Sunday, January 26, 2014

SCIENCE DECLARES THE CREATOR-GOD OF GENESIS

An In-Depth Scientific and Biblical Study on the Genesis Account of Creation

INTRODUCTION

Genesis 1 has been a perpetual battleground for controversies on origins between Bible/Tanakh believers on one side and non-believers on the other. But these controversies have even spilled over into Bible-believing Christians. For examples, we have believers in the so-called theistic evolutionism and believers in intermittent Creation days (multiple-gaps) theory. Both camps believe in God but both camps do not believe in the literal six 24-hour days Creation account in Genesis 1 because they have accommodated the naturalistic or mechanistic explanation of science regarding the origin of life which requires long periods of geological time.[1] But do science and the Bible really contradict each other? The Bible tells us that “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork” (Ps. 19:1, NKJV) which means that what we can see around us through scientific empirical observation testifies of the same God that the Bible declares.

Paul aptly says, “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse” (Rom. 1:20). What is revealed in nature then should not necessarily contradict that which is revealed in the Bible because both nature and the Bible have the same Author – God. Erickson has put it well, he says, God has left evidence of himself in the world he has created. General revelation is most frequently thought of in connection with the creation’s amazing and impressive character, pointing to a very powerful and wise person, capable of designing and producing intricate variety and beauty. The person who views the beauty of a sunset and the biology student dissecting a complex organism are exposed to indications of God’s greatness.[2]

In the last few decades more scientific evidences from nature have surfaced. The question is, do these evidences point to the Creator-God of Genesis 1 or to a series of random chemical reactions over eons of time that eventually produced life and mankind? This study will delve into the scientific and biblical evidences that impinge on the Genesis Creation account on origins. The purpose of this study is to find out certain truths about origins after studying both scientific and biblical evidences. After all, as the Hebrew biologist and physicist Gerald L. Schroeder puts it, “Revelation and nature are the two aspects of one creation. Theology and science present two versions of that one reality, each version seen from its own unique perspective.”[3] It is the thesis of this investigation that many current evidences in science agree with the literal interpretation of the Genesis Creation narrative. Both nature and Scripture have the same Author, therefore, both point to that same Author. As man looks at the evidences in nature, he will find the footprints of his Maker.

IN THE BEGINNING

No human witness was there in the beginning to record how life and the universe began or whether or not the universe had a beginning, but the very first statement of Scripture asserts that “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). Bruce Waltke perceptively describes Genesis 1:1 as the prologue to the entire Creation narrative from Genesis 1:1 to Genesis 2:3.[4] In other words, Genesis 1:1 does not describe God’s first act of creating something at a specific point in time, but rather, the verse gives a summary of the entire Creation narrative in the following verses from Genesis 1:2 to Genesis 2:3. John H. Walton sees Genesis 1:1 the same way, he says, “[T]he text is not suggesting that anything was actually created in 1:1; rather, the verse is a literary introduction, a summary of what follows.”[5] The very first verse of the very first book of the Bible informs the reader that indeed the world and the universe were not always there, that is, that they had a beginning, and that the Cause of that beginning was God.

SCIENCE AND COSMOGONY (THE BEGINNING OF THE UNIVERSE)

In the early half of the 20th century, scientists, including Albert Einstein believed that the universe was eternal, that is, that it was always there and that it had no beginning. But as more scientific evidences surfaced that pointed to the beginning of the universe, those proponents of the idea of a self-existent eternal universe were forced to accept the biblical concept that indeed the universe had a beginning. In 1916, when Einstein was developing the now empirically verified theory of General Relativity, his calculations predicted that indeed the universe including time, all matter and space had a definite beginning.[6] He later recalled that his discovery was irritating to him because it demolished his initial assumption that the universe was self-existent, static and eternal and that it pointed to the idea that the universe was one giant effect of a cause outside of itself.[7] To avoid this conclusion of an absolute beginning for the universe, he initially introduced an algebraic formula of a cosmological constant. But after seeing the overwhelming observational evidence as a result of his looking through the Mt. Wilson observatory’s giant telescope in 1929, Einstein had to admit that his cosmological constant was an error and that indeed the universe had a beginning.[8] He honestly admitted that the cosmological constant formula that he created was the greatest blunder of his life.[9] Einstein was forced to admit God and since then he wanted “to know how God created the world,” and he expressed that he wanted to discover the mind of God: “I wanted to know His thought, the rest are details.”[10]

