Does Science disprove Atheism?

I am of course aware that this question is usually aimed at religious faith, rather than at atheism, but from my point of view this question makes more sense. It's not that long ago (less than a hundred years) that Christians were being mocked for believing that the universe had a beginning. Even Einstein was among those who initially believed that the universe was always there. This in spite of the fact that one of the things that put the last nail in the coffin of the “steady state” theory of the universe, was his own theory of relativity. His initial reaction to big bang theory was that it did not make sense. He was later persuaded of it it's truth (around the 1930's), but many in the Scientific community were sill skeptical! In fact it was not until the 1960's that the matter was finally considered settled.

Progress in this area came only as telescopes got larger and technology improved. As part of this process, it was discovered that the Universe is expanding, and that some galaxies are retreating from the earth at speeds exceeding 100 million miles an hour. What allowed Scientists to measure this, is the phenomenon commonly referred to as the red shift. This is similar to the doppler effect which most of us have observed when the noise of an oncoming vehicle changes pitch as it passes us in the street. This change in pitch has to do with the shift in the received wave length of sound as the source moves away from us. Red shift has to do with the change in wavelength of a moving source of light as it moves away. The faster the retreat, the greater the red shift (the redder the light in the spectrum of light being received). Part of what makes this discovery so compelling is the fact that it was predicted from one of the solutions to Einsteins' equations (discovered by another). Initially highly skeptical, Einstein was finally persuaded that the universe is indeed expanding by photographic evidence of the red shift, provided by Edwin Hubble and his compatriot.

So once we knew that the universe is expanding, the next thing to do was to trace it all back in space and time. It was in tracing it all back to a single miniscule point of origin that lead to the (now more fully developed) theories of the big bang. What was (and is) interesting to Bible believers is that Science was finally coming up not only with the fact of a beginning, but one that bears an uncanny resemblance to the Genesis description of the whole thing coming into being in a flash of light and energy. Robert Jastrow in an older, but still very informative book (God and the astronomers), rather amusingly describes all this as the Scientist, having scaled the mountain of ignorance, is about to conquer the highest peak but then, when he pulls himself over the highest rock, is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.

So were atheist convinced? Perhaps a more pertinent question is “Can Science disprove atheism?” The fact of the matter is that some were, some are, and no doubt some will be. On the other hand the same thing can be said about theists! How to explain this? It is my observation that very few seem to be persuaded one way or the other by logic alone. One of the so called new (militant) atheists Richard Dawkins tells of being traumatized by 9/11 in the States. His conclusion is that religion was to blame. Who can argue the fact that there have been many atrocities committed in the name of God? But think on this, the last century saw more (much more) atrocities committed in the name of atheism than in religion. Dawkins would argue that it was not atheism in and of itself that was the cause of the atrocities. Maybe, maybe not, but you can't have it both ways. You can't use this argument to absolve atheism but refuse to allow the same argument to absolve religion. Surely Christ has the right answer when He tells us that the problem begins in the heart of man (or woman, I would not want to offend the ladies by excluding them :-) Matthew 15:18,19).

So what has this to do with the question at hand? What I am saying is that we seem to make up our minds for one reason or another, but not primarily based on logic. We may have been offended by those who use God to justify this or that. Or we may see all religious people as hypocrites, or we may have had very positive experiences from some who name the name of Christ. What happens then is that our World view informs our logic. I asked a friend what it would take for him to believe. He told me, and I then asked him if that happened would he really believe. He thought a bit then told me “No, I would find some other reason to explain it.” But let's be honest, this attitude is found on both sides of the theist- atheist divide! Please don't confuse me with the facts, I know what I believe!

So, can we never expect to persuade others from either side, is it all hopeless? My answer is no, but it is not likely to happen by Science/logic/reason alone. Since the essence of Christianity is to know God (as opposed to knowing about Him - see John 17:3), and since knowing a person has a strong component of experience, we will not become Christians without it. What was powerful to me was seeing my experience of Him described in the Scriptures, and also of having the Scriptures help me experience Him more. This is as I say a powerful combination.

