by Dr. Sarah Salviander
Table of Contents
Introduction
Section 1 The Legal Standard of Proof
Chapter 1 How Do We Prove Something
Chapter 2 The Evidence
Chapter 3 Proof Beyond Any Reasonable Doubt that God Exists
Section 2 The Scientific Standard of Proof: Astronomy, Cosmology and Physics
Chapter 4 Science and the Six Days of Creation
Chapter 5 The Principle of Mediocrity vs. a Creator Who Cares
Chapter 6 The Big Bang, the Multiverse and the Bible
Chapter 7 Are Biblical Miracles Unscientific Superstitions
Section 3 The Scientific Standard of Proof: The Historical Evidence
Chapter 8 Is Genesis 1 a Myth Borrowed from Earlier Myths
Chapter 9 Have Christians Tried to Hold Back Science Since the Time of Galileo
Section 4 The Scientific Standard of Proof: The Biological Evidence
Chapter 10 Did Darwin Disprove God
Chapter 11 The Scientific Case Against Darwinism
Section 5 Science and Christianity
Chapter 12 World History 101: The World Before Science
Chapter 13 Christianity and the Age of Science
Section 6 Now that you know God exists
Chapter 14 World History 102: The Great Spiritual, Cultural and Scientific Divide
Chapter 15 What Kind of Person Will You Choose to Be
Chapter 16 Is There a Substitute for God
Conclusion
About the author
If someone is trying to persuade you about something really important, it helps to have a good idea of who that person is before you invest time and effort in reading their arguments. I have a PhD in astrophysics and worked as a research scientist at a major university for 16 years. I am currently a professor of physics at another university. I was raised as an atheist in a country that had become predominately secular. I became a Christian because of all the incredible things I learned in graduate school about our amazing universe.
My father went to school and college from the early 1950s until 1970. This was a time when mainstream science was largely in conflict with Christian beliefs and faith. Dad was taught that God was an ancient unscientific myth. He was taught in school that he was a somewhat intelligent descendant of apes, that he lived on what amounted to an insignificant chunk of rock hurtling through a vast, cold, eternal and uncaring universe, that he had no soul and his awareness of himself was just the result of a bunch of chemical reactions in his brain, that this one life is all he would ever have, and there was no use wondering why. In college, he studied human behavior and was taught by the Marxists that religion is just a means to oppress people. He was taught by the Freudians that belief in God was the result of unresolved, unconscious adolescent daddy issues that a person needed to be cured of. Finally, he was taught by existentialists that his only hope for happiness was to create his own world and pursue as much pleasure as possible.
As a result, Dad had zero interest in any religion. He never even glanced at any scriptures because he was sure they were just silly, ancient, unscientific scribblings. He can’t remember ever opening a Bible. Father became a soft atheist who felt no need to actively promote disbelief, he was just certain there is no god. He was also a ‘lazy’ atheist who put little effort into developing his views on religion or the supernatural. So, my brother and I were raised as atheists.
My father loved math and science because he saw them as the ultimate source of knowledge and truth. He passed this devotion to science on to both of his kids. My brother developed a keen interest in airplanes and flight by the time he was five or six. My brainy little bro began winning science fairs soon after that. He eventually earned a PhD in aeronautic engineering and works today as a professional engineer, inventor and business owner.
I became obsessed with outer space after my dad took me to my first Star Wars movie on my ninth birthday. I grew up on Star Wars, Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica. I made the transition from science fiction to science fact when I watched Carl Sagan’s wonderful Cosmos series. I went on to earn a PhD in astrophysics from the University of Texas. I’ve spent my adult life doing research on super massive black holes and quasars and working as a professor of physics.
Something strange happened as my brother and I were both doing graduate work. Independently of each other and without my father knowing, we both became Christians. The end of my atheism came on a beautiful summer day as I was walking across the campus at U.C. San Diego. I had just attended a class on black holes and was thinking about all the amazing things I had just learned when the following thought jumped into my mind, “all of this can’t have happened by accident.” That was my first step on the path to God. My father had taught me to love truth, and the scientific search for truth led me to God because He is the ultimate truth and source of all other truth.
My brother went through something similar when he held his newborn son in his arms for the first time. He remembers thinking, “I can’t endure the thought he will die one day.” Now, as a Christian, he knows that all his children can look forward to eternal life.
Ever since we found Christ, we’ve been working on our dad. I made him aware of the many changes that have taken place in science during the last 60 years since he graduated from high school. These incredible advances in knowledge are the result of a boom in modern technology – huge telescopes, deep space satellites, advanced microscopes and countless other wonderful scientific devices. These scientific advances are so profound they amount to a second stage in the scientific revolution.
Starting with the Big Bang Theory, which was confirmed in the mid-1960s, the relationship between science and scriptures has made a one-hundred-eighty-degree turnaround. Before the Big Bang, most scientists believed our universe was eternal and uncaused. Science now confirms the first ten words of the Bible, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” It is now an established scientific fact that our world had a beginning and came about through an act of creation [something occurring from nothing]. Throughout the rest of the 20th century and the early 21st century, every scientific objection to Christian beliefs has been proven false. My father was largely unaware until just the past few years that most of the science he learned as a student has been overthrown.
The big breakthrough with my father came through the work of a man named Gerald Schroeder who wrote an amazing book titled The Science of God. Dad was put off by the title because he still felt that science and God don’t go together. But Gerald has a PhD in physics from MIT which Dad recognized was a significant achievement. So he somewhat grudgingly agreed to look at the book.
The first thing that caught my father’s eye was Schroeder’s assertion that he could explain how the Genesis 1 six-day account of creation is both literally true and consistent with modern science. Dad thought that was an astonishingly absurd claim because all of the scientific evidence shows that the universe is about 14 billion years old [we astrophysicists says 13.78 billion years]. But he was curious enough to read that part of Gerald’s book and ended up reading the whole thing.
It turns out that in running across Schroeder, my father and I had the good fortune of finding a truly great thinker. I had learned from my studies of the pioneers of science that real genius has two parts that are simple to understand but hard to do: 1) the ability to ask original and important questions and 2) the ability to answer those questions. For instance, when Einstein was a teenager he wondered what it would be like to chase after a beam of light. That question eventually led to his magnificent theories of relativity. Schroeder also accomplished both parts of genius. He began by expressing a thought no one else ever had: could the relative nature of time discovered by Albert Einstein be relevant to the question of the age of the universe? Schroeder’s answer was yes, and he was able to back it up scientifically.
Schroeder based his argument on one of Einstein’s best known and truly remarkable findings – time is not absolute, it is relative. This means how people perceive and measure time always depends on their perspective – different perspectives result in different measurements. So far, so good—no serious scientist disputes this. Schroeder argued that if we apply Einstein’s understanding of time to the question of how old the universe is, we first have to decide what our perspective is. If we calculate the age of the universe in the usual way from an Earthly perspective looking back in time, the evidence shows that our world is about 14 billion years old just like we scientists claim. But to be scientifically precise, that is 14 billion Earth years.
Schroeder’s great insight was his realization that Genesis 1 tells the story of our world’s creation from a different perspective. So smart! The first page of the Bible tells the story of creation from a universal perspective as it was happening. That is vastly different from our Earthly perspective, and, according to Einstein’s theory, it requires a different calculation. Schroeder then demonstrated his complete genius by finding a way to do a scientific calculation of the age of the universe from this other perspective. He used the cosmic microwave background radiation [CMBR] that was the evidence used to confirm the Big Bang as his universal clock and came up with a period of time that is equivalent to just under six total Earth days. Dad and I realized that if that is true, it would confirm a crucial part of the Genesis account of creation that most people vigorously reject.
Even though Schroeder’s scientific arguments and mathematics appeared correct, neither of us could get over our stunned disbelief. In my initial reading of his book, I could find no fault with what he claimed, but I just couldn’t accept it. I was so used to thinking in the conventional way about the age of the universe, it didn’t seem possible he could be right. Fortunately, my training and experience made it possible for me to do a rigorous review of Schroeder’s science and math along with his translations of scriptures. I was busy with my other studies and research, so it took me over two years to do what amounted to a peer review of The Science of God.
After an exhaustive examination of his science and math and my own study of ancient and medieval translations of Hebrew scriptures, my father and I were compelled by the evidence to conclude that Schroeder is scientifically correct. While the universe is about 14 billion years old looking back in time from our Earthly perspective, its universal age is very different.
Schroeder found a means to measure the age of our world through universal time, and, when you do something roughly similar to a kilometers to miles conversion, it matches the six days of the Genesis account of creation. It turns out that the Old-Earth and Young-Earth views of creation are both partially true while the atheist critics of the Bible, like my father and me before reading Schroeder, are completely wrong scientifically. I am forever grateful to Gerald Schroeder and amazed by him for doing what he did. Chapter Four of this book is a condensed version of his argument for a literal explanation of the six days of creation, but it is only presented as an introduction to Schroeder’s work. You should buy and read his book.
The Science of God was the turning point that made Dad aware of how little he actually knew about the Bible and 21st century science. He had to face the embarrassing truth that his lifelong atheism and antipathy toward Christianity had always been based on ignorance, prejudice and what has turned out to be a lot of incorrect science. He realized that he could never understand or have anything worthwhile to say about the Bible until he actually read it and fairly tested its claims against current science instead of the outdated science he had been taught.
So, at that point in his life, Dad faced one of the most important decisions he’d ever have to make – would he be reasonable or unreasonable. If my father clung to his old familiar comfortable beliefs and didn’t take Schroeder’s compelling evidence seriously, his initial prejudice against the Bible would degenerate into outright bigotry, which is the really bad thing that happens when people ignore evidence and refuse to let go of their prejudices. So, with my help he decided to take his first ever look at the Bible starting at the beginning with the Genesis 1 account of creation. He grumbled because he still expected to find a bunch of silly primitive beliefs mostly at odds with modern science.
Dad was shocked when he found that Genesis 1 is nothing like what people of his age had been led to believe it is. I will explain in this book what we discovered – that Genesis 1 is in fact totally and remarkably scientific. Then together we took an even closer look at the relation between science and scripture, and the results turned our world inside out. Without trying or meaning to, we found – more like stumbled onto – scientific proof of God’s existence.
Dad and I both remain dedicated defenders of the scientific method, so we will not use the word ‘proof’ lightly. It is meant in its highest, most rigorous and profoundly scientific sense. My father is a former atheist who now believes in God to the same degree he believes in Newton’s three laws of motion and the Second Law of Thermodynamics. As a true supporter of science, he had to follow the evidence where it leads: God of the Bible is a scientific fact.
My father and I have worked together in the writing of this book. It will introduce you to some of the basics of 21st century science and demonstrate how it agrees with the Bible. By the end of the book you will know beyond any reasonable or scientific doubt that God does exist, the first page of the Bible is literally true, and that Christianity is the spiritual basis of almost all human progress.
We hope it helps you in your search for truth. What you decide to do with this new knowledge is up to you.
Section One The Legal Standard of Proof
The first section of this book will prove beyond any reasonable doubt that God of the Bible exists.
Chapter One will explain what we mean by “proof” and “prove”—that is, how proof is defined and by what standard it will be judged. This needs to be done so you can be confident that what you’re reading is a legitimate proof rather than some silly waste of your time.
The next two chapters will accomplish the first level of proof at the legal standard of ‘beyond a reasonable doubt.’ Chapter Two will present the scientific evidence, and Chapter Three will make the argument in favor of God’s existence. This book will provide evidence that is far more compelling than anything ever presented in a court of law.
Christians have tried for ages to find concrete evidence for God. They have looked out into the vastness of space, because they were told by the Bible in Psalm 19: The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. Astronomers and physicists have found serious evidence that the universe is intelligently designed. But for most people the argument from design on its own falls short of a compelling proof of God.
