Science and a Proof of God - Thomas Aquinas and his Five Ways

Today we are going to discuss some scientific ideas that proport to prove the existence of God. They were originally proposed by Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century. Thomas lived from 1224 to 1274. He was a great scientific philosopher-theologian of the Catholic Church and lived before modern science was a recognized discipline.

So lets take a brief look at the history of Science. What would be considered Ancient Science had its earliest roots in Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia starting around 3000 BC to about 1200 BC. Its contributions shaped Greek natural philosophy and the ideas of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, all living in the 5th to 4th Century BC. Ancient Science provided explanations of events in the physical world based on natural causes.

Then, in the 15th through the mid-18th centuries the Scientific Revolution and the birth of modern scientific methods occured, resulting in substantial advances in factual knowledge in chemistry, biology and physics.

So after the Greek philosophers and just before the Scientific Revolution started, Thomas Aquinas published his Five Ways.

In his book, Summa Theologica, he proposed his "Five Ways" or five logical arguments for the existence of God. His Five Ways were designed to prove the existence of God through nature. Although they were first proposed over 700 years ago, they still have relevance today.

Thomas' intent for the Five Ways was to demonstrate a general, objective, rational case for God’s existence using commonly available (at his time) observations. The Five Ways are best viewed as an introduction to the idea of God’s existence, not the entire sum of Christian theology.

The Five Ways to show the existence of God according to Thomas Aquinas:

• The First Way – An Unmoved Mover - The Argument from Change
• The Second Way – The First Cause - The Argument from Causality
• The Third Way – Contingency or Necessary Being - The Argument from Contingency
• The Fourth Way – Gradation - The Argument from Perfection
• The Fifth Way – Design - The Argument from Purpose

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This is the account of the heavens
And the earth when they were created,
When the LORD God made the earth and the heavens.
- Genesis 2:4 (NIV)

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The First Way – An Unmoved Mover - The Argument from Change

All of creation is in motion. However, nothing changes by itself without something else causing the change. There has to be an unchangeable first mover to start the whole thing in motion. The unchangeable first mover is God

The Second Way – The First Cause - The Argument from Causality

Everything in existence was caused by something else. Nothing in existence comes about by its own doing. There has to be an uncaused cause from which everything else comes. The uncaused cause is God

The Third Way – Contingency or Necessary Being - The Argument from Contingency

It is not necessary for anything in the world to exist at all. It is also true that nothing and no one exists forever. There is a necessary being on which the existence of all other things is contingent, or dependent. The necessary being that holds it all in existence is God

The Fourth Way – Gradation - The Argument from Perfection

In the world we see a spectrum on which things exist. There is a scale of good, better, and best. There must be a standard which is perfectly good, perfectly true, and perfectly beautiful. The standard by which everything else is judged is God

The Fifth Way – Design - The Argument from Purpose

There is an intelligent design to the way the world works. Internally, things lack the intelligence/functionality to operate alone. It is impossible for this intelligent design to happen completely at random. Creation needs an intelligent designer for everything to work properly. The Intelligent Designer is God

The Five Ways Today

As we can see, there are strong similarities between Aquinas’s Five Ways and many common arguments used today for the existence of God. Aquinas’s first three arguments share a common theme: that causality, logic, and so forth lead to an inference of the existence of a deity. The most frequently used of these in the modern world is referred to as the Cosmological Argument: Attempting to prove God’s existence by observing the world around us, i.e. the cosmos.

The fourth argument is almost identical to the Ontological Argument: Arguments that rely on pure reasoning. Aquinas saw a distinction; however, he was arguing that goodness or power in some finite object can only come from some other, greater source.

The fifth argument, also known as the Teleological Argument: The appearance of design and purpose in nature implies a designer, is similar to the modern-day argument from Intelligent Design: The theory says that intelligent causes are necessary to explain the complex, information-rich structures of biology and that these causes are empirically detectable.

Scientists Objections:

There are two key objections by scientists today used to shut down Thomas' Five Ways. They are:

1. If God existed, there would be no evil discoverable in the world; but there is evil in the world. Therefore, God does not exist.
   • This does not consider that per the Christian view, God gave man free will which would allow for evil to exist.
2. Everything we see in the world can be accounted for by other principles. All-natural things can be reduced to one principle which is nature; and all voluntary things can be reduced to one principle which is human reason, or will. Therefore, there is no need to suppose God’s existence.
   • This does not consider that nature or reason can not exist without a higher power over all.

Scientific Discoveries that point to God (Adapted from Dr. Stephen C Meyer at the Discovery Institute)

Although not everyone will agree, there is a growing amount of evidence that there must be an outside "Force" that is driving the universe and all that happens here. We will look briefly at four recent discoveries that point to God as that Force.

1. The Universe had a beginning (The Big Bang):
   • Red Shift in starlight shows that the universe is expanding from a big bang singularity (creation of all matter, time, space and energy - not a material cause).
   • There needs to be a cause for this (no matter who does the causing) - the best explanation is an immaterial creative mind, i.e. God
2. Since the beginning the universe has been fine-tuned
   • Everything is just right, not to strong or weak, or too big or small (a goldilocks universe).
   • If any forces or factors are changed, even in the slightest, the universe as we know it would not exist.
   • At this point there are 10's to 100's of such factors known to scientists. (Gravity, Magnetic Force, Strong Nuclear Force, Weak Nuclear Force).
3. The fossil record is non-Darwinian
   • Changes in speciation should be happening gradually and continually per Darwin but the actual fossil record shows changes come quickly (Scientists circumvent this with Puncuated Equilibrium)
   • An example is the Cambrian explosion
   • Mutation and natural selection cannot build such complex creatures, even if given the expanse of time since the Big Bang (14 billion years).
4. DNA Alpha Helix structure (and other complex molecules)
   • DNA is a complex information storage, transmission and processing system inside each cell.
   • DNA is like a software program but more complex than any program man has written.
   • Information is the product of intelligence. The foundation of life is in the DNA.

Summary

So, we have looked at past and present debates for the existence of God. Do any of these resonate with your sense of reason to accept the truth of the existence of God? Perhaps you had a merely childlike trust and faith in the existence of God in your heart, but now you can feel more certain in your mind that God is in control.

Proverbs 25:2 (ESV) - It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out.