But what about Science and logic, does it not have a role to play, can Science persuade someone that God exists? In my view Christianity (for that is what I profess) gives the best explanation of reality. It best explains that there was a beginning and a whole host of other things. It best explains why the Universe “”appears” to be designed, it best explains the phenomenon of a multitude of finely tuned physical constants, constants which, if changed even slightly, would no only exclude the possibility of life period, but even of the formation of stars, planets and galaxies. It best explains what Francis Schaeffer called the mannishness of man, our personality, our search for meaning, our morality. It best explains why beauty and culture and love and hope and peace and joy and the like are infinitely better than squalor and poverty and hate and war and bitterness and lying and deceit. I am told that Science with all its capabilities cannot distinguish between hate and love, anger and euphoria, between joy and fear. Perhaps, just perhaps we are more than Darwinian primates. Perhaps, just perhaps we are made in the image of the Judeo Christian God. Perhaps, just perhaps, Science without faith is blind!

Where was God when...?

He could have prevented this, He could have prevented that. If He is all powerful and all loving why would He not intervene? It can be a stumbling block. It is especially hard when we see someone we love suffering. The Psalmist had a similar problem, it bothered him. He tells us “When I tried to understand all this, it troubled me deeply until I entered the sanctuary of God ....” (Psalm 73:16,17).

The sufferings of Job can teach us something along the same lines. He probably suffered more than any of us do/have/will, and yet at the end of it all when he is no longer fighting God he declares “My ears had heard of you, but now my eyes have seen you” (Job 42:5). It was the eyes of his heart he was talking about, it was the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him (Ephesians 1:17,18). This knowledge is not intellectual knowledge, it is the intimate mother love of the baby on the breast. It is the mother heart of God experienced. It is the feeling of security, the feeling that in spite of it all, it's going to be alright, that I can get through this because I am loved and accepted and comforted and healed. It is knowing that somehow God is in control. It is the surrender of Peter when asked if he was offended “Where shall I go Lord, You have the words of eternal life?” (John 6:68).

I came to see this in a new way recently when I learned that someone I love and respect had suffered a devastating blow in her personal life. It is far too easy to give theologically correct answers to the problem of suffering when you are far removed from the situation, but mere logic will not satisfy. We cry out “Why?” and “Why me?” And even if we do not acknowledge it we are crying out to God. I have this picture of me and Him, He with His arms around me, and me pummelling His chest with my fists in frustration and pain. Finally I surrender sobbing. I have entered the sanctuary, and His mercy and grace and peace overtake me and I am comforted.

Paul prays for the Ephesians that they would know the the width and length and depth and heigh of the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge (Ephesians 3:18,19). It makes no sense in logic. How can you know something that surpasses knowledge? What I do know is that when I am real with Him, He is real with me. He meets me where I am “at,” even when where I am at may not be where I should be. My intellectual understanding is limited, but I know when I am loved, and I know the love of Christ is real. I have experience the truth of the Scripture which says “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you” (James 4:8).

If you want to pray: God, I need you, please meet me where I am and draw me deeper into your unfathomable love. Heal me and I will be healed. In Jesus name, Amen.

Not invested in the truth or falsity of Evolution

It is clear to me that by selective breeding you can, over time, breed dogs or horses with longer or shorter noses. Whether everything evolved from a single cell seems to me to be a lot less likely that it was thought to be at the time of Darwin. Part of this is that the big bang theory and the theory of relativity seems to fit the facts more closely than the view that the universe always existed, or that it was trillions if not quadrillions of years old.

Those thoughts/estimates of the age of the universe were thought to be necessary for Darwinian evolution to have taken place. The lack of progress in the anticipated discovery of transitional forms in the fossil record, the fact of the (relatively) rapid appearance of new species in the so called “Cambrian explosion,” as well as the discovery that life is far more complex than we ever thought it to be, all weaken the evolutionary hypotheses. But don't expect the theory to disappear any time soon. The point, as Thomas Kuhn explains in his book “The Structure of Scientific Revolution,” is that the Scientific community is often very resistant to throwing out popular theories, even in the face of contrary evidence. It wasn't only the Church that resisted Galileo’s view that the earth went round the sun (rather than the other way round), it was many of the Scientists of his day. But it doesn't (didn't) matter in any case, at least not from a theological perspective.

