Sep 04
Perhaps you’ve heard it said, “The Bible is a book of theology, it is not a book of science.” My contention is: “If we cannot believe the Bible with what it has to say relative to various scientific disciplines, how can we believe the Bible with what it has to say about Jesus?” Personally, I believe the Bible to be accurate relative to whatever topic is addressed within it. It IS interesting to note that the five major components found in any scientific discipline are found in the very first verse of God’s Word. This is to topic of discussion on this program.
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February 12th, 2014 at 2:47 pm
Hi John! I’ve been listening to your radio webcasts, enjoying them very much.
I watch the debate between Ken Ham and Bill Nye, it was great! A question that needs to be asked of the evolutionist is; If God did not name the Earth, who did? Man gave pagan god names to the other 7 or 8 planets, (depends how you feel about Pluto). From what I’ve found is Earth ‘might be’ derived from Old English and German in origin, related to the Old Saxon ‘ertha’, the Dutch ‘aerde’, and the German ‘erda’. Which goes back to the Tower of Babel. Strong’s says eth!
Take care and God Bless
Mark
February 13th, 2014 at 10:37 am
Thank you for listening to my programs. All went well for 1 1/2 years, until I did a program on global warming (#65). Tolerance of varied views??
Yes, the debate was great for an analytical person. Unfortunately, (a little cynical on my part) most of the evolution persuasion, contrary to what is touted, will put more weight on the presentation, rather than the validity of the information. The debate has certainly helped to get some thinking and discussing this vital topic. Again, perhaps a little on the cynical side, many churches, ministers, and professing Christian do not see the relevancy of the topic.
Question: I do not know. I have never looked into this, nor have I been asked. Pluto; a planet, a Plutoid, or an oversized asteroid? As it sounds like you already know, the astronomers and astrophysicists are not agreed.
It’s an interesting question and I’ll look into it.
December 2nd, 2021 at 12:54 am
You claim that Genesis 1:1 implies all five ‘fundamental’ aspects of any scientific discipline. In one sense, this claim is correct. But it is mistaken regarding what is ‘fundamental’ in science. Science is driven by a concern for life, never without it. And the possibility for science as a progressive, or cumulative enterprise is based on the life-affirming, or Divine, Design in Nature.
Also, people who love the idea that these five are in the verse by Inspiration tend to presuppose that this means these five are rarely if ever found outside of ‘science’. This presupposition is mistaken. This is because these five aspects are nearly inescapably implied in everyday narratives, even our favorite works of fiction.
Atheists grant these five aspects. What they do NOT grant is the universal self-evidence of Divine Design (Romans 1:20).
So here’s my question: Do some parts of Genesis 1 *explicitly*, even mainly or entirely, concern cosmic physics? I argue ‘No’, as follows…
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Adam and Eve were created on the completed Earth, within a completed wider cosmos. This suggests exactly one thing apart from all contrary things:
The Earth is humans’ actual and functional center of epistemology and cosmology.
And there is no record that God outright told them about gravity. Indeed, they already experienced it.
But we today are proud to ‘know’ that not only are ‘space’, ‘matter’, and ‘energy’ what comprise everything (including even the Earth and humans), but that Genesis 1 ‘outright’ says that God created these three.
But such a ‘knowing’ misses the deeper point. The deeper reality is that even cosmic physics is finely tuned for sake of water-based life, and for the Earth’s unique role in supporting that life. Textually, this means two things:
One, a ‘creationary’, but otherwise blandly secular, presentation of cosmic physics is not the most important first thing to know about origins. Two, it would take many more words to (a) tell of the greatest values of Creation from the ‘cosmic physics’ ‘bottom, up’ than to (b) tell of those values from the ‘center, outward’. So Genesis 1 is not addressing mentally dissociative idiots, much less such idiots who are skeptics.
Indeed, in addressing the Early Church, Apostle Paul reminded all presumably Biblically well-informed Christians that the characteristic of paganism and atheism is the denial of intentional life-affirming Divine design in Nature (Romans 1:20). And Paul did not otherwise refer to the mere ‘authority’ of Genesis 1.
So I am not talking about how ‘space’, ‘matter’, and ‘energy’ number three in reflection of the Trinity. Nor am I concerned with the fact that God created these three (generically expressed) things. Rather, my concern is for how all things, even cosmic physics, can be known to reflect the Living, Loving Creator of us, the Earth, and the wider cosmos.
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The ‘CP’H
But many modern YEC’s (Calendar Day creationists) think Genesis 1:1-3, instead, refers directly to the fact that God created ‘space’, ‘matter’ and ‘energy’:
‘In the absolute chronological beginning of creating, God created space and matter.’
To us moderns, this may seem to be the most deep way of ‘knowing’ any seemingly perfectly amenable part of Genesis 1.
So this way of ‘knowing’ Genesis 1 ought be called the ‘Cosmic Physics’ Hermeneutic, or the ‘CP’H (complete with quotes around ‘Cosmic Physics’).
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How backwards is ideal?
Day Ager Hugh Ross, founder of Reasons.org, does not so deeply reduce v. 1. For him, the verse says essentially,
‘God created the completed extraterrestrial bulk of the cosmos, for however long God took to do this, and involving every one of the distinct factors of cosmic physics.’
Accordingly, v. 1 begins with a distinctly ‘cosmic’ ‘frame of reference’, and, by v. 2, the account has made a complete ‘shift’ to a terrestrial ‘frame of reference’. Ross, from there, allows the latter reference for the rest of the account.
But YEC Morris (2000), in his own ‘CP’H model of the account, does not allow the account a clear shift of frame of reference from his ‘cosmic physics’ reading of vs. 1-3 to any terrestrial frame of reference. Instead, he thinks the text of vs. 4-5 constitutes a sudden reference to the actual Earth, and this only by implication of the day-night cycle.
