Why Christianity

Origins: Where we came from and how do we know?

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[Notes for a presentation at Worldview Australia May 11th, 2023]

How do we know something?

  • “Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that tries to make sense out of knowledge, rationality, and justified or unjustified beliefs. The term epistemology comes from the Greek word epistēmē, which means knowledge” (Craig and Moreland, Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview. 2nd ed. 2017, 61).

Different types of knowledge

  • Knowledge by acquaintance: I know David is in front of me.
  • Know-how: I know how to read English.
  • Propositional knowledge: I know that the Bible teaches in Genesis 1 that God created the heavens and the earth.

So how can we know our origins?

Knowledge by acquaintance of Christianity?

  • I am skeptical that we can have this about our origins, but individuals like Alvin Plantinga have argued that belief in God and the great truths of the faith can be properly basic.

Plantinga, Knowledge and Christian Belief, 2015.

Craig and Moreland, Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview, Chapter 7 Religious Epistemology.

The standard definition of (propositional) knowledge

  • “knowledge is justified true belief” (PFCW, 63)
  • “A person S knows that P if and only if:
    1. S believes that P.
    2. P is true.
    3. The belief that P is justified for S at the time S believes it.” (PFCW, 64)

What is Truth?

  • The correspondence theory of truth is “roughly, the idea that truth is a matter of a proposition (belief, thought, statement, representation) corresponding to reality; truth obtains when reality is the way a proposition represents it to be” (PFCW, 118).

Origins: Where we came from and how do we know?

  • So, what is the truth about the origin of the universe and humanity?
  • The Bible states, in Genesis 1–2, that God created the universe in six days.
  • Ps Rob covered this last time, namely that there are different views, but I gather he humbly argued that the best interpretation is that God created in six consecutive literal 24-hour days and that the genealogies in the Bible have minimal gaps (if any), such that when one adds up the genealogies, creation occurred around 6000 years ago (as measured by clocks on earth). (Old earth or theistic creationists take a different position).
  • So, if the Bible (specially Gen 1–2) is true, then when rightly interpreted, this is the truth about our origins.
  • Ben Dallin covered the reliability of the Bible last term.

An Argument for Scripture

  1. “Whatever God teaches is true.
  2. Historical, prophetic and other evidences show that Jesus is God.
  3. Therefore, whatever Jesus teaches is true.
  4. Jesus taught that the scriptures are the inerrant and authoritative word of God.
  5. Therefore, the Bible is the inerrant word of God” WLC, https://www.reasonablefaith.org/podcasts/defenders-podcast-series-2/s2-doctrine-of-revelation/doctrine-of-revelation-part-7/

A Problem of a Lack of Common Ground

  • Acts 17:1–2 After they traveled through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a Jewish synagogue. Paul went to the Jews in the synagogue, as he customarily did, and on three Sabbath days he addressed them from the scriptures…
  • Acts 17:22–24 So Paul stood before the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I see that you are very religious in all respects. For as I went around and observed closely your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: ‘To an unknown god.’ Therefore what you worship without knowing it, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, who is Lord of heaven and earth… [NET2]

Following Paul’s Example… (and Jesus’)

  • Can we use the common ground of reason to point them to the truth about the origin of the universe for the purpose of leading them to faith in Christ?
  • So, what does reason say about the origin of the universe?
  • There is philosophical and scientific evidence for the beginning of the universe (and historical evidence from the Bible which we already covered)
  • There are different views on science (including both realist and anti-realist views, see part 4 of PFCW for a philosophy of science), and there are different scientific views on the origin of the universe (such as an eternal steady stead model or the standard big bang model).