I mean if I were to come to you and say “The earth goes round the sun therefore God does not exist,” you would I think look at me with bewilderment. Likewise when Newton discovered the law of gravity, he did not immediately renounce his (profound) faith. So why not? Well, Newton was sensible enough to realize that the discovery of a Scientific mechanism, or law, does not immediately rule out the possibility of the existence of a law giver, or a designer of the mechanism, be it evolution or big bang theories or whatever.

I am not entirely sure why so many Christians seem to be so threatened by the theories (yes plural) of the big bang. I suspect however, that it is this very same confusion, and that they have bought into the lie that a Scientific description of a mechanism somehow or other disproves the existence of a creator. The atheist who insists on empirical evidence for his (or her) views, and cites science as having proved God's non-existence needs to ask himself (herself) such questions as “If the big bang is correct, then what is the cause of it?” You cannot hold the Scientific principle of cause and effect in a closed system and not ask for the cause of the mechanism, in this case the cause of the big bang. At least you should not!

And there are many other questions that need to be asked. For example “Where does intelligence come from?” or “If it all came into being by chance, why would it make any sense to expect laws that explain things?” Why would we expect methodical study of the universe to reveal its secrets? It is surely significant that Science really only took off in cultures where there was a strong belief in an intelligent creator being. The point is that it is only with the “hypothesis” of an intelligent creator that we would expect that which is created to be intelligible!

So in the end these things have become non-issues for me. The point is that firstly I am not at all sure what parts (for example) of the theories of evolution are true. I am not as sure about what is true and what is not as many on both sides of the equation would have us believe. But secondly what I do believe is anything that turns out to be true will be nothing more than a description of the mechanism He employed (set in motion?). To say it another way, I am not invested in the truth of falsity of the various forms of the theory of evolution. My faith does not rise or fall on these issues. On the other hand I do have enough confidence in the Scientific method to believe that in the end the truth will prevail on any particular issue. It just might take a long time for that to happen, however. And in the meantime since the existence of a moral God tends to put a damper on some of the things we might want to do, I am also sure we will find other ways to try to explain away His existence.

My prayers are powerful

Does this describe how you feel about your prayer life? Here's the rub, if this is not how you feel, then it's likely not true. The Bible tells us “The prayer of a righteous man or woman is powerful and effective” (James 5:16). You may answer “Well the true rub here is that I am not righteous!” However if you belong to Christ then you are the righteousness of God in Him (2 Corinthians 5:21).

The context of the James quotation is important. The first part of verse 16 reads “Confess your sins one to another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed.” There are three things here that I want to mention. Firstly the healing of which James is speaking, while it certainly includes physical healing (verse 14 and 15), also has to do with healing of the heart, mind and emotions. Jesus tells us that His mandate includes the healing of broken hearts (Luke 4:21 and context, see also Isaiah 61: 1). Now part of this involves believing what He says about us. We are the righteousness of God, we are saints, we are qualified to be inheritors of the Kingdom of God (Colossians 1:12).

So part of the healing we are promised is that we will progressively know who we are in Christ, precious sons and daughters of the living God. But secondly the context is about walking in the light, and in particular about that aspect of walking in the light that has to do with confessing our sins. When we do this, God is faithful to forgive us our sins, and He is faithful to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). If we are not doing this regularly, we will not be walking in the light, and we will not feel cleansed, we will not feel the joy of repentance and we will not have confidence before Him in our prayer life. In fact when we have known and unconfessed sin in our lives, He will not hear us (Isaiah 59:2).