The Long and Winding Road to My Magnum Opus

My wife, Cathy, is the true artist in the family, having created hundreds of artistic works in her lifetime, mostly paintings and drawings and a number of amazing murals. This story begins in the summer of 1992 with one of her first murals, a beach scene in our sons' bedroom. Two of our teenage sons shared a large bedroom and the older one wanted to have the perfect wave painted on one wall. He loved and still does love surfing, as do his wife and kids. He makes use of his family's vacation times for them to all travel the world exploring the great beaches, looking for the best waves.

Anyway, my wife took on the challenge and painted a tropical scene with sandy beaches and palm trees and a wave - a vision of my son's perfect wave - breaking near the shore. The seascape took up the entire south wall, clear to the peak of the raised ceiling and wrapped around the corners onto the adjacent walls. It was truly a work of art and a labor of love.

So, jump ahead to 2004 and both of those boys have moved out and are married as are most of our other kids. We now call the bedroom "The Beach Room" as the mural has endured all those years and is a centerpiece of art within our home. When new friends come to our home it is one of the first things that we share with them while touring the house. In fact it is still there today (2022) so has held this prominent spot for almost 30 years.

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Each of Us has Something Great within Us
Just Waiting to be Released
In God's Perfect Timing

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My wife now (in 2004) wants to decorate the room with a "seafaring" theme, adding items unbefitting a teenager's room such as seagull figures and seashells and - a porthole. So, it is at this point that I come into the picture. I enjoy looking for eclectic artifacts on eBay (an online shopping network much like an internet garage sale), where people sell their stuff they no longer want or need.

So, I volunteered to find a porthole to decorate the wall.

I began my search for the perfect porthole and, much to my dismay, the portholes I found were painted over or rusted or broken or with only a part of the porthole remaining. But finally, I found one that looked complete and in good shape, with only minor paint around the bolt holes. It said it was 27 inches in diameter and weighed 100 pounds but in my excitement, I really didn't notice. I thought it would be perfect for "The Beach Room" so I bid on it and WON!

Now I don't remember but, most likely I did all of this without asking my wife for her thoughts on my choice of a porthole. When my wife saw it, she said no, that it was too big and too heavy. She wanted a much smaller porthole, maybe 12 inches in diameter, with a mirror inside that could be hung on the wall above a beached themed shelf holding beach related bric-a-brac.

So now (April 2004), since I won it, I had to buy it. It was shipped to our home on a wooden pallet and I said I thought it was cool and that I would do something with it at some later date, like maybe make a porthole table out of it. I had seen porthole tables while browsing eBay and they were generally not much to look at but it was all I could think of at the moment. Little did I know what it would take to get the job done!

I stuck the porthole on a lower shelf in the garage with big plans but no time. So, there it lay hidden, for years and years, with me pulling it out every now and again to think about building something with it. At one point I went back on eBay looking for something to use as table legs and found some 4-foot-long brass poles, the kind used on circus carousels to make the horses go up and down. I bought them and tried to work out a design for the table but to no avail. I think the poles are buried in my garage, most likely only to be resurrected by my kids after I am gone.

Every now and then I would mention the porthole to my family, saying I was going to make a table out of it. It became the big joke as I was all talk but little to no action.

So, moving on, I retired in 2015 and started to settle in to my new life. My wife and I had plans to fix up our home and I worked on a number of remodel type projects around the house as well as spent more time with my kids and grandkids. Between these projects, my grandkids and my naps, it kept me busy most of the time. I would think about the porthole and had different ideas running through my head but didn't do any real work on it until COVID. It's not that COVID really prompted me to do it, it was just the timing as things slowed down at home, and I needed to clean out my garage (still a project to finish by the way). I went looking for a project and decided that it was time to really focus on the porthole and what to do about it.

I started my research by scanning any websites I could find that sold nautical pieces. I wanted to know as much as I could about my porthole. At some time in the past I had connected to a company that would get boatloads of nautical wares from India or China or elsewhere in the South Pacific and then offer them for sale. I saw more tables but no portholes of the size and condition of mine. I gathered information on-line about John Roby LTD, the English foundry that apparently had made the porthole. I contacted some museums in Liverpool and St Helens, and even a used nautical dealer in Maine who sent me a paragraph from the internet as his contribution.

I have yet to find a porthole even close to the size and condition of mine, nor can I determine how old mine is. I suspect, based on the little information I have about the John Roby foundry, that my porthole is possibly 100+ years old. The true answer is probably somewhere in one of the English museums, in their archives of paperwork from John Roby. Below is some history from the St Helens Star that support my thoughts.

The John Roby LTD Foundry was located in Rainhill England within the Metropolitan Borough of St Helens, in Merseyside. It is near the port city of Liverpool which is located on the River Mersey where it meets the Irish Sea. If you know any music from the 1960's, this is the same Liverpool that the Beatles called home.

John Roby was in operation from the late 1850's to 1973. Another foundry in the area during those years was Thomas Utley LTD. The Utley workbooks dated 1888 to 1903 (held by St Helens Archives), reveal that a huge amount of work was contracted to John Roby. A daybook held by the Liverpool Maritime Museum Archive similarly shows a constant flow of orders from the Utley Foundry to the Roby Foundry - all items made to Utley patterns and often to a special mixture of metals.

Thomas Utley LTD was a primary supplier of metal fittings for the Titanic. Unfortunately, their surviving workbooks do not cover the period when the Titanic was built (the Titanic was built at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, Ireland between March 1909 and May 1911) but there is no reason to believe that the pattern of the previous twenty plus years had changed, so it is very possible that John Roby LTD worked on sidelights, port holes and other fittings which were destined for the Titanic, or one of its sister ships, the Olympic and the Britannic.

In 1928 the two foundries reached an agreement whereby John Roby Ltd would receive first refusal on all orders of ships' lights. Then, in 1931, Utley was brought to the brink of bankruptcy when work on the Queen Mary was suspended. So, John Roby LTD bought some of the machinery from their Tuebrook site along with the name "Thomas Utley" and in 1934 Thomas Utley (Rainhill) LTD was founded and the sale of Utley products under license resumed at the Rainhill Foundry of John Roby LTD. The two companies eventually merged during the harsh trading conditions for shipping companies in 1966 and the company closed the Rainhill site in 1973. The TM Utley Foundry continues operations in St Helens today. Without any firm evidence, I am unable to date my porthole, except that it was probably made between 1880 and 1960, most likely sometime in the middle of that period (1910-30ish?).

