Creatio ex Nihilio

"Let There Be Light"

 

Let's pick this up at the beginning, the very beginning:

"In the beginning "*****" created the heavens and the earth" Gen 1:1

I believe that this far we do agree that the name we assign to "*****" doesn't really matter, apparently whichever name we do assign we would really be talking about the same being; Humans tend to argue a lot about nothing really. I like that the Hebrew Bible opted to assign some unpronounceable consonants to this title – YHWH, that way you could not assign to it a pronunciation, or a form, you could not even describe it, or make a presentation of it, like an idol, you could not even conceptualize it, but we would know that we were all referring to that very same being. So let's for a little while, albeit just the while it takes to read the rest of this essay, just revert to that old Hebrew practice.

In the beginning, given that light travels faster than sound, there was a flash, then there was "a big bang", and that way YHWH created the heavens and the earth. How long ago was this? I don't know, I doubt anyone can say they accurately know. I am almost certain it was not 6,000 years ago, it may have been 13.7B years ago, I really cannot bring myself to trust the methods they used to arrive at that date, but yes,  T=0 is likely to have been a long looooong time ago. How do I know that it was not 6000 years ago? Well, one thing convinces me, one thing only, not the geological column, not the fossil record, these can be quickly flip flopped to suit many explanations, and we will touch on them, but the SUN! Yes the SUN, that cannot be explained in any plausible way, there is no way there could have been a morning and evening for three days without the sun, and it's also very unlikely that plant life could have existed before the sun did, yes there is a chance, it's but one day after all, but it is unlikely. The sun must have existed prior to that first day of creation in Genesis 6K years ago. If then it was not 6K, when was it?

I already mentioned that I do not trust their dating techniques at all, I really doubt there has ever been a reliable way of dating the earth, but there also has never been a shortage of people willing to try. In 1650 Archbishop James Ussher of the Church of Ireland made a careful study of the Bible and other historical sources and concluded, in a hefty tome called Annals of the Old Testament, that the Earth had been created at midday on October 23, 4004 B.C. The first attempt at measurement that could be called remotely scientific was made by the Frenchman Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, in the 1770s. He tried to date the earth by estimating the rate of dissipation of its heat by heating spheres until they glowed white hot and then estimating the rate of heat loss as they cooled. From this he guessed the Earth's age to be somewhere between 75,000 and 168,000 years old. This was an underestimate we now know, but too radical an expression back then that Buffon found himself threatened with excommunication. A practical man, he apologized at once for his thoughtless heresy, then cheerfully repeated the assertions throughout his subsequent writings.

By the middle of the nineteenth century most learned people thought the Earth was at least a few million years old, perhaps even some tens of millions of years old, but probably not more than that. So it came as a surprise when, in 1859 in 'On the Origin of Species', Charles Darwin announced that the geological processes that created the Weald, an area of southern England stretching across Kent, Surrey, and Sussex, had taken, by his calculations, 306,662,400 years to complete. The assertion was remarkable partly for being so arrestingly specific but even more for flying in the face of accepted wisdom about the age of the Earth. It proved so contentious that Darwin withdrew it from the third edition of the book. The problem at its heart remained, however. Darwin and his geological friends needed the Earth to be old, but no one could figure out a way to make it so.

In 1898, Marie Curie discovered the phenomenon of radioactivity, just about the same time as Einstein wrote his first paper,  in which unstable atoms lose energy, or decay, by emitting radiation in the form of particles or electromagnetic waves. By 1904 physicist Ernest Rutherford showed how this decay process could act as a clock for dating old rocks. Meanwhile, Arthur Holmes (1890-1964) was finishing up a geology degree at the Imperial College of Science in London where he developed the technique of dating rocks using the uranium-lead method. By applying the technique to his oldest rock, Holmes proposed that the Earth was at least 1.6 billion years old. The Earth's age continued to be hotly debated for decades afterward. Since then, several revisions have been made. In the 1920s, Earth's age crept up toward 3 billion years, making it for a time even older than the universe, which was then estimated to be about 1.8 billion years old. By the 1950s the earth's 'true age' had reached 4.56 billion years. For the record, the universe is now thought to have debuted, at least in its latest incarnation, about 13.7 billion ago.

