Print Page - Jesus Christ Creator

Acknowledgments

I gratefully acknowledge the help of my friend and colleague, Dr. Robert Kofahl, who reviewed this manuscript for technical accuracy, and Dr. W. J. DeSaegher, who reviewed the entire manuscript, contributing helpful suggestions. I would also like to thank the men of the Creation Research Society whose firm stand on the Word of God has strengthened my faith and made this book possible.

Kelly L. Segraves, M.A., D.R.E.
Director, Creation-Science Research Center

Introduction

On September 14, 1972, the following letter written by Wernher von Braun was read to the California State Board of Education by Dr. John Ford.

Dear Mr. Grose:

In response to your inquiry about my personal views concerning the "Case for DESIGN" as a viable scientific theory for the origin of the universe, life and man, I am pleased to make the following observations.

For me, the idea of a creation is not conceivable without invoking the necessity of design. One cannot be exposed to the law and order of the universe without concluding that there must be design and purpose behind it all. In the world around us, we can behold the obvious manifestations of an ordered, structured plan or design. We can see the will of the species to live and propagate. And we are humbled by the powerful forces at work on a galactic scale, and the purposeful orderliness of nature that endows a tiny and ungainly seed with the ability to develop into a beautiful flower. The better we understand the intricacies of the universe and all it harbors, the more reason we have found to marvel at the inherent design upon which it is based.

While the admission of a design for the universe ultimately raises the question of a Designer (a subject outside of science), the scientific method does not allow us to exclude data which lead to the conclusion that the universe, life and man are based on design. To be forced to believe only one conclusion - that everything in the universe happened by chance - would violate the very objectivity of science itself. Certainly there are those who argue that the universe evolved out of a random process, but what random process could produce the brain of a man or the system of the human eye?

Some people say that science has been unable to prove the existence of a Designer. They admit that many of the miracles in the world around us are hard to understand, and they do not deny that the universe, as modern science sees it, is indeed a far more wondrous thing than the creation medieval man could perceive. But they still maintain that since science has provided us with so many answers, the day will soon arrive when we will be able to understand even the creation of the fundamental laws of nature with a Divine Intent. They challenge science to prove the existence of God. But, must we really light a candle to see the sun?

Many men who are intelligent and of good faith say they cannot visualize an electron? The electron is materially inconceivable and yet, it is so perfectly known through its effects that we us it to illuminate our cities, guide our airliners through the night skies and take the most accurate measurements. What strange rationale makes some physicists accept the inconceivable electron as real while refusing to accept the reality of a Designer on the ground that they cannot conceive Him? I am afraid that, although they really do not understand the electron either, they are ready to accept it because they managed to produce a rather clumsy mechanical model of it borrowed from rather limited experience in other fields, but they would not know how to begin building a model of God.

I have discussed the aspect of a Designer at some length because it might be that the primary resistance to acknowledging the "Case for DESIGN" as a viable scientific alternative to the current "Case for CHANCE" lies in the inconceivability, in some scientists' minds, of a Designer. The inconceivability of some ultimate issue (which will always lie outside scientific resolution) should not be allowed to rule out any theory that explains the interrelationship of observed data and is useful for prediction.

We in NASA were often asked what the real reason was for the amazing string of successes we had with our Apollo flights to the Moon. I think the only honest answer we could give was that we tried to never overlook anything. It is in that same sense of scientific honesty that I endorse the presentation of alternative theories for the origin of the universe, life and man in the science classroom. It would be an error to overlook the possibility that the universe was planned rather than happening by chance.

With kindest regards.

Sincerely,

(signed) Wernher von Braun

* * * * *

For many years now, we have been bombarded with an onslaught of information which is geared to gain our acceptance of evolution as fact. Television programs, magazine articles, and even school textbooks openly present the evolutionary hypothesis as the only explanation available. In most cases evolution is presented as fact. It is not. Many evidences clearly invalidate the theory of evolution. Unfortunately, these evidences are often passed over and sometimes the information is suppressed, seldom reaching the public.

Many scientists have become disenchanted with the evolutionary hypothesis and are seeking a better explanation of the scientific facts which are available to us. The Creation Research Society is associated with nearly 450 scientists (all with advanced degrees) who have noted the inadequacies of the evolutionary theory and are researching an alternative position to the evolutionary premise. This alternative is found in a dynamic and powerful Creator who created all things and set the laws of nature in motion in the beginning.

Perhaps you feel that such men would be biased in their rejection of the evolutionary explanations of origins, but again this is not the case. Having researched both sides of the question, these men feel that creation is a more adequate explanation of the observable scientific phenomena. In fact, many of them were evolutionists at one time and have become creationists after learning about the shaky foundation upon which evolution is based.

It is interesting to note that a few honest appraisals come from evolutionary scientists themselves. One such individual, Dr. G. A. Kerkut of the Department of Physiology and Biochemistry, University of Southampton, has openly admitted some of the unverifiable assumptions of the evolutionary theory. In his book Implications of Evolution, Dr. Kerkut makes the following statements concerning the theory of evolution:

There are seven basic assumptions that are often not mentioned during discussions of evolution. Many evolutionists ignore the first six assumptions and only consider the seventh. These are as follows:

1. The first assumption is that non-living things gave rise to living material, i.e. spontaneous generation occurred.

2. The second assumption is that spontaneous generation occurred only once.

The other assumptions all follow from the second one

3. The third assumption is that viruses, bacteria, plants and animals are all interrelated.

4. The fourth assumption is that the protozoa gave rise to the metazoa.

5. The fifth assumption is that the various invertebrate phyla are interrelated.

6. The sixth assumption is that the invertebrates gave rise to the vertebrates.

7. The seventh assumption is that within the vertebrates the fish gave rise to the amphibia, the amphibia to the reptiles, and the reptiles to the birds and mammals. Sometimes this is expressed in other words, i.e. that the modern amphibia and reptiles had a common ancestral stock , and so on.

For the initial purposes of this discussion on evolution I shall consider that the supporters of the theory of evolution hold that all these assumptions form the "General Theory of Evolution."

The first point that I should make is that these seven assumptions by their nature are not capable of experimental verification. They assume that a certain series of events has occurred in the past. Thus though it may be possible to mimic some of these events under present-day conditions, this does not mean that these events must therefore have taken place in the past. All that it shows is that it is possible for such a change to take place. Thus to change a present-day reptile into a mammal, though of great interest, would not show the way in which the mammals did arise. Unfortunately we cannot bring about even this change; instead we have to depend upon limited circumstantial evidence for our assumptions.

After a thorough discussion of each of these basic assumptions, showing them to be just that - assumptions - this statement is his closing remark: ". . . there is the theory that all the living forms in the world have arisen from a single source which itself came from an inorganic form. This theory can be called the 'General Theory of Evolution' and the evidence that supports it is not sufficiently strong to allow us to consider it as anything more than a working hypothesis."

Please note that a hypothesis is not a fact. For this reason we must question the concept of evolution and consider an alternative - one that is based upon the Word of God. To accomplish this, it is necessary to examine the Biblical record in order to determine what God says He did and to establish the identity of the Creator.

1 Creation - Why?

Is a serious study of creation and a careful examination of the Genesis record essential to our Christian faith? Many people tell us that the Christian's responsibility is simply to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ. They tell us that the Christian should just try to glorify Him and not become overly concerned with doctrine and certain difficult areas of the Bible. After all, we really don't possess a revelation that tells us how everything came into existence, but one which gives us spiritual guidelines and clarifies our responsibility to proclaim Jesus Christ. With that in mind, they say, why be concerned with creation? Why study creation at all?

An approach to Genesis from such a perspective would seem to lessen the significance of Biblical creation. In addition, Charles Darwin and his theory of natural selection, Hugo Devries and his idea of mutation, and other events of the last hundred years, such as the Scopes Trial, have suggested that it is unscientific to believe the Biblical account. Thus many scientists have accepted only the theory of evolution. Finally, certain theologians of our day have yielded to the statements made by these scientists and inform us that the book of Genesis does not give a clear notion as to how God created the heavens and the earth, that it does not tell us when He created them, and that Genesis is not an account we can accept literally. Basically, the first eleven chapters of Genesis impart only suggestion or a "figurative rendition" of a beginning. We are told we cannot receive these chapters as literal truth because, after all, we "know" that the world evolved. Thus science classrooms around the country propagate the theory of evolution. Genesis is deemed the great myth of our time; anyone who believes it must be considered foolish.

What can we do about our dilemma? What defense can be established? Let us address ourselves first of all to the theologian who has thrown out the first eleven chapters of Genesis on the basis that it is non-scientific and cannot be accepted literally. Suppose we grant him that premise for a moment. We will reject the passage in question, labeling it myth and allegory. We will disclaim any statement in the passage regarding science, for we know that evolution is a valid law of science. On the basis of such a premise, however, and in an attempt to be consistent, we must necessarily throw out any references to these eleven chapter that appear in the rest of the Bible. Why? If the first eleven chapters are untrue, then a reference by any other writer to the first eleven chapters would only serve to perpetuate falsehoods.

Turn first to Exodus 20:8-11:

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the Sabbath day of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.

If we eliminate the first eleven chapters of Genesis, then we must throw out this reference to those eleven chapters, for here in the eleventh verse we read, "In six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is." Such a statement is foolishness if evolution is true. Note, however, that this little verse appears in the midst of the Ten Commandments - and is the basis for one of the commandments. In effect God is saying, as I, God, created the heavens and the earth in six days, and rested on the seventh, so shall you, man, work six days and rest on the seventh. Remember the seventh day; keep it holy and worship Me. James tells us that if we are guilty of breaking one of the commandments, we are guilty of breaking them all. If we deny the accuracy of verse eleven, we deny a premise upon which one of the Ten Commandments is based. And if Moses is untrustworthy here, we may well doubt is credibility elsewhere.

To dispute the correctness of verse eleven is to conceive that God, who revealed to Moses the writing on stone tablets, revealed something which contained a lie, which is contrary to His nature. If He wrote there with His own hand that He created everything in six days and we have proven scientifically that He could not do it. Then God has lied to us from the tablets of the Law. In addition, an inaccurate Mosaic account, here and throughout the Pentateuch, would bring into disrepute other verses in the Old Testament that deal with the Law, because the entire law is focused upon the Ten Commandments. If the Ten Commandments are wrong, the Law is void.

Many Old Testament writers refer to God's work of creation in terms of the Genesis account. We read in Ecclesiastes 7:29, "Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright . . ." The Psalmist says, "For he spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast" (Psalm 33:9); creation of the heavens was "the work of thy [God's] fingers" (Psalm 8:3). In Proverbs and in most of the prophets appear numerous references to God's having created. God's own testimony to the prophet Isaiah clearly specifies the consequences of setting aside the first eleven chapters of Genesis.

Thus saith the Lord the King of Israel, and his redeemer the Lord of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God. And who, as I, shall call, and shall declare it. And set it in order for me. Since I appointed the ancient people? And the things that are coming, and shall come, let them shew unto them. Fear ye not, neither be afraid: have not I told thee from that time, and have declared it? Ye are even my witnesses. Is there a God beside me? Yea, there is no God; I know not any.

Isaiah 44:6-8

After castigating man's idolatrous worship, He continues,

Thus saith the Lord, thy redeemer, and he that formed thee from the womb, I am the Lord that maketh all things; that stretcheth forth the heavens alone; that spreadeth abroad the earth by myself.

cont'd

Isaiah 44:24

In the following chapter we read,

I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God beside me . . . I form the light, and create darkness. I make peace, and create evil. I the Lord do all these things . . . I have made the earth, and created man upon it. I, even my hands, have stretched out the heavens, and all their host have I commanded. Hi have raised him up in righteousness, I will direct all his ways. He shall build my city, and he shall let go my captives, not for price, nor reward, saith the Lord of hosts . . . For thus saith the Lord that created the heavens. God Himself that formed the earth and made it, he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited. I am the Lord, and there is none else.

Isaiah 45:5,7,12,13,18

Disregarding the authenticity of the first eleven chapters of Genesis on the basis that God did not create the heavens and earth requires that we reject the testimony of Isaiah - the testimony of God Himself - and declare that God is telling us a lie.

Now let us turn to the New Testament, still upholding the premise that evolution, as a valid law of science, supplants the first eleven chapters of Genesis. In Matthew 19:3-5 the Pharisees came to Jesus, "tempting him, and saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?" He replied, "Have you not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female. And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be on flesh?" In this passage verse 4 is taken from chapter 1 of Genesis, verse 5 from chapter 2. If evolution is true - if all things came about by natural causes, the results of such processes as natural selection and mutations, and uniformitarianism - we cannot accept the testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ, who placed His credence on the testimony of Genesis 1 and 2. Either Jesus did not know that the world evolved, He was deceived by some foolish idea that it was created, or He deliberately deceived us because the people of His day could not understand evolution and thus He patterned His words after ideas that would be acceptable in His day. None of these three choices helps the Bible very much. If we cannot accept His teaching concerning spiritual things, such as heaven and a life hereafter?

If the testimony of Matthew is not credible, we must doubt the gospel of Mark, which concurs with Matthew. The third gospel writer, Luke, in the book of Acts (chapter 17) recounts the experience of the Apostle Paul in Athens. Preaching on Mars Hill, Paul speaks of "the unknown God." He introduces this particular God as the Creator of the heavens and the earth, the one who "giveth to all life, and breath, and all things." Not only in the book of Acts and the gospel of Luke, but also in the writings of John we find reference to the creation account. In fact, the gospel of John begins, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." He says of this individual who was in the beginning with God, "All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made." Must we throw out the testimony of John because he begins his book with a faulty premise, the idea of creation? If this were so, we would have to discard the epistles of John and even Revelation. In Revelation 14:7 the angel in he midst of the tribulation period cries out one message, "Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the foundations of waters." Apparently this angel was not informed that everything evolved.

In the writings of the apostle Paul, beginning in Romans 1, he speaks more than once of creation. "For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse" (Romans 1:20). Paul is telling us here that if we are willing to accept the fact of creation and examine things from this point of view, the invisible attributes of God are evidenced by the creation.

If Paul is mistaken in Romans, we may have difficulty accepting his statements in other epistles, but let us focus upon some of his other declarations. In Colossians he affirms, "For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist" (Colossians 1:16,17). The entire passage refers to Jesus Christ. If the creation account of Genesis 1 and 2 is not to be accepted as literal fact, we invalidate this presentation of Jesus Christ as Creator and deny a portion of His nature. We would also have to dismiss the testimony of Paul in I Corinthians 15:39, "All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds." Here Paul delineates four distinct kinds of flesh, each created separately. Every seed has its own body. If we sow barley, we will reap barley. One never plants wheat and reaps pomegranates. We always reap what we sow because things only reproduce after their kind, which is in accord with Genesis and the law of biogenesis.

Paul also tells us in I Corinthians 11 that

. . . a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man. For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man. For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head because of the angels. Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord. (Verses 7-11)

He stresses that the first man was created in the image of God, but the first woman was taken from the side of Adam, created for the man. The first man did not come from a woman. That is impossible if evolution were true, for in evolution the first man would have had to be born of some female ancestor.

The author of Hebrews begins, "God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in times past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds" (Hebrews 1:1-2). If the worlds were not made, but evolved, the testimony of this book would become untrustworthy. Later in the book we likewise read, "Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear" (Hebrews 11:3). This text, incidentally, affords an interesting description of the atom, of which all things consist.

The testimonies of James and Peter coincide with that of Paul. We find in James 1:18, "Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures." God does not have any creatures if He did not create anything. We might add, of course, that if everything evolved, there is no need for a God. The apostle Peter is consistent in confirming the fact of creation. "Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? For since the father fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation." Peter comments, "For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water; Whereby the world that then was being overflowed with water, perished" (II Peter 3:3-6). He is citing here the fact of creation and the fact of the Flood. Note also that he is basing the coming again of the Lord Jesus Christ upon these two events - the creation and the Flood. According to Peter, if we cannot verify the creation and the Flood, we have no way of verifying the second coming of Christ. Peter insists that any man who disbelieves those two accounts disbelieves the coming again and is willingly ignorant of the facts. If evolution is true, of course, Peter is willingly ignorant.