So if we are to be powerful in prayer, we need to know who we are, and we need to keep short accounts with with God. But this brings me to the third thing that I see in this context, the confession also has to be to one other! This can be very scarey. If your experience is anything like mine, you will have confessed to others and it has either become the subject of gossip, or it has come back to you as accusation! This is not healing! We need to be wise here, and we need to find a safe place. It will probably start with finding someone who you can trust, someone who will keep your confidences and not judge you, and someone who will pray for you (and you for them – still in verse 16). Not all fellowships are safe, but it is imperative that we find a place (or places) that are safe. We are deeply into what true fellowship means here. It has to do with being real, it has to do with being honest and humble enough to realize that “in many things we all fail,” and that “all have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God” (James 3:2; Romans 3:23).

To put all this another way, it is about living at the foot of the cross. It is about living in the perspective of what He needed to do for us and what He has done and continues to do for us. It is about knowing that He loves us unconditionally. It is about knowing who we are in Him, about recognizing Him in each other and treating each other accordingly. It is about walking in the light. It is about knowing our authority in Him. It is about knowing that when, to the best of our ability we are doing all this, that our prayers are powerful.

But know the enemy will test this in you. He will whisper in your ear that you are not worthy. As did Jesus, we need use the Word of God. We need to tell him and tell ourselves “I am the righteousness of God in Him.” Then we need to tell ourselves “My prayers are powerful.” We need to keep saying it until we believe it, and then we need to keep saying it because we believe it, and because it is true! And we need to pray!

God, Science and Genesis 1:1a.

I have found that most of those who call Christians stupid for believing the Bible, know very little about it, and may never even have read it. Either that, or they will take their own interpretation of this or that verse and then slam us for believing that interpretation. Its called setting up a straw man, you know those who are easy to tear down! And I have seen this perpetrated on the very first phrase of the very first verse of the very first book of the Bible. Well I guess it saves having to read it :).

Genesis 1:1(a) says “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, .....” An atheistic “sermon” I heard from one of the militant atheists started by interpreting this to be saying that the heavens and the earth were created at the same time. And (the sermon continues) since Science tells us that the earth was formed way after the heavens were formed, way, way after, then whole thing should be thrown out from the very beginning. But surely we need to ask if this reading of the text is correct, if this what was intended to be communicated, if this is the point and focus of what is being said.

If you ask a man wearing yellow tinted glasses what colour a zebra is (assuming he has never seen one before) you are likely to be told 'yellow and black', or if the glasses were red tinted, the observed colours would likely be pink and black. The point I am making is that if we are to understand Scripture correctly there are a number of things we need to take into account. In particular we must be careful that we do not read the text with our 21st Century glasses (which can easily distort what is being said), and with our presuppositions firmly in place (i.e. we all know that God does not exist, right?). There are many many difficulties in understanding and interpreting Scripture. For instance, the distance between us and the writers of the Hebrew Scriptures is enormous in both time and culture. And while this is not the place to go into this in detail we do, we need in the first instance to understand how the early readers would have understood the text. If our interpretation is correct, it would need to have made sense to those to whom it was first written.

So let's come back to our phrase “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, ...” How would this have been understood by the first readers of this phrase? Let me suggest several things, firstly they would understand that there was a beginning, that the heavens and the earth were not always there. It is surely interesting to note that for a long time many Scientists were saying that the cosmos was indeed always there, and at that time such people laughed at the Biblical statement that there was a beginning. These days virtually nobody believes this (various forms of the Big Bang theory hold the day). Secondly this phrase states that there is a being, identified here as “God,” who is outside of space, time and matter, and who created the said space, time and matter out of nothing. As I have said elsewhere, once you admit a beginning, the logical options are very few, in fact there are only two. Either “In the beginning someone or something outside of space time and matter created everything that is out of nothing,” or “In the beginning nothing created everything that is out of nothing.” If we are to be consistent with the Scientific principle of cause and effect, and if there was beginning, then one or the other of these two options has to be true. To me the first option is much more believable (though this is not how I came to believe). And I have to say that it seems to me to be more than a tad ridiculous to laugh at those of us who believe the first view, since the second view can only be held by faith, and that by a faith that is not only without a scrap of empirical evidence to support it, but a faith that contradicts the law of cause and effect!

