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08850
\\Chapter 9 - Problems in Earth History\\
1) What were the created kinds? 8851
2) Why did God create carnivorous animals? 8852
3) How could great geological structures have been 8853
formed in a few thousand years?
4) What about the theory of continental drift? 8854
5) Was there an Ice Age? 8855
6) What and when was the Stone Age? 8856
7) Will man ever be able to create life? 8857
08851
\\1. Question:\\ "What were the originally created kinds of plants and
animals?"
\\Answer:\\ Ten times in the first chapter of Genesis we are told that
the plants and animals created by God were to produce "after their
kinds" (Genesis 1:11, 12a, 12b, 21a, 21b, 24a,24b,25a,25b,25c). there
could be an abundance of variation \\within\\ each kind, but never
could one kind bring forth a \\different\\ kind. Thus, an unlimited
evolution was prohibited and prevented by the creator right from the
start. He designed and formed a highly-complex reproductive program
for each of the kinds, implanting that "code" in what is now known as
the DNA, which would permit a tremendous latitude of variation (for the
twofold purpose of assuring that each individual would be unique and
recognizable as an individual, and also of enabling the kind to shift
its major characteristics sufficiently to adapt to a wide range of
possible future environments), but never so much as to become a
different basic kind of organism.
The question is, exactly \\how much\\ variation is possible?
Evolutionists believe such variation is unlimited, especially if
mutations are continually being added to the gene pool. However, all
known and demonstrated true mutations seem to be harmful (or neutral, at
best), so it is difficult to see how this factor would significantly
increase the range of viable and useful variations. In an attempt to
delineate the Genesis "kind," Carolus Linnaeus, the "father of
taxonomic classification," defined a \\species\\ as a stable,
reproducing population, not interbreeding with other populations, and
his basic classification system (species, genus, family, class, order,
phylum, kingdom) is still largely in use today. Linnaeus did recognize
the key factor to be reproductive stability, as implied in Genesis.
On the other hand, geneticists have argued that new species, as
defined in this way, can sometimes be developed which will normally not
breed back with their parent populations, and they have cited such
phenomena as experimental proof of trans-specific evolution. Also, it
has been found that what seem to be reproductively isolated species
will, under some conditions, cross to produce hybrids (horse and donkey,
lion and tiger, cabbage and radish, etc.). Some of these hybrids are
sterile, but the very fact they do breed and reproduce would seem
to contradict God's dictum that reproduction can only occur "after its
kind,"--unless, indeed, such unusual crosses do indeed represent two
stable variations of an originally created kind.
An idea of the wide range of possible variation within a kind can be
best obtained from the dogs. Tremendous variations in size, abilities,
temperaments, climatological preferences, and other characteristics
have been developed in dogs by selective breeding by man within a few
thousand years. Not only domesticated dogs but also wolves, coyotes,
foxes, etc., are probably from the same ancestral "dog kind." All of
these characteristics must represent originally created characteristics
which remained dormant or latent until selective breeding techniques
brought them to the surface.
There has obviously also been a tremendous range of human
characteristics that have surfaced just since the dispersion at
Babel--contrast the African pygmy and the giant Watusi, the Australian
aborigine and Scandinavian, the Chinese and the Englishman.
It is probable that similar ranges exist in other kinds. It is
also probable that the most rapid rate of variation (and possible
speciation) took place soon after the great Flood. It is known that
only a relatively few dominant characteristics are normally expressed
outwardly in a large interbreeding population. In a small, inbreeding
population, on the other hand, many new varieties may appear rapidly.
Recessive characteristics have much better opportunity to become
visibly established in the population under such circumstances,
especially if the environment is different from that to which the large
parent population had become adapted.
Both situations applied with a vengeance during the first centuries
after the Flood. The worldwide environment had been drastically changed
and the animals radiating out from Ararat were continually entering
other new and different local environments. The populations initially
were minimal--six of each "clean" kind and two each of all the rest.
Thus, the conditions strongly favored the rapid development of many new
varieties within each kind. As each variety became adjusted to its
appropriate ecological niche, it eventually became, in effect,
"reproductively isolated" from its cousins and, for practical purposes,
might now be defined as a Linnaean species, or perhaps even as a genus.
