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First, we need to define natural law, or laws of nature, from a biblical standpoint. “I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity, I am the Lord, who does all these things” (Isaiah 45:7). Let us take this seriously. Everything that happens, happens because God does it. God is so powerful that He has no need to make use of anything automatic. Natural laws are not automatic mechanisms by which God saves Himself labor. Things that happen repetitively are things God does the same way every time, both to demonstrate His faithfulness and to make it possible for humans to live in a reasonably predictable world. In light of this, a miracle is nothing special to God; He just does something different than usual, that is all. God is free to change his usual working, working that presents to us the appearance of natural law, as He pleases. As the mechanism in an automobile engine repeats the same motions over and over hundreds of times a minute, or as the electrons in a computer chip do the same thing over and over billions of times a second, it is not due to the power of some created natural law; rather God is demonstrating His faithfulness and goodness to us. For the sake of simplicity, with this understanding, we will continue to use natural law as a convenient term for God’s usual manner of working in His created universe.
Most significantly, during God’s creation work, natural laws must have changed rapidly at times. Not only did the natural laws change, but the material on which those laws operated changed rapidly as well. In other words, as the inputs to natural laws changed, the outputs would also have changed, even if the operative laws were stable, which was not necessarily the case. “Thus says God, the Lord, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people on it and spirit to those who walk in it” (Isaiah 42:5). “The oracle of the word of the Lord concerning Israel: Thus declares the Lord, who stretched out the heavens and founded the earth and formed the spirit of man within him” (Zechariah 12:1). The very fact that God stretched out the heavens, changing the very shape and size of the universe, fatally destroys any confidence in historical astronomical predictions back to creation. The same kind of thing must be said for historical geology since God also formed and reshaped the earth.
Suppose you see your neighbor far down the street, walking. You can time him as he walks a known distance, then estimate his departure time from his house next door. But what if, unknown to you, another neighbor gave him a ride most of the way? Your time estimate would be way off. Just as the second neighbor destroyed your time estimate, God destroyed historical astronomy and cosmogony when He stretched out the heavens. Calculations relating the speed of light to astronomical distance are useless because the universe rapidly changed shape as God stretched it out. This analogy does not answer all questions, but many other factors also would have come into play during the process of creation.
Now consider a fantasy of two scientists taking a time machine back to day seven, when God was resting after His creation. The Genesis account strongly implies God created adult animals, the more so since He created mature fruit trees able to produce edible fruit. So one scientist examines an adult mouse and concludes that the mouse is around two months old. The other examines an adult elephant and concludes that the elephant is about twelve years old. Then they meet Adam and suppose he is around twenty years old. Adam tells the scientists both animals are only about a day old. The scientists reply, “That is crazy. Do you think we were born yesterday?” Adam replies, “Well, I was born yesterday and it seems to have done me no harm.”
Creating adult animals and humans ready to reproduce themselves was simply God’s choice. There was no reason He could not have created babies and nursed and reared them up to adulthood. Likewise, although it is useless to speculate why, it appears God created an “adult” (for lack of a better term) universe for good reasons known to Himself. Thus, astronomers are able to currently observe the formation of new stars and the deaths of old stars. The difference between the supposed ages of the mouse and elephant illustrate additional difficulties in applying current observations to the age of the universe besides discontinuities and changes introduced by the process of creation.
There were at least two other events in biblical history that throw doubt on historical extrapolation from current natural laws and conditions. The first was the fall of Adam and the consequent curse. Judging by failed Mars missions,54 the curse extends at least throughout the solar system, and probably the universe. Work is now toilsome, childbirth greatly painful, agriculture difficult, and marriage takes much work to make a go of it. Trees no longer impart knowledge, and snakes no longer have legs. How did God make these changes? Did He change natural laws, the material on which those laws operate, or both? We have no idea, but in any event, there must be unknown discontinuities affecting historical extrapolations.
The flood of Noah ran the earth through the washing machine, then the clothes dryer. From that tangled mess of laundry, so to speak, God raised up brand-new ecologies throughout the world, surely a great and major work in many ways similar to the original creation. Formerly, there were no rainbows; now there are. Formerly people lived for centuries; now to reach the century mark in age is rare. God put the fear of man in animals,55 and gave animals to other animals and humans as food. This may imply that some kinds of food plants became extinct during the flood, possibly resulting in some animal extinctions also. Throughout the flood and dry-out events, how much did God change natural laws? And how much did God change the material of nature on which natural laws operate? We do not know, but there were certainly changes and these changes also introduced unknown changes that make historical extrapolations very problematic.
Let us let God summarize this section for us: “That which has been is far off, and deep, very deep; who can find it out?” (Ecclesiastes 7:24)
The fundamental condition of the universe and Earth as we observe them today is not the same as it was when God created it. It is impossible to analyze miracles using natural laws. Thus, starting with faith in God and His Word, we have used the Holy Bible and sanctified common sense to show that scientific theories of origins not only do not, but cannot disprove the Genesis account of creation. And, by using the power of God’s Word and wisdom instead of human wisdom, we did it with very little scientific knowledge. We next examine the problems caused by unverifiable assumptions and coincidences.
54“By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:19). Experience tells us that getting things accomplished is universally painful to one degree or another, no matter where you go. Neil Armstrong barely had enough fuel to avoid landing Eagle on rocks that could have tipped it over. Vehicles get stuck on Earth and vehicles get stuck on Mars. Mechanics drop tools on Earth and spacewalkers “drop” tools into a different orbit than theirs. Examples abound.
55According to one wildlife refuge worker, large predators will attack humans out of fear; they want to eliminate the threat. Except for polar bears, most predators will hunt humans for food only due to inability to obtain other game.
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