Thousand or Millions?

The teleological argument

Teleological means “by design”. We have already discussed many ways in which our universe appears to be uniquely situated to sustain life on this planet and how complex life actually is. Until Darwinian evolution became the prevailing theory, most everyone believed that everything around us showed evidence of being designed. The precision found in every area of science, from the smallest cell to the vastness of space still speak to us today as being too intricate to have come together by chance, time, and random mutations. The “laws” of science seem to point to some force behind them. And everything that is designed must have a designer. This is the DEFAULT argument. However, Darwin's theory proposes that the “evidence” we have only makes it appear that everything was designed.

People tend to believe what they want to believe. It is difficult to change someone's idea of the truth, unless we can show them the error in their own cherished belief. It is not wrong to make them defend their belief, instead of asking us to defend ours, (though we have a well-established, logical belief system). We will never make someone believe what we believe based on the evidence alone, but they can't prove their position, either. It is always a choice, based on presuppositions and desires. What we want to show is that it is not blind faith or naivete that causes us to believe in God and the Bible, but that the evidence still supports our position/the truth.

Instead of having to defend our own position all the time, let's discuss some ways that the evolutionary way of thinking doesn't compare with the creation argument, starting with the age of the earth.

1. Modern science generally uses radioactive dating to show that the earth is billions of years old.

Why? (accept some answers...such as to show that fossils are old, that the time needed for evolution to slowly take place could have occurred)

But what is the science behind radioactive dating?

Several types: carbon 14, potassium/argon are two. (Describe an atom and an isotope. Use graphic if possible). The idea is that the parent isotope is radioactive, but the daughter isotope is stable. Carbon 14 has a 1⁄2 life of 5,730 years. This means that in 5,730 years that half of the carbon 14 in a sample will have decayed into nitrogen 14 (stable)This is the most common radioactive dating mechanism.

Some interesting facts about carbon dating: Carbon is not radioactive at all after 100,000 years. It shouldn't even exist in diamonds, but it does. If diamonds took millions of years to form, as is commonly taught, there would be no measurable carbon 14 left in them.

In radioactive dating, they start with some assumptions: The rate of decay is constant and nothing leached into or out of it since it formed. But how do they know how much they started with ? They measure the ratio of carbon 14 in the sample to determine age. Assumption: They started with no stable, only radioactive carbon. Assumption: The atmospheric rates of carbon 14 and carbon 12 have remained constant. How do they know? In practice, different dates are frequently given to the same rock samples. Also, in some experiments, known dates were not chosen in blind testing. This is highly inconsistent and inaccurate.  In potassium/argon dating, scientists assume that there is no argon initially, but sometimes samples contain lots of argon and no potassium!  They use different isotopes with the same assumptions. 

Does this change your faith in the dating systems used by some scientists?

• What about Theistic evolution? Can't both ideas be right? Couldn't God have set things in

motion a long time ago,then sat back and watched things evolve?  Many churches have made this compromise. But it contradicts God's word.

Genesis chapter one teaches morning, then evening, the 1st, 2nd,...7th day. A day couldn't be millions of years each. Light x million years, then dark x million years?

• What about the Bible verse that says a day is as 1,000 years/1,000 years as a day? (2 Peter 3:8).

This verse refers to prophecy. It doesn't make sense to take it out of context and associate it with creation. Could plants created before the sun live for a thousand years? If the earth was not created in 6 literal days, then the Sabbath wouldn't make sense. 

In the Biblical creation account, the earth was created first, then the sun and the moon; water, then land; plants before fish; birds before animals; death after sin by mankind; Adam from dust.

Evolution teaches: the sun first, then earth, then the moon; land, then the seas; fish and marine organisms before plants; reptiles before birds; death ever present; mankind from apes.

These two accounts cannot be reconciled. It is one or the other.

The Hebrew word for day Used in the Genesis account of creation = YOM. It always means a literal day. Jonah in the fish and Joshua marching around Jericho used same word YOM for days. In English, we can say, “back in my day” to mean an age or a time period, but not in Hebrew.

• Discussion: Does it really matter if we believe God created the world and everything in it in 6 literal days, or if He used the evolutionary process to work it out? Why or why not?

Think of the consequences of theistic evolution: If death is a natural process used by God via evolution, there is no need for redemption from sin. Also, what is the character of God if he just sat back and watched millions of years of struggle and death and didn’t intervene? God said each day was good. Could it have been good if it was death and destruction for each period between each new evolutionary stage? Is God incompetent? Is He powerless to stop cycle of death and natural selection?

The Bible teaches creation, then sin, then the curse and the need for redemption, Jesus and the cross, and a future restoration. We cannot reconcile this with millions of years of death and destruction prior to sin.