Were it not for the known historical connection, many breeds of dogs
might today be regarded as reproductively isolated from others
(consider the psychological and physiological barriers in the way of
any natural mating of, say, a Great Dane and a Pekingese).
It may well be that clues to the original kinds may be derived from
hybridization studies. Those which can form hybrids may possibly be
varieties of the same original kind, even though they may seem very
different now.
Man's attempt to classify plants and animals is admittedly
arbitrary. therefore, the original kinds may have been in some cases
what we now arbitrarily define as species, in others as genera. In
many cases, in view of the high probability of rapid variation after the
Flood, it may well have been what we now call the "families" (dogs,
cats, horses, bears, etc.). This is an area for potentially important
creationist research, through hybridization, post-Flood paleontology,
genetics and molecular biology. In any case, we can be sure that such
variation definitely was within the limits of the kind, whatever
precisely that may have been.
Furthermore, such variation was "horizontal," at the same level of
complexity, rather than vertically upward toward higher levels, as
ultimately required for true evolution. Any true vertical changes
(e.g, mutations) must have been downward rather than upward, toward
degeneracy and extinction, in accord with the entropy principle and the
nature of known mutations.
In fact, even apart from the possible effect of mutations, natural
selection would tend to favor smaller varieties than those which had
thrived before the Flood, due to the smaller amounts of suitable food
and more vigorous environmental conditions in general. The fossil
record does show that many plants and animals deteriorated drastically
in size during the post-Flood Ice Age. Furthermore, even though each
kind had been equipped to adapt to a wide range of environments, the
post-Flood environment and climate were so extremely different than
before the Flood that many varieties and even entire kinds (e.g.,
dinosaurs) finally found it impossible to survive at all, and became
extinct.
08852
\\2. Question:\\ "Why did God create carnivorous animals if there was
to be no death in the world as first created?"
\\Answer:\\ It is certainly true that the created world, as God had
originally finished it, was a world that was "very good" (Genesis
1:31), with no suffering or death in the animal or human realms. Death
came into the world only when "by one man, sin entered into the world,
and death by sin" (romans 5:12). It was "by man came death" (I
Corinthians 15:21), when God pronounced the great Curse "on the ground"
for man's sake (Genesis 3:17). The ground (or "earth") comprised the
very elements themselves. Adam's body was formed of the dust of the
ground, as was every other system, organic or inorganic, in the
physical and biological creation. All were affected by the Curse.
Since that time, "the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain,"
under what Paul calls "the bondage of corruption (literally 'decay')"
(Romans 8:21,22). Everything is in a process of decay, of
disintegration, of descent into disorder. This principle, in fact, is
now one of the basic laws of science, the law of increasing "entropy,"
also known as the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
In the original creation, however, this law was not yet operative.
All disintegration processes were balanced by growth processes, so that
the total "order" (or "available energy") remained unchanged. For
example, the fruits and herbs were designed to be eaten by man and
animals, but this process did not entail "death" of these plants, since
plants do not possess "life" in the Biblical sense. They are complex
chemical systems, in which exist elaborate programmed information
systems designed by God to enable them to specify their own
replication. For each plant, the "seed was in itself, after his kind"
(Genesis 1:12), and its particular form of existence was thus to be
continued, generation after generation, at the same level of order and
complexity. The processes of feeding, digestion, animal excretion,
soil replenishment, plant nourishment, were all in perfect balance, so
that the state of order would remain unchanged in the plant kingdom.
The inorganic processes on the earth were also in perfect balance.
Not only were total mass and energy conserved (First Law of
Thermodynamics) but so were order and \\available\\ energy. To the
extent that the "biomass" of plants, animals, and people increases with
time, the required excess energy to produce this mass presumably was
obtained ultimately from the earth's internal heat and from the
incoming solar radiation. The details of such "negentropic" processes
are probably impossible to delineate now, since they have been
superseded by the "entropic" process triggered by the Curse.
In any case, there was certainly no "struggle for existence" among
the animals, for God had provided abundantly for their needs. "To
every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to
everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have
given every green herb for meat" (Genesis 1:30). Neither man nor the
animals were intended originally to be carnivorous, but to eat fruits
and herbs only. It is possible, even today, for both man and the
carnivorous animals to survive on vegetarian diets if they have to.
