In the last blog I discussed the beginning of the universe and how the discovery of the Big Bang has caused many to reconsider the possibility that God acted to create the universe. Let’s take a look now at the beginning of life itself and how scientists are stumped to explain it from a strictly materialistic viewpoint.

One hundred years ago there was great optimism that life was easy to get started. A famous experiment (Miller-Urey) took gases that were thought to be part of the early Earth’s atmosphere, zapped them with an electrode, and collected a tarry substance, which turned out to be amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. Scientists were elated, but their joy was short-lived. Since then the complexity of even the simplest organisms has proved a huge challenge to those who think life started without the input of information from a creator. The Cambrian explosion has revealed a short time period in which complex organisms popped into existence from very simple pre-existing ones. The SETI project, in which radio telescopes have attempted to listen in for signals from outer space, has proved a failure. Scientists regularly hold meetings to come up with materialistic explanations for the beginning of life, but they have proved to be dead ends.

Then there is the difficulty of the Darwinian explanation for the apparent evolution of life on earth. For the Darwinian hypothesis to be treated with respect, four things are necessary – belief in the honesty of the scientists themselves, spontaneous generation to get life started, the usefulness of mutation and natural selection to change and add complexity to a species, and transitions to show the changes over time. But each of these has proved to have huge problems. Scientists present their findings as facts when in many cases they have a pre-determined philosophy called scientism which colors their findings. I mean that before they have looked for any evidence, many of these individuals have excluded the possibility of any divine interaction with this world, thus making only material causes possible. I’ve already mentioned the problem with spontaneous generation to get life started – no one can figure out how it is possible that random processes  could come together to create something as intricate as even one-celled life. Mutation has a problem as well – it cannot produce new information which will enhance a species. Finally, transitions have failed to show up as Darwin was hoping they would.

Plenty more to come as far as scientific discoveries go. In the next blog post I would like to look at design in the universe, which to me is probably the key element that points to the possibility of a God.

For the next two weeks I’ll be speaking to a class at church regarding recent scientific discoveries that support the idea of the existence of God. What makes these discoveries interesting is the history of science over the last few centuries. Science grew out of Christianity and was nurtured by early scientists who had no problem combining their religious faith with their exploration of the universe. Then the Enlightenment came in the late 1600s and 1700s, bringing a new attitude – science was going to be done as if no God existed. When Darwin came on the scene and promulgated the idea of evolution, it look like victory for those who did not believe there was a God. But over the last century things have changed. I’d like to cover some of those changes in this and future posts.

Consider the beginning of the universe. When Edwin Hubble realized galaxies were flying away from each other, he and others knew this was the sign that the universe had exploded into existence in the distant past. Those who disliked this theory of the origin of the universe from a single point derisively referred to it as the “Big Bang.” The reaction by some to this new theory was interesting. Take Arthur Eddington, British physicist, mathematician, and astronomer. He said the idea of a beginning to the universe was “repugnant.” Now isn’t that fascinating? Instead of terms like “amazing,” “silly,” “preposterous,” or “significant,” he used the term that suggested he was not happy with the theory because of how it made him feel. This suggests to me that he was more interested in defending a philosophy rather than wherever the science was taking him. After all, if the universe came into existence, something outside the universe had to get it going. This suggested a supernatural cause, a position which gets close to allowing God into the picture.

Then there was Albert Einstein, probably the most famous scientist of all time. He was so disturbed with the idea of a beginning to the universe that he fudged his calculations to suggest that the universe had always been here. Why would well-known people be so uncomfortable with a scientific finding? Because many in the scientific world have come to believe in scientism rather than science. They believe science has all the answers to life. But the Big Bang suggests the need for a big banger to get the universe started.

Recent science discoveries have validated the Big Bang theory for the start of the universe. It may be the best-tested theory in all of science. Scientists who reject the idea of God or the supernatural have had a difficult time wrestling with the concept of getting something from nothing – all matter, space, time, and energy came from nothing. More to follow in future posts.

Here’s another in a series on messianic prophecies.  Take a look at Daniel 9:24-26.

There’s a reference here to the Anointed One (the messiah) coming to Israel, and a time line is given. A decree is issued, the Messiah comes, he is killed, and then  the city is destroyed.

OK, let’s try to understand this. Some may disagree with what I will cover here, but many scholars believe the following is the best explanation.

First, there is an issue of the number of years involved. Daniel refers to “sevens,” which most Bible scholars understand as a group of seven years. He says there will be a total of 69 of these sevens from a decree to rebuild Jerusalem until the messiah comes. Let’s suppose that those refer to a seven-year series. We must then multiply 69×7 to get the total number of years, which comes out to be 483. But since the Jews used a 360-day year, we need to multiply 483×360 to see how many total days Daniel was talking about. This ends up with a large number – 173,880. Let’s convert this to years that we are comfortable with, which are composed of 365 days. Have I lost anyone yet? We take 173,880 and divide it by 365. This will give us the total number of years we would compute –476.

