Creation

1. The Doctrine of Biblical Creation

   Statement #1: “Supernatural creation of all times in six literally days by the God of the Bible, approximately 6,000 years ago”

2. Nature of Biblical Creation

   1. Creation was supernatural

      1. No use of pre existent materials

         • Heb. 11:3- creatio ex nihilo (created out of nothing)

      2. “In the Beginning” (everything that has a beginning requires a cause, so the universe has to have a cause.

         • time has to have a cause

      3. “God” (Elohim)

         • Name associated with majestic and omnipotent power

      4. Created (Bara)

         • God can do, we cannot

      5. “the heaven and the earth”

         • The space and mass of the universe

         • Creation was sudden (Ps. 33:6-9)

         • Involved a superficial appearance of age

           • Not done to purposefully deceive man

           • God told us what he did

           • sudden, superficial years of age (nature civilization)

1. Scriptural Evidence for a literal 7-day creation week

   1. Hebrew word for day= yom

      1. Look at the context

      2. Uses

      3. Outside of Genesis I, “Day”

         • 410x-“day” with a number (Always means an ordinary day)

         • 38x- “evening and morning w/o day”

         • 23x- “evening or morning + day

Use of “Day outside of Genesis 1 (always means an ordinary day)

• “day” with number 410 times (in plural or singular)

• “evening” & “morning” together within “day” = 38x

• “evening” or “morning” = 23x

• “night” with “day” = 52x

• “Day” is used 2,301x in the old testament. Why only question Genesis?

1. Hebrew scholars recognize a literal seven-day week as the author’s intent

2. creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience

   • the figures contained in the Genesis’s genealogies provided by simple addition a chronology from the beginning of the world up to the later stages in the Biblical story

   • Noah’s flood was understood to be world'-wide and extinguished all human and animal life except for those in the ark

3. Sets a meaningful pattern for Israel’s cycle of work and rest (ex. 20:8-11)

4. Jesus took Genesis literally (Mar. 10:6,7)

   • male and female present from the beginning

   • quotes from Gen. 2 regarding marriage (gen. 2:24)

   • teaching as literal historical truth

5. Gen. 1 is written as a narrative, not poetry

   • Hebrew narrative is written (Verb-Subject-Object) (VSO)

   • Hebrew poetry is written (Subject-Verb-Object) (SVO)

END OF QUIZ 2

1. The Six Days of Creation

1. Day 1: earth, space, time, and light

2. Day 2: atmosphere (firmament)

3. Day 3: dry land and plants

4. Day 4: sun, moon, and stars

5. Day 5: flying and sea creatures

6. Day 6: Land animals and man

NEHPHESH: “living soul

1. Other Interpretations

   1. Only Reason = o promise with man’s ideas

      • If you can’t trust God’s account, why trust any?

   2. Examples

      1. First Compromise Theory: Gap Theory

         • Ruin to reconstruction

         • Thomas chalmers (early 1800s): first to introduce theory

         • CI Schofield: wrote study bible with notes on gap theory

      2. Progressive creationism

         • “replaced” day-age

         • God started everything with the big bang, progressively created the world according to evolutionary timeline

