Words of a Fether

Opinions on Faith and Life

Science scientific creation evolution starlight

This material is based largely on Scientific Creationism by Henry Morris but includes other material as well.

Gen 1:1-31, 2:1-25 Job 26:7 Ps 104:2, 136:6
Isa 40:12,22, 42:5, 44:24, 45:12, 48:13, 51:13 Jer 4:3, 10:12, 32:17, 51:15 Zec 12:1
Acts 17:24-30 Ro 5:12, 14 1Cor 15:38-39
While it is true that the Bible is not intended to be a science textbook, the scientific statements it contains must not conflict with proven scientific fact; otherwise, the Bible would contain errors and thus be unreliable. This matter is of vital importance to the Christian, because evolution is the foundation of all non-Christian philosophy. In the following pages, we will compare the Theory of Evolution with that of Scientific Creationism.

The Importance of Origins

The Impossibility of Scientific Proof of Origins The Two Scientific Models of Origins




externally directed



directional (upward)

directional (downward)






completed (conserved)

Advantages of the Creation Model Origin of Matter, Energy and Natural Law The law of cause-and-effect: no effect is greater than its cause; therefore:
The First Cause Of Must Be
limitless space infinite
endless time eternal
boundless energy omnipotent
universal interrelationships omnipresent
infinite complexity omniscient
moral values moral
spiritual values spiritual
human responsibility volitional
human integrity truthful
human love loving
life living
So the universe could not be its own cause.

Universal Laws

The law of relativity: All frames of reference as to size, position, time and motion are relative, not absolute. Therefore the universe cannot be an absolute in itself and must be in existence due to an external Creator.

The law of motion: The universe is in constant motion due to omnipresent energy. Therefore, there must be an omnipotent Cause of such energies and motion, and this Cause must have completed the creation in the past.

Classification and order: If all entities were in a constant state of evolution, classification would be impossible (such as knowing where ’cats’ leave off and ’dogs’ begin). Therefore, similarities in structure do not necessarily imply evolutionary descent from a common ancestor; a better explanation is that a Designer created similar structures for similar functions.

The Beginning of the Universe

The Laws of Thermodynamics

The first law of thermodynamics (LAW OF ENERGY CONSERVATION) states that nothing is now being created or destroyed. Therefore, the universe did not create itself.

The second law of thermodynamics (LAW OF ENERGY DECAY) states that every system left to its own devices always tends to move from order to disorder. Therefore, the universe is ’running down’ not ’evolving up’. The fact that the universe is not yet dead is clear evidence that it is not infinitely old. The evolution model would predict increasing organization of systems toward higher and higher levels of complexity, but the creation model would predict the opposite. Therefore, the creation model fits the second law of thermodynamics.

The second law requires that the universe had to have a beginning; the first law precludes it having begun itself (The first cause must be free from the known laws of physics. Since the universe is not free from those laws it cannot be the first cause). Therefore, the universe was created by a Cause transcendent to itself.

Even though these facts do not prove the existence of a personal Creator, they do show that the creation model predicts the items listed in ’the uncaused first cause’, all of which pose serious problems to the evolution model.

Origin of the Solar System

The Origin of Life

The evolution model would predict that life evolved from non-life and that the process is still happening. However, evidence shows that it is not happening, which is what the creation model would predict.

Variation and Selection

Darwin’s theory of natural selection stated that continual small variations in species would gradually result in completely new and higher types of organisms. However, modern molecular biology has confirmed that normal variations are restricted by an organism’s DNA, so that no novel characteristics producing higher degrees of order or complexity can appear. Therefore, variation is horizontal and not vertical! As the creation model would predict, these variations are merely a way of assuring an organism’s survival and genetic integrity.

Genetic Mutations

Since ordinary variations cannot account for ’upward’ evolution, the evolution model must rely on mutations. (A mutation is a real structural change in a gene, such that something novel is produced.) It predicts that mutations are beneficial to the environment if they are to be preserved by natural selection. But the facts are, as the creation model would predict, the mutations are random, rare and harmful.

