Tag Archives: Old Earthism

Borrowed Time

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Maybe you’ve seen the news: The universe is now postulated to be almost 27 billion years old. What a grand age! 27 billion years!!! 27 Billion!!!!

When My great grandfather was born, the universe was thought to be 20 million years old. During this time, the universe was aging very fast because by the time my grandfather was a young boy, the idea that the universe might be 1 billion years old was being circulated, and by the time the Boomers were being born, the universe was no longer measured by the Steady State theory but by the Cosmology known as the Big Bang. As the Big Bang steadily grew towards acceptance among the scientific community, the acceleration curve of the age of the universe began to stabilize. During my lifetime, and for the past few decades the universe has been assumed to be 13.79 billion years old give or take 62 million years. So firm have they been about the age of the universe that they’ve given error bars for their theory that the age of the universe can only be .4% on either side of 13.79 billion years. By their reckoning, only morons would question that level of precision.

Low and behold in September of 2019, some cosmologists released peer-reviewed papers saying that the universe was only 11.4 billion years. Suddenly 2 billion (assumed) years were suddenly wiped away like so much fecal matter off the streets of San Francisco. That new age is well outside the old error bars, so what’s a cosmologist to do? There’s not been NEARLY enough time to postulate the galactic evolution, stellar evolution and chemical evolution with fewer years. They need MORE years to sufficiently explain all of the stars, galaxies, and even biological evolution that nature needs to self-assemble.

As a sidebar, there are lots of stars. The latest estimate at the time of writing this post, there are about 200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars. Given the age of the universe to be 13.8 billion years old, there must have been 459,562 stars forming every SECOND for all 13.8 billion years on average…even though no one has ever seen a single star form

But there’s hope! In December of 2021, NASA launched the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) into orbit. This unique and powerful telescope would be able to view images from the furthest edges of the universe. Surely THIS telescope would reveal the correct age. The expectation was that seeing images at the deepest edges of the universe, astronomers would be able to see infant stars (population III stars have never been observed, but they are assumed to be the 1st stars formed by the Big Bang) and infant galaxies (because the belief is that since the distances are so vast and light takes so long to reach the lens of the JWST, then they would be able to see into the “past” at the very beginning of the Big Bang). There are many assumptions involved with that view, but biblical astrophysicist, Dr. Jason Lisle, made different predictions of what the JWST would find. He predicted that when the images from the JWST were analyzed that we would find fully formed galaxies and only populate 1& 2 stars.

When the images were analyzed, the secular astronomer were dumbfounded because the young earth creationist was correct on every prediction. The universe appears to have been created fully formed just as Christians would expect from reading the account of Genesis 1.

So, it only makes sense that those, who just last year SWORE that the age of the universe was definitively 13.79 billion years old +/- 62 million years are now proposing that the universe is REALLY about 27 billion years old. To accommodate the date from the JWST, they needed more unobserved time ****to protect the Big Bang narrative****. The evidence showed that the universe wasn’t so young as 13.79 billion years…to keep the theory in tact, more unobserved time was needed.

Would it surprise anyone that the biological evolutionists (noticing the new “bank account” of time is VERY large) began to look longingly towards extending the timescales on earth? There are all sorts of problems for biological evolution based on their aBsoLutE timescale of the age of the earth. We’ve been told that the geologic column confirms that age of the earth is

The age of Earth is estimated to be 4.54 ± 0.05 billion years (4.54 × 109 years ± 1%).

We’re assured that radiometric dating confirms this age to within 1% of the estimate. There are many questionable assumptions that go into whether the extrapolated ages given by radiometric dating are accurate. We won’t go into that here, but you can hear these assumptions explained here

Recently, Dr. Robert Carter released a podcast that exposed a big problem for the evolutionary timeline of biology

Here’s the general problem

  • It is assumed that humans and chimpanzees are related by a common ancestor although that common ancestor remains missing (the missing link) between 1 and 10 million years ago. The supposed age has such an enormous variance since the common ancestor remains missing and the degree of commonality of the DNA has been steadily decreasing from 99% to closer to 86% now. In the same way that the supposed effectiveness of the CV19 vaccine precipitously fell from its initial boast of 100% effective to less than 20%, the commonality of human->chimpanzee DNA similarities continues to fall
  • With that many differences in DNA between humans and chimpanzees, more time is needed to accumulate the difference and according to evolution establish (fixate) those genes in the populace.
  • But we’ve been unquestioningly assured that mammals did not evolve until after the dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago. Wait, what?!? It’s 66 million years ago now? They found a million years and added it in since I was in college…which coincidentally was shortly after the Cretaceous. According to the geologists, it is “uNdeniAbLe” that the dinosaurs died out 66 million years ago. All branches of science agree…right?!?! Unquestioningly lest ye be expelled!!!
  • But it takes many years to accumulate enough random mutations to transition the last common ancestor of chimpanzees and the amniotes. According to OneZoom.org, Primates didn’t begin to evolve until after the dinosaurs had died out. The timeline is now fixed. Primates **MUST** have evolved between 66 and 10 million years ago, to accommodate the split of humans from apes 10 million years ago
  • But there’s the pesky waiting time problem that evolutionists unjustifiably dismiss, which Dr. Carter elucidates in the video above.
  • The evolutionists have unwittingly locked themselves into a timeline that allows no variance. The chimpanzees had to be evolved from the amniote common ancestor after 65 million years ago and prior to the 10 million years ago that the last human/chimp common ancestor is supposed to have lived.

But what if there were more time available? What if the timeline wasn’t so rigid? The cosmologists just found an extra 13 billion years!!! Surely the Biological evolutionary timeline could borrow some of that time…right?

Here’s my prediction: Within my lifetime, the genetic evidence (principally from the waiting time problem and Richard Lenski’s Long-Term Evolutionary Experiment) will lure biological, geophysical, and other earth scientists to “borrow” some of the time that the cosmologists have “discovered” (read fabricated out of the ether). The age of the earth, once thought to be rigidly defined as 4.5 billion years old will grow significantly to accommodate the newly discovered falsification to the old timeline. And everyone will quickly forget the OLD age of the earth. It will be demanded by the “ministry of truth” that everyone forget the old timeline and accept the new timeline as if Oceana has always been at war with EastAsia. If the asserted time is there for the cosmologist, why shouldn’t the biologists borrow some to fix that inconvenient problem of genetics. What’s a few billion years here or there between naturalist friends in an effort to explain the origins of the universe, stars, chemicals, galaxies, life, consciousness…without the Creator God?