I want to be clear that at this point of the argument, the logic does not necessarily point to the Judeo Christian God as the only option for the creator. That is an entirely separate argument. Along these lines, it is interesting to me to note the case of the famous (almost life long) atheist Anthony Flew. Flew, though he became a theist towards the end of his life, did not become a Christian. Among other things what lead him to the conclusion that some form of god existed, was the incredible complexity of life. Life is so complex that he could no longer believe that it all happened by chance. He became a theist, but got no further than that!

So to recap, the phrase we are discussing here is saying that there was a beginning, there is a creator and this creator created everything that is out of nothing. In relation to our skeptics interpretation, we can (hypothetically) ask our ancient reader if he understood this to be also saying that the heavens and the earth were created at the same time. But I am not sure it is a valid question to ask him (or her). If you stand at the bottom of a mountain range looking up, the question of whether the peek you see over the the top of the first rise is the same mountain, is in many ways an unfair question. You do not have enough information to answer it. With respect to the skeptics question, I want to say firstly that I don't think it is a question that would have occurred to our first reader. He would have no frame of reference to ask it, and in any case he would not have had enough information from this phrase alone to answer the question. On the other hand the rest of Genesis 1 clearly points to their being stages of the earth's development. And in Genesis 2:4 the entire period that encompassed the stages in Genesis 1 is telescoped into a single period there. So why would it be unreasonable to think that the stages of the creation of the heavens and the earth would not similarly be telescope in Genesis 1:1. What I am saying is that to insist that Genesis 1:1 precludes stages of development is to read a lot more into the text than is really there.

Unfortunately many Christians do similar types of exposition of texts when they want to prove a point that the text may not support. It is called Eisegesis, which is reading into the text (Greek “eis” means “into”), as opposed to exegesis which means "to lead out" of the text. Eisegesis is defined as the process of interpreting a text or portion of text in such a way that it introduces one's own presuppositions, agendas, and/or biases into and onto the text. When people complain to me that “You can make the Bible say anything you want.” I usually answer “Yes, and using exactly the same rules you need to use to do this, I can make the dictionary say the very same thing. And since I realized this, I have stopped using the dictionary” :-). Thank the Lord for spellchecker!

So where am I going with this? What I am saying is that things may not be as black and white as some (on both sides of the divide) would have us believe. Nobody has all the truth, not one of us has arrived. We will not arrive at the truth by calling one another names. When we label one another as stupid or hieratic, we shut down communication. For the Christian we are to be Ambassadors for Christ, we are to be eager to preserve unity, we are to respect all who are made in the image of God and that means everyone. It seems to me that we have a ways to go!

Is religion the root of all evil?

It is not hard to figure out which side of the fence the late Christopher Hitchens was on in this question. The title of his book “God is not great: how religion poisons everything,” makes it quite clear. To take his side for a moment, one would have to be blind or ignorant or both, not to see that far too many wars have been fought over religion, and far too many atrocities perpetrated in the name of God. And this is not to even consider the number of friends who have become enemies or families that have been split over religious issues. So Hitchens' thesis is not without merit, but is it just religion that poisons things, and is it always poison, does it never bring the good?”

Hitchens would have been the last to say that all religion was fanatical, but his point seems to be that if you do away with religion, you do away with fanatical religion. It's hard fault his logic there. And we can deal with pollution and the need for toxic waste disposal the very same way. I mean if there were no people there would be a lot less pollution, right? So let's get rid of the human race! It would solve a lot of problems, including the one Hitchens sees. As I said, Hitchens would be the last to say that all religion is fanatical, and I would be the last to say that religion has not been poisonous. But is religion the only “ism” that poisons us? We need to ask what was the philosophy that brought with it the most atrocities and the most destruction in the last Century? I am thinking of Stalin, Mao Tse-tung, Pol Pot and others with their multimillions slain. Hitchens would argue that it was not atheism per se that was the cause of these atrocities, but we can't have it both ways. Perhaps, just perhaps it is not religion in and of itself that is the cause of all the poisoning. Perhaps there is a better explanation.

