Blue Stars – Image – NASA
Q14 – The Bible says the universe is just a few thousand years old, but science says it’s actually billions of years. The Bible is wrong!
Let’s start by understanding the entities we’re discussing. The Bible is the written word of an almighty, omniscient, omnipresent God who brought into existence every created thing—in the heavens and on earth. The Bible is the word of this God who knows everything. This brings us to an interesting question. Do you know everything? If you don’t know everything, how do you know what you think you know is correct? How do you know whether or not that you, in your lack of knowledge, are missing a key piece that could change everything you think you know now? How do you know your knowledge, which is incomplete, is not unlike the picture you get of suspects during a mystery movie? You look at all the evidence you’re given and all of the suspects. For an hour and forty-five minutes of a two-hour movie it’s clear that the butler did it. Then, at an hour and forty-six minutes, a new clue is revealed. All of a sudden it’s clear that the butler didn’t do it. It’s the [insert your new obvious suspect here]. Maybe your new suspect is guilty, maybe not. You’re still not sure until they do all the revelations and resolutions in the last five to ten minutes of the movie.
The other entity we’re dealing with is the knowledge gained by science. What is science? Science is primarily a methodology for gaining and refining knowledge. Here is a graphic of the iterative scientific process which I presented in Evolution: Not Science, Pseudoscience. Let me make three observations here:
1. Science is a process used by finite humans who do not have complete or perfect knowledge.
2. Science, by its very nature an iterative process, admits that its knowledge is rarely if ever complete. The whole point of science is to gain more knowledge, but you can never know if your scientific knowledge is complete.
3. Scientists held many theories that are now acknowledged, sometimes with bemused humor, to have been quite incorrect. Recall once popular theories such as spontaneous generation or the geocentric model of the solar system. How about the medical practice of bloodletting or doctors with unwashed hands operating on people?
Now, given these two entities, we have on the one hand an all-knowing Creator-God who was there during the creation and has given us an overview in his word of what he did and when he did it. His word does not change. This God tells us he does not lie (Num 23.19).
On the other hand, there is the iterative process of science used by fallible men who have very, very limited, finite knowledge, who must continually update their theories as they learn more through their method called “science.” Now between these two—the unchanging word of God, and the iterative scientific method—which is more likely to put you in the scenario of the mystery movie where you don’t have all the facts to correctly identify the truth until the very end? How can you be sure, with your limited knowledge. that you have correctly determined the key evidences needed to correctly identify the truth? The only way you can be sure you’re correct is to rely on someone who has all knowledge, is always correct and has already answered the question for you. That would be God and the answer is given in his word, the Bible.
Now, regarding the evidence, there is plenty of that for a young earth and young universe. If you believe in billions of years for the age of the earth, you either have not seen, have not understood or have just stubbornly refused to acknowledge such evidence in order to preserve your faith in your godless worldview. I give ten evidences in the article “Are Young Earth Evidences Needed To Defend the Christian Faith?” To add to it, I present a couple of more below.
Before we get to the evidence let me point out “science” doesn’t say anything. Science is a methodology. Scientists are the ones who make pronouncements and put forth theories. Scientists are not a monolithic group in terms of their beliefs. Not all scientists believe in a 4.5 billion-year-old earth. I you take certain pieces of evidence you may be able to justify to yourself an old-earth view. But if you examine all of the evidence together, the only way you can explain it all within the bounds of science is to conclude that the earth is young.
Young Earth Evidences
Blue Stars
Stars supposedly shine for billions of years. But not blue stars. Blue stars are large so they have lots of fuel. With that fuel they shine 200 times brighter than the average star. Because they burn so brightly they burn their fuel much faster than average stars—so fast, they can’t even last 1 million years. So why do we see blue stars if the universe is supposedly about 13.8 billion years old? More on blue stars here.
Polystrate fossil – Michael C. Rygel, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Polystrate Fossils
I will simply quote CMI here:
“Tree trunk fossils are frequently found cutting across many geological layers—hence the name polystrate fossils (poly-= many; stratum = layer).
It is not possible that polystrate fossils were buried gradually over many thousands or hundreds of thousands of years because the top part of any tree would have rotted away before it could be protected by sediment. Polystrate fossils point to rapid burial and are evidence for the reality of the global Flood recorded in the Bible.”[1]
Here is a final word to the wise: The Bible is never wrong. People may teach incorrectly from it (which is why you should study it yourself so you can learn the truth yourself directly) but the Bible itself is never wrong. It is always correct.
Duane Caldwell | July 31, 2024 | Printer friendly version
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Notes
1. Polystrate fossils: evidence for a young earth, Tas Walker, Creation 29(3):54-55, June 2007, https://creation.com/polystrate-fossils-evidence-for-a-young-earth
Image:
Blue Stars Image: NASA, ESA, and P. Crowther