Furthermore, neither man nor animals were originally intended to die,
possessing as they do the \\nepesh\\, or "soul," or "creature," the
principle of \\conscious\\ life which plants do not possess (Genesis
1:21, 24; 2:7). If and when the numbers of people and animals ever
reached the optimum values for their ecological niches and for the
earth as a whole, God no doubt would have terminated His command to "be
fruitful and multiply" (Genesis 1:22,28) and caused their reproductive
activities to cease.
However, the original idyllic world suddenly was drastically
changed when sin entered it. Because man (through Satan) brought
spiritual disorder into God's dominion, God pronounced the Curse of
physical disorder on man's dominion. It is also possible that Satan's
prior sin in the heavenly realm had introduced the same principle of
physical decay into that realm as well, so that the stars and planets and
other heavenly bodies are also now under the Curse--"the whole creation
groaning and travailing together in pain."
In the plant kingdom, plants that were originally completely
beneficent started to change, many beginning to produce "thorns and
thistles" (Genesis 3:18). Such structures may possibly have arisen by
mutation, but more likely by recombination of latent genetic factors
present from the time of creation. Within each created "kind" God had
provided a tremendous variational potential, making it able in the
future to adapt to a very wide range of environments. Such
\\horizontal\\ changes (within the kind, at the same level of
complexity) are not, of course, true evolutionary changes (that is,
\\vertical\\ changes from one kind to a more complex kind). As long as
the environment was universally pleasant and conducive to fruitfulness
and harmony, the characteristics outwardly expressed were likewise
pleasant and harmonious. Later, however, the hostile environment of
the post-Edenic world--and later, even more of the post-Flood
world--permitted many recessive characteristics suited for such a
hostile environment to become outwardly manifest.
Not only did gentle plant protuberances become replaced by thorns,
but many other deteriorative changes gradually developed. Pleasant
flowering shrubs degenerated into noxious weeds. Many bacteria
originally helpful in various organic processes became deadly
disease-producing micro-organisms. Certain organisms planned for
symbiotic relationships with others declined in usefulness and became
mere parasites. Certain plants actually became poisonous. Instead of
the earth yielding an abundance of fruits and edible herbs to man's
cultivation, as originally intended (Genesis 2:9, 15, 16), it now
"yielded its strength" only reluctantly, requiring hard labor and
sorrow in the production of man's necessary food (Genesis 3:17-19;
4:12).
Similar changes began to take place among the animals, not
immediately, but gradually, with the greatest modification reserved for
the drastic changes in environment following the great Flood. The
genetic system for each animal kind, as for plants, included provision
for extensive variations as needed to adjust to varying environments.
As the plant kingdom began to suffer deteriorative changes, it became
more and more difficult for the animals to derive their nourishment
solely from the grasses and herbs. Gradually certain animals began to
obtain some of their proteins and other needed foods by killing and
eating animals smaller than themselves. (Actually, the precise boundary
between plants and animals is not clear; it may be that some of the
lower animals--especially among the protozoa and smaller
invertebrates--do not actually carry the \\nepesh\\ life of the higher
animals, and so were intended from the beginning to serve as food in
the same way as the plants.)
In any case, many of the animals in some such way began to acquire
carnivorous appetites, in order to overcome the dietary deficiencies
set up by the deteriorating plant world. In the normal processes of
variation, natural selection began to favor those individuals containing
features best able to catch and devour smaller animals, and eventually
teeth and claws and other such characteristics (perhaps originally
intended merely to tear and eat tough roots, bark, etc.) were modified
and became established in certain varieties, and many species of
animals thus became carnivores.
This was not really bad, because all creatures must now suffer
death anyway, under the Curse, and the "food chains" thus beginning to
be established would serve to maintain proper ecological balances.
Especially after the Flood, with land area and vegetation drastically
reduced in extent, with the soil largely depleted of its original
minerals and thus plants much less nourishing than first created, many
animals became largely dependent on the food value in other animals for
their survival. Great numbers, especially of the larger animals, were
unable to adapt sufficiently at all, and so soon became extinct.
Finally, after the Flood, God even authorized man to eat animals
(Genesis 9:3,4), provided that he first drained the blood (representing
the "life") from them.
