Scripture and Geologists

[ChristianTrader]

I found a wonderful article that I just had to share.

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Theb...davis_a_3.html

It stands well on its own but to make sure that no one thinks that I am trying to hide anything:

Here are links to the two part article that the above link was in response to:

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Theb...davis_a_1.html
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Theb...davis_a_2.html

Also the author of the original work tried to respond to the above critique here:

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Theb...davis_a_4.html

But I believe that he failed miserably.

CT

[Lion]

I have read, albeit in a hasty manner the first article you referenced, enough to get the tenor of the article. It seems well written, pointing out the difference between the attitude of secular scientists who look at the world from the standpoint of what is here now and totally discounting the possibility of divine intervention, IE a miracle.

If we take the here and now as the criterion, it seems we are sure to be led astray. For example take the shift in the earth’s crust that caused the tidal wave in south Asia. Now I recognize that the result of the shift probably was a natural result of changes in the structure of the earth. But where do we draw the line between a divinely caused miracle and the natural course of events? Could God set a chain of events in motion that seems perfectly natural to us, yet was divinely ordained? I ask that question, knowing that it cannot be answered.

Science has speculated that a heavenly body, an asteroid perhaps, caused the demise of a lot of animal life some 65 million years ago. I don’t accept the date, but the conjecture suits my purposes. It is known that the path of comets and other heavenly bodies can be predicted years in advance, once the path is known. But often an unknown comet is discovered. Hale-Bopp, for instance.

Now I refer to a text.
Gen. 6:3 Then the LORD said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh; nevertheless his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.”

Could God have known when a comet or other body would strike the eath? The creator surely knows the rules of planetary motion. He plainly said, 120 years. The collision, if that was the cause of the flood, was predicted. It was a naturally occuring event. The fact that God knew in advance is not relevant.

Now we have a naturally ocurring event. What was the effect? We have to examine the construction of the earth to get an idea of the cataclysm that might have happened.

The earth is not as solid as it might seem. Seismographic evidence has revealed that the earth has a solid core. Surrounding the core is the matle, a semimolten layer of what is essentially magma, the stuff that comes out of volcanoes. The crust, the part we live on, is proportionatly as thin as an apple peeling. The crust floats on the mantle. A mountain range sinks deeper into the mantle than a sea level land. For every hundred feet of elevation increase the land sinks about 70 feet deeper into the mantle.

The earth as described in Genesis 2 was probably fairly low lying because it did not rain. A mist watered the earth. There was a river that rose from a single source and branched four ways. The polar axis must have been nearly vertical with respect to the orbital plane because the first mention of seasons and heat and cold is in Gen 8:22.

We mentioned that some impact or collision must have occurred to throw the earth off balance. An investigaion by Sager and Koppers of the University of Texas indicated that the north pole had wandered as far as the north part of Norway. Whatever had hit the earth and tipped it that much must have been a solid blow. Now the earth is tllted 23.5 degrees,

Coming back to the cause of the tidal wave in Asia, If a simple shift in the crust of the earth caused that much death and destruction, what would something powerful enough to tilt the earth that much do? It would have a devastating effect on the entire globe.

Gen. 7:11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the same day all the fountains of the great deep burst open, and the floodgates of the sky were opened.

What would this mean? After world war 2 there was a lot of deep sea exploration. There was a dicovery of a midocean ridge in the middle ofthe atlantic. In fact there was a 44,000 mile long ridge that circles the earth, with a branch that extends along the 120th meridian up through Los Angeles and San Francisco. That explains why that area has so many earthquakes. There is what is called the ninety east ridge that was the cause of the disaster in Sumatra.

The long ridge that circles the earth appears to be a remnant of the fountains of the great deep. The ridge is volcanic. putting out lava and sometimes putting out streams of black colored water at 700 degrees. If the earth was tipped enough to settle at the present orientation there is no way to predict what might have happened to the original continent. All we can do is look at the earth as it is now. What do we see? We see that Africa and South America seem they were once joined. The string of small islands between the tip of South America and the Antarctic penninsula appear that South America and Antarctica have been rotated.

That plate tectonics exists there is no doubt. The conntinents are slowly drifting seems to be a fact.
the Atlantic is widening about an inch a year. Uniformitarian geologists would have us believe that since the Atlantic is about three million inches wide that it took three million years. But the Bible story is that it all happened in one year.

There is more evidence yet. The Atlantic is shallow a long way out, showing that the Atlantic was more of a filling in process, while the Pacific is deep a short way off shore all around the sea. This shows that both the Americas and Asia have slid to cover up the ocean bottom.

The geologists have theorized that volcanoes erupt when the sea is subducted under a continental plate. It would not matter if the continent slid or the ocean floor spread,the result is the same. There is a string of volcanoes all around the Pacifc.

The qestion is whom are we to belive, the uniformitarian geologists or the Bible. The geologosts deny intervention by a God who made the earth, while the evolutionary geologists say it just happened by accident. There are two opposing forces in the world, God and Satan. Satan is saying it just happened and God says I created it. Which will you beieve?

[dtyler]

I have read, albeit in a hasty manner the first article you referenced, enough to get the tenor of the article. It seems well written, pointing out the difference between the attitude of secular scientists who look at the world from the standpoint of what is here now and totally discounting the possibility of divine intervention, IE a miracle.

The article by Byl is worth reading. It does not get into technicalities, which will not please some, but it does explain why people who want to build their intellectual lives on the Bible need to step out of the mindset which says "God has nothing to do with scholarship". The reference to "secular scientists" will tread on the toes of some. This is because the essay is written in response to David Young, who is an academic and a Christian geologist. No one likes to be told that they are failing to think "biblically" - but that is the inference of what Byl writes. Many Christians today have become secularised in their thinking - and this is damaging to the Church of Christ.

The qestion is whom are we to belive, the uniformitarian geologists or the Bible. The geologosts deny intervention by a God who made the earth, while the evolutionary geologists say it just happened by accident. There are two opposing forces in the world, God and Satan. Satan is saying it just happened and God says I created it. Which will you beieve?

Whilst it is true that there is a spiritual battle between God and Satan, it is important for us to distinguish between what the Bible reveals and our own "models" about the past (some aspects of which you mention in your post). The latter refers to science, whether "secular" or "biblically-based". Christians have erred in confusing the two areas and affirming a divine authority for the thoughts of humans. Whatever we affirm, we need to do it in humility and recognising that science is always subject to revision and change.

[Lion]

There are three types of geologists, those who believe God created the earth and that God destroyed the previous world by a flood, the results of which are evident in the earth. The second kind don't believe God created anything, that the earth evolved out of some primeordial soup. The third kind is a sort of mix of the other two and I don't really know what they believe. They are the thestic evolutionists.

[kofh2u]

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