Two Faith-based Options
“Now the earth was formless and empty….” – Genesis 1:2a
Dear Friends,
Before I go further in my discussion of Genesis, I want us to pause and consider the beginning of God’s rebuke to the self-righteousness of Job, “Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? Tell me, if you understand” (Job 38:4). With this verse in mind, who’s understanding are we to trust; man’s or God’s?
Man’s understanding goes something like this. All the energy in the universe was compressed into a little ball, which spontaneously exploded and spread throughout space and over time settled into an orderly system of stars and planets, etc. After billions of years, life came into being from inanimate substances by an astronomically improbable accident. Over billions of more years, life became more and more advanced until we have what we have today.
Unfortunately, this theory flies in the face of man’s understanding of the physical world. The second law of thermodynamics is called the law of entropy. Simply stated, all physical systems move toward a state of equilibrium. For example, a glass of cold water will warm if left at room temperature. The water comes into equilibrium with its surroundings. If this is a true physical law, then the Big Bang should never have happened. Why would a system that is in apparent equilibrium suddenly explode into chaos? Along the same lines, why did life start in the first place and why does it advance into more complex forms? This is a specific move away from equilibrium.
Seeing that this was a problem, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, right on the heals of the Enlightenment when men first began to remove God from our understanding and instead look for natural explanations for all things, scientists came up with various proposed fourth laws of thermodynamics. These fourth laws have never been universally accepted, but they did attempt to explain away the problems with the second law and creation by saying that on the micro level there can be a movement away from equilibrium if at the macro level there is an overall movement toward equilibrium.
If this is beginning to hurt your head, then let’s turn to the alternative. Accepting that there is a God (we’ll tackle that one later), the Bible tells us that He was there in the beginning, that He was not only a witness to the event of creation, but the cause, that He spoke all things into being and the order of creation is held together by Him. His eyewitness account is given to us in His Holy Word, the Bible, which I believe was written under His direct inspiration and therefore is trustworthy.
To trust in either man’s understanding or God’s understanding is a matter of faith. Theories such as the Big Bang and evolution are neither observable nor repeatable consequently they are not true science. So if you are intellectually honest with yourself, you will accept that these are two faith-based systems; one with faith in man and one with faith in God. The question is which one will you choose to believe?
In Christ,
David
