creation: a key to the gospel dr don batten b.sc.agr. (hons i) phd
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Evolution: ‘no room for God’? —Sir Julian Huxley, Director-General of UNESCO, in Essays of a Humanist [1964], Penguin Books, UK, 1969 reprint, pp.82–83). “In the evolutionary pattern of thought there is no longer either need or room for the supernatural. The earth was not created: it evolved. So did all the animals and plants that inhabit it, including our human selves, mind and soul as well as brain and body. So did religion.”TRANSCRIPT
Creation: a Key to the Gospel
Dr Don Batten B.Sc.Agr. (Hons I) PhD
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1:1
Evolution: ‘no room for God’?
—Sir Julian Huxley, Director-General of UNESCO, in Essays of a Humanist [1964], Penguin Books, UK, 1969 reprint, pp.82–83).
“In the evolutionary pattern of thought there is no longer either need or room for the supernatural. The earth was not created: it evolved. So did all the animals and plants that inhabit it, including our human selves, mind and soul as well as brain and body. So did religion.”
Praise Darwin (evolution)!?
Blocks – Creator Saviour
CreatorLawSin
JudgeSaviour
2 Corinthians 10:5
We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
Creation Ministries International
Genesis harmonisations
LOCAL
FLOOD
THEISTIC EVOLUTIONDAY AGE
FRAMEWORK
HYPOTHESISGAP
THEORY
PROGRESSIVE CREATION
Millions
of
Years?
PainDeathKillingDiseaseThorns
StruggleSufferingExtinction
Genesis 1:31
God saw all that he had made, and behold, it was very good.
Everything was “very good”
Garden of Eden“…it was very good.”Genesis 1:31
Eden on bones
DEATH
DISEASE
SUFFERING
“…it was very good.”Genesis 1:31
And there was
evening
and there was
morning
one day (literally; Hebrew yom echad)
Genesis 1:5b
Meanings of ‘day’ in English
he would go to bed early Sunday evening and rise early in the morning of the following day, and spend the next six days travelling, during the
day, to cross the whole country.
In my father’s day,
“If, for example, the word ‘day’ in these chapters does not mean a period of twenty-four hours, the interpretation of scripture is hopeless.”
Marcus Dods (1834–1909), The Book of Genesis, Armstrong, NY, p. 4, 1907.*Scottish Prof. of New Testament Exegesis and then Principal, New College, Edinburgh.
Marcus Dods* on ‘day’
Order of creation:Genesis vs big bang/evolution
DAY 1 DAY 2 DAY 3
DAY 4 DAY 5 DAY 6
SIX DAYS OF CREATION
Romans 1:20
For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
John 1:1-3In the beginning was the Word, and
the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the
beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was
made that has been made.
Jesus and age of universe
Time line of some 4,000 years before Christ
Time line for 14,000,000,000 years since ‘big bang’
Jesus: “From the beginning of creation, God made them male and female.” Mark 10:6
Adam and Eve (Day 6)
‘Adam and Eve’
The beginning
The beginning
Which leads to …“If Jesus as a finite human being erred from time to time, there is no reason at all to suppose that Moses, Paul, John wrote Scripture without error. Rather, we are wise to assume that the biblical authors expressed themselves as human beings writing from the perspectives of their own finite, broken horizons.”Sparks, “After Inerrancy: Evangelicals and the Bible in a Postmodern Age”, BioLogos.org, 2010.
Adam to Abraham chronology
The Bible tells us that death and suffering were
not part of the original created order and they will
not be part of the future restored heavens and earth
For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers
the pains of childbirth together until now.
Romans 8:22
… the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay… v. 21
Rom
ans
8:21
,22
Death creationEvolutionary story
Real history
NEW HEAVEN
AND NEW
EARTHINTRUSION
DeathDisease
Pain, SufferingEmotional Anguish
1 Corinthians 15:22
For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.
Can either man not be a real person?
1 Cor. 15:45 1 Cor. 15:45
“The First Adam”
“The Last Adam”
Bad news … good newsBad News
SinMan is lost. We need to be saved from our sin.