The complexity of Living Systems

The probability of a complex system arising instantly by chance

An organism having 100 parts can only work if the parts are combined in a certain way, and the 100 units can be combined in a possible 10158 ways, so that the chance of hitting the right combination is 1 in 10158. If, say, 109 (a billion) ’trials’ can be made each second (and there are 1018 seconds in 30 billion years), then only 10105 ’trials’ can be made. Finally, the chance that 1 of the 10105 is correct is 10158 / 10105 = 1 in 1053 (=1 with 53 zeros) . So for all practical purposes there is no chance at all! Yet, according to scientific research, the simplest ’living’ molecule has at least 400 units.

By similar calculations, a system as complex as a DNA molecule could never arise by chance, no matter how big the universe is or how much time there is. This is a major obstacle to the evolution model, which states that life (the beginning of which had to be the DNA molecule) evolved from non-life. Higher organisms are extremely more complex than a molecule, so for one kind of organism to evolve into another one would require a tremendous number of ’good’ mutations, which are highly improbable. For the evolutionist to reject the creation model in spite of these odds requires a great deal of blind faith.

Similarities and differences

The evolution model relies on similarities in structure and biochemistry to prove common ancestry, but ignores their differences. For example, cats and dogs have similar structures but are distinct from each other. If they have a common ancestor, how did they ever get to be different? (Remember the high improbability of ’good’ mutations and the limitations of an organism’s DNA)

To explain the ’gaps’ in the fossil record between two organisms and their supposed ’common ancestor’, evolutionists used to say that they existed but simply were not yet discovered. But that explanation can no longer be used in the light of the wealth of fossils now available. Now they say that those ’in-between’ organisms did not fossilize, because evolution happened too fast in the past. And yet they say we cannot see evolution happening now because it is too slow!

Uniformitarianism or Catastrophism?

Uniformitarianism: fossils formed slowly over eons of time Catastrophism: fossils formed quickly in a relatively short time (sudden death)

The Message of the Fossils

Rapid Formation of Geological Deposits To appreciate this aspect of the cataclysmic model, consider first the nature and cause of the ’major catastrophe’ itself. Rocks from all ’ages’ indicate a worldwide warm climate. Before the Flood, the earth’s strong magnetic field and high levels of carbon dioxide created a ’greenhouse effect’, along with heated water deep within the earth. The explosive release of those waters would remove the ’greenhouse effect’, causing uneven heating of the earth, and would explain the rapid formation of both fossils and geologic strata. The after-effects of such a catastrophe would continue for centuries (mountain-building, glaciation, rainfall, volcanism, etc.)

How to Date a Rock

Rocks are not dated by any physical characteristics, but by index fossils, which are remains of organisms that are assumed to have been of limited duration but found worldwide. Evolutionists are the victims of circular reasoning on this point:

  1. fossils are the only key for placing rocks in chronological order
  2. the criterion for assigning fossils to specific places in that order is the assumed evolutionary progression of life
  3. the assumed evolutionary progression of life is based on the fossil record so constructed
  4. (back to 1)
So the main evidence for evolution is evolution!

The creation model is free to consider scientific evidence on its own merits because it doesn’t require any specific time scale, but the evolution model is forced to reject all evidence requiring a short time scale.

Radiometric Dating (uranium is gradually changed into lead and the relative proportions of the two are an index of the time passed)

When using this method of geochronometry, the following assumptions must be made:

However, none of those assumptions are valid, provable, testable or even reasonable: Evidence for a young earth

Certain gases migrate upward through the rocks and into the atmosphere. By measuring the quantities of these gases in the atmosphere the approximate age of it can be determined. Some scientists have cited evidence that the earth’s atmosphere is only about several thousand years old!