Sadly, because most old earth Christians hold to the modern academic paradigm to inform their interpretation of scripture, they will jump in with both feet as well in changing their timeline. Although they proclaimed loudly and often that “tHe sCienCe” confirmed the universe to be 13.8 billion years old, and that the Bible never says anything about the age of the earth/universe, people are free to accept whatever science tells them. And since the science has now changed to 27 billion years old, they will tell us that the Bible should be changed to accommodate that new & improved view too.

But I will remain faithful to what Jesus said: “At the beginning of creation, God made them male and female” rather than what the old earthers think: that God made humans 13.8…I mean 27 billion years after the beginning of creation. God’s Word can be trusted completely

Book Review: A Christian Physicist Examines the Age of the Earth by Dr. Steven Ball

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Dr. Steven Ball is a professor at LeTourneau University in Texas and has written several papers criticizing the historical Christian position of young earth creation. In many of my online interactions, I have had self-identifying atheists post links to his papers as if they are the final word on how Christendom must deny the Biblical account in favor of the secular narrative of origins. This and maybe other blog posts will review and address Ball’s papers

His first paper is titled “A Christian Physicist Examines the Age of the Earth”. I will note his comments in red with my comments directly underneath in the default black. Each of his chapters will be divided into a distinct blog post to keep the posts from being too long

Steven Ball – Chapter 1

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Dr. Steven Ball is a physics professor at LeTourneau University. He has written a few papers advocating for old earthism, that could use some cross-examination. His first paper is titled “A Christian Physicist Examines the Age of the Earth”. I will note his comments in red with my comments directly underneath in the default black. Each of his chapters will be divided into a distinct blog post to keep the posts from being too long

Photo by Jordan Benton on Pexels.com

In a nutshell, the premise of Creation Science is that the Bible gives us answers to many questions also addressed by science

Right from the beginning, he subtly elevates the modern academic paradigm (which he conflates with science throughout) as superior to the Bible. This position of authority that he grants gives him the interpretive permission to redefine the words and concepts of the Bible in order to accommodate his interpretation of the modern academic paradigm (MAP). Authority is the BIG issue in this discussion, and young earth creationists have the epistemic understanding that the Bible is the authoritative principium rather than MAP.

Secondly, Ball like many, who are familiar with this discussion, think that the age of the earth is a question that is answered by science. This is wrong in at least two ways

  1. The Bible is not a science textbook. The Bible is mostly a history book. Orthodox Christianity recognizes that the Bible is the inerrant inspired Word of God. So, what God has revealed about the past cannot be refuted. Since what God has revealed about the past is in conflict with what is currently being taught about origins in (what some people call) the scientific community, there is tension. Christians who wish to be faithful to the scientific community are then faced with the need for reconciliation between what is taught in the Bible with MAP. So, they choose to redefine Genesis as some figurative myth and say “oh, the Bible isn’t a science book” and “the Bible tells us how to go to heaven and science tells us how the heavens go” These are cute bumper stickers, but it is again as subtle dismissal of what the Bible has revealed about history
  2. Age is not a question that is best answered by science. Science measures in the present. To get information about the past, which would be more accurately termed forensics, one measures items in the present and then (in combination with assumptions) EXTRAPOLATES into the past to form a theory. The further back in time one extrapolates, the greater the margin of error. The BEST way to determine age is historical documentation. If I want to know how old I am, I do not radiometric date the elements in my body and extrapolate into the past based on the ratio of radiometric particles. The best way would be for me to check my birth certificate or ask my Jedi father. In 1992 the rocks from Mt St Helens were dated anywhere from 350,000 years old to 2,800,000 years old depending on the method. But the ACTUAL date of the rocks was 12 years. When was the Statue of Liberty brought to NY harbor? You can measure the amount of rust on the surface and extrapolate into the past, or you can check historical records. That’s not to say that forensics cannot be of assistance in determining age, but as shown, if there is documentation of age, it is more reliable that extrapolation into the unknown past.

Ball began his argument by standing on his credentials

As a Christian physicist, I’ve been blessed with the freedom and opportunity to examine the scientific evidence for the age of the Earth in some detail, and have concluded that it emphatically points to an age of around 4.6 billion years

But as we have just discussed, scientific fields like physics can only (at best) assist as a forensics tool to find past ages. The most useful tool for finding past ages is documentation and the Bible provides this. Ball’s acclamation of his credentials for determining the age of the earth is like a Formula 1 driver coming to an NBA court and telling the 7 foot basketball players how to run faster because he drives really fast. Forensics has its place, but historical documentation trumps extrapolation for answering age questions.

But then again, a massive conspiracy of manufactured false evidence from many fields of scientific research for an older Earth and universe is a bit farfetched even for conspiracy fans

Although there have been fraudulent assertions, persistent peer-reviewed articles retracted, and monetary incentives to remain within the bounds of the modern academic paradigm, most who hold to biblical creation do not assert that there is a massive old-earth conspiracy. Biblical creationists simply recognize that the question of the age of the earth comes down to authority of the Bible and assumptions. I have already discussed the issue of authority above, but origins theories are rife with unrecognized assumptions

  1. Uniformitarianism – The belief that processes have continued from the beginning exactly as they always have. There is an implicit denial of catastrophism including the global flood. Old earthers tend to deny the global flood, so they interpret the evidence from the global flood as if all accumulated soil layers, erosion, tectonics movements, and radiometric decay rates have never changed. It is an assumption that purposefully denies or incorrectly reinterprets Genesis 6-9 as if it were a minor flood in the middle east. There are HUGE theological problems with this view that have been covered here
  2. Popularity – Because the idea of old earth is so popular amongst academics, then it mUsT be true. This leads to an a priori assumption that old earthism is true because popular

So it follows that science and the Bible should be giving us consistent messages by virtue of the same authorship.  When they appear to conflict, it could be a problem in our understanding of science or of the Scriptures

This is true. It is the very heart of the matter. It’s a shame that he did not spend more time elucidating his views here, but we can see from his arguments from whence his views are birthed. Ball grips firmly to the modern academic paradigm and thusly feels justified in redefining the Bible to accommodate it

Sadly, Ball not only believes in old earthism, but has swallowed the Neo-Darwinian lure that is so pervasive today:

From a scientific perspective, Darwin’s theory appears to have supporting evidence from a number of fields (comparative anatomy, the universal genetic code of DNA, geographical distributions of species, the overall progression of life in the fossil record, among others)

None of the interpretations of the “number of fields” has greater weight than what God revealed in the Bible – and the Bible clearly does not teach the same history as the evolutionists. In an attempt to reconcile the obvious differences, Ball and other old earthers redefine what is clearly history to a poetic figurative myth.

