Is Creation Science an oxymoron? It depends on how you look at it. I would say, that in one sense it absolutely is. But if looked at another way, perhaps not.
Think about it. How “scientific” is it really that a Creator God simply spoke the universe and our world into existence? How scientific of him was it to create all plant life a day before creating the sun? Or creating light before the sun, stars, and moon? How scientific is that? Given all that we “know” through science, (and we know so much don’t we?), couldn’t God have made it just a bit more logical and scientific in all his creating?
Let’s face it, God seems to be flaunting just how “out of the realm of science” the act creation really is, and how out of the realm of science God himself is.
Perhaps it would seem more “scientific” to believe in the big bang and 13.75 billion years to explain all we see today, rather than to believe that God created it by just speaking it into existence.
I know that to accept the creation account as true is a huge worldview paradigm shift and a huge leap of faith. It certainly seems unscientific. Doesn’t it?
A Believers Responsibility to Believe
I confess I believe in a literal interpretation of Scripture. I believe in a literal six days Creation (around 6000 years ago), and a worldwide flood (4300 years ago). I believe these things because Jesus did and Scripture (which Jesus verified as absolutely and very literally trustworthy) makes these things clear.
Why should we believe Jesus or the word of God? Short answer: Because Jesus has been proven to be the Son of God and the Messiah, having fulfilled over 300 prophecies, lived a sinless life, worked miracles (all of which went unquestioned – people could have verified the facts by interviewing eyewitnesses), and finally the clincher – he rose from the dead.
Jesus believed in creation:
“Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’” Matthew 19:4
He also believed in the flood:
‘Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man.People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the Ark. Then the Flood came and destroyed them all.’ Luke 17:26–27
To cling to a belief that Creation or the Flood is not true is to say that Jesus was a liar.
If we are believers in God, and the truth of his holy Scriptures, then we don’t have the luxury of just believing whatever we want, do we? We don’t have the luxury of only believing the empirical evidence that only science can deliver (Empirical is defined as: “originating in or based on observation or experience.” Incidentally there is nothing empirical about the theory of evolution). This will never lead you to God in and of itself. We need revelation from God. Thankfully we have 66 books of revelation from God.
Are you a believer in Jesus Christ? Then, as “believers” we are obligated to believe what God reveals. Aren’t we? But why? And do we have to throw our brains in the trash to believe the Bible? Certainly not!
It can be proven that the creation story happened the way it is recorded in Scripture, but you must first accept that Jesus can be trusted. And why can he be trusted? Because he can be proven to be all that he says he was, the Messiah, Savior, and God in the flesh by his resurrection from the dead and appearance to more than 500 witnesses. Jesus can be trusted on the basis of the overwhelming evidence.
Is there room for doubt? The disciples to whom Jesus revealed himself after his resurrection doubted… at first. But they didn’t stay in doubt. We shouldn’t stay in doubt either about things that God has clearly revealed. Our confidence in God’s word is based on the resurrection of Christ.
I admit, the creation account isn’t quite as clear as we might want it to be. But should we trust science instead of God? It really is a matter of faith… and believing the evidence presented to us.
The Role of Science
Science is not the enemy. It is a system of thought whereby human creatures try to make sense of the Creators world. But don’t you agree that science can become such a part of your worldview it leaves no room for God? I imagine that those who put their faith in science would read about all these crazy miracles on nearly every page of the Bible and, simply by default, think it just couldn’t have happened. The Bible talks about a God speaking a world into existence, and a world wide flood with an ark filled with all the animals, and resurrection from the dead. Admittedly from a scientific viewpoint, this all begins to sound absurd! To those whose faith is science, those who believe in God and creation and a flood have lost all common sense.
Miracles sound absurd only to someone who doesn’t believe in God. We must choose: follow the religion of science, or follow the God revealed to us in Scriptures and actually believe what he says and put science in it’s proper place.
Some in the Christian faith have capitulated to the Darwinian brainwashed culture around them. After all, evolution is a widely believed and accepted fact. Right? Who wants to look stupid? Its easy to see how Christians started to give in and think that God must have just used evolution to “create” the world as we know it.
I know some Christians who say that the creation account is little more than just a myth, a story that simply has one point to make, God was behind it all. They say that Genesis doesn’t speak to areas of science at all. They say that the days of “creation” in Genesis chapter one must have meant eons of time and certainly not literal days. The problem with this thinking is that this isn’t what the word of God says.
Moses spells it out for us in Genesis, “And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day…the second day… etc…” Genesis 1:5
And the again in the Ten Commandments, “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God… For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” Exodus 20: 8-11
So what do we do with that? The revealed word of God compels us to believe that which God reveals as true. If we are believers than we must believe this too… right?