We have now disposed of all but one book of the New Testament. However, even the book of Jude presents a few problems, for it mentions Adam and angels, both of whom were created.

cont'd

If evolution is true, we do not have a New Testament to preach. Jesus Christ is a martyr and a liar, a man who died in vain. If everything evolved, then you are the result of natural processes and possess no sin nature, but are simply the consequence of your animal ancestry. As Freud says, we must work hard to get rid of the beast in man. If evolution is fact, we have no Christian ethic, no morals, no future life. If we throw out the first eleven chapters of Genesis, the Word of God is nothing more than a book. In fact, there would be no Word of God.

To be logical and reasonable, then, since I am not willing to repudiate the opening chapters of Genesis, and because I have personally met the One who wrote them - Jesus Christ, who possesses supreme power and ultimate authority - I must accept what the Scriptures have to say. I will accept literally the first eleven chapters of Genesis, that God created the heavens and the earth in six literal days. I will affirm that creation took place rather recently, that man fell into sin while living in Eden, that there was a worldwide Flood.

Why is creation important? Because without creation there is nothing else. If there is no Creator, then there is no Saviour either. When someone says, "Present the message of Jesus Christ," I heartily concur. But we must present the creative message of Jesus Christ because of who He claimed to be. Picture in your mind the person of Jesus Christ. Do you envision a man with a beard, perhaps rough and rugged, walking upon the earth? Do you see a man talking to children, at the well speaking to the woman, walking on the water, hanging upon a cross? If so, your picture is of Jesus Christ incarnate, in fashion like a man, performing an earthly ministry among men.

The apostle Paul, however, tells who Jesus really is, proclaiming that "we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins." He is "the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature." By Jesus Christ "were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in the earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him" (Colossians 1:14-16). Notice the all encompassing creative power of Christ. Everything that exists is either in heaven or in earth, visible or invisible. His power comprehends thrones and dominions, principalities (angels) and powers. All of these things were created by Him and for Him, and by Him all things consist. In other words, He is the power which holds the entire universe together. Thus creation is important because of its relationship to the One who created.

We have a tendency at times to be excessively concerned with what man has to say. When some professor tells us that evolution is a proven fact, or when we take the Bible off its inspired plane and attempt to make it coincide with man's theories, we begin to have problems. The Bible instructs us to be "ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you" (I Peter 3:15). This certainly includes the realm of scientific knowledge.

A fable is told of a small monkey who lived in the wilds of the jungle. He began to wonder why he and his friends did not go down to the river in the cool of the evening. After all, they went down after lunch in the warmth of the day to do a little skinny dipping. It would be equally delightful to go for a moonlight swim. He asked some of the other monkeys, but no one really seemed to know. Finally he came to his uncle, the wisest of all the monkeys in the clan. "Uncle, why don't we go down to the river in the cool of the evening?"

His uncle replied, "We don't go down there because the crocodiles come out. Crocodiles like to eat small monkeys."

That bothered the small monkey a little bit, but he had never seen a crocodile. His friends likewise had never seen a crocodile. So he queried, "Uncle, have you ever seen a crocodile? How do you know crocodiles exist?"

"This information has been passed down to us from generation to generation. It is a well-known fact. If we could write, it would probably be recorded in the Dead Monkey Scrolls someplace."

"What does a crocodile look like?"

"It is reported that crocodiles are long, thin animals with bumps on their bodies. They float down the river like logs. They have two beady eyes, sharp teeth, terrible breath - and they enjoy eating monkeys for dinner."

That was rather frightening to small monkey, but he continues his questioning of other monkeys and could not find anyone who had ever seen a crocodile. Ultimately, he was convinced that crocodiles simply did not exist, so he set out one evening to prove his new-found wisdom. It was a beautiful evening, the perfect time to get rid of that old wives' tale and superstition passed on by monkeys' uncles. So ecstatic was he in his new-found wisdom that he did not even notice a log floating down the river. He wasn't a bit perturbed when he heard a rustling in the brush behind him, when he felt hot breath down his back. Small monkey soon became crocodile's dinner. The monkey had said that he refused to believe in crocodiles, but the old crocodile just chuckled, "O foolish monkey, to have said in your heart, there are no crocodiles."

Man today considers it foolish to believe in God. He will ridicule you and call you a fool. But God replies, "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God" (Psalm 14:1). Man today with his new-found wisdom worships the creature, paying homage to his own knowledge and intellect. God warns, "Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools" (Romans 1:22). Peter says that the man who denies creation, the Flood, and the coming again of the Lord Jesus Christ is willfully ignorant of the facts. Personally, I would rather be called a fool by man because I believed in the wisdom of God than to be called a fool by God because I heeded the vain babblings and teachings of man. Just because man denies God and His law does not make God's law null and void. I can deny the law of gravity all day, but the moment I step off a thirty story building, I fall in one direction. I can deny it all the way down, but my denial does not mean that I am not bound by its restraints. Man today, in denying God and His law, is still bound by the restraints of God's law.

2 The Beginning - When?

According to the opening chapter of Genesis, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." When exactly was "the beginning"? We are frequently told that everything began some four and a half billion years ago. Some books suggest six billion years, and a few articles would even urge a span of 30 billion years. There seems to be a contradiction between the statements of Genesis and the premises of people who accept the evolutionary hypothesis. How does one blend four and a half billion evolutionary years with 6000 years (as determined from the genealogies in Genesis 5 and 11 and by Bishop Ussher)?

Some scholars have attempted to merge Biblical with evolutionary thinking, accounting for differences by making the days of creation long periods of time or by placing a gap between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2. In this chapter we will discuss these two theories as well as analyzing theories concerning the age of the earth itself.

THE DAY-AGE THEORY

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." The nature of "the beginning" is clarified to an extent in Genesis 1:31, "And God saw everything that He had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day." Chapter 2:1-2 continues, "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made: and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made." God completed His work on the seventh day. Exodus 20:11 concurs with the Genesis account: "For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested on the seventh day." God seems to have ended His creative activity on the seventh day, which would place the beginning of His creative acts exactly six days before their completion.

If the beginning was six days before the completion, we must next ask, How long was "the day"? God defines the Hebrew word for day the first time He uses it. According to Genesis 1:5, "And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night." The light period of time is clearly labeled "day," the dark period designated "night." In addition, God uses two phrases which indicate the length of a day. "And the evening and the morning were the first day." Every time the Hebrew words for evening and morning are used in the Old Testament, they refer to a literal day. The Hebrew concept of "day" begins in the evening, continues through the night, and terminates the following afternoon. Thus "evening and morning" are expressions used to define a literal day.

Every time the Hebrew word yom (singular) is used in the Old Testament with a numerical adjective - first day, fifth day, tenth day, 100th day - it refers to a literal solar day. Likewise, each time yamim (plural) is used, literal days must be specified. Compare, for instance, the double usage of yamim in Exodus 20, the passage which contains the Ten Commandments. In verses 8-10, obviously speaking of a literal seven-day week, God enjoins us to work only six days (yamim), retaining the Sabbath as a day of rest. Why should man rest one day in seven? Because, according to verse 11, which relates back to the Genesis account of creation, God created everything in six days (yamim) and rested on the seventh.

A consistent interpretation of Scripture must find that "day" or "days" when used in a clearly literal context, as in Exodus 20:9, will likewise require actual solar days in Genesis 1 or Exodus 20:11, referring to days of creation. No exception may be allowed.

If one attempts to extend the days of creation into long periods of time, strange things happen. For instance, an effort to correlate the days of creation with the evolutionary geologic column produces at least twenty-one major discrepancies. According to the evolutionists, several things are wrong with the Biblical account. For one thing, plant life, the first life to appear in Genesis, comes rather late in evolutionary development. There are also some problems with differences between fish and fowl. In Genesis fowl are created on the same day as fish. When God created life. He started with whales, sea creatures, and fowl (Genesis 1:21). But according to evolution, fish gave rise to reptiles, which developed into mammals and birds. Again, the sun, moon and stars in the Genesis account were made on the fourth day, whereas these are the evolutionary essentials for bringing life into being. If life were to come about by microbiology, by some simple chemicals coming together to form amino acids, later becoming more complex protein molecules and ultimately the first cell, then radiant energy or sunlight would be needed. Finally, if one tries to stretch creation days into long periods of time. Plant life, created on the third day, would have to live without the light of the sun for however long your day was - 1000 years, one million years - because the light from the sun did not reach here until it was created on the fourth day. The third day brought forth plants, but insects which are necessary for the pollinization of many flowering plants are not created until the sixth day.

With reference again to consistent Biblical interpretation, if one insists that days are long periods of time in Genesis, he will have to say that they are long periods of time in other places of Scripture, such as Jonah's three days in the whale or Nehemiah's three days spent in the city. How long is a day? God says He began His creative activity six days before He completed it. The Bible is consistent, and therefore these days must be literal days.

THE GAP THEORY

In the light of the weaknesses found within the day-age theory, some people have invented another theory called the gap theory. The gap theory, or ruin and reconstruction theory, proposes that God originally created the heavens and the earth in Genesis 1:1. There was then a judgment and a cataclysm, some kind of catastrophic event by which the earth was judged and became "without form and void," as noted in verse 2. Proponents suggest that there is good evidence for this in the text, because "darkness was upon the face of the deep," and darkness is evidence of sin. Then "the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." According to the gap theory, the word for "moved," which connotes brooding, indicates that God was brooding over this evil chaos, thus providing additional evidence for a gap and a judgment. The basic tenet that nothing chaotic comes from the hand of God demands a context of judgment upon sin between verses 1 and 2.

With Genesis 1:2 viewed as evidence for some catastrophic event, many people have tried to place all the geologic ages between the opening verses of Genesis and thus provide adequate room for evolution. They project that God created an original heaven and earth which He judged. He then recreated some of the animals, so a six-day creation could still be maintained.

First, let us consider the arguments presented in favor of this theory. The Bible says. "And the earth was without form, and void" (Genesis 1:2). The word for "was" in Hebrew is the verb hayah, the basic Hebrew word for being. It is used 1522 times in the Pentateuch alone. Fifteen hundred times it is translated by its simple usage "was," but twenty-two times it is used with the idea of "became." Each time it is translated "became," the context denotes a change taking place: Lot left the city with his wife, she was walking with him, she was a woman, she turned and "became" a pillar of salt. Such a change occurs in all of the instances translating this word "became." However, one cannot supply this translation in Genesis 1, which demands the simple usage of the word "was."

The proponents of the gap theory say that the words "without form and void" indicate some chaotic condition as a result of judgment. They point to verses in Jeremiah 4:23-26 and Isaiah 24:1, where the same words are used to refer to some type of catastrophic event. But both of those instances refer to a time when people living in an area experienced a judgment, a destruction, because of which the whole territory was laid waste and desolate to the extent that it became unpopulated. With that in mind, note Isaiah 45:18, "For thus saith the Lord that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the Lord; and there is none else." In this description there are no people. It is the description of an earth which is incomplete and unfinished. The word "vain" here is the same word which is translated "void" in Genesis 1:2. The earth was empty and void of life or empty and vain. God said He created it not in vain, but to be finished and inhabited by people. In this particular verse (Isaiah 45:18) the earth is not complete, so there can be no reference to any destruction and judgment, for in order to have a judgment there would have to be inhabitants to judge.

cont'd

"And darkness was upon the face of the deep." Those who insist that darkness is evidence of sin conclude that verse 2 gives evidence of sin on the earth which resulted in cataclysm and judgment. True, darkness sometimes gives the impression of evil, but notice what God does with the darkness. He says, "Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day" (Genesis 1:3-5). If darkness is evidence of evil in verse 2, then it is also evidence of evil in verse 5. But the latter darkness He calls night. Must night, then, be considered evil? To the contrary, God, who sets up a system of light and darkness, says the whole system is "very good" (Genesis 1:31). The darkness of verse 2, then, simply means the absence of light. God solves that problem by creating light.

The final statement of verse 2 is quite direct and literal. "And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters" merely signifies that the Spirit of God was present and that water existed.

To argue for a gap between Genesis 1:1 & 1:2 and to place the geologic ages there is to formulate some very serious difficulties. If a judgment had been placed upon these earliest life forms, they would be buried in the earth, producing some kind of fossil record. This fossil record is found in the various geological strata and is really a record of the death, decay and destruction of plants and animals on the earth, laid in sedimentary strata by some kind of water action. Philosophically, if we try to correlate this with the Genesis account of chapter 1, then we are saying that death is the element to bring new forms of life upon the earth. This assumes that man is really the result of death over a vast period of time. Certain types of animals unfit to survive lost their ecological niche and died out; some new form of life entered, and ultimately man came upon the earth.

In opposition to this argument, Genesis 1-3 proclaims that man was created perfect by God. Because of man's disobedience to God, sin and death entered into this world for the first time. The Bible states that death came as a result of man's disobedience to God's law, whereas, according to evolution, the geologic record says that man is the result of death, having evolved from earlier animal ancestors that are now extinct.

What will we find, then, if we place the record of the geologic column into a gap between Genesis 1:1 & 1:2? We will discover buried in all the strata throughout the earth - every square foot of ground upon which Adam walked in the Garden of Eden - evidence of the destruction of animals and plants. But God created this garden in which (according to the gap theory) every rock contained evidence of death and destruction of animals in the past, and He said of this garden that it was "very good." In addition Romans 5:12 tells us that by Adam's disobedience death entered into this world for the first time. A gap between Genesis 1:1 & 1:2, into which the fossil record is placed, demands that Adam find death evidenced in every rock he looks at. How, then, can one honestly say that by Adam sin and death entered into the world for the first time? If we destroy that premise, we basically destroy the doctrine of sin and ultimately the basis for salvation, which is established upon the premise that Adam, a perfectly created individual, fell into sin, and his disobedience brought death into this world for the first time. On that basis Jesus Christ came to save that which He created.

Proponents of the gap theory suggest that the sun, moon and stars were created in verse 1 but that God did not make them appear until Genesis 1:16, which introduces two different lights, the greater to rule the day and the lesser to rule the night. They claim that the word "made" (verse 16) does not mean that God directly created them on that day, but that He unveiled them - He uncovered the cloud or vapor that kept them from being seen. This explanation is given in the Scofield Bible, whose notes contend that the verb asah indicates that God made the sun, moon and stars to appear. If this is true, and God simply remade them or made them to appear, we must ask what is meant by the verb asah in Genesis 1:26: "And God said, Let us make man in our image." Does this mean "Let us make man to appear"? Does it suggest that God uncovered man from the dust, perhaps taking one of the destroyed fossil men and remaking him? Was man merely unveiled or allowed to appear? To be consistent, one would have to accept such a description.

God seems to use two words asah and bara, interchangeably, for in Genesis 5:1 He says, "In the day that God created [bara] man, in the likeness of God made [asah] he him." And the Lord God says He made (asah) the earth and the heaven, whereas in Genesis 1:1 God created (bara) the earth and heaven. Genesis 2:4 tells us, "These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created [bara] in the day that the Lord God made [asah] the earth and the heavens." In Exodus 20:11, "For in six days the Lord made [asah] heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is." We must conclude, therefore, that asah is not to be translated "made to appear," but simply "made" or "created."

A number of serious theological questions arise if we accept the thesis that God remade the sun, moon and stars. Does that mean that He also remade man? And if He made man over, then was man pre-existent before Adam? If so, this pre-existent mortal was totally destroyed and God did not save a remnant; in other words, His first creation was a total failure. But can God fail? If so, must we be fearful that He is failing now? And what about the souls of the men who were eliminated in this gap judgment before verse 2? Were they living souls condemned to hell? We may forego such questions if we remember the Bible's clear statement that Adam was created as the first man. In fact, because the first Adam, though created perfect, fell, Christ, the second Adam, came to save.