The foregoing sequences of events seem to be reasonably implied by
the Scriptural descriptions of the primeval world, the Curse, the
Flood, and the effects associated with each. However, much is
uncertain and there is room for considerable research, both in
Scripture and science, as to the details.
08853
\\3. Question:\\ "How can we explain the thick beds of sedimentary
rocks, deep canyons, great coral reefs, salt beds, and
similar geologic formations in terms of the few thousand
years of Biblical chronology?"
\\Answer:\\ The reason why many geologists believe the earth to be of
great age is because of their commitment to the \\principle of\\
\\uniformitarianism\\, the philosophy that "the present is the key to
the past." According to this idea, which has been dominant in
geological thinking for 150 years, present processes operating
essentially at present rates are believed to explain all the geological
phenomena now seen in the earth's crust. If the present rates of
sedimentation, erosion, evaporation of salt lakes, and growth of coral
reefs have been those which produced the great formations with which
they have been identified in the earth's crust, then an immense amount
of time must have been required.
However, the uniformity principle is being seriously questioned
today, not only by creationists but also by many evolutionary
geologists. There seem to be no processes taking place in the present
that are competent to explain the corresponding formations of the past.
For example, the evaporative processes which are producing salt
deposits today are leaving salt beds which are both qualitatively
different and quantitatively trivial in comparison to the great
thickness of pure salt and gypsum found in the geological strata. The
same is true of coral and limestone formations. Great continent-wide
formations of sandstone and shale are quire incommensurate with any
beds of sand and silt being deposited by modern rivers. Modern
volcanoes are in no way competent to produce the great thicknesses and
region-wide areas of volcanic rocks found in the earth's crust. Modern
rivers could never produce the deep canyons or the thick beds of
alluvium through which they flow. Modern glaciers could never produce
the continental glacial deposits of the past. The present is \\not\\
the key to the past. Catastrophism, not uniformitarianism, is the only
sufficient explanation for the geologic column.
Creationists do, of course, believe in the uniformity of the basic
laws of nature (e.g., the laws of thermodynamics, the laws of motion,
the types of force systems, the properties of matter, the fundamental
nature of the earth and the universe, etc.) Such basic uniformity of
the laws by which God operates His completed creation (Genesis 2:1-3)
does not mean, however, that the rates of all the innumerable processes
which exist in the cosmos, and which themselves operate within these
laws, must always be uniform. Rates of sedimentation, evaporation,
biological growth, volcanism, radioactive decay, and all other process
rates are subject to wide variation, depending on how the specific
factors which control them may vary. Evolutionists frequently try to
confuse the issue by saying creationists reject uniformitarian laws of
nature when they know quite well that creationists reject only the
assumption of the uniformity of process rates.
There is reason, in fact, to believe that practically every
formation in the geologic column was formed rapidly, in some type of
physical catastrophe. The very existence of fossils in rocks is
evidence of this. To be preserved as fossils, an animal or plant must
not only be trapped and buried in sediment, but must be buried and
compacted rapidly, before air and bacteria can cause decay and
degeneration. Often, fossils are found in large numbers, speaking
clearly of catastrophism.
Sedimentary rocks are the only rocks which contain fossils, and this
can only mean that most sedimentary rocks were originally laid down
rapidly, under flood conditions. This is further evidence by the vast
extent of many sandstone, shale, and other sedimentary formations,
often covering great regions of the continent, each obviously having
been formed under a continuous body of moving water. The great
Colorado Plateau, for example, consists of hundred of thousands of
square miles of flat-lying sedimentary formations, each of which was
formed when under water, before the entire region was uplifted
thousands of feet above sea level.
Furthermore, there is reason to believe not only that each
formation was formed rapidly, but also that the entire sequence was
formed continuously with no great time gaps intervening. There are no
worldwide "unconformities" (physical discontinuities between adjacent
formations, presumably representing time interruptions in the
deposition process), and therefore, one way of the other, deposition
must have been continuous throughout the entire geologic column. With
each formation having been laid down rapidly, and the whole column
continuously, the obvious conclusion is that the entire geological
column was laid down rapidly, in a global hydraulic catastrophe, nothing
less than the Noahic Flood!