A Philosophical Argument Pointing to the Beginning of the Universe

The Kalam Cosmological Argument (WLC)

  1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
  2. The universe began to exist.
  3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

https://www.reasonablefaith.org/kalam

Leibniz’s Cosmological Argument

  1. Anything that exists has an explanation of its existence, either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external cause [A version of PSR].
  2. If the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God.
  3. The universe exists.
  4. Therefore, the universe has an explanation of its existence (from 1, 3)
  5. Therefore, the explanation of the existence of the universe is God (from 2, 4).

https://www.reasonablefaith.org/Leibniz-Contingency-Argument

Problems with the Big Bang

Proposing a YEC model

  • Mature creation (i.e., made old looking)
  • Relativistic models
    • White hole cosmology (Humphreys, Starlight and Time, 1996).
  • A 5D universe (with velocity as another dimension) (Hartnett, Starlight, Time and the New Physics. 2nd ed., 2010; and Carmeli).  Summary: https://creation.com/starlight-and-time-a-further-breakthrough Review: https://dl0.creation.com/articles/p091/c09174/j27_1_54-56.pdf
  • Anisotropic Synchrony Convention [speed of light 2c one way and infinite the other] (Lisle, The Physics of Einstein, 2018).
  • Review: John G. Hartnett, “Einstein’s physics says there is no biblical creationist starlight travel-time problem.” A review of The Physics of Einstein: Black holes, time travel, distant starlight, E=mc2 by Jason Lisle Biblical Science Institute, 1st edn, 2018. https://dl0.creation.com/articles/p130/c13060/j33_2_22-28.pdf
  • Dasha (matured creation / time lapse video (i.e., kind of like processes supernaturally happening in fast forward during creation week). (Danny Faulkner).

So Where Does that Leave Us?

  • There is philosophical, scientific, and historical evidence for the beginning of the universe, and we have confidence in this and respectfully point others to it.

Origins: Where we came from and how do we know?

  • What about the truth of the origin of humanity?
  • Historical evidence (i.e., the Bible, esp. Gen 1–11, Luke 3:23–38, Rom 5) indicates that God created Adam from the soil and breathed life into him. This happened about 6000 years ago (and plants and animals a few days before this).
  • Mainstream science says the first life appeared on earth about 4 billion years ago, and modern humans (Homo sapiens) about 200,000 years ago.

Problems with Evolution

  • Radiometric dating issues such as recent volcanic eruptions (i.e., Mt. St Helens) or carbon-14 in fossils and diamonds.
  • Macro-evolution.
  • Jonathan Sarfati, Refuting Evolution, 6th ed., 2019.
  • Jonathan Sarfati, Refuting Evolution 2, 5th ed., 2020.

Proposing a YEC model

Jeanson (Replacing Darwin, 2017; Traced, 2021) basically attempts to show through Y chromosome genetics, all living humans can be traced back to the table of nations of Gen 10 about 4500 years ago (i.e., after the flood of Noah’s time).

Review: Robert Carter Journal of Creation 36(2): 34–39, August 2022. https://creation.com/traced-nathaniel-jeanson-review

Summary: https://answersingenesis.org/human-evolution/origins/traced-human-dnas-big-surprise/

Summary

  • It is difficult to determine the truth, but there is philosophical, scientific, and historical evidence for the origin of the universe and humanity that fits with Christianity.

[Extra notes]

Problems with the old age of the earth

  • Snelling, Andrew A. Genesis Flood Revisited. 2009.
  • Snelling, Andrew. Earth’s Catastrophic Past. 2009
  • DeYoung, Donald. Thousands not Billions: Challenging the Icon of Evolution, Questioning the Age of the Earth. 2005.
  • I might have missed it, but I haven’t seen a YEC proposal on the science of the age of the earth.

The Problem of Animal Suffering

  • Young Earth position: no vertebrate animal death before the fall of the historical Adam.
  • Henry B. Smith Jr, “Cosmic and universal death from Adam’s fall: an exegesis of Romans 8:19–23a.” Journal of Creation 21(1):75–85, April 2007. http://creation.com/cosmic-and-universal-death-from-adams-fall-an-exegesis-of-romans-819-23a
  • David Pitman, “Nephesh chayyāh: A matter of life … and non-life.” CMI. http://creation.com/nephesh-chayyah
  • Old Earth view: http://www.reasons.org/articles/animal-death-before-the-fall-what-does-the-bible-say
  • https://reasons.org/explore/publications/articles/did-vertebrate-animals-die-before-the-fall-of-man
  • Michael Murray. Nature Red in Tooth and Claw: Theism and the Problem of Animal Suffering, 2011.
  • Murray’s three levels of pain awareness. The lowest level would simply be the reaction to noxious stimuli – the way an amoeba will recoil if poked with a needle. The second level of pain would be the kind of pain awareness that sentient life has – conscious animals who have mental states and who feel pain. The third level awareness would be an awareness that one is in a second-level awareness of pain – the awareness that I am myself in pain. And the evidence suggests that animals may not have the neural capacity for that third-level pain awareness apart from the higher primates, which are most like man, and if that’s the case then that would mean that the large majority of animals don’t suffer in the same way that humans suffer. https://www.reasonablefaith.org/media/reasonable-faith-podcast/do-animals-suffer-in-the-same-way-humans-do/