So let's just settle today for "a very long long time ago":  at some point a very long long time ago "YHWH created the heavens and the earth" (Gen 1: 1) the galaxies, the stars, the heavenly bodies were thus created and the heavenly beings too, yes, the angels and archangels, and they were given authorities and dominions. And unto Lucifer was given the earth as his dominion, the Prince of Earth and a host of many angels at his command. And then Lucifer rebelled against YHWH, and with Him went a third of the Host of angels unto the earth. And this did not please YHWH, not at all, the Prince of Earth with a host of rebel angels on asylum on earth? This was really distasteful to YHWH, and the earth became an eye sore to YHWH. And YHWH made it desolate and dark and without form, probably by way of a flood, because as we now get to the second verse of the Bible, we note that the earth was covered in water. That would make atleast two counts of a cataclysm flood on earth, the first being in all probability a glacial age, I cannot tell for sure, but yes, up until Genesis 1:2 the earth was covered in water or at least a form or forms of it, very likely that there was a thick fog over the earth that blocked out the sun's rays, rendering darkness over the earth, and without the sun's heat the ground was definitely covered in ice,. An ice age on earth, a frozen planet.

Gen 1:2

"But the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of YHWH moved upon the face of the waters"

Seriously? Come on, is there even a shred of Biblical evidence that it indeed happened this way? Ooh yes there is. Think about it, when were the angels created? Was it when YHWH was creating Eden, and when did Lucifer fall and so quickly amass all those angels on his side? Now when YHWH came to Job and began to challenge him in the thirty-eighth chapter of the book of Job, YHWH said to Job, "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the world?"(Job 38:4).  And YHWH speaks of the laying of the foundations of the world: "when the morning stars sang together" or "the angels singing together". So the angels were existing when YHWH laid the foundations of the world. It also is inconsistent with the nature of YHWH to create something without form and void, to create something wasted and desolate. In Isaiah, the forty-fifth chapter, it declares that YHWH did not create the earth without form and void, but He created it to be inhabited.

Bible Scholars and theologians of similar thought have called this the gap theory, the possible existence of a geological era between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2. A time gap between "In the beginning YHWH created the heavens and the earth" and the next verse which declares "and the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep."

Now there is a lot of evidence to show that the earth has emerged from the last ice age maybe less than ten thousand years ago, and for this the book "Worlds in Collision" by Emmanuel Vilakovski comes highly recommended.

In this book Vilakovski points out the fact that the tremendous amount of water of the Niagara Falls is eroding away the shelf at the rate of one foot a year. There is a hotel on the Canadian side that a hundred years ago was built right at the edge of the falls. Now it's a hundred feet away from the falls. The canyon that has been formed by Niagara Falls is currently seven thousand feet long. And it would stand to reason that in the earlier time of the glacial regression the flow of water could conceivably have been much greater than it is presently, and so the erosion rate could have been greater, hardly lesser.

Furthermore, the choice of the Hebrew word 'asa' for YHWH's creative works in Genesis is a bit telling.  The word "created" is the Hebrew word "bara" which speaks of creating something out of nothing, a capacity that only YHWH has. Man cannot "bara". We cannot, out of nothing create something. We create with the idea of the Hebrew word "asa" which is the assembling together of existing materials. Now the word "asa" is used in much of the creative acts in the book of Genesis, the assembling of an order from pre-existing materials. But the existing materials from which the things were assembled were originally created, and how long ago, we don't know.

Another proof of that glacial age is actually the second day of creation as is told in Genesis. One has to ask themselves where all that water went.

