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Creation 30(1):31, December 2007

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The universe’s birth certificate

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Birth certificate

Once you let go of the Bible as history, all Christian doctrine begins to disintegrate. Dr Nigel Leaves, the Warden and Dean of Studies at John Wollaston Anglican Theological College in Perth (Australia), provides a typical example in The God Problem: Alternatives to Fundamentalism.1 He says ‘the major factor in the waning of the Christian faith is its continuing insistence on a supernatural God—the Almighty, the lawgiver and judge.’ He considers four alternatives to ‘fundamentalism’ (i.e. believing in the God of the Bible), saying, ‘Traditional beliefs about God cannot be sustained in the light of the latest scientific and critical thinking.’ And of course the ‘latest scientific thinking’ rests on the foundation of discounting the time scale of Genesis creation.

But the Bible gives us a measured time scale, an eye-witness record, of history, a foundation far more secure than any modern scientific estimate. A measurement wins over an estimate any day!

The earth’s ‘birth certificate’

My birth certificate gives me a measured time scale for my age. It is an eye-witnessed statement that I was born on 28 January 1946, and other eye-witnesses have maintained a record of the earth having circled the sun 61 times since then. Likewise, the Bible gives us a ‘birth certificate’ for the universe—an eye-witness statement that God created it in six ordinary-length days in the time of Adam. The family histories and patriarchal ages in Genesis continue this record. God then confirmed it to Moses and wrote it down with His own finger in stone in the Sabbath Commandment (Exodus 20:11; 31:18; 32:16).

Jesus then confirmed the authenticity of the OT scriptures—in detail and in its entirety2—by correctly predicting his own death and resurrection on their foundation. That is, death entered the world only as the penalty for Adam’s sin at the Fall, and Jesus, the last Adam (1 Corinthians 15 and Romans 5:6–21) took our place and paid that penalty for us, thus restoring us to eternal life. Once the penalty was paid, death no longer had any hold on Him and He rose from the dead. Jesus’ Resurrection authenticates Genesis as real history. The Resurrection of Jesus, an attested fact of history (Acts 17:31)3, is thus our guarantee of the measured biblical time scale for the universe (Luke 24:27,44).

Scientists must assume and infer

No scientist has any alternative or better ‘birth certificate’ for the earth or the universe. All scientific estimates of earth and universe age require a whole lot of assumptions. The key assumption is uniformitarianism, which is atheism disguised as science, because it assumes no miraculous interventions in history.4 Christians have no reason to accept, and every reason to reject, atheistic assumptions about the universe.

Jesus’ Resurrection validates the accuracy of the Bible, especially its history of Creation and Fall. No Bible scholar since Jesus has risen from the dead to validate any alternative point of view. Don’t let anyone steal from you this precious gift that God has given us in the Bible.

Posted on homepage: 9 February 2009

References and notes

  1. Polebridge Press, California, USA, 2006, quoted in Keith MacDonald, Defining God in the 21st century, The West Australian, 18 November, 2006. Dr Leaves was challenged by church authorities, who claim the newspaper article was ‘deliberately mischievous’. Leaves says he supports ‘inclusive Anglicanism and the theological diversity of the Diocese of Perth’. See: A response to the misleading review by Keith MacDonald (West Australian) of Nigel Leaves’ book, <www.perthanglicans.com.au/PDFs/Leaves281106.pdf>. Return to text.
  2. Livingston, D., Jesus on the infallibility of the Scripture, <creation.com/jesus_bible>. Return to text.
  3. Q&A on Jesus Christ, His Resurrection, <creation.com/res>. Return to text.
  4. See: Amazing admission, Creation 20(3):24, 1998, <creation.com/lewontin>. Return to text.

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