         • Hugh ross: largest platform

      3. Theistic evolution: most accepted today

         • Francis collins: started BioLogos, an evolutionary creationism

         • William Lane Craig: “mytho-history”; famous apologist

   3. Basic Beliefs 

      1. Similarities

      2. Gen. 1-11 is not literal, historical truth

      • Does have meaning

   4. Earth is old

   5. Human-like creatures before Adam = pre-Adamic man

   6. No global flood during Noah’s day

   7. Death before sin

2. Gap theory

   1. Specific beliefs

      1. Supernatural creation

      2. Gap of time between gen. 1:! And gen. 1:2

         1. First creation, lucifer’s flood (ruin), second creation (reconstruction)

         2. The following days of 1-7 are literally days of a second creation

         3. Barca- 1st creation; Asha- 2nd creation

         4. Earth “became” without form and void

         5. Adam and eve to “replenish” the earth

   2. Refutation

      1. There is not evidence of a gap

         1. Exodus 20:11: “for in 6 days…”

         2. WAS

            1. Correct translation

               • Gen.1:1 and 1:2 connected

            2. Describes earth’s condition in the beginning

      2. Replenish meant “to fill” not “to refill in 1611

      3. Used interchangeably with asah

         • Gen. 1:21,25

      1. Illogical

         1. Refutes the “evidence” it is based on

3. Progressive Creationism

   1. Specific Beliefs

      1. God + supernatural creative acts + evolution timeline

      2. Days are long ages

      3. Nature is 67th book of the bible

      4. Big bang, billions of years

      5. Pre-adamic man had no spirit

      6. No global flood

   2. Refutation

      1. Days of creation = 24 hours

      2. Man is infallible, nature is cursed

      3. Ryder of creation and evolution differ

1. When does man’s spirit evolve?

   1. Ross’s date = 40,000 years ago but it keeps changing

   2. Evolutionary dates for Aborigines at least 60,000 years ago

1. Theistic Evolution (BioLogos, Evolutionary Creation)

   1. Specific Beliefs

      1. Evolution + god

      2. Look only for naturalistic explanations

      3. Genesis 1-11 contain no scientific truth and are just a story

         1. Previous belief: Adam not a real person

         2. Theistic evolutionists now think that Adam  and Eve may have been real but intermingled with other human ancestors

         3. Humans were not created distinct from the animals (not de novo)

   2. Refutation

      1. Could God have used evolution?

         1. NO!

         2. Impugns the character of God

            • God cannot lie! (Duet. 32:4; Titus 1:2)

      2. Adam WAS a de novo creation  and a real person

         1. Mark 10:6-7

         2. I Cor. 15:21-22

      3. Refuting all compromised views

         1. Arguments against fallible dating methods and mechanisms of evolution

         2. God’s word describes a global flood during the time of Noah

         3. Means God’s “very good” included death, disease, violence, carnivore, and thorns

            1. Death, both physical and spiritual is a result of sin

            2. Rom. 5:12; Gen. 3:19

2. Genesis 1-11 contain no scientific truth and are just a story

   1. Adam not a real person

   2. Adam  and Eve may have been real but intermingled with other human ancestors

   3. Humans were not created distinct from the animals (not de novo)

1. Refutation

   1. Could God have used evolution?

      1. NO!

      2. Impugns the character of God

         • God cannot lie! (Duet. 32:4; Titus 1:2)

   2. Adam WAS a de novo creation  and a real person

      1. Mark 10:6-7

      2. I Cor. 15:21-22

   3. Refuting all compromised views

      1. Arguments against fallible dating methods and mechanisms of evolution

      2. God’s word describes a global flood during the time of Noah

      3. Means God’s “very good” included death, disease, violence, carnivore, and thorns

         1. Death, both physical and spiritual is a result of sin

         2. Rom. 5:12; Gen. 3:19

In summary

• Believe in an old earth -> GT, PC, TE

• Adam and eve were real ->  GT, PC, TE, YE

• Global flood -> GT (Lucifer’s Flood); YE (Noah’s Day)