Maybe Creation Science isn’t an oxymoron after all. Maybe it’s just a way to look at the world with an all powerful Creator God as the foundation for understanding the world… his creation. It means looking at history and science and conforming our entire worldview with the foundation that God is the Source of all that exists and that his word is true in every way. Yes, even in the realm of science – though even science must submit itself to this above-the-realm-of-science God (Just think about all the miracles of Christ and the prophets).
As I see it, this really becomes an issue regarding the authority and reliability of Scripture. As you may have deduced by now, I hold it in high regard. I believe that what we have in the Bible is the very word of God. We have completely accurate and trustworthy reconstructed original documents from Moses, the apostles and prophets, from which all the various translations have their basis. (Maybe I’ll write more on this in a future post). These Scriptures are the very words that God himself has led the authors of Scripture to write.
Peter writes: “Above all, you must realize that no prophecy in Scripture ever came from the prophet’s own understanding, or from human initiative. No, those prophets were moved by the Holy Spirit, and they spoke from God.” (2 Peter 1:20-21 NLT)
Since Jesus authenticated all the various prophets, especially Moses who wrote the first five books of the Bible – including Genesis – the real issue becomes, can we trust Jesus? As already discussed, we indeed can and must for Jesus is God. The author of life and everything that’s ever existed or will exist.
But even just thinking through this practically, assuming we have the words of Moses in the first five books of the bible, can we trust Moses? Who was Moses?
Moses was a reluctant prophet, and aside from Christ, the most humble man who ever walked the planet. He was in the house of Pharaoh to the age of 40, no doubt tutored by the finest scholars of Egypt and well trained in all the sciences. He then spent the next 40 years in Midian, tending sheep and raising a family until one day God appeared to him in a burning bush and sent him to rescue the people of Israel.
By the time he started writing Scripture he was God’s best friend. They spoke face to face. He spent time in God’s presence on a regular basis. Everything he wrote about God, (including the creation story) he received first hand from God who was there to tell about it.
So would an educated man who is now God’s right hand man and his voice write a myth? Would he write a story that wasn’t absolutely true? Think about it.
I have thought long and hard about Creation and I must say, there are things about the Creation account that still baffle me. But with all my heart I believe what God says is true. Why? Did I check my brain at the door? No.
In my experience with the study of creation science, the information I have encountered takes the Bible seriously and literally as Jesus did, believing what Moses wrote and seeing the world as if Creation happened exactly the way it says it happened. It also takes into account that the flood happened exactly the way it says it happened. Why doubt the One who was there to tell about it?
I admit that believing in Creation science is not cool. You may be shunned and ridiculed by your friends. I once happened to see an episode of the Duggers, “19 kids and counting” on TLC (the only one I’ve seen, I promise!) when they went to a creation science exhibit in Kentucky. The producers of this episode mocked them and made them look really silly. The contributors to the wikipedia page also ridicule Creation Science and those “fundamentalists” trying to promulgate their “religion”.
If you were to do a search for creation science on Youtube, most all the comments on these videos are hate filled and spiteful. I was researching one well known creation science advocate and could hardly locate one of his videos among all the videos created by others to mock and ridicule him.
So people hate the Creator? What else is new? People have been hating God ever since he decided to create them.
But just because something isn’t cool, doesn’t mean it isn’t true… does it? Since when has following Jesus or believing in him ever been cool in the worlds eyes? So you must choose. Choosing to stay in doubt is also a choice.
ps. One of the things that have baffled me is that God created stars and galaxies with their billions-of-light-years-away light beams already visible on earth, even though these were said to be created on the 4th day of creation (Genesis 1:14-19) and yet the history of mankind (as revealed in the holy Scriptures) only allows for not more than 10,000 years since creation (genealogical records). What’s up with that?
I have had a few thoughts about this.
- The easy answer: God made it that way. He created all the stars with their light beams already hitting earth. Yet another miracle. Chalk another one up for God.
- The heavens and earth were created in Genesis 1:1 and then there was a very long time (13.75 billion years as the farthest visible galaxies would suggest) before he prepared the earth for humanity and creating the sun and moon and closest stars on day 4… but there are loads of scientific problems with this theory as well.
- Or as this website suggests, light is not a constant speed and was millions of times faster at the dawn of time (admittedly this sounds really far fetched, but who knows?) http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/FAQ13.html
- None of the above and it is absolutely foolish to scientifically evaluate the miracle of creation, just as it would be foolish to try to scientifically evaluate any of the thousands of miracles elsewhere in the Bible. They are miracles! Creation was a miracle people!
UPDATE: After much thought, it occurred to me that God’s first word in creation was, “Let there be light!” and light flooded the farthest reaches of the universe (which might well be infinite – ever thought about that?). All the paths of light from every star in every direction were laid out with those first words.
Here is another helpful website: http://www.answersingenesis.org/get-answers
So what do you think about all this? Anyone else want to come out of the closet as a believer in Creation as told by Scripture? Leave a reply!
Daniel Lovett 