An even deeper ‘CP’H model (DeRemer, Amunrud and Dobberpuhl: 2007) claims that none of the first eight verses directly concern actual water. This model even rejects the idea that vs. 4-5 is concerned for the actual day-night cycle of the actual Earth.
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By definition
The ‘CP’H, by itself, cannot even begin to distinguish the Creator from the deistic version, who is effectively impersonal, if not incapably impersonal. The ‘CP’H can suggest only that the creator is a ‘cosmic physics’ snobbish, all-powerful, preexistent Carl Sagan, who wants us first to know that He is ‘all that’.
In view of Paul’s reminder as the characteristic of paganism and atheism, the ‘CP’H is like thinking to be winning a race by ever only ‘keeping even’ with the opponent’s refusal to get anywhere near the finish line.
The ‘CP’H, by itself, renders God as a ‘wooden boy’ who only sometimes, and only conditionally, is pleased to be a ‘real boy’.
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Real, both to the just and to the unjust*
Only by a functionally Earth-centric reading can every part of the account show just what sort of Creator v. 1 is about:
1. the general cosmos and the special Earth.
2. The Earth, as its own general subject, implying that which we all intuit is most valuable about the Earth unto itself in all the cosmos: its abiding maximal abundance of open liquid water.
3. that water and its special relation to the Sun’s light, hence the water cycle;
4. The water cycle and its special beneficiary and member, biology;
5. biology and its special category, animal biology (plant/animal/mineral = animal);
6. Animal biology and its special category, human;
7. The man and his wife (Genesis 2:21-23)
This sevenfold recursion shows that Genesis 1:1 is entirely concerned that, since we are the creation of the Living God, we not only are significant, we are the central value both of the entire account and of the entire cosmos.
More so, this recursion fits Genesis 1’s conspicuously lack of mention only of humans’ material origins. This (A) poses humans as transcending the Earth and (B) anticipates the completion forward of Genesis 1. Per the 7th recursion, this is fulfilled in the ending portion of Genesis 2 (vs. 18-23).
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The always-centrality of humans’ terrestrial context
Imagine if humanity, from the beginning, has lived bound inside a Star Trek-like space ship stranded far away from any galaxy. This ship has every artificial system required for our biological survival and increase. It even has an automated system for expanding ship to comfortable accept such increase.
And, just like in the Star Trek universe, all those systems would require our work, toil, and expertise for maintenance. In short, we would have to earn our right even to breathe.
So the deepest difference to the Star Trek universe is that we would have no natural knowledge of a watery-planet-based, star-orbiting way of life. Even the ship’s ambient thermal systems are separate from its lighting systems, and the latter produces nearly no heat while the former produces none of the kind of light by which we see.
Despite having all the perfectly synthesized food we could ever need, we would know nothing of flora.
Upon our finding Genesis 1, we would say,
‘What is all this about water? How can water be more important than atmospheric pressure, the latter of which this strange account does not even mention? It goes on about things it calls “land”, “sea” “flora”, “birds”, “fish”, and “land animals”. But it does not once point out the universal need for sealed outer bulkheads. It does not once mention the need for the expertise and toil to maintain gravity generators. It surely is a fantasy account, and a weird fantasy at that.’
So a non-terrestrial ‘way of life’ does not provide for any of our most crucial natural needs. It may keep us biologically alive, but only by deeply contorting our sense of metaphysics and ethics.
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No real bride?
So, to think that ‘cosmic physics’ is how Genesis 1 explicitly begins and proceeds is comparable to a ‘physics first’ way of verbally introducing a specially made wedding dress to the hopeful guests at a wedding. The ‘introduction’ does not even mention the dress, nor the mastery of its tailor, until after it ‘gloriously’ tells the guests that ‘everything ultimately is made of the same blandly secular constituents as everything else.’
This is not to say that Genesis 1 implies nothing about cosmic physics. On the contrary, as even Ross’s reading of v. 1 shows.
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The always-centrality of natural language
Advocates of the ‘CP’H think the ‘CP’H is perfectly allowable. But it seems so only because the account’s first verses are decidedly ambiguous.
In fact, our own everyday statements on self-evident and valuable topic involves a lot of ambiguity. This is not to allow our meaning to be obscure. Much less is it for giving the right to anyone whose views on our statements constitute twisting or reducing our meaning. Our ambiguity is simply a ‘side effect’ of our addressing our audience 1) on a less or more known topic 2) in a powerfully brief, and natural values-centered, way. This is what natural language is. It is not centrally about arbitrary or shallow logical possibilities.
So the ambiguity in Genesis 1 is not to give right to those who, by effect, if not intent, twist or reduce its meaning. Its topic clearly seems intended to be so very naturally evident to us that that is to be our main, or even only, guide to interpreting it. For, surely, otherwise, it would not involve any ambiguity.
In short, Genesis 1 is touched with only whatever emphases serve its topic, including even (i) sequences of mention, and (ii) outright mention.
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Conclusion
In order for us to need for Genesis 1 to spell out anything of cosmic physics, the cosmos would have be the pile of mutually insignificant whatnots that the typical ‘scientific’ atheist thinks it is.
REFRENCES
Morris, H. (2000): Biblical Creationism: What Each Book of the Bible Teaches about Creation and the Flood. Master Books, Green Forest, AK. Pgs. 16-18.
DeRemer, F., with Amunrud, M. and Dobberpuhl, D. (2007): Days 1-4. JOURNAL OF CREATION 21(3) 2007 (https://creation.com/images/pdfs/tj/j21_3/j21_3_69-76.pdf).
* Matthew 5:44-46