Geneticists have looked in the opposite direction, at the infinitesimal structures of living things. They have succeeded in unraveling many of the mysteries of DNA—the incredible code on which all life on Earth is based. Here, too, Christians have found evidence of intelligent design, since a magnificent code like DNA seems to require a magnificent coder. But again, this evidence falls short of providing a final, irrefutable proof for God’s existence. So the argument goes on and on.
While the separate branches of science have failed on their own to find compelling evidence of God’s existence, this book will explain how everything that science as a whole has achieved over the last four centuries has finally made it possible to build a complete scientific proof of God’s existence that is beyond any reasonable or scientific doubt.
This ultimate proof is not ‘out there.’ People have been looking in the wrong directions. The proof of God’s existence has always been right in front of us, as truth so often is. God in His infinite wisdom put it in the one place that is accessible to everyone on Earth. What you are about to learn over the next three chapters will shake your world. All it will take to understand what the book is about to tell you is an open mind and a little effort.
Chapter 1 How Do We Prove Something
Unless you are a remarkably lucky person, you have experienced the sharp disappointment of someone promising to do something really important and then not following through. Now you have the authors of this book promising something almost unbelievable – to prove scientifically that God exists. It would be foolish not to be highly skeptical.
No one wants to be cheated out of the cost of a hyped-up book that turns out to be a fraud. That obviously will not happen with the portion of the book presented on this website. But what would hurt so much more is to invest time, effort and hope in this book and find that it falls even a little bit short of its promise. Either this book succeeds in proving the existence of God beyond any reasonable and scientific doubt, or it fails. There is no in-between where we can claim to have offered something of value. So to be clear, this book will succeed in proving that God of the Bible exists.
To reassure readers this is not some vague, empty, ill-conceived, delusional or deceptive promise, this opening chapter will clearly state all of the following:
- The definition of ‘proof’ and ‘prove’ that will be used throughout the book
- The high standard of proof that will be met
- A clear statement that the author of this book accepts the complete burden of proof
- Who the jury will be that decides whether a proof of God has been accomplished
Anyone who is not satisfied by the standard of proof this book aims at can quit reading with little time and effort lost.
1. Defining ‘Proof’ and ‘Prove’
This book will prove that God exists. From here on, when the word ‘God’ is used, it means God of the Bible.
The words prove and proof will never be used lightly or misleadingly. They are meant in the truest, highest and strictest sense of the words.
Merriam-Webster defines proof this way: the cogency of evidence that compels acceptance by the mind of a truth or a fact. Cogent is the key word, and it means clear, relevant, forceful, logical and convincing. (emphasis added)
Free Dictionary.com defines proof in a similar manner: evidence or argument that compels the mind to accept an assertion as true. (emphasis added)
Everything you read in this book will be true, cogent, irrefutable and, most importantly, compelling beyond any reasonable or scientific doubt.
2. Standards of Proof
There are three standards of proof currently used for important matters in modern societies.
The lowest level of proof is commonly used in civil courts where matters of money are decided. The standard of proof in civil disputes is the preponderance of the evidence. For one side to win, it has to demonstrate that its case is probably true. This standard of proof can be expressed mathematically as at least a 51 out of 100 chance of being right. So to win in civil court you simply have to convince a judge or jury that you have more evidence in your favor than the other side does. This level of proof is sufficient to settle disputes over huge sums of money.
The standard of proof in criminal courts is higher because people’s freedom and lives are at stake. Another difference is that criminal cases start with a default position – defendants are deemed innocent unless and until they are proven guilty. Then, for prosecutors to win their cases, they must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a person is guilty of something. This means there can be no other plausible explanation given the evidence presented.
The standard of ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ can often be expressed mathematically. The prosecution could offer fingerprint evidence that science says has at most a 1 out of 64 billion chance of identifying the wrong person. Either side in a criminal case can offer DNA evidence and argue scientifically that the chances of two people having the same exact gene sequence is something less than 1 out of 100 billion. Judges at all levels of the justice system have consistently ruled that the science of fingerprints and DNA is acceptable, and that numbers of this magnitude satisfy the requirement to leave no reasonable doubt.
However, prosecutors in criminal cases don’t have to explain all of the evidence. For example there could be a murder trial where the defendant has what appears to be a solid alibi, but his DNA was found under the victims fingernails and his fingerprints are on the murder weapon. Under the standard of ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ the jury can conclude that the alibi is somehow unreliable and vote to convict on the basis of the high probabilities involved in the physical evidence.
The scientific standard of proof is more rigorous than both of the legal standards. For something to be proven scientifically the evidence must compel beyond a reasonable doubt the same as in a criminal trial, but the argument must also explain all of the evidence. In science, there is no equivalent to disregarding the alibi evidence – it too must be accounted for.
The reason for this higher standard is the harsh lesson humankind learned during the two thousand years before the Copernican Revolution that gave birth to modern science in the 1600s. From the first time humans looked up at the heavens and wondered how their world worked, most people believed the Earth was the center of the universe. By the time of the great thinkers of ancient Greece, this belief was formalized as the geocentric [earth-centered] theory of the universe. The evidence for this theory seemed obvious and compelling to ancient people: they could see the objects in the heavens appear to be revolving around the Earth, the Earth seemed to be the largest object in the universe, and they couldn’t feel the Earth moving.
But there was a problem with the geocentric theory that ancient observers became aware of more than 2400 years ago. There were five objects in the heavens visible to the unaided eye that did not go where they should if they were orbiting the Earth. The ancient Greeks called them planets, which meant ‘wanderers.’ This evidence should have caused the ancient observers to seriously question and ultimately reject their geocentric view of the world, but few of them did because they were so intellectually and emotionally attached to this false belief.
The Big Bang Theory, which many scientists consider the greatest scientific discovery ever, was confirmed by evidence discovered in the mid-1960s. Scientists calculate this evidence has a 1 out of 3.5 million chance of being wrong. The 3.5 million number results in what scientists call ‘a high level of confidence’ which is their version of no reasonable doubt. The extremely low 1 out of 3.5 million odds compelled most astrophysicists to accept the theory. Again, the discovery of the Big Bang was the beginning of what amounts to a second stage of the scientific revolution that has taken place during the last 60 years.
The Big Bang Theory illustrates something important about the acquisition of knowledge that all of us have to be aware of. No person, not even the best scientist, can ever achieve, hope for or demand absolute 100% certainty about anything in our world. That standard of proof outside of the field of pure mathematics would freeze humankind into a perpetual state of immobility where we would be unable to reach any conclusion about anything or take any action. What we can do is achieve the scientific level of proof where our minds are compelled to accept things as true just like we do now with the helio-centric view of our solar system and the Big Bang model of the universe. If all of our reasonable scientific doubts about some new idea are removed by the evidence, if we become at least 99.99997% sure as we are with the Big Bang, we can consider it proven and then proceed in ways that will increase our understanding, abilities and well-being. That has been the story of human progress.
This book will commit to achieving the scientific level of proof which includes both the criminal court standard of ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ and the scientific necessity to explain all of the evidence. This book’s proof of God will be far more compelling than even the proof for the Big Bang. Anything less will be counted as a failure.
3. Burden of Proof
The third issue to resolve is the question of who bears the burden of proof. In other words, who has to prove what? In more direct language, the question is whether my dad and I will play games with readers by trying to weasel out of having to substantiate some of our claims? The answer is no.
Law and science pretty much agree on the burden of proof. The Law Times Journal explains burden of proof this way:
“The general principle, when it concerns the burden of proof, is that the person who makes a particular assertion has the onus of proving the same.” [emphasis added]
Since this book is making the particularly bold assertion that modern science can prove that God exists, we as the authors have and must accept the complete burden to prove it.
Definitions.net adds this about the legal burden of proof:
“The burden of proof is the obligation resting on a party in a trial to produce the evidence that will shift the conclusion away from the default position to one’s own position…He who does not carry the burden of proof carries the benefit of assumption, meaning he needs no evidence to support his claim. Fulfilling the burden of proof effectively captures the benefit of assumption, passing the burden of proof off to another party.” (emphasis added}
Science agrees that someone proposing a new idea that goes against commonly accepted beliefs has the burden of proof to overthrow the current [default] position and can only establish the new idea through compelling evidence that results in a sufficiently high level of confidence. This raises the next important question: is there a current default position on the science of God’s existence that removes any of the burden of proof from this book?
In order to fully accomplish the goals of this book, we accept the least favorable position on the question of who has the burden of proof in regard to God’s existence. This book acknowledges that the atheist proposition – science raises grave doubts that God exists – is the current default position for most people. That means atheists currently enjoy the presumption of ‘right until proven wrong.’
The reality this book must confront is that over the last 160 years, atheists have succeeded in convincing most people [including me for most of my life] that science and the idea of God are, at the very least, incompatible. In both popular and legal opinion, atheists have succeeded in shifting the burden of proof to Christians in any effort to prove that the idea of God’s existence is something that science should even be concerned with at all, let alone be able to prove. That is why courts have ruled that creation science cannot be taught in school.
A typical statement of the atheistic default position is provided by Austin Cline published on www. learnreligions.com June 25, 2019:
“All such statements are shorthand for a more elaborate and technical explanation, which is that this alleged entity (or God) has no place in any scientific equations, plays no role in any scientific explanations, cannot be used to predict any events, does not describe anything or force that has yet been detected, and there are no models of the universe in which its presence is either required, productive, or useful.”
Victor J. Stenger was a Ph.D. in physics, a research scientist, professor, and advocate of the New Atheism of the 21st century. In his 2008 book titled “God: The Failed Hypothesis—How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist,” Stenger offers the following scientific test for the existence of God:
Step 1: Hypothesize a God who plays an important role in the universe
Step 2: Assume that this God has specific attributes that provide objective evidence for his existence
Step 3: Look for this evidence with an open mind
Step 4: If such evidence is found, conclude that God may exist
Step 5: If such objective evidence is not found, conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that a God with these properties does not exist
Stenger argued that if God exists, there should be solid evidence of His existence. This evidence would have to be tangible and measurable. It is a sound argument.
We fully accept Dr. Stenger’s challenge to provide evidence so compelling that it will overthrow the New Atheists’ belief that science has shown God does not exist. This book will follow Stenger’s first four steps in his proposed scientific test for the existence of God, and because it will succeed at providing compelling evidence amounting to a scientific level of proof for God’s existence, the fifth step will be unnecessary. This book will go further by refuting every major scientific argument atheists have against a belief in God, and by doing so, we will go beyond proving, in Stenger’s words, that “God may exist” to establishing that God does exist.
This in turn will also prove that atheism and agnosticism are now scientifically indefensible. In fact, atheism will be found guilty of what it accuses Christianity of – being not only unscientific but also anti-scientific.
4. Who is the Jury
If someone makes a promise to prove something, the final question has to be, ‘prove it to whom’?
The easiest goal to aim this book at would be to convince people who already believe in God that there is a scientific proof of His existence. That would be a useful goal, but a legitimate proof can only be one that is also found compelling by some substantial number of people who doubted God’s existence before the proof is made. To that end, the goal could be to persuade everyone who is ‘reasonable,’ ‘open-minded’ and ‘takes science seriously.’ The problem with this objective is that almost everyone considers themselves to be that kind of person, even those who clearly are not.
The simplest and grandest ambition would be to convince everyone. But that is an unattainable goal and an unfair test of this book’s efforts because some people will reject the idea of God no matter how much legitimate evidence is presented or how sound and complete the proof is. This is not a cop out. It is a recognition of how strong people’s emotions can be and how deeply held their beliefs are when it comes to important questions like God’s existence. Those beliefs and emotions will in some cases be impossible to overcome with any amount of compelling evidence. The existence of strong biases is the reason some potential jury members are disqualified before a court trial begins. It is fair to do the same here.
Even some Christians, who would seem to be the people most open to a proof of God, will be resistant to the evidence offered in this book. Christianity is divided into three major camps over the question of the relationship between science and faith, and each group has cherished beliefs and intense emotions that will have to be overcome.