So, leaving the porthole I moved on to the tabletop. What should it be? I found a company in Iowa, The Lumber Shack, that sells live edge tree slices and trunk rounds. I searched their inventory frequently for something I thought might work, using pictures of different rounds that I thought had a lot of character, overlaying them with the porthole and trying to find a good match.

I finally settled on some black walnut slices from a 100-year-old tree that had come down in someone's yard in Iowa. I thought the size and age matched the porthole well. The Lumber Shack had 8 to 10 slices from this same tree so I compared them all until I finally decided on one of the larger slices. It had a lot of character with its undulating edges. It also had a crack in the middle but that was fine since I was going to cut the middle out anyway. Not being skilled at working with such a delicate piece of lumber, I had The Lumber Shack de-bark the edge, epoxy the whole round and cut out the circle in the middle.

I moved to designing the base for the table. It had to be strong enough to hold up the 100-pound porthole, the 60-pound tree round and the glass plate I was planning to add to the top. It also needed to be able to roll around so it could be moved in the room and be able to be dismantled so the table could be moved into the house. My wife was not sure she wanted this in the house. I knew she would love it when it was complete but she just didn't have my vision for the piece yet!

I created a rough design with a steel round the diameter of the porthole that was about a foot tall. The porthole would fit into this round, creating a storage space in the middle. On this would be attached a plate to hold the tree round where the porthole would bolt into the tree section. Finally, I added several round plates to the outside of the steel round to create a soft look when viewing the table from the side. I provided my drawings to a local steel fabricator, Fabco Steel, and they created a proper CAD design and made the metal pieces I requested.

So, now I had all of the raw materials in the works and I just had to finish them and assemble. Hah! The work had just begun!

I have done some woodworking in the past but I was not prepared for what was to come. But luckily, I had a friend, Scott, who was a master woodworker, and he had a shop full of tools to help me. We first tackled the legs, using an old 1" by 12" section of what appeared to be walnut I had found stuffed away in my garage. We sliced it into 3" wide sections and formed a cross that would be the base for the steel drum, the legs of the cross fitting into slots cut in the drum. Little did I know how much went into the making of what seemed to be a simple cross! Each leg was three walnut sections, glued together. The gluing required a plethora of clamps to hold the boards in place while the glue dried. We spent over a week just gluing the different sections together but, in the end, came up with exactly what we needed to be the legs for the table. As Scott said, you can't ever have too many clamps!

After all was glued and done, we sanded the boards to a smooth sheen and finished them with Total Boat epoxy, giving them several coats. They looked great and I was excited to get going on the trunk slice. But it was not ready for me.

The tree trunk slab arrived on a pallet, inside a custom box completely sealed with screws. Upon opening the box, the tree slab was found surrounded with thin layers of Styrofoam for protection. Removing these revealed the slab, broken into three pieces. I had expected that there might be one break as the spot where the trunk folded in on itself was partially cut away when the circle was cut from the center of the slab. But there were two other breaks such that the slab was broken into three parts, with each section equal to about one-third of the circle.

Well, even though this was unexpected, I thought "we should be able to glue this together with some epoxy." Scott and I, with our clamps in hand, worked to figure out a way to hold the pieces together as we painted a coat of epoxy between the first two pieces. Once these glued and dried completely, a couple of days, we added the third piece and before we knew it, the circle was complete again. Surprisingly, the glue job came out very clean and we were impressed with our work.

Now that the base, legs, table top and porthole were all there, we did a sample fit - and it all went together as planned! So, we knew that the table was going to go together and what was yet to do would get us there. Remaining work was to polish the porthole, sand and epoxy the tree ring, touch up the steelwork and assemble. Yeah, that's all. But it would take another month or two to get that all done.

So, the first thing to do was epoxy the trunk and, as suggested by Scott, to add a supporting piece of plywood under the ring to give the tabletop an extra measure of strength. So, I cut a shaped piece of 1/4" plywood to fit the bottom of the tree trunk and sanded the bottom and the plywood with several different grits of paper in succession - 60, 120, 220, 320, 400 and 600 grit. I then applied epoxy on each and using screws, connected the plywood to the tree.

After applying several coats of epoxy, with more sanding in between, I called the bottom done and turned the trunk over and was ready to start work on the top. This is where another problem reared its ugly head. Once epoxied, the wood turns very dark and no grain is visible, a most unappealing and unwanted result. This was ok on the bottom but certainly NOT what was required on the table top.

I thought, oh no how am I going to lighten the wood to bring out the grain? I did some research (the Internet is not all bad!) and found that I could bleach the wood with a mixture of Lye (NaOH 8%) and Hydrogen Peroxide (H₂O₂ 27%) in equal parts. It was easier said than done to find these ingredients but once I found them, I was good to go. I applied this to the table top 3 times with sanding in between each application (remember the 6 progressive grades of sandpaper used each time) to lighten the wood to what I hoped would be the perfect shade after I coated the slab with 4 coats of the epoxy.

Now I proceeded to sand, then epoxy, then sand, and then epoxy until I had four coats. The sandings each took a day, remember the 6 grit levels each time. Then the epoxy coats each took two days as I could brush on the coat but needed to wait two days for it to dry completely, at least that is how I did it. I also did not work on it every day so in total it took about two weeks to finish the four coats. Finally, I had to buff it to the desired finish after the last coat.

Now that all the different parts were ready, I was finally able to assemble the table. The legs bolted onto the drum which supported the table top. The porthole required the installation of 19 threaded inserts for the brass bolts that anchored the porthole base to the table. All this took a few days as well since I needed to screw the table top to the steel drum, add the connections for power for the lights inside and for the USB charger ports.

Once the table was all put together (except for the porthole window, it was added after as it was very heavy) I asked my youngest son to come over and help me bring it inside as there was no way I could do it by myself. We wheeled it to the front door, lifted it over the threshold and down into the family room and rolled it into place. Once it was inside and all set up, Cathy said she loved it there so it is now the center of attention in front of the fireplace.

I am not sure if I will do anything like it again but I get excited every time I come into the room and see it glowing lightly (added some LEDs inside that glow out the frosted window of the porthole and through the bottom of the drum). Or when someone new comes by and sees it for the first time, I appreciate their kind words of praise for how beautiful it turned out. So, no matter what I do in the future, I suspect that this will be my Magnum Opus.

