Understanding Science Through Biblical Glasses
1. Creation Part I: Ordered Design In A “Very Good” Creation
2. Creation Part II: The Heavens, Created Kinds And Man’s Origin
3. Fall: A “Very Good” Creation Gone Bad And Its Effects
4. Flood Part I: Noah’s Ark, Flood Geology And Fossils
5. Flood Part II: The Genesis Flood As The Cause Of The Ice Age
6. Tower of Babel: Origin Of Languages And Different People Groups
Creation Part I: Order & Purpose In A Very Good Creation
What do learn about God and science in the Creation Week?
Order: God made things in a specific way to show us that He brings order into the universe. Nothing happens by chance. God carefully maps out everything so that events occur at a specific time in a specific way to prevent confusion. Therefore, science is possible because God has made an ordered universe.
Purpose: God does things with a goal in mind. The first three days were set up to prepare for the last three days. God’s greatest purpose of all is to show how great He is, which is called the display of glory. When we investigate things, we see how great God is and how He created all things for a reason. Everything has a purpose, even the smallest particle.
Day 1 Matches Day 4
· Time, Space, Light, and the Earth were made on Day 1.
· The sun, moon, and stars were put into that space on Day 4.
· They give light and are for signs, season, days, and years.
Day 2 Matches Day 5
· God separated the water from above and below with the expanse in the middle on Day 2.
· This gave a distinct boundary between the seas and the atmosphere.
· All the sea animals and birds were created on Day 5.
· They filled the seas and skies.
Day 3 Matches Day 6
· The dry land appeared and all the plant life including grasses and trees were created on Day 3.
· They would provide food for all that lived on the land.
· All of the land animals were created on Day 6.
· The greatest of all God’s creation, man, was created on Day 6.
· The first two people were given authority over the earth to care for it and learn about.
A Very Good Creation: Everything was created very good. In the English, we may look over that, but, in the original Hebrew, this was a very important phrase. Not only was it tov (the word for good), but it was also meod (the word used to make the preceding word far more intense.
Creation Part II: Design--The Heavens, Created Kinds, And Man’s Origin
What do learn about God and science in the Creation Week?
Intelligent Design: Not only were things created with order and for a purpose, but they also reflect an Intelligent Designer that knit everything together in a beautiful pattern. The creation displays God’s great intelligence, care, and ability to create something very tiny and yet extremely complex. These are the building blocks of more complex things like people and the ecosystem. They are also irreducibly complex like a mousetrap. They could not evolve slowly over time and still function. Rather, they had to be made instantaneously with each part working simultaneously. In the same way, man was created with intelligence and has the ability to make blue prints that are then used to build enormous buildings and fascinating machines like rockets and satellites.
The Heavens: The sun, moon, and stars are reflections of incredible design. The delicate balance and orchestration required to sustain them in their purposes is mind-boggling. For example, if the earth was too close to the sun or too far away, life on earth would cease to exist. Another feature is gravity; this design feature keeps the universe in a predictable pattern, so that its purposes are fulfilled every moment of every day. Without gravity, we would not be able to chart the heavens because everything would be chaotic and disorderly.
Created Kinds: All things were created after their own kinds, whether plants or animals. For this reason, we should not be surprised when we do not find transition fossils. God has designed life in such a way that we have variety within a created kind, but we never see a dog turn into a cat. Once again, the Bible provides us with a pair of glasses by which we can understand the world as it really is. For this reason, when we accept God’s Word as truth, our time in scientific study is more efficient, useful, and productive. However, when we assume evolution from molecules to man to be true, we end up spending large amounts of money and time chasing after something that does not exist.
Man’s Origin: The greatest of God’s creation is man. Not only was man given authority over the earth, but his brain is unique. Just the complexity of the human brain and how that interacts with the spiritual aspect of man in is a great marvel. Even more so, the complex relationship between the husband and the wife reflects the Intelligence of God in how he made them equal but with different complementary roles. Truly, man did not evolve from apes or monkeys, and every alleged ape-man has been shown to be an ape, monkey, a man, something totally different, or a fake.
Fall: A Very Good Creation Gone Bad And Its Effects
What do we learn about God and man in The Fall (Genesis 3)?
God is holy and does not tolerate sin. Man is subordinate to God and is not above God’s holiness. Man’s sin brought death into the world. All of creation groans because of this (Romans 8:22).
God is just, but He is also love. He promised a Savior (Gen 3:15), who is Jesus Christ the Son of God. All who turn from sin and put their faith in Him to be made righteous are cleaned.
What was probably the primary effect of the Fall with regard to science?
Entropy: the tendency of things to go from order to disorder
How was entropy in effect before the Fall?
· Some aspects of entropy were already present.
· When people and animals ate the plants, digestion and order to disorder would have occurred with regard to what was eaten. Therefore, when plants were eaten, they would ‘die’ in one sense, yet they do not have the ‘breath of life’ as people and animals do.
· Walking upon the ground would have caused the dirt to move.
· The sun would have burned fuel, but would have been sustained so as to never burn out.
· This is just a partial list of pre-Fall entropy conditions.
How was entropy in effect after the Fall?
· Human death came into existence, so our bodies decay over time and are subject to many kinds of problems with aging, disease, etc.
· Animals that once were on friendly terms now began to fight each other.
