Earth's chromosomes tell me
that my Father is not an evolutionist.
17 November, 1999
Sometime in our early life we all come to an experience much like the
following:
"Papa how old are you?"
"Oh, really, I'm five, papa, you sure are
old? Will I ever live to be as old as you? I sure would like to, so I can know
as much as you do."
By the time we add another ten years or so, we wonder just how stupid our
old man really is and why he isn't as smart as we are. By the time we add
another five and ten years of life we begin to develop some of that papa's
wisdom and learn to laugh and cry at a lot of our assumptions regarding the
aging processand all of life.
God, our Father is infinitely old and yet infinitely young. In him is
everything. Created in his image, whether we be saint or pagan, we have an
eternal soul and the question of eternity is a question all mankind seeks to
answer. In Christ we have answers, we were born, we were reborn and by God's
mercy and grace alone, we shall live forever as a member of His family.
That part of humanity that doesn't have that eternal future assurance
however, still asks that same question. With out the peace that comes through
life with the Holy Spirit, those persons must wander the wastelands of fallen
creation searching for that answer. Being created in God's image, if they can
not receive and understand the wisdom from God, they must create or fabricate a
set of reasons for being. Created as an eternal soul, with no hope of an
eternal future, these people are forced to create for themselves an eternal
past. They may call it science, or evolution, but it is really a metaphysical
creation of their own inherited God given personality. It is a religion of self
and it is supported by self delusion, or sin. But because of the eternal
wilderness of separation from God, God receives ultimate glory because of that
eternal human nature.
In common grace as illustrated by creation, God has left his finger prints,
or his DNA for an illustrative example, in the rocks and oceans, plants, animals
and birds all illustrate, in visual grandeur, the majesty of God. Looking
closely, by careful analysis all mankind can come to some determination as to
the earth's age and then, we should adjust our religious presuppositions to fit
that criteria. That applies from Bible thumping fundamentalists, to enlightened
theologians, to atheistic philosophers.
DNA testing has become one of the most effective ways to establish ones
identity and heritage. It used to be our finger prints, which is still valid,
but DNA testing has become the mode of choice because so little tissue is
required to make a positive identification. Preachers over history have
discussed how one should see God's hands and God's finger prints on creation.
Perhaps it is time, if we are to truly be effective witnesses of God, to look
to creation and use some of the DNA statistical methods similar to
probabilities used in DNA testing to see if evolution is true and the universe
is some 15 billion years old and the earth some 4.6 billion years old (or other
billion year number).
Before we start however, we should try to understand the paradigms or models
we are proposing. Many of those who study science in a philosophical way
(philosophy of science) believe that the role of science is to study and verify
the underling presuppositions of culture. If this is true and I believe it is,
the underling philosophy of western science is centered in the wisdom of
natural man. Western culture truly being the only culture which has elevated
scientific achievements to icon status. Sciences test and verify that all
situations and examples have a natural explanation. All hypotheses eventually
can be understood and verified by man given enough time. Man is in the process
of evolving to a higher plain or level of intelligence. If this model is true,
then there is absolutely no need for a supernatural or supreme being (God). In
fact by definition, the supernatural and God do not and can not exist in this
purest vision of reality. If you take the logic to the extreme, some less
intelligent person can be so stupid to need to create a supernatural supreme
being to understand his role in the evolving universe, this in fact then proves
the concept of evolution,. As you notice this is a not really a descriptive
discussion of physics, but really actually a subjective discussion of
metaphysics.
My subjective metaphysical constraints I have derived from what I consider
absolute authority (the Bible), in its pages a straight forward reading implies
an extremely young earth. I then must create a model that says that the role of
man, is to describe and be stewards of a God created creation. I cannot
however, believe in the philosophy of science of the preceding paragraph and be
a good scientist in my culture, unless physical evidence verifies an extremely
old earth. In this case my choice of Bible absolutes must be in error. In the
terms of pure logic, never the twain shall meet. Reality is either one paradigm
or the other. The question of this message is to see which description is best
satisfied by deductive analysis and not inductive mind games. To do this we
will look at some deductive ages of the earth as recognized by scientists of
both models and use some simple statistical analysis, again accepted by both
models, to see if the actual DNA evidence from the earth's age can help us make
a decision which paradigm is supported by the evidence.