It was not that long ago that I was complaining to the God that I felt misunderstood. The response I got boiled down to “You think that you are misunderstood. Buddy you ain't seen nothing yet. What about all those religious types who say they represent me, but don't? What about all the self righteous hypocrites who speak for me, but don't even know me? What about all the blame, all the bad mouthing, all the false accusations, all the nasty things people say and think about Me? You think you have a problem. My son, you ain't seen nothing.”

What I am saying is that God gets a lot of blame that belongs elsewhere. Religion too gets a bad name, and some of it is deserved, and some of it is not. The Scriptures themselves distinguish between true and false religion. “Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world” (James 1:27). Who is going to condemn visiting orphans? If I could have had a conversation with Christopher Hitchens I would have asked him what were the things about religion that he had so much trouble with? I am pretty sure that we would have been in substantial agreement. And if he were to have asked me about the things about atheism that I have trouble with, I think again we would be in substantial agreement. So is all religion, are all Christians evil? No. Do I believe that everything atheists says is wrong and that all atheists are inherently evil? Well no, many times no more than the rest of us! The bigger question is "Is what we believe helping us to become better people?" I know those on "both" sides of the theist/atheist divide who are getting better and those who are getting worse!

So perhaps it is not religion in and of itself that is at the root of the problem. But if it's not, then what exactly is it? As always the Scriptures have the best explanation. In condemning that form of religion that was concerned only with image, Jesus told his disciples that “out of the heart come evil thoughts - murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander” (Matthew 15:19). True religion is all about having my heart changed through ongoing relationship with Him as we surrender to His Lordship of our lives. So does religion poison everything? No it is our hearts, our judgemental unforgiveness, our greed and self seeking that poisons everything. And what about my other question "Is there never anything good?" Well the fruit true religion is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5:22,23). These things don't poison us they make the World go round. I am not perfect by a long shot, but I am in process of getting better. Ask those who know me best!

If you want to pray: Lord I need more of You in my life, more of the fruit of Your Spirit. Forgive me for the many times I fall short of Your glory. Let Your kingdom come in my life right here, right now. In Jesus name Amen.

Creation or Science or Creation and Science?

Perhaps the biggest stumbling blocks for thinking non-Christian are the faith Science issues, and perhaps the biggest of these has to do with the Genesis creation story. In particular it has to do with the age of the earth. Among Christians the interpretation of the creation story is surely the most divisive. There are many points of view and we cannot go into them all here. But the biggest controversy seem to center around the interpretation of the Hebrew word "yom" translated "day" in most English versions. Perhaps because of the controversial nature of these things the subject is often avoided altogether, but this is not a good way to deal with difficulties. In particular if there are viable explanations that allow for a convincing defensible rational position for a Biblical world view, we need to contend for them. For this and other reasons I want to address the Creation issues head on. I am aware that not everyone will agree.

Genesis 1 tells us that there were just six “days” of creation, during which the world is turned from being a dark, inhospitable water world without life or light, into the world substantially as we see it today. But it gets worse, because according to the chronology of Genesis 1, the sun and the moon do not appear until “day” three, the “day” after vegetation appeared. At first glance it all seem very naive and unbelievable to modern man.

But let's start looking at this in more detail by considering Genesis 1:2 which says “The earth was without form, and void; darkness was on the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” So according to this verse the initial state of the created earth was dark, void of life, and water covered its whole surface (dry land does not appear until “day” three). This is a remarkable description for “naive primitive mankind” being as it is, entirely consistent with modern Scientific models of the earth's development. For example astrophysicist Hugh Ross in his book 'Why the universe is the way it is' says “During Earth's infancy, its atmosphere was opaque to light.” In other words light could simply not get through the dense atmosphere and so it was indeed dark. Ross continues “Earth started off as a water world – a planet with water covering the whole of its surface” (pages 52,53). If nothing else such consistency of the records should prompt us to look a little deeper into the subject rather than engaging in ridicule and dismissing the whole thing our of hand.