Using Dr. Ball’s argument, someone could just as easily say “From a scientific perspective, since there is strong supporting evidence from a number of fields of science, there was no virgin birth, parting of any seas, water to wine, or resurrection. Trust the science.” Elevating something else as the magisterial interpretive authority yields serious heretical problems. Those, who would elevate culture as authoritative, could say “Modern culture recognizes that homosexuality is very normal and should be celebrated, so those who read the Bible as if homosexuality should be condemned do not understand the Bible correctly. The Bible encourages people to be homosexual since Jesus was a homosexual.” As shown, it is reprehensible and inconsistent to propose an magisterial authority OTHER than the Bible.

As a scientist, I support further research into the origins of life.  Darwin’s theory should stand or fall on the basis of scientific evidence.

Shouldn’t truth stand or fall on the BASIS of what God has revealed? Notice too that Ball has committed the unpardonable sin (according to the internet atheists): He combined the theory of the origin of life with the Darwinian theory. If he were to try this online, you can be sure that the Darwinists would be shrieking alongside the abiogeneticists. As a Christian, I would have expected for him to start with John 1:3 “All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made” and Colossians 1:16 “For by him (Jesus) all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.” From this, we can know with certainty that life (ALL LIFE) was created by God. Searching for an naturalistic origin goes against what God has already told us. There’s no need to “reinvent the wheel”. Ball would be a better scientist if he accepted God’s revelation rather than straining against the goads

“Crises have served to overthrow some of the most deeply entrenched (and incorrect) theories in the past, simply because there were enough thinking people who cared about establishing the truth”

One knowledgeable about the history of scientific thought should be skeptical of the dominant paradigm. Notice how the dominant scientific paradigms of the past have all been refuted. Holding onto Darwinism as if it provided truth since its proponents choose to censor and expel any dissidents is bound for extinction in the same way

  • 1500s Geocentrism – Falsified
  • 1600s Phlogiston – Falsified
  • 1700s Bloodletting – Falsified
  • 1800s Spontaneous Generation – Falsified
  • 1858 Darwinism – Falsification Inevitable
  • 1900s Steady State Theory – Falsified
  • 1980s Inevitable Ice Age – Falsified
  • 2000s Eat mostly carbs (food pyramid) – Falsified
  • 2020s CV19 originated in a wet market from bats. CV19 will kill most of earth’s human population – Falsified

Much of this fighting has been viewed very negatively by the nonChristian community.  Forcing the public schools to teach Creation Science would not win nonChristians over to Christ.  Certainly not when the premise itself is that science is wrong when it seems to disagree with the Bible.  While the scientific community can be faulted for harboring contempt for those who don’t accept the commonly held theories, I would hold my fellow Christians to a higher standard.  It does no good to belittle the scientific community.  In fact Christians everywhere would benefit from a more healthy respect for science in general

No one wants or is advocating for public schools to teach creation science. Ball is fighting against an argument that no one is making. Even though Ball doesn’t hold himself to the highest standard of accuracy by conflating the modern academic paradigm with science, he blames the Bible-believing Christians for not upholding the “higher standard” of yielding to the modern paradigm

Many scientists who accept an older Earth have clear Christian faith commitments

This is true, but they are inconsistent in their epistemology. At this point, I want to note that Christians can believe in evolution and old earthism since we know from the Bible that salvation is by grace through faith in Jesus alone. We are not saved by the amount of correct information that we believe but by the gift of God’s steadfast mercy. But Christians have been warned by Paul in his epistle to the Colossians “See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ”. Old earthism and Darwinism were birthed by worldly thinking not by a commitment to Christ. We must start with the Bible and then see the world through the lens of what God has specially revealed. Conversely, Dr. Ball is telling us to see the Bible through the lens of the modern academic paradigm. It’s exactly backwards to what we as Christians should be doing

As the now popular Christian saying goes, we should not put God in a box.  Many miracles described in the Bible may not be understood scientifically, but they are accepted by faith.  Likewise, the hand of God may be evident even when science provides us a measure of understanding

With the 1st sentence, I can heartily agree. We ought not put God in the box *of naturalism*, which is what Ball is doing. This is the goal of Ball: teach Christians to question the historic/orthodox Christian understanding of the Bible in favor of the naturalistic explanations. Speaking of miracles – using the same interpretive methodology that Genesis cannot be true because the “science says” that it cannot be done, a skeptic could reject the parting of the Red Sea, a floating axehead, the virgin birth and the resurrection because “science says” that they cannot be done. A consistent methodology would elevate science above everything in scripture. Since I’m sure that Ball accepts the resurrection of Jesus, he is teaching an inconsistent view of scripture. 

This author proposes that we try to look at the scientific evidence without any theological filter

This is the naïve assumption that there is no way to view evidence without a bias. It’s the pretended neutrality fallacy. Everyone comes to the evidence with a worldview. One’s worldview can have a basis on revelation from God OR on the basis of something lesser. Ball has chosen to view the evidence through the naturalistic worldview with a theological rider. It’s exactly backwards from what we are told to do in Colossians 2:8 “See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ”

We should not deter people from this search by requiring them to reject the very science that is prompting them

Two things here

  1. He is conflating the modern academic paradigm as science again. Science is the pursuit of knowledge, but Ball views it instead as however the naturalistic practitioners of empiricism view the evidence through their presuppositions
  2. If people reject what the Bible says, then no amount of evidence will convince them. Don’t believe me? Then take it up with Jesus from Luke 16: “He said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead’”

We’ll pick up Dr. Ball’s arguments from chapter 2 in the next blog post. Until then:

Read your Bible. Believe what it says

Psalm 104 Confirms Young Earth Model

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The discussion over whether the earth is young or old is an argument that has sparked many discussions for more than 150 years. It’s likely that this discussion will continue long after I’m gone. But while I can, I will continue to encourage Christians to uphold the Bible as the magisterial authority, and the hope is that when you’ve read this post, you too will accept a young earth model.

The plain reading of the Bible would indicate that a young earth model is the correct understanding, but I’ve been told by Dr. Hugh Ross and his old earth disciples that Psalm 104 is a passage that teaches old earthism. If you search their website, reason.org, you will find 126 articles. This is how their argument for old earthism progresses:

  • The “days” in Genesis 1 are really just long periods of indefinite time
  • God used natural processes to form stars, galaxies, chemicals, and planets billions of years before creating humans
  • When God created life billions years ago, death, suffering and predation were part of creation
  • The geologic layers are accumulations of eons of dirt over billions of years. The geologic record is a record of death and suffering across history
  • Humans were specially created by God 13.7 billion years after the beginning of creation
  • Since they believe that the geologic layers were formed over billions of years, they choose to argue that the flood of Genesis 6-9 is a regional flood

Below is the Timeline of history from Reasons.org. Due to their presupposition that the biblical account must be subject to the modern academic paradigm (which some conflate as science), their understanding of the history of the Bible must also change as secular timelines are constantly evolving. NOTE: Because of this, it will be difficult for you to find this timeline on their website since the secular timelines have changed so much.

