Scientists now agree that there is a Creator, and that the universe had a definite beginning. Professor George Gamov's "Big Bang" theory (1964) has now gained almost universal acceptance. The physicist and clergyman Le Maitre has shown that the phrase "Let there be Light" is entirely consistent with creation ex nihilo, from nothing. Everyone knows Professor Einstein's famous equation E = mc2 : Energy equals Matter times the square of the speed of light. The atomic bomb was its terrifying proof. After God's initial command fiat lux, let there be light, matter streamed outwards from the centre, and is still receding: there is an expanding universe. The NASA space probe has confirmed (1992) the theory that "lumps" developed in this "quark soup" of primeval matter. These condensed under the influence of gravity to form the giant blue stars described by Professor Nigel Calder of Cambridge as "pressure cookers to stew the heavier elements", the chemical elements from hydrogen to uranium needed for the formation of the earth and all that is in it. As blue stars exploded into super-novae, these chemicals were showered throughout space and became available to form the compounds known to science.
Did God really do it in six days? There are four theories:
1. The days are age-days or epochs, each as long as necessary for things to have happened as described.
2. The days are of 1,000 years: "A thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday" (Psalm 90:4; 2 Peter 3:8).
3. The days are Galaxy-days. Our galaxy takes about 360 million years to revolve once. The sun is in the midst of the Orion Arm of the Milky Way, which is shaped like a giant Catherine wheel and appears to have revolved six times so far: so now we are in the seventh or sabbatical revolution.
4. The days are earth days of 24 hours, during each of which God revealed to Moses what he had been doing in each respective age-day (Professor Donald Wiseman of London): "A six day blueprint for a billion year programme" (Professor Van der Spuy of South Africa).
Take your pick!
Whatever the time-frame, the thing to note is that the scientific order of appearance of the features of Creation is the same as that recorded in the Bible. After the formation of the earth, the atmosphere clears; blue-green algae and vegetation appear; sun moon and stars become visible from the earth's surface. Marine life appears; then insects and dinosaurs; then land animals and birds; finally Man and the Second Adam. Now God is resting the "7th Day". His next Work will be the new heaven and the new earth (2 Peter 3:12-13).
A Question of Faith
The first question asked of candidates for Baptism and Confirmation is "Do you believe in God the Father who made the world?" On this question hangs all the argument over Creation and Evolution. Sir Arthur Keith in his preface to the centenary edition of The Origin of the Species wrote "Evolution is unproved and unproveable. We believe it, because the only alternative is Special Creation, which is unthinkable" (emphasis added). We can't just denounce Evolution. All children hear it at school. We get it on the tv in all Natural History programmes, especially those by Sir David Attenborough. Liberal Christians believe in a sort of theistic evolution, because "we can't disregard the certain conlusions of science". But we are not attacking the certain conclusions of science: only the unthinking attitudes of evolutionists who blindly believe what they can't prove, so as not to even think about what they admit is the only alternative.
A Question of Order
There is a book by Oakley and Muir-Wood, The Succession of Life Through Geological Time, published by the British Museum. It should be scientific! It shows: 1. The world started as a ball of whirling gases which cooled and condensed. Sounds like "without form and void". No light could penetrate the thick soupy cloud cover. Sounds like "there was darkness on the face of the deep".
2. An atmosphere surrounded the ball. God said "Let there be a firmament" (Raqia'). This word means atmosphere or troposphere; it's where the winged creatures fly a few verses later. The atmosphere was formed by evaporation from the ocean. Evaporation causes cooling; water vapour condensed and fell as rain.
3. The dry land emerged out of the water as one huge continental land mass, called Pangeia by geologists. God said "let the waters . . . be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear". Then, according to science, when it was cool enough blue-green algae appeared to reduce the carbon dioxide and produce free oxygen. God said "Let vegetation (deshe') appear" (deshe' actually means Greenery).
4. Eventually sufficient thinning of the cloud cover enabled the actual sun moon and stars to be visible from the surface of the earth. God said "Let the sun moon and stars appear". Vegetation proliferated even more in the sunshine, providing enough free oxygen for the next stages.
5. Life started in the waters quite suddenly with swarms of aquatic creatures, e.g. Trilobites. God said "Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures". Next came the insects. The Bible calls them 'Oph, meaning winged creatures. Not yet birds with feathers (remember the Archaeopteryx hoax, when feathers were glued onto genuine reptile bones to deceive the professors; compare the Piltdown Man fiasco)! Winged insects were essential for pollination of the latest angiosperms. Neither could survive more than one season without each other! Then feathered birds.
6. Next land animals appeared: reptiles, dinosaurs, mammals. The Bible calls them living creatures. . . cattle, creeping things, beasts of the earth. Finally man appears as the apex of the pyramid of life. Thinking, speaking, moralising Man. "Let us make man in our own image. . ." said God.
A Question of Science
Genesis, the First Book of Moses, was written about 1440 BC, long before the development of modern scientific knowledge. Moses could have not known about the order of creation, unless God had revealed it to him; and it tallies with modern science. The Science book agrees with the Good Book! So why won't more people believe it?