Gen 1:6-8

"And YHWH said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And YHWH made this firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And YHWH called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day"

This depicts the creation of a hydro atmosphere around the earth. YHWH put a great blanket of water, suspended the water in the atmosphere above the earth. Now that water suspended in the atmosphere above the earth would have done a tremendous thing as far as the climate of the earth is concerned. It would have caused a mild, equal kind of climate around the entire earth. It would have meant that you would not have violent storms. It would have meant that you would have had a balmy climate everywhere, even up in the North Pole regions. It would surely explain the discovery of mammoths in Siberia encased in ice that were frozen intact at some time in history, who were living in a tropical jungle, because when they cut them open they found tropical vegetation in their digestive tracts. It would surely account for the forest that one time existed at the South Pole because they have found charcoal deposits under two hundred feet of ice. 

It would explain the longevity of Adam and his generations up to the time that the water blanket was removed and came pouring down in the time of Noah. This blanket of water would have protected the earth from the cosmic radiations that are constantly bombarding the earth. We know also that there is an ozone blanket. YHWH, talking to Job about the creation of the earth said he made a blanket around it. He made a moisture blanket, He made an electromagnetic field blanket, He also made an ozone blanket around the earth to make the earth inhabitable by man, by shielding off these cosmic rays that are constantly bombarding you causing a cellular breakdown, so that your cells begin a mutation form, an aging process that causes your cells to progressively lose their ability to reproduce themselves sufficiently.

With the water blanket around the earth giving greater protection it would stand to reason that at the time of Adam there was much less cosmic radiation coming through to the earth, so that man could conceivably live much longer periods of time. In fact, as we study the human body and the ability of the cell to reproduce itself, aging is some kind of a weirdness in nature. The breakdown of the cell is an abnormality that has somehow crept in. The body is so designed, if it weren't for this beginning of the mutants within the cells, to go on living forever. Your body would keep renewing itself, the cells would just keep reproducing themselves and you could just go on and on and on living in this body. Read also gone in 60 seconds. But somewhere along the line comes a stray little neutrino, an introduction into the body that begins to cause the aging processes. 

At the time of the flood this water blanket that surrounded the atmosphere was removed. And thus after the flood, the lifespan dropped dramatically, from an average of around nine hundred years down to an average of maybe one hundred years. Just almost overnight, within one generation, the tremendous longevity was reduced because suddenly the protective blanket was taken away. So Adam living for 930 years, and Methuselah for 969 is actually proof that the earth was indeed covered in a blanket of water which would be inline with a frozen earth prior to Genesis. But then if the sun and the universe already existed what then really happened on the fourth day of creation?

If Genesis is a narration of "re-creation," then it would mean that on the fourth day, actually YHWH did not create the sun and the moon, but He now allowed removed the shroud of fog from the Earth so that you can finally see the sun and the moon. Prior to day 4, we had evenings and mornings where we didn't see the sun, cloudy days, cloudy all day long. I still know its daytime, because there's light, but yet I don't see the sun. I know it's night because it's dark, but I don't see the moon, because there is a cloud cover that prohibits me seeing the moon or prohibits my seeing the sun.

This fog cloud cover could have been removed on the fourth day, so that the "light holder" becomes visible. Once the cloud is removed the sun and the moon became visible and were now used to mark off years and days and months; used as time indicators with the greater light to rule the day, the lesser light holder to rule the night. The moon we know has no light of itself and this isn't in conflict with the scripture. It's just called a light holder. A mirror can be in a sense a light holder, such as is the moon. It would fit with the Hebrew word "meor". It doesn't necessarily mean a source of light.

If indeed the earth did exist prior to Genesis 1, then there are two important deductions we can make out rightly. First is that Darwin and his evolutionary colleagues are correct, atleast to the extent that the earth and indeed the universe are really old, but life itself need not be that old. And second, that the debate on UFOs and extra terrestrials should be laid to rest once and for all. Intelligent extraterrestrial beings have existed long before life existed on earth, they were there when YHWH was laying the foundations of the earth, and they are indeed far more intelligent, and far more capable than man is. Could they have built the pyramids of Giza- read more?