What is the doctrine of creation?

  • “[I]t is the view that everything that exists and is not God is created by God.”
  • Creation is ex nihilo, good, and free.

Creation – Who Cares, Why Does it Matter?

  • Genesis the is the foundation of the Bible.
  • Jesus comes to fix Eden.
  • All areas of our lives are to be surrendered to God.
  • The Bible, the Word of God if inerrant means whatever it affirms is true be that history or science (Although it is not primarily a history or science textbook).

Some Texts on Creation

  • Two creation narratives (Gen 1:1-2:3; 2:4-3:24)
  • Nine creation poems (Job 26:7-13; 38:4-11; Prov 3:19-20; 8:22-31; Psa 8:1-10; 33:6-9; 74:12-17; 89:5-12; 104:2-32)
  • Narrative (Gen 5:1-2; 6:7; 14:19, 22; Exod 20:11; 31:17; Deut 4:32; 2 Kgs 19:15; 2 Chron 2:12; Neh 9:6)
  • Poetry (e.g., Pss 19:4; 24:2; 65:6; 95:5; 96:5; 102:25; 115:15; 119:90; 121:2; 124:8; 134:3; 136:5; 146:6; 148:5)
  • Wisdom (Job 4:17; 9:8; 32:22; 35:10; 36:3; Prov 14:31; 17:5; 22:2; Eccl 12:1)
  • Prophets (Isa 37:16; 40:12, 22, 26, 28; 42:5; 44:24; 45:7, 12, 18; 48:13; 51:13; Jer 5:22; 10:12; 27:5; 32:17; 51:15; Amos 4:13; 9:6; Jon 1:9; Zech 12:1)
  • John 1:3, 10; 17:5; Acts 4:24; 14:15; 17:24; Rom 4:17; 11:36; 1 Cor 8:6; Eph 3:9; Col 1:16-17; Heb 1:2-3; 11:3; Rev 4:11; 10:6

Unity/Diversity in Creation Accounts

  • These creation accounts/texts display unity in their most common central assertion: Yahweh, the one true God, created all that exists: heaven, earth; sea, land; plants, trees; animals, humans.
  • When some creation accounts/texts offer additional details, we find diversity in their presentations of:

– the means God used to create

– the order of events in creation

– the length of time that transpired in creation

(Gordon H. Johnston, OT104 – Hebrew Exegesis & OT Intro II, Dallas Theological Seminary, 2011 lecture notes. Dallas, TX.)

Non-Negotiables Regarding Creation

  • The Sovereign God of the Bible created all things and created them “very good.”
  • God uniquely created Adam and Eve as the first human beings; God created them sinless, perfect, and in relationship to him.
  • Adam and Eve deliberately sinned against God and brought judgment upon the world; both humanity and nature are broken and abnormal.

(Matthew Winslow, THS 502 – Theology 1: God, Bible, Humanity and Christ, East Asia School of Theology, Singapore, 2012).

How/When God Created? The Positions

 Biological MacroevolutionCosmic Evolution
Young Earth Creation http://creation.com/NoNo
Progressive Creationist / Old Earth Creation http://www.reasons.org/NoYes
Evolutionary Creation / Theistic Evolution http://biologos.org/YesYes

Explaining the views

  • Young earth creationism is basically the view that the best interpretation of the Bible is that God created in six consecutive literal 24-hour days and that the genealogies in the Bible have minimal gaps, such that when one adds up the genealogies, creation occurred around 6000 years ago as measured by clocks on earth. The young-earth creationist also usually affirms a global flood at the time of Noah, and there was no vertebrate animal death before the fall of the historical Adam.