There is a constant rate of cosmic dust particles entering the earth’s atmosphere from space and settling on the earth’s surface. It has been calculated that even if the earth is as old as 5 million years (let alone 5 billion years as the evolutionist claim), a dust layer of over 2 inches should cover the entire world. This dust would contain distinctive materials such as nickel and iron. Nickel is very rare in the earth’s crust, but if the dust was uniformly mixed into the earth’s crust it would contain 300 times as great a nickel content as it actually has. Therefore the only way to account for the earth’s small amount of nickel is to assume it is only a few thousand years old.

The strength of the earth’s magnetic field has been measured carefully for 135 years, and it has been shown that it has been decaying during that period with a half-life of 1400 years (every 1400 years it loses half its strength). Even if the earth is only 10,000 years old, its magnetic field would have started out as strong as that of a magnetic star! Thus, 10,000 years seems to be an outside limit for the age of the earth.

According to evolutionists, man has been on the earth for at least a million years, but it would only take 4,000 years to get the earth’s present population starting with only two people. There is more than enough room in the creation model to allow for various delays in the population growth, caused by such things as war or diseas

The Origin of Man

Languages and races The Historicity of the Genesis Record The World That Then Was (2 Peter 3:6)

The original created world differed from the present world in several significant ways:

Major theories that compromise scripture with evolution

No biblically derived religion can be compromised with Darwinian theory, since chance and design are mutually exclusive concepts. Nevertheless, some Christians who think evolution is scientific fact have tried to postulate ways in which the Bible can be molded to evolutionary theory.

Theistic Evolution states that evolution is factual but its processes were started by God. But scriptures such as 1 Cor. 15:38-39 contradict this theory. For instance, God created the earth before he created the ’heavenly bodies’ (the stars and planets). To believe in the God of the Bible and evolutionary theory creates some theological contradictions:

Progressive Creation is similar to Theistic Evolution, but adds the idea that God would intervene in the evolutionary process from time to time. This implies that God’s original creation was defective (’not good’), since it needed correction now and then.

The Day-Age Theory states that the six days of creation were not literal 24-hour days but were ’periods of time’ corresponding to the evolutionary concept of geologic ’ages’. It is almost identical to the Progressive Creation theory, but is more specific as to when God intervened in the evolutionary process (each ’day’ began when God intervened in the process). But the phrase ’evening and morning, the nth day’ is describing normal ’solar’ days. And the order of creation is not the same as the order of the geologic ages: plants before sunlight, birds before land animals, etc.

The Gap Theory states that there was a vast amount of time (the geologic ages) between Gen. 1:1 and 1:2; that is, God created the earth, but ’something’ happened that left the earth ’formless and void’, so God had to re-create the earth. But even the evolutionists reject this theory! There is no room for any such major catastrophe in evolution, which is based on uniformiterianism. It also seems strange that God would tell us about the Flood but completely ignore a catastrophe of far greater magnitude; that he would tell us about the present world but would ignore the ’gap’ world.

There is just no way to reconcile creationism with evolution, either scripturally or scientifically.

Starlight and Time

(Dr. Russell Humphreys ¬©1994, Master Books)

If the universe is only about 6 to 10 thousand years old, how can we see light from stars that are more than 10,000 light-years away?

According to Einstein’s general theory of relativity (GR), gravity affects time. The stronger the gravity, the slower time goes. And it affects all physical processes‚Äî the earth’s rotation, aging, the speed of nerve impulses in your brain, etc. The following discussion will show how GR helps to solve the ’astronomical problem’.

Two Models of the Universe

The Big Bang (BB) model

The White Hole (WH) model An unbounded universe (BB) could never have been in a white or black hole because BB requires no center, and these holes would have been the center. It is important to note that the first point in both models is an assumption; it is an arbitrary starting point that cannot be scientifically determined.

Event Horizons and Time

According to GR, time stands still at the EH and is progressively faster as distance from the EH increases. As the WH EH reached earth during the creation week, distant objects in the universe could age billions of years in a single earth day, allowing ample time for their light to reach earth.

