Young Earth Creation
Evolution, along with theories of the origin of the universe, have been promoted by those who suppress the knowledge of God and mock His Word. However, despite all the ways neo-Darwinism has failed as a theory, many people still believe it because the only real alternative is to believe the Word of God and submit to Jesus as one’s Lord and Savior.
(Note: I removed the pictures from non-Christian sites to avoid any copyright issues… you can find them in the video).
SERIES TEXTS
- RENEW YOUR MIND: Romans 12:1-2, “1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”
- DEFEND THE GOSPEL: 1 Peter 3:15-16, “15 But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer (apologia) to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, 16 keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.”
- DEMOLISH DEMONIC STRONGHOLDS: 2 Corinthians 10:3-5, “3 For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. 4 The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”
SERIES DEFINITIONS
- WORLDVIEW: How you see the world and give an explanation for everything you believe.
- A BIBLICAL WORLDVIEW: Seeing the world through the lens of God and His Word (2 Timothy 3:16-17).
- Axiom: God exists and has revealed the Bible (sixty-six books) as the foundation for all truth and knowledge.
- Presuppositions: The Word of God gives the following six categories of knowledge; “God, creation, humanity, Jesus, salvation, and judgment.”
- Propositions: All implications derived from good biblical exegesis and deductive logic.
- Best Guesses: All claims based in induction; the scientific method and experience.
- EXAMPLE OF USING THE BIBLICAL WORLDVIEW IN REGARDS TO HOMOSEXUALITY: “Since God’s Word is my foundation (axiom) for all truth and knowledge I presuppose that God has an order for sexuality and make the proposition that it’s a sin and people who act in such a way will perish based on 1 Timothy 1:8-11.
Check our Presuppositional Apologetics Class for more information.
IN THE BEGINNING – GENESIS 1
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.
6 And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” 7 So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.
9 And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. 10 God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.
11 Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. 12 The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.
14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. 16 God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. 17 God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.
20 And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” 21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” 23 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.
24 And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. 25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
27 So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. 28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.
31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.
Genesis 2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. 2 By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.
Exodus 20:11, “For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”
THE BASICS OF YOUNG EARTH CREATION VS EVOLUTION
(1) YOUNG EARTH CREATION (YEC): God created the universe, along with all living things on the earth in six 24-hour days around six thousand years ago.
(2) EVOLUTION: Change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes that are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction.
(3) CHRISTIANS BELIEVE IN EVOLUTION, JUST WITH LIMITS: In a very specific sense, Christians believe in evolution because we believe God made living things able to change and adapt to their surroundings. For example, YEC agree with Darwin that living things change like the finches did on the Galapagos Islands:
However, we do not believe in evolution as a good theory that explains the history of life as now believed and taught by many scientists (spiral of evolutionary life):
As YEC we believe that changes within each kind of animal has limits and thus the major kinds of animal families are described best by orchards instead of one big tree.
(4) YEC CAN EXPLAIN THE ORIGIN OF ALL THINGS, INCLUDING LIFE ON EARTH, WHILE EVOLUTIONIST CANNOT: For evolution to even be a possibility to explain how life started on earth, an evolutionist must explain where the universe with the natural laws came from.
“It’s almost as if science said, ‘Give me one free miracle, and from there the entire thing will proceed with a seamless, causal explanation.’ The one free miracle was the sudden appearance of all the matter and energy in the universe, with all the laws that govern it.” Dr. Rupert Sheldrake (Ph.d in biochemistry), author of The Science Delusion.
(5) ARGUMENT AGAINST NATURALISM FROM ORGINS & INFORMATION:
- If naturalism cannot account for the origin of the universe than it is false.
- Naturalism cannot account for the origin of the universe (especially the laws of natures, uniformity of the universe, and personal minds).
- Therefore, naturalism is false and shouldn’t be used to explain anything in the universe.
(6) FOUR MAJOR THINGS EVOLUTION (OR OTHER GODLESS THEORIES) CANNOT EXPLAIN: If the godless worldview for an evolutionary origin of life isn’t sufficient to cover all the things listed below, then it shouldn’t be trusted to answer anything with certainty.
- Where everything came from, why it is here, and why natural laws exist.
- Where information came from and why it functions in an organized way (DNA, particle physics, etc.).
- How minds exist and interact with the world to discover things that are repeatable (i.e., “science”).
- What is morality, does it exist, and should people be moral.
(7) EVERYTHING ONCE AGAIN COMES DOWN TO WORLDVIEW: The reason why today scientists deny God as the source and foundation for universe, including life, is because they willing choose to suppress the knowledge of God.
Romans 1:18-23, “18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.”
UNDERSTANDING THE FAULTY FOUNDATION OF EVOLUTION
THE RESULTS OF EVOLUTIONARY BELIEF
- Stalin’s atheistic, evolutionary regime led to over 20 million deaths (mostly of his own people).
- Mao’s atheistic, evolutionary regime led to over 65 million deaths (mostly of his own people).
- Hitler’s pagan, social Darwinism regime led to over 30 million deaths (10 million being Jews in the holocaust). Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould wrote: “[Haeckel’s] evolutionary racism; his call to the German people for racial purity and unflinching devotion to a ‘just’ state; his belief that harsh, inexorable laws of evolution ruled human civilization and nature alike, conferring upon favored races the right to dominate others.. all contributed to the rise of Nazism.”