· Animal death, or specifically that which has the breath of life, began to occur. This is implied because it is hard to imagine a world where a python eating your pet dog is ‘very good’.
· All of the heavens began to disintegrate.
· The earth became a violent place to live with all kinds of environmental disasters beginning.
· This is just a partial list of post-Fall entropy conditions.
Ultimately, the Bible explains why death exists and how God alone can save us from this miserable condition.
Flood Part I: Noah’s Ark, Flood Geology, And Fossils
What do we learn about God and man in The Flood (Genesis 6-9)?
God’s justice is once again magnified during the Flood. He does not wink at sin and will not tolerate rebellion against Him. God’s grace is also magnified towards those He saved in the Ark. Noah was a sinner, but he placed His faith in God to save Him. All of this points to The Cross where God’s justice and grace meet in an ultimate sense.
What were probably the primary effects of The Flood with regard to science?
Construction of Noah’s Ark
· Specs: 450’L X 75’W X 45’H
· Door and Skylight
· Optimum shape for cargo and seaworthiness
o Volume could hold 522 boxcars of sheep
o Could withstand 100’ waves
· Production
o Covered inside and out with pitch (most likely some type of turpentine)
o Mass produce sections of framework
· Animal Concerns
o Approximately 16,000 animals (created ‘kinds’--genus or family)
o Food—Special Diets and Carnivores
The Fountains of the Great Deep and the Windows of Heaven
Geology (Rocks) Five Evidences For Catastrophism at Mt. St. Helens
· Rapidly formed strata layers remind us of Grand Canyon.
· Rapidly eroded canyons also remind us of Grand Canyon.
· Upright deposited logs remind us of Yellowstone.
· A rapidly formed peat layer in Spirit Lake reminds us of Coal Beds.
· Rapid ecosystem recovery in the Blast Zone points to Post Flood repopulation.
Paleontology (Fossils) Billions of dead things buried in rock layers all over the earth. —Ken Ham
Fossilized remains of soft tissue points to mass rapid burial.
Large fossil graveyards illustrate sudden wide scale burial.
Marine fossils on mountain peaks point to global flooding in the past.
Flood Part II: The Genesis Flood As The Cause Of The Ice Age
What do we learn about God and man in The Flood (Genesis 6-9)?
God’s justice is once again magnified during the Flood. He does not wink at sin and will not tolerate rebellion against Him. God’s grace is also magnified towards those He saved in the Ark. Noah was a sinner, but he placed His faith in God to save Him. All of this points to The Cross where God’s justice and grace meet in an ultimate sense.
What were probably the primary effects of The Flood with regard to science?
RATE –Radio Isotopes and The Age of the Earth
· Three Basic Assumptions of Radio Isotope Dating (Hour-Glass example)
1. Constant flow rate
2. No leaching or adding of parent or daughter element
3. High ratio of parent vs daughter element originally
· Other Observations relating to Age
· Carbon 14 discovered where it ‘should not’ be observed in diamonds, coal, and other minerals
· Too much Helium in the rocks for the earth to be old
Glaciology—The Genesis Flood is the only known agent to cause The Ice Age.
· Two Necessary Ice Age Catalysts and Sustainers
1. Large volume of warm water in cold climates creating heavy snowfall
2. Cooler summers to prevent total annual snow/ice melt
· Genesis Flood and Ice Age
o Flood would have left the oceans warm in cooler areas like the Arctic
o Volcanic activity during and after The Flood would have spewed large amounts of aerosols (tiny dust particles) in the atmosphere which would have led to cooler summers
· Mammoths
o Lived post-flood—from created elephant kind most likely
o Arctic areas froze over as the Ice Age advanced trapping large animals
o Mammoths then had a smaller food supply as the Ice Age advanced
o Dry regions grew as evaporation decreased leading to mass suffocation
Tower Of Babel: Origin Of Languages and Different People Groups
What do we learn about God and man at the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11)?
God commanded people to spread over all the earth, but man rebelled by not spreading over the earth. God is Holy and will be taken seriously. He confused the people in their work by giving them many languages. They stopped their building and began to spread across the earth. Man is Subject to the Will of God. God reigns in the heavens, and His will shall be done.
What were probably the primary effects at the Tower of Babel with regard to science?
The Bible explains why we speak different languages, look different, and have developed different cultures.
Linguistics—Language Development
· Originally, the Bible tells us that man spoke with one language.
· However, when man rebelled and did not spread across the earth, God confused man with many languages.
· In contrast to evolutionary teaching, our most ancient languages are the most complex and are present right from the beginning.
· Though there are many different variations of languages today, they can be isolated into broad language families like Semitic, which include languages such as Hebrew, Arabic, Syriac, and others.
Ethnicity—Rise of different People Groups
· As people spread out across the world, they became more and more isolated from each other.
· As they became more isolated, their differing physical characteristics became more obvious.
· Over time, those who were the most isolated became very distinct in appearance from the rest of the world, like the Aborigines in Australia.
· Also, man developed different false religions; this contributed to the rise of cultural differences with regard to religious worship.
· Nevertheless, the only race is the human race because everyone is a descendent of Adam and Eve.
· For this reason, racism, which saw a great rise through evolutionary teaching especially, is sinful and an abomination to God.
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