Old-Earth Creationists fully accept that science is right in its understanding of our physical world, but they still want to believe in the Bible and God. The way they resolve the apparent contradictions between science and scriptures is to interpret the Bible figuratively so that it can be made to agree with modern science. That means, for instance, interpreting the six days of creation as ages rather than actual days.
In effect, Old-Earth Creationists put the ‘blame’ on scriptures which they feel must be ‘fixed’ in order to get them to agree with modern science. The problem with approaching the Bible this way is that once people open that door, there is no end to the ways the Bible can be discredited or reinterpreted into something it isn’t. So this is an intellectually weak and spiritually perilous path for Christians to take. Old-Earth Creationists have long thought of themselves as scientifically sophisticated. It will be hard for them to admit that they have been seriously wrong about science and its relationship to scriptures.
Converged Christians are those who are even further down the road to questioning the truth of the Bible. Many of them have been effectively persuaded that science and faith are so irreconcilable that the differences cannot be resolved even by figurative interpretations. As a result, converged Christians are drifting away from the teachings of the Bible. They still refer to themselves as Christians out of enduring sentiments or some kind of utility, but their faith is evolving in the direction of the beliefs, goals and alternate reality of secular humanism and the social justice movement. It will be a long and difficult road back to scientific and scriptural truth for converged Christians.
Young-Earth Creationists have a completely different take on the relationship between scriptures and science. They place the blame on science and maintain faith in a literal interpretation of the Bible. They must be commended for their faith in the Bible because, as this book will show, they are closer to the truth than Old-Earth Creationists and Converged Christians.
But the Young-earthers’ current efforts to defend scriptures are doomed to defeat because they make the mistake of denying or ‘reinterpreting’ much of the legitimate evidence that science has accumulated over the last four centuries. This puts them in a position where they have to defend absurdities such as the idea that dinosaurs and people coexisted. This ‘Fred Flintstone’ approach to the apparent conflict between science and scriptures is rightfully seen as ridiculous by everyone else, and it is even weaker at defending faith than the Old-earth Creationist position that scriptures need to be adapted to fit science.
For several generations, Young-earthers have had to deny much of modern science in order to preserve their faith in the Bible. It will be hard for them to give up the false scientific arguments they have invested so much time, effort and emotion in.
Some Christians in all three of these camps will be emotionally and intellectually incapable of reconsidering their beliefs no matter how much evidence this book offers. The theological and scientific differences among them have generated so much strong emotion, hostility and mistrust that many false beliefs about science and God have become entrenched in their minds. It is likely that some Christians have closed their minds to the point that no amount of compelling evidence can move them.
Never-the-less, we are going to ask all Christians to do something that is simple but difficult – follow the advice of the apostle Paul when he advised people to question and prove all things and hold on to what is good [1 Thessalonians 5:21]. The greatest good are beliefs that are both true and useful.
There is also a serious division among those who do not believe in God
Reasonable atheists and agnostics are people whose disbelief in God is sincerely based on their best understanding of science. If they are presented with serious evidence that their scientific beliefs are wrong, reasonable atheists are capable of honestly reflecting on their beliefs and changing their minds if the evidence proves to be compelling. This requires disbelievers to have a genuine loyalty to science and a real desire to find truth. Reasonable atheists are those who consistently follow the primary rule of science, which is to always go where the evidence leads no matter how uncomfortable it makes them by challenging deeply held beliefs.
Reasonable atheists and agnostics will be persuaded by this book when they realize their lack of belief in God is based on the wrong, incomplete and sometimes deliberately false pre-1960s science. This flawed science was taught to the ‘silent generation’ born before World War II and their children of the baby boom generation. These two generations have been passing on the false science to younger generations in public schools and colleges all over the world ever since.
Doubts about God were reasonable in the early 1960s because much of the science of the time favored skepticism and disbelief. My father knows this because he was there. Students of earlier generations trusted their educators and professors because there was no way for them to know that their lack of belief in God was based on science that would be proven false over the next half century. The earlier generations’ disbelief was also the result of a faulty understanding of scriptures which was largely the fault of their parents and pastors.
Millions of self-identified atheists and agnostics are reasonable people with good intentions who will be open to the proof offered by this book. You can recognize reasonable disbelievers because they are 1) capable of curiosity, 2) willing to discuss religion and science without hostility, and 3) sufficiently open-minded to have their beliefs challenged by new evidence.
Unreasonable atheists are those who do not just doubt God’s existence, they hate the idea of God. People who hate the idea of God are better identified as anti-theists rather than atheists.
The anti-theists’ revulsion toward God makes them incapable of curiosity, reasonable discussion or honest debate about science and religion. If their beliefs are challenged, they resort instead to insults, condemnation, ridicule, punishment, exclusion and the new phenomenon of ‘canceling.’ The negative feelings anti-theists have toward God and religion result in a relentless belligerence that makes it impossible for any live-and-let-live accommodation between anti-theism and Christianity.
One problem this book cannot overcome is that anti-theists have a goal far more important to them than truth – to destroy all faith in what they believe is a false god. For that reason, few if any of them will be open to the arguments in favor of God or moved by the evidence presented in this book.
To understand who anti-theists really are, you have to understand the three primary reasons for their hatred of the divine:
Pride – Some academics and intellectuals like Richard Dawkins and his fellow New Atheists are intellectual narcissists who simply cannot imagine or tolerate the idea of anyone or anything more intelligent and capable than them. Their whole identity is built on their allegedly superior intellect. Dawkins once proposed identifying the people who think like him as the ‘brights’ of society, which of course means those who believe in God are the lowly and contemptible dims. That tells you everything you need to know to understand where he is coming from.
Sin – There is a growing segment of society that wants no limitations on or criticism of their behavior as they attempt to live lifestyles based on the pursuit of pleasure. In their hedonistic foolishness they incorrectly see God and Christianity as the main obstacles to their well-being and happiness. They believe that once they get rid of God and guilt, everything they want will become possible.
Power – There are always dangerous people who crave power over everyone else. They know they will never achieve what they want – a position of undisputed dominion in this world – as long as people believe in God. They are right because Christians will not serve both God and a government run by atheists. As Matthew 6:24 says: “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other.”
These three sources of antagonism toward faith in God resulted in three powerful anti-theist movements that have attacked any belief in God since the mid-1800s:
Marxism [the pursuit of power]began with the publishing of Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto in 1848. It was a political doctrine developed as both a justification and strategy for anti-theist intellectuals to violently seize and exercise absolute power over everyone else.
Darwinism [false pride] is an anti-theist intellectual movement that began after Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859. Darwinism is not the same thing as the work of Darwin, who was a great scientist and added much to the field of biology. Darwinism was the deliberate corruption of science by anti-theist intellectuals in order to misuse it to attack Christianity. Darwin had the misfortune of being the first notable scientist whose efforts were corrupted and misused by prideful intellectuals for their own dishonest and destructive purposes.
Freudianism [the pursuit of sin] began in the late 19th century and early 20th century. Freud was a pathetic failure at both science and healing. But his ideas, which were a modern form of magical-thinking, and his influence over the sizable portion of humanity that is still susceptible to magical thinking have been useful to anti-theists in their efforts to defeat Christianity by promoting hedonistic behaviors. Freudianism led to the widespread corruption of the behavioral and social sciences by anti-theist academics who want to use false scientific arguments to undermine Christian morality and influence.
No amount of scientific evidence will ever be able to sway anti-theists from their hatred for God. Because they have goals – pride, sin and power – that are more important to them than the search for truth, they will not stay loyal to science after their beliefs have been overthrown by the evidence. Richard Dawkins demonstrated repeatedly in his best-selling book, The God Delusion, how anti-theists will misrepresent, betray and abandon science as soon as it no longer serves their purposes. False beliefs about God, religion and science have become so much of who anti-theists are, they could no more give up any of those ideas than they could cut off one of their limbs with a dull knife.
The goal of this book
This book will accomplish the following ambitious but realistic goal:
It will convince people that God exists, if, before they begin reading, they are capable of sincerely saying the following words, “I might be wrong about God and science, I want to know the truth, and I’m willing to make the effort.”
It takes humility like this to be open to truth. Humble self-reflection is necessary to gain a true understanding of anything as important as the relationship between science and God. We had to open our minds when Gerald Schroeder’s brilliant insights made us realize our own ignorance and prejudice. It was humility that allowed my father to take his first honest look at the true relationship between science and faith.
I know that what I am asking you to do is difficult, but it is necessary and possible. Dad was a disbeliever for most of his life, but 21st century science saved him from his own failings. By the end of this book, the choice that confronts all of us will be clear to everyone capable of rational thought. You can find the truth about God with the help of modern science, or you can stubbornly deny God in spite of the compelling evidence presented in this book. But, after reading this book, you will find that the only way that can be done is by turning away from reason and science. I hope you turn toward these things instead.
Chapter 2 The Evidence
When lawyers want to use a document as evidence in a trial, they must first convince the judge that the document is authentic, valid and relevant. Genesis 1 is the document this book will present to you in your capacity as the jury in this case. If your first reaction is something like, ‘Come on! Don’t waste my time with this biblical stuff,’ that’s understandable. That would have been my reaction years ago before we realized we really didn’t know anything about the Bible. I am asking you to bear with us just a little longer.
You may agree with professional atheist Sam Harris, as I once did, when he says things like this:
“The Bible…does not contain a single sentence that could not have been written by a man or woman living in the first century.” Reply to a Christian, Council for Secular Humanism
Many people believe, as Harris so obviously does, that the Bible is nothing more than the superstitious scribblings of an ancient and backward people.
I also once believed prominent academics like Dr. Barbara Sproul, who is the Director of the Program in Religion at Hunter College in New York City. In her 1979 book, Primal Myths, she stated the following about the biblical account of creation:
“Think about the power of the first myth of Genesis (1-2:3) in the Old Testament. While the scientific claims it incorporates, so obviously at odds with modern ones, may be rejected, what about the myth itself?” (emphasis added)
“Holding literally to the claims of any particular myth then, is a great error in that it mistakes myth’s values for science’s facts and results in the worst sort of religiosity.” (emphasis added)
These words reflect the belief in most mainstream academic circles that Genesis 1 is a total myth, and anyone who takes it literally is a fool. Professor Sproul teaches her students at Hunter College that the opening page of the Bible is not even an original myth; she suggests it was largely borrowed from earlier creation myths like the Babylonian Enuma Elish.
The New Atheists have used the following basic arguments for generations in a relentless and generally successful assault on the Christian belief in God:
- The opening chapter of the Bible is completely at odds with established scientific truth.
- For that reason, nothing else in scriptures can be trusted or taken seriously.
- You must choose between the Genesis account of creation and science. You can’t believe in both.
- Therefore, if you believe in and support modern science, you have to throw out the Bible.
This is what students in schools and colleges have been taught for generations, and it has turned millions of them away from a belief in God. That’s what happened to me and my dad. These beliefs about the Bible are so widespread and deeply held that they are in effect the default position in the case for and against the existence of God. For that reason, it seems this book faces an impossible task in trying to convince anyone that Genesis 1 can be used as genuine evidence.
But this is where you will encounter a life-altering surprise because it is remarkably easy to prove that everyone is wrong about the Genesis account of creation. I’m going to ask you to suspend disbelief for just a few more pages. If this chapter doesn’t overthrow the current default belief that the Bible is guilty of presenting an unscientific myth in Genesis 1, you can quit reading this website, trash it online and tell everyone it’s a waste of time. But first give it a chance. As a professional and practicing scientist, I have made sure that all of the following is scientifically correct.
The true science of Genesis 1
The atheist objection to using Genesis 1 as evidence is that it is not authentic, valid or relevant to any scientific discussion. We can test these objections using modern science in the following way:
Genesis 1 makes fourteen statements about the creation of the universe and 16 statements about the development of life on Earth.
Each of these thirty statements can be tested against current scientific understanding.
If even one of them is contradicted by current science, the Genesis 1 account of creation can be considered a flawed document and declared unsuitable for use as evidence in this book’s attempt to scientifically prove that God of the Bible exists.