Reason.org Timeline of history

So, how does Psalm 104 teach that the earth is old as Bill Nye, Neal DeGrass Tyson and Richard Dawkins think? Dr. Ross says:

Psalm 104 is the longest of the creation psalms. It complements Genesis 1 in providing the scientific details of God’s creation works. Psalm 104:6–8 refers to creation day 3 in Genesis 1 when God transformed Earth from possessing only water on its surface to possessing both oceans and landmasses. Psalm 104:9 states that once landmasses appear on Earth’s surface, the newly formed landmasses will “set a boundary they [Earth’s surface waters] cannot cross; they will never cover the earth again.” This statement in Psalm 104 explicitly rules out the possibility that Noah’s Flood could be global in extent.

So Dr. Ross assumes that Psalm 104 is a poetic text about the creation week. Since he thinks that when Ps 104 says the waters could no longer cover the earth as stated in verse 9 he thinks that is Genesis 1 rather than Genesis 7, and he concludes that the flood must have been a regional flood. He further assumes that animals have been engaging in predation from the beginning due to verse 21 that says “The young lions roar for their prey, seeking their food from God.”

As faithful Christians, we should test Dr. Ross’s assertion that Psalm 104 is solely about the creation week. Let’s look at his assumption in Psalm 104 and see if we can find confirming evidence of the phrasing in Genesis 1-3 or if there’s possibly a better explanation. Below, there are 2 charts. Figure 1 shows how Psalm 104 compares to Genesis 1. If it is tied directly to the creation account as Dr. Ross asserts, there should be green checkmarks ✅ on each row of the table.

Figure 1

Dr. Ross’s argument hinges entirely on the hope that Psalm 104 teaches a local flood and perfectly reflects the creation account of Genesis 1. As you can see from the comparison above, the connection between Psalm 104 as a creation account in Genesis 1 is spurious at best. What if we consider a second chart that compares the Psalm 104 passage to the flood account of Genesis 6-10? Figure 2 does just that.

Figure 2

As you can see from the 2 charts, Dr. Ross’s assertions are not nearly as affirming to his view as he would like us to believe. From Figure 2, we see that Psalm 104 confirms the young earth view (just as everything else in scripture does).

We can trust the Bible since it was revealed by God, the One who knows everything. There’s no need to inject the modern paradigm into one’s interpretive framework

Follow-up Interview

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I was invited to be a guest on the Beyond the Basics podcast to discuss my book review of Hugh Ross’s A Matter of Days. If you haven’t yet read the review, I encourage you to do so.

As you will see the most important issue of the internal debate among Christians about the “age of the earth” is Authority. Old earthers choose to elevate the modern academic paradigm over scripture, so they are willing to redefine the words, phrases, and ideas revealed in scripture to accommodate what modern academics think about observations. However biblical creationists elevate God’s revelation in scripture as the ultimate authority, and we interpret observations based on what God revealed in his word.

One of the things I wanted to do in the interview but forgot is to mention the importance of framing the debate. Too often the debate of the age of the earth is portrayed as science vs. religion. This is NOT the case. It is interpretations of observations vs. God’s revealed Word. So, as Christians when talking about this topic, be sure that the words we use are clear to the topic. It is the Modern Academic Paradigm vs. God’s Revelation

Enjoy the interview linked below. Hint: Watch the video on 1.5X speed and then my pauses do not sound so bad 🙂

Review – A Matter of Days – Chapter 23

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Tranquility through Testing

To finish his book Dr. Ross proposes a way that he thinks will bring resolution to the choice between the “creation-day controversy”. Whether you’ve been following the chapter reviews up to this point or not, you might be able to guess what Dr. Ross proposes as the solution:

Interpretations of Evidence!

Those who have been following along know that he would NOT choose the highest authority – God’s Word.

Given that various creation perspectives are readily testable, a pathway exists for peaceful resolution of creation-day controversies. With so much scientific data  and many different biblical creation accounts open for investigation, little basis remains for conflicts or disputes over creation doctrines.

Ross seems deaf to the effects of interpretations when discussing evidence, and I want to return to the last chapter’s review. Ross claimed that he won a debate with biblical astronomer, Danny Faulker because when both he and Ross presented their evidence to the panel of 13 old earthers, the old earthers determined that Ross was correct. I wonder what would happen if Dr. Ross presented his evidence for special creation of each kind of creature over periods of time to a panel of Christians from BioLogos against the evidence presented from a Biologos evolutionist. Is there any doubt that this panel would expel Ross for his heresy against biological evolution? Interpretations of evidence are used to confirm one’s worldview biases and Ross does not recognize the inherent bias that old earthism has had on him since he was very young. Dr. Jason Lisle has tried valiantly to point out the role that biases have played in Dr. Ross’s eisegesis of scripture, but those habits have been ingrained deeply in Ross’s thinking and business model.

Below is the chart that Dr. Ross includes in his book as a way to resolve the “Creation-day controversy”. He explains that if both the young and old earth predictions get analyzed as more data is discovered and interpreted, that the old earth model will win out. From the biblical creationist perspective, the data from the expected predictions have lined up perfectly to confirm the young earth model. So, while I recognize my young earth bias, I want to point out how since Dr. Ross has written his book, the predictions he makes about the big bang completely unravel

Evidences for the big bang will increase and become more compelling. Astronomers will establish the big bang model as the uniquely explanation for the origin and structure of the universe.

Over the last few years, evidence for the big bang has NOT increased or become more compelling. It has been in massive need of resuscitation and repair

The other areas of the chart have not fared well for old earthism either. 

If you’ve learned anything from the review, I hope it is that God’s Word is the authority for the life of the Christian. There’s no need to compromise with the hollow and deceptive philosophies of the world as a way to interpret scripture.

As biblical creationists, we can praise God for the consistent nature of his revelation. We do not have to redefine the words in the Bible to accommodate modern academic paradigms or cultural changes in sexuality or political revolutions as we have seen Dr. Ross do. God’s Word is eternal and we can trust God to keep his word regarding the future since we can trust his revelation from the past.

Back to the Table of Contents

Review – A Matter of Days – Chapter 22

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Councils Attempt to Bring Calm

Throughout Christian history, there have been ideas and theories which the church has to address as unorthodox. Dr. Ross addresses a few of them in the first few pages of chapter 22.