In a separate experiment in 1919 conducted in Britain during a solar eclipse, Einstein’s contemporary, Sir Arthur Eddington who was an atheistic cosmologist and astrophysicist concluded based on the observational evidence from his experiment that indeed the universe was expanding from a definite beginning point of non-existence and like Einstein, he was irritated by what he discovered. He confessed after the discovery: “Philosophically, the notion of a beginning of the present order of nature is repugnant to me.”[11] And he adds, “The beginning seems to present insuperable difficulties unless we agree to look on it as frankly supernatural.”[12] Indeed as man looks at nature objectively, he is confronted by overwhelming evidences that point to God as nature’s Author.

Both Scripture and nature testify of the same God. The world renowned Christian scientist Ariel A. Roth has said it well, “God never performed a miracle to convince an atheist, because His ordinary works can provide sufficient evidence.”[13] The Hebrew word bere’shiyth translated “in the beginning” is a compound word. While bere’shiyth can mean “in the beginning” as has been commonly translated in almost all of English translations, it can also mean “with wisdom,” because the prefix be means “with” and the Hebrew word re’shiyth can also mean “wisdom,”[14] thus, Genesis 1:1 can be translated “With wisdom God created the heaven and the earth.” The Jewish scholar and scientist Gerald L. Schroeder points out that the 2,100-year old Jerusalem Aramaic translation renders Genesis 1:1 to mean in English “With wisdom God created the heavens and the earth.”[15] This agrees with the psalmist’s declaration about God’s act of creation, “O Lord, how manifold are Your works! In wisdom You have made them all” (Ps. 104:24).

In other words, the author of Genesis does not only want us to understand that in the beginning God created the universe, but also that God’s wisdom is embedded in His entire creation, thus, we can see the trace or footprint of God when we look into nature.

CREATIO EX NIHILO (CREATION OUT OF NOTHING) AND SCIENCE

The Bible declares both in the Old Testament and the New Testament that God created the universe out of nothing (creatio ex nihilo) by command or decree of His words (fiat). The psalmist says, “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made….For He spoke, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast” (Ps. 33:6a,9). The author of Hebrews testifies the same way, “By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible” (Heb. 11:3). The English word “created” in Genesis 1:1 comes from the Hebrew verb bara in the Qal stem (simple active verb) in the perfect aspect (completed action).[16] In the Hebrew Bible, the word bara in the Qal stem is exclusively associated with God[17] alone because He alone could create things out of nothing by decree. Longman and Dillard explain that “the theme of Genesis 1 and 2 is not how God created, but that God created the creation, and that he made it from no preexistent stuff (creatio ex nihilo) in contrast to the beliefs of the other Near Eastern religions (contra Levenson).”[18]

Man cannot create something out of nothing, and he cannot speak something into existence. Often the words that come out of a man’s mouth do not mean anything. But there is an awesome inscrutable power in God’s word that when He speaks, things come into existence out of nothing. For example in Genesis 1, God’s act of creation on the first day is described: “Then God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good” (Gen. 1:3,4, margin). “Light” here is spoken into existence by God as a phenomenon independent of the sun which was not yet created until the fourth day of Creation (Gen. 1:14-19). After God spoke light into existence, He “saw the light,” and pronounced it “good.”

Waltke identifies five elements of God’s fiat (decreed) creative pattern throughout the entire Creation narrative, namely: the announcement (e.g., “God said….”), the command (e.g., “Let there be….”), the report (e.g., “And so God made….”), the naming of cosmic elements (e.g., God calls light “day.”), God’s evaluation of His creation (e.g., God declares, “It is good.”), and God’s establishment of the chronological framework.[19] It is obvious in the Creation narrative in Genesis 1 and 2 that God’s fiat (decreed) creation consisted of commanding into existence of something out of nothing (creatio ex nihilo, e.g. Genesis 1:14-15 it says, “‘Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens’…and it was so,”) and creation of something out of matter (creatio in aniis) that God had already previously created out of nothing (e.g., Genesis 2:19 says, “Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them”).