Fine, but we don’t know yet the starting point of this time., which Daniel says is the issuing of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem. Again, this is not a settled point, but many Bible scholars think it refers to the decree of Artaxerxes in 445 B. C., which allowed Nehemiah to go back to Jerusalem and rebuild the city which had been destroyed by Babylon.

One last bit of math is necessary here. Starting at 445 BC, we mark off 476 years and end up at 31 A. D. This, of course, is during the time of Jesus’s ministry. Sounds pretty accurate, doesn’t it?

But are Christians just reading in these numbers in an attempt to twist them to conform to the life of Jesus? Let’s look at what the Jewish reaction to them has been. In the Qumran community, famous for the Dead Sea Scrolls, there was great fervor during Jesus’s time because they had done the same calculating. In the Babylonian Talmud, completed between 200-500 A.D., there’s a reference to this passage in Daniel:” these times were over long ago.” Again, it sounds like the Jews themselves came up with roughly the same dating. Finally the highly respected 12th-century rabbi Maimonides was quoted as saying that the end times had already come without a sign of the Messiah. He urged rabbis not to spend time calculating the days of Messiah as laid out by Daniel because they would be disappointed. Once more,  careful readers placed Daniel’s prophecy in the early first century

So these verses by Daniel are tantalizing because they suggest Jesus is the fulfillment of Daniel’s prophecy. Even if some critics want to late date Daniel to 100 B. C., this would still leave the mystery of how he was able to foresee the ministry of Jesus.

It’s almost Christmas, so we will look at some more messianic prophecies in the Old Testament that seem to point to Jesus. How do Jewish scholars and rabbis see the same verses? Are Christians twisting the scriptures, or does Jesus seem to shine out from the Old Testament?

Isaiah 9:6 says, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called wonderful Counselor, mighty God, everlasting father, prince of peace.” One Jewish translation words it this way: “Wonderful in Council is God the mighty, the everlasting father, the ruler of peace.” This is an obvious attempt to get away from the view that this verse indicates this coming person has some divine attributes, a claim that Christians make about Jesus. But there is no use of the verb “is” in Hebrew – it’s placed there arbitrarily as a way to demote the individual spoken of. Looks like many Jews are uncomfortable with this verse since it seems to point to Jesus. Another Jewish translation is this one: “Wonderful counselor of the mighty God, of the everlasting father, of the prince of peace.” Again, this is an attempt to make the individual here a counselor, not a divine figure. But one modern scholar, Dr. James Price (Prof. with a PhD in Hebrew language) says the insertion of the word “of” in several places is not justified by any rule of Hebrew grammar that he knows. Again, this seems to indicate Jews feel the need to change the individual spoken of–to a lesser being than Jesus.

Let’s do one more messianic prophecy. Genesis 49:10 says, “The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs and the obedience of the nations is his.” The term “scepter” refers to the right to conduct their own government’s business including that of capital punishment. But around 6-7 A.D. the Romans took this away from the Jews. This explains why the Jews had to take Jesus in front of Pilate to get him condemned to death. The lineage here referring to the tribe of Judah was important for the Jews, but when the Temple was destroyed in 70 A.D., the records were lost , including those  of tribal lineage. So, according to this verse somewhere between 6-7 A.D. and 70 A.D. the Messiah should have arrived. This, of course, is the time of Jesus. What has been the Jewish response to this? “Woe unto us for the scepter has departed from Judah and the Messiah has not come”; this is a line full of sadness as reported in the Babylonian Talmud, compiled between 200 and 500 A.D. So the Jews themselves looked back to this time and couldn’t find a Messiah for them. They saw this prophecy the same way Christians did–no distorting of of the Old Testament by Christians

There are more verses dealing with the coming of the Messiah, but I’ll save those for a future blog entry.

Christians enjoy Christmas time – they sing carols, they bake cookies, they enjoy Christmas pageants, and they celebrate the advent of Jesus by reading Old Testament prophecies of the coming Messiah. But we need to ask if Christians are pulling these verses out of context and twisting their meaning to fit their concept of Jesus as the Messiah. So I’d like to look at a few verses to see what the Jews themselves used to think about them and how they see them today.

Let’s start with Isaiah 53. According to rabbinical comments, Jews in ancient times saw Isaiah 53 as profiling an individual – the Messiah. In the Middle Ages some Jews were uncomfortable with this view because it look like Jesus fit the profile too closely, so they said this chapter referred to the nation of Israel rather than the Messiah. That seems like an odd reading because the chapter says others are healed as a result of the individual’s suffering. How would that apply to Israel as a nation? In modern times some Jewish scholars have said this chapter refers to other unnamed individuals, perhaps a king or Isaiah or even Moses. But again it seems odd because of the salvation that comes to others due to the individual’s suffering. The chapter also says that the individual profile does not sin, which eliminates human individuals. From what I was able to understand, this chapter is not in Jewish liturgical readings, although chapters 51, 52, 54, and 55 are. Seems like some Jews are very uncomfortable with the profile given in this chapter.