Circumcision. The first century church had to deal with the sign of the old covenant with regards to the gentile Christians. Should gentile Christians be forced to observe the sign of the old covenant? To help answer this question, the Council at Jerusalem convened to make sure there was a resolution that honored the Lord. Later Paul addresses this in his epistles to the churches. The conclusion – “Therefore, the promise comes by faith so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham’s offspring – not only to those who are of the law but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham.”

Dr. Ross feels that the issue of the age of the earth is synonymous with the issue of circumcision:

The first-century church dealt with a problem roughly analogous to the dispute over the length of the Genesis creation days

While we can agree that Christians do have disagreement over the issue of the length of the creation days, this disagreement is not an issue of salvation. It is an issue of biblical interpretation and as has already been shown Dr. Ross has elevated the modern academic paradigm (which he calls the book of nature) as authoritative over the revealed and eternal word of God. Dr. Ross has exhibited the characteristics of a Christian, so I have no reason to doubt his regeneration. But his teaching regarding death, suffering, thorns, corruption, destruction being part of God’s “very good” creation because of his adherence to the Modern Academic Paradigm is harmful to biblical interpretation in this and future generations. 

Dr. Ross next gives a short recap of the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy (ICBI) of 1982 as they discussed the creation-day controversy. They listened to presentations from a biblical creationist and an old earther. When it was complete, the ICBI presented a statement that included the following affirmations

  • We affirm that any preunderstandings which the interpreter brings to Scripture should be in harmony with scriptural teaching and subject to correction by it.
  • We deny that Scripture should be required to fit alien preunderstandings, inconsistent with itself, such as naturalism, evolutionism, scientism, secular humanism, and relativism.
  • We affirm that since God is the author of all truth, all truths, biblical and extra biblical, are consistent and coherent, and that the Bible speaks truth when it touches on matters pertaining to nature, history, or anything else. We further affirm that in some cases extra biblical data have value for clarifying what Scripture teaches, and for prompting correction of faulty interpretations.
  • We deny that extra biblical views ever disprove the teaching of Scripture or hold priority over it.
  • We affirm the harmony of special with general revelation and therefore biblical teaching with the facts of nature.
  • We deny that any genuine scientific facts are inconsistent with the true meaning of any passage of Scripture. We affirm that Genesis 1-11 is factual, as is the rest of the book. We deny that the teachings of Genesis 1-11 are mythical and that scientific hypotheses about earth history or the origin of human it may be invoked to overthrow what Scripture teaches about creation.

The statement from the ICBI has some merit and is generally acceptable. But as shown in the italics above, there are at least 2 phrases that could be misconstrued to accommodate any number of outside authorities over scripture.

The first “We further affirm that in some cases extra biblical data have value for clarifying what Scripture teaches, and for prompting correction of faulty interpretations.”

What cases? Who gets to determine which cases are acceptable? Which interpretations of the extra biblical data?

You can see how there is a massive gap left for those who would like to bring their interpretation into biblical orthodoxy, and since old earthism has until the most recent of times not been included in orthodox thinking, Dr. Ross would very much like for his naturalistic interpretations to be included in orthodox teachings of Christianity. For today’s generation that has been saturated with the naturalistic assumption of billions of years, they might think the church has thought this since the beginning, but it is a very recent addition to modern thinking. Until Hugh Ross wrote his books, virtually all of the church most certainly did not think the universe was billions of years old. As confirmation, the Hebrew year from the date of creation is 5780. So, those who wrote the original text of scripture are in agreement with the biblical creation model that the world is about 6000 old.

The second, “the facts of nature” is a phrase that I have covered throughout this review that is based on a false assumption. It leaves open the question – What is a fact outside of interpretation? Whose interpretation of the “fact” is considered the right one?

Dr. Ross finishes this chapter with the claim that his debate in 2009 with biblical astronomer, Danny Faulker was a win for old earthism. He claimed that 13 astronomers (who are all confirmed old earthers) agreed that the earth is old. It would be the same as if an Armenian and a Calvinist had a debate on which view of soteriology is correct. If the judging panel was 13 Calvinists, they would all determine that the winner was the Calvinist. If the same debate were to have been done in front of 13 biblical creation astronomers, Hugh Ross’s views would have been demonstrated to be impotent in just the same way.

As biblical creationists, we can praise God for the consistent nature of his revelation. We do not have to redefine the words in the Bible to accommodate modern academic paradigms or cultural changes in sexuality or political revolutions as we have seen Dr. Ross do. God’s Word is eternal and we can trust God to keep his word regarding the future since we can trust his revelation from the past.

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Review – A Matter of Days – Chapter 21

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A Clear “Day” Interpretation

Dr. Ross sent me his book almost a year ago and I finished reading it and annotating it within a few months. So, as I have gone back and read through the chapter again for the book review, I am not really finding anything new. From beginning to end, I have found that Dr. Ross although he claims that the Bible is his highest authority, he sees the modern academic paradigm as the highest interpretive authority and conforms his reading of the Bible to accommodate it. 

In his personal testimony, we see evidence of this

I did not converse with a Christian about spiritual matters until I was 27. Studies in science consumed all my time and eventually convinced me, at age 15 that a transcendent God must exist. At the time, I doubted that a God who created a hundred billion trillion stars would care much about frail humans on an insignificant planet…In my first reading of Genesis 1, I saw indications that the creation days were long periods of time

If you teach people that the universe is billions of years old, by the time they are almost 30 years old (as Ross admits that he was) and have been indoctrinated by this mantra, they will try to fit everything they see into that worldview…including the Bible. 

These are the parts of the text that Dr. Ross felt there was plasticity which would allow him to redefine the scriptures to accommodate the modern academic paradigm

The timing of Eve’s creation

He does not explain specifically here why he thinks this allows for creation days to be very long periods, but we can infer from a paragraph on the previous page why he thinks this is plausible. “Eve was created on the same day as Adam (the sixth) but not until after Adam took care of several large tasks.”

This sounds like the easily refuted argument that he used from chapter 7, when he claimed that Adam had four careers so the text could not possibly have been talking about a single day. His personal incredulity and injection of outside influence completely discounts Ross’s wild claim

The lack of an evening and morning for the seventh day

Clearly, Dr. Ross sees the importance of the evening/morning pattern when God revealed his creative works for 85% of the creation week. What’s not clear is why Dr. Ross takes the single example of missing morning/evening pattern and creates a rule for it. Dr. Ross’s shallow reading of the text ignores the deeper context and exegesis of Exodus 20 when the days are clearly defined with unmistakable 24 hour boundaries.