The Bible Scientific - Ecclesiastes 1:7

"The Bible Scientific" is my current blog series. Each post will examine a verse or two directly from Scripture and try to explain that Biblical quote from a scientific perspective.

It is often stated that the Bible and Science are not compatible, that the Bible is not a scientific text and that you can not believe the Bible and also believe science. I think this is short sighted as there are a number of places in Scripture where scientific facts were stated even before man understood them. The Bible is not a scientific text in that it is not meant to be the full explanation of scientific fact, but it does direct us to understand the nature of God scientifically as well as spiritually. It complements science. God uses His Word to help us understand Him and His creation with our mind, soul and spirit.

Galileo Galilei said:

"The prohibition of science would be contrary to the Bible, which in hundreds of places teaches us how the greatness and the glory of God shine forth marvelously in all His works, and is to be read above all in the open book of the heavens."

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In this post we will look at Ecclesiastes and Isaiah where they discuss the Water Cycle.

Ecclesiastes 1:7 (NIV) - All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full. To the place the streams come from, there they return again.

Isaiah 55:10 (NIV) – As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater.

These two verses suggest the flow of water from the sea to the sky to the rain, them back to the land and into the sea again. This is the fundamental principle of the Water Cycle or Hydrological Cycle. Without this process, life here would be impossible.

The water cycle describes how water evaporates from the surface of the earth and rises into the atmosphere, where it cools and condenses into rain or snow, forming clouds and eventually falling to the earth as precipitation. The falling water collects directly into the ocean or in rivers and lakes, the soil, and porous rock layers. From here it flows back into the ocean, and once again evaporates to complete the cycle.

There are many descriptions of the water cycle, with 4, 5, 7 or more steps in the cycle. Most start with some variation of these four main stages and expand each stage into more and more detailed components. All descriptions contain, in some form, these four steps of evaporation, condensation, precipitation and collection.

Let's look at each of these stages:

Evaporation: The heat from the sun causes the liquid water in the oceans, lakes, streams, and soils to turn into water vapor (a gas) and rise into the atmosphere.

Condensation: As the air cools down, the water vapor turns back into liquid water and coalesces to make clouds.

Precipitation: The water in the clouds then form into droplets of rain, snow, hail or sleet (as a liquid or solid - water or ice) and falls from the clouds in the sky.

Collection: Some of the falling water (as a liquid or solid) collects in the oceans, rivers, lakes, and streams. Most will infiltrate (soak into) the ground and will collect as underground water, which eventually finds its way back to the ocean.

The water cycle is powered by the sun's energy and by gravity. The sun kick starts the whole cycle by heating all the Earth's water and making some of it evaporate. Gravity makes the moisture fall back to Earth.

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He ...who calls for the waters of the sea
and pours them out over the face of the land
— the LORD is his name. - Amos 5:8b (NIV)

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As you can see from this diagram, the cycle is much more complex than the simple description above of the four steps. In the first step, water rises into the atmosphere, leaving behind any accumulated minerals or other substances which can leave nutrients for plants and animals living on the land or in the sea. This also purifies the water so it can start the process clean.

As the water condenses into clouds, the clouds impact the weather in their location, possibly cooling the land or stirring up winds that will blow the clouds over the land from the ocean, further impacting the weather and affecting the type and chances of precipitation that may occur.

If the clouds move over higher elevations, the precipitation may come as snow which now covers the land with a very reflective surface which can reduce temperatures in the local area by reflecting back the sunlight. The snow and ice can also accumulate to form a water storehouse, later to melt and water the lowlands surrounding the snow pack. This collected water then extends the potential growing seasons for plant life and allowing life to flourish even when there is not continuous precipitation to provide regular waterings.

In the crucible of scientific investigation, the Bible has proven invariably to be correct. No other book, ancient or modern, can make this claim; but then, no other book has been written (through men) by God. From: Reasons to Believe.

I think as we learn more through scientific study and examination, if we are reasonable and open, we will see the hand of God at work.

Next up:

Psalm 139: 13-16 - For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. ¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. ¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. ¹⁶ Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

Now in eBook Form - The Minerals of Revelation

The most searched blogs, by far, here on God's Chemistry Set are those dealing with "The Minerals of Revelation," a set of 14 blog entries covering the twelve stones used in the twelve foundations of the New Jerusalem, as outlined in the Book of Revelation, Chapter 21, verses 19 & 20.

Because so many readers look to these works, I have put them all together in one place as an eBook, now available on Amazon.

These blogs review, one by one and in order, each of the twelve stones in the foundation of the New Jerusalem (Revelation 21:19-20). I discuss the stone, and possible other stones that could be represented, and look at its meaning and the connection to the twelve tribes of Jacob (breastplate of the high priest from Exodus 28:15-30 and Exodus 39:8-21) and to the twelve Apostles. I hope you find this information interesting and that it helps stimulate your own study of the Word of God.

The eBook also includes two additional, widely viewed blogs - "Atomic Glue - The Force That Holds the Atom Together" and "As Iron Sharpens Iron."

Please take a look and if you purchase the eBook I would appreciate a review.

Thanks

The Bible Scientific - Job 26:7

"The Bible Scientific" is my current blog series. Each post will examine a verse or two directly from Scripture and try to explain that Biblical quote from a scientific perspective.

It is often stated that the Bible and Science are not compatible, that the Bible is not a scientific text and that you can not believe the Bible and also believe science. I think this is short sighted as there are a number of places in Scripture where scientific facts were stated even before man understood them. The Bible is not a scientific text in that it is not meant to be the full explanation of scientific fact, but it does direct us to understand the nature of God scientifically as well as spiritually. It complements science. God uses His Word to help us understand Him and His creation with our mind, soul and spirit.

Galileo Galilei said:

"The prohibition of science would be contrary to the Bible, which in hundreds of places teaches us how the greatness and the glory of God shine forth marvelously in all His works, and is to be read above all in the open book of the heavens."

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Returning to Job we will consider verse 26:7 (NIV):

Job 26:7 (NIV) - He spreads out the northern skies over empty space; he suspends the earth over nothing.

Another scripture to look at in connection with Job 26:7 is this one:

Job 38:31-33 (NIV) – Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades, or loose the cords of Orion? Can you lead forth a constellation in its season, and guide the Bear with her satellites? Do you know the ordinances of the heavens, or fix their rule over the earth?