It is generally not known, but the young earth position holds that the earth and stars were created say 6,000 years ago, but some preliminary studies are suggesting that it is possible that depending on where you put a clock to measure the time, different answers will effectively be given. A clock placed on earth on the first day of creation would indicate that the earth is 6,000 years old from that clock’s perspective. However, if the universe were like a gravitational well with our galaxy being at the bottom of it, then a clock placed near the top of the gravitational well would indicate that from its perspective, the earth and the stars were 13 billion years old. See John Hartnett, Starlight, Time and the New Physics: How We Can See Starlight in Our Young Universe, 2nd ed. 2010.

  • The old earth position basically says that the Bible need not be interpreted as in six consecutive literal 24-hour days about 6000 years ago. Instead, the days of the creation texts could be metaphorical, or there could be gaps before or after literal days, or the days could be ages, such that big bang cosmology and biological evolution, while not necessarily correct, are nonetheless compatible with the Bible (this view usually holds that big bang cosmology is roughly correct, but not biological macroevolution).
  • The evolutionary creation position says that in some manner, God used evolution (understood in the sense of macroevolution).  Be that by directing each step of the way or having planned how it would all work out by itself from the start.
  • The natural/atheist evolutionary position argues it was all non-teleological / by chance.

The Syntax of Gen 1:1-2

  • Option 1: God made an original creation (taking Gen 1:1 as before the other days), it lapsed into chaos (Gen 1:2) and then God recreated things (Gen 1:3-) (The Gap Theory)
  • Option 2: Taking Gen 1:1 as a title, and so when God begins to create there is already a primeval chaos out of which God creates an organized cosmos.
  • Option 3: Gen 1:1 is the beginning of creation, with Gen 1:2 describing how God was beginning to create. (i.e. Gen 1:1-1:5 are all events on the first day).

For more information see http://creation.com/syntax-in-genesis-1

Or the NET Bible notes.

Science

  • There are different views, but science is generally taken to involve studying the natural world through observations, formulating hypotheses and testing that by an experiment.
  • Christians are free to investigate how they think God has setup the world and when rightly interpreted this should match with rightly interpreted scripture.
  • Both general revelation and special revelation can inform each other but should be careful in dictating to the other.
  • Not everything falls into the domain of science.

The Big Bang

  • The Big band teaches that about 13.8 billion years ago the universe existed as a single point with all matter and energy in that singularity and it exploded. This was the beginning of time and space. As the universe expanded elementary particles formed, then into gas clouds and then through gravity into galaxies, stars and planets. The earth cooled down about 4.5 billion years ago.

Evolution

  1. Biological change and diversity
  2. Life forms came from earlier ones (descent with modification)
  3. Genetic variation and natural selection (microevolution)
  4. Common ancestry – a tree of life (macroevolution)
  5. Naturalistic/atheistic evolution: that the universe and all life came without God

(modified from William Lane Craig, Creation and Evolution (Part 17)

August 12, 2013. Available at: https://www.reasonablefaith.org/podcasts/defenders-podcast-series-2/s2-creation-and-evolution/creation-and-evolution-part-17/ and Andrew Loke, lecture on Science. 2013 HK poly U.)

What is Evolutionary Theory?

  • Evolution teaches that over billions of years (13.8 billion for the universe and 4.5 billion for the earth) life has evolved, by small upward changes (within organisms) over a long period of time, by random advantageous mutations, leading to more complex creatures, thus a frog turns into a prince.

Mutations

  • Evolution requires that there is some form of mechanism that increases the amount of information within an organism (for instance a cell has no information to code for eyes so the information for eyes must come about by some process – mutations.)

Example

  • One problem for evolution is that while we do see mutations in genes (DNA) they are never the type that adds information but rather the type that does the exact opposite. For an example of bacteria’s resistance leading to in the wrong way see http://www.trueorigin.org/bacteria01.asp
  • Take for example dogs: a generic mongrel dog has the genetic information that when breed in certain ways can express the genes to give a Poodle or a Husky. But a Chihuahua does not have the information to breed giving a Great Dane.