Since many gap theorists place most of the fossil record in the gap between Genesis 1:1 & 1:2, serious problems arise for them concerning the Flood. If any evidence of this gap judgment survived today in fossil remains of animals and plants buried by a cataclysm after Genesis 1:1, one could not affirm the occurrence of the worldwide Flood in Genesis 6,7 & 8. This catastrophe would probably erase most of the evidence of any previous cataclysm and rearrange the fossils so that one could not separate the fossils and determine which were from the gap judgment and which were from the Flood judgment without limiting the effects of the Flood. In light of this, it seems contradictory to place the fossil record in the gap and thereby deny another portion of Scripture, namely the universal Flood.

The gap theory requires cataclysmic judgment upon sin in order to produce an earth "without form, and void" (Genesis 1:2). Heretofore we have considered judgment upon pre-Adamic man; however the gap theory at times assigns the cause to the fall of Satan. That is, Satan was ejected from heaven and was cast to the earth, supposedly causing judgment upon it. We read a description of this fall in Ezekiel 28, beginning with verse 12, and in Isaiah 14, beginning with verse 12. God says that Lucifer was a created being, the "anointed cherub that covereth" (Ezekiel 28:14). He was perfect from the day of his creation until the day that iniquity was found in him. Satan at one point decided that he himself would like to be the recipient of worship. He decided in his heart that he was as high as God: "I will be like the most High" (Isaiah 14:14). He worshipped himself rather than God and placed himself before the Word of God. Satan was created perfect, but he fell.

cont'd

The Biblical statement concerning Satan's fall is quite clear, but keeping in mind the gap theory's contention, let us turn to Genesis 2:1. "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them." The "host of heaven" refers to two things in Scripture: stars and angels (cf. Nehemiah 9:6, Revelation 12:4). Throughout the Psalms, Job, and several other books the "host of heaven" is repeatedly referred to as angels. In addition, the Bible tells us that angels rejoiced at the creation, but it does not say which particular stage of the creation. In Genesis 2:1 God finished the heavens and the earth and all the host of them, which would include the angels' creation within that six day event. Exodus 20:11 concurs, explaining that God "made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is" - including angels - in six days. Affirming, then, that angels (including Lucifer) were part of the six-day creative process, we find God saying in Genesis 1:31 that He saw "everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good." If God saw everything that He had made, He saw Satan. But if we accept this aspect of the gap theory, we would have to say that god beheld all that He had made, and, behold, every thing was very good - except Satan. In terms of the conclusion to this Genesis chapter, any evidence of sin on the earth or in heaven would transform God into a liar. And He does not say His creation is just good, but "very good." In other words, Satan could not have fallen before the end of the sixth day.

Scripture itself does not seem to validate the gap theory's argument that the fall of Satan and his followers, who were "cast . . . to the earth" (Revelation 12:4), fashioned an earth of darkness, without form and void. In fact, a full reading of Revelation 12 (cf. verse 9) speaks again of Satan being "cast out into the earth," but this is yet a future event. Since his fall Satan has argued with God over the tempting of Job and debated with Michael over the body of Moses, and at present he has access to the heavens as the accuser of the brethren to Jesus Christ, the Christian's advocate with the Father. Scripture fails to support any view that Satan's fall caused a cataclysm, whether past or future.

A CONSISTENT READING OF GENESIS 1

If we interpret Genesis 1 in the light of what is actually there, we will find a very different picture than what has been proposed. "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." God created first of all an expanse and an earth - the word "heaven" means expanse. We seem to think of heaven as sun, moon and stars, but according to Genesis 1:14-17 the stars are hung in the heaven, or something we call space. Evidently before God began His creative activity, before Genesis 1, there was no such thing as space. God created space, mass and time to declare His power and Godhead.

In the beginning, then, God created this great expanse and the earth. In verse 2 He describes what the earth is like - "without form, and void." In other words, it is empty and vain, unfinished, void of life, as described in Isaiah 45:18. "Darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." According to this verse there is one body of water; earth or land exists, but a careful reading of the description in Genesis 1 indicates that land is completely covered by water. We may envision a rotating body of water shrouded in darkness in a vast expanse.

God then created light and divided it from the darkness. On Day 2 God divided the water from above the firmament and from under the firmament, establishing a unique atmosphere for the earth. On Day 3 God called the dry land out of the water. He let the waters under the heaven be gathered together into one place, and the dry land appeared. God called the dry land earth; the gathering together of the water he called seas. He now said, "Let the earth [the dry land area] bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and fruit trees." On Day 4 God divided His singular light source to create a sun and moon, now distributing that light source, forming stars and star groups as He created the heavens.

Then on Day 5 God created the fish of the sea and fowl that fly above the earth. On Day 6 He created cattle and creeping things. Also on the sixth day He created man, and after seeing that man was not complete, He created woman. At this point, when God finished all His creative activity, He pronounced it "very good."

Those who argue for a gap theory say that Genesis 1:28, "Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth," is evidence that people must have inhabited the earth prior to Genesis 1:26, 27. However, the word "replenish" in Hebrew means "fill" or "refill." Even the English usage of "replenish" may indicate filling the first time. A proper translation would be "to fill" - simply fill the earth, subdue it, have dominion over the fish of the sea and the fowl of the air. This was God's purpose for man.

According to Genesis 2, Adam was created full-grown and intelligent. The day of his creation he was able to walk through the Garden of Eden and name all the animals. In addition, the trees of the Garden were growing and giving fruit, though created only a few days before Adam. As Adam looked into the heavens, he could see the light shining from the stars. By stretching out the heavens (cf. Isaiah 44:24), God created the stars, and the light from the stars was visible on earth, giving the appearance that they had been shining for years, though created only two days before. Because all of God's creation appeared originally in a mature form, showing evidence of age, we can account for much of the discrepancy between the age of the earth given by the Biblical account and the age as given by the evolutionist. Remember, Adam was created as a full-grown adult.

George Gaylord Simpson, a leading evolutionist, admits that if one grants the premise of the appearance of age, he could not disprove that the earth was created one second ago, in 4004 B.C., or four and a half billion years ago. However, the creationists assume that the earth was created with the appearance of age. God says He did just that: He created man full-grown, a universe perfectly functioning. True creation, unlike evolution, does not predicate a gradual development form the simple to the complex. As the Bible clearly illustrates, creation begins only with God's eternal power and brings forth a mature product.

cont'd

DETERMINING THE AGE OF THE EARTH

We now come to a major dilemma. If no gap exists between Genesis 1:1 & 1:2, thus denying the insertion of a long period of time, how do we solve the discrepancies concerning the age of the earth? Certainly there is a serious discrepancy between an age of four and a half billion years and an age of 6000 years. To place the problem in a figurative perspective, both evolutionist and creationist are examining a burning candle which is six inches high at the moment and burns at the rate of one inch per hour. The question is asked: how long has the candle been burning? In order to determine this, they need to know the length of the candle when it was lit. For instance, if the candle were originally eleven inches high, burning at the rate of one inch per hour, they can determine that it has been burning for five hours.

Two of the principal dating methods for obtaining the age of the earth are uranium-lead and thorium-lead, based on the half-life of uranium and thorium. These methods are used with rocks that contain uranium and thorium as well as other minerals. In order to explain this method let us assume that we have a rock which is completely uranium. Theory would state that in four and a half billion years, or the half-life of uranium, this rock would be half uranium and half lead - in four and a half billion years half of the uranium would turn into lead. We know the present amount of uranium, we know the present amount of lead, we know the present rate - but how long has this process been going on? Was it created in almost its present condition - half uranium and half lead? The evolutionist assumes that the rock was totally uranium in the beginning and has been decaying for four and a half billion years, with nothing ever changing its decay rate. Moreover, it is assumed that nothing has occurred to greatly affect the uranium and lead content of the rock. All things have remained constant.

Return to the illustration of the candle. Remember, it is six inches and burns at the rate of one inch per hour. One way to determine how long the candle has been burning is to measure the amount of carbon dioxide being expelled from the burning candle. If all of the carbon dioxide in the room were measured and we assumed that it all came from the candle, we could determine how long the candle had been burning.

What problem might we encounter? If someone were breathing in the room, and additional amount of carbon dioxide would be produced. Carbon dioxide, naturally present in the atmosphere, would also be in the room - as well as the carbon dioxide coming from the candle. Therefore, if we assume that all of the carbon dioxide in the room emanated from the candle, an age or length of time for the burning candle is going to be greater than the actual time the candle has been burning. Our dilemma is clear: the amount of carbon dioxide coming from the candle, from breathing and from the atmosphere cannot be separated. Since all carbon dioxide from all three sources is identical, it cannot be traced to its origin.

Lead is found in its natural state in the earth and is also present from the decay of uranium. By looking at lead you could not determine if it were naturally present or the product of the decay process. Unless you can separate the two, you cannot really judge the length of the decay process. Assuming that all of the lead in the earth came as a result of decay, you might come up with an age of four and half billion years for the earth. But let us return to the example of the candle. As the candle burns and decays, it gives off a certain amount of carbon dioxide, but it also emits a secondary by-product - wax drippings. No wax is naturally present in the room where the candle is burning, so we can be quite sure that all of the wax drippings came from the candle. But then we must ask "Did the candle always burn at the same rate?"

If it did burn at the same rate from beginning to end, we could measure the wax drippings and determine very accurately how long the candle has been burning. By comparison, as uranium in rocks decays into lead, it gives off a secondary by-product, helium. At the present rate of formation the total amount of radiogenic helium in the earth today can be accounted for within the last 12,000 years. Efforts to demonstrate that helium can escape the atmosphere seem futile since helium is being added to the atmosphere by the solar wind. This means that it is totally impossible for the earth to be four and a half billion years old on the basis of the uranium-lead and thorium-lead dating systems, for there simply is not enough helium, enough by-product present.

Using the helium method, measuring the other by-product of uranium decay instead of lead, one finds that it gives an earth-age of something like 12,000 years - if one assumes there is no helium to start with. But helium is a basic element, and so its natural presence would move the earth-age date to an even younger age.

There are other ways of looking at the uranium-lead and thorium-lead dating systems. In some rocks natural lead is not present, as evidenced by the absence of lead 204. Yet lead 208 exists in these rocks without the parent element thorium. Now it is impossible to have a daughter element without a parent element, at least if it is a by-product of some decay system. Yet at times we find lead 208 with very little or no thorium. This causes some scientists, such as Dr. Melvin Cook, a Ph.D. from Yale, to examine the system. He was curious about the ratio of nitrogen 14 and nitrogen 15 in the atmosphere which is different from the ratio of nitrogen 14 and nitrogen 15 in certain uranium-thorium minerals containing lead isotopes but not lead 204. Because lead is a very active element in nuclear reactions and would pick up fast neutrons freely, Dr. Cook compiled some calculations on fast neutron capture to indicate that the actual process was as follows: uranium was not decaying into lead, but lead 206 gained a neutron and became lead 207 which in turn gained a neutron and became lead 208. This discovery clearly resolved all the discrepancies between nitrogen 14 and nitrogen 15 ratios. Furthermore, this is the most logical way one can account for lead 208 being found in rocks without thorium, the parent element. According to Dr. Cook's calculations the uranium to lead system would give a zero age for the earth. These calculations show that the hands of this clock have not moved. When we consider the effects of the helium method gives a maximum age of 12,000 years, we can see there is strong evidence that the earth is very young.

Another method of dating, a little more accurate and easier to deal with, is carbon 14, a radioactive substance which possesses a half-life of 5570 years. It is estimated that a certain constant number of carbon 14 atoms are being produced each year in the upper atmosphere. When the total amount of carbon 14 atoms in the earth has built up to the point where the number of carbon 14 atoms decomposing in one year is equal to the number of carbon 14 atoms being produced in the upper atmosphere, then equilibrium will be reached. This process should take only 30,000 years, and since most evolutionists feel that the earth is older than 30,000 years, it is assumed that equilibrium has been reached. Yet it is now admitted by scientists that only enough decomposing carbon 14 atoms can be found to account for the system being two-thirds of the way to equilibrium. This means that the atmosphere is much younger than 30,000 years in age. If we agree only with the known measurements established by Libby and others who invented the method, we find that there is a non-equilibrium model (the rate of formation of carbon 14 in the upper atmosphere is still greater than the amount of decay)which can be used to correct for the assumption that equilibrium has been reached. All carbon 14 dates which have been published in the science journals can be telescoped to within the last 4000 years by this non-equilibrium model, and a maximum age for the earth of 11,500 years is established. At least that is the maximum age for the earth's atmosphere, and it would be hard to conceive of the earth existing without an atmosphere. Carbon 14 certainly has a half-life which is commensurate with a young age for the earth and seems to be a reasonable dating method when it has been properly calibrated.

When we examine what the scientists have to say, rather than taking their word at face value, and compare it with the Bible, we find that there is no need to stretch out the days of creation, no need to formulate a gap between Genesis 1:1 & 1:2. If we are willing to stand behind what the Bible affirms - that God created the heavens and the earth by His power in six literal days, as He says He did - our position can be supported by the actual facts of science. There is no known discrepancy which would disprove Biblical statements. Antithetical proposals are simply the assumptions of men who choose not to believe in God and who are trying to document the development of animals and plants apart from God. They wish to rely on natural processes rather than upon any supernatural force. The evolutionary position is held by faith. How much better to place our faith in a Biblical position of a supernatural God, who has the power and the authority to accomplish what He says He did.

3 Man - How?

What we believe concerning man's origin will influence our feelings and actions today and will ultimately influence our belief about the destiny of man. If evolution is true, man is simply the result of his evolutionary ancestry and does not have a fallen nature; instead, his actions are merely the result of his animal ancestry. Freud says we must do what we can to get rid of the beast in man. But if man never fell, if he is simply the carry-over from his animal ancestry, then there really is no need for man to have any system of morals, for he is not a moral being. He is simply the highest animal in the animal kingdom. This philosophy is the basis for some of the problems we have in the world today.

The Encyclopedia Britannica defines man as simply the highest of the beasts, the highest form of the animal kingdom. If man is the highest of the animal kingdom, still evolving, there is no more hope for man than for parakeets, penguins or platypuses.

In opposition to evolution, the Bible maintains the salient importance of man, separate and distinct from animals. What we believe and accept concerning the premise of man's origins will ultimately determine all of our actions. If we firmly agree with what God has to say concerning the origin of man, we will live a life more pleasing to Him. The purpose of this treatise is to strengthen that faith in God's Word.

CREATION OF MAN

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him: male and female created he them. And God blessed them and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

Genesis 1:26-28

Does God say, let man be one of the fish of the sea, one of the fowl of the air, or one of the cattle of the earth; let him be related to all the animals on the earth? No, He instructs man to have dominion over these creatures. The purpose of God in creating man was that he would be distinct from the animals. Nothing happened to man until God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life - then man became a living soul. God did not do this with the animal kingdom.

And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads. And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.

Genesis 2:7-10, 15-20

Notice something about Adam: God did not create a baby and wait for him to grow up. On the day Adam was created he possessed all of his faculties, reflected intelligence, and was full-grown with all the appearance of age. That tells us something about God's creation. When He created the tree, probably it had growth rings. When He created the mountain, it may have had the appearance of erosion and other indicators of age. Genesis 1:9 says that God caused the waters to gather and the dry land to appear. Some mountain-building probably occurred and possibly some erosion. In any case, the dry land and the mountains would have gained an appearance of age. Adam, created on the sixth day, could see light coming from stars created on the fourth day, though apparently millions of light years away. God created a full-grown, developed universe.