The Genesis account on God’s creatio ex nihilo (creation out of nothing) sounds stranger than fiction until recent cosmological evidences surfaced that suggested that in fact the universe came out of nothing. As early as 1913, astronomer Vesto Melvin Slipher already proposed that the universe was expanding,[20] and by 1927 astronomer Edwin Hubble actually observed through Mount Wilson Observatory’s 100-inch telescope that the universe was expanding at a rapid steady rate from a certain point.[21] What this discovery implies is that, if you go back in reverse of this expansion, it would point to the time when the universe was not, that is, literally nothing. Geisler and Turek explain this phenomenon well,

“[I]f we could watch a video recording of the history of the universe in reverse, we would see all matter in the universe collapse back to a point, not the size of a basketball, not the size of a golf ball, not even the size of a pinhead, but mathematically and logically to a point that is actually nothing (i.e., no space, no time, and no matter). In other words, once there was nothing, and then, BANG, there was something – the entire universe exploded into being.”[22]

Finding this theory ridiculous, the British cosmologist Sir Fred Hoyle who was a staunch proponent of the Steady State (the universe was eternal) theory, gave a derogatory name for the concept of an expanding universe, he called it the “Big Bang” as a way of making fun of it, but ironically the name stuck, and the rapid universe expansion theory became popularly known as the Big Bang theory.[23]

As early as 1948, three scientists predicted that if the Big Bang indeed happened, that is, if the sudden instantaneous explosion into existence of the universe out of nothing really happened in a flash of energy, there would still be some residual energy radiation or cosmic energy afterglow that could be observed in the cosmos as a result of that instantaneous surge of cosmic power.[24] But no one really took that suggestion seriously until in 1965 when Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson accidentally stumbled into the phenomenon when their antenna picked up a strange radiation coming from all directions while working at their Bell Labs in Holmdel, New Jersey.[25] The discovery turned out to be one of the most incredible discoveries in the century which would win Penzias and Wilson Nobel Prizes.[26] This faint microwave energy is technically known as the cosmic background radiation made up of residual light and heat from the initial explosion of the universe into existence, and the light is no longer within the visible wavelength spectrum because it’s been stretched by the expansion of the universe.[27]

When Robert Wilson who was not a believer was later asked if the evidence that they had discovered pointed to a Creator, Wilson replied, “Certainly there was something that set it all off. Certainly, if you are religious, I can’t think of a better theory of the origin of the universe to match with Genesis.”[28] After the discovery of the cosmic background microwave radiation by Penzias and Wilson, scientists predicted that if the Big Bang really occurred, there would be slight variations or ripples in the temperature of the cosmic radiation afterglow which enabled matter to congregate by gravitational attraction to form the galaxies. The search for these ripples became serious and in 1989 NASA launched a $200-million satellite called COBE (Cosmic Background Explorer). After three years, astronomer George Smoot, COBE’s project director announced to the whole world that the explorer found that there were indeed ripples in the temperature of the cosmic background radiation and that these ripples showed that the explosion of the universe into existence was precisely tweaked to cause just enough matter to congregate to allow the formation of galaxies, but not enough to cause the universe to collapse back on itself.[29]

Smoot’s report brought shockwaves to the scientific world and as a man who was not religious he announced, “If you’re religious, it’s like looking at God,” and describing the precision of the ripples he says, that it is “the machining marks from the creation of the universe” and the “fingerprints of the maker.”[30] Like Robert Wilson before him he concludes, “There is no doubt that a parallel exists between the big bang as an event and the Christian notion of creation from nothing.”[31] Another prominent agnostic astronomer/astrophysicist Michael Turner said, "The significance of this [discovery] cannot be overstated. They have found the Holy Grail of cosmology."[32]