The Genesis 2:4 usage of the word “day” in reference to the entire creation week

So, at best, Ross can only say that the Hebrew word for day (yom) can have the colloquial understanding of a week of time…not the billions and billions and billions of years necessary to accommodate the modern academic paradigm. Biblical creationists agree that there is flexibility in the Hebrew word ‘yom’, but exegetically, it must fit the context, and in the context of Genesis 1, we can easily conclude from the text that it is signifying days as we know them today (24 hours).

I was especially intrigued by God’s creation hiatus following the six prolific creation periods.

We should all be intrigued by God’s creation hiatus, but it would be wildly bizarre to assume there were suddenly billions of years injected into the text from that thought

Finally, here was an explanation for the fossil record enigma

There are three things to keep in mind when interpreting scripture: context, context and context. When we view the scripture in context there was unquestionably a global flood that adequately (and more correctly) explains the fossil record…so the enigma is for the old earthist, who must redefine a world-consuming flood to mean a minor middle eastern rain storm and then create epicycles to explain both the text and modern observations

Dr. Ross continues at the bottom of pg242 and top of pg243 with the strange explanation for what it means to love the LORD with all of your mind

Loving God with “all your mind” means looking beyond the most simplistic interpretation of a given text, especially if that interpretation leads to complications and convolutions of other texts…Yet, ironically, a 24-hour creation day interpretation of Genesis 1 (and 2) complicates and convolutes at least aspects of God’s creation story – the sequence of events, the meaning of Adam’s work and words, and the speed of biological development.

Speaking of irony-> Just above Dr. Ross admitted that after almost 30 years of indoctrination in the modern academic paradigm, on his 1st reading of Genesis, his simplistic interpretation was that God created over billions of years…just as he’d been taught his whole life. So, clearly he’s only against OTHER people’s simplistic interpretation of Genesis 1. 

Regarding his claim that the biblical creationist’s interpretation of Genesis 1 complicates and convolutes the aspects of the creation story, Dr. Ross AGAIN upholds the modern academic paradigm and demands that the Bible’s reading be conformed to those assumptions. 

And as was shown in Chapter 4 and chapter 5 reviews when Dr. Ross attempted to claim that ALL of church history believed in old earthism, he was WRONG. Old earthism is a modern concoction that attempts to dissolve the modern academic paradigm into biblical interpretation, but as we see, they are like oil and water with no ability to mix.

On p244 Ross asks the question 

How Did Adam Do So Much?…Similarly, for Adam to have named all of Eden’s animals within a few hours would seem to shrink not just the size but also the bounty of Eden…species

While I already covered Ross’s misunderstanding of scripture in my review of chapter 7, it doesn’t hurt to quickly address his repeated conflation of species and kinds. Kinds ≠ Species. The biblical kind is defined in Genesis 1 simply denoted a creature’s ability to reproduce at the time of creation. Since there have been many mutations, many creatures that were formerly able to reproduce lost the ability to reproduce. This does not mean they were not originally created as the same kind. But what this means is that Kind is more synonymous with the modern scientific distinction of family. 

This means that Adam did not have to name millions of species as is claimed by Ross. Adam could have take care of his divinely-appointed job of naming the animals much more quickly by naming animals in groups

At the bottom of p244 Dr. Ross says

Young-earth creationists see as the futility of attempting to integrate Genesis with the scientific paradigm arises from a subtle error in applying a basic interpretive principle “Begin by establishing [not assuming] the point of view.” The result is a scientifically implausible order of creation events”

A few of things with this quote. Dr. Ross projects his own shortcomings in interpretation onto biblical creationists. Firstly, He conflates science with the modern academic paradigm as he has done throughout his book. Young earth creationists have no interest in trying to integrate Genesis with the modern academic paradigm. The observations of today are completely in accord with what we read in scripture. It is the old earthers like Ross, who have undertaken the mission of trying to integrate the modern academic paradigm with scripture. Secondly, the error is on the side of old earthers, who inject their assumptions from the modern academic paradigm into their biblical interpretation. Biblical creationists rather start with the basic interpretive principle that what God revealed in his word is true, so what we observe today is in accord with what He revealed in the Bible. Regarding his quote about the implausible order of creation events, you can see that Ross rejects the order of creation events that God revealed in scripture in order to accommodate naturalist assumptions.

On pg247-248 Ross unsuccessfully attempts to push the inconsistencies of his biblical interpretations with the observations onto biblical creationists. 

A few purported conflicts between the Bible [old earth interpretations] and the fossil record have arisen…

The conflicts arise only for the old earther since the catastrophic worldwide flood is the only sufficient explanation for the observations. For the old earther, it is assumed that fossils were buried in the order that the soil-of-the-time was exposed as the top soil and that there were epochs when certain creatures did not exist. Dr Ross believes this imperative, but there are out-of-place (for the old earther) fossils that are discordant with those assumptions. 

Genesis 1 gives the order of God’s creative works, but in both Dr. Ross’s posted timeline, which he posted years ago and on p249 we can see that Dr. Ross tries very hard to inject the modern academic paradigm into scripture

ch21p249

There are several problems with his chart, but I want to point out a particularly grievous problem in rows 9 and 10. Ross tells us that God’s last creative work was Adam and Eve, but just prior in row 9, Ross tells us that the Australian aboriginals emerged prior to Adam and Eve. This is both a terrible assumption and racist. Now, I do not believe Ross is a racist, but his views of the modern academic paradigm as an authority over scripture has resulted in a view that has racist implications.

As biblical creationists, we can praise God for the consistent nature of his revelation. We do not have to redefine the words in the Bible to accommodate modern academic paradigms or cultural changes in sexuality or political revolutions as we have seen Dr. Ross do. God’s Word is eternal and we can trust God to keep his word regarding the future since we can trust his revelation from the past.

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Review – A Matter of Days – Chapter 20

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The Significance of Man

It was encouraging to read through the beginning of chapter 20 where Dr. Ross identifies the specific points of agreement for biblical creationists and his brand of old earthism, which he calls “day-age creationism.”

  • Both views emphasize the divinely ordained significance of the human race.

  • Both assert that humanity is the only spiritual species on Earth.

  • Both proclaim humanity’s eternal destiny.

  • Both deny the naturalistic view of humans as the random result of blind processes.

  • Both declare that all humans arise from a single couple (Adam and Eve) whom God specially created just thousands of years ago.

