Miracles or Singularities? Science and Faith
I have recently listened to an audio book by John Lennox called 7 Days that Divide the World. I will follow his argument in this blog. He notes miracles or singularites interchangeably for a reason. Read on.
First, he notes that the Bible says:
So when Copernicus said the earth moved in 1543, Christians pointed to such verses. Further, Christians noted that Joshua had the sun and moon stand still and not the earth. Even more so, they said if the earth moved fast than we should feel the wind. Hundreds of years past, and we Christians still have mud on our faces for that one.
Today, all Christians believe that the Earth moves and very fast. No one today believes that we have compromised the Bible by accepting a fast earth.
Today, we are fighting over old earth/new earth and macro evolution.
Scientists today have delineated several singularities in history: the start of the time space continuum, origin of life, and origin of consciousness are pertinent.
The scientists mean that we need a miracle in these places as the math does not add up.
We totally agree. They like to talk about miracles as singularities.
Miracles or Singularities? Science and Faith Are Coming Together
Did you know that Scientists have only in the last 100 years strongly accepted that the universe had a beginning? They now believe that space and time began with a big bang that created out of nothing 98% of all the material that would ever be in the universe.
They say that gravity and energy and time all came into being just like that in a singularity (miracle).
On another topic, Pasteur proved that life cannot come from non living things and modern medicine comes from that truth. Thus, the creation of life is a singularity that does not fit proven science.
Science is puzzled where consciousness comes from. (even the idea of information is not scientific) It is also a singularity though not as universally accepted. Some scientists says 98% of our DNA is the same as chimpanzees. Assuming that, chimps should be almost totally the same as us. Something is different and that is a kind of singularity. The Bible is clear that we are made from the dust of the ground. So, we are made by special creation. That is clear. The Bible is not clear on other macro evolution, so we do not need to stand or die here.
We do well to argue from these clear bases for faith and not argue over Genesis 1 which has always had widely different interpretations in the last 2000 years. It still does. The items above, scientists and Christians all agree. Let’s start there and not worry about the rest so much. God would have been more clear if he wanted to.
At the start of Matthew, he lists a perfect number of generations to Christ. Everyone has always known from then till now that he skipped a bunch of generations as did not have them or it was not useful to him. His main point is to art fully say Jesus was born a man. The genealogies in Genesis are also like this. Jews are not at all sure how many generations have been skipped. So, we are not pinned to any prehistoric time via the Bible. Let’s not try to make the Bible say something that it never cared to clarify.
Then we do not need to think 1 Samuel meant that the Earth is not moving.
For the foundations of the earth are the Lord’s;
on them he has set the world.
The Bible all says: In the beginning God….Scientists got there and can get farther if we start with this point of agreement in a supernatural event. (a singularity) Our non-Christian friends can meet us there to.