Author: Paul A. Bartz
Note: Creation Moments exists to provide Biblically sound materials to the Church in the area of Bible and science relationships. This Bible study may be reproduced for group use.
Holy Scripture offers us nothing that is contrary to scientific law. Hypotheses and theories are tentative scientific attempts to explain something, such as the origin of the universe, or life. These tentative explanations may contradict Scripture when they are offered by those who do not accept the truth of the Bible. But scientific laws are expressions of principles which are so well established as fact that they are beyond question.
The first of the three most basic scientific laws is the First Law of Thermodynamics. This law states that neither matter nor energy may be created or destroyed, but they may change forms. This law of science suggests that matter must be eternal. But this conflicts with the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which indicates that if matter and energy had always existed, the universe today would be nothing but a weak homogeneous field of energy. When you add these two laws together, the only conclusion you can come to is that matter and energy, as we now know them, had to have been created in some way that went beyond the natural laws we see operating today. One could say that the First and Second Laws predict a supernatural creation of the Universe. This agrees perfectly with what we find in Genesis 1, as we saw in the Bible study – Science in Genesis One.
We know that either energy or matter can be changed into the other. As we read through the creation account, we find that it states eight times that “God said,” and without further action the newly created appears. We also know that God’s Word has power – energy, if you will. It is this spiritual power of God, used through the Word, which resulted in the material matter and energy which we know today. This principle that the visible is a result of the invisible is expressed clearly in Hebrews 11:3 and further explained in John 1:3. This Scriptural principle is very important in this day and age when people tend to separate the spiritual from the “real, everyday world.” Here we see the creation principle that the “real, everyday world” is a direct result of the spiritual. This helps us to see how closely related the spiritual and the material are – how immorality can result in material problems, how Christ’s material and His spiritual suffering and death on the cross, and His material Resurrection from the dead can have very real, material, as well as spiritual blessings for us today. Seeing this principle which is rooted in a proper understanding of creation, we can also see why those who teach less than the physical Resurrection of Christ, for example, have fallen far short of teaching God’s Biblical revelation to man.
The Second Law of Thermodynamics also leaves us to conclude that the creation is not forever. It is temporary. This, too, is the teaching of Scripture. The creation had a beginning, and it will have an end. Scripture adds to this that Christ Himself will return to judge the living and the dead – something which science cannot know because it will not be seen in the material world until science as we now know it will be replaced with perfect knowledge.
The third most basic law of science is the law of Biogenesis. In the Middle Ages people believed that a pile of rags could generate mice, for they often found mice nesting in rags, and that rotting peat generated maggots. Besides having no other explanation for where the mice or maggots could have come from, the people of that time were heirs of the pre-Christian evolutionists. Aristotle, Lucretius, and others had written about how the entire creation could be explained by natural laws, without the need for God. Included in their writings were descriptions of how life had first arisen on earth from a “primordial soup.” These beliefs, of course, were based on evolutionary teachings. As modern science developed, men like Pasteur and Redi scientifically showed that life does not generate by itself, establishing the Law of Biogenesis: life comes from life.
Some evolutionists today contest that this is not a scientific law, illustrating their philosophical fellowship with the pre-scientific evolutionists who first promoted the idea of the spontaneous generation of life. However, it is not difficult to find materials by evolutionists themselves which admit that the Law of Biogenesis is a law of science.
The fact that life can only come from life means that we must go beyond presently-operating processes to explain the origin of life – we must go to the supernatural. Genesis 1 explains that this supernatural process is the creative power of God as it describes His creating activity. The Law on Biogenesis teaches us to look to God as the source of life, and Scripture gives us all the details, each detail of which agrees with the Law of Biogenesis.
In Genesis 1:11, 20, and 24, we see that God created most living things by the power of His Word. Genesis 2:7 relates how God hand-made man, and breathed the breath of life into him. While this is indeed beyond the natural workings we see going on around us today, these descriptions of the origin of life are the only scientifically logical descriptions we have.
So we see that not only do recognized scientific laws not contradict Scripture, but they lead us to seek the more complete explanation for the world and for life, and this explanation is found in Scripture.
One serious error which evolutionists make is that they assume that life is nothing more than the physical biological actions of our bodies. Many people who are not evolutionary scientists also treat life as if there is nothing more than the material. But the life which God has created is much more than just the material biological reactions. The Bible teaches us that we are spiritual as well as material creatures. In fact, life which does not include spiritual life is incomplete and much less than God would have for us.
Christ brings this out in Matthew 6:25 when He specifically points out that life is much more than just its material measure. John 1:4 tells us that Christ Himself is the source of life, the word “life” being used here in the full sense which also includes the spiritual. John 6:27-48 is rich in information on the source of complete life. The Biblical view is not only scientifically valid, but Scripture presents us with a far more comprehensive view of life and its needs, as well as how those needs are filled, than evolution ever can!
Footnotes:
1983 Bible Science Newsletter.
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