At the conclusion of the great Flood, after all the eroded sediments
had been redeposited in great stratified formations, tremendous
continental uplifts took place and basins opened up in the ocean depths
(Psalm 104:8). The waters of the Flood drained off into these new
basins, scouring out great canyons in the process, easily eroding the
still-soft sediments and laying down vast thicknesses of alluvium in
the newly forming valleys and flood plains and deltas.
Similarly, during the Flood itself, other geophysical processes were
intensified. As the "fountains of the great deep were broken up"
(Genesis 7:11), tremendous quantities of lava welled up from the mantle
below the earth's crust, forming the great igneous intrusive rocks in
the geologic column, along with huge volumes of "juvenile" water.
These waters included hot brines, from which precipitated vast
thicknesses of salt and other chemicals, to form what are now
mis-called beds of "evaporites."
During the upheavals of the Flood, extensive coral deposits in the
warm antediluvian oceans were torn up, transported, and redeposited
later around great rock mounds, giving a superficial appearance of
having grown there in place, rather than having been washed into place.
Although the very nature of catastrophism makes it difficult to
reconstruct now the details of the phenomena occurring during and soon
after the great Flood, it does appear quite possible to explain all the
earth's geological features in terms of this model, much better in fact
than can be done in terms of the uniformitarian model.
08854
\\4. Question:\\ "Can the theory of continental drift be harmonized
with the Bible?"
\\Answer:\\ The Bible record of early history is not affected one way
or another by the theory of continental drift, so that it is
unnecessary and unwise to take a "Biblical" position on either side of
this question. The only reference in Scripture that may possibly
related to this subject is Genesis 10:25, where it is said that the
"earth was divided" in the days of Peleg, and it is very doubtful that
this refers to an actual physical division of an original single
continent, especially in light of Genesis 10:5, which states that the
primary intent of Chapter 10 is to show how mankind was divided by
languages, by families, and by nations.
Most modern geologists have accepted the "model" of continental
drift, as well as the related concepts of sea-floor spreading and plate
tectonics. For more than 25 years, these scholars have been
reinterpreting all the accumulated geological, paleontological, and
geophysical data to correlate with this new model, and everything seems
to "fit." On the other hand, one of the criticisms of the model has
been that it is \\too\\ adaptable. Thirty years ago, geologist were
equally insistent that all these same data correlated perfectly with
the then reigning model of stable continents, and that the handful of
earth scientists who believed in continental drift were just being
stubborn and ignorant.
The main factor that led to this extensive change of opinion was
the discovery of certain evidences (thin sediments, paleomagnetism,
etc., on the two sides of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge) that magmatic
material was emerging from the earth's mantle through the Ridge. These
evidences were believed to indicate that these emerging materials were
spreading both east and west on the sea-floor and carrying the American
continents ever further from Europe and Africa. If material were
continually emerging from the mantle, continuity required that somewhere
they must be "subduction" zones, through which crustal material could
flow back into the mantle. All of this led finally to the concept of a
full-blown worldwide system of crustal "plates," with circulating
mantle and crustal material.
Although most geologists enthusiastically endorse this new model of
drifting continents, there still remains a significant minority of very
competent earth scientists who do not. One of their main objections is
that there is no evident mechanism to supply the tremendous amounts of
energy required to empower these vast motions. The evidences (e.g.,
the supposedly reversed alignment of the paleo-magnetic particles on
the two sides of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge) which are presumed to indicate
sea-floor spreading, are believed by these sceptics to be very
equivocal, capable of other interpretations, especially since these
"reversals" are now known to characterize vertical alignments of the
particles as well as the horizontal "stripes," so that the whole
pattern is extremely complex.
Consequently, continental drift is still an open question among
earth scientists. Since the Bible is silent on the subject, it seems
best for Bible expositors also to leave it as an open question. In
fact, the very silence of Scripture may be an indication that the idea
is questionable. If a splitting and drifting of the hypothetical
original continent really occurred, in the Biblical context it would
have to be after the Flood, and probably about the time of the
dispersion at Babel. Early peoples must have been aware of it, in this
case, and it seems strange that such a tremendous event of such
worldwide effects was not given more recognition in the early chapters
of Genesis.
