This is a fantastic interview with Professor John Lennox where he talks about Science, Atheism, God, Science and much more. About 44 minutes, but well worth watching.
Tag: creation
It always amazes me how much of creation we take for granted. We can hold in the palm of our hand, tiny little capsules that contain the entire information required for making a tree or plant . . . and they are tasty too! I don’t know if you ever bite a nut in half and wonder where all that information is stored? Maybe it’s just me – I’m the nut!
On a larger scale, When I look at the universe, it blows my mind how everything is just so spot on. It’s a bit like a Greggs cheese and onion pasty – Perfect puff pastry, a deliciously balanced filling of potato, cheese (just the right strength mind!), onion and seasoning. Baked to perfection and served at the optimum moment while the pastry is still light and crisp and the filling is still oozy warm, but not so hot it takes the skin off the roof of your mouth.
How is that incredible? Well everything had to be just right. You could take all those pasty ingredients and play with them all day and make nothing but gundge. The processes and timings are just as (if not more) important than the ingredients – not to mention the helpful hands making, baking and timing them.
In the same way, it’s not what is present in our universe that is so important, rather the way in which they have been brought together in finely-tuned way. In this Short clip, Professor John Lennox of Oxford University explains just one element that was crucial to get right at the beginning. Pay attention to the way he works out the probability of a chance happening. Then think about all the other millions of processes required and if you can, think what the compound result would be for them all happening by chance – then you are better than me.
I don’t believe in a random-chance ‘Greggs cheese and onion pasty’, so it stands to reason that I certainly won’t go there with our ‘fine-tuned’ universe. If a pasty needs a maker, why doesn’t a universe?
Well having had the pleasure of being off for the most of the summer, I thought I’d better slip something in before the end of August. We had a great camping trip to Cornwall and rounded it of with a regional NewFrontiers church weekend at Westpoint show ground in Exeter.
The kids enjoyed their sessions immensely, looking at world mission and there were some great sessions in the main arena with Terry Virgo bringing two notable sessions and a very animated Jeremy Simpkins on Saturday evening. I decided to forego the seminars as we had no food, so a trip to Tesco was inevitable.
There had been a session on ‘Answering Difficult Questions’ by Adrian Holloway, someone I had known best as an evangelist seeing many people make commitments of faith following his preaching. I was surprised to learn that during his seminar, he had been trying to reconcile the ‘billions of years’ associated with evolution, with the creation narrative of Genesis 1, using some old an tenuous arguments.
It concerns me, because I am hearing more and more of this within NewFrontiers and there seems to be a growing swell within the movement, ready to adopt this position .
It really perplexes me. Some of these guys stand dead firm on Scripture in the face of Islam, homosexuality, feminism and other contemporary issues, but just crumble at the knees when it comes to this issue. There’s a new wave of ‘progressive creationists’ that have accommodated this view regardless of the cost.
I was catching up on Niddriepastor’s blog from the summer and found this post last night which highlights the debate that is going on at the moment. Three helpful links, Al Mohler nailing his colours to the mast is a good one and one highlighting Sailhamer’s position which I had not previously encountered.
Basically, according to Sailhamer, we have to rethink our understanding of the word translated ‘beginning’ in Gen 1:1, that way, you can either accommodate billions of years or if you don’t like billions of years, don’t worry, the new understanding also allows for that. If I have understood correctly, Sailhamer’s his lexicographical gymnastics will allow for the best of both worlds.
Read my comments in Mez’s post if you want to know what I think about that.
When I read or hear some new (Or old/rehashed/re-badged/re-engineered) position regarding the Genesis 1 account, I ask myself the following questions.
1. Does this position deviate from a straight forward reading / exegesis of the passage?
2. Has this position arisen in order to accommodate an extra-Biblical idea?
3. Do we have to translate any of the Hebrew words in a new, obscure or ‘enlightened’ way or modify my understanding of root words?
4. Do I have to try and ‘insert’ something into the passage which is not plainly manifest in the text or the narrative of Scripture?
5. Does a new position move the foundations that other key doctrines that stand upon, having a significant knock-on effect to the way they can be understood?
There are more I could write, but you get the idea. If you are answering ‘yes’ to any of the above, then warning bells should be sounding in your ears.
It’s not that the world of science is at odds against the Bible, but we cannot be ignorant of the fact that a lot of popularised theories came about in order to explain a universe without God.
Sir Arthur Keith, Anthropologist and proponent of the ‘Piltdown Man’ Hoax has this famous quote attributed to him:
“Evolution is unproven and unprovable, but the only alternative is special creation and that would be unthinkable!”
Whether or not he actually said it is up for grabs, but I think therein lies a strong thread of what is out there today. A lot of these popular scientist do not want God. They hate God and they have ruled Him out of the equation altogether. The door has been bolted firmly shut and no-one wants to open it, otherwise they would be put out of the ‘club’.
Why then is there a tour de force within the evangelical church to marry up to this thinking? What I see happening is tantamount to marrying your wife’s murderer.
When all has been said and done, at the end of all time, you will stand and give account to the one who was there at the beginning. I hope you’re going to be telling Him that you believed Him and no-one else.
Well it is finally upon us – the gospel according to Dawkins. He will finally reveal the truth to us.
In the God Delusion, Richard went about demonstrating how people who believed in God are, erm . . . deluded.
Now he has followed this up with his next great work ‘The Magic of Reality’ subtitled ‘How we know what is really true.’
In the pre-release blurb, Professor Dawkins has gone to great lengths to clear up misconceptions people have in answering some deep questions such as: What are things made of? What is the sun?
Why is there night and day, winter and summer? Why do bad things happen? Are we alone?
We stupid people of planet earth have come up with some ridiculous ideas such as: the sun hatched out of an emu’s egg or what about the great catfish that carries the world on its back? Has anyone ever told you that earthquakes are caused by a sneezing giant? . . . . but what is the real answer to such questions?
Well if you were led astray by that kind of thinking, then Richard is going to put us straight. Using nothing but his far superior intellect, he will demonstrate ‘The Magic of Reality’, with its explanations of space, time, evolution and more . . . . and this time he’s had the graciousness to add pictures for the really stupid people which in his view I guess is Christians.
If you’re really lucky, you can catch a night of him doing the book at the RAH in the near future.
There are good reasons why i am not a ‘Young Earth Creationist’ and they can be found here
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