CSE Seminar Notebook - Free Bible Resources

Just One Proof of aYoung Earth Settlesthe Case AgainstEvolution“This notion of species as‘natural kinds’ fits splendidlywith creationist tenets of apre-Darwinian age. LouisAgassiz even argued thatspecies are God’s individualthoughts, made incarnate sothat we might perceive bothHis majesty and His message.Species, Agassiz wrote, are‘instituted by the DivineIntelligence as the categoriesof his mode of thinking’. Buthow could adivision of theorganic world into discreteentities be justified by anevolutionary theory thatproclaimed ceaseless changeas the fundamental fact ofnature?”—Stephen Jay Gould,Professor of Geology andPaleontology,HarvardUniversityLet’s imagineweare exploring an old goldmine, and we find aCasio Databank watch half buried in the mud on the floor of themine.Supposealsothatthecorrecttimeanddatearedisplayedonthewatchanditisstillrunningsmoothly.ThenimaginethatItellyouthewatchhasbeenthereforover onethousandyears.“That’simpossible!”yousay.“Thatwatchcouldnothavebeenthereforathousandyears,andIcanproveit!”“HowcanyouproveI’mwrong?”Isay.“Well,foronething,thisminewasdugjust150yearsago,”yousay.“Okay,” Iadmit, “you’re right about the thousand years beingtoomuch,butthewatchhasbeenherefor150yearsatleast!”“No!” you say. “Casio didn’t make the Databank watch untiltwelveyearsago.”“Allright,”Isay.“Thewatchwasdroppedheretwelveyearsagothen.”“Impossible!”yousay.“Thebatteriesonlylastfiveyearsonthatwatch,andit’sstillrunning.Thatprovesithasbeenherelessthanfiveyears.”Whilewestillcan’tproveexactlywhenthewatchwasleftthere,youhavelogicallylimitedthedatetofiveyearsatthemost.Youhaveeffectivelyprovenmyinitialstatementabout1000yearswrong.Thelargernumbersprovenothinginthisdebate.EvenifIweretocarbondate the mud or the plastic in the watch to try to prove that it isthousands of years old, my data would be meaningless. The samelogiccanbeappliedtofindingtheageoftheearth.Ifseveralfactorslimittheageoftheearthtoafewthousandyears,theearthcannotbeolder than afew thousand years! Even if afew indicators seem toshowagreateragefortheearth,ittakesonlyONEfacttoprovetheearth is young. We cover many points on this topic in seminarpart#1oftheSeminarSeries.TheBibleteachesthat:Godcreatedtheuniverseapproximately6000yearsago,exnihilo(outofnothing)insixliteral,twenty-fourhour days. Then, approximately 4400 years ago, the earth wasdestroyedbyaworldwideFlood.Thisdevastating,year-longFloodwasresponsibleforthesedimentlayersbeingdeposited(thewaterwasgoingandreturning,Genesis8:3-5).AsthemountainsroseandtheoceanssankinaftertheFlood(Psalm104:5-8,Genesis8:1),thewaters rushed offtherisingmountains intothenewocean basins.This rapid-erosion through still-soft, unprotected sedimentsformed the topography we still see today in places like the GrandCanyon. The uniformitarian assumption—that today’s slowerosionratesthattakeplacethroughsolidrockarethesameashasalways been—is faulty logic, and ignores catastrophes like theFlood. (2 Peter 3:3-8 says that the scoffers are“willingly ignorant”oftheFlood.)SeeSeminarvideo#4and#6formoreonthistopic.9Creation Science Evangelism •29 Cummings Road •Pensacola, Florida 32503