The thirty statements from Genesis 1 that need to be tested against modern science are listed below in the order they appear in the Bible. Each statement from Genesis 1 is followed by a brief comment in italics about the current state of science as it relates to the biblical statement.
1:1 In the beginning…
The big bang model of the universe, verified in the 1960s, scientifically demonstrates that the universe is not eternal as atheists want to believe. Many atheists in the decades that followed confirmation of the big bang hated the idea of a created universe, even though the evidence for it was compelling. The late biologist John Maddox, who served as editor for the prestigious scientific journal, Nature, called the big bang “philosophically unacceptable” and, in what might be called an act of wishful thinking, erroneously predicted that it would not survive the era of the Hubble Space Telescope. The Big Bang Theory has survived, and it proves that everything in our universe—space, time, and matter—had a beginning.
This Genesis statement is confirmed by modern science. [1 confirmed, 0 falsified]
1:1 God created heaven and earth
The ancient Hebrew language had only about 9,000 words (English has at least 200,000) and did not have a word for ‘universe,’ so it used the phrase ‘heaven and earth’ instead. The Bible says that the universe came about through an act of creation—something appearing from nothing—and there is no contradiction between this biblical view and the big bang model of the universe. In fact, many physicists speak of the universe being created from nothing. However, knowing what happened at the exact beginning of the universe is not currently possible.
This Genesis statement is consistent with modern science. [1 confirmed, 1 consistent, 0 falsified]
1:2 The earth was without form
Just after the creation of the universe, there were none of the cosmic structures in place that we see today, including the Earth.
This Genesis statement is confirmed by modern science. [2 confirmed, 1 consistent, 0 falsified]
1:2 empty
There was no matter in the universe at this time. Just after the big bang, the universe was far too hot to allow the formation of matter.
This Genesis statement is confirmed by modern science. [3 confirmed, 1 consistent, 0 falsified]
1:2 with darkness on the face of the depths
The universe was extremely dark at this time. It is a period cosmologists refer to as the Cosmic Dark Ages.
This Genesis statement is confirmed by modern science. [4 confirmed, 1 consistent, 0 falsified]
1:2 God’s spirit moved on the water’s surface.
Physicists posit that very early in the development of the universe, an extraordinarily rapid expansion of the universe occurred during a period called inflation. Inflation was a one-time event, currently not well understood by the laws of physics. Both physics and the Bible say that something unique and unexplainable happened at this point in the development of the universe. I will explain what is meant by ‘water’ shortly.
This Genesis statement is consistent with modern science. [4 confirmed, 2 consistent, 0 falsified]
1:3 God said, ‘There shall be light,’ and light came into existence
After inflation, radiation becomes the dominant substance in the universe. Radiation in cosmology refers to particles of light and nearly massless particles, like neutrinos. This is a period cosmologists refer to as the radiation era.
This Genesis statement is confirmed by modern science. [5 confirmed, 2 consistent, 0 falsified]
1:4 God divided between the light and the darkness.
The Bible is saying that ‘darkness’ is a thing in and of itself. Modern astrophysics now agrees that cosmic darkness is more than just shadows or the absence of light. Scientists are striving to understand the dark component of the universe with concepts such as dark energy and dark matter.
This Genesis statement is confirmed by modern science. [6 confirmed, 2 consistent, 0 falsified]
1:6 God said, ‘There shall be a sky in the middle of the water, and it shall divide between the water and water.’
Early in the development of the universe, the basic components of ordinary matter—quarks and the particles that will eventually bind them together—existed in a perfectly fluid state physicists sometimes refer to as ‘quark soup.’ The universe quickly expanded and cooled enough for solid matter to form out of this quark soup, but the vast majority of that matter remains in a state called plasma. Plasma can best be described as a fluid of charged particles, like protons and electrons.
In regard to Gen 1:6, the great medieval biblical philosopher, Maimonides, explained, “It has been declared by our Sages that the portion above the firmament is only water in name, not in reality…the account of the firmament, with that which is above it and is called water, is as you see, of a very mysterious character.” The problem once again is that ancient Hebrew had a relatively small number of words. Because it had no word for ‘fluid’, the word ‘water’ was used instead. This did not prevent ancient and medieval scholars of the ancient Hebrew from gaining important scientific insights by carefully reading Genesis. [emphasis added]
This Genesis statement is confirmed by modern science. [7 confirmed, 2 consistent, 0 falsified]
1:8 God named the sky ‘Heaven’
Galaxies made of stars, including the Sun, were formed at this stage in the development of the universe.
This Genesis statement is confirmed by modern science. [8 confirmed, 2 consistent, 0 falsified]
1:9 God said, ‘The waters under the heaven shall be gathered to one place, and dry land shall be seen.’
The Earth, formed at the same time as the Sun, was initially covered in molten rock and then a global ocean. Continents eventually appeared through the process of plate tectonics.
This Genesis statement is confirmed by modern science. [9 confirmed, 2 consistent, 0 falsified]
1:10 God named the dry land ‘Earth’, and the gatherings of water, He named ‘Seas’.
The various oceans and seas on Earth formed around the continents.
This Genesis statement is confirmed by modern science. [10 confirmed, 2 consistent, 0 falsified]
1:11 God said, ‘The earth shall send forth vegetation…’
The first life on Earth was single-celled cyanobacteria that lived by photosynthesis as all plant life does and showed up almost immediately [in geological terms] after the oceans formed. This led in turn to the development of true plant life. Note that the Bible does not use the word ‘create’ to explain the appearance of plant life.
This Genesis statement is confirmed by modern evolution science. [11 confirmed, 2 consistent, 0 falsified]
1:11 …plants and fruit trees that produce their own kinds of fruits with seeds shall be on the earth.’
Plants with seeds and fruit appeared after the first primitive one-celled vegetation.
This Genesis statement is confirmed by modern evolution science. [12 confirmed, 2 consistent, 0 falsified]
1:14 God said, ‘There shall be lights in the heavenly sky to divide between day and night…’
Plant photosynthesis produced huge amounts of oxygen which changed the atmosphere of the Earth from opaque to transparent for the first time.
This Genesis statement is confirmed by modern science. [13 confirmed, 2 consistent, 0 falsified]
1:15 ‘…They shall be lights in the heavenly sky, to shine on the earth.’
Enough direct light was eventually able to reach the surface of the Earth to allow the Sun, Moon, and stars to become fully visible for the first time.
This Genesis statement is confirmed by modern science. [14 confirmed, 2 consistent, 0 falsified]
1:20 God said, ‘The water shall teem with swarms of living creatures…’
Animal life appeared first in the oceans in an amazing and scientifically unexplained abundance during what’s called the Cambrian Explosion (also called the ‘biological big bang’).
This Genesis statement is confirmed by modern science. [15 confirmed, 2 consistent, 0 falsified]
1:20 ‘…Flying creatures shall fly over the land, on the face of the heavenly sky.’
Insects, the majority of which are winged insects, appeared next with no precursors.
This Genesis statement is confirmed by modern science. [16 confirmed, 2 consistent, 0 falsified]
1:21 God [thus] created the great sea monsters
The Hebrew word ‘taninim ‘has been translated here as sea monsters. It has also been translated as whales, crocodiles, serpents, and dragons in other versions of the Old Testament. Over the centuries, people translated this difficult word in terms of their own experience. That’s why the English, who lived on an island surrounded by ocean, translated it as great ‘whales’ in the King James Bible.
In his book, The Science of God, Gerald Schroeder argues that the correct translation of the ancient Hebrew word ‘taninim’ is ‘reptiles.’ Therefore, this passage should be translated as, “God [thus] created the great reptiles.” Those would be the dinosaurs.
This Genesis statement is confirmed by modern science. [17 confirmed, 2 consistent, 0 falsified]
1:21 along with every particular species of living thing that crawls, with which the waters teem
Several new forms of animals appeared that developed the ability to crawl on the ocean floor and eventually on land..
This Genesis statement is confirmed by modern science. [18 confirmed, 2 consistent, 0 falsified]
1:21 and every particular species of winged flying creature
New forms of flying animals appeared, including pterosaurs (winged reptiles) and birds that descended from dinosaurs. .
This Genesis statement is confirmed by modern science. [19 confirmed, 2 consistent, 0 falsified]
1:22 God blessed them, saying, ‘Be fruitful and become many, and fill the waters of the seas…’
Millions of species of animal life eventually appear.
This Genesis statement is confirmed by modern science. [20 confirmed, 2 consistent, 0 falsified]
1:22 ‘…Let the flying creatures multiply on the land.’
A number of species of animals develop the ability to fly in different ways, including insects (millions of species), birds (tens of thousands of species), and bats (thousands of species). Insects are the most populous group of animals on the planet, and bats are the second most populous group of mammals after rodents.
This Genesis statement is confirmed by modern science. [21 confirmed, 2 consistent, 0 falsified]
1:24 God said, ‘The earth shall bring forth particular species of living creature, particular species of livestock, land animals, and beasts of the earth.’
Mammals become much more populous after the disappearance of dinosaurs. Many of these mammals later became of special interest to humans..
This Genesis statement is confirmed by modern science. [22 confirmed, 2 consistent 0 falsified]
1:26 God said, ‘Let us make man with our image and likeness.’
Human beings finally appear at this stage of the development of life on Earth.
There are two subtle but significant things to note here. The first is the use of plural pronouns (‘us’ and ‘our’), which have been a source of confusion for many people. Is God suddenly referring to himself as the royal ‘we’ or is he referring to someone or something else also taking part in the process of producing human beings? Gerald Schroeder and other theologians say it is the latter. This passage refers to both God and the natural world He created working together to produce human beings, which are a combination of the natural (our bodies) and the supernatural (our spirits).
The second thing to note is the use of the word ‘make,’ as opposed to ‘create,’ which is used in the next passage. In Hebrew, the word make (asah) means to refashion something from previously existing material, as opposed to producing a totally new thing. This passage of Genesis refers to both God and the Earth producing human bodies from the natural materials of the Earth. This is also why the first man is referred to as Adam—adamah is the Hebrew word for the substance earth.
This Genesis statement is confirmed by modern science. [23 confirmed, 2 consistent, 0 falsified]
1:27 God [thus] created man with His image. In the image of God he created them
This passage might appear to be a repetition of the previous passage, but for two things. There are no plural pronouns—God alone is doing the work this time—and we have a subtle but important change with one word. The previous passage used the Hebrew word for ‘make’ (asah), but here we’re told that God created man in his image. The Hebrew word for ‘create’ (bara) implies a totally new entity that has come into being. What is this entity? The Hebrew word for image (tselem) means likeness, meaning we share something in common with what God is—his spirit nature. So, this passage together with the previous one tells us that humans are uniquely two things—material [made] and spirit [created].
There is no denying that humans are unique amongst all the animals of Earth in terms of our possession of consciousness, our awareness of morality, our sense of justice, and our ability to love—all characteristics of God. Science cannot yet explain where consciousness comes from, but what is known about human uniqueness is consistent with what scriptures say.
This Genesis statement is consistent with modern science. [23 confirmed, 3 consistent, 0 falsified]
1:28 God said to them, ‘Be fertile and become many. Fill the land and conquer it. Dominate the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every beast that walks the land…’
Humans come to dominate the Earth in ways no other life form has.
This Genesis statement is confirmed by the history of humankind. [24 confirmed, 3 consistent, 0 falsified]
Various passages: The Bible says ten times that God created and made living things “according to their kind(s)”
Plant and animal life in Genesis is grouped according to different biological categories. By using the words ‘according to their kind(s)’, Genesis shows awareness of kingdoms, phyla, classes, and the great abundance and variety of the different groups of plant and animal life.