Geologic column

  • Evolutionists and old earthers take this as a record of the life that existed in different ages basically as taught in the public.
  • Young Earthers as a burial record, most of it during the flood. See: http://creation.com/fossils-questions-and-answers

Radioactive Dating

  • Rocks (and organic matter) have certain values of various atoms in them and these decay over time. So if we know how much was in there to begin with, the rate at which it decays and the present amount the age can be determined.
  • Evolutionary Creationist and old earthers basically accept the standard position.
  • YEC say dating methods are known not to work on rocks of known age so why should they be trusted on rocks of unknown age. Further there dating methods such as the amount of salt in the ocean or the amount of helium in the earth’s atmosphere which indicate a much younger age of the earth. But YEC (as far as I know) have not been able to show if you changed the assumes that radiometric dates could give a young earth result. See: Chapter 4 What about carbon dating? In The Creation Answers Book, Don Batten, David Catchpoole, Jonathan Sarfati and Carl Wieland. Atlanta, GA: Creation Book Publisher, 2007. Pages 65-84. Available at: http://creation.com/images/pdfs/cabook/chapter4.pdf

YEC’s and Geology (polystrate fossils)

  • The presence of vertical objects in the rock layers (also called polystrate fossils), means the object wasn’t buried over ‘one year per mm layer’ rather it probably happened quickly

See: Tas Walker, Polystrate fossils: evidence for a young earth. Creation 29(3):54–55—June 2007. Available at: https://creation.com/polystrate-fossils-evidence-for-a-young-earth

YEC’s and Geology (a recent eruption)

  • Layers generally thought to happen one year at a time. All these occurred a once at Mt St Helens in 1980.

See: Tas Walker, “Learning the lessons of Mount St Helens How its eruption backs biblical history.” Creation 39(3):23–27—July 2017. Available at: https://creation.com/lessons-from-mount-st-helens

Coelacanth

  • Found in fossils thought to be 65 million years ago.

See: David Catchpoole, “Correcting the headline: ‘Coelacanth’ yes; ‘Ancient’ no.” Creation.com July 2007. Available at: http://creation.com/correcting-the-headline-coelacanth-yes-ancient-no

Wollemi Pine

  • Another living fossil

See: Sensational Australian tree … like ‘finding a live dinosaur’. Creation 17(2):13—March 1995. Available at: https://creation.com/sensational-australian-tree-like-finding-a-live-dinosaur

Genealogies

  • Are there gaps?
  • Gen 5:1-32 (1656 years Adam to Flood by MT)
  • Gen 11:10-26 (290 years Flood to Abraham by MT)
  • Exo 6:14-25; Num 26:1-65; 1 Chron 1:1-9:44; Matt 1:1-17; Luke 3:23-38

YEC’s see: Jonathan Sarfati, “Biblical chronogenealogies,” Journal of Creation 17(3):14–18—December 2003. Available at: http://creation.com/biblical-chronogenealogies and Lita Cosner, “How does the Bible teach 6,000 years?” Creation 35(1):54–55—January 2013. Available at: http://creation.com/6000-years

OEC: Daniel J. Dyke and Hugh Henry, “From Noah to Abraham to Moses: Evidence of Genealogical Gaps in Genesis, Part 1-5” Reasons to Believe. 2012 Available at: http://www.reasons.org/explore/blogs/todays-new-reason-to-believe/read/tnrtb/2012/07/23/from-noah-to-abraham-to-moses-evidence-of-genealogical-gaps-in-mosaic-literature-part-1

Where did Cain get his wife from?

  • Genesis 4:1; 4:17; 4:25; 5:3
  • YEC’s generally say it was his sister. See: Ken Ham, Chapter 6 Cain’s Wife—Who Was She? in The New Answers Book. 2007 Available at: https://answersingenesis.org/bible-characters/cain/cains-wife-who-was-she/
  • EC and OEC’s can adapt the young earth view, but generally says there were other people around (the issue then is are those outside of Adam fallen?).