The odds of winning the lottery in the State of Washington is said to be 1
in 7,000,000. The odds of being hit by lightning about 1 in 10,000. These
probability methods of the mathematics of statistics is used to calculate many
either/or situations. DNA analysis currently in law enforcement usually says
something like the probability of these DNA matching is 1 in a million. All of
these probabilities basically say that the chance of an event happening is
virtually zero and the odds make us feel secure. After all I only bought one
lottery ticket. It was only one bolt of lightning. And the gloves at OJ's were
planted by the police.
When natural samples are available other statistical analyses can be used to
determine whether the hypotheses we are testing lies within the measurements we
have determined by observation. In our specific example we are looking at this
week, could a 4.6 billion year old earth possibly be true or does the young
earth model that the Bible seems to clearly state give a more accurate
assessment? We are perfectly capable of creating a model that will accommodate
all situations. Or we could say, "Well it really doesn't matter, it is all
for scientists to figure out." Well if the chance of one model being true
is zero and one model fits the data, you should probably reexamine your
criteria and modify your assumptions, especially if you have chosen a model by
which your whole future may depend.
Henry Morris and Gary Parker of the Institute for Creation Research, in
their book, What is Creation Science? list
the results from sixty eight different "scientific" uniformitarian
measurements for the age of the earth. With this large sample of a natural
system we expect to find a wide variation within the data. That is the way
natural systems work. For example, if we counted samples of phytoplankton
(floating algae) in Lake Washington we would expect to find wide variations
from place to place and season to season.
If we find the average of all these different numbers we come to a mean age
for the earth of about 30 (32.7) million years with a standard deviation of
approximately 100 (99.0) million years. By using these numbers, a number of simple
statistical models will allow us to set a confidence interval around the mean
of this distribution. This confidence interval will tell us that from the sixty
eight different estimates for the age of the earth we used, we can be confident
that the true age of the earth will lie within approximately two standard
deviations on either side of our statistical mean, pretty much independent of
which statistical model we use. That means that by statistical methods, we can
be virtually sure the true age of the earth should be somewhere between zero
and 230 million years.
Now being the humble evangelical Christian you profess to be, you say, "I always believed that the Bible taught that the
world was 6,000 years old, that the end of the age is at hand and Christ will
return anytime. The millennium will start and last 1,000 years, making a total
of 7,000 years. God and I sure like those sevens, it's sure neat and
tidy."
The statistics we just generated could not disprove your belief for the age
of the earth. The statistics also say that if you believe that the world was
created today you could be right from a statistical point of view. Except for
the fact we do have a written history that most scholars would consider
accurate for approximately 4,000 years, you have the opportunity to choose
whatever age you would like, within the limits of zero to 230 million years,
and the statistics will support that conclusion.
What does all this really mean? Well, as mentioned earlier, the "science of evolution" teaches that the universe
began about 15 billion years ago and the earth got started about 4.6 billion
years ago. This age of the earth is 20 times older (the universe 65 times
older) than our statistical analysis will allow. To illustrate, let us assume
that a year equals one inch. Six thousand years would represent 6,000 inches or
less than one tenth of a mile. A quarter of a mile would represent almost
16,000 years; a mile, 64,000 years; and 3,600 miles would be 230 million years,
or about from here to Florida. Four point six billion years for the age of the
earth would be represented by 73,000 miles (about 3 times around the world) and
the evolutionary age of the universe would be about the distance from here to
the moon (actually about 236,000 miles by our calculations). Now that is
science that requires a lot of faith, especially when you consider that
evolution is supposed to be based upon true science and be mathematically
verifiable.
What does the Bible say about the age of the earth? Actually the 6,000 year
chronology for the age of the earth used earlier in the article was developed
by an Irishman (can you believe that) Archbishop James Ussher (1581-1656) who
computed the date of creation as 4004 B.C. In fact, many other dates have been
computed by different theistic scholars including a Jewish date of 3760 B.C.
and a date by Martin Luther of 3961 B.C. Most of these dates being determined
by using the generations of Genesis to determine a date for the
"beginning". There are many problems with these hard dates especially
when confronted with the preponderance of non-Christian evolutionary doctrine
in our modern society. Usshers dating method has been adopted by
dispensationalism and fundamentalismwhich in itself is all right, if that is
part of your religious outlook. The problem stems from the legalistic
assumption that just because you believe that date to be true, the use of any
other dates are heresy. This gave us in Tennessee in 1925 the world-famous
"Scopes monkey trial" in which Scopes, a high school instructor, was
convicted of teaching evolution in defiance of law. The trial basically removed
Christians, who believed in a Biblical creation, from any credibility among
academic or modern religious circles.