Because of this overwhelming cosmic evidence for the instant creation of the universe that points to the God of Genesis, the respected astronomer Robert Jastrow, who is a self-confessed agnostic and head of the Mount Wilson Observatory which was once held by Edwin Hubble, and founder of NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies, comments: "Now we see how the astronomical evidence leads to a biblical view of the origin of the world. The details differ, but the essential elements in the astronomical and biblical accounts of Genesis are the same: the chain of events leading to man commenced suddenly and sharply at a definite moment in time, in a flash of light and energy."[33] He further concedes: "For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries."[34]

It sounds like Moses' Genesis account on beginnings suddenly became popular with these honest atheistic and agnostic scientists. Realizing that the cosmic evidences point to the fact that the universe was created abruptly by Someone bigger than the universe itself, Jastrow concludes, “Astronomers now find they have painted themselves into a corner because they have proven, by their own methods, that the world began abruptly in an act of creation to which you can trace the seeds of every star, every planet, every living thing in this cosmos and on the earth. And they have found that all this happened as a product of forces they cannot hope to discover...That there are what I or anyone would call supernatural forces at work is now, I think, a scientifically proven fact.”[35]

It should be emphasized here that while the Big Bang and the fiat Creation account in Genesis have similarities, the details differ just as Jastrow said in the earlier quote. One of the major differences as Francis A. Schaeffer points out is, “the primal creation [according to Genesis] goes back beyond the basic material or energy. We have a new thing created by God out of nothing by fiat, and this is the distinction.”[36] What is significant is scientific evidences point to the fact that the universe was indeed created instantly out of nothing “in a flash of light and energy,” by a Supernatural being bigger than the universe itself just as described in the Genesis account of Creation.

THE ANTHROPIC PRINCIPLE IN GENESIS AND SCIENCE

On the fourth day of Creation, the author of Genesis narrates: “Then God said, ‘Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth’; and it was so. Then God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also. God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth….So the evening and the morning were the fourth day” (Gen. 1:14-17,19). It is interesting to note that Moses, the conservatively accepted author of Genesis, gives God’s main reason why the two great lights in the outer space (sun and moon) and the stars were created, that is, “to give light on the earth,” or that is, for the sake of mankind. Moses introduces a pregnant idea here in this passage that not too many have given enough weight.

What Moses is virtually saying is that the universe was created by God with mankind’s benefit in mind. The universe itself bespeaks of God’s eternal love for mankind, He created it for the sake of man. Technically, we call this idea, the Anthropic Principle. This Anthropic Principle phenomenon has recently been a topic of intense discussion in the scientific circles without realizing that such an idea was already introduced by Moses in his Genesis Creation account some 3,500 years earlier. Geisler and Turek explain this phenomenon well:

“Scientists are now finding that the universe in which we live is like that diamond-studded Rolex, except the universe is even more precisely designed than the watch. In fact, the universe is specifically tweaked to enable life on earth – a planet with scores of improbable and interdependent life-supporting conditions that make it a tiny oasis in a vast and hostile universe. These highly precise and interdependent environmental conditions (which are called “anthropic constants”) make up what is known as the 'Anthropic Principle.' 'Anthropic' comes from a Greek word that means 'human' or 'man.'  The Anthropic Principle is just a fancy title for the mounting evidence that has made many scientists come to believe that the universe is extremely fine-tuned (designed) to support life here on earth. In this vast and hostile universe, we earthlings are much like astronauts who can survive only in the small confines of their spaceship. Like a spaceship, our earth supports life as it hurls through lifeless space. But also like a spaceship, a slight change or malfunction in any one of a number of factors – in either the universe or the earth itself – could fatally alter the narrowly defined environmental conditions we need to survive.”[37]