These Genesis statements are confirmed by science [25 confirmed, 3 consistent, 0 falsified]
The Biblical account of creation also makes two general but incredibly important statements about the universe. Genesis 1 says that God created the universe in six days. Most people think that taking this statement literally is ridiculous, but this book will demonstrate that modern science has proven that a literal understanding of the six days of creation is scientifically true. The scientific case for the six-day time period of creation is so important that it requires an entire chapter of its own. Go to Substack and skip ahead to Chapter 4 if you feel the need, and then come back once you are satisfied that this seemingly outrageous claim is literal and scientifically true.
These Genesis statements are confirmed by science [26 confirmed, 3 consistent, 0 falsified]
Genesis 1 states at the end of each of the six days of creation, “there was evening and there was morning.” Schroeder tells us that the Hebrew words for ‘evening’ and ‘morning’ are related to the concepts of ‘disorder’ and ‘order.’ So, what the Bible is really saying is that with each day of creation, God deliberately brought about a higher degree of order in certain aspects of the universe in its constant struggle against an overall trend toward disorder. In effect, the Bible anticipated one of the great findings of science, the 2nd law of thermodynamics.
These Genesis statements are confirmed by science [27 confirmed, 3 consistent, 0 falsified]
No statement in Genesis 1 related to science has been left out of the above list. There has been no attempt to deceive you by leaving out anything in Genesis 1 that might weaken the case for God. I encourage you to check this for yourself. You will find there is not a single conflict between an accurate translation of the Genesis 1 account of creation and an honest representation of the current state of science in the 21st century.
Of the thirty statements presented, 27 have been confirmed by science. In the few instances where science is still uncertain – about what happened at the exact moment of the big bang, how the cosmic inflation occurred, and whether there is a dualism of the human body and spirit – the other three Genesis statements are entirely compatible with current scientific understanding.
So, contrary to what Sam Harris and other anti-theists argue, there is no conflict between science and Genesis 1. In fact, the biblical account of creation has accomplished a degree of agreement with science that no other pre-scientific document has ever come remotely close to. This means Professor Sproul is also wrong about the origins of Genesis 1 – it is authentic. Barbara Sproul, Sam Harris and all of the other advocates of the New Atheism are abysmally wrong about the first page of the Bible. They are either misinformed about scriptures, 21st century science, and how they relate to each other, or they are anti-theists who are deliberately trying to mislead people. Either way they have lost credibility.
As hard as it will be for most people to accept, the most accurate way to scientifically characterize the Biblical account of creation is this:
Genesis 1 is the most remarkable scientific document ever written.
Any honest and open-minded person should be amazed by the degree of agreement between this ancient scripture and modern science. No other document in all of human history has anticipated so many of the greatest scientific discoveries and done it thousands of years before those advances in science were made. This is why the Nobel-laureate physicist, Arno Penzias, one of the discovers of the evidence that finally established the Big Bang model of the universe, said, “The best data we have are exactly what I would’ve predicted, had I nothing to go on but the five Books of Moses, the Psalms, the Bible as a whole.” (Meyer pg. 243 Return of the God Hypothesis) No other document has ever provided as much understanding of our universe and the living things that populate the Earth.
There can be no question that Genesis 1 is valid, authentic and relevant to this case.
The court’s ruling: Genesis 1 must be admitted as evidence.
Chapter 3 Proof Beyond Any Reasonable Doubt that God Exists
Richard Dawkins has been the best known and most influential spokesperson for hardcore anti-theism in the 21st century. In his best-selling book, The God Delusion published in 2006 with 3.3 million copies sold, he makes the atheist case that there are only two possible explanations for the universe and life on earth—God or unguided natural forces—and that they are both “utterly special” and almost “irreconcilably different.” It is no surprise that Dawkins believes evolution explains our improbable world “like nothing else.” P 61
I agree with Dawkins that there are only two possible explanations for our world: 1) intelligent design by God the Creator, or 2) unguided natural processes. This recognition by both sides in the scientific debate over God’s existence that there are only two reasonable explanations for the universe is the beginning point from which this case will be argued.
While describing what he believes to be the insurmountable stumbling block to belief in God, Dawkins inadvertently proposes a workable means for deciding which alternative is true. He claims that God, in all his supreme complexity, is “highly improbable” – much less probable than the existence of those things his existence is supposed to explain. On the basis of this kind of reasoning he argues in favor of unguided natural processes as the cause of everything.
This means Dawkins is making the lowest kind of reasonable case – one that would be presented in a civil court. Without any attempt to put a precise number to it, Dawkins is arguing that his atheist side is more likely correct than the theist side. It is a simple preponderance of the evidence approach to the question of God’s existence. It is a surprisingly vague and weak argument from someone who is generally considered to be the foremost scientific advocate for atheism.
But Dawkins is right about one thing – the mathematics of probability can provide a conclusive way to test the scientific truth of the Christian belief in God versus his atheistic disbelief. However, Dawkins won’t be happy about the outcome because the mathematical evidence in favor of a belief in God is so compelling it has the power to reduce his atheism to eternal insignificance.
The evidence that proves God’s existence
The previous chapter demonstrated that the Genesis 1 account of creation must be taken seriously as evidence because it stands up remarkably well to scientific scrutiny. This chapter will go far beyond the evidence already presented by showing that the biblical account of creation accomplishes something far more impressive, and there is no reasonable explanation other than the existence of God. By doing so, it will far exceed the level of ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ in proving God’s existence.
Genesis 1 not only makes 30 scientifically true or consistent statements, which by itself is amazing, it does something else that is utterly astonishing. The first page of the Bible describes 27 steps in the development of the universe and life on Earth and gets all the steps in the exact correct order modern science says they happened.
Here are those 27 steps:
Everything in our universe – matter, space and time – had a beginning.
2 1:1 God created heaven and earth
The universe came about through an act of creation – defined as something appearing from nothing [nothing material].
3 1:2 The earth was without form
Just after the creation of the universe, there were none of the cosmic structures we see today. Most importantly, there was no Earth just after the Big Bang.
4 1:2 empty
There was no matter in the universe at this time.
5 1:2 with darkness on the face of the depths
The universe was extremely dark at this time.
6 1:2 God’s spirit moved on the water’s surface.
Both physics and the Bible say that something unique happened at this point in the development of our world that is not well understood scientifically..
7 1:3 God said, ‘There shall be light,’ and light came into existence
After this unique event, which science calls inflation of the universe, light became the dominant substance of the universe.
8 1:4 God divided between the light and the darkness.
The Bible is saying that ‘darkness’ is a thing in and of itself. Modern physics is striving to understand the dark component of the universe with concepts such as dark matter and dark energy.
9 1:6 God said, ‘There shall be a sky in the middle of the water, and it shall divide between water and water.’
The universe and the vast majority of the normal matter that fills it appear to exist in a fluid form.
10 1:8 God named the sky ‘Heaven
Galaxies made of stars, including the Sun, were formed at this stage in the development of the universe.
11 1:9 God said, ‘The waters under the heaven shall be gathered to one place and dry land shall be seen.’
The Earth was for a time a waterworld covered in a global ocean. Continents eventually appeared through the process of plate tectonics.
12 1:10 God named the dry land ‘Earth,’ and the gatherings of water, He named ‘Seas.’
The various oceans and seas formed around the continents.
13 1:11 God said, ‘The earth shall send forth vegetation.
The first life showed up in the form of proto-vegetation right after the oceans formed, it lived by photosynthesis and eventually led to the formation of the first true plant life.
14 1:11 plants and fruit trees that produce their own kinds of fruits with seeds shall be on the earth.’
Grasses, herbaceous plants, and plants with seeds and fruit came after the first primitive one-celled proto-vegetation.
15 1:14 God said, ‘There shall be lights in the heavenly sky to divide between day and night
Photosynthesis produced huge amounts of oxygen which changed the atmosphere of the Earth so that it became transparent for the first time.
16 1:15 They shall be lights in the heavenly sky, to shine on the earth.’
Enough light was eventually able to reach the surface of the Earth to allow the Sun, Moon and stars to become fully visible for the first time..
17 1:20 God said, ‘The water shall teem with swarms of living creatures.
Animal life appeared first in the oceans in an amazing and scientifically unexplained abundance during the Cambrian explosion.
18 1:20 Flying creatures shall fly over the land, on the face of the heavenly sky.’
Insects, including winged insects, appeared next with no precursors.
19 1:21 God [thus] created the great sea monsters
Complex and large animal species appeared in the oceans
20 1:21 Along with every particular species of living thing that crawls,
New forms of animals appeared on the ocean floor that developed the ability to crawl and eventually walk on land.
21 1:21 and every particular species of winged flying creature
Winged reptiles and dinosaurs emerge.
22 1:22 God blessed them, saying, ‘Be fruitful and become many, and fill the waters of the seas.
Millions of species of animal life eventually appear.
23 1:22 Let the flying creatures multiply on the land.’
Many land-based species of animals develop the ability to fly in different ways, including insects, birds, and bats, which are flying mammals and the second most common group of mammals after rodents.
24 1:24 God said, ‘The earth shall bring forth particular species of living creatures, particular species of livestock, land animals, and beasts of the earth.’
Mammals appear which later become of special interest and use to humans.
25 1:26 God said, ‘Let us make man with our image and likeness.’
God and the natural processes he created produce the material bodies of human beings. The physical ancestors of humans begin to appear in the form of smart animals called hominids.
26 1:27 God [thus] created man with His image. In the image of God
Science says that at some currently undetermined point, humans acquired the mysterious quality of consciousness which made them different from all other life forms. Christians say much the same thing when they speak of God imparting his spiritual nature to human beings alone of all living things.
27 1:28 God said to them, ‘Be fertile and become many. Fill the land and conquer it. Dominate the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every beast that walks the land.’
Humans come to dominate the Earth in ways no other life form has.
As the previous chapter showed, each one of these events in the Genesis account of creation corresponds to a scientifically documented step in the development of the universe and life on Earth. Anyone with a basic knowledge of cosmology and evolution will quickly recognize that all of these steps are in agreement with modern science, and they appear to be in the correct order.
But that is not exactly true. There is one step in Genesis 1 that on first glance appears to be in the wrong place. The one step that is out of place is found in Genesis 1:11. After this passage describes the initial appearance of proto-vegetative life on earth, which is in the correct order, the Bible then talks about the seed-bearing plants that followed later. These two steps are in the right order relative to each other, but the appearance of seed-bearing plants is not in the right place in the overall chronology. The fossil evidence shows there were no plants with seeds until about 350 million years ago, which was long after the appearance of much of the animal life listed in subsequent passages.
However, this apparent discrepancy does no harm to the book’s argument that Genesis 1 got the 27 steps in the correct order because Genesis 1 follows a strategy that is common in good writing. The appearance and evolution of plants is a necessary part of the story of the development of life on earth, but it is peripheral to the main storyline of the progression of animal life from the oceans to human beings. So the author of Genesis 1 wanted to talk about plants in just one place in the account, make those two important points about plant life together in one passage [proto vegetation was the first form of life, and various other forms of plant life came later], and then get on with the main purpose of the story which was to describe the development of animal life that resulted in the human species.
The important thing to comprehend about Genesis 1 is that thousands of years before the first discoveries of modern science, the Bible somehow got all 27 steps it describes in the development of the universe and life in the right order with that one subtle and understandable deviation.
Given this evidence, any reasonable person has to ask the following question:
Is it possible that some person(s) completely ignorant of science could have just guessed the correct order of the 27 steps by chance two to three millennia before science began?
To put the question in the kind of language Richard Dawkins uses, ‘is it probable or improbable’? The laws of probability can be used to test the God hypothesis, but in a way that Richard Dawkins and his fellow anti-theists could never have imagined.
A mathematical experiment
Let’s say you take twenty-seven identical index cards and number them 1 through 27. If you placed them face down on a table and thoroughly mixed them up, what do you think would be the chance that you could turn all of them over in the exact right order [1 through 27] strictly by luck in one attempt? One out of a hundred? One out of a thousand? One out of a hundred thousand? Maybe even one out of a million? Answering this question correctly requires a quick review of the mathematics of probability.
