of scientific knowledge, the perceived age of the earth has grown.

2 Peter 3:1–7 NLT

This is my second letter to you, dear friends, and in both of them I have tried to stimulate your wholesome thinking and refresh your memory. I want you to remember what the holy prophets said long ago and what our Lord and Savior commanded through your apostles. Most importantly, I want to remind you that in the last days scoffers will come, mocking the truth and following their own desires. They will say, “What happened to the promise that Jesus is coming again? From before the times of our ancestors, everything has remained the same since the world was first created.” They deliberately forget that God made the heavens long ago by the word of his command, and he brought the earth out from the water and surrounded it with water. Then he used the water to destroy the ancient world with a mighty flood. And by the same word, the present heavens and earth have been stored up for fire. They are being kept for the day of judgment, when ungodly people will be destroyed.

This is my second letter to you, dear friends, and in both of them I have tried to stimulate your wholesome thinking and refresh your memory. 2 I want you to remember what the holy prophets said long ago and what our Lord and Savior commanded through your apostles.

3 Most importantly, I want to remind you that in the last days scoffers will come, mocking the truth and following their own desires. 4 They will say, “What happened to the promise that Jesus is coming again? From before the times of our ancestors, everything has remained the same since the world was first created.”

5 They deliberately forget that God made the heavens long ago by the word of his command, and he brought the earth out from the water and surrounded it with water. 6 Then he used the water to destroy the ancient world with a mighty flood. 7 And by the same word, the present heavens and earth have been stored up for fire. They are being kept for the day of judgment, when ungodly people will be destroyed.

The deliberately forget. Or as one translation puts it, they are willingly ignorant.

Willful ignorance differs from ordinary “ignorance“ — when someone is simply unaware of something — in that willfully ignorant people are fully aware of facts, resources and sources, but refuse to acknowledge them.

The heart of the mater isn’t the age of the earth. That’s substanary. If one accepts billions of years, they are undermining the authority of the bible. That’s where the old earth creationists add billions of years to the creation account. Which is ill logical.

When you add billions of years to the creation account, you add death and disease before sin. That’s a huge problem that we’ll discuss next week.

Hebrews 3:4 NLT

For every house has a builder, but the one who built everything is God.

2 Peter 3

2 Peter 3:5 NLT

They deliberately forget that God made the heavens long ago by the word of his command, and he brought the earth out from the water and surrounded it with water.

2 Peter 3:5–7 NLT

They deliberately forget that God made the heavens long ago by the word of his command, and he brought the earth out from the water and surrounded it with water. Then he used the water to destroy the ancient world with a mighty flood. And by the same word, the present heavens and earth have been stored up for fire. They are being kept for the day of judgment, when ungodly people will be destroyed.