These sections of Scripture discuss gravity and the "empty space" that fills the void between the stars. Gravity holds the planets up on seemingly nothing. The Sun “rules” over the Earth (holds it in an orbit). Scientifically, we know that gravity is one of, and the weakest of, the four fundamental forces. It causes any two bodies to be attracted to each other, with the force proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.

Gravity caused the original gaseous matter present in the Universe to begin to coalesce and form stars and caused the stars to group together into galaxies. It did the same to form planets. Gravity is the force by which all things with mass or energy are brought together. Gravity gives weight to things on Earth and the Moon's gravity helps form the tides we see on Earth. It even holds the atmosphere around the Earth that otherwise would be torn away by the Solar wind.

The most extreme example of gravity is a Black Hole, from which nothing—not even light—can escape once it passes the Black Hole's event horizon.

The Pleiades and Orion are the only two constellations where the stars in them are bound by gravity to one another so they move as a unit (they are in the same galactic location). Other constellations appear together but some of the stars are much further away from us and only look close due to our angle of view. Stars are constantly moving relative to one another, as is the Earth, the Moon and any planet circling a star.

Because of the vast distances within the Universe, the stars seem to stay in one place but over extremely long periods of time (thousands to millions of years) they will gradually move apart - the constellations will change shape. The constellations that are not within a single galactic location will retain their appearance for a much shorter time as the stars within them will be moving independent of one another.

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When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
human beings that you care for them? - Psalms 8:3-4 (NIV)

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The Pleiades is among the star clusters nearest to Earth and is the cluster most obvious to the naked eye in the night sky.

Orion is a prominent constellation located on the celestial equator and is visible throughout the world. Along with the Pleiades, Orion is one of the most conspicuous and recognizable star systems visible with the naked eye. Orion is also useful as an aid to locating other stars. Its seven brightest stars form a distinctive hourglass-shaped pattern that points towards other visible stars, such as Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky. Sirius is a binary star (Sirius A and B) and is also one of our nearest neighbors in the Milky Way.

Amos 5:8 (NIV) - He who made the Pleiades and Orion, who turns midnight into dawn and darkens day into night, who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out over the face of the land— the LORD is his name.

Next up:

Ecclesiastes 1:7 (NIV) - All the rivers flow into the sea, yet the sea is not full. To the place where the rivers flow, there they flow again.

The Bible Scientific - Leviticus 13:45-46

"The Bible Scientific" is my current blog series. Each post will examine a verse or two directly from Scripture and try to explain that Biblical quote from a scientific perspective.

It is often stated that the Bible and Science are not compatible, that the Bible is not a scientific text and that you can not believe the Bible and also believe science. I think this is short sighted as there are a number of places in Scripture where scientific facts were stated even before man understood them. The Bible is not a scientific text in that it is not meant to be the full explanation of scientific fact, but it does direct us to understand the nature of God scientifically as well as spiritually. It complements science. God uses His Word to help us understand Him and His creation with our mind, soul and spirit.

Galileo Galilei said:

"The prohibition of science would be contrary to the Bible, which in hundreds of places teaches us how the greatness and the glory of God shine forth marvelously in all His works, and is to be read above all in the open book of the heavens."

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Now we move into Leviticus, the book of the Law:

Leviticus 13:45-46 (NIV) – “Anyone with such a defiling disease must wear torn clothes, let their hair be unkempt, cover the lower part of their face and cry out, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ As long as they have the disease they remain unclean. They must live alone; they must live outside the camp."

This section of Scripture speaks to the control of disease, using quarantines when there was no cure and the disease in question appeared to be contagious. This is talking mostly about the ostracism of the incurable (lepers) in the desert where the Jews spent 40 years wandering until all who left Egypt had died (except two) and the LORD then led them into the promised land.

Does this sound familiar, in these days of COVID-19 and the corona virus? Social distancing, wearing masks, being "clean" (washing our hands and the surfaces we touch). Being asked (or told) not to leave our homes?

One thing is different, however, the Jews quarantined the person who was infected and it was incumbent on that person to tell everyone to stay away by shouting "Unclean!" Today everyone is encouraged to stay at home because we can not tell who is infected. Only those with symptoms, or a positive test, must be quarantined but everyone (sick or not) must wear a mask and stay six feet apart instead of shouting Unclean!

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So that you can distinguish between the holy and the common,
between the unclean and the clean,
- Leviticus 10:10 (NIV)

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Leprosy is a mildly contagious skin disease which had no cure at that time. It is a long-term infection by the bacteria Mycobacterium leprae. It can sometimes take up to 20 years to develop. Infections can lead to damage of the nerves, respiratory tract, skin, and eyes. The nerve damage creates a lack of pain sensation, which can result in damage to and loss of a person's extremities from repeated injuries or further infection of unnoticed wounds. Transmission of leprosy occurs during close contact with those who are infected.

Although Leprosy is only mildly contagious, it created a stigma for those with the disease and others were fearful of contracting it. So in following the advice of this verse, the Jews would quarantine those with leprosy outside of the camp to prevent the spreading of the disease. Here we see God directing his people to follow medical practices against a disease even though they knew nothing about how or why people got the disease.

People with the disease were required to cover their mouth (wear a mask). The transmission of leprosy is not well understood, but the upper respiratory tract is thought to be the most likely route of infection. They also had to be confined to specific areas to live so as not to infect otherwise healthy people.

Psalm 52:8 (NIV) - But I am like an olive tree flourishing in the house of God; I trust in God's unfailing love for ever and ever.

God did not take away the suffering and stigma of the disease but he provided his people with a way to deal with the struggle. We need to learn that we will not be free of pain and suffering in this life but God is always with us, nonetheless.

Next up:

Job 26:7 - He spreads out the northern skies over empty space; he suspends the earth over nothing.

The Bible Scientific - Isaiah 40:22

"The Bible Scientific" is my current blog series. Each post will examine a verse or two directly from Scripture and try to explain that Biblical quote from a scientific perspective.

It is often stated that the Bible and Science are not compatible, that the Bible is not a scientific text and that you can not believe the Bible and also believe science. I think this is short sighted as there are a number of places in Scripture where scientific facts were stated even before man understood them. The Bible is not a scientific text in that it is not meant to be the full explanation of scientific fact, but it does direct us to understand the nature of God scientifically as well as spiritually. It complements science. God uses His Word to help us understand Him and His creation with our mind, soul and spirit.