Step 1: The probability of two events happening one after another is found by multiplying the probability of the two events together. So if one event has a 1 out of 10 chance of occurring and the following event has a 1 out of 9 chance, the odds of the two events happening one after another is 1 out of 10 times 9, which is 1 out of 90. The same process can be used to calculate the odds of any number of sequential events.
The odds of you turning over the card marked ‘1’ on the first try is 1 out of 27. If you succeed in doing so, the odds of turning the ‘2’ card over on the second turn is 1 out of 26 because there are 26 cards left, and so on for all the rest of the cards. So the odds of turning over all of the 27 cards in the correct order in one attempt is found by multiplying the odds of all the individual cards until you get down to the last one.
Step 2: In the language of mathematics, the chances of turning all the cards over in the correct order on the first try would be 1 out of 27!.
The number 27 with an exclamation mark after it is read by mathematicians as ‘27 factorial’. Number-crunchers talk like this because they strive for efficiency, although some people might say they’re just lazy. 27 factorial is mathematical shorthand that means 27 multiplied by all the whole numbers less than it. Written out in arithmetic form, 27 factorial looks like this:
27x 26x25x24x23x22x21x20x19x18x17x16x15x14x13x12x11x10x9x8x7x6x5x4x3x2x1.
What this means is there are 27 possibilities with the first pick, then 26 with the second pick and so on until all the cards are turned over. You calculate the total number of possibilities by multiplying all the numbers from 27 down to 1 together. You can see why mathematicians use the exclamation mark instead of writing the computation all the way out – it saves a lot of time and writing. Efficient, not lazy.
Step 3: Multiplied out and written in normal decimal form, 27! [twenty-seven factorial] results in an unexpectedly huge number: 10,888,869,450,418,352,160,768,000,000
As incredible as this seems, you can confirm it with a scientific calculator by using the [n!] factorial key.
That means there are 10,888,869,450,418,352,160,768,000,000 different possible ways of picking up the 27 cards. It may seem utterly unbelievable that there are so many different ways to turn over 27 cards, but this is where we have to trust mathematics over our non-mathematical intuition and skepticism.
So, the chance of turning all of the cards over in the correct order on any one attempt is: 1 out of 10,888,869,450,418,352,160,768,000,000
Written in the most comprehensible combination of math and English, the probability of turning all of the cards over in the right order on one attempt by sheer luck would be:
1 out of 10 octillion, 888 septillion, 869 sextillion, 450 quintillion, 418 quadrillion, 352 trillion, 160 billion, 768 million
That is nearly one out of 11 octillion. Just the last part of this huge number, 768 million, by itself results in insurmountable odds worse than the chances of winning any of the biggest mega lotteries in the world like the Italian SuperEnaLotto at 1out of 622 million.
It is hard for anyone without a professional background in mathematics to understand how enormous a number like 11 octillion is and therefore how fantastically low the chances are that someone more than 3000 years ago simply guessed the sequence of Genesis 1 without the aid of modern science. The odds against guessing the correct order of the 27 statements by chance are truly astronomical because 27 factorial is more than the highest estimates of the number of stars in the universe. But even stated this way, 27! is such a massive number it is still difficult to grasp.
Step 4: Here is another way to comprehend the odds against Genesis 1 occurring by chance:
If all the people who have ever lived [estimated at 100 billion] tried to turn over their own bunch of 27 index card in the right order completely by chance, and each person made 1 attempt every 10 seconds on average, every minute, 16 hours per day, every day, every year for the entire age of the universe [about 14 billion Earth years], all of humanity doing nothing else from the beginning of time would only manage about a quarter of the possible outcomes of the card turning.
That means all of humankind would likely fail. But the author of Genesis 1 got it right in just one try.
Step 5: Here’s another way to try to comprehend this enormous number:
If a lottery was held in your state each month in which exactly two hundred million tickets were always sold, the chances of any ticket winning the big prize would be a disheartening 1 out of 200,000,000. Even though the crucial number in this case is much less than 11 octillion, the odds against getting a winning ticket are so bad that no reasonable person would be foolish enough to count on winning the lottery to provide for her or his family. And no sane person would bet his or her life or soul on such terrible odds.
But to get anywhere close to the odds against making a lucky guess about the order of the 27 statements in Genesis 1, we have to calculate the odds of a person buying one ticket each month and somehow winning the lottery an astounding three times in a row. According to the laws of probability, those odds can be calculated by multiplying 200,000,000 times itself twice:
200,000,000 x 200,000,000 x 200,000,000 = 8 septillion
So, the odds of winning our hypothetical mega lottery three times in a row works out to be: 1 out of 8 septillion
A reasonable person will understand that even though it isn’t strictly impossible to win such a lottery three times in a row (in other words, the chances aren’t precisely equal to 0), in reality it’s never going to happen in your lifetime or during the next 1000 generations.
But if a person won such a lottery just two times, the police would be launching an investigation, because prosecutors in a court of law would be able to prove mathematically beyond any reasonable doubt that some form of cheating had occurred.
In fact, there is a real life example of this very thing. In 2015, a man named Eddie Tipton, the information security chief for a multi-state lottery corporation, was convicted of two counts of fraud for rigging the system of the Iowa state lottery. He had used a clever bit of software, called a rootkit, to make certain sequences of numbers much more likely to come up in the drawings on certain days. This rootkit software is installed into a system using a USB thumb drive, it does its business, and then deletes itself to remove incriminating evidence.
Even with no evidence of tampering remaining in the lottery system, Tipton was arrested and convicted because he had simply purchased the winning ticket, worth over $16 million. The prosecutor explained to the jury deliberating Tipton’s case that they didn’t have to understand how Tipton had cheated in order to come to a guilty verdict. All they had to understand was that it was virtually impossible that someone with access to the state’s lottery system would be the winner of the big jackpot purely by coincidence. The mathematics of the prosecutor’s case – the 1 out of 292 million chance of winning – was enough to convince the jury, who found Tipton guilty of cheating the system.
The mathematical and scientific evidence leaves no doubt that some kind of ‘cheating’ took place in the writing of Genesis 1. Christians call it Divine inspiration because no human being or group of people living 3000 years ago could have composed the Genesis 1 account of creation on their own. Tipton’s cheating overcame 1 out of 292 million odds, but God’s intervention overcame the 1 out of 11 octillion odds. The evidence is beyond any dispute, God rigged the game with His insider knowledge and divine ability.
Scientists are highly reluctant to state that anything is impossible. However, in the language of mathematics and science, it can be said that an ancient person getting the 27 statements in the correct order 3000 years ago by simply guessing once is so incredibly unlikely that it is non-possible. Given the scientific evidence, it is beyond ridiculous to believe Genesis 1 could have been written by any ancient person(s) through sheer luck.
Putting what you’ve learned in Chapters 2 and 3 together, what the Bible accomplished scientifically is even more non-possible than the nearly one out of 11 octillion number indicates. The author of Genesis 1 not only ‘turned over’ the 27 ‘index cards’ in the correct order, but he also managed to accurately describe on each one of the cards what happened at that particular stage in the development of the universe and life. All this was accomplished somewhere between 25 to 35 centuries before the scientific history of our world was fully discovered.
As unimaginably small as the probability of just listing the steps in the right order is, the chances of someone in ancient times guessing every step in both the order and the way they happened is so infinitesimally small that it is effectively zero. The only reasonable conclusion is this: No human being(s) wrote Genesis 1 on their own. That leaves only one other reasonable explanation.
The closing argument in the case for God’s existence
- A written document titled Genesis 1 has existed for somewhere between 2500 and 3500 years.
- There is zero chance that it is a forgery or that it has been recently altered.
- Genesis 1 is proven by modern science to be authentic, scientifically valid and relevant.
- Both sides in this case agree there are only two possibilities: either Genesis 1 was written by human beings on their own, or it was written or caused to be written by God of the Bible. These are the only two reasonable explanations for the evidence. One of them must be true, and the other one is false.
- The Genesis 1 account of creation lists 27 steps in the creation of the universe and life on Earth..
- Those 27 steps are listed by the Bible in the correct scientific order.
- The chances of some person with an ancient understanding of the world guessing the correct order by chance is less than one out of 10 octillion. That means the chances of this happening are what scientists refer to as ‘non-possible’.
- This is compelling evidence far beyond the evidence needed to obtain a legal conviction in a murder case. The numbers involved are far greater than the one out of 64 billion for fingerprint evidence, and the one out of 100 billion for DNA evidence.
- This is also compelling evidence far beyond what is necessary to elevate any scientific hypothesis to the level of a proven theory like the 1 out of 3.5 million level of confidence for the Big Bang.
- The evidence shows that no ancient human being or group of human beings could have written Genesis 1 on their own.
- By the process of elimination, the only remaining reasonable conclusion is that the entity responsible for Genesis 1 is God of the Bible.
- Therefore, God exists.
Calculating the odds of God’s existence
So, in answer to the mathematical doubt about God that Richard Dawkins raised in his book, The God Delusion, we can do something he couldn’t. We can compute a highly accurate probability of God.
The Probability that Dawkins and the anti-theists are right that God does not exist is:
1 out of 10,888,869,450,418,352,160,768,000,000
The probability that God of the Bible exists is:
10,888,869,450,418,352,160,767,999,999 out of 10,888,869,450,418,352,160,768,000,000
This book submits this is compelling evidence far beyond any reasonable doubt that God exists.
This evidence also accomplishes the first four steps of Victor J. Stenger’s scientific test for God’s existence:
1. Hypothesize a God who plays an important role in the universe
The Bible says that God created the universe and life on Earth.
2. Assume that God has specific attributes that should provide objective evidence for his existence
God provided an account of His creation that listed 27 steps.
3. Look for such evidence with an open mind
Those 27 steps are in exactly the correct order that science says they happened.
4. If such evidence is found, conclude that God may exist
No people living 2500 years ago could have written Genesis 1 on their own, so the only reasonable explanation for Genesis 1 is that God of the Bible exists.
What does all this mean? First, it is beyond obvious that a person should not base their hopes in life on winning a major lottery even once let alone three times. That would be incredibly foolish. No reasonable person would ever choose that as their life strategy. What the numbers presented in this chapter also show is that people have even greater reason to not base their life on atheism. Not believing in God is now at least a thousand times more foolish than hoping for three wins in the lottery. Everyone should bet on God because He is a sure thing.
You can’t be blamed for thinking it cannot be as simple as this!
Wouldn’t an all-mighty God announce his presence with a booming voice from heaven accompanied by lightning bolts and thunder. Couldn’t He do something far grander like arranging the stars in the night sky to spell out His divine message? The question of God’s existence is so huge and overwhelming, the answer can’t be something as unassuming as a number like 27!.
But it is. If God announced His existence in an overtly divine way, like a booming voice from heaven, it would be so overwhelming it would effectively put an end to free will and the opportunity for people to make a meaningful choice about God. Is it so hard to imagine that an all-mighty God would want to allow us to make a choice about what we believe, and that He could be clever, subtle and patient enough to give us sufficient information to make a real choice without overwhelming us? That is why He simply put the evidence of His existence in the one place where it would be accessible to everyone on Earth – on the first page of the book He gave humankind – and then waited for us to be intellectually able to recognize it, emotionally ready to accept it, and in dire spiritual need of it. Now it is up to us to decide what we will believe.
The proof of God’s existence has been right in front of humankind for all of these centuries. We just weren’t ready for it until now. Twenty-first Century science has made us intellectually ready.
The question now is whether we are emotionally, intellectually and spiritually capable of recognizing, accepting and acting on the truth.
If you have any lingering doubt about this proof of God’s existence, you need to ask yourself the following question: which of the following facts can you reasonably dispute:
- An event – the writing of Genesis 1 – took place.
- There are only two possibilities about who wrote Genesis 1 – either some person or group of people wrote it on their own, or God had Genesis 1 written.
- While the date of this event cannot be dated precisely, all credible estimates range from a low of 2500 years ago to a high of 3500 years ago. No one disputes this.
