As I said earlier, if a scientist who believed in an old earth somehow met a dinosaur it wouldn’t cause him to question his belief. He would just try to figure out an explanation for the dinosaur to fit his belief.
I love the story about the psychologist who was struggling to help a patient who insisted that he was dead. In vain the psychologist tried one argument after another including several kinds of medical evidence. Still, the patient wasn’t convinced, countering that medical evidence can be misinterpreted.
Finally, the psychologist had an idea: he asked the patient, “Do dead men bleed?” The patient replied, “No, dead men don’t bleed.” At that the psychologist pricked the patient’s finger, showed him the blood and said, “Now what do you think?” The patient looked at his finger, thought for a minute and said, “Well—I guess I was wrong. Dead men do bleed!”
That’s a pretty good example of the kind of mentality Christians confront in the world today regarding questions of origin. Entrenched belief reigns supreme for most scientists and no amount of evidence to the contrary will convince them to seriously consider the history God has given us in his word.
Christians need to understand this. Much of modern science, particularly when it reaches conclusions about the past, is not engaged in an unbiased pursuit of truth, but rather the pursuit of evidence supporting a belief that rejects the Creator. Many individual scientists are simply swept along with the prevailing view of things but that is still a fair description of “mainstream” science in our day.
There are, of course, some scientists who on purely scientific grounds have concluded that the world, and particularly the complexity of life, show evidence of “intelligent design.” Their honesty in this is to be commended but that is not the same thing as recognizing the God of the Bible as the designer.
I have included just a very few examples of areas of science that I was told proved millions of years. There are, of course, many other areas I haven’t touched on and they are all fascinating. I would encourage those interested to pursue their areas of interest and learn more. You will be surprised by many things you will learn. What a wonderful opportunity for accessing information has been afforded by the internet. I know the devil uses the internet but I’m glad the Lord does too!
There are in our day a growing number of creation scientists investigating the many issues raised in the debate between secular science and a belief in the Genesis account. Is every question fully answered? No. But more and more answers are turning up every day and ongoing research is encouraging. Christians do not have to fear the pronouncements of secular scientists. In fact, the evidence fits the Bible’s history much better than it does the story told by evolutionists.
Just think what the evolutionist has to defend: that something can come from nothing; that life can come from non-life; that complex genetic information can somehow invent itself; and that all of these things and the orderly universe we observe have arisen by blind chance! All of this is utterly contrary to every observed law of science. Imagine a computer that has somehow manufactured and programmed itself with no intelligence behind it! But that would be trivial beside the problem of accounting for the universe and life by pure chance.
But if we start by believing God’s account of history, THEN look at the world around us, it makes sense. We know why the world is in a state of corruption and decay. We understand why there is death and suffering. We see the wisdom of God demonstrated in the created kinds in their built-in ability to adapt and change. We see in earth’s geology and in the fossil record evidence of Noah’s flood and we know that God judges sin. And as these things are true so is the Bible’s message of salvation through Jesus Christ. Our Creator has become our Savior that he might become our eternal Elder Brother! I’m with him, how about you?
It is not that we need to “prove” the Bible. Not at all. Forensic science cannot “prove” any belief about the past in the sense in which science can prove things they observe in the present. Secular science starts with nothing more than a belief. Creation science begins with the record given us by God through his word. It is wonderful to see confirmations of the Bible through true science and to have answers to the questions of unbelievers but ultimately faith is the result of a personal encounter with the Living God. That is the critical need. Still, it is good to be able to remove obstacles to faith.
In view of the impact of modern scientific ideas on our culture we need to be able to stand on God’s Word without compromise and proclaim its truth starting with Genesis 1:1. That verse begins earth’s true history, the history of man’s fall into sin and of God’s plan of redemption from that fall and of a glorious door of hope into an eternal future. The first chapters of Genesis explain the “why” of death and suffering as well as the “why” of the cross. The account of Noah’s flood demonstrates that God judges sin and models the final judgment of this present world that is surely coming.
We must be able to both defend and proclaim the whole message of the Bible and to answer honest questions, both from our young people, and from those outside the church. We need to recognize the subtlety of Satan’s attack mounted against Genesis. He recognizes far more than most Christians just how foundational it is. God has convinced me that I was wrong in my compromise and the way I used to minimize the importance of all this. How about you?