Galileo Galilei said:

"The prohibition of science would be contrary to the Bible, which in hundreds of places teaches us how the greatness and the glory of God shine forth marvelously in all His works, and is to be read above all in the open book of the heavens."

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Moving on to Isaiah to look at the Earth.

Isaiah 40:22 (NIV) – He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in.

This verse has two parts but today we will just consider the first part - "He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers."

We have discussed the second part already, that the heavens are stretched out like a tent, most notably in Psalm 104:2

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I could not do anything great or small
to go beyond the command of the LORD my God.
- Numbers 18:22b (NIV)

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Even this first part can be divided into two. The first half talks of God existing in the heavens (above the earth, inside and outside of the universe), and the second part - "its people are like grasshoppers." - pointing to the vastness of space and the majesty of God, as well as the smallness of man and his numbers.

This verse proclaims the Earth as round (a sphere) as opposed to flat. The Hebrew word "chuwg" means circle or sphere. The timing of the authorship of this verse is between the 6th and 8th centuries BC whereas the scientific proclamation that the earth is a sphere was not until the 3rd century BC, although it was thought to possibly be a sphere dating from the 6th century BC.

Another verse also points to the earth as a sphere:

Job 26:10 (NIV) - He marks out the horizon on the face of the waters for a boundary between light and darkness.

Now lets look at the second part of this verse, "its people are like grasshoppers." This part looks at the insignificance of man in comparison to God. But we know that despite the seeming insignificance of man, God loves us and created us for a purpose. We see this in Romans.

Romans 8:39 (NIV) - Neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Thank you LORD for loving us!

Next up:

Leviticus 13:45-46 (NIV) - “Anyone with such a defiling disease must wear torn clothes, let their hair be unkempt, cover the lower part of their face and cry out, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ As long as they have the disease they remain unclean. They must live alone; they must live outside the camp.

The Bible Scientific - Hebrews 1:10-12

"The Bible Scientific" is my current blog series. Each post will examine a verse or two directly from Scripture and try to explain that Biblical quote from a scientific perspective.

It is often stated that the Bible and Science are not compatible, that the Bible is not a scientific text and that you can not believe the Bible and also believe science. I think this is short sighted as there are a number of places in Scripture where scientific facts were stated even before man understood them. The Bible is not a scientific text in that it is not meant to be the full explanation of scientific fact, but it does direct us to understand the nature of God scientifically as well as spiritually. It complements science. God uses His Word to help us understand Him and His creation with our mind, soul and spirit.

Galileo Galilei said:

"The prohibition of science would be contrary to the Bible, which in hundreds of places teaches us how the greatness and the glory of God shine forth marvelously in all His works, and is to be read above all in the open book of the heavens."

=======================================================================

Today we will examine Hebrews 1:10-12:

Hebrews 1:10-12 (NIV) - He also says, “In the beginning, Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. ¹¹They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment. ¹²You will roll them up like a robe; like a garment they will be changed. But you remain the same, and your years will never end.”

Each verse points to one part of a bigger theme, that the universe is temporary but God is eternal. The first two verses reference scientific thought - the Big Bang and the death of the universe. We looked at the Big Bang when discussing Genesis 1:1. This is the current scientific theory for the formation of the universe.

The end of the universe is not so well defined scientifically.

There is scientific support for a number of possibilities. The Big Crunch - a Big Bang in reverse - is one such scenario. It requires the mass of the universe and gravity to be just so, such that the expansion of the universe stops and everything collapses back on itself. Similar to this is the Big Bounce where the universe expands from the Big Crunch and a new universe is formed, possibly repeating endlessly.

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In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth,
And the heavens are the work of your hands.
They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment.
Like clothing you will change them and they will be discarded.
But you remain the same, and your years will never end. - Psalm 102:25-27

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Current science suggests a universe that is flat and infinite - it goes on expanding forever. This possibility eliminates the Big Crunch/Big Bounce. We discussed this in the last blog (Psalm 104:2). If this is true, then the universe will not just fall back on itself but will continue to expand forever. At some point it will reach a state of maximum entropy, a heat death, with the universe cooling to approach equilibrium at a very low temperature over a very long time period.

Essentially the universe will "wear out" (as mentioned in verse 11) and approach a state where all energy is evenly distributed. The mechanical movement of the universe will run down as work is converted to heat because of the second law of thermodynamics. This heat death of the universe is a possible fate in which the universe has evolved to a state of no thermodynamic free energy and therefore can no longer sustain processes that increase entropy.

Image courtesy of NASA/STScI/Ann Feild.

In this case the stars will all burn up and out, life will be impossible and the physical structure of the universe will become a soup of elemental particles. Much like wearing out like a garment!

Verse 12 also seems to mention these possibilities - the rolling up of the universe and the changing of the universe like the changing of a garment. This implies that God could create a new universe. But the main point in verse 12 is that God will always exist and is unchanging. This is inherent in His nature. And although this cannot be proved/tested scientifically, it is required as part of who God is.

The Bible teaches that someday this universe will come to an end and be replaced by a “new heavens and a new earth.” Science is now learning that at some future time, the stars will all burn out and the universe will end. For the earth and the sun, that has been calculated to be about 2 billion years from now. But life as we know it will cease much sooner than that as the sun expands to become a Red Giant star, engulfing the earth within in it.

We will look to Isaiah next:

Isaiah 40:22 (NIV) - He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in.

The Bible Scientific - Psalm 104:2

"The Bible Scientific" is my current blog series. Each post will examine a verse or two directly from Scripture and try to explain that Biblical quote from a scientific perspective.

It is often stated that the Bible and Science are not compatible, that the Bible is not a scientific text and that you can not believe the Bible and also believe science. I think this is short sighted as there are a number of places in Scripture where scientific facts were stated even before man understood them. The Bible is not a scientific text in that it is not meant to be the full explanation of scientific fact, but it does direct us to understand the nature of God scientifically as well as spiritually. It complements science. God uses His Word to help us understand Him and His creation with our mind, soul and spirit.

Galileo Galilei said:

"The prohibition of science would be contrary to the Bible, which in hundreds of places teaches us how the greatness and the glory of God shine forth marvelously in all His works, and is to be read above all in the open book of the heavens."