Sadly, the agreements with biblical creationists is sparse from here on out as Dr. Ross continues the pattern of bringing outside ideas into his biblical interpretation. The rest of chapter 20 is a summary of a book (Who was Adam?) that Dr. Ross wrote with his cohort, Fazale Rana. So, this review will now expand to review THAT book as well. Let’s see what these two have to say about the federal head of humanity
Dr. Ross points out the special creation that is mankind and I heartily agree. Humans are unique in the universe because we have been created in the image of God, and for us Jesus came to pay the penalty of sin.

Expressions of worship are the key markers of humanity’s spiritual quality. The universality of worship is evidenced in the ubiquity of altars, temples, and other religious relics.

I agree! Everyone worships something -> Either the Creator or something lesser/unworthy/perverted
In the section titled “A Biblical Calendar” Dr. Ross says

Although biblical genealogies provide little or no help in establishing creation dates for the cosmos and Earth, they do provide a rough date for the advent of humanity…Even in the Genesis 5 and 11 genealogies, where the years between the birth dates of the father and the son are given, the chronology is not as tight as it might appear at first glance. Luke 3, for example, inserts at least one generation, namely Cainan, between Shelah and Arphaxad.

I have already dealt with Dr. Ross’s assumptions of “missing generations” when I reviewed chapter 2, but if he insists on continuing to misread scripture, I insist on correcting him. Dr. Ross while giving lip-service to the birth dates of the sons, seems not to understand the significance since he tries to convince the reader that Hebrew words for father and son could denote grandfather/grandson relationship rather than exclusively father/son. But since the age of the progenitor and the number of years between generations are given in the text of Genesis, then the specific relationship is not required to determine the timeline. Dr. Ross’s entire line of thinking is SOUNDLY refuted in this expert video by Dr. Kurt Wise. If you’re interested only in the topic of the trustworthiness of the chronogenealogies, start the video about 22 minutes.
What matters here is why he would try to argue with Jesus, when in Mark 10:6 it is recorded that Jesus said “But at the beginning of creation God made them male and female.” Dr. Ross says above that the genealogies in Genesis 5 & 11 “provide little or no help in establishing dates for the cosmos and Earth”, but Jesus clearly says that Adam was created at the beginning of creation. If by “beginning of creation” Dr. Ross means “the end of creation” then there is agreement, but if “the beginning of creation” is to have meaning at all, then Dr. Ross’s beliefs about age are discordant with those of Jesus.
The inset on pg237 includes some built-in naturalistic assumptions in place of Biblical interpretation.

Using the relatively accurate dates available for both Abram (Abraham) and Peleg to calibrate the genealogies may help guide some of the guesswork. Biblical and other historical records establish that Abraham lives about 4,000 years ago. Genesis 10:25 says that in Peleg’s time “the earth was divided.” Radiocarbon dating places the breaking of the Bering land bridge (an event that ended human migration from Eurasia to North and South America until the advent of ships) at 11,000 years ago. If life spans recorded in Genesis 5 and 11 are approximately proportional to the actual passage of time, then the dates for Abraham and Peleg would place the flood of Noah’s day roughly 30,000 to 50,000 years ago and the creation of Adam and Eve a few tens of thousands of years earlier.

Let’s look at the several levels of speculation with which Dr. Ross experiments with to see how they hold up:

  • Speculation 1 – “the earth was divided” means the land masses (Pangea) moved apart. If we look at Genesis 10, the context is describing the formation of the nations based on distinct families and languages. And what is discussed in Genesis 11? The tower of Babel where the single language of mankind is divided from a single language and the people are dispersed across the globe. So, rather than Dr. Ross’s speculation that it is the division of land masses, it fits the context better that the division is of the nations by language from a single people into distinct people groups.
  • Speculation 2 – “If the life spans recorded in Genesis…are approximately proportional to the actual passage of time” There is speculation here from Dr. Ross that the life spans recorded in Genesis are not really years or are in some way hyperbolic. This calls into question the very revelation of God. Why would he only speculate about the “actual” passage of time here and not in the other places of scripture?
  • Speculation 3 – “until the advent of ships” By his own admission, Noah built an enormous ship 20,000 – 40,000 speculated years prior to the speculated ending of the land bridge, but Ross doesn’t think mankind could make a boat during that ENTIRE time?!?!? There’s a serious contradiction in his speculation
  • Speculation 4 – “Carbon dating” I’ve had plenty to say about carbon dating in my review of Chapter 16. That was one of my favorite chapters to review as it exposed many of the cascading assumptions built into Dr. Ross’s rejection of the Bible’s account of a global flood in Genesis 6-9

In the section titled “Historical Calendar” Dr. Ross talks about cultural Big Bang events.
Anthropologists have found evidence for several cultural “big bang” events, each reflecting the difference spirit expression makes…Humanity’s arrival also launched the first clothing and jewelry industries. Dates for these cultural big bangs all cluster around 40,000 to 45,000 years ago.
It’s telling that on the previous page, he speculates that the flood of Noah’s day was 40,000 speculated years ago and now the cultural big bangs are aligned perfectly with the end of the worldwide flood & the dispersion of people after Babel…the dates are simply inflated to accommodate the imagined dates of the secularists.
From a biblical perspective, it makes much more sense that when Noah’s family exited the ark as the only humans on the planet recently flooded and a few hundred years later were dispersed throughout the planet that they took their learned cultures with them. The worldwide flood explains perfectly the dispersion of culture from a single point across the globe. This is especially obvious from the presence of ziggurat pyramids all over the world
To finish off the chapter, Dr. Ross jumps into genetics into an attempt to push the dates of Adam and Eve far enough back in time to accommodate his day-age old earthism.

By measuring DNA differences across several generations in different families, geneticists can measure the rates at which mtDNA and Y-DNA mutations occur. Such measures yield dates of 42,000 to 60,000 years ago for the most recent common male ancestor.

Of note, although Dr. Ross has claimed not to believe in the evolution of animals or humans, when we check his footnote (p359) for the source material on his claim above we see that he relies on naturalistic evolution of humans from a common ancestor with chimpanzees to get his numbers:

  • Population Growth of Human Y Chromosomes: A Study of Y Chromosome Microsatellites,” Molecular Biology and Evolution 16 (December 1999)
  • Inferring Human Population Sizes, Divergence Times and Rates of Gene Flow. In that article, the embedded assumption is prominent: “the assumed human-chimpanzee divergence of six million years to obtain the per year estimate of the neutral nucleotide substitution.”