As I already said, the focal point of the controversy among Christians who want to hold to the integrity of the Scriptures centres around the meaning of the Hebrew word “yom” translated as “day” in many (but not all) places in the Hebrew Scriptures. Now “yom” can certainly mean a 24 hour day, but it can also mean a finite duration of time. There are shades of this even in English, since the word “day” in such phrases as “the day of the Jackal” does not mean a literal 24 hour period. I am told that in the Hebrew one of the alternative literal meanings of “yom” is eon, or age. So the controversy among Christians is whether to interpret “yom” in Genesis 1 as a 24 hour period or to think of "yom" as an age or eon.

One of the basic principles of a Biblical interpretation is that of comparison of Scripture with Scripture. The point is to bring clarification of the various possible meanings of the text. In this case the word “yom” appears in the alternative description of creation in Genesis 2 (there are in fact several accounts of creation in Scripture). The NIV translates Genesis 2:4 as “This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created. When the LORD God made the earth and the heavens.”

It is important to understand that every translation is an interpretation, and the NIV is no exception. I happen to think it is the right interpretation, but it is an interpretation. It is not obvious from the NIV that the word “yom” appears in the original Hebrew of this verse, but it does. It is more obvious from the NKJV which reads “This is the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.” The NIV is interpreting “yom” in this verse to mean the whole period (i.e. six “days”) of creation. And it is surely a correct interpretation because “yom” cannot mean a literal 24 hour day here. Of course this does not automatically mean that the word does not mean 24 hours in Genesis 1, because in other places it does mean a 24 hour period. But it should at least be a cause to carefully research the meaning. On the other hand if in one creation account it does not mean a 24 hour period, surly it is not too much of a stretch to understand that it is not meant to be understood as a 24 hour period in another account. Ross' book goes into this in a lot and detail, more than is appropriate here, and I want to refer the reader to it or other sources to check this out. In my view the day age understanding of "yom" in Genesis 1 is the correct interpretation of the text. This is not just because of what Hebrew scholars say about it. It seems to me to be no coincidence that this interpretation of the narrative is highly consistent and even insightful in terms of what we currently understand from Science.

Coming back to Genesis 1:2 the description of the earth as dark, void and covered with water, is given from the vantage point of one who might have been there on the surface of the earth observing it all. It is hard to imagine the original readers as taking any other point of view that that of an observer on the surface of the earth. So it seems reasonable to assume that this is the vantage point of the narrator throughout the entire creation narrative. This is important for a resolution of issue of the sun and the moon not appearing until the fourth day. It should be noted that light had already appeared on creation “day” one (“Let there be light and there was light"). So there was light on day 1, but the sun and the moon had not yet appeared. How are we to understand this?

We get a clue from from the Science. After saying that infant Earth's atmosphere was opaque to light Ross, in his book, continues “In its youth, the planet's atmosphere was translucent. Only when what astronomers and physicists call 'middle age' (an age of over 4 billion years) did its atmosphere become transparent enough to enable its inhabitants to observe the most distant object in the Universe.” (p 53). With the day- age understanding of Genesis 1, the two changes in earth's development (from dark to translucent and from translucent to transparent) fit in well with the Biblical record of light appearing on day one and the sun and the moon appearing on day four. But how does this jive with the text? Confirmation of this as the correct understanding of the passage comes when you look at the Hebrew verbs in verse 1 (God created the heavens and the earth) and verse 16 (God made two great lights). I am told that the word translated “made” in verse 16 has the implication their creation had happened some time in the past. Atheists have ridiculed the Genesis account of the sun and the moon not appearing until day four (even with a day age understanding of the text), but this would make perfect sense from the vantage point of our hypothetical observer. The point is that it was during this "day" that for the first time the sun, moon and stars would be visible from the surface of the earth. This understanding of the text not only avoids an apparent contradiction of light appearing both on day one and day four, but makes sense of the progression from a scientific point of view. It was on “day” three that vegetation appeared. The text tells us that some form of light had appeared on day one, and translucent light is enough for photosynthesis to take place, a process that we now know to be necessary for the further development of life.