A Creation Week Scenario

DAY ONE: God creates 3D space containing a rotating ball of liquid water (2 Peter 3:5) called ’the deep’. This ball is in a black hole of extreme gravitational force. The force compresses the ball, making it hot and dense. The heat rips apart the water molecules and atoms, starting thermonuclear fusion.

DAY TWO: God begins stretching out space, which causes the ball to expand rapidly, changing the black hole to a white hole. He divides the ball into two concentric spheres by creating an expanse between them. Normal physical processes begin the formation of the inner sphere into the ’earth’ as we know it. The expanse becomes interstellar space (not ’the sky’ immediately surrounding the earth), and the outer sphere cools (and probably turns to ice). [Hebrew in Gen. 1:20 reads, ’... and let birds fly around over the earth on the face of the expanse of the heavens...’; Ps. 148:4 says, ’... the waters that are above the heavens’. It was written after the Flood, so the waters above the heavens are still there. Therefore there was no ’water vapor canopy’ surrounding the pre-Flood earth; it was protected instead by the earth’s strong magnetic field, which deflected harmful cosmic rays and contributed to the long lives of those who lived before the Flood.]

DAY THREE: As normal physical processes continue, the expansion of space causes the outer sphere to reach and pass through the event horizon. So the amount of matter within the EH decreases, causing it to shrink toward the earth.

DAY FOUR: During this normal, 24-hour day on earth, billions of years worth of physical processes take place in space. Stars are formed and their light reaches the earth while space continues to expand.

DAY FIVE: Physical processes continue while God creates many living creatures.

DAY SIX: God stops the expansion and creates land animals and Man.

Quotes From Evolution: A Theory In Crisis ©1985, U.S. 1986 by Adler & Adler Publishers Author: Michael Denton: M.D., molecular biologist, non-creationist


P.75: ’Darwin’s model of evolution is still very much a theory... it is impossible to verify by experiment or direct observation as is normal in science.’

P.250: ’... no living system can be thought of as being primitive or ancestral with respect to any other system, nor is there the slightest empirical hint of an evolutionary sequence among all the incredibly diverse cells on earth.’

P.267: ’When the mutation rate is very high, no living system can avoid the path to auto-destruction.’

P.268 (quoting Nobel winner Francis Crick): ’An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle...’

P.270: ’The problem of the origin of life is not unique; it only represents the most dramatic example of the universal principle that complex systems cannot be approached gradually through functional intermediates, because of the necessity of perfect co-adaptation of their components as a precondition of function... the divisions of nature arise out of the necessities rooted in the logic of the design of complex systems.’

P.285: ’At a molecular level there is no trace of the evolutionary transition from fish to amphibian to reptile to mammal.

P.291: ’... if... ancient lungfish and ancient amphibia were as separate from each other as their present-day descendants are, then the whole concept of evolution collapses.’ ... ’The only justification for such an assumption [that ancient lungflsh were far closer biochemically to ancient amphibia] would be if evolution is true, but this is precisely the question at issue!’

P.296: ’If evolution is true, then indeed the intermediates must be very rare. But unfortunately we can only know that evolution is true after we have found the transitional types! The explanation relies on belief in evolution in the first place.’

P.327: ’... there has always existed a significant minority of first-rate biologists who have never been able to bring themselves to accept the validity of Darwinian claims. In fact, the number of biologists who have expressed some degree of disillusionment is practically endless.’

Quote From America: The Sorcerer’s New Apprentice ©1988, by Harvest House Publishers, Eugene, OR (Authors: Dave Hunt & T. A. McMahon)

P.222-223 (quoting British biologist D.M.S. Watson): ’Evolution itself is accepted by zoologists not because it has been observed to occur or... can be proved by logically coherent evidence to be true, but because the only alternative, special creation, is clearly incredible.’

Posted 2002-01-01 under Science, Science, scientific creationism, creation, evolution, evolutionism, starlight