According to the Bible the universe was created about 6,000 years ago. Is this accurate? Why or why not? Also according to modern science the universe was created billions of years ago during the big bang. Which is correct? Why or why not?
Hi neostar,
I've long considered that God is a being of purpose and when I read through the Scriptures completely I can't help but to understand that the purpose of this realm in which we live was created for the purpose of man having life. The whole of the Scriptures is not about trees and rocks and hills and valleys or stars or planets. Although they may each be mentioned from time to time, I am convicted that the purpose of God creating this realm is that in the first moment that He began to build this realm, He was building it to be a place where He had already purposed in His heart to create man and provide all that this creature of His creating would need to have life.
Understanding that purpose allows me to sweep away all the claims of million/billion years of creation without man being in it. The God I know is more powerful and more awesome than that. Now, will the science of man misunderstand and come to the conclusion that what God has said is not true? Sure! That has, since the introduction of sin into God's created realm, been the natural inclination of man and encouraged by Satan. Did God really say?
Personally, I'm with you. The God I find revealed to me through the Scriptures is a God who can do what seems impossible to man. There are just so very many other events we are told of in the Scriptures that are just impossible for man to comprehend and believe because the natural properties of things will deny that they can happen.
That a deep sea (at least a hundred feet deep) can actually split apart with a wall of water congealed on both the left and right side as normal people just walk through on dry ground? Come on! Prove that! But, God tells us in His revelation of Himself and all that He has done working within His creation, that it did happen. Some woman, Miriam, it is accounted for us, sang a song to the Lord in praise of that event and described it just as that.
That in one night, all the firstborn of an entire city were just somehow found dead the next morning so that there was weeping and wailing throughout that city? Come on! Prove that! But God's word tells us that it is exactly what happened. How could that possibly be? What would make literally thousands of people, and cattle for that matter, who were only the firstborn of a family, be dead in the morning? No poison gas or any other natural means of death could possibly be so discriminating.
That on a day in the new land of Israel the sun did stand still in the sky for a fairly extended period of time? Surely the people of Israel were smart enough to have understood how the sun moved across the sky during the day and seemed to have obviously noticed that it was acting quite different than on previous days. But we all know that it's a physical impossibility, as we know the operation of our solar system, for the sun to appear to stand still in the sky for several hours. But God's word tells us that it happened. Will we believe what God's word says? Or, will we say in our hearts, "Did God really say?"
So, for me, I have no problem believing what God's word tells me about the creation event. Just as all the many, many other miracles in the Scriptures, I don't expect science to be able to prove how it happened, and in fact to offer up explanations that it couldn't have happened. "Did God really say?"
That's what the faithful children of God will understand. That with God all things are possible. My favorite question for those who deny that God has done what He claims to have done, based on man's scientific analysis, is for them to get science to explain how Jesus came to be born without the normal conception process of human egg and sperm. It's factually and scientifically impossible for Jesus to have been born to Mary in the manner in which the Scriptures describe if our only acceptance of the things that have been told to us in the Scriptures must be proven or disproved by science. So ultimately, as I see it, it boils down to who one believes has told us the truth. God or man?
Yes, I believe the sea parted miraculously in a manner and by a force that we will never understand nor be able to duplicate by our efforts. Yes, I believe the sun did stand still in the sky for a very long time one day in a manner and by a force that we will never understand or be able to duplicate by our efforts. Yes, I believe the Scriptures give us an accurate account that in six days God created the heavens and the earth and all that is in them. This came about in a manner and by a force that we will never understand or be able to duplicate by our efforts...except to agree that with God, all things are possible.
Now, I have read a few responses proclaiming that the creation event speaks only about our local earth and sky. I would ask just how believable is it really that in six days God could have even created just our local earth and sky. If He can do that in six days, why would He not also be able to have done the entire universe. Science is still going to tell you that even that localized creation event is impossible. You can't cover the entire earth with plants in a day. There is no force powerful enough on the earth to have brought the land out of the water in a day. There is absolutely nothing that can be proven through science that would have created all the creatures in the sea and the animals upon the land, in a day. So, there's really no sense in arguing that the creation event is so localized because science will tell that person that such an account is just as impossible as the other.
God bless,
ted