Adam named all the animals, but he did not find anyone who met his specification for a mate. Adam was totally unique. There was no help meet for him. "And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept:" and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto man" (Genesis 2:21-22). This is a most interesting portion of Scripture and probably one of the most scientific texts in the Bible. Investigation with frogs and other animals has led to some interesting results. Every cell in the body contains the same genetic structure. The nucleus of the skin cell of a frog can be used to replace the nucleus of an egg and eventually cause a tadpole to hatch. The cell, even though a skin cell, has the full template for the entire structure of a frog within it. In other words, every cell in the body has the same template. We do not as yet understand enough about this experiment to transfer the nuclei of skin cells to human eggs.

However, this scientific information suggests something about the method God used to create Eve. He took from Adam a rib. Some people charge the Bible with inaccuracy because men now have the same number of ribs as women, but this is a specious argument. If I lose my hand, my children will still be born with two hands. Adam had one less rib than Eve, but their offspring inherited the proper number of ribs. God took this particular portion of the body because it contained bony substance and fleshy material. From this He could perform a cell reduction (taking half of the chromosomes) and create woman. He could have created woman instantaneously of dust as He did Adam, but He chose to take a rib from Adam. Why?

1) This negates the possibility of theistic evolution or any other evolution. God says He took a rib from man and created woman. In biology we learn that the male has an X and Y chromosome, the female two X chromosomes. These separate and recombine to make makes and females. In taking a rib from Adam God was able to take two X chromosomes and create a female. Suppose He created woman first? She has only two X chromosomes - where would He get the Y? This parallels the uniqueness of the Lord Jesus Christ, born of a virgin. There is such a thing as parthenogenesis in rabbits, of course, with a female giving birth without the help of a male, but she always produces a female. One uniqueness of Jesus is that Y chromosome.

2) Adam was created first; then God taking the rib, produced a female. Why is that important? It demonstrates the uniqueness of Adam's existence, for Adam came not from a woman. Every other male in this world came from a female. Why did God go to all the trouble to do it this way? It demonstrates the unity of the human race. Notice what Adam says in Genesis 2:23: "And Adam said, This is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man."

Have you ever wondered about the fact that on the day God created them, He created only one individual? Adam and Eve were one: the same genetic constitution, one individual, bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh. That is why Eve could partake of the fruit and not plunge the whole human race into sin; Adam was the one held responsible. If God had created man from the dust and woman from the dust, Adam and Eve individually would have had to fall. Jesus Christ could come to save because Adam fell, and as all men die in Adam, so in Jesus Christ all men can be reborn into God's family and be made alive (Romans 5:12).

Adam is the individual responsible for the fall of the human race. Eve fell in Adam, for he is the racial head, the one held responsible. This principle is important concerning the fall because our salvation is based upon it. Adam fell into sin, and every man born into Adam's family was born to die. Thus every man must be reborn into God's family through Jesus Christ in order to have eternal life. As in Adam all are children of Satan, so in the second Adam, Jesus Christ, all become children of God. Without man's unity and fallen nature we would not have one way of salvation obtainable by all men.

Why be concerned with how man and woman came into being? God was very specific in how He created man and what He designed and created for him - so specific that we can take no position other that that He created them perfect. "Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright" (Ecclesiastes 7:29).

God created Adam and Eve and gave them the genetic potential for all people on the earth today. Unfortunately, many men do not choose to believe this, but would rather say that somehow man evolved from a lower form of life. Or they may take the position (as some do) of a theistic evolutionist and say that two apes for some unknown reason fell on their knees; they looked upward, God mistook that for prayer, and He created man and woman. Or perhaps somehow God allowed them to evolve and, when they were ready, gave them a soul. in opposition to these variant possibilities, we must accept what God says or accept theories which go counter to the Biblical account.

cont'd

THE FOSSIL RECORD

Does the fossil record present a problem in the origin of man? Anthropologists, constantly uncovering human bones, tell us exactly how long ago they think these people lived, what they were, where they lived and the importance of their place in man's ancestry. How do they obtain all this information and how trustworthy is it?

We begin with the Cambrian strata, supposed to be the oldest rock strata containing fossils. Note first a major mystery in the fossil record: the outburst of life in the so-called Cambrian period, though there should be billions of years of evolution represented before this. Tremendous amount of Precambrian rock were laid down, yet they contain only single celled fossils. An index fossil is a particular type of fossil presumed to identify rock formations or strata. The great index fossil of the Cambrian rocks is the trilobite, presumed to be one of the earliest forms of life. Trilobites are really very complex little animals with a nervous system, compound eyes and jointed legs. The eyes in some species incorporated advanced principles of optical science. They certainly are not primitive animals. Evolutionists claim that once life evolved to the one-celled animal, we were more than halfway to man. A trilobite is much farther up that scale, yet we have no record of evolutionary development before it. Trilobites and most other invertebrates are found represented in the Cambrian strata.

My files include a photograph of a particular fossil acquisition in the Cambrian strata. About twenty little trilobites are imbedded in rock in what appears to be a sandal print. This presents a slight problem. The sandal print had to be formed while the trilobites were still living; no other logical explanation can be conceived. However, after scanning this photo carefully one paleontologist at the University of Utah stated that the whole print must be a new type of trilobite that we have never seen before. He is talking about trilobite fossils in what would appear to be a ten-inch sandal print which has deeper impression in the heel mark area than in the toe.

The uncovering of other fossils in Texas tend to make man contemporary with dinosaurs if the findings are accepted at face value. For instance, human prints were located in the same strata with dinosaur prints in the Paluxy river bed in Glen Rose, Texas. In locating the eighth track in one series, we pumped out the water and scraped off the debris until we came to the rock sheet on the bottom, where we found the print in limestone. This human track crossed a three-toed dinosaur track, and one could discern fainter prints going on out into the river. Recently a gentleman who is continuing work on this project has found four good size tracks, approximately sixteen inches long and nine inches across, revealing toes. As more research is completed in the Glen Rose area, a number of questions concerning man will be answered.

How do we confront the claims of those scientists who state that the remains of pre-historic men have been found? The Neanderthal man was for many years considered one of man's ancestors. Evolutionists suggested that he lived some 80,000 years ago - the dating depends upon which book one reads. Recently it was discovered that Neanderthal is really not much different from modern man. Because a Neanderthal skeleton used 80 years ago as a basis for museum displays had a diseased spine, scientists concluded and the world believed man did not always walk upright. Then they found skeletons from Neanderthals which stood perfectly upright. Subsequently the first skeletons with the curvature of the spine were re-examined and found to have suffered from a form of arthritis. In essence, we located an early human ancestor with an arthritic problem.

Study the skull of the first Neanderthal. Byron Nelson took the side view and compared it to a painting of the Revolutionary War here LaFayette. He found that one can put his features on the skull without any difficulty at all. A Neanderthal skull can be made to look very modern or very primitive depending on how the reconstruction is made. If skull capacity means anything, the Neanderthal man has a capacity larger than modern man, about 1600 cc. Modern man has somewhere between 1200 and 1500 cc. If brain capacity means anything, Neanderthal man would be more intelligent than modern man. Brain capacity may not be the whole answer, but Neanderthal has been identified as very similar to modern man.

The Peking Man has an interesting story. Records and accounts of several men such as Boule and de Chardin, avowed evolutionists who were on the scene in China, state that they never found any fossil men there. They merely found skulls of macaques and gibbons and a few perfectly human skulls. Then the personnel changed on the dig itself, and the third or fourth leader started making extraordinary proposals for the skulls found. A major problem exists today: none of these skulls is available. Drawings and casts of the skulls exist, but the actual skulls were supposedly lost during World War II. Frankly, we are entitled to doubt "scientific" claims when the evidence is missing and the story has progressively improved through the accounts of the individuals who headed up the various excavations.

Java Man, Pithecanthropus Erectus, was found by a man named Dubois. Pictures in the museums and reconstructions of the complete body, including all of the hairs of his head, suggest that the specimen must have been quite intact. One never gets the impression that excavators found only a piece of skull cap, a femur, and a thigh bone! Dubois reported thirty years after the original disclosure that the skull cap of the Java Man was nothing more than the skull cap of a silver gibbon. He also found in Java the large-brained human Wadjak skull. But he hid it for 30 years because his interpretation contradicted its obvious significance. Yet Java Man is still presented in textbooks as one of our ancestors in a long, long line of evolutionary development.

An individual found a tooth in a Nebraska field. He mailed this particular tooth back east to some scientists who were fascinated with such an amazing find. Here, they felt, was proof of early man on the North American continent. This was their first evidence, so they published an article concerning the significance of the find. The London Daily Illustrated News displayed a full-page spread on Nebraska Man - Hesperopithecus Harold Cookii - Harold Cook's "Ape of the West." They reconstructed this creature from his tooth, exhibiting his exact shape, even to the extreme brow ridges and the broad shoulders. More significant was the fact that they reconstructed not only his form, but that of his wife as well. So here are Mr. and Mrs. Hesperopithecus, reconstructed from a tooth. Back in Nebraska they were able to find the entire jaw bone. Then they fit the tooth into the jaw bone - to their horror, the jaw bone was that of a pig. Well, men will make mistakes; such is scientific frailty.

You are probably aware of Piltdown Man, which has a perfect skull cap of a man and an ape-like jaw bone. Unfortunately, they do not match. One is fossilized, one is not. One has been fossilized for a length of time, whereas one is modern. The teeth of the ape have been filed down to make them look human in appearance. For some thirty years this was reported as the greatest proof for evolution. The original skull was not accessible, but casts and drawings were placed in many museums. Some time later, determining that the skulls should be carefully re-examined , scientists applied fluorine and other tests. Skull pieces were shown to have different ages. The Piltdown Man in reality was composed of the jaw bone of an ape and the skull cap of a man. This hoax, presented in all of the textbooks, was decisively unmasked by Kenneth Oakley and published in magazines and scientific journals. Scientists claim that with new modern dating methods such a mistake could never be made again.

cont'd

Zinjanthropus is reconstructed from 400 fragments of skull, the largest of which is the size of a silver dollar. One who views a good picture of the skull usually wonders what it could be, for it doesn't really look like any type of skull. Yet it is said to be from one of our ancestors. An interesting corollary to the problem is the lava flow immediately under the bed in which Zinjanthropus is found. Under Zinjanthropus they found Homo Habilis, supposedly a more modern man. Evolutionists explain that this bed is overturned, and thus the Zinjanthropus is indeed one of our ancestors - some one and three quarter million years old. The lava flow underneath, when dated by potassium-argon, gives a lesser age of 1.3 million years. Problems are involved in the dating of lava flows by potassium-argon. Recently a lava flow formed in 1801 in Hawaii was dated by the potassium-argon method and found to have an age of 230 million years. Since the lava flow took place in modern times, one wonders about the accuracy of this dating system. Certainly there is strong evidence against the acceptance of the potassium-argon dates given to Zinjanthropus.

We will never know three things about Zinjanthropus from looking at the pieces of skull. One, we will never really know what his fleshy parts looked like. Two, we never know if he had the capacity to think. Three, we will never know if he had the capacity to speak. These are the three criteria for man. In fact, if Zinjanthropus were living today, we might find him caged in a zoo with a special name for him and other supposed ancestors of man. Or we my find him a type of man which has become extinct before our time; we will never know for sure by merely looking at the bones.

Ramapithecus was built around a few fragments, some of which are teeth. Scientists say the teeth are humanoid, human-like. But there is a baboon living in Ethiopia today which has the same teeth as Ramapithecus. How can we decide whether the teeth really belong to an ancestor or to one of these baboons?

We have the tendency to think that if something is primitive, it is very old. In fact, when looking at a skull, anthropologists consistently judge that the older it is, the more primitive it must be. However, such a conclusion cannot be gained just from looking at the skull itself. What, then , is the significance of picking up skulls and fragments of skulls? What can we really learn by looking at a few bones? Not very much. When we consider that many of these creatures are reconstructed from a few teeth, a jaw bone, a small piece of skull, what is really being demonstrated? When one realizes that scientists cannot date the skull itself to determine how old it is, nor directly date the strata (sedimentary layer laid down by water) in which it is found, what is the significance of the ages placed upon these creatures?

In discussing and looking for primitive man, anthropologists seem to proceed with one preconceived idea in their minds - man has evolved. Because of this, they have tried to demonstrate the ancestry of man. With this basic assumption they present what they claim as evidence to support the idea and have made conclusions depending upon the assumptions involved. Nothing is ever said about the missing links between birds and reptiles, between amphibians and reptiles, between vertebrates and invertebrates, although a great deal of time is spent talking about the missing link between man and the ape. Even here the evolutionists cannot agree as to how man came about. Some say that man and the ape have a common ancestor; some suggest that man and the ape evolved through the same fish; some insist they can trace the ancestry back through separate fish down to separate protozoa; some would tell you that man evolved from the chimpanzee, or from the orangutan or from the gorilla. (One man actually proposed that this explains the origin of the races: the white race from the chimpanzee, the oriental from the orangutan and the Negro from the gorilla). These are ideas being proposed by science as to how man came into existence.

POPULATION PROBLEMS

How long has man been on the earth? The Bible states that man was created in God's image. The Bible declares that man was created perfect, lived on the earth and fell into sin; after a great Flood which destroyed sinful man, the race started over again with Noah and his family. Biblical chronology would indicate this new beginning some 4300 years ago. To obtain that figure, trace back through the genealogies. Most Bible scholars put the date somewhere between the last 4000 to 6000 years.

Suppose we begin with Mr. and Mrs. Noah 4300 years ago, work out the formula and determine whether the Bible is reliable in regard to population statistics. We will have to account for the present population of three billion people living on the earth in the last 4300 years. Let us discount the fact that Noah and his wife had three children who in turn had wives. We will also discount the fact that Noah lived 950 years and reckon that he lived only 43 years and died. That means Noah only lived long enough to see his own children and died before he saw his grandchildren. Here we have solved two problems: overlapping generation - we now have 100 generations of 43 years each - which in turn solves that age-old problem of the generation gap. If a man and his wife only had two children, the population would not increase but would always be two, so we will give them two and a half children per generation. You must subtract for those who die in each generation, but in doing so you still can develop a formula that will quite conservatively produce the present population of the world, over four billion people, in the last 4300 years, beginning with two people and two and a half children per family per generation. The annual growth rate of that population would be one half of one percent. The present growth rate is two percent per year. So even with one-fourth of the present birth rate the biblical framework is reasonable. These estimates are quite approximate, of course, for population growth rates are affected by many factors.

What about the evolutionist? They will tell you that man lived on the earth one million years ago - some say two million, some eight million. Judging conservatively, we will estimate the evolutionary age of man to be one million years. Begin with two people, Mr. and Mrs. Zinjanthropus, or Mr. and Mrs. Australopithecus. Working with the same formula of no overlapping generations and two and one-half children per generation, you will find that the present population of the world should be 102250 (the number 1 with 2250 zeros after it, a huge number). Fill all of the world, all of the oceans and all of the solar system with people until they extend as far as our most powerful telescope reportedly can see, four billion light years away, and you will account for 1078 people. If evolution is to be reasonable as an explanation for man's origin, we would expect from the evolutionary assumptions to find a vastly larger population living on the earth today than we actually observe.

Not wanting to be accused of being unfair, let us give the evolutionist another formula that would account just for the number of people living today. Instead of two and one-half children per generation, substitute 2.002 per generation, just enough for the population to grow a little each year. Four billion people are then produced at the end of one million years. But even with this formula over four trillion people have lived and died in the last million years. Where are their remains, the bones and the fossils? Human skeletons are very rare, whereas by this formula they should abound throughout the earth. The Biblical framework remains the more reasonable of the two.

EARLY MAN

We often become overly concerned about men with primitive appearance. The Bible says mankind began with a perfect pair. Beginning with Mr. and Mrs. Noah and their three sons and three wives, we began to produce a diversification of people upon the earth. Diet and environment created people that looked different from other people. Rather than beginning with primitive man and working up to the complex man of today, we are saying that man was more complex, more perfect, in the past. Man has degenerated as time has gone on.