Science has identified more than a hundred of these precisely tuned “anthropic constants” that make life on earth possible.[38] Ariel Roth has identified seven of these many anthropic constants: the anthropic constants in matter, in carbon, in the sun, in the strong nuclear force, in the weak nuclear force, in the electromagnetic force and in gravity.[39] His explanation on these seven anthropic constants are the following: if the mass of the proton in the atom (basic unit of matter) were different by just one part in a thousand, there would be no atoms, which means, no life can exist; if the resonance level of carbon, which is necessary for life to exist, was 4 percent lower, life would not exist; if the sun were just 5 percent closer or 1 percent farther from the earth, it would rid the earth of all life; if the strong nuclear force that holds intact all the atoms in the universe were 2 percent stronger or 5 percent weaker, life would be impossible; if the force of the weak nuclear force that controls the radioactive decay of atoms in the universe was slightly weaker or slightly stronger, no life would exist; if the electromagnetic force in the universe that controls chemical changes between atoms were slightly stronger or slightly weaker, it would destroy life on earth as well as the universe; if the gravity which keeps galaxies, suns and planets together varied by only the minutest amount, the universe would collapse, no life on earth can exist.[40]

Geisler and Turek identify many other significant anthropic constants. For examples: if the universe expanded at a rate of one in a million slower or faster, the universe would collapse and life would not exist; if the speed of light varied slightly, it would destroy life on earth; if Jupiter were not in its current orbit attracting space materials such as asteroids and comets that might otherwise strike earth, life on earth will not exist; if the 23-degree axis tilt of the earth were slightly altered, surface temperatures on earth would be too extreme for life to exist on earth.[41] Realizing these finely tuned constants that exist in the universe that make life possible here on earth, Nobel Laureate physicist and astronomer Arno Penzias says, “Astronomy leads us to a unique event, a universe which was created out of nothing and delicately balanced to provide exactly the conditions required to support life [on earth]. In the absence of an absurdity-improbable accident, the observations of modern science seem to suggest an underlying, one might say, supernatural plan.”[42]

The renowned atheistic British astronomer-physicist, Sir Fred Hoyle, who mockingly first coined the words “Big Bang” to make fun of the expanding universe theory which is now empirically demonstrated through observable data, makes the following declaration after realizing the infinite precision that exists in the universe that make life possible on earth: “Would you not say to yourself, ‘Some super-calculating intellect must have designed the properties of the carbon atom,’ otherwise the chance of my finding such an atom through the blind forces of nature would be utterly miniscule. A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question."[43] Science, thus, agrees with the Anthropic Principle described in Genesis 1:14-19.

GOD’S TRANSCENDENCE AND QUANTUM PHYSICS

The book of Genesis, does not give us an account of the beginning of God, it only gives us an account of the beginning of mankind, the earth, the universe consisting of space, matter and time. The “In the beginning” statement in Genesis, therefore, “does not mean that there was not anything before that. In John 17:24, Jesus prays to God the Father, saying, ‘Thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.’…There is, therefore, something that reaches back into eternity – back before the phrase ‘in the beginning.’”[44] Genesis 1:1-3 for example tells us that God created the heavens and the earth in the beginning and that the first thing that He created was light and “God called the light Day, and the darkness He called night. So the evening and the morning were the first day.” Before God created matter and space, and before He created the first day, there was no first day, and there was no matter and space, in other words, only God and eternity.

Waltke explains, “God did not create in time but created with time as a convenient means of measuring progression in connection with space.”[45] God is, therefore, outside of space, matter and time, and because He is not confined by space, matter and time, He can be in and out of any space, any matter and any time that He created, anytime at no time.[46] Technically we call these divine attributes omnipresence and omniscience. These divine attributes are inscrutable for human minds to grasp, because the creature cannot simply fully fathom his Creator. Since God created nature with His wisdom, is it then possible that we can trace some of His inscrutable mysterious attributes in nature? Now let us consider quantum physics, the ultimate science of reality in the most basic level: the study of the invisible subatomic reality. After all, Scripture says of created matter, “By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible” (Heb. 11:3).

