2010 National Conference on Christian Apologetics
Apologists take
on creation doubts
By Edward Terry, The Layman, October 21, 2010
CHARLOTTE, N.C. – They may differ on the exact age of the universe and planet Earth, but they do agree on one thing: A transcendent creator is responsible.
As guest speakers at the 2010 National Conference on Christian Apologetics Oct. 15-16 in Charlotte, N.C., scientists Dr. Hugh Ross and Dr. Terry Mortenson offered scientifically-based proof for the creation story as outlined in the Bible.
New scientific evidence for the God of the Bible
Dr. Hugh Ross, an astronomer and president of the Reasons To Believe ministry, challenged the audience to take a scientific approach to creation. He started with two questions:
- “Is the scientific evidence for the creator, the God of the Bible’s existence shrinking or growing as we learn more and more about the record of nature?” and
- “Has the scientific evidence accumulated to a point that we can we eliminate some or all of the alternate explanations?” Related Articles
Ross said he tested the various theories on the universe beginning when he was a youth and contends that the Bible has 10 times more to say about cosmology than all the world’s holy books combined. He shared long lists of Scripture passages that point to a transcendent creator, the expansion of the universe and the cooling down of the universe’s temperature.
“Today we can put these Biblical claims to the test,” he said, adding that all theories about an expanding universe require a causal agent. “What we have here is undeniable scientific evidence that there is a cause beyond nature for the universe coming into existence.”
Ross said that evidence for cosmic design has grown from 17 known features in 1991 to 140 known features in 2006. He said new discoveries supporting creation theories are regularly found, and those discoveries are shared through the Reasons to Believe Web site and daily email newsletter.
“My peers in astronomy concede this, even the atheists,” he said. “The entire universe appears to be designed for the entrance of human beings.”
If not for a “just right” moon orbiting a “just right” Earth surrounded by “just right” planets, orbiting a “just right” star in a “just right” galaxy, life would not be possible, he said.
He added that the requirements for life on Earth are not present anywhere else in the universe, and the odds of finding the perfect set-up elsewhere are inconceivable.
Shifting from the origin of the universe to the origin of the human race, Ross also offered evidence against the generally-accepted secular explanation for life on Earth: Darwinism.
Using the most optimistic of Darwinian presumptions, Ross shared an earlier finding on the odds of bacteria evolving into man being less than one in 10 to the one millionth power. That was a conservative estimate, he confessed.
The probability, he said, has since been revised by three physicists to less than one chance in 10 to the 24 millionth power.
“That’s the equivalent of the probability of winning the California lottery 3 million consecutive times where you buy just one ticket each time,” he said. That led to one scientist’s conclusion that intelligent life existing anywhere in the universe is impossible.
“We’re all proof that the impossible happened,” he said. “Only supernatural intervention can explain how you can begin with bacteria and wind up with human beings.”
Millions of years masquerading as science
In support of the “Young Earth” view of creation and the catastrophic flood outlined in Genesis, lecturer and author Dr. Terry Mortenson said the Church has been conditioned by scientists over the last 150 years to accept non-Biblical theories on creation.
“What was going on at this time was a clash of worldviews,” he said, focusing mainly on geologists who supported theories that the Earth was millions of years old rather than thousands. “These men were not unbiased pursuers of truth. … These men were consciously anti-Christian in their worldview.”
Mortenson said those scientists were conditioned more by social and political history of their day rather than observations from the field.
“In other words, we have allowed ourselves to be brainwashed into avoiding any interpretation of the past that involves extreme and what might be termed as catastrophic.”
He offered two examples when scientists were way off on estimating the age of geologic features due to the belief in gradualism rather than catastrophic occurrences.
- Scientists had believed that erosion in the Channeled Scablands in eastern Washington had taken place over millions of years. “It actually happened in one to two days of flooding” when waters from Lake Missoula carved out the formations in a catastrophic flood, Mortenson said.
- Radiometric dating of lava flows in New Zealand theorized that the formations were 270,000 to 3.5 million years ago. It was later found that the lava flows were approximately 50 years old.
“We’re looking at the world in the same way as the non-Christian world,” he said. “We need to be looking at the world through Biblical glasses.”
He said that “creation geologists,” who see creation through Biblical assumptions, see proof of Noah’s flood and a young Earth “screaming” from the rocks. The interpretation of facts that support the “Old Earth” point of view are based on non-Biblical assumptions, he added.
He characterized science’s “assault” on Genesis as being acceptable to Christians because they are no longer looking at things through Biblical glasses, but rather the world’s glasses.
“Enemies of the Gospel don’t aim at the cross – they aim at the foundations of the cross, the Book of Genesis,” he said. “The Psalmist asks, if the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do? … (Genesis) is the most attacked book in the Bible.”
Mortenson concluded with Scripture from 1 Peter 3:15 and encouraged the group to be ready to give a defense. He directed participants to the Answers In Genesis ministry for more information and various resources.