Good News
SalvationChrist provides
salvation from sin and death
“I am an evangelist. I go around and talk with people—one-on-one conversations. In my time on college campuses and talking to high schoolers, the number one answer I get for there not being a God, so then I don't have to believe, is evolution.”—Personal correspondence, Mark Cahill, evangelist and author of One Thing You Can’t Do In Heaven
Evolution and evangelism
Blocks – Creator Saviour
Summarising …
Non-traditional views of Genesis (if you think about the consequences):1. Rob Christ of His glory as Creator2. Undermine the goodness of God3. Undermine the Gospel4. Undermine hermeneutics5. Undermine eschatology (end times)6. Impede evangelism
What changed England into a pagan nation?
“… I myself have little doubt that in England it was geology and the theory of evolution that changed us from a Christian to a pagan nation.”
—F. Sherwood Taylor, Geology changes the outlook, in Ideas and Beliefs of the Victorians, Sylvan Press Ltd, London, p. 195, 1949. (one of a series of talks broadcast on BBC radio).
(Curator, Museum of the History of Science, Oxford).
“Naturalistic evolution is the great intellectual rival to Christianity in the Western world. It is the creation myth of the secular elites and their intellectual weapon of choice in public debate.”
“Evolution: rival to Christianity”
albertmohler.com/2011/02/01/creation-vs-evolution-the-new-shape-of-the-debate/
Dr Albert Mohler,
President, Southern
Baptist Theological Seminary
What about theistic evolution?“I believe that it [the theistic evolution movement] represents a very significant challenge to the integrity of Christian theology and the church’s understanding of everything from the authority and truthfulness of the Bible to the meaning of the Gospel. … The theory of evolution is no mere nuisance—it represents one of the greatest challenges to Christian faith and faithfulness in our times.”
Dr Albert Mohler, President,
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary,
Baptist Press News 26 Jan 2011
www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?id=34514
• observable
• repeatable
• experiments
Science studies the repeatable. History studies the unrepeatable.
An important distinction
Noah’s Ark
The Flood: key to understanding history
(Genesis 6-8)
Noah’s Ark: real!300 cubits (~143 m)
• Carrying capacity: 15,000 tonnes!• Korean naval architects showed that
the shape would have been very stable in huge seas.
Can you see the people?
Widespread fossilization—sudden burial in mud
Global flood!
Dinosaur and fish fossilized together
Large-scale sedimentary formationsCoconino
Sandstone
Kaibab Upwarp (Grand
Canyon, eastern Arizona)
Wipes out ~500 million years of evolutionary time!
70 my
Cross section of Grand Canyon geology showing
monocline and Kaibab Upwarp
From Creation magazine
Observations blow away 480 million years of imaginary evolutionary time!
Carbon dating: evidence against ‘millions of years’!
Almost every bit of fossil organic material contains measurable carbon-14 (coal, bone, etc.)—even diamonds supposedly billions of years old!
But, anything older than 50,000 years should have no measurable carbon-14!
Powerful evidence against
millions and billio
ns of years!
“… flexible and resilient and when stretched returns to its original shape.”
Mary Schweitzer, Science 307(5717):1952, 25 March 2005.
Blood vessels
“This is not something I ever dreamed I’d see.”
+Nature News
Blood cells and vessels in T. rex bones
Blood cells
Blue stars are young!Blue stars burn H up to 200,000 x faster than our Sun All spiral galaxies contain some blue stars Burn up H in < 1 million years Star formation? Not observed. No viable model.
Orion
Continental erosionContinents are eroding & washing into the sea.
creation.com/eroding-ages
Continent
Erosion
Sea floor sediment
Eroded sediment
Continental erosion• Continents are eroding & washing into the
sea. • The average rate of erosion: 60 mm / 1000
years. • The basement rocks of continents said to
be ~2.5 billion years old. • Erosion would remove 150 kilometres of
continent in that time! • Continents would be levelled in just 10 Ma.
creation.com/eroding-ages
101 Evidences for a young age of the earth
creation.com/age
Blue Mountains (Australia)
Receding stage of floodwaters
1. Sheet flow plateaux
2. Channel flow valleys
I Peter 3:15
Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.