Some anthropologists believe that civilization cannot be older than 6000 years. If primitive man is older than that, how did he suddenly develop a civilization? Even primitive tribes normally have highly sophisticated cultures. Cultural anthropologists feel that civilization started about 5000 years ago. Physical anthropologists ignore this and, finding a primitive arrowhead or bone, try to determine what the man was like. Life and its activities cannot be reconstructed from a bone or an implement.

cont'd

In 1971 a man's skeleton was found in Cretaceous strata in Utah. The findings of the skeleton would tend to disprove the dating of the Cretaceous period at 100 million years ago. However, since the skeleton was pushed over by a bulldozer, it cannot be absolutely determined whether it was washed into the strata, dropped into a cave, or existed at the alleged time the strata was deposited. As creationists we try to take an honest approach to these matters: we are not going to say we have proved our point in this matter without substantial evidence. The evolutionist, however, in many areas has glossed over the evidence. Even when showing the discrepancies, he continues to make claims to support his thesis. A careful reading of Darwin's Origin of Species will demonstrate the abundance of "Let us suppose," "if we assume," "let us pretend," "if." Phrases such as these are used some 187 times in one chapter, and toward the end of the book Darwin implies that if we have followed him this far, it is not very difficult to go one step further and assume the next step. In essence, what have we gained? A lot of assumptions.

In his book Implications of Evolution, G.A. Kerkut, as an evolutionist, asserts that "to change a present day reptile into a mammal, though of great interest, would not show the way in which the mammals did arise." Thus it would not prove that reptiles turned into mammals because no one was there in the past to see it, and so, unfortunately, this cannot be confirmed. Kerkut reports that evolution is based on seven assumptions - all of them unproved and unverifiable. He concludes his work (and this is an evolutionist writing, a professor of biochemistry), "The evidence that supports the general theory of evolution, ameba to man, is not sufficiently strong enough to consider it as anything more that a working hypothesis." It is not even good enough to be a theory! Kerkut does not believe in creation, but he has demonstrated to the world that evolution is not proved. When we come to the origin of man, we will have to rid ourselves of some of these preconceived ideas.

A MARRIAGE PROBLEM

Suppose man did evolve from two apes. Somewhere in that life span and that same locality a female would have to evolve together with a male. If they did evolve, were somewhat compatible and produced children, where would the male get his wife: He would have to marry his sister. Even if we start with a small group, as most anthropologists suggest, we still have that same limited choice. The taboo against marrying a sister began about the time of the Egyptian kings when they began to intermarry in order to continue the kingly or divine line. Intermarriage, of course , has a tendency to reproduce the bad traits in man. The Bible, however, begins with Adam and Eve, both perfect and without this problem. They had the same constitution, producing offspring and living 930 years. The Bible says Adam lived 800 years after Seth was born and produced sons and daughters. Even if we grant them just twelve sons and daughters, many of them could be much older than others, perhaps 400-500 years apart. Intermarriage begins, and Cain has a tremendous potential of choices as to whom he is going to marry. In addition, the children of Adam and Eve are going to be more perfect than those living today. The evolutionist, then, lacks the conditions necessary to explain where the first men got their wives. The Biblical account provides them completely.

THE CURSE OF CANAAN

These are the three sons of Noah: and of them was the whole earth overspread. And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard: And he drank of the wine, and was drunken: and he was uncovered in his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without. And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness. And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him. And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. And he said, Blessed be the Lord God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant. God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant. And Noah lived after the flood three hundred and fifty years. And all the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years: and he died.

Genesis 9:19-29

Many people believe that this passage explains the origin of races. They suggest that the Negro comes from Canaan because the black color was his curse. But notice two things: verse 22 "And Ham the father of Canaan," and verse 24, "And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him." It was Ham who saw his father and Ham who told his two brothers. Yet Noah says, "Cursed by Canaan." Why?

Ham was not involved in some gross immorality. The Bible simply states that Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father. The other two sons, Shem and Japheth, took a garment and, walking backwards, covered their father, not observing his nakedness. Previous to this action Ham evidently walked in, saw his father, came out and said, "Look at our dad. He has been telling us that we ought to be good boys, yet he is in there drunk." This was not an act of immorality on Ham's part, but disrespect.

Who is Canaan? In the tenth chapter of Genesis we find that Canaan is the youngest son of Ham. Why was he cursed? The answer, in accord with Jewish custom, is suggested in I Samuel. When David slew Goliath, Saul asked, "Whose son is this that I may honor him?" Saul knew who David was, for David had played the harp for him - in fact, Saul had offered David his armor. But now Saul wanted to bless David for his great victory over the Philistines. How did he do it? By blessing Jesse, David's father. By laying blessing and honor on the father, Saul blessed the son. Likewise, when Joseph blessed Ephraim and Manasseh, he also blessed himself. Blessings go back one generation - and this would be equally true of a curse. Had Noah cursed Ham, he would have been placing that curse upon himself. Yet he wanted to curse Ham and all his descendants, so he placed the curse on the youngest son of Ham, which reverts back a generation, covering Ham and all of Ham's children. This also eliminated Shem and Japheth from the curse.

In review, Noah could not have cursed Ham without cursing himself and bringing that curse upon his whole family, so in order to curse Ham he cursed the youngest son of Ham, Canaan, who would have the same background, interests and material mindedness as his father. The curse of the youngest son Canaan covers all his brothers and comes back a generation to his father Ham, but it protects the two other sons of Noah.

What is the curse? Certainly not that Ham changed color instantaneously. The curse is a prophecy. Realizing Ham's attitude, that he was not one who would honor his father, Noah says, ". . . a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren." Some people interpret "servants of servants" to mean a slave. But note other similar Biblical expressions. The Lord God is Lord of lords, which means He is the highest Lord of all lords. He is the King of kings, the highest King of all kings. Paul says he was a Hebrew of the Hebrews, one of the highest Hebrews because he was of the tribe of Benjamin, one of the two tribes of the southern kingdom who remained true to Jerusalem and did not revolt. A "servant of servants" simply means the highest of all servants, not a slave. Because of Ham's mental attitude, Noah realized he was materialistically minded. A glance at the descendants of Ham will demonstrate that. "Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord. And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel . . . Out of that land went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh . . . " (Genesis 10:8-11). These people built cities. You do not find that description of the descendants of Shem or of Japheth. Noah realized the implications of the mind of ham, concerned with materialistic things and knew that his children would also take up that attitude and interest. A pioneer who builds a city does not have time for reading, education and luxuries - not even to study the things of God. So the curse here is upon a materialistically minded people.

The Bible never mentions the word "race." Which is a man-made term. Instead, the Bible speaks of nations. The descendants of Ham are probably the oriental and colored peoples, for a careful study of history reveals that the descendants of Ham are those who have built the major cities - the Egyptians, Phoenicians, Babylonians and the Assyrians. These were the firs large major empires. The curse is not a curse of color, for color is nothing more than a genetic variation. Why do brown, white and black rabbits exist? They are produced by a genetic variation, as in varied eye colors or the colors of flowers. The different skin colors of man on this earth are simple genetic variations.

cont'd

The descendants of Ham, steadily concerned with materialistic things, have provided man with all the major technologies. Dr. Arthur Custance, an anthropologist in Canada, states that from the descendants of Ham we can trace most of the technologies of mankind with few exceptions. The airplane has been traced to them, the toothbrush, writing, arithmetic, ship building and many other inventions which we consider part of our civilization.

By contrast, the descendants of Shem are concerned with spiritual things. The Bible says, "Blessed be the Lord God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant." The descendants of Shem include the Israelites or Jewish people. They had the responsibility of taking the message of God to the world, but they failed. The Lord God originally planned to present His message to the high priest, who would then pass it to the Levite priest; he would give it to the twelve tribes, who would pass it on to the world. But Israel kept that message to themselves, and thus God found it necessary to go to the Gentiles.

"God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem." Traditionally the sons of Japheth have been the ones concerned with the intellectual and philosophic things of man. They do not invent much, but they improve on someone else's invention once given to them. "By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands; every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations" (Genesis 10:5). The descendants of Japheth (the Gentiles) at the time of Christ were given the responsibility of presenting the message of Christ to the descendants of Ham and Shem.

Thus there is one race - the human race - all descendants of Noah, all concerned with different things because there are various individuals comprising this race. You will find this true today.

At Babel a tower was built, resulting in a judgment and a scattering of nations. Until the time of Babel there was something like a melting pot of people. One had a choice of marrying a descendant of Japheth, Ham or Shem, and all lived near the one community. At the tower of Babel and immediately afterwards, the people scattered and burst into seventy nations (Genesis 11), spreading themselves over the face of the earth.

A family goes to one area and begins to build a civilization. They are similar in appearance, for by heredity children tend to look like their parents. The children only know what they are taught, which in turn they teach their children. The descendants of Ham begin to build cities. Later the descendants of Shem capture these cities. The descendants of Japheth do not accomplish much until they improve upon the other civilizations. Those who stay close to the cultural center continue to learn and develop. Those who pioneer and go farther away become less cultured and less civilized. As people move farther and farther away, back into areas such as Africa, they carry less and less civilization white them. Being hunters like their father Nimrod, they develop cultures based upon hunting. This does not mean that they are any less intelligent because they are hunters.

Claude Levi Strauss, a leading evolutionary anthropologist, finds no evidence that man is any less intelligent in one area of the world than in another. In the most primitive cultures man's intelligence is equal. There is no evidence of the evolution of man's mind. So-called primitive tribes living in remote areas have complex languages and cultures. After they quit pioneering, settle down, and build their cultures, then perhaps they think about God. Only they do not remember the God who told them about the Flood; they do not remember the God of Noah. But they know there is a God and thus begin to set up a religion because they see other people establishing religions. Accounts of the past have been handed down by word of mouth. Eventually someone decides to write down all these accounts and traditions. Instead of having an account of the Flood, they come up with myths like the Babylonian Gilgamesh epic. These have some truth in them but have been perverted by time. The farther away people get from the original center of civilization, the more tendency to create variants. We find, however, in all of the ancient tribes, all of the so-called primitive tribes, very strong cultural behavior. They are really not primitive; we just consider them so because we compare them to our standards.

Anthropologists repeatedly point to the findings of skulls representing primitive man - with the shape of the skull apparently reflecting its age. They seem to forget the effects of the environment and diet upon the shape of the human skull. Feed a child a diet in which he has to chew a great deal and the shape of the skull is formed accordingly. Feed another child soft foods and the skull is again formed quite differently. Deficiencies in vitamins and minerals likewise cause changes in the shape of the bones and skull. It is a mistaken idea to assume that the uglier the skull looks, the more primitive it is. The shape of the skulls considered in this writing have the look of primitiveness with the ridges and extensions of the brow, but these could be accounted for on the basis of dietary deficiency as well as effects of the environment.

Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal remains found in Europe in the area of the culture cradle have a larger brain capacity than modern man. Like modern man, their skull capacity is larger than those in more remote areas. However, brain capacity does not seem to mean much in classifying skulls, although we do have averages which we consider for man. There seems to be evidence that the brain capacity of man in the past was larger. At a distance from the European cultural center one finds smaller skulls, ones that look more primitive. Yet one can find each of these ancient types in individuals living today. These skulls are simply nothing more than degenerate forms of Adam and Eve and of Noah, scattered from this cultural center in the last 4300 years.

CONCLUSION

When attempting to look for some type of ancestor, when endeavoring to demonstrate evolutionary development, man reflects preconceived ideas when parading various fossil evidences. But his evidence is not strong enough for us to discard our Biblical framework. If we re-evaluate the findings with an open mind and look at the mistakes and problems, we will find that the Bible gives us a very good perspective from which to examine the claims of anthropology.

As far as the origin of races is concerned, there really is no such thing. We are all one race, the human race, descendants of Noah and his sons - Ham, Shem and Japheth. Man is material, intellectual and spiritual, and he must keep these three aspects of his life in balance to be effective. As man rejects God, pursuing goals for his own wants and pleasures, he encounters the problems of today. If man is going to learn anything about his origin, he is not going to find out much by looking downward and trying to determine where he came from. He will not discern the true meaning of his origin until he bows humbly on his knees and looks to God. He will then not only understand his origin, but also his destiny.

This is the message we have to proclaim. God created man perfect, but man fell into sin and had need of forgiveness. The Lord Jesus Christ, the Creator, came and died on the cross as Saviour, providing the payment for man's sin. And He is coming again to judge man. We must realize the unity of the human race, that we are one people, and that each one needs the Lord Jesus Christ. It is the responsibility of the Christian to tell the world.

4 The Flood - Where?

The Genesis account of the Flood describes in great detail a phenomenon which is sometimes regarded by theologians and scholars as a local flood.

And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth. And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters. And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven were covered. Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered. And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man: All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died. And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark. And the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days.

Genesis 7:17-24

Does that sound like a local flood? Note the essentials of the description: the waters prevailed, they were increased upon the earth exceedingly, all of the high hills under the heaven were covered, the water was so high that it covered the highest mountain by a distance of fifteen cubits (a cubit is approximately eighteen inches, so the waters were above the highest mountain some twenty-two and a half feet). Mount Ararat is 16,946 feet in elevation. With water twenty-two and a half feet above that, it is not difficult to conceive of much more than a local flood. Water seeks its own level, so if it is over 17,000 feet at Mount Ararat in Turkey, it will flood out the Mesopotamian Valley and the desert, and it will inundate vast parts of Europe, Asia and the rest of the world.

In verses 21-23 we are told that all flesh died which moved upon the earth - "cattle . . . beast . . . every creeping thing . . . and every man: All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land died. And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark." The text clearly denotes that all living things were destroyed except those inside the ark. Limiting the event to a local flood does great injustice to the direct statement of Scripture.

But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

Matthew 24:37-39

Here the Lord Jesus uses the account of the universal Flood and its destruction to point to His second coming and judgment, which is also a universal event. As in the days of Noah, when all who were outside the ark were destroyed, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man when all those outside the ark of safety, Jesus Christ (those who have not accepted Him as Saviour), shall be judged and condemned.

Look also at II Peter 3:6: "Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished." The word "overflowed" in the Greek (kataklusmos) means "cataclysmized," and it signifies just that - a total cataclysm. Peter says that the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished. That description is used in the New Testament only in reference to the Flood of Noah's day, not to a local or small flood, in which case another word is used (Matthew 7:25, potamos). If Genesis 7 speaks only of a local flood, we must limit Peter's declaration, the testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ and the meaning of the word "all." If the word "all" in Genesis 7 and Matthew 24 simply means a local area, how do we interpret the word "all" when it appears in other Scriptures? For instance, in Romans 3:23, "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God." Is that only those in a local area, perhaps all the people in Los Angeles, or all the people I disagree with, or all the people I do not like? It means all have sinned; it is all-inclusive. This account tells us that all in whose nostrils was the breath of life and who were outside the ark were destroyed.

What was the population at the time of the Flood? Mathematically, we can begin with Adam and Eve, and assume a certain number of children per generation, and allow for those who died. Remembering their long life spans as recorded in Scripture, we recognize that they could have had sons and daughters for many years. However, we shall assume only six boys and six girls per family. The compound figures show nearly three billion people living on the earth by the time of the Flood. That many people would need to be accommodated in much more than just a local area, and it would take more than a local flood for them to be destroyed.