Perhaps more damaging, to the church in light of the above analysis however,
is the adoption by the rest of the organized church, of the concept theistic or
progressive evolution. This is really an attempt to accommodate the naturalist
paradigm within the theistic dogma of the church. What happens in the attempt,
is the destruction, disregard or symbolizing for anything close to a literal
reading of the first eleven Chapters of Genesis. "God can use millions of
years of evolution if he wants!" Or so goes the line. The problem with
this accommodation, or the ridiculous insertion of millions of years of
evolutionary time in Genesis Chapter 1 between verses one and two (known as the
gap theory), is that if you disregard any literal or almost literal rendering
of these chapters, you can also mythologize the gospels. Jesus Christ becomes,
instead of being a redeemer from sin, a great moral teacher. The resurrection
becomes a spiritual resurrection and sin just becomes, poor self-esteem or
personal mistakes. This is the enlightened thinking I was raised with in my
formative years. During my final year of college it led me to believe that
because I didn't have enough faith to believe in evolutionary dogma, I would
forever be doomed to be a poor scientist. Only recently have I also understood
that it also led me to reject the organized church of my youth and for many
years walk apart from organized Christianity as a "Martin Luther,
Lutheran" instead of a participant in any organized Christian covenant
community.
So does the Bible say anything about the age of the earth outside of the
Book of Genesis?
In 2 Peter 3:8b we find, "But, beloved, do
not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years,
and a thousand years as one day." If we take an apparent
evolutionary age for the earth of 4.6 billion years and divide it by 1,000
years of 360 days we come to an apparent age for creation of approximately
12,777.78 years. Now I chose a 360 day year to be true to Sir Robert Anderson's
dispensational, fundamentalist bible supplement, The
coming prince. Within the confines of this little book you learn
that a 360 day year is a prophetic year. Therefore if you should add a little
amillennial spiritual interpretations of the Revelation of St. John, say as
included in that masterpiece More than conquers
by William Hendericksen we will understand that we really now have the true age
of the earth, at last.
So how do I know? Well the adoption of the spiritual interpretation of
Revelation Chapter 7, from "More than conquers" and following that logic, you take the number
for the Trinity (3) and multiply it by the directions of the earth (4), we are
searching for the age of the earth after all. We then multiply that resulting
12 by 1000, because that is the day/year conversion the Lord uses in this
example. We then add the number 777 which is God's number of perfection instead
of 666 for the Antichrist. The .78, is the rounding assumption for the 7's that
goes on for eternity. Amen. This is entirely appropriate for doing this
analysis in the years 1999 or 2000. Any rehma word of further
"revealed" understanding must come after those years.
We now have that all settled, and we have had a little fun with our own self
worth. It doesn't take much to see how sinful our dogmatic beliefs sometimes
can be. That therefore makes it appropriate to mention a redeemer who entered
this time, space and matter universe some two thousand years ago, to rescue
sinful mankind from their own folly and adopt them as children for his eternal
kingdom. His self sacrifice and resurrection from the dead gives us the hope of
that future glory. If that is not true then there is no need for the church,
naturalist evolutionists and Paul are right and we are the most foolish of all
people. However, our analysis has shown that it is that naturalistic evolutionary
dogma that is out beyond the fringes of verifiable scientific fact. If we are
to boast however, let us boast in the Cross of Christ and the marvelous
miraculous book that truthfully tells the story. For earth's chromosomes and
the Bible tell me that my Father is not an evolutionist.
Amen.
PRAYER PLANTS
I go this week to see how my mother is doing and to take care of those
things in Eastern Washington that I need to get done before winter. Next week I
have that court case that has been around for well over three years. Pray that
finally it will be completed. Also finances are so far looking short to pay the
rest of the bills this month, pray for the speedy supply of those funds as well
as a more reliable means of support.
I got all the old data from the Chronicles updated to the web site last week
so if you would like to down load them in a formatted version they are
available there. There will be more things to come in weeks ahead, please pray
for time and resources to accomplish them. I have also begun to have unusual
troubles with my computer this week. It is frustrating in the least and perhaps
more serious.
Let me leave you this week with the words from another hymn by John Newton
author of "Amazing Grace".
May the grace of Christ our Savior,
and the Fathers's boundless love,
With the Holy Spirit's favor,
Rest upon us from above.
Thus may we abide in union
With each other and the Lord;
And possess, in sweet communion,
Joys which earth cannot afford.