But rather than relying on those false assumptions and then re-interpreting the Bible to match them as we have seen Ross do, we should start with the Bible as revealed history and conduct science based on the irrefutable revelation of God as Dr. Marvin Lubenow does on pg 227 of his work, Bones of Contention

MitochondrialEve_Lubenow
As we can clearly see, observations line up perfectly with what God revealed in his word, and this is the correct expectation for us as biblical creationists because God both created everything and revealed his interaction with history in his Word.
As biblical creationists, we can praise God for the consistent nature of his revelation. We do not have to redefine the words in the Bible to accommodate modern academic paradigms or cultural changes in sexuality or political revolutions as we have seen Dr. Ross do. God’s Word is eternal and we can trust God to keep his word regarding the future since we can trust his revelation from the past.
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Review – A Matter of Days – Chapter 19

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Narrow Time Windows

If you haven’t had a chance to see the first 18 chapters of this book review, let me encourage you to go back to the table of contents and browse your way through. 

This is a shorter chapter from Dr. Ross, and in it he makes the claim that naturalistic assumptions are necessary for the age of the universe, the age of galaxies, and the age of planets to support life. 

A universe and a galaxy must reach a particular age before they can support life. Only when a star and a moon are of a particular age is life possible near them. And only when a planet is of a particular age is life possible on it. For intelligent life, the time limitations are dramatically more constrained.

While Dr. Ross has said that he does not hold to biological evolution as taught by the likes of Richard Dawkins, his statements above endorse the naturalistic ideas of 

  • cosmic evolution 
  • chemical evolution
  • galactic evolution 
  • stellar evolution 
  • planetary evolution
  • lunar evolution 
  • terrestrial evolution 
  • environmental evolution 

As we read scripture, we see that none of these naturalistic ideas are compatible with God’s revelation. These evolutionary theories are simply naturalistic mechanisms proposed IN PLACE OF what God did with his supreme power. It’s not that God could not or has not used natural processes to produce results (He has!). The problem is that Dr. Ross has re-interpreted what God actually said He did in the creative process of Genesis 1 to mean something else.

Age Window of the Universe

For biochemical processes to operate, the universe can be neither too hot nor too cold. As the universe expands from the creation event, it cools, like any other system obeying the thermodynamic laws (the greater volume or surface area, the less heat energy there is to go around.)…These conditions must be just right for liquid water to form and remain in significant quantities in just-right locations. As a result, there are only a few billion years in history if the universe’s expansion when a suitable habitat for primitive life is even possible.

The built-in assumptions that the universe has to be a particular age keeps him from being able to view the Bible from the author’s intended message. We see him make these claims about the age of the universe, but he has no other universes or other billions of years of history with which to compare. How can he possibly calibrate his assumptions since there are no other universes when he’s bound by less than 100 years of experience?

I’m particularly critical of the statement above regarding Ross’s assumption of the formation of liquid water. In scripture we read that once God created water out of nothing, the rest of the universe was formed out of that water. But Dr. Ross assumes that water is just another one of the things that nature formed during its chemical/cosmic evolution. In the past, I’ve asked Dr. Ross about why he feels that the flood of Genesis 6-9 is a minor local flood, and he always (irrationally) points me to 2 Peter 2. Sadly, he joins the skeptics when his assumptions keep him recognizing the creative works and the worldwide judgment of those works in 2 Peter 3 “But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed.”

So, you can see that Dr. Ross’s claims that water formed naturalistically and that the flood was just a minor local event in the middle east are NOT permitted by scripture as a whole – but particularly by 2 Peter 3:5-6

In addition to the scriptural problems with water, Dr. Ross must somehow overcome the observational problems with his assumptions about water in relation to the moon. The moon could not have formed by any of the naturalistic proposals put forth AND contain H₂O. Yet, the moon contains frozen H₂O

On p230, Dr. Ross makes claims about the chemical evolution

The fusion of most life-essential heavy elements must await the gravitational collapse of gas clouds into giant stars…In fact, two generations of such stars must burn up in order to build a density of heavier elements sufficient to make life chemistry possible.

At best, these are guesses and at worst wild claims since no one has ever observed the process of a star from birth to death let alone TWO generations of stars from birth to death or the effects on elements of these generations. 

Because of the exothermic nature of the heavy elements in chemical formation, there is not a suitable resolution for the evolution of elements with a higher atomic weight than Iron (Fe) at 26.

Notice the superlatives and uncalibrated assumptions in the quote below:

Only in galaxies can the density of heavy elements become great enough to support life chemistry. But even in galaxies the appropriate density of life-essential elements is achieved only at one particular time. When the galaxy is too young, not enough heavy elements have been made in its stars for life chemistry to be possible. When the galaxy is too old, star and planet formation have ceased, and no stars and planets young enough for life chemistry will exist. Life is possible only in galaxies older than about 10 billion years and younger than about 20 billion years.

It’s like saying Adam was too young to speak and name all the animals on the day he was created because only humans older than 2 years old can speak in complete thoughts, and only humans older than ten would be creative enough and with a vocabulary large enough to name all the animals. Ross fills his book with unjustified assumptions at the expense of revelation from God. He continues this pattern into the next paragraph

For life on a planet to be possible, the planet must be warmed by a star that burns at a near-constant brightness and color. For intelligent life to be possible, the star’s flaring activity and X-ray radiation must be minimal…In the first 50 million years after a star as massive as the Sun begins to shine, it burns far too erratically to maintain temperatures suitable for life on an orbiting planet. For the next 500 million years, the X-ray emission is too intense. After that, the flaring activity continues to subside until it reaches a minimum, when the star is 4.6 billion years old.

As if he witnessed and documented this process from beginning to end. But the scriptures tell a different story. On the fourth day God made the sun, moon, planets, and stars. So, Ross’s book is not only in conflict with the Bible, but he has ignored the scientific impossibilities of his yarn about the naturalistic formation of the Sun. The sun would not have been bright enough to provide sufficient heat on the earth a billion years ago when life is thought (by the naturalists) to have emerged. It’s a paradox for old earthists that has no coherent resolution.

Ross’s closing thoughts for the chapter on p233 reveal again his commitment to the modern academic paradigm as his interpretive authority instead of scripture being in the highest place.

A timescale for the universe and Earth of only a few thousand years also contradicts nature, which shows how and why astronomical bodies must be at least a half billion years old to be ready for life.

Ross never concerns himself with conflicts with scripture since he feels free to re-interpret the Bible’s actual text based on the fashionable paradigm that is currently accepted and promoted by the secularists.

As biblical creationists, we can praise God for the consistent nature of his revelation. We do not have to redefine the words in the Bible to accommodate modern academic paradigms or cultural changes in sexuality or political revolutions as we have seen Dr. Ross do. God’s Word is eternal and we can trust God to keep his word regarding the future since we can trust his revelation from the past.

 

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