In other words, all the material things all around us, including ourselves, are not made of things that are visible, we are all quantum after all, the physical matter is made of the metaphysical, physics becomes metaphysical or ethereal. Welcome to the quantum world, because that is exactly what we are made of – the invisible. Explaining this quantum phenomenon, Hebrew physicist and molecular biologist Gerald L. Schroeder writes, “[T]he solid world is really 99.9999999999999 [decimal point is followed by 13 nines] percent empty space made solid by hypothetical, force-carrying massless particles….even that miniscule fraction of matter that is matter may not actually be matter, but wavelets of energy that we material beings sense as matter.”[47] So the visible physical world is virtually made of things that are invisible! Schroeder further explains that the ethereal matter which everything is made of “is made solid not by matter [as solid particle], but by ethereal forces carried in photons [basic subatomic components of atom or light]….I press my hand on a table top. I can’t penetrate the wood. But a hammered nail pierces it easily, because the invisible binding forces of the molecules of iron are far stronger than those invisible forces binding molecules of wood….The world of atoms and molecules consists of wavelike particles separated from each other by voids, held in place by never seen, massless photons, traveling at the speed of light among particles that are not only particles but also [invisible, ethereal, or quantum] waves. If you can conceptualize this melee in an intelligible way, I have an urgent suggestion: publish.”[48]

That’s why Niels Bohr, one of the pioneers of quantum physics says, “Anyone who is not shocked by quantum physics, has not understood it.”[49] In double-slit experiments which have been repeated over and over again in many laboratories, scientists found out that photons, the smallest perceptible subatomic components of atom or light can be in two places at the same time. After observing this phenomenon, Timothy Ferris writes: “It is as if the quantum world had never heard of space – as if in some strange way, it thinks of itself as being in one place at a time.”[50] In other words the photons were “too fast” so that they could travel faster than the speed of light and could be in two different places at no time. The most basic reality of the universe, the minutest quantum particle or electromagnetic wave of matter declares the wisdom of its Maker embedded in itself. A photon can be in two places at the same time, its Maker can do better than a photon, He can be in all places at the same time. A photon can travel faster than the speed of light, its Maker can travel anywhere anytime in no time; a photon has dual properties, it is capable of being a visible particle or an invisible electromagnetic wave, its Maker can be visible or invisible, He can be divine and be human at the same time.

French physicist and Nobel Laureate Roland Omnes, writing about the bizarre behavior of the quantum world writes: “This theory penetrates reality to a depth our senses cannot take us. Its laws are universal, and they rule over the world of objects so familiar to us. We who inhabit the world, cannot make our own vision prevail over the arrogant laws, whose concepts seem to flow from an order higher than the one inspired by the things we can touch, see, and say with ordinary words.”[51] Indeed the material universe, the world, and all the things that can be seen around us, including us “were not made of things which are visible” and the very basic reality of our existence, the quantum world, declares the wisdom and mystery of its Maker.

CONCLUSION

Indeed, with wisdom God created the heavens and the earth, and all of His creation, from the largest galaxy to the minutest part of the atom, declare the wisdom and power of their Creator. True objective science does not nullify God, it reaffirms and magnifies nature’s Creator. Evidences presented in this study reaffirm the veracity of the literal Genesis account of Creation. And the scientists involved in the discoveries of evidences were mostly atheists and agnostics, who after being confronted by overwhelming evidences, inevitably acknowledge God in their own way. Nanoscientist James Tour aptly says, “Only a rookie who knows nothing about science would say science takes away from faith. If you really study science, it will bring you closer to God.”[52]

The thesis of this study, namely, that many current evidences in science agree with the literal interpretation of the Genesis Creation narrative, has been demonstrated to be true through the reaffirmation of, ironically, mostly non-Bible believing agnostic and atheistic scientists who could not admit otherwise than God because of the preponderance of evidence. Indeed as man looks into God’s creation, he sees the miraculous power and wisdom of its Creator and he is left with no rational option but inevitably admit God. And “If we admit God,” C. S. Lewis writes, “must we admit Miracle? Indeed, indeed, you have no security against it. That is the bargain.”[53] This study, therefore, concludes, after investigating the foregoing scientific evidences, that the literal Genesis account of Creation is backed by evidences in science. The testimony of the psalmist when he wrote under inspiration beautifully sums it all up: “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork” (Ps. 19:1).