- So there is zero doubt that Genesis 1 was written long before modern science began to reveal how our world came about.
- Genesis 1 accurately describes 14 events in the creation and development of our physical world and then 16 more events in the development of life on Earth.
- Genesis 1 gets the 27 steps in the development of our world in the correct order.
- No human being(s) could have guessed the events and correct order of those 27 steps because the laws of probability show it is non-possible.
- By the logical process of elimination, God is the author of Genesis 1.
- Therefore God exists.
If you cannot object to any of these statements, you have to accept that God’s existence has been proven.
It appears that God in His infinite wisdom knew that humankind would use the cognitive abilities He gave us to eventually become capable of science. He knew that humans would use science to accomplish great things, but because of our failings we would also misuse science to do terrible things – develop weapons of mass destruction, new plagues like Covid-19, and Orwellian devices to subjugate others. Then consider the growing threat of climate change which is not going to turn out well for humankind. Either climate change is real, it will become totally out of control and it will cause catastrophic harm to everyone on Earth, or climate change science has succumbed to equal parts of hysteria and political hoax, and that deadly combination will end up causing catastrophic harm to everyone on Earth. Either way, humankind suffers badly. It is not farfetched to conclude that God knew we would one day became capable of destroying ourselves and everything good that we’ve accomplished.
To keep that from happening, we would need a new means to renew our belief and faith in Him that would be effective at overcoming our doubts during this new age of science. We would need scientific evidence of His existence that could be compelling to most people. That is why the same science that threatens to destroy us also provides a way to restore our belief in our Creator.
As a result of the evidence presented in this book, we now have a choice – we can follow the evidence or keep on believing whatever we want regardless of the evidence. In other words, we can continue to self-destruct through the misuse of science, or we can use genuine science to renew our belief in God, get over our foolish self-harming ways, follow His divine wisdom and go on to ever greater things.
Some likely objections to this argument in favor of God’s existence
Let’s look at some objections that could be made against the argument the book has presented, and see if they are reasonable.
1. One or more of the stated 27 steps in Genesis 1 aren’t real steps
If it could somehow be scientifically argued that step 18, for instance, didn’t really happen, Genesis 1 still got 26 steps in the correct order relative to each other. The chances of this happening by sheer luck would be 1 out of 400 septillion which still puts guessing the correct order in the realm of non-possible. Even if three steps are disputed, the chances are only reduced to 1 out of 620 sextillion. Still non-possible. This is an unreasonable argument, and it is based on no credible evidence.
2. The book is twisting scriptures to fit modern science
3. Some steps in the development of the universe and life on earth are so obvious that even someone 3500 years ago could have figured them out, which would have lessened the odds
This is the strongest of the possible objections. Doubters may point out the obvious connection between the Earth, water, and life: the Earth would have to be formed before water could accumulate and bring forth life. The possibility that common observations like this could have lessened the odds significantly has to be considered.
With a little investigation about what people knew in pre-scientific times, it turns out this argument is false. Professor Sproul’s book, Primal Myths, provides many dozens of actual creation myths from all over the world that vividly demonstrate ancient people’s lack of understanding of and confused thinking about the origins of the universe and life. Here is an example she gave of a creation myth from southern China in the 3rd to 6th centuries A.D. well after Genesis 1 was written:
I At first there was nothing. Time passed and nothing became something. Time passed and something split in two: the two were male and female. These two produced two more, and these two produced P’an Ku, the first being, the Great Man, the Creator.
II First there was a great cosmic egg. Inside the egg was Chaos, and floating in Chaos was P’an Ku, the Undeveloped, the divine embryo. And P’an Ku burst out of the egg, four times larger than any man today, with an adze in his hand…with which he fashioned the world. Two great horns grew out of his head…; two long tusks grew from his upper jaw, and he was covered with hair.
The point here isn’t to mock or denigrate other beliefs. People throughout the ages have made their best efforts to make sense of the world. But this and all of the other examples Professor Sproul provides in her book show that without either scientifically acquired knowledge or divine inspiration from the Creator, humans who lived before the age of science lacked the knowledge and tools needed to understand how the world came about and developed. The three-part sequence of earth-water-life is obvious to modern people because we’ve grown up with science. We take this knowledge for granted, but it was not at all obvious to ancient people. As Professor Sproul’s book makes so clear, primitive pre-scientific people had no idea about the true sequence of any of the events listed in Genesis 1. I recommend that you read her book in order to truly understand what people are capable of on their own without scriptures and science.
Professor Sproul’s book is further evidence that no human being(s) at any place or any time before the age of science could have written Genesis 1 on their own. That leaves only one possibility, God had the first page of the Bible written, and He is who scriptures say He is – the Creator of everything. The irrefutable evidence proves that God is a scientific fact beyond any reasonable doubt. Try to think of something else you can be equally sure of. There isn’t anything that comes close to the one out of 11 octillion level of confidence. If you accept the evidence presented, you can now be more certain that God exists than you can be about anything else in your life.
Section 1 Conclusion What will you do with the proof of God’s existence
In 1938, a fifteen year old British boy named Anthony Flew, the son of a Methodist minister, decided that God didn’t exist. He was a confirmed atheist for the next 66 years. He became a professor of philosophy, taught at prominent universities, argued against a belief in God for all those years and became one of the world’s best known and most influential advocates of atheism.
Then in 2004 at the age of 81, Flew shocked his fellow atheists by changing his mind about God. He announced to the world that he changed his mind because “he had to go where the evidence leads”. We have one important experience in common with Professor Flew: we all encountered the powerful scientific arguments of Gerald Schroeder. Flew met with Schroeder and that proved to be one of the turning points in his views on God. Schroeder and the evidence he offers are that compelling. Read his books.
Professor Flew was a reasonable atheist because he had a genuine loyalty to science and an overriding desire for truth. He was raised with the pre-1960s science that made atheism reasonable at the time, but he had enough humility to give up this long and deeply held belief when the weight of 21st century evidence compelled him to do so. Anthony Flew showed great strength of character by accepting the new scientific evidence and acting on it. Had he been able to do so earlier in his life rather than in old age, it is likely the evidence summarized in this book would have persuaded him that Christians have been right all along in their beliefs about the one and only god – God of the Bible. Unfortunately, Flew became aware of the new science too late in his life to become aware of the whole truth.
The four steps that make a person reasonable and scientific
To be a rational, reasonable, scientifically minded person is simple in theory but difficult in practice. Here are the four steps that people must accomplish in order to fully exercise their cognitive potentials:
- Open their mind to new ideas and evidence.
- Follow the evidence wherever it leads no matter how uncomfortable it makes them.
- Change their mind if the evidence compels it
- Act on the new or revised belief that is supported by the evidence
Anthony Flew did all of these things. He changed his mind about God even though his atheism was a long and deeply held belief that was a core part of his identity for his entire adult life. By doing so, he demonstrated great intellectual integrity, a real devotion to truth and loyalty to the scientific method. He then acted on the evidence by announcing to the world that he had changed his mind and explaining why.
You almost certainly have some false beliefs about God, the Bible and Christianity that have already been challenged by this book. So the urgent question is this – can you accomplish these four steps in being a reasonable person?
Our question for atheists
Are you an atheist who has held reasonable doubts about God’s existence or are you an anti-theist who hates the idea of God?
If you are a reasonable atheist you will be able to open your mind, like Professor Flew did, to the new evidence presented by this book and then follow it wherever it leads. Recall that the evidence in favor of the Big Bang has led us to a 99.999997% certainty that the universe had a beginning, and that was enough to convince the vast majority of scientists that the theory has been proven beyond any scientific doubt. This book has demonstrated there is a 99.999999999999999999999999991% certainty that God exists. That incredibly high level of confidence must compel any reasonable person to conclude that God does exist.
If you are an anti-theist, you may choose the unreasonable path by declaring that you don’t care about any evidence, you don’t believe in God, you can’t believe in God and you never will. We hope you don’t do that. It is said that the truth will set us free. The flip side of that is the grim reality that false beliefs will enslave us unless we follow the evidence wherever it goes.
If a belief has become so important to you that no amount of compelling evidence will persuade you to give it up, you have become possessed by that belief. This is a possession in the worst possible, demonic sense of the word because false beliefs will always lead you down the path of self-defeating actions that will end in some degree of self-destruction. The evidence shows that God exists, and He is what the Bible says He is. If you decide not to believe in Him, how can that possibly turn out well for you?
Our question for Christians
You might respond to the evidence presented in this book by saying, ‘I don’t need all this scientific stuff, I believe in God already’. That is exactly what anti-theists hope you will do because it leaves them free to corrupt and misuse science to destroy young people’s faith in God. What will you say to some young person – your son or daughter, niece or nephew, grandchild, young member of your church – who comes home from school one day and says they doubt God because their teachers told them there’s no scientific proof of His existence and a lot of science that says no God is necessary? If you don’t learn the basics of 21st century science and take it seriously, you are out of the game, incapable of effectively witnessing for God, and in essence what they call in computer games an NPC – a non-playable character.
Our question for followers of other faiths
If you follow a faith that is not based on the Bible, you need to figure out how the evidence presented in this book can be integrated with your current beliefs. If you can’t do this, you are in effect renouncing science and deciding to make a false belief part of your faith. We do not mean to insult you or hurt your feelings, but the reality is this – God of the Bible exists beyond any reasonable doubt. It is a scientific fact that every human being must deal with.
The most important decision you will ever make
It is not an exaggeration to say that what you decide to do with the evidence presented in this book will be the most important decision you will ever make. For one thing, God is as big a deal as you will ever have to do something about. But it is also a crucial decision because you now have to choose what kind of person you will be – either a person who thinks and acts in a reasonable way or a person who thinks and acts in unreasonable ways. If a person decides to go down the path of unreason on the question of God, it will become harder for them to be reasonable about anything else in their lives. Making an irrational decision on something this important will not turn out well for you.
But you don’t have to be perfectly reasonable right away. You just need to be reasonable enough to take the first few steps in the direction of sound thinking and at the same time avoid any major catastrophic mistakes that would result from being unreasonable. Being functionally, effectively, and consistently reasonable is often hard but always necessary if we want to be safe and well. The truth is that every one of us is in a lifelong struggle against false beliefs, and we must do everything we can to overcome them.
The good news is that you can become reasonable in steps – it’s not an immediate all or nothing situation. In fact, it would be highly reasonable for you to exercise some caution at this point. In order to exercise your cognitive capacity and keep it strong enough to have a good chance of overcoming any false beliefs that come your way, you can begin with the following small, doable, but very useful steps.
Reasonable First Step
The first step everyone should be willing to take after reading the first three chapters is to devote 30 minutes to examine Genesis 1 for themselves. You don’t know us, our abilities or our intentions. Maybe we got something wrong about the Genesis account of creation, or maybe we’re bad people who are trying to deceive you. We’re not that last thing, but you don’t know that for sure. It wouldn’t take much time or effort to check out our assertion about the 30 scientifically testable statements on the first page of the Bible. All you have to do is read through Genesis 1 and compare it to what this book says in Chapter Two. That would be a highly reasonable thing to do. And it will get you closer to the truth.
Reasonable Step Two
If Genesis 1 checks out, which it will, you could then spend an hour or two on the internet to check if we’re right about the 27 steps in Chapter Three. It wouldn’t be hard to look up the basic findings of cosmology – the branch of astrophysics that studies the origin and development of our universe. See for yourself if our universe unfolded as this book and Genesis 1 say it did. Then you could look up the broad details of the fossil record of life on Earth. Find out if life started with simple plant life, then animal life in the oceans, then flying animals, then flowering plants, and so on. Taking the time to do this would further demonstrate that you are a reasonable person who cares about the truth. The question about God’s existence is a big deal that warrants a few hours of effort like this.
After you have made this effort and satisfied yourself that Chapters Two and Three are correct, there are three conclusions that all reasonable people are compelled by the evidence to accept as true:
First: Genesis 1 is the most remarkable scientific document ever written.