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In this blog we will take a look at this verse from Psalms:

Psalm 104:2 (NIV) - The LORD wraps himself in light as with a garment; he stretches out the heavens like a tent...

Psalm 104 is an elaboration of the physical creation events. Each section of verses detail another small part of creation - the Earth covered with water, the separation and formation of the land, the water cycle, plants and animals, food for all creatures, man works in the day and the animals hunt by night, the vastness of the oceans teeming with life and God's Sovereignty over ALL of His creation!

• Verses 1-4 - God and the majesty of the heavens
• Verses 5-9 - Creation of the sea and dry land
• Verses 10-18 - Provisions for the feeding and maintenance of all the creatures according to their nature
• Verses 19-24 - The Regular Course of the Sun and Moon (day & night) and the seasons
• Verses 25-26 - The vastness of the sea and all that dwells in it
• Verses 27-30 - God's Sovereignty over the Creatures and His creation
• Verses 31-35 - May the glory of the LORD endure for ever, may the LORD rejoice in his works

Specifically, Psalm 104:2 can be divided into two parts - "The LORD wraps himself in light as with a garment" - pointing to His invisible nature, and "He stretches out the heavens like a tent" explaining how He formed the universe.

Taking part one we find that God, by nature, is invisible and He is so majestic that He can use the light of the universe as His garment. This part of the verse also points to how we can see God in His creation when we look to the heavens (see Psalm 19:1 and Romans 1:20).

The second part points to the heavens as being "stretched out" (expanded) like a tent. As we see in the Big Bang Theory, the universe expanded from a singularity and science currently afirms that the universe is still expanding.

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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,
so that people are without excuse. - Romans 1:20

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The Hebrew word used here for tent is "yĕriy`ah." It means a tent, curtain, drape, or veil - a fabric that can be hung up as in the tent of the tabernacle in the desert during the 40 years of wandering. This could be God's dwelling place (the heavens) or it could be indicating the shape of the universe as flat like a curtain but being a place where creation can exist.

Einstein's theory of General Relativity says if the critical density is equal to the actual density of the universe, it is flat, as opposed to curved like a sphere (more dense - closed) or a saddle (less dense - open).

Scientists think that the actual density of the universe is equal to the critical density, and thus think the universe will extend forever like a flat piece of paper. Currently the universe is still stretching out but the expansion rate will slow down gradually, over an infinite amount of time. Thus, the universe is considered flat and infinite in size.

NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) measured background fluctuations in an effort to determine whether the universe is open or closed. In 2013, scientists announced that the universe was known to be flat with only a 0.4 percent margin of error.

Therefore this verse (Psalm 104:2) matches with what science has found based on the Theory of Relativity, that the universe is stretching out (expanding) and is like a tent or curtain (flat).

The speed of light limits us to viewing the volume of the universe visible since the Big Bang; because the universe is approximately 13.8 billion years old, scientists can only see 13.8 billion light-years from Earth.

The universe will continue to grow until it all burns out (entropy - second law of thermodynamics). We will look at this idea next time in Hebrews.

Next up:

Hebrews 1:10-12 (NIV) - He also says, “In the beginning, Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. ¹¹They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment. ¹²You will roll them up like a robe; like a garment they will be changed. But you remain the same, and your years will never end.

The Bible Scientific - Job 25:2

"The Bible Scientific" is my current blog series. Each post will examine a verse or two directly from Scripture and try to explain that Biblical quote from a scientific perspective.

It is often stated that the Bible and Science are not compatible, that the Bible is not a scientific text and that you can not believe the Bible and also believe science. I think this is short sighted as there are a number of places in Scripture where scientific facts were stated even before man understood them. The Bible is not a scientific text in that it is not meant to be the full explanation of scientific fact, but it does direct us to understand the nature of God scientifically as well as spiritually. It complements science. God uses His Word to help us understand Him and His creation with our mind, soul and spirit.

Galileo Galilei said:

"The prohibition of science would be contrary to the Bible, which in hundreds of places teaches us how the greatness and the glory of God shine forth marvelously in all His works, and is to be read above all in the open book of the heavens."

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This post of "The Bible Scientific," looks at - Job 25:2

Job 25:2 (NIV) - Dominion and awe belong to God; he establishes order in the heights of heaven.

By NASA / WMAP Science Team [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

This verse shows that God has created an all-encompassing order to the universe. Science has found that all physical laws apply to the whole universe everywhere and equally. This concept is called "The Cosmological Principle."

Astronomer William Keel explained it like this:

"The cosmological principle is usually stated formally as 'Viewed on a sufficiently large scale, the properties of the universe are the same for all observers.' This amounts to the strongly philosophical statement that the part of the universe which we can see is a fair sample, and that the same physical laws apply throughout. In essence, this in a sense says that the universe is knowable and is playing fair with scientists."

The cosmological principle is first clearly asserted in the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687) of Isaac Newton. Newton conceptualized the Earth as a sphere in orbital motion around the Sun within an empty space that extended uniformly in all directions to immeasurably large distances. Earlier cosmologies held that the Earth rested at the center of universe, with the sun and moon rotating around it. Newton also asserted the uniform extension of the physical laws of motion to a great distance beyond the observational location of Earth itself.

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The harmony of natural law reveals an intelligence of such superiority that,
Compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings
is an utterly insignificant reflection. - Albert Einstein

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Now if we translate this verse from a more scientific bent, it might say this - "The great power and rule of God brings order to all the heavens. "The great power and rule" are the physical laws that we see everywhere in the universe. Thus God, by His all-powerful nature, created the heavens and holds them in place by the physical laws He established. For man to be able to examine and understand anything about the universe around us, the laws of physics must apply uniformly and completely to the entire universe.

An orderly universe has traditionally been seen as “proof” of a creator-God who ordained natural law. As Albert Einstein said, “The harmony of natural law reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection.”

In the next blog we will examine the verse: Psalm 104:2 (NIV) - The LORD wraps himself in light as with a garment; he stretches out the heavens like a tent...

The Bible Scientific - Genesis 1:2

This is my third entry in a new series of posts called "The Bible Scientific." Each post will examine a verse or two directly from Scripture and try to explain that Biblical quote from a scientific perspective.