- Margaret Sanger’s atheistic ideas led to eugenics in the U.S. and established Plan Parenthood which is responsible for over seven million deaths (30 million total in the U.S. since Roe vs. Wade).
- Evolution is the bedrock for promoting rape, incest, and infanticide.
- Evolutionary beliefs have always been a strong foundation for racism, even today there is a revival of “Scientific Racism”;
- Charles Darwin, “The Western nations of Europe . . . now so immeasurably surpass their former savage progenitors [that they] stand at the summit of civilization… The civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace the savage races through the world… The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilized state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla.” & “There appears to be at least one check in steady action, namely the weaker and inferior members of society not marrying so freely as the sound; and this check might be indefinitely increased, though this is more to be hoped for than expected, by the weak in body or mind refraining from marriage.”
- Stephen Gould, “Biological arguments for racism may have been common before 1850, but they increased by orders of magnitude following the acceptance of evolutionary theory. The litany is familiar: cold, dispassionate, objective, modern science shows us that races can be ranked on a scale of superiority. If this offends Christian morality or a sentimental belied in human unity, so be it; science must be free to proclaim unpleasant truths.”
- “James D. Watson, 79, co-discoverer of the DNA helix and winner of the 1962 Nobel Prize in medicine, told the Sunday Times of London that he was ‘inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa’ because ‘all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours — whereas all the testing says not really.”
- “We remain the same species, just as a poodle and a beagle are of the same species,” Sullivan wrote in 2013. “But poodles, in general, are smarter than beagles, and beagles have a much better sense of smell.”
- “The favorable reviews almost invariably echo one of Wade’s key themes: Disbelief in the existence of race results from biased science driven by a left-leaning political agenda. Wade suggests that “any researcher who even discusses issues politically offensive to the left runs the risk of antagonizing the professional colleagues who must approve his requests for government funds and review his articles. . . The result is that researchers at present routinely ignore the biology of race.”
- After Darwin, slavery and human zoos all had one thing in common- evolutionary beliefs that supported their cruel treatment of people; especially those in Australia and Africa.
BASIC WORLDVIEW OF AN EVOLUTIONIST
- Is there a God? No.
- What is the nature of reality? What physics says it is.
- What is the purpose of the universe? There is none.
- What is the meaning of life? Ditto.
- Why am I here? Just dumb luck.
- Does prayer work? Of course not.
- Is there a soul? Is it immortal? Are you kidding?
- Is there free will? Not a chance!
- What happens when we die? Everything pretty much goes on as before, except us.
- What is the difference between right and wrong, good and bad? There is no moral difference between them.
- Why should I be moral? Because it makes you feel better than being immoral.
- Is abortion, euthanasia, suicide, paying taxes, foreign aid, or anything else you don’t like forbidden, permissible, or sometimes obligatory? Anything goes.
- What is love, and how can I find it? Love is the solution to a strategic interaction problem. Don’t look for it; it will find you when you need it.
- Does history have any meaning or purpose? It’s full of sound and fury, but signifies nothing.
- Does the human past have any lessons for our future? Fewer and fewer, if it ever had any to begin with.
Reference: Rosenberg, Alex (2011-10-03). The Atheist’s Guide to Reality: Enjoying Life without Illusions (Kindle Locations 172-187). Norton. Kindle Edition.
RESOURCES FOR FUTHER STUDY
- DNA and biological information (blog & video).
- Diversity of animals (blog & video).
- Dinosaurs (blog & video).
- Age of the earth (blog & video).
- Starlight and the expanse of the universe (blog & video).
- Noah’s ark and the worldwide flood (blog & video).
- Logical fallacies of evolutionary theory (blog & video)
Successful Predictions from YEC:
- One race– the human race
- The Jewish people and the Arabs having a common ancestor (Abraham)
- The magnetic fields of Uranus & Neptune
- Humans being related to Neanderthals (because they are human)
- Similar DNA in diverse organisms
WHY CHRISTIANS SHOULD REJECT OTHER THEORIES
(1) DAY-AGE/GAP THEORY/THEISTIC EVOLUTION: They fail in the following ways:
- They all take away from the plain reading of the Bible for the time of a day in Genesis
- They all make the Bible contradict the order of evolution
- They limit the worldwide flood to a local flood (2 Peter 3:3-9)
- They disagree with Moses (Exodus 20:11)
- They disagree with Jesus’ point of view of creation (Mark 10:6 & Luke 11:50-51)
- They all remove the truthfulness of all the major doctrines based in Genesis 1-3 (ground cursed, servant crushed, etc).
(2) WHAT IS AT STAKE WITH OTHER “CHRISTIAN THEORIES”: Expanded from Ken Ham’s book, Lie:
- Doctrine of God as a Good Creator
- Doctrine of the Power of God’s Word
- Doctrine of the Creativity of the Father, Son, & Spirit
- Doctrine of One Human Race
- Doctrine of Marriage
- Doctrine of Procreation
- Doctrine of Family Order
- Doctrine of Human Dominion
- Doctrine of the Fall into Sin (Freewill)
- Doctrine of the Curse of the Earth
- Doctrine of the Coming Serpent Crusher
- Doctrine of Holiness (wearing clothes)
- Doctrine of End Times Restoration (restoring what was lost)
SEE THE BIG PICTURE!
Revelation 22:1-5, “1 Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. 3 No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. 4 They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. 5 There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever.”