Creation - St. Marys Coptic Orthodox Church

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The famous astrophysicist Hugh Ross 1 tells us this: Time is that dimension in which cause and effect phenomena take place. . . If time's beginning is concurrent with the beginning of the universe, as the space-time theorem says, then the cause of the universe must be some entity operating in a time dimension completely independent of and pre-existent to the time dimension of the cosmos. This conclusion is powerfully important to our understanding of who God is and who or what God isn't. It tells us that the creator is transcendent, operating beyond the dimensional limits of the universe. It tells us that God is not the universe itself, nor is God contained within the universe. To conclude I want to share with you a personal reflection. I never fully understood Psalm 19, verse 1, which says, “The heavens declare the glory of God”, until I started preparing this lecture for you. I now realize that when in 1929 Edwin Hubble looked at heaven through his giant telescope, and saw as if it were the hand of God expanding the Universe as a man stretching a curtain, it was the heavens declaring the glory of God to him. And when Penzias and Wilson directed their radio telescope towards heaven, and heard that background noise coming from the beginning. It was as if they were listening to the echo of the shouts of the angels when they first saw the miracle of creation. It was the heavens declaring to them the glory of God. And when in 1992, those NASA scientists sent the COBE satellite toward heavens, and were shocked by what they learned. And when their team leader George Smoot declared in awe, “It’s like looking at God.”, it was the heavens that declared to him the glory of God. That glory that was His even before the Universe began, and will still be His even after the Universe meets its end and shall be His even forever and ever. Amen. 1 Hugh Ross has a wonderful website about the science and the creation: http://www.reasons.org/ I recommend it for any one interested in more details about this topic 19
CHAPTER TWO THE ORIGIN OF LIFE And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. Ge 1:2 AND THE EARTH WAS WITHOUT FORM: The earth was without form. That means shapeless. It is like a sculptor who wants to make a sculpture, he starts with a big piece of rock that has no shape. Then he starts to use his tools to shape it into the final product. God did exactly that, He started with the raw material and gradually shaped it into the beautiful Earth we have now, cutting rivers and streams and forming mountains and hills. God did that using natural forces He had created for that purpose. These natural forces included volcanoes, earthquakes, seismic eruptions, tectonics and floods. We will talk about these things later on in more detail. Someone may ask this question: Does God need to use these natural forces in shaping His creation? Couldn’t God have created the earth the way He wanted instantly? The answer to the first question is no! God does not need to use these natural forces, He choses to! This is the way God desires to do things. Let me give you an example: When God wanted to divide the Red Sea in the time of Moses, what does the Bible tell us? And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the LORD caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided. Ex 14:21 Notice, that, when Moses stretched out his hand, the sea was not instantly parted but that God caused a strong wind to blow all that night before the sea was parted. That means that God, even when He performs supernatural deeds, uses naturally occurring phenomena that He had created, like strong winds, and He gives them enough time to produce the desired action. One may ask, couldn’t God had just ordered the sea to part? The answer is yes, for He is omnipotent, for in Mark we are told: “And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto
Page 1 and 2: Creation Father Athanasius Iskander
Page 4 and 5: CHAPTER ONE IN THE BEGINNING In the
Page 6 and 7: The Christian religion brings manki
Page 8 and 9: All of these famous scientists not
Page 10 and 11: Scientific Society of Brussels, und
Page 12 and 13: 1965: PENZIAS AND WILSON In 1965 Ar
Page 14 and 15: I find it difficult to understand a
Page 16 and 17: calculated to make scientists appea
Page 18 and 19: You can see the direction in which
Page 20 and 21: Rev 6:14 And the heaven departed as
Page 24 and 25: the sea, Peace, be still. And the w
Page 26 and 27: nutrient rich media of their own ac
Page 28 and 29: 6. When enough of these were formed
Page 30 and 31: In order to make protein you need D
Page 32 and 33: Another biophysicist Harold Morowit
Page 34 and 35: Now you can compare the two opposin
Page 36 and 37: He later on adds: Many investigator
Page 38 and 39: seems to be an acceptance that the
Page 40 and 41: takes a lot more faith to believe i
Page 42 and 43: In First Corinthians 1:24, we are t
Page 44 and 45: They also tell us that “This init
Page 46 and 47: tells us: “But, beloved, be not i
Page 48 and 49: In the verses quoted above, the Boo
Page 50 and 51: etrieved using a Twomey regularizat
Page 52 and 53: This band of unexplained water that
Page 54 and 55: VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS: Volcanoes spew
Page 56 and 57: CHAPTER FOUR THE CREATION OF PLANT
Page 58 and 59: Charles Darwin's Origin of Species
Page 60 and 61: In many respects this is a classic
Page 62 and 63: George Bernard Shaw, in the Preface
Page 64 and 65: like beaks can grind down their foo
Page 66 and 67: Computer scientists, especially wer
Page 68 and 69: predictable result was offspring wi
Page 70 and 71: another phase in the evolution of E
Page 72 and 73:
THE HOPEFUL MONSTER THEORY! 1 The r
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A good theory is characterized by t
Page 76 and 77:
CHAPTER FIVE THE CREATION OF MAN An
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eproduce its own kind. That means a
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many as 100. ... Why, in subsequent
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Again, after creating man and woman
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to the sight, and good for food; th
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that God gave His blessing to the h
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fragmentary fossils. A complete jaw
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modern orangutans. 1 As usual, from
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and antler-tipped spears. The remai
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Creation - St. Marys Coptic Orthodox Church

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