It is often stated that the Bible and Science are not compatible, that the Bible is not a scientific text and that you can not believe the Bible and also believe science. I think this is short sighted as there are a number of places in Scripture where scientific facts were stated even before man understood them. The Bible is not a scientific text in that it is not meant to be the full explanation of scientific fact, but it does direct us to understand the nature of God scientifically as well as spiritually. It complements science. God uses His Word to help us understand Him and His creation with our mind, soul and spirit.

Galileo Galilei said:

"The prohibition of science would be contrary to the Bible, which in hundreds of places teaches us how the greatness and the glory of God shine forth marvelously in all His works, and is to be read above all in the open book of the heavens."

If you have a favorite scientific verse or have a verse you would like reviewed, just send a note in the comment section at the bottom of this blog post. I will try to include it in a future blog entry.

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Now lets move to:

Genesis 1:2 (NIV) – Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

Science is just now wrestling with the concept of the earth as the only source of life. Science is starting to find exoplanets, planets outside our solar system, and claiming that they may be suitable for life (any life, not just intelligent life). But on the other hand, science is also finding specific conditions that must exist on such a planet, hundreds of them in fact, such that the earth is the only planet so far that seems to meet them all. It is estimated that there is about 10²⁴ planets in the visible universe.

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There is less than 1 chance in 10³¹¹
That even one planet capable of supporting life would occur anywhere
In the universe without invoking divine miracles. - Reasons.org

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Even then it is a wonder the earth does meet them as the odds are strongly against it, even to the limits of an impossibility (only one planet in over 30 trillion universes in a multiverse existence might meet all of the hundreds of known specific conditions that a planet must have to sustain intelligent life). Reasons to Believe (Reasons.org) has lists of these specific conditions that must be met for life to exist. One such list claims 501 specific conditions just for bacterial life to survive for 90 days. The odds of even one planet meeting all 501 conditions is less than 1 in 10³¹¹.

The Hebrew words used in Genesis 1:2 point to a formless earth (the primordial soup?), and God hovering over it. The Hebrew word for "hover" is "rachaph" which implies a watchful, loving attention to the entire creation process, much like a mother eagle hovering over her chicks. God watched over His creation, and still does, to bring it to its full glory (reducing those 1 in 10³¹¹ chances down to 1 in 1).

Genesis 1:2 also portrays a world covered by water, before the formation of the continents, with a thick blanket of clouds (water or other vapors?) surrounding it such that much of the light from the sun was blocked out (could not see the sun as a sphere from the surface of the earth). The temperature of the surface was no doubt warmer too - possibly a perfect incubator for the creation of the beginnings of life - microbes.

Next up: Job 25:2 (NIV) - “Dominion and awe belong to God; he establishes order in the heights of heaven.

The Bible Scientific - Perspective

This is my second entry in a new series of posts called "The Bible Scientific." Each post will examine a verse or two directly from Scripture and try to explain that Biblical quote from a scientific perspective.

It is often stated that the Bible and Science are not compatible, that the Bible is not a scientific text and that you can not believe the Bible and also believe science. I think this is short sighted as there are a number of places in Scripture where scientific facts were stated even before man understood them. The Bible is not a scientific text in that it is not meant to be the full explanation of scientific fact, but it does direct us to understand the nature of God scientifically as well as spiritually. It complements science. God uses His Word to help us understand Him and His creation with our mind, soul and spirit.

Galileo Galilei said:

"The prohibition of science would be contrary to the Bible, which in hundreds of places teaches us how the greatness and the glory of God shine forth marvelously in all His works, and is to be read above all in the open book of the heavens."

If you have a favorite scientific verse or have a verse you would like reviewed, just send a comment in the section at the bottom of this blog post. I will try to include it in a future blog entry.

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So I mentioned in my last blog that we would be moving to Genesis 1:2 next. But that was before a reader's comment made me realize I left something out of my discussion. Lets look at Genesis 1:1 again:

Genesis 1:1 (NIV) - In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

The Hebrew word used for "heavens" here is "shamayim" which means "a high and lofty place," that is, the abode of the stars - the universe. Then the writer uses the word "'erets" which means land or earth - as opposed to the heavens. But isn't the earth part of the heavens?

The point I am making here is one of perspective. I consider the Bible as the inspired Word of God. But, it is written by man and thus the perspective of the writer is one of being on the earth, and what that looks like in the context of the Scripture. In Genesis and the Creation story, the Bible is written from the writer's view on earth looking up into the heavens - what would he see?

In Genesis 1:1 the writer would see (if he was there!) the creation of the heavens - the explosion that was the "Big Bang" and the coming together of the stars and sun and planets. But the writer did not see this, as man was not created until the sixth day!

One of my readers pointed this out to me indirectly. He stated the the Sun and Moon were not created until the fourth day, after the plants. How could this be as plants, created in day 3, need light to grow. A more careful read actually shows that light was created on the first day, and the separation of the light and the dark became the night and the day - essentially the sun and the moon (Genesis 1:3-5). But the sun and moon were not visible from earth on the first day as earth's atmosphere was not as it is today - transparent - it had too much methane, which produced a thick hydrocarbon fog and only light could pass through. From the surface of the earth, neither sun nor moon was visible.

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God said, Let there be light: and there was light - Genesis 1:3

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On the fourth day (Genesis 1:14-19), God cleared the atmosphere so that the sun and moon and stars became visible from the earth. At this point the movement of the sun, moon and stars relative to the earth also became visible. The word "ma'owr" is used here for the word light, not the same word (but from the same root) as used for light as in Genesis 1:3. "Ma'owr" means a luminous body - the now visible sun and moon. Making them visible was necessary for animals, created on the fifth day, that used them to be guided by the seasons to hunt and migrate. Plus, as Genesis 1:14 says - “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years...", a visible sun and moon ultimately allows for man to mark his lifetime.

Also the verb used in Genesis 1:16 ("God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night.") for "made" is "`asah" which does not mean to create from nothing, as "bara'" does, but implies taking something that already exists and accomplishing an action with it - as in making the sun and moon visible from the earth.

Remember, in my view, that the days here are not 24 hour days but individual stretches of time (the word used in Genesis 1:5 for "day" is "yowm", which can mean an amount of time from a 24 hour day into long periods (millions?) of years for each "day") during which God guided His creation to become that which He wanted, one that can support all the living things He desired to create, including humans - created after His image.

Next time we will look at: Genesis 1:2 – Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.