Rather than limit Scripture, it would be far more consistent to accept a universal Flood. It was all-inclusive. It did cover all the earth, it did cover all of the high hills under the whole heaven and it did destroy all animal and plant life. And if there were such an event, we ought to find evidence of two things:

1) it was possible for Noah to build an ark that would accommodate his family and pairs of all land-dwelling animals, and

2) there must be geological evidence in today's world that such an event occurred in the past.

cont'd

SIZE OF THE ARK

First of all, let us look at the size of the ark to see if the Biblical account is reasonable. In Genesis 6:15 we read, "And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the heighth of it thirty cubits." With a cubit of approximately eighteen inches, the ark was approximately 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high. It was built in the shape of a giant rectangular box, more like a railroad boxcar than the ocean going vessels of today. It did not include a rudder, enabling Noah to steer it. The ark would have an extra-large capacity, float well, be exceptionally stable and capable of withstanding the Flood waters and the breaking up of the fountains of the deep. People claiming to have seen the ark of Noah resting on the mountain of Ararat report that there is a catwalk several feet wide down the center of the top with a row of windows under it and extending the entire length of the ark. The 16th verse says, "A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above." Notice that it does not require one little square window in the top that is a cubit, but that "a cubit shalt thou finish it above." The roof was raised and had windows all along the side which possibly were used for trapping fresh water, according to those who have seen this object on Ararat.

One question seems paramount: is it possible for such a ship to hold all of the animals needed to preserve life upon the earth? Ernst Mayr, an outstanding taxonomist and evolutionist, offers an estimate of well over one million species of animals living on the earth today, and that does not include the 850,000 species of insects. It would obviously be impossible to place a million species of animals in the ark. However, if we analyze Ernst Mayr's figures as discussed in The Genesis Flood, by John C. Whitcomb, Jr. And Henry Morris, we find that we can eliminate a large number of animals which could survive in the water. Noah did not have to take goldfish into the ark, nor did he build tanks for piranhas or killer whales. The seventh chapter specifies that "all in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land" - man, cattle, creeping things, fowl of the heaven, every living substance - "was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground." Fish are not mentioned anywhere in that seventh chapter, so Noah did not have to account for fish, sponges, echonoderms, protozoa and all other sea animals. For that matter, we could also eliminate amphibious animals who survive in the sea, but for the sake of argument we will account for these. Using Mayr's figures again, we need only 17,500 species of animals to preserve life on earth. The preservation of life requires one male and one female, so now we need 17,500 pairs of animals, or 35,000 animals, in the ark.

One may immediately envision very large animals, such as elephants and giraffes, but most animals are smaller than sheep. In fact, the average size of all animals is about the size of sheep. Since God sent the animals to Noah, in His wisdom He probably supplied small young animals to be taken into the ark because they would live longer, survive the voyage better and fulfill the purpose of continuing life on the earth. Taking into consideration that we are accounting for amphibious animals, we will also assume the animals were full grown. Thirty five thousand sheep can be placed in 146 railroad boxcars. In accounting for insects and creeping things, we will give insects two inches of flying room and creeping space, provide another twenty-one railroad boxcars. A total of 168 railroad boxcars, then, could accommodate the animal species living on the earth if we adopt Mayr's figures. Using the smallest cubit known, 17.5 inches (though it may be as long as 22 inches), the ark has a capacity of 522 railroad boxcars. This means that all of the animals in the ark could be placed on one of the decks, Noah and his family on another deck, and an entire deck remain for the bowling alley, badminton area, shuffle board and swimming pool. Or perhaps that space was used for animals which have become extinct before our time.

DINOSAURS

What about some of the large, extinct animals such as dinosaurs? Let us first discuss how dinosaurs are dated. When finding dinosaur bone, a paleontologist or geologist will look at the rock strata as well as carefully examine the bone. The dinosaur is determined to be 70 million years old. But how do we know the dinosaur is 70 million years old? Such a time period is advanced because the fossil appears in Cretaceous strata, which are designated as being 70 million years of age. This is reported in all of our textbooks and all of our encyclopedias. Obviously anything found buried in rock laid down 70 million years ago had to be buried when that rock formed and would have to be 70 million years old also. But how do we know Cretaceous strata are 70 million years old? Simply because dinosaurs are found in it. Though this illustration is oversimplified we are confronted with a classic example of circular reasoning. The fossil is dated by the rock in which it is found and the rock is dated by the fossil it contains.

Carl Dunbar, in his book on historical geology, admits the circular reasoning involved. A few years ago the Encyclopedia Britannica, in an article on fossil dating, made a statement that circular reasoning is indeed involved in the dating of fossils, but since it is so consistent it must be correct! Actually, there is no accurate way to date a fossil. Carbon 14, granting all of its assumptions, is accurate to about 30,000 years. How can a 70 million-year-old fossil be dated with a dating method only going back 30,000 years? For this reason scientists do not use Carbon 14 to date fossils.

Sedimentary strata are laid down by water; one can date them by an intrusion. If some lava flow, granite, or other type of igneous rock intrudes through the sedimentary strata, one can date the intrusion and know that the sedimentary layer above had to be laid down before the date of the intrusion. But since there is no accurate way to date the sedimentary rock, there is no accurate way to date the fossil. The geologic column, or fossil record, is built upon the assumption that evolution is true. The geologic column is established by accepting an evolutionary sequence for the fossils and by estimating the time required for one form to evolve to another. The picture of geologic history supposedly recorded in the geologic column is based upon the fact of evolution, which in turn is built on the fact of the geologic column. Again, circular reasoning is involved; neither item can be demonstrated or proved.

All we can really tell about dinosaurs and other large animals is that they lived sometime in the past. If you converse with the paleontologist who is digging at Dinosaur Monument in Vernal, Utah, he will tell you that the dinosaurs did not die in the park area, but were living up-state somewhere. They were crossing a sand bar, or they were walking in a swamp - something happened such as a local flood which caused these dinosaurs to die out; they were then washed downstream by water and buried in the sandstone at Vernal, Utah - destroyed and buried by some type of water action. There is no way to tell when such an event took place. Scientists can only state that dinosaurs lived sometime in the past and were buried sometime in the past by water action. This can easily be placed into a Biblical perspective.

The word "dinosaur" means terrible lizard. A dinosaur is nothing more that a large reptile. But a reptile affords a most unusual growth phenomenon: the longer a reptile lives, the larger it grows. It is certainly not like man, who lives for twenty years growing upward and then (unfortunately) the rest of his life grows outward. If reptiles live for 100 years, they grow for 100 years. The Bible establishes the framework that God created animals, plants and man, placing them into a perfect environment. It was so perfect that even after man fell into sin, he lived 930 years before he died. The average life span during the time of the Flood was 911 years, whereas our average life span today is about 70 years. We would have to increase our present life span some thirteen times to match the former life span. Increase the life span of a reptile proportionately, some thirteen times, and it is not too hard to picture how the iguana, growing for this period of time, could become large enough to look like a dinosaur. Picture the twelve foot reptile living in China today and increase his size to account for another of those gigantic reptiles which lived on the earth.

cont'd

Consider also that in this pre-Flood world man was instructed to eat from the vegetation. Before the Flood there were tremendous amounts of minerals and trace elements in the soil necessary to produce vitamins and proteins needed for man to gain all the nutrition necessary for life from the vegetation. Animals would share this same food. After the Flood these trace minerals no longer remained in the soil but washed out to sea. This may account for the fact that the largest animal living today, the whale, exists in the sea.

Ted Mantei has developed some interesting studies of minerals in the sea. He has taken the trace minerals out of a lake bed, used this for fertilizer, and grown tomatoes larger than average. The fruits of these plants are disease resistant and bug free, with a lasting quality. They will eventually dehydrate and dry up, but they do not rot. Today man needs to take supplementary vitamins because there is not enough protein or minerals in the soil to enrich the vegetation. Before the Flood the earth had a tropical climate and mineral enriched vegetation, quite conducive to producing large forms of life.

How did these animals die out? The evolutionist has about seventy different answers, which can be divided into some thirty-five categories. In fact, evolutionist answers are largely contradictory. The climate was too hot or too cold, there was too much food or not enough food, and so on. Yet it is agreed that if large fossils are buried in sedimentary strata, some type of water action was responsible.

When did these animals die out? In a river bed in Glen Rose, Texas, dinosaur prints are found in the same strata with human prints. Dinosaur eggs, or large reptile eggs, were found along the coast of Madagascar up to 1000 years ago. Cave paintings in Rhodesia show a brontosaurus painted by bushmen, known to have left the caves about 1500 B.C. The interesting factor here is that the bushmen painted only things they could really see. How then can we account for the painting of a brontosaurus unless one was actually seen living at the time (a much more recent dating than evolutionists allow)? Everett Purcell of the Creation-Science Research Center wrote to a paleontologist in Rhodesia and asked him about this. The reply was classic. He answered that obviously the painting could not be of dinosaurs because dinosaurs died out 70 millions years ago (this conclusion was made without even going to view the paintings). The cave paintings must be either of giraffes or ant bears (an ant bear is a type of aardvark or anteater). We decided that any paleontologist who could not tell the difference between a giraffe and an anteater probably would not know a brontosaur if he saw one! The point is, he would not even leave his office to investigate; his mind was made up.

If we re-evaluate the position of the geologic column, the age of the earth, and even the position concerning the evolutionary bias, we can come up with better answers. The Biblical framework allows for dinosaurs: they would have been created in the Garden of Eden, died out or destroyed in the Flood, and buried in various sedimentary strata.

Why did these large animals die out? After the Flood conditions necessary for longevity of life no longer existed. Even man's life's span dropped to 400 years, then to 200 years at Babel; after another 200 years, in Abraham's time, Sarah was too old to have children at age 90. Man's life span has been dropping ever since. (Incidentally, today's increase in life spans does not mean that we live longer but that fewer children die at birth. The average life span in the United States is 70 years; in India it is only 35 years because more children die at birth in India than in America. People in India live as long as people in America, but the infant mortality rate lowers the average life span).

The ninth chapter of Genesis says that the day Noah left the ark "the fear of you [man] and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, an upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered. Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all thing" (verses 2-3). For the first time Noah is instructed to eat meat, and man and best are now at enmity one with the other. This is necessary because the earth lacks the foliage and vegetation necessary to sustain man's life.

The fact that dinosaurs and other large animals are extinct is not an unusual problem. Over the years many animals have become extinct - for instance, we are in danger of losing the bald eagle and man's destruction almost eliminated the buffalo. If it were not for our wild life and game preserves, many more animals would probably be extinct.

We often think of dinosaurs as being terribly ferocious. Two evolutionary scientists in England who have done research on the tyrannosaurus rex and allosaurus conclude that both were vegetarians. The teeth are quite strong, suggesting a carnivorous animal, but the shape of the jaw and the nature of the upper arm is such that they would no be able to rip and tear, much less grab at their prey. The shape of the jaw indicates a tendency for them to lean upward and take things from a tree. Thus they do not at all seem the ferocious animal we envisage. Few complete skeletons of dinosaurs are found, and thus our information is extremely limited. In fact, museum reconstructions and drawing in books may not give a true picture of the animals at all.

cont'd

ANIMALS IN THE ARK

God told Noah to take all of His animals into the ark. Poor Noah - sitting with 35,000 animals and 850,000 species of insects. He and his family must care and feed all of these animals for a year, which would certainly tax the strength of any individual. But observe one verse in passing: Genesis 8:1, "And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark . . ." That word "remembered" is an interesting word. Usually we think of remembering as recalling something we forgot. This definition would convey the idea that God was so busy destroying the whole earth that suddenly He looked down and remembered Noah was there. For an explanation of the term, we find a parallel in the New Testament. The thief on the cross said to the Lord Jesus, "Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom." Was it only after the Lord died, was resurrected and ascended into heaven that He thought, "I remember the thief on the cross"? Not at all. While still upon the cross He told the thief, "This day thou shalt be with me in paradise." He not only remembered but gave full assurance that He would take care of his need. This is what the Genesis text conveys. God remembered Noah, all the cattle and every living thing that was in the ark, and He cared for their needs.

Many animals living today hibernate. Scientists, though studying these animals, cannot fully understand why animals hibernate, with some animals sleeping through the winter, some through the summer (called aestivation), living the whole time in a type of suspended animation. What is the reason for this? A close study of the Bible discloses that tropical conditions existed throughout the world before the Flood. There were seasons, but they were very mild, for it did not rain upon the earth before the Flood, and there was a tropical climate throughout the Earth so animals would not need to hibernate. Why do animals go into hibernation? To escape drastic seasonal changes. This is possibly a carry-over from the animals who were on the ark. God slowed down their metabolic processes to such a level that they spent their time in the ark in a state of hibernation. This would make it easier for them to survive the voyage and would simplify Noah's care for them. There is good evidence from the text that such an event took place, because the Bible tells us that the animals entered the ark two by two and left the ark a year later two by two - including the rabbits. God's purpose according to Genesis 8:17 was to preserve life on the ark so that after the Flood they could multiply and repopulate the earth, not the ark. It seems logical that God performed this miracle and slowed down the metabolic processes.

FOSSILS AND THE FLOOD

If a worldwide Flood occurred, we would expect to find evidence of animals and plants buried by some type of water action throughout the earth. We find this in sedimentary strata - strata which are laid down by wind or water. The entire geologic column is built of sedimentary strata, even some Pre-Cambrian rocks. This type of strata is found in the Grand Canyon, which is one of the best areas of the earth to study because of the extensive series of strata exposed. A drastic change in strata is brought about by some type of water action. The historical geologist, the evolutionist and the uniformitarian would explain this change as a gradual formation, a gradual laying down of the sediments, based on the present rate of sedimentation. If the rates of erosion and deposition were sufficiently increased, the Grand Canyon could be formed or eroded in a short period of time.

According to the Bible, the Flood was such that the fountains of the great deep were broken up. Throughout the ocean floor in the mid-oceanic ridges, a rift circles the entire earth. This suggests that some time in the past the ocean floor was uplifted about two miles, which would be enough to cause a flood and cover the entire land mass with water. There is enough water in the ocean even now to cover the entire earth if it were rearranged. A study of oceanography points to various places in the earth where water would have drained out; the easiest way to cause that drainage after the Flood would be to raise the land mass and the mountains. Estuaries, oceanic canyons and underwater caverns which go back underneath the seashore are places where drainage and erosion have taken place. Visual evidence at Lake Bonneville today shows that in the past it covered a vast area. The mountains in that area have shorelines where the lake used to be. It has gradually subsided to the present level. Vast portions of land were under water, as shown by the evidences of fossils buried on the tops of mountains by water action. Even on Mount Ararat itself sedimentary strata are found at the 13,000 foot level, an indication that water was at that level. Pillow lava, molten lava cooled under water, is found at the 15,000 foot level on Mount Ararat. The conchoidal fractures indicate that it had to be cooled under water. Found everywhere on the earth's surface, such illustrations offer good evidence for the global effects of water action.

Geology books tend to give the impression that the geologic column is found in the exact order traditionally proposed by historical geology. However, nowhere on earth are the strata laid down in exactly the same order as in the books. In the Grand Canyon, which is probably the best single area for investigation, over half of the geologic column is missing. Such an irregularity is usually explained as due to uncomformities. That is, erosion somehow wiped out the strata which are now missing in that area, and the next stratum was laid down, omitting the eroded layers of strata.

The same type of stratum is not always found directly lying on top of basement rock. Cretaceous rock, supposedly 70 million years old, is found lying right on top of basement rocks, and so is Cambrian, supposedly older than 500 million years, or Permian, frequently dated at 200 million years. In numerous places on earth strata have been found drastically out of order. At Chief Mountain, Montana, at the Lewis Overthrust, the older pre-Cambrian rock lies on top of the younger Cretaceous. A pre-Cambrian rock, according to evolutionary dating methods, would be over 500 million years old. A Cretaceous rock would be 70-100 million years old. This presents a slight problem: a rock which is over 500 million years old is lying on top of one that is 70 million years old; 430 millions years are missing and the rocks are in an upside-down order. The evolutionist explains it quite simply: at one time all were level, but a horizontal thrust took place, forcing the strata to rise up, fold over, shear off all the adjacent strata, and leave this little block lying on top of the younger block. Erosion washed away 500 million years of strata above it leaving a pre-Cambrian block (13,000 square miles in area) on top of a Cretaceous block.