Then there is Psalm 22. When Jesus was on the cross, he quoted its opening lines: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” The rest of the Psalm looks like a terrible description of crucifixion although it was written around 1000 BC, long before the Romans and crucifixion. One verse says, “They have pierced my hands and my feet.” Today’s Jewish translators substitute that for a different reading, saying that “pierced” is very close to a completely different word. Apparently, that is true, but the word “pierced” was in the Septuagint, written long before the time of Jesus by Jewish scholars. Since those scholars looked at the original Hebrew is a translated their Scriptures into Greek, I tend to trust their interpretation.

There are a few more verses I like to look at but that should be enough for now.

I was listening to a talk by Michael Behe, author of Darwin’s Black Box and other good reads. He is a Lehigh University biochemist who believes in intelligent design. In his talk, he referenced a quotation by Franklin Harold, Professor Emeritus of Biology at Colorado State University. Harold is not a Christian, so I find his quotation especially interesting. Here it is:

“We should reject as a matter of principle the substitution of intelligent design for the dialogue of chance and necessity. But we must concede that there are presently no detailed Darwinian accounts for the evolution of any biochemical system, only a variety of wishful speculations.”

Notice what he said. He says there’s a principle (which he doesn’t explain) that requires good scientists to reject outright intelligent design in the discussion of the origins of life on earth and then its evolution. I’ve got to believe this is an example of scientism, as opposed to science. The old idea was for scientists to find truth, no matter where it might be. But today many scientists like Harold subscribe to the idea that all answers must be found in the natural world–no divine possibilities are allowed. They have required that all science be governed by naturalism, that there is nothing outside this universe. That’s a philosophical idea pretending to be scientific.

The other part of the quotation is interesting too. He admits that things don’t look good for those trying to discover natural causes for the origin of life and its later evolution. He says it’s all “wishful speculations” for now. This is one of the biggest problems for evolutionists today–they have no idea how life got started or how it changed into different, more complicated species. As one person said, “Evolutionists can talk about the survival of the species but not the arrival of the species.”

So the next time we hear a person say with great authority that evolution is a fact, we might want to think about what Harold said.

This is a continuation of several blog posts having to do with the existence of real truth.  Our society today is mired in relativism, which states that you may be able to find truth in other areas like science, just not in morality or religion. Previous blog posts have dealt with various aspects of this – how we got such an increase in relativism, problems with relativism, and challenges offered by relativists.

This time I’d like to explore how we can find truths in morality and religion. For one thing, we can use intuition. No experience is necessary, it’s simply a truth that’s obvious upon consideration, and it’s the way we start knowing everything. For example, in the Declaration of Independence the authors say they hold certain truths to be self-evident. They did not feel it was necessary to explain why this was the case; it was a truth that was obvious to everyone upon consideration. We all have moral common sense and recognize, for example, that since humans are valuable, we ought not take their lives without proper justification. Anyone who denies obvious moral rules doesn’t just have a different moral point of view; he or she has something wrong on the inside.

What other ways can we use to begin to find truths in morality and religion? One way is the use of logic. For example, there is a law of non-contradiction. In the area of religion, we might get people to see that Jesus either is or is not God. There’s no middle ground, there’s no fuzzy waffling, there is no way to bridge these two points. So much for the idea that all religions are truthful. Somebody is right and somebody is wrong regarding Jesus.

Another way we can begin to find truths is factual evidence. Some people may scratch their heads at the idea that there is factual evidence for religions, but there is. Consider manuscript evidence. Christianity is far ahead of other ancient religions in the number of manuscripts available and their closeness to the original events described. Look at the history of ancient religions – Christianity spread by non-violence while others, such as Islam, spread by violence. Look at science as well – Christianity and Judaism reference Old Testament passages which talk about the expansion of the universe while Eastern religions like Hinduism say there was not a beginning or an expansion to the universe. Then there’s archaeology – compare Christian evidences with Mormon teachings. There is so much more archaeological evidence for the accuracy of Christianity.

There are other ways we can begin to find truths in morality and religion, but I will save those for a future blog post.

This is a continuation of my thoughts on relativism. See past blog posts for further points.

This time I’d like to look at a fall-back position of some relativists. They say we can get all truths from science, and we should be suspicious of truths from any other source.

But is science the only place we can get truths? Absolutely not. We can know much without science. Consider the Declaration of Independence, in which the famous lines ring out: “We hold these truths to be self-evident . . .” What are these people saying? That some truths do not need proving, that some truths do not need scientific evidence of their rightness. We have intuitions, moral leanings, emotions, laws of logic–these all exist outside the realm of science.

In addition, science has no answers for the most important questions of life–where did we come from? why are we here? what gives value to life? how should we treat each other? what happens when we die?

Next time, let’s talk about how we can go about finding truths in morality and religion–a tough challenge in today’s society.