Dinosaurs and the Bible

  • Read Genesis 1:24-25 (cf Gen 1:20-23) (also Job 40:15-24; 41)
  • YEC’s reason that dinosaurs are land (and see animals) made on day 5-6 of creation week and so Adam would have lived beside dinosaurs. See: Chapter 19 What about dinosaurs? In The Creation Answers Book, Don Batten, David Catchpoole, Jonathan Sarfati and Carl Wieland. Atlanta, GA: Creation Book Publisher, 2007. Pages 235-254. Available at: http://creation.com/images/pdfs/cabook/chapter19.pdf
  • OEC’s http://www.reasons.org/explore/publications/rtb-101/dinosaurs “Since dinosaurs were first given a name (“terrible lizards”) in 1841, they have fascinated people. Our testable creation model says God created dinosaurs to roam the Earth roughly 230 million years ago, and many different types of these creatures dominated the landscape. Their time on Earth ended when a 6 mile-wide asteroid impacted Earth 65 million years ago. Some Christians say the Leviathan and Behemoth mentioned in Job refer to dinosaurs, but we disagree. Because humanity arrived on Earth much later, no biblical author would have had contact with dinosaurs. The most popular scientific model claims dinosaurs evolved into birds, but we reject this view also. Instead we argue that both birds and dinosaurs were specially created by God to fill the livable environments available on Earth during their respective eras.”
  • EC’s basically take the view as taught in the public.

How did Noah fit all those animals on the ark?

  • Genesis 6-8. 6:7 “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground … 6:15  “The ark is to be three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high” about 135 meters long, 23 meters wide and 14 meters high. … 6:20 Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive.).
  • YEC’s generally say it was a global flood, and two of every animal kind went on board (that there isn’t that many animal kinds compared to present day species). See: Jonathan D Sarfati, How did all the animals fit on Noah’s Ark? Creation 19(2):16–19—March 1997. Available at: http://creation.com/how-did-all-the-animals-fit-on-noahs-ark
  • OEC’s and EC’s can in theory adopt the YEC’s view but generally says the flood was local hence only took a few animals on board. Some might suggest the dimensions of the ark should not be interpreted as per the YEC view. See: Hugh Ross, Does the Bible Say Noah’s Flood Was Global or Universal? Reasons to Believe, 2016. Available at: http://www.reasons.org/explore/blogs/todays-new-reason-to-believe/read/todays-new-reason-to-believe/2016/11/02/does-the-bible-say-noah-s-flood-was-global-or-universal

How can people live 900+ years?

What about anthropology? (alleged ape-men)

  • What is a human? What does it mean to be made in the “Image of God”(Gen 1:26-27).
  • YEC and OEC’s: either these fossils are extinct apes or extinct humans. YEC see: Don Batten and Warren Nunn, Did humans evolve from apes? CMI 2017. Available at: https://creation.com/did-humans-evolve-from-apes
  • OEC see: Rana, Fazale, and Hugh Ross. Who Was Adam?: A Creation Model Approach to the Origin of Man. 2015.
  • EC’s basically take the view as taught in the public.
  • On DNA similarities this could be evidence of either a common designer or a common ancestor.

How can we see distant stars in a young universe?

  • The issue: we have measured light from stars a long far away. Assuming the speed of light has been constant this would mean light from these stars has taken up to billions of years to reach the earth. It is not likely humans are seeing an illusion.
  • YEC’s has suggested a few things, a recent one being that there could be gravitational time-dilating effects allowing billions of years to have pasted for distance stars but only say 6000 years as measured from earth. See: Carl Wieland, Starlight and time—a further breakthrough, Creation 30(1):12–14—December 2007. Available at: http://creation.com/starlight-and-time-a-further-breakthrough
  • OEC’s and EC’s take the view that the universe/earth is old.
  • Note the big bang has a similar problem, namely that the temperature of the universe is too even but there isn’t enough time for radiation to travel to creating an equilibrium – inflation is one possible solution.
  • Solutions vary (none decisive yet): speed of light could have change, the shape of the universe could imply a gravity well…

The creation of abstract objects?

  • Beyond the Control of God?: Six Views on the Problem of God and Abstract Objects, ed. Paul Gould (New York: Bloomsbury, 2014.)
  • Aseity-sovereignty doctrine: “(i) God does not depend on anything distinct from Himself for his existing, and (ii) everything distinct from God depends on God’s creative activity for its existing.” (2)
  • Do abstract objects exist?

https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/question-answer/are-there-uncreated-abstract-objects/

See: William Lane Craig, God Over All: Divine Aseity and the Challenge of Platonism. 2016.