If you believed, as Sam Harris and other New Atheists do, that the Bible is nothing more than the scrawlings of ancient superstitious people, you now realize you were dead wrong. Genesis 1 predicted 30 major scientific discoveries twenty to thirty centuries before those discoveries were made, and it didn’t get anything wrong. No other document in all of human history has ever accomplished anything like this. Genesis 1 stands alone in both the scope and accuracy of the knowledge it provides.
Second: Genesis 1 is by definition a genuine miracle.
There is no plausible earthly explanation for what Genesis 1 accomplished. As the mathematics so conclusively demonstrates, no human being could have guessed the details of the 27 major steps in the development of our world and then listed them in the correct order. The word that has to be used for any event that is inexplicable by natural events is miracle. Genesis 1 is an on-going miracle because, as this book will demonstrate in subsequent chapters, science is still catching up with the Biblical account of creation.
This shows how a person can witness a miracle and be totally unaware that it is a miracle. That happens every time anyone opens the Bible, reads the first page and doesn’t know about the science that affirms everything Genesis 1 says. There is no way around the scientific and mathematical fact that Genesis 1 did something humanly non-possible. People should find great inspiration once they realize that the Bible begins with a miracle – a miracle that anyone can witness for themselves whenever they want and be uplifted by it. In effect, God is talking directly to each one of us.
Finally: Genesis 1 combined with modern science provides irrefutable proof that God exists.
When God had the first page of the Bible written, He told the story of creation in a way that ancient unscientific people could understand on their level of experience and comprehension. But, He also had Genesis 1 written in a way that could be understood in a higher manner more than 100 generations later during the scientific age. That is what great human writers like JRR Tolkien do when they write a classic story like the Lord of the Rings. Children can read LoTR and gain much from it as an adventure story on their immature level. Years later as adults, they can re-read the epic tale and gain much more from it on an intellectual and spiritual level. That is what God obviously intended for humankind with Genesis 1.
In effect, God left something like a time capsule message for 21st century people who are at a time of great peril. All we had to do is shine the light of the latest modern science on the first page of the Bible, and the divine message just pops out. Now that people of the scientific age are ready to understand the miracle of Genesis 1 at a more sophisticated level and are in dire need of inspiration and divine guidance, the following message has been revealed to them through science, mathematics and scripture:
I am God, no one else could have written this, and nothing else could have created the universe. I am eternally here, believe in Me.
If you don’t dispute these facts, but still doubt they constitute a proof of God’s existence, I understand. God is not a small proposition, the mathematics are hard to wrap one’s mind around, and you may have some strong reasons for not believing that are difficult to overcome.
Reasonable Step Three [optional] Even after you assure yourself that the 27 steps in Genesis 1 are true, you could still have some strong doubt that the mathematics of our argument are for real. In spite of our efforts to help you make sense of the huge numbers involved in calculating the chances that God exists, it all may still be too abstract for you – it will be for most people because we don’t normally encounter and have to deal with numbers on the magnitude of 11 octillion. That’s one of the problems of trying to convince people of anything with mathematics.
We will try to help you get over your doubts about the mathematics of God’s existence by proposing a simple challenge that may help you experience the numbers in a tangible way that makes the evidence less abstract and more relatable for you.
A challenge to those who find it hard to accept this book’s proof of God’s existence
You and we are going to make a bet. Our challenge to you is simple: get a deck of playing cards, take all the numbered cards of one suit, place them face down on a table, mix them up and then try to turn them over in order from two to ten strictly by chance without cheating. You should reshuffle thoroughly after each failed attempt. Getting the 9 playing cards in the right order is far, far, far, far easier than getting the 27 steps in the right order. If you manage to honestly accomplish this feat, even if it takes many attempts, you can reasonably retain some miniscule doubt about the proof of God we’ve presented in this book.
But let’s make this exercise interesting. It will be more real to you if you have some skin in the game. If you really think our case for God isn’t convincing, we should agree to the following wager: you will donate one penny to our effort to promote the science in favor of God’s existence for every failed attempt you make. Before you accept this bet, you should do a quick calculation. The crucial number in this challenge is 9 factorial [9!] because there are nine cards involved. This number is an infinitesimal fraction of 27 factorial, but 9 factorial in arithmetic form is 362,880. That means there is a one out of 362,880 chance of success on any one attempt at turning the nine cards over in the correct order.
Let’s say you decide that right after supper you will set aside two hours to attempt the challenge and then do that every day until you succeed. Suppose that on average you make one attempt every 6 seconds [because you have to shuffle after each try]. That means you will make about 1200 attempts each day. Over a period of six months [183 days] doing this every day at this rate, you would make 219,600 attempts. After all this effort, according to the laws of probability, you would have about a 45% chance of success, which means you would likely fail and owe us $2196. This is called a sucker bet. If you decide to try this, remember that the author of Genesis 1 got the correct order of 27 steps in just one attempt even though there were over 10 octillion possible outcomes.
If you decide not to accept this challenge it means you really do have some sense this book’s argument for God’s existence is mathematically sound. Rather than waste so much time, effort and money, it would be better for you to let go of what is now proven to be an irrational and unscientific doubt about God’s existence. Think about it this way, if you are not willing to bet a penny against the science and math that shows God exists, how can you bet your life and soul on it? It would be best to admit the following: The existence of God has been proven at the highest legal standard of ‘proof beyond any reasonable doubt’.
If instead you decide to accept the wager, the rules of the bet are this – you can only get out of the bet by paying us for all of the failed attempts, or finally succeeding in turning over the cards in the right order even if it takes many months, or by going to Step Four and completing it. If you go the first route, you can contact us at [email protected] to make payment. But again, this is a sucker bet, so don’t do it. Whatever you decide to do, hopefully it will help you get past any serious doubts about the mathematics that prove God’s existence. If so, you are ready for the next necessary step.
Reasonable Step Four
If you become reasonably sure that the evidence we’ve presented in the first three chapters is sound, or you get sick of flipping cards over, you can take the next step by continuing with this book.
The first three chapters have proven the existence of God beyond any reasonable doubts. But the book has not yet reached the highest level of proof we are capable of – proof beyond any scientific doubt. To do that, we must account for all of the scientific evidence by addressing and refuting every major scientific argument that atheists have ever made against God, the Bible and Christianity.
If you refer back to this book’s Table of Contents, you will see what must be done to achieve a proof of God’s existence at the scientific level. This book must overcome these major atheist arguments:
- The claim in Genesis 1 that the creation of the universe occurred in just six days is considered by most people to be scientifically ridiculous. The six days of creation is a major part of the Biblical account of creation, and if it is found to be literally untrue it would seriously weaken the credibility of the Bible and this book’s proof of God’s existence.
- The principle of mediocrity has been a powerful argument against Christianity for hundreds of years. Before the scientific revolution, people believed they were the most important thing at the center of everything. The first major step in the scientific revolution changed that by removing humankind from the physical center of everything to slightly off center. With each new discovery in astronomy over the next four centuries, humankind’s position has become less grand until it appears that we are flying through a vast universe on what appears to be an insignificant speck of rock. This undermines the Bible’s claim that an all-powerful and loving God created the universe as a special home for his favored creation.
- It has been argued since ancient times that the universe is eternal. That argument has been modified since the 1970s from an eternal universe to an eternal multiverse. If either version of the eternal universe/multiverse is true, the first sentence of the Bible is false. If a document starts off with a major falsehood, it would be reasonable to disregard anything that follows.
- The many miracles described in the Bible appear to violate laws of nature. This would be serious scientific evidence that the Bible is full of ancient superstitions.
- Darwinism is based on the belief that all life occurs through natural processes with no need for any supernatural agent. Evolutionists say this ‘proves’ at the very least that God is not necessary, which is really a backdoor method of convincing people He doesn’t exist at all.
- The combination of Darwinian evolution and the principle of mediocrity makes humankind seem as insignificant as bacteria in the grand scheme of things. Many people believe that science shows we are just another species doomed to eventual extinction because there is no loving God to guide and protect us. The resulting belief is that the only thing any of us will ever have is this one life which will be followed by oblivion.
- Atheist scholars claim that Genesis 1 is an obviously unscientific myth. Worse yet, they say there is evidence that the Genesis 1 account of creation was borrowed from some earlier creation myths of other ancient societies. If this is true, it would weaken the proof of God by casting doubt on the authenticity of the Genesis 1 evidence.
- Christians been accused of constantly opposing the work of scientists from the earliest beginnings of science. The most compelling evidence for this is the story of the persecution of Galileo at the beginning of the scientific revolution and the continued opposition by Christians to Darwin’s theory of evolution.
- Atheists argue that Christianity is inherently and incurably anti-scientific because it is based on a belief in the supernatural.
Chapters Four through Thirteen will refute each of these arguments beyond any scientific doubt.
Chapter Four is especially important because no other part of the Bible gets as much criticism as the six days of creation. For people who believe in the Bible, this aspect of the Bible’s creation story has been a scientific embarrassment for over a century and a half. Chapter Four will accomplish the unimaginable; it will prove that the six day account of creation is meant to be taken literally and that it is scientifically correct. We can thank the genius of two men for revealing this startling truth – Albert Einstein and Gerald Schroeder. What their combined efforts demonstrate is that while scientists are correct that the universe is about 14 billion years old, the Bible is also correct that the universe is six days and a few thousand years old. As Einstein pointed out in his magnificent work on relativity, it is all about perspective.
The entire book is available at jonhampton.substack.com. It will cost you $5 and a few hours of your time to find out the scientific truth about God, the first page of the Bible and Christianity. This is not an onerous price to pay considering the importance of the topic.
Reasonable Step Five
After you have read the entire book, it would be highly useful to read a few others. The ones that we recommend to you are the following listed in order of importance. None of these books was written to promote any religion.
The Science of God by Gerald Schroeder
Gerald Schroeder is an original thinker whose books will challenge much of what you think you know about science and God.
Endless Forms Most Beautiful by Sean B. Carroll
This is an entertaining and incredibly informative book about some of the latest and most important advances in evolutionary biology. It is written by a biologist who is loyal to Darwin’s legacy, but the book unintentionally ends up disproving Darwin’s hypothesis.
Primal Myths by Barbara C. Sproul
We disagree totally with Professor Sproul’s views on the Genesis 1 account of creation which she incorrectly dismisses as a myth. But she provides details of over a hundred genuine creation myths from all over the world that demonstrate how limited human beings are in their understanding of the world. Without science and divine inspiration, humankind would forever remain trapped in magical thinking, myth and superstition.
The God Delusion by Professor Richard Dawkins
This is a truly awful book that denies almost everything written in our book. But if we aspire to be functionally reasonable people we cannot shy away from opposing views. What you will gain by reading this best-selling book by the foremost advocate of anti-theism is a deep understanding of how far the people who hate the idea of God will go to corrupt and misuse science in their effort to destroy people’s faith.
The next step
This is as far as we can help you go. We are both former atheists who now know that God of the Bible is a scientific fact. We believe in Him the way we believe in gravity – We know He is there, but we don’t have a good idea of how He works. What you do with this new knowledge is up to you.
We do have something else to say directly to Christians. From our limited understanding of scriptures, we think there is one additional step Christians must take in light of the evidence presented in this book. Whether they are Old-earth Creationists, Young-earth Creationists or progressive and converged, all Christians must heed Romans 1:18-22. This passage makes it clear what everyone who considers themselves to be Christians has to do with the new evidence about the scientific truth of scriptures:
18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made,… NIV
…so that people are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools… NIV
If people ignore the scientific proof of God’s existence, they will become unreasonable fools and their thinking will become futile. This is why all Christians must make the effort to learn the basics of modern science that informs us of God’s magnificent works and, once they are well informed, declare to the world that science upholds what Christian scriptures say about Him. That is one of the most effective ways for Christians to know, glorify and be thankful to God. In the age of science it is absolutely necessary in order to save young people from atheism and self-destruction.