Life Need Not Be That Old

So what do I mean by 'the earth and indeed the universe are really old, but life itself need not be that old'. The only reason the scientists have sought to propound an old life theory is because surely all of the life forms could not have evolved in a six thousand year period. You see, Darwin claimed that the ancestry of all living things came from that one single simple organism which reproduced and was slowly modified over time into the complex life forms we view today, which is why after contemplating his own theory Darwin uttered his famous statement, "Natura non Facit Saltum," meaning, "Nature does not Jump." Well, acclaimed author Lee Strobel pointed out that if you can picture the entire 3.8 billion years that scientists say life has been around as one 24-hour day, in the space of just about 90 seconds most major animal groups suddenly appear in the forms in which they currently hold, not slowly and steadily as Darwin predicted, but in evolutionary terms almost instantly. So, "Nature does not Jump" becomes "Nature makes a giant leap."

Think about their theory for just a minute: 13.7B we have the big bang, 3.9B earth cools down and surface is solid, 3.85B life arose. Life appeared rather too rapidly after the formation of the solid earth especially bearing in mind the geological and astronomical history of existence. "we can only infer from this rapidity that it is not "difficult" for life of bacterial grade to evolve on planets with appropriate conditions" Stephen Jay Gould observed in the New York times in 1996, or as he put it elsewhere, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that "life, arising as soon as it could, was chemically destined to be".

"Life emerged so swiftly, in fact, that some authorities think it must have had help – perhaps a good deal of help" Writes Bryson

Francis Crick, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, a Nobel laureate and his colleague Leslie Orgel have infact suggested that the earth was "deliberately seeded with life by intelligent aliens" – (and we are still arguing about their existence?)

"Whatever prompted life to begin, it happened just once, that is the most extraordinary fact in biology, perhaps the, most extraordinary fact we know. Everything that has ever lived, plant or animal, dates its beginnings from the same primordial twitch. At some point in an unimaginably distant past some little bag of chemicals fidgeted to life" Bryson continues

What is the chance? It is hard even for them to comprehend the chances. "It just so happened" that the earth was ninety-three million miles away from the sun. "It just so happened"  that the atmosphere became a combination of nitrogen and oxygen in a ratio of about seventy-nine percent to twenty percent with a one percent of variant gasses. "It just so happened" that around the earth there was a blanket of ozone. "It just so happened" that there was a magnetic force also that is circulating around the earth, also protecting it from the cosmic rays. And "it just so happened" that there is about a two-third water to one-third land mass ratio. And "it just so happened" that in that water there was, somehow, a fortuitous combination of molecules of protein that happened to come together at just the right time at the right place in the right proportions under the right pressure and under the right heat and so forth, and spontaneously, these generated into a first cell. But what is the chance of that "it just so happened?

And if you really go ahead to figure it out, you'll find that the chances are extremely rare indeed. In fact, the chances are so great that it couldn't have happened "just so." If you really get down to it, and you want to study just the first protein molecule, you'll find that the chance factors for just the protein molecule are so great that if they are correct about the 3.85B, grant them even the 13.7B, that isn't enough time for the proper circumstances and the proper conditions and all to accidentally put together the first protein molecule. Even if you were putting these combinations together at the rate of a billion per second, it's impossible for me to believe. Life need not be that old.

So how do theists explain this sudden outburst of new biological information? Christian and Muslim theists hold onto

Genesis 1:20.

"And YHWH said, let the waters teem with living creatures and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky. So YHWH created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems according to its kind, and YHWH saw that it was good."

In other words, Creation happened because YHWH said it should happen. And even what looks to our eyes to be a blind unguided process is really divinely controlled from start to finish.

In the Garden of Eden, YHWH had originally created a world where there was no death, disease, suffering, or sin. Everything was perfect and worked in perfect harmony. The animals did not eat each other. There were no tsunamis to wipe out massive numbers of creatures in minutes. Creation was perfect. It was Adam's rebellion against YHWH that brought these evils into the world.

But then wait just a minute! What about the  fossils we have found that are millions of years old? Don't they proof that life existed prior to Genesis? Would this not also mean that death existed before the "original" sin? And let us just get down to the very fundamentals – why would there need to be life in the first place? What's the purpose of life?  ……. Read more