 ________________________
1 Jim Gibson, “Can We Have It Both Ways?” Perspective Digest 10, no. 4 (2005): 32-33.
2 Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: 1998), 179.
3 Gerald L Schroeder, The Hidden Face of God (New York, NY: 2001), 21.
4 Bruce K. Waltke, An Old Testament Theology, 1st ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: 2007), 179.
5 John H. Walton, Genesis: The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: 2001), 70.
6 Norman L. Geisler and Frank Turek, I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be An Atheist (Wheaton, IL: 2004), 73.
7 Ibid.
8 Ibid., 74.
9 Ibid.
10 Quoted in ibid.
11 Quoted in ibid.
12 Sir Arthur Eddington, The Expanding Universe (New York: NY, 1988), 178.
13 Ariel A. Roth, Origins, Linking Science and Scripture (Hagerstown, MD: 1998), 94.
14 Francis Brown, S.R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon: Coded With Strong’s Concordance Numbers (Peabody, MA: 2008), 912a.
15 Schroeder, 49.
16 C.F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, The Pentateuch (Grand Rapids, MI: 1971), 47.
17 Waltke, 180.
18 Tremper Longman III and Raymond B. Dillard, An Introduction to the Old Testament, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: 1994), 57.
19 Waltke, 183-184.
 20 Geisler and Turek, 79.
21 Ibid., 74.
22 Ibid., 79.
23 Ariel A. Roth, Science Discovers God (Hagerstown, MD: 2008), 47.
 24 Geisler and Turek, 81.
25 Ibid.
26 Ibid.
27 Ibid.
28 Fred Heeren, Show Me God, 5th ed. (Wheeling IL: 200), 156.
29 Geisler and Turek, 83.
30 Heeren, 168.
31 Ibid., 139.
32 Ibid., 168.
33 Robert Jastrow, God and the Astronomers, 2nd ed. (New York, NY: 1992), 14 (emphasis mine).
34 Ibid., 116.
35 “A Scientist Caught Between Two Faiths: Interview with Robert Jastrow," Christianity Today (Aug. 6, 1982), 15,18, quoted in Geisler and Turek, 85.
36 Francis A. Schaeffer, Genesis in Space and Time (Downers Grove, IL: 1972), 28-29.
37 Geisler and Turek, 96.
38 Ibid., 106.
39 Roth, Science Discovers God, 51.
40 Ibid.
41 Geisler and Turek, 105-106.
42 Walter Bradley, “The ‘Just-so’ Universe: The Fine-Tuning of Constants and Conditions in the Cosmos,” Signs of Intelligence (Grand Rapids, MI: 2001): 168.
43 Fred Hoyle, "The Universe: Past and Present Reflections." Engineering and Science (November, 1981): 8–12.
44 Schaeffer, 16-17.
45 Waltke, 184.
46 In Daniel 9:20-23 for example, Daniel prays to God and God commands the angel Gabriel to “fly swiftly” [travel] through space from heaven to earth to answer Daniel’s prayer in no time before Daniel could even finish his prayer.
 47 Schroeder, 40.
48 Ibid., 30-31.
49 Quoted in Karen M. Barad, Meeting the Universe Halfway (Durham, NC: 2007), 254.
50 Quoted in Clifford Goldstein, God, Godel and Grace (Hagerstown, MD, 2007), 35.
51 Roland Omnes, Quantum Philosophy: Understanding and Interpreting Contemporary Science (Princeton, NJ: 1999),163.
52 Quoted in Geisler and Turek, 95.
53 Ibid., 197.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barad, Karen M. Meeting the Universe Halfway. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007.

Bradley, Walter. “The ‘Just-so’ Universe: The Fine-Tuning of Constants and Conditions in the Cosmos.” Signs of Intelligence (2001) 157-223.

Brown, Francis, and Driver, S. R., and Briggs, Charles A. The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English
Lexicon: Coded With Strong’s Concordance Numbers. Peabody, MA: 2008.

Eddington, Arthur. The Expanding Universe. New York, NY: Cambridge, reprinted 1988.

Erickson, Millard J. Christian Theology, 2nd ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1998.

Geisler, Norman L. and Frank Turek. I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be An Atheist. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2004.

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