• Earth is young -> YE

• God used the Big Bang -> PC, TE

• Christ died for our sins -> GT, PC, TE, YE

1.  Ages according to models

   1. Creationist model

      1. Age from genealogies in the Bible and Scriptual events

         • Universe and earth approx. 6000 yrs. Old

      2. Archbishop James Ussher

         1. Tied to final deportation of Judah in584 BC

         2. Timeline revealed through age given at beginning

         3. Specifically, gen. 5 and 11

         4. Ggg

      3. Debated

         1. Length of stay of Israelites in Egypt

         2. Age of Torah when Abraham was born

         3. Are there gaps in the genealogies?

      4. Significance of debated portions

         1. May establish a maximum age of 10,000-12,000 yrs.

         2. Compared to age required by evolution - not really significant

   2. Evolution Model

      1. Big Bang (Universe)- 13.8 billion yrs. Ago

      2. Earth- 4.56 billion yrs. Ago

2. Old age of earth

   1. Historical timeline (how to explain current geological formations)

      1. Supernatural catastrophe

         • Young earth and global flood accepted through late 1700s

      2. Theologians changed starting point to naturalism

      3. George Cuvier

         • Catastrophism- no supernatural

      4. Charles Lyell

         1. Wrote the Principles of Geology (3v)

         2. Establishes uniformitarianism

            • No supernatural, no catastrophes

         3. Age of earth reaches into the millions

      5. 1900s

         1. Early 1900s- discovery of radioactive decay

         2. Mid 1900s- developed radiometric dating

            • Age of the earth jumped to 4.56 billion

_____________________________________________________________________MATERIAL FOR QUIZ 3 ENDS HERE

1. Supposed evidence for old age

   1. Earth

      1. Uniformitarianism

      2. Radiometric dating

      3. Necessary

   2. Universe

      1. Distant starlight

      2. Necessary

2. Uniformitarianism

   1. Present is the key to the past

   2. No supernatural events

   3. Is a belief

      1. Nothing has changed. It always have been the same ever

“A geological doctrine hat processes acting in the same manner as at present….

1. II Peter 3:3-4

2. Problem

   • evidence of dramatic changes due to catastrophic conditions abounds

“Acceptance of the importance of large events occurred as paleontologists supplied evidence of mass extinctions and other geologists described rocks that show evidence of large, individual geomorphic events in sedimentary rocks”

1. Neocatastrophism

   1. “notion that rare, high magnitude events have played an important role in landscape evolution

   2. Means catastrophes today only more intense, but earth’s history was dominated by uniformitarianism

   3. Nothing supernatural

D. Radiometric Dating

1. What is it?

   1. “process of estimating the age of the rocks form the decay of their radioactive isotopes.”

      1. measure half-life: time it takes for 1/2 of parent element to decay into daughter element

         • Over 1.25 bil. years, 1/2 of the potassium-40 will decay into argon 40

      2. Provides a natural “clock”

   2. Two types of radiometric dating

      1. Hot rocks that cool: igneous or metamorphic rocks

      2. Fossils (organic material)

         1. C-14 dating (radiocarbon dating)

         2. Do not measure daughter element (nitrogen-14) but compare c-14 to c-12.

         3. C-14 half life is 5,730

            • Only used to date material assumed to be less than 60,000 yrs. old.

• How radiocarbon dating “works

  • After death c-14 decays into n-14 but c-12 remains stable

  • Half life of 5,730 yrs.

  • Ratio of c-14 to c-12 is measurable and changes overtime

1. What Kind of Rock surrounds fossils?

   1. sedimentary

   2. Cannot be radiometrically dated!!

1. Is it scientifically valid?

   1. Based on assumptions

      1. Constant rate of decay

      2. Closed system

      3. knowledge of initial starting conditions (no daughter element present at beginning)

      4. Assumptions are wrong!!

   2. Assumptions are wrong!!

      1. Decay rates can change

      2. Not a closed system

      3. Daughter element at beginning

2. Is it accurate?

   1. Date rocks/materials of known ages and compare to dates obtained through radiometric dating

      a. Different ages from metal analysis vs. C-14 dating

      b. radioisotopes and the age of earth (RATE) study

      1. young rocks of.a known age measured as old rocks

      2. igneous rocks at the top of the grand canyon measured older than the rocks at the bottom (this is upside down)

      3. “millions of year old” diamonds and fossils have C-14 in them (predicted by young earth creationists!)

      4. radiometric dating for the age of the earth (4.56 bil.)

         • this date is based on radiometric dating of the canyon diablo meteorite from barringer crater

E. Necessary

1. Naturalism requires time

   a. uniformitarianism requires time

   b. biological evolution requires time

2. therefore, the earth is old because it has to be

   • axion- a statement accepted as true as the basis for argument or inference

END OF TEST 1————————————————————————————

F. Distant Starlight

1. We can see galaxies from earth that are billions of light years away.

   a. what is a light year?

   1. this is a measurement of distance

   2. it is the distance light can travel in one year

   3. c = the speed of light

   4. c = 186,000 miles per second

   5. this means that in a year, light can travel approximately 6,000,000,000,000 millions

   b. this light should have taken billions of years to get here

2. How did it get here?

3. Evolution explanation

   • the universe is very old

4. Proposed creationist models (explanations)

   a. scriptural explanation

   1. creation of the stars was supernatural

   2. god has told us He stretched out the heavens

   3. Is. 45:12

   4. other references: ps. 104:2; Is. 44:24, Is. 51:13, Jer. 10:12, Zech. 12:1

   b. supernatural explanation- light in transit

   c. “Scientific” explanations

   1. CDK- the speed of light may have been greater in the past. (speed of light in decay.)