In opposition to this, there is no real physical evidence of a thrust fault or a theory to explain the origin of the thrusts. There is no evidence of sliding, of pressure, of any rock movement between the two strata at the contact line between the two layers at Chief Mountain. In fact, the older layer lies conformably on top of the younger layer. In checking out overthrusts, such as the Owl's Head formation at Tortillita Mountains in Arizona and other places, evidence of small overthrusts clearly exists; up to forty feet of ground-up rock are found between the strata. At Chief Mountain 350 billion tons of rock must slide a distance of fifty miles in order to leave this block of pre-Cambrian strata on top of the Cretaceous, but there is absolutely no evidence of rock movement. Some say that you would not expect to find evidence of rock movement because it would be possible for the rock to slip in on kind of a plastic flow and drop into place. But that is a theory without any physical evidence to support it. There is simply no evidence of such an event. Fossils are found out of order in the Swiss Alps also. Some scientists would suggest that at one time the Alps were in Africa and slid magically into Europe. At Chief Mountain, however, 430 millions years of geologic column have been done away with and reversed. All that can be deduced by looking at the geologic column and studying the fossils in any local area is that the stratum on the bottom was laid before the stratum on top, unless one can find real evidence of thrusting, folding or faulting. In the absence of such evidence it cannot be determined if the strata were laid down a week apart, two days apart or a year apart.

cont'd

If there were a worldwide Flood, we would expect to find evidence of the destruction of plants and animals on a large scale. For instance, to form a seam of coal in the earth one foot thick, about twenty feet of vegetation is needed, compressed adiabatically - i.e., compressed under pressure without the loss of the heat of compression. Theories for the formation of oil demand the burial of animal life on a large scale, again compressed adiabatically. If you were to bury me in the earth under the proper conditions and proper amount of pressure, supposedly you could later come along, stick a tube into me, pump me out, put me into your car and drive down the street. The formation of coal and oil does not require millions of years as the evolutionist sometimes claims but, can really be accomplished in relatively short periods of time. Recently oil has been formed by converting a ton of garbage into a barrel of oil with the proper pressure and temperature conditions. In an hour and a half a piece of wood was converted to coal in Germany by using a pile driver. This was not their intention, but they applied the right amount of pressure and converted the material into coal. The proper amount or pressure determines the formation of coal or oil, not long periods of time.

When we compare the ratio of carbon to hydrogen contained in the animal kingdom to the corresponding ratio for the plant kingdom, we find an interesting relationship. For when the ratio of carbon to hydrogen contained in petroleum is compared to the ratio of carbon to hydrogen in coal, one finds that that same ratios hold. This indicates that sometime in the past there was an event which destroyed one biosphere, or one total amount of animals and plants, in order to form the amounts of coal and oil found in the earth. When did such an event take place? As we drill into the earth and find oil, we discover that it is still buried under geostatic pressure, which in some places is three times greater than hydrostatic or fluid pressure. This means that overburdens of rock are on top of the oil, trapping it and causing the tremendous pressure. But the pressure would have dissipated if the trap had been formed any longer than 10,000 years ago. In fact, since oil is still found buried under near geostatic pressure, the indication is that it was buried less than 5000 years ago! Further study can be done in this area through a book entitled Pre-History and Earth Models, by Melvin Cook, Ph.D. in chemistry from Yale. Oil may have formed from the animals buried on the earth at the time of the Flood. Because we find oil under geostatic pressure, it is a good indication that this burial took place sometime less than 10,000 years ago - very much in agreement with the Bible's 4000 - 5000 year-old date for the Flood.

FLOOD TRADITIONS

If there were a worldwide Flood, we would expect to find some record of flood traditions around the world. Almost every major culture - Chinese, Indian, Greek, Roman, Babylonian - possesses records of a major flood. Some suggest it was a local flood, but all relate that the entire area and civilization they knew was destroyed. Their hero, whether his name was Utnapishtim or Noah, was instructed to build some type of ark, or raft, and climb to the highest mountain. He was to take his wife and all of his animals with him. They were instructed to take all of their possessions because there was to be a great Flood which would destroy the wickedness of the earth. The Chinese story adds that after the Flood their hero got drunk and lay uncovered in his tent. One of his sons went into the father's tent, saw his nakedness and told the other two sons. These sons, Charma and Japote, backed in and covered their father. It tells of the subsequent judgment of one of the sons and later talks about the building of a tower to heaven.

Near the Fiji Islands a missionary was giving an account of Noah and the ark when one of the natives jumped up and exclaimed, "That is exactly like our account. Our ancestor was instructed to build an ark and take all of his family and animals into the ark. But your ancestors wrote your account down, so it is more accurate than ours, which has been passed on by word of mouth." Though in themselves these Flood traditions would not prove much, coupled with the other evidences they certainly support the premise of a worldwide Flood.

NOAH'S ARK

In addition to what has been discussed, evidence from archeology points to an ark buried on top of a mountain. This ark has been seen on Mount Ararat in Turkey. Ten times in the last 115 years. Three expeditions claim to have gone inside the ark of Noah, and it has been photographed on three other occasions. Wood has been found on the mountain three different times. What is so important about finding wood on a mountain? The wood found is hand-hewn timber, impregnated with a black substance, which has been tooled and worked on. It is said to by cypress, a derivative of gopher wood. It was found buried in an ice cap at the 14,000 foot level of the mountain on top of a lava flow. There are no trees native to that mountain for a distance of 200 miles. Five different laboratories dated the same piece of wood by the Carbon 14 method, providing dates of 1500 - 6000 years (which gives an idea of the accuracy of Carbon 14). In 1883 a group of Turkish commissioners entering the ark reported finding on the side wall of the third compartment a supposed record or log.

There is good evidence that the ark is presently resting on the mountain of Ararat. The Creation-Science Research Center has published Noah's Ark: Fact or Fable? By Violet Cummings, which relates all of the history regarding expeditions in search of the ark.

cont'd

5 The Creator--Who?

This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you; in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance: That ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Saviour: Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days, scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished.

II Peter 3:1-6

The scoffers of verse 4 who in mocking tones ask, "Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation," are making reference to the basic doctrine of historical geology. This relates to the teaching of uniformitarianism, the foundation upon which evolution rests. Peter recognized it clearly in his day.

Those who accept historical geology and uniformitarianism insist that the present is the key to the past. What is happening now has happened since time began and will continue to happen and at the same rates until time ends. The Lord Jesus Christ, they say, is certainly not coming again, there never was a creative event that changed anything, and no Flood or world cataclysm ever occurred. Present processes and present rates can be taken back into time indefinitely. Ultimately, these can likewise be projected in to the future, so that when we read that our sun will burn out in five billion years, don't worry about it, for man will be far enough along to create his own sun. Peter says of these individuals, "For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the Word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water." First, they are willingly ignorant of the fact of creation. Second, in verse 6, they are willingly ignorant of the fact that "the world that then was being overflowed with water, perished." Third, they are willingly ignorant of the coming again of the Lord Jesus Christ (verse 10).

By acceding to the claims of various individuals who say that evolution is a valid law, many people have rejected any consideration of creation. According to these, Peter was a fool. He accepted creation and the account of a Flood, even maintaining that the evidence was so overwhelming that anyone who rejected it was willfully ignorant of the facts. We have already demonstrated what God's Word has to say regarding creation; we must therefore compare the Biblical account to other models in order to determine which position is most consistent with scientific fact.

Let us look first at the evolutionary theory. This model would instruct us that in the beginning life probably developed from a form of matter, such as hydrogen, through numerous processes of blind chance, the meeting together of molecules and electrical sparks (energy). Somehow these various forces joined through purely natural processes, until one day the first cell was formed.

There has never been an adequate explanation for the origin of the solar system--not even for the origin of matter itself. One falls into the trap of having either to make matter eternal or to propose the deification of matter. Or perhaps we could echo G. G. Simpson's approach: make this matter of origins one of the major mysteries of life itself--something we may never understand just because we will never understand it.

The evolutionist explains that life began in some primordial sea. According to the Russian scientist Oparin, life began in an atmosphere of methane, ammonia, hydrogen, and water vapor. Electrical discharges coming through this atmosphere created the first building blocks of life, amino acids. In 1953 Stanley Miller performed the classic experiment in which such a mix of gasses was subjected to an electrical discharge and the products collected. They included amino acids. Though far from being life amino acids are the basic building blocks of living cells, and from them other developments could ultimately produce the first cell. This would be like having a fraction of one brick in the corner of a fifty story building (considering the building as a cell). It is a long way from the whole, but evolutionists insist that it represents a step in our understanding of how life began.

Interestingly, however, the sun's rays penetrating through an atmosphere of methane, ammonia, hydrogen, and water vapor would destroy any amino acids to a depth of fifteen meters in the ocean. Amino acids formed in the upper atmosphere would quickly disintegrate again. The way to prevent that is to add oxygen to the atmosphere. If there is oxygen in the atmosphere, ozone (O3) will form; but the ozone filters out the ultraviolet light, which is so lethal that it could kill almost every form of life on the planet, even penetrating as much as 30 feet under the surface of the oceans. With the addition of oxygen the ultraviolet light from the sun is filtered out and amino acids are no longer destroyed.

But note an additional problem: in an atmosphere of methane, ammonia, hydrogen, water vapor and oxygen one can generate electrical sparks all day long and never produce any amino acids. With oxygen present they cannot exist. A scientist may demonstrate something within a controlled situation in a laboratory, but in the earth itself he would encounter this interesting paradox. Life could not come about this way.

We frequently hear about experiments creating life in the laboratory. Suppose man develops an apparatus allowing him to duplicate, make, or form life in a laboratory? Does that disprove the Bible? Does it prove evolution to be true? Not at all. It would merely show that it takes intelligence to create life. Man with all of his accumulated scientific knowledge since the beginning of time, man with all his technological advances, man with all his billions of dollars of laboratory equipment would finally have been able to duplicate something that God originated in the beginning. But at the same time that would hardly prove the claim that life could ever come about by chance. The creation of life demands intelligence, design and planning. Neither chance nor matter have these properties. It is totally unreasonable to believe that dead matter is responsible for life and all the complexities we observe today. Yet evolutionists continually speak about life beginning in such a manner.

In Berkeley, California, where scientists reportedly created life in a test tube, they took living cells and extracted from them the DNA molecules which contain the coded information of cells. When this DNA was placed in a test tube with an energy-supplying chemical, nothing happened. But when the DNA-producing enzyme from other living cells was added, the DNA was reproduced. But this is like cutting your hand off, sewing it back on again, and saying you created a hand. Actually, all you have done is rearrange life. You may have learned a few things, but you have not created because you began with life and ended with life. Only an experiment beginning exclusively with the molecules would fairly test the hypothesis.

Most evolutionists declare that life somehow began by spontaneous generation from non-living material. Life came from some type of matter. But about the same time that Charles Darwin and Mendel were performing experiments, a gentleman named Louis Pasteur startled the scientific world. One of his experiments concerned spontaneous generation. Until his day it was believed that if one left rags in the corner, mice would appear. Frogs were created spontaneously in pond water. Meat left unrefrigerated would produce maggots. Wheat would generate rats. Experiments by Francisco Redi and others had demonstrated that this did not hold true, but people still believed that on the bacteriological level bacteria were formed spontaneously. Pasteur announced that because of his belief in God he would disprove the idea of spontaneous generation. He accordingly developed a flask with an "S" curve on the end which allowed air to enter but trapped dust and bacteria in the neck of the flask so that the nutrient broth in the bottom remained germ free. He performed the experiment several times. Each time he demonstrated something, scientists set up an objection, but he answered that objection the next time he performed the experiment. Some of these flasks are still in a museum in France, and even after more than 100 years there are no bacteria in the broth. He demonstrated once and for all that life does not come from non-living material. He helped to establish the great law of biogenesis. A sub-law states that life reproduces after its kind. Cats give birth to cats, dogs to dogs; two rabbits never give birth to an elephant. Pasteur helped to establish this law.

cont'd

One would think that this signaled the death blow to the idea of spontaneous generation. We cannot observe it, we cannot demonstrate it, we cannot prove it, we cannot verify it - and all experiments confirm just the opposite. Yet we find scientists such as George Wald, a recognized evolutionary biologist, asserting that we teach the experiments of Pasteur to our students as if this were a triumph of science over mysticism. He personally believes that life in the beginning did arise by spontaneous generation because the only other alternative is to believe in God, and he regards this as unscientific. We ask in turn, how much science is involved in believing something which is totally negated by all scientific experiments? He holds this position not because of great overwhelming scientific evidence for spontaneous generation, but because of his preconceived ideas, personal prejudice, opinion, and disbelief in God. And he holds that position on faith.

Calculate, if you like, the odds against life ever coming about spontaneously. Take an 8 1/2 x 11 inch sheet of paper and put the number "1" in the upper left-hand corner. Type zeros after it, single-spaced, until you fill up the whole page with zeros; turn the sheet over and type additional zeros upon the entire page. Continue filling pages with zeros until you produce a volume three inches thick. Compile enough volumes to spread across the whole United States. Stack volumes until they reach past the moon. That is the number of volumes necessary to contain the number of chances to one that life would ever come about by spontaneous generation. Not impossible, but highly unlikely. To hold that position, one is exercising faith, not upholding evidence which is overwhelmingly in his favor. Such a position is held basically because, as Wald says, one chooses not to believe in God.

The thesis here again is that with infinite time and no creative power life could appear. Yet the Bible maintains that with no time at all and God as absolute power, life came into existence. Recognize that infinite time and zero power can accomplish nothing, but no time at all and infinite power can accomplish anything.

The evolutionist would tell you not only that life by some miracle advanced to that first cell, a medical miracle, but when life evolved to the first one-cell ameba, it was more than halfway to man. That cell which is vastly different from man, that little protozoan, was more than halfway up on the evolutionary scale. We have already observed the complexity required to come up with that first cell itself. Undaunted, however, evolutionists usually begin with the single cell and proceed to tell us how it could diversify. We begin to hear of natural selection and mutations. Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer are famous for their views of natural selection and survival of the fittest. Basically this means that of any given set of animals on the earth, those that are more fit to survive will survive. This is supposed to explain why certain animals exist presently and others are extinct. But that type of explanation still does not account for the existence of the fit. The premise advances a survival of the fittest, natural selection: nature weeds out those that are unfit. But it does not explain how animals got here, and again the law of the biogenesis must be in effect. How do we explain the different species, the different varieties of animals on the earth?

Hugo DeVries introduced the idea of mutations - random changes in the generic structure. What this really means is that some freak accident or change takes place in the organism. Huxley, a leading evolutionist, proposed that 99 out of 100 mutations are lethal or harmful, and Dobzhansky raised that figure to 999 out of 1000. Dr. Walter Lammerts, a Ph.D. in genetics from the University of California, producer of sixteen prize-winning American roses and former director of research for the German Seed Company, states that all mutations are lethal or harmful or at least neutral. He speaks with authority, for he obtained his rose varieties by exposing them to neutron radiation and other influences in order to induce them to grow differently. From his college studies he was under the impression that one could take a rose and continue to improve on it by artificial selection until one produced a rose with petals six to eight inches long. But he found certain limits. He was able in one generation to increase the growth and gain a petal one-quarter inch longer, the second generation another one-eighth inch -- but then the process reached a point where increased petal length was no longer produced. It had evidently come to the potential of that particular plant. One thing he learned for certain: he was never able to change one species of plant into another species of plant.

Dr. Lammerts also refers to the experiments performed on the fruit fly. Scientists have taken this fly and bombarded it with gamma rays, X-rays, and the like, producing numerous mutant forms of flies. They have developed a little fruit fly with no wings, with wrinkled legs, with half wings, with eight legs, with six legs, with red eyes, black eyes, no eyes. But they have never turned a fruit fly into a mosquito or anything else. The experiment began with fruit flies and ended with weaker forms of fruit flies. In the experiments most of the mutations were lethal. Causing a mutation is like trying to improve your television by throwing rocks at it with the hope that one out of 1000 rocks will improve it and change a black and white set into a color set. What is not considered in mutations is that 999 steps are in the wrong direction. One could walk from America to China by taking one step forward and 999 steps backwards. He may get there, but he will be going in the wrong direction. That is not progress. Mutations always take away. In fact, no single favorable mutation has ever been found.

