Creation

November 20, 2016
 

Logical Faith

Creation

What we’re talking about today is not as much proof that God created everything, (because we’ve already done that over the last 2 weeks) but more looking at theories of how He created everything and how long it took him to do it.

Telling 2 theories of the Christian story:
Young Earth Theory: 6,000 - 10,000 year old Earth
Old Earth Theory: 4.5 billion year old Earth

Isaiah 55:8-9
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord.  9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

There is a flaw with our scientific method: We assume that the words “proof” and "fact" are infallible, when we very rarely know 100%, with no margin of error that something is true.  Generally if enough scientists get the same results, and they have a way to scientifically or mathematically prove something, it becomes fact.  We know that all of the time scientific facts get disproven and changed based on new knowledge. 

The 2nd law of thermodynamics says, "there is a natural tendency of any isolated system to degenerate into a more disordered state."  (in other words - things move towards chaos, not order)

We are human and don’t know everything there is to know. God is God, and knows everything We, through science, are just trying to explain God’s creation to the best of our ability.

Looking at the 2 primary sides of Christian creation theories, we’ll be focusing on the research of 2 Christian scientists:
Young Earth Theory: Ken Hamm - Answers in Genesis
Old Earth Theory: Hugh Ross - Reasons to Believe

Young Earth Theory

The Young Earth Theory is based on taking the creation story literally when it says that the Earth was created in 6 days and on the 7th day, God rested.  By "day" they mean: 24-hour literal day.

The word for “day” in Hebrew is: “yom" which has 4 meanings in Hebrew:
- Literal 24-hour period
- Part of the daylight hours
- All of the daylight hours
- Long but finite period of time

Both sides agree on the 4 meanings of “yom.”  The argument is, which meaning is referenced in Genesis?  Young Earth Theorists would argue that the word “Day” (or “yom”) is used 2301 times in the Old Testament and the only place we question the meaning is in Genesis.

Secular scientists have used radiometric dating to conclude that the Earth is 4.543 billion years old.  They have compared about 70 meteorite samples with the oldest land and moon samples and came up with that 4.543 billion years number.

But, over 90% of other dating techniques tell us it is much much younger:
- Salt in the Oceans: Only enough salt in the ocean to account for 65 million years of existence.
- Basalt Layer in Australia: dated to 30 million years old, but wood that was enclosed in the rock dated to 45,000 years old .
- Many other “proofs” of it being younger

This is what Ken Ham from Answers in Genesis says about this:
“I believe ultimately, in 99.9% of instances, the major reason, the ultimate reason, that most christian leaders and others in the church will not stand on 6 literal days has nothing to do ultimately with what the Bible actually says, but everything to do with outside influences used to re-interpret the Bible.”

If you look at the word “day” in the Old Testament, there are 3 contexts where it always means a literal 24-hour day:

Day + number (410 times)
Evening and Morning (61 times)
Night with Day (52 times)

In Genesis 1:
- Day 1 has all 3 (night, evening and morning, number+day)
- Days 2-6 have 2 of the 3 (evening, morning, number+day)

How do we measure our time?
- Day - rotation of the earth on its axis
- Month - orbit of the moon around the earth
- Year - orbit of the Earth around the sun
- Week - solely from Genesis 1

Old Earth Theory

Of the 4 definitions for “yom” they would subscribe to the, “long but finite period of time” definition.

There are about 12,000 research astronomers in the world and over 3,000,000 research biologists.  The difference is that astronomers are looking directly at the past when God was still creating while biologists are looking at the present where God is already done creating.

Light travels 186,282 miles per second.  When looking at other galaxies, we can see thousands / millions / billions of years into the past depending on how far away they are.  A light year is the distance light travels in 1 Earth year (roughly 5,878,499,810,000 miles), so when we talk about a light year, we are looking at distance, but we're actually looking back into time also.

So when astronomers and cosmologists  look into the depths of the universe they can actually see galaxies expanding the further out they go.  That is where Old Earth Theorists would say creation starts: before Genesis 1:1. There are 10 verses in the Old Testament that talk about God stretching out the heavens which would have to have happened before Genesis 1:1 (Job 9:8. Psalm 104:2, Isaiah 40:22, Isaiah 42:5, Isaiah 44:24, Isaiah 45:12, Isaiah 48:23, Isaiah 51:13, Jeremiah 10:12, Zechariah 12:2).

Day 1
Genesis 1:1-2
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

- It doesn’t talk about creating the Earth, so there must have been creation work before this verse, but still on day 1.

3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

- “Let there be light” doesn’t say that God created light on that day, it says that He caused there to be light.  He made the light go from opaque to translucent because the primordial earth would have had a cloud layer about 120x thicker than what we have now that wouldn’t let light through which is talked about in Job.

Job 38:9
when I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness

Day 2
Genesis 1:6-8
6 And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” 7 So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.

- This explains the water cycle that we have today that controls the weather and keeps us alive and able to make crops. The water cycle would not have been possible without the atmosphere thinning out by 99% and the water being decreased by 99%.  The "Giant Impact Hypothesis" says that a planet twice the size of Mars collided with earth, rearranged the axis and trajectory of the earth and created the moon. 

Day 3
Genesis 1:9-10
9 And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. 10 God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.

- When we study plate tectonics, we can actually trace the growth back about 2 billion years and see the growth.  They’re still growing today - currently 29% of the surface of the earth is land.  If it was 28% or 30% the weather would be so wildly out of control that we wouldnt survive.

Genesis 1:11-13
11 Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. 12 The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.

- Scientists have discovered a lot of isotopic evidence, and a few fossil evidences that plants were around about 600 million years before the cambrian explosion when animals came onto the earth.

Day 4
Genesis 1:14-19
14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. 16 God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. 17 God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.

- Not saying that He created the lights in the vault of the sky on the 4th day.  It's saying “let there be lights in the vault of the sky."  The theory is that He turned the atmosphere from translucent to tranparent like we know today.  All that plants God created took the carbon dioxide and water in the atmosphere and pumped oxygen into the atmosphere which transformed the cloud nature of the atmosphere. If you track oxygen levels, you see that animals didn’t show up until the atmosphere hit 8-10% oxygen, so this gave way to animals being able to be made the next day.

Day 5
Genesis 1:20-23
20 And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” 21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” 23 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.

- These are what scientists describe as the “soulish” animals (nephesh in hebrew): birds and sea animals.  A lot of which were not only physical animals, but they are endowed with mind, will, and emotions so they can from relationships with themselves and human beings.

Day 6
Genesis 1:24-25
24 And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. 25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.

- Then we see 3 different kinds of animals: livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals all of which are necessary for advanced life to take place.

Genesis 1:26-31
26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals,[a] and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” 

27 So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.

28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.

31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.

- On the 6th day, humans were created: the only creation that had body, soul, and spirit.

Day 7
Genesis 2
Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.
2 By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.

- On every other day, it ends with: "there was evening, and there was morning—the __ day."  But, only on day 7, it doesnt say that because the theory is we are still in day 7. Since humans have been on the Earth, Old Earth Scientists who know Jesus would say that God finished creating and He is resting until the future talked about in Revelation when he creates again.

It doesn’t matter which theory (Old Earth or Young Earth) you lean towards - it all points to Jesus. What matters is that God created the Earth because He wants to know you.

Communication Card
- I will study more about creation this week.
- I will take these facts and use them to share about Jesus.
- I will be back next week to hear more about our Logical Faith.