Creation Matters

I was exposed to creation science fairly early in my Christian walk and have read several books on it over the years. It kind of reminded me of my end times studies, though, with as many theories as there were authors, and a kind of fuzzy feeling that you can believe most anything as long as you believed God actually created everything. I was even willing to accept some form of theistic evolution since God could work things out in unusual ways without having to believe literally in the young earth and seven days of creation. After all, a lot of the Bible can be understood figuratively as well as literally, right?

Well, a couple of years ago, in preparation for writing The Organic Church, I delved a little deeper into the creation science topic to see if there were any lessons that might help in preparing for revival. After all, the great revivalists were fundamentalists and mostly literalists, before and after Darwin. Somehow I ended up at the website creationscience.com and discovered Walt Brown's book In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood.

It started off with the traditional arguments based in the life sciences on the complexity and interdependence of biochemical systems. These alone made it obvious there had to be an infinitely intelligent Creator, and I was fairly familiar with them. However, the book quickly moved into the less obvious areas of inorganic matter in the astronomical sphere and in the earth's crust. He then presented a concept completely new to me. He had developed it decades earlier based on a few key Hebrew words in Genesis and the assumption that the biblical creation account was to be taken literally. It's called the Hydroplate Theory, and it blew me away.

I have a bachelors and masters degrees in engineering, and have always loved math and especially physics. The idea that you can explain so many physical phenomena with just a few principles and formulas captivated me throughout my education. The Hydroplate Theory did just that for the creation, flood, and early history of the earth and, surprisingly, parts of the solar system. Without going at all into details, it provides compelling explanation for a wide variety of phenomena that evolutionary science is unable to explain (although you don't hear about this much in the educational system or media). Examples include

• major mountain ranges with bent layers of rock, adjacent high plateaus, and seashells far above sea level
• oceans with a sea floor ridge that almost bisects the Atlantic and deep trenches and volcanoes around the Pacific
• fossils in over a mile of sedimentary rock that contain no transitional species, are often out of order, and were likely formed in a few months through demonstrable processes
• heavy elements, radioactivity, and isotopes
• the Grand Canyon and frozen mammoths in Siberia
• asteroids, meteors, and comets

I was particularly flabbergasted at the last bullet. Basically, the Hydroplate Theory says that these are the result of 3% of the Earth's mass being hypersonically ejected into space from a 46,000 mile rupture in the Earth's crust. The energy came from supercritical subterranean water venting into space, spewing all kinds of rocky and organic materials that would gradually coalesce into these objects orbiting the sun.

I was even more intrigued as I re-studied commentaries that suggested asteroids and comets could cause severe destruction to the earth during the Great Tribulation period. I now saw the divinely ironic possibility that some of these objects, the result of 1,500 years of man's sin culminating in the Flood, could be returning to cleanse and reshape the earth by earthquakes and fire just before Christ's 1,000 year reign. Mind-boggling!

Well, there are many, many more insights that can come from this one man's decades of research. You simply have to read the book, which is available free online. I love that most of the hundreds and thousands of footnotes cite evolutionary scientists who are trying to understand the many anomalies that do not fit the traditional evolutionary theories. But almost all of these anomalies can be explained by the Hydroplate Theory and other mechanisms he proposes.

And in case you are wondering, yes, he completely supports the seven literal days of creation and several thousand year age of the earth. But with more science, engineering, and scriptural exegesis than you can imagine.

And as for theistic evolution, well, that was one of the early questions after becoming a believer that got him started on his post-military career devoted to creation science. He simply wondered, "If sin began with Adam, and death is the consequence of sin, then how could there have been millions of years and generations of death before Adam? That would make the biblical account of sin a fiction and there would be no need for a Savior."

Of course, there are many other individuals, groups, and organizations that support creation science. And, as with end times experts, there is a bewildering variety of theories, mostly contradicting one another. I've not found any other, however, that has the depth, breadth, and concise foundational explanations for such a wide variety of phenomena. I highly recommend it, not as "the" answer, but as a well-reasoned theory that is worthy of serious attention.

So why does Creation matter? You don't have to be a science nerd or even a Christian to appreciate that there is a Creator and that He is indeed all knowing, all powerful, and outside of time. That just makes sense to anyone who has eyes and a brain and has lived a few years. The question is, has the Creator made Himself known and if so, what do we need to do about it? The answer, again, obvious to most of the world for the past two thousand years, is that He has--through the Bible, and that we just need to do what He has said, namely, believe that Jesus is our Savior, repent of our sins, and follow Him in obedience and love. Our main task is to love God, love ourselves as His forgiven creation, and love others with that same unconditional love. Simple, right?

Wrong, unfortunately. As the previous blog post indicated, the Bible describes the spiritual forces of both good and evil that make up our world. We have to battle against that evil, from without and from within, constantly reminding ourselves that we are God's lovingly forgiven creation, and that He has given us all power and authority to carry out His will on earth, now and for eternity. We just have to know, understand, believe, and act on what He has said in His Word, and what He is speaking to us moment by moment through His Holy Spirit.

This is how we can make it though end times. Absolutely trusting the One who Created us and the entire universe so that we can overcome evil and live with Him forever, fulfilling the destiny for which He created us.

And that is why Creation matters!