Conclusion

  • Central to Christians is Jesus – his death and resurrection. Other important matters include God’s world, which includes the doctrine that God is the creator, that he created things good and that we fall into sin.
  • As finite beings we should attempt to rightly understand both general and special revelation and should humbly accept all Christians.
  • YEC, OEC and EC are distinct positions as a part of Christian discipleship to think through (though it is often also a barrier for non-Christians).

Select Bibliography

  • Barret, Matthew, and Ardel B. Caneday, eds. William D. Barrick, C. Gregory A. Boyd, John Collins, Denis O, Lamoureux, Philip G. Ryken, and John H. Walton. Four Views on the Historical Adam. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2013. 288 pages.
  • Stump, J. B. (ed.); Ken Ham, Hugh Ross, Deborah B. Haarsma, and Stephen C. Meyer. Four Views on Creation, Evolution, and Intelligent Design. 2017. Moreland, J. P., and John Mark Reynolds, eds. Three Views on Creation and Evolution. 1999.

Clarifying some Definitions

  • Natural selection: is the idea that traits which bestow a reproductive advantage on their possessors tend to spread throughout a given population, and traits which are reproductively deleterious tend to disappear.
  • Adaptation: the expression of certain genes is an advantage in specific conditions.
  • Speciation: Speciation proceeds by a significant reduction in gene flow between two populations resulting in the existence of a new species (they can no longer breed).

The History of Evolution

  • Charles Darwin (1809-1882) was not the first to come up with the theory however he did make a significant contribution towards it (and popularized it). Before the 1800’s most people believed in creation but from Darwin’s writing atheism began to grow.

See: http://creation.com/charles-darwins-illegitimate-brainchild

Other Considerations

  • Created with apparent age. (Amendment for the young earth position)
  • Revelatory days (i.e. it took God seven 24 hour days to tell Moses on creation). (Amendment for the progressive /evolutionary creationist positions)
  • Functional creation (Walton basically argues that God shaped the existing matter). See: Walton, John H. The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate. 2009.

Allan Sandage

  • “I find it quite improbable that such order came out of chaos. There has to be come organizing principle. God to me is a mystery but he is the explanation for the miracle of existence – why there is something rather than nothing.” Allan Sandage, New York Times, 12 March 1991, B9.

Naturalists: the universe must explain itself…

  • “Because there is a law like gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing…” Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow, The Grand Design. 2010, 180.
  • “Space time generates its own dust in the process of its own self assembly.” Peter Atkins, Creation Revisited (1994), 143.

The cosmic boot strap

  • “It is…logically impossible for a cause to bring about some effect without already being in existence… Between the hypothesis of God and the hypothesis of the cosmic bootstrap there is no competition. We were always right to think person, or universes, who seek to pull themselves up by their own bootstrap are forever doomed to failure.” Keith Ward, God, Chance, and Necessity (1996), 49.

What is Nothing?

  • “For surely ‘nothing’ is every bit as physical as ‘something,’ especially if it is to be defined as the ‘absence of something.’” Lawrence Krauss, A Universe from Nothing (new York: Free Press, 2010), xvi.
  • “Krauss is dead wrong and his religious and philosophical critics are absolutely right…And if what we formerly took for nothing turns out, on closer examination, to have the makings of protons and neutrons and tables and chairs and planets and solar systems and galaxies and universes in it, then it wasn’t nothing, and it couldn’t have been nothing, in the first place. And the history of science – if we understand it correctly – gives us no hint of how it might be possible to imagine otherwise.” David Albert, ‘On the Origin of everything” March 23, 2010, New York Times.

Fine-tuned?

  • “Our universe and its laws appear to have a design that both is tailor–‐made to support us and, if we are to exist, leaves little room for alteration. That is not easily explained, and raises the natural question of why it is that way… The discovery relatively recently of the extreme fine-tuning of so many of the laws of nature could lead at least some of us back to the old idea that this grand design is the work of some grand designer…That is not the answer of modern science… our universe seems to be one of many, each with different laws.” Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow, The Grand Design (2010), 162-164.