There is a further point to make about the sun and the moon appearing on day four, and this has to do with the necessary preparation for the higher life forms created on “day” five. We are told that the appearance of the sun moon and stars on day four was for “signs and seasons, and for days and years” (verse 14). On “day” five God would create "great sea creatures, every living thing that moves, and every winged bird." The point I am wanting to make is that many of the “kinds” of creature created on day five would need signs and seasons to set their biological clocks, and in the case of birds for migrational purposes.

So part of what I am saying here is that if if one understands "yom" to mean eon or age rather than a literal 24 hour day (an interpretation consistent with other parts of Scripture) then many of the so called contradictions of this passage with Science disappear. Since the formations of the mountains and the like via plate tectonics takes time, it makes sense that the dry land did not appear until "day" three. Also it does not seem to be too much of a stretch to see “day” five as at least overlapping with the so called Cambrian period. It is interesting to me (though I am not at this point drawing firm conclusions from it) that from the beginning Darwin conceded that the theory of evolution failed to account for the Cambrian explosion. An internet search on the subject produced the following quotation from (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/03/4/l_034_02.html):

For most of the nearly 4 billion years that life has existed on Earth, evolution produced little beyond bacteria, plankton, and multi-celled algae. But beginning about 600 million years ago in the Precambrian, the fossil record speaks of more rapid change.

According to his own writings the biggest problem for Darwin with his theory of evolution was the absence, in the fossil record, of transitional forms in the Precambrian period. He hypothesized that it would be just a matter of time before transitional forms were discovered. However in spite of the explosion of knowledge in all areas, a century and a half later this challenge remains. But in any case the command to “Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures,” and the the Biblical description of the creation of “great sea creatures and every living thing that moves, ...., and every winged bird according to its kind” (verses 20, 21) seems to me to be very far from incompatible with the sudden appearance of these forms of life at this stage of the development of our World.

Coming to day six, the same webpage quoted above records:

Then, between about 570 and 530 million years ago, another burst of diversification occurred, with the eventual appearance of the lineages of almost all animals living today. This stunning and unique evolutionary flowering is termed the "Cambrian explosion," taking the name of the geological age in whose early part it occurred.

And all of this seems to me to be totally consistent with the Biblical record which on “day” six records that “God made the beast of the earth according to its kind, cattle according to its kind, and everything that creeps on the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.” Finally towards the end of this busy day the Bible tells us “Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image ...'” (verses 25 and 26).

What I have tried to do in these brief paragraphs is to defuse just one of the so called Science faith issues. These issues are not as black and white as some of our more militant atheists would have us believe. Part of the problem is that neither science nor our understanding of the Bible are complete. Science progresses by two steps forward and one step back. The assured results even of recent decades can look silly today. For example it was not that long ago that we were being told that the earth was trillions if not quadrillions of years old. This was said to be necessary in order for there to be enough time for macro evolution (inter-species change among the more advanced animals) to take place. Today is it widely accepted that the earth Earth’s age is between 4.5 and 4.7 billion years old. This precise estimate comes to us from independent branches of Science. For example one estimate is based on evidence from meteorites and molecular decay rates. Other evidence is based on the observed expansion of the universe and Einstein's theory of relativity.

But if Science has not arrived, neither have we, because we are all biased at some level. The fact is that many of the so called science faith contradictions come from the interpretation of the data rather than the data itself. This of course happens on both sides of the “Faith – Science” divide. My position is that what is true in Science cannot contradict the Bible correctly interpreted. In terms of this post, my view is that what is true in Science describes how God created. A description of the evolution of the automobile engine in no way contradicts the fact that that evolution was guided by intelligent beings. On the other side of the fence our understanding Scripture is far from complete. The difficulties of fully understanding the ancient texts are enormous, and we all bring our biases with us when we read. "Sola Scripture" (Scripture and nothing else) is correct, but no one comes to the Bible without his or her bias. In particular it is always Scripture plus (even if nothing else) my bias. So what I am saying is that we have arrived neither in Science nor our understanding of the Bible! Perhaps a little more humility on both sides is in order!