In biology one learns about Kettlewell's research with moths and reads that this is "'an excellent evidence of evolution." Here we are supposed to have an example of evolution in progress. There are dark moths and white moths. At the beginning of Kettlewell's research he found that in England there were more white moths than dark moths. The trees in the area were light-colored; the white moths blended into the trees very well, whereas the darker ones were easily seen by the birds who picked them up for food. Because of the Industrial Revolution smoke and soot began to fill the trees, and now the dark moths blended in better and the birds found the white moths. After a while he noticed that there were more dark moths than white moths. He reported that he had observed evolution. To the contrary, he had white moths and dark moths in the beginning and white moths and dark moths in the end. He had perhaps demonstrated survival of the fittest -- that one is a little more fit to survive because it blends in with the protective environment -- but he had not demonstrated evolution because the moths had not really changed.

Scientists speak about the fly becoming resistant to DDT as an evidence of evolution. However the fly was a fly before and is a fly now. No one has ever demonstrated or proved that a fly more resistant to DDT has evolved. All that can really be said is that a number of flies were sprayed, and those not resistant to DDT died. Are we observing evolution when we take a fly that is now supposedly resistant to DDT and note that it produces fewer offspring and its life span is shorter than flies that were not sprayed? Is that favorable to the fly as a whole? He has adapted, perhaps, but the process does not explain how flies could change into mosquitoes or whatever is higher than flies for it was a fly before and remains a fly after.

Mutations do not explain anything new appearing, but instead show degeneration. They merely tell us that if there were a time on earth when nothing lived but fish, by mutations alone one could never find anything but different forms of fish. Horses could never be produced because horses have characteristics that fish do not.

cont'd

Evolutionists would tell us that things are getting better and better. We are going from the simple to the complex. We are working on a system which progresses from a one-celled animal to multi-celled organisms such as man. How do we know we are going from simple to complex? "Because given enough time, it works out." Given a little time, the impossible becomes possible. Given a little more time, the possible becomes probable; given enough time, the probable becomes virtually certain. Time is the hero. Given enough time, things can evolve from the simple to the complex. Even though we cannot observe the process, even though we cannot demonstrate it, even though we cannot prove or verify it, what we need is time.

All of this is interesting because there happens to be a law of science, the first law of thermodynamics, which states that in every physical process there is a conservation of matter and energy. Matter is converted into energy, energy into matter; matter-energy cannot really be created or destroyed. This law asserts that the energy-conversion processes of the present have no relation to creation or innovation, but only to conservation.

Even more pertinent is a second law of thermodynamics, which states that in any experiment or in any use of energy, an amount of energy is lost for future experimentation. In other words, things are running down. When we burn wood, chemical energy is converted into heat; this can be used in an engine to do work, but a certain amount of energy is never available again -- not destroyed, but degraded into non-usable heat energy. Essential to an understanding of the second law of thermodynamics is the law of entropy: the irreversible tendency of any system toward disorder. This is why man dies, why things grow old. If you leave your car out in damp air, it never has a tendency to gain more chrome, but to rust. Any machine must eventually wear out; the human body constantly pursues a state of decay. Ultimately, the entire universe is like a giant clock which is running down. How can one explain a building-up world with a running down clock?

Because evolution clearly violates three well known laws of science, its validity must be urgently questioned. First, it negates the law of biogenesis, which states that life comes only from living organisms. Second, any attempt to explain the origin of matter and energy without a Creator violates the first law of thermodynamics. Third, evolution declares that things are building up from simple to complex, whereas the second law of thermodynamics insists that everything is moving from complex to simple--the wrong direction for evolution.

Now we come to the creationist's position. Paul says in Romans 1:20, "For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse."

The power of God - how can this be seen? Very definitely in the laws of thermodynamics. Psalm 19:6 tells us "there is nothing hid from the heart thereof." Thermodynamics basically deals with heat energy. Ask any evolutionist how long the first law of thermodynamics has been in effect, how long matter and energy have been consistent in quantity. He will tell you, "Forever." To his knowledge the present is the key to the past; present processes dictate the past. Thus the first law has been in effect forever. What about the second law? How long have things been running down? "Forever." If everything has been running down forever, if everything is totally down, then obviously no further processes such as life and solar radiation can take place. If matter and energy have been quantitatively constant forever, the universe by the second law has been running down forever and no further change can occur. Obviously there is still a high system of order in the universe. Obviously ordered things are here - man, sun, universe - and thus everything has not run down. What does this mean? It means that sometime in the past things were more highly ordered than they are now. If they have been running down, then some time in the past they were in a state of higher order; matter and energy were in their maximum state of order. In other words, some time in the past the universe had to be created, put together in a higher order than its present state, everything more perfect than it is now.

God says in the first chapter of Genesis that He finished all His work of creating and making. From this point on, matter would be neither created nor destroyed. At the end of the sixth day He was finished with the laws utilized in creating and making. The universe was to maintain itself in perfect order until man fell into sin and ruined God's creation. At that point man began to die, animals began to die, the universe started to run down. Sin would no run rampant until the last days. With man's sin at the fall entered the degenerative effect of the second law of thermodynamics.

The Bible is consistent with the first and second laws of thermodynamics. It is likewise consistent with the law of biogenesis--that life came from life. The Bible says that life in the beginning was created by God, the great Intelligence, the great Life. He alone was responsible for life. God created two of every kind - cattle, creeping things, crawling things, fowl, fish, plant life - these to reproduce after their kind. The Bible does not say that God created every species of animal but that he created kinds. One can begin with two dogs, for instance, and develop varieties within that kind. But one cannot develop chimpanzees from rabbits or horses from cows. It should also be remembered that the species classifications are man-made categories which have carried and are varying with time and with different classifiers. Of one thing we can be certain: the Bible is consistent with the law of biogenesis.

The Bible is also in accord with what we know of mutations, for it says that every animal and Adam and Eve were created perfect. In fact, the whole universe was perfect until man fell into sin. Now all began to die. Life spans were shortened. The Bible says that before the Flood man lived to an average age of 911 years - after the Flood about 400 years. Age kept decreasing to where Abraham and Sarah at 90 were too old to have a child. At present the life span is about 70. In the last few years medical technology has allowed us to raise the average life span in the United States because fewer children die, but in India the average life span is closer to 35 partly because they continue to have a high infant mortality rate.

At man's fall man and animals began to die. Two perfect animals after the fall began to have offspring, and just as man produced offspring in bondage to sin, animals now produced fewer perfect offspring. In a few generations an animal might be found which was not as fit as the parents. When mutations occurred, as might be expected - because the Bible is true - they were in a downward direction. In accord with Darwin's proposition concerning the survival of the fittest, the Bible explains how the fit got here and clarifies that the world cursed with sin would be less fit as time went on because of the second law of thermodynamics. Some animals would even go into extinction as the result of Adam's sin. Adam's one act of disobedience had tremendous implications when we consider to what extent the whole universe was affected. As Paul says in Romans 8:22, "For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now" because of Adam's disobedience. All people and animals were to die because of his act - a sin-cursed world propagated because he insisted on satisfying his own appetites in opposition to God's mandate.

Because of the systematic gaps in the fossil record and his failure to observe gradual evolutionary change in living populations, an excellent scientist named Goldschmidt proposed a theory to explain evolution by sudden jumps. He proposed that, for example, two reptiles mated and an egg was laid which carried a mutation that changed the relative rates of development of certain parts of the embryo. Only a slight genetic change could result in an adult having large and striking differences from its parents. But this "hopeful monster" supposedly mated within the population to produce offspring inheriting its changes, and these could mate with each other to fix the change in population. Thus Goldschmidt explained the evolution in jumps, He also presented an interesting case against Darwinian gradualism. The neo-Darwinists who accept natural selection and mutation feel that they present an equally good case against Goldschmidt. I tend to disagree with both. The Bible provides an excellent explanation and lacks the inherent problems of the other theories.

A group of evolutionary mathematicians held a symposium at the Wistar Institute, the report of which was published under the title Mathematical Challenges to the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution. Mathematicians and a group of evolutionary biologists met to make presentations on natural selection and mutations. The mathematicians assumed that only one out of 1000 mutations are favorable. Not considering the effects of the 999 harmful mutations, they still showed it to be mathematically impossible for evolution by mutations and natural selection alone to account for all of the various forms of life living on the earth today, even allowing for six billion years of evolution - or, for that matter, 36 billion years.

cont'd

Evolution is hopelessly inadequate to explain the many wonders we find in the animal world today. Take as an example the little brachinus beetle, the bombardier beetle. This beetle has two chambers within its body: in one chamber a catalyst and in the other an explosive mixture. When he is about to be attacked, he mixes the catalyst and explosive, blows it through two tubes in his tail, and explodes the mixture in the face of the enemy at a temperature of 212 Fahrenheit. While the enemy is gagging, the beetle runs away. This is only its defense mechanism. Natural selection would say that without this mechanism, the beetle would be exterminated. This is true, but the mechanism has to work the first time he tries it. There is no time for trial and error. And this is the only beetle with such a defense; it is completely unique in nature. What are the chances that such a defense mechanism could evolve? Can you picture the little beetle who tries it the first time and gets a little to much explosive and not enough catalyst? Boom, no beetle. Or what happens to the timid beetle who gets more catalyst and not enough explosive? He shoots it out, the enemy swallows it - and then swallows the beetle, with only a trace of heartburn later. Either way, you have wiped out the beetle.

What about the little water beetle, Stenus bipunctatus? This little beetle has an amazing ability to drop a detergent solution on the water when chased by a water strider or some other enemy. The detergent breaks up the surface tension of the water, creating a large wave that propels the beetle away at about ten times its normal swimming speed, and the pursuing enemy sinks. Calculate the chances of that defense coming into existence by evolution.

Another interesting biological development is the sonar capability of the dolphin, a very intelligent creature which can be trained by man. Compare the sonar of the dolphin to the best sonar man has produced for a submarine and estimate the superiority of the dolphin's. Two, three, ten times better? The dolphin's sonar capability is over 100 million times better than anything man has been able to produce. Yet the dolphin "evolved." Would anyone in his right mind tell you that he could take all the parts and transistors necessary to form sonar, put them in a room shake them out and construct sonar? The dolphin is supposed to have developed it by chance - no purpose or design in his development.

A bat possesses aerial sonar. He sends and receives signals at a fantastic number of cycles per second, never becoming confused by any other bat sending and receiving signals at the same time. Some are almost totally blind, but while hunting in the darkness, can in full flight detect a moth on sonar and swoop down to secure it.

Each little part of a fly's complex eye is a sensor, approximately 300 million times more sensitive to light than our most refined sensors. But take not of man's eye, too, which is supposed to have evolved from one-celled amoebas and things that did not even have eyes. Doctors today tell us that by looking inside the eye and noting the different colorations in the back of it, we can become aware of all the diseases we have had or are suffering from presently.

Everything we are discovering of the complexity of the human cell, the atom, the universe would negate its possibility of coming about by chance. The evidence is not 50% for evolution and 50 % for God -- not "I'll flip a coin to see which I believe." The apostle Paul contends that the creation of the world is clearly seen and man is without excuse. Creation declares not only His eternal power, but the power of the Godhead - Father, Son and Holy Spirit, God, the All-knowing One, manifests Himself in His Son, Jesus Christ, and is experienced by the Holy Spirit. Similarly, our universe is really a tri-universe made up of three things - space, mass, and time. Space is the all-encompassing backdrop (the Father) in which everything occurs. It is manifest in matter or motion (the Son) and experienced in time (the Holy Spirit). All things work within this framework so that even the Trinity is seen. Space is a one-dimensional representative of the Father, but it is seen in two dimensions and experienced in three dimensions (length, width, height). The same is true of energy or matter. Energy is the backdrop which is manifest in matter and experienced in the various phenomena in motion. Time is another example of the trinity because it includes past, present, and future. The future is the unseen source of all time being manifest in the present and experienced in the past.

God says that His evidence is clearly seen. He is displaying not only His eternal power but also His eternal Godhead, so that man is without excuse. In considering creation, we find that Peter is well vindicated when he says that the man who denies creation "is without excuse." Refer again to Peter's affirmation quoted at the beginning of this chapter. The man who says the present is the key to the past is willingly ignorant "that by the Word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water, perished."

There was a Man who was able to convince Peter of such things, and I would like to introduce you to Him. Colossians 1:16-17 states that by Jesus Christ "were all things created, that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible [thus covering everything we can physically see], whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers [angels, kingdoms, kings]: all things were created by him, and for him: and he is before all things [Jesus Christ existed before that first chapter of Genesis, before time, matter, or space], and by him all things consist." If we are to realize the implications of that last little clause, almost tacked on -- "incidentally, by Jesus Christ all things consist" -- then we can realize why Peter and Paul speak so strongly.

Paul says of Jesus Christ in Colossians 2:3, "In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." The root meaning of the word "philosophy" is wisdom; the root meaning in Latin of the word "science" is knowledge. Paul is saying that in Jesus Christ are hid all of the treasures of science and philosophy. In other words, you cannot understand anything about the world in which you live apart from Jesus Christ. You cannot discern the true nature of science apart from Jesus Christ. He is the one who created these things, and by Him these things consist.

cont'd

In our study of the atom we used to think it was composed simply of electrons, protons, and neutrons. We wondered how positively charged protons could exist in the same atomic nucleus and still hold together. We wondered about the fact that the atom was mostly empty space. Now we find that there are many more components than just those three in the atom. Indeed, four forces exist within that atom. There are both attractive and repulsive forces in the nucleus of the atom and no one truly understands the atom or how it is held together. We know that each atom is a complex miniature universe. Man has only begun to comprehend a universe of the small, the level upon which he lives, and a vast universe, whose limits are yet far beyond knowledge. But the Bible tells me that by Jesus Christ all these things consist; He is the power holding the atom together.

When we read II Peter 3, we understand how Peter can speak with boldness because he knows the day of the Lord will come when Jesus Christ will no longer be concerned with the saving of souls. He will no longer be occupied in displaying His sustaining power and His love to mankind, but will then stand as a Judge. When Jesus Christ comes as a thief in the night,

the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat [an atomic destruction if you wish, because Jesus Christ can say one word and release the power he possesses over the atom], the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless.

II Peter 3:10-14

Be diligent that He may say of you as He said of Noah (Genesis 6:22), "Thus according to all that God commanded Noah to do, so did he."

"Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness" (II Peter 3:17). Peter admonishes, You, Christian, know the fact of creation, the fact of the Flood. You have met Jesus Christ and know Him who commands all power and has given this promise of judgment. Beware lest you fall into the philosophy, that uniformitarianism, that historical geology which will lead you away by the error of the wicked. He challenges you to "grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever" (verse 18).

The challenge of Peter's message is profound. The One whose power and dominion has eternally controlled the universe exists today as man's loving and forgiving Saviour. He is eager to enter your life, create within you a spiritual nature, and secure your everlasting future with Him. But one day, when he relinquishes His power as Sustainer of the heavens and earth, He will appear as Judge of all mankind. What a terrible awesome thought: to be finally accountable to the Individual who by His Word created the atom, mankind, the universe. If you do not know Him as Saviour, He will one day, as your Judge, cast you into eternal damnation. If you do know Him and He lives in your life, you have the pleasure of proclaiming His message and anticipating the glory of His presence throughout ages to come.

ChristiansUnite Forums

Entertainment => Books => Topic started by: Soldier4Christ on December 24, 2006, 01:21:43 PM