On the Multiverse

  • “Let us recognize these speculations for what they are. They are not physics, but in the strictest sense, metaphysics. There is no purely scientific reason to believe in an ensemble of universes. By construction these other worlds are unknowable by us. A possible explanation of equal intellectual responsibility – and to my mind greater economy an elegance – would be that this one world is the way it is, because it is the creation of the will of a Creator who purposes that it should be so.” John Polkinghorne, One World (1986), 80.

More on the Multiverse

  •  “Here is the cosmological proof of the existence of God – the design argument of Paley – updated and refurbished. The fine tuning of the universe provides prima facie evidence of deistic design. Take your choice: blind chance that requires multitudes of universes or design that requires only one … Many scientists, when they admit their views, incline towards the teleological or design argument.” Edward Harrison, Masks of the Universe (1985), 252, 263.

Still More on the Multiverse

  • “It is not testable, not even in any forseeable future.” Paul Davies, Hannah Devlin, The Times, 4 September 2010.
  • M-theory is not even defined .. we are told ‘No one seems to know what the M stands for.’ Perhaps it is ‘Myth’” “I don’t see that M-theory adds one iota to the God debate, either pro or con.” – Frank Close, Science, Life, The Planet,” The Times, Eureka, Issue 12, September 2010, 23.
  •  Large Hadron Collider “M-theory is highly speculative and certainly not in the zone of science that we have got any evidence for.“ John Butterworth, Hannah Devlin, The Times, 4 September 2010.

Irreducible Complexity

  • Irreducible complexity refers to “a single system composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning”.
  • i.e. the so called ‘simple’ cell is actually made up of many required steps, all of which need to be in place or else nothing would work to begin with.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics

  • States ‘that the entropy of a closed system tends towards a maximum” (in simple terms, entropy is a measure of disorder)’ or could it be said that ‘usable energy is running out’ or that ‘order tends towards disorder’.

Information

  • Naturalism teaches that life is just matter and energy, however there is good reason to think that information is a third and necessary category.

Consider the example of a computer if you wipe the memory it still has the same mass and energy.

  • Non-material entities can not give birth to material entities.

By Chance?

  • Statistically the probability of evolution is so small that the chance of it happening can be said to be zero.
  • For instance the probability of the chance  formation of a hypothetical functional ‘simple’ cell, is about 1 in 10^57800. This is a chance of 1 in a number with 57,800 zeros.
  • Illustration: if we see a house we would come to the conclusion that it was designed rather than saying a brick factory exploded. Evolutionist apply this same principal: the SETI project – in it they are searching for extra terrestrial intelligence/life by trying to find a specified code (ie something that is not random noise or a repetitive sequence), the basis of such a search is to find a complex code assuming that it must come from a intelligent source…

24-Hour Days?

  • Gen 1-3
  • Exodus 20:11
  • God created man on the sixth day and Jesus calls this the beginning (Matt 19:4; Mark 10:6).

Where do languages groups come from?

  • Read Genesis 11:1-9

What about Aliens and UFO’s?

  • Evolution assumes life has evolved on other planets.
  • The Bible is fairly silent on this issue but it is generally taken that God’s purpose in creation was angels and humans, no other extraterrestrial life. Though some Christians have reasoned that God being creative probably made life elsewhere.

See: http://creation.com/alien-life-ufo-questions-and-answers

What about ‘vestigial’ organs? (are they left over evolutionary junk)

  • Young earth position is that we probably should assume so fast that it’s junk, it probably has a reason (given that God designed it).
  • Evolutionary position is that there is left over code from evolutionary history.

Living Fossils

Different Levels of Explanations

  • E.g. Ps139:13 For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb.
  • Modern discoveries in embryology and genetics.

Critical Thinking

  • If “all truth is God’s truth,” then the Christian should pay attention to truths from various disciplines (such as evolutionary science). In the 1800’s there were Christian who started to read the Bible in light of evolution, as there are Christians who do this today. We have to be critical in analyzing whether evolution is true.

Social Darwinism

By David Graieg, 21 Apr 2023