On the other hand, the evidences for continental drift are strong
enough to have satisfied \\many\\ geologists, and it is at least
possible that the model may be correct. If so, then Genesis 10:25 may
indeed be referring to the actual splitting of the land mass. Peleg
(whose name means "division") was apparently born soon after this
event, and was named in commemoration of it.
If continental splitting actually occurred at this time, the basic
cause could have been the tremendous release of subterranean energy
during the great Flood, when "all the fountains of the great deep were
broken up" (Genesis 7:11). Vast quantities of pressurized waters and
magmas had broken forth and tremendous readjustments of continents and
oceans may well have taken place after the Flood.
In any case, such a traumatic splitting would be followed by a
rapid drifting of the new continental blocks away from the center. The
velocity of drift would gradually decrease with the passing of time,
eventually becoming essentially imperceptible, as it seems to be at
present.
Evolutionary geologists say that the drift has always been
exceedingly slow, so that the entire process has taken about 100
million years. Such estimates, however, are based entirely upon
uniformitarian assumptions, especially as applied to the dating of sea-
floor sediments by the potassium-argon technique. These assumptions
can easily be shown to be wrong so that the actual sediments are quite
compatible with a very recent origin.
The great actual amount of drifting could not have been more than
4,000 miles, and this could have been accomplished easily in, say,
1,000 years (an average of less than 2-1/2 feet per hour).
This drifting, if it occurred, may partially explain the distribution
of men and animals after the Flood. However, it is not at all
necessary to account for such distribution in this way, since extensive
land bridges are know to have existed across the Bering and Malaysian
Straits following the Flood. Even if migrations had to be carried out
entirely on foot, early man could easily have traveled from Ararat to
Australia or to the tip of South America in only a few centuries.
There are two other verses in Genesis 10 (verses 5 and 32) which
speak of something being "divided." In these verses, however, the
"division" obviously is only that of the nations and languages, which
occurred following man's rebellion against God in connection with the
tower of Babel. Since this rebellion probably was led by Nimrod, who
was in the same generation after Noah as was the father of Peleg, it
seems likely that the divisions were the same.
Even though the Hebrew word for "divided" in Genesis 10:25 is a
different word than the one used in 10:5 and 10:32 (owing to the
different type of subject in view), they are sufficiently synonymous in
meaning and usage to justify assigning them to the same basic event.
In the one case, the division was linguistic; in the other, it was the
geographical division which ensued as a result of the migrations forced
by the linguistic division. Although possible, it would be an unlikely
forced exegesis to assign to it the meaning of an actual physical
sundering of continental blocks.
08855
\\5. Question:\\ "Where does the Ice Age fit into the Biblical record
of history?"
\\Answer:\\ The Ice Age is the popular term given to the so-called
Pleistocene Epoch, the last of the supposed geological ages of earth
history as formulated in the minds of modern historical geologists. It
was immediately prior to the Recent Age in which man has left written
records. Most anthropologists believe man reached the true human stage
of evolution early in this glacial period, after a long process of
naturalistic development from an unknown ape-like ancestor starting
about 15 to 20 million years ago. The Ice Age is believed by
evolutionists to have started about two million years ago and
terminated about 11,000 years ago. Some creationists, on the other
hand, believe the Ice Age began soon after the Flood and continued for
less than a millennium.
During this period, a great continental sheet of ice, centered
somewhere in the northeast Canada-Greenland region, swept down over
North America, reaching into what are now the states of Wisconsin, New
York, etc., and leaving effects in the form of great moraines (mounds
of unsorted sand, gravel, and boulders), scratches and grooves on
bedrock, etc. A similar ice sheet swept over northern Europe. In the
Rockies and other mountain chains, permanent ice caps rested on the
summits and extensive valley glaciers descended down almost to the
plains below.
Most evolutionary geologists believe that the Ice Age involved at
least three advances and retreats of the ice, with warm periods in
between. However, the evidences for the earlier advances are of an
entirely different sort than the moraines and striations of the last
one, the so-called Wisconsin stage. The former consist of certain
dense clay soils, old river terraces and other phenomena than can be
interpreted as water laid formations more easily than they can as
earlier glaciations.
It should be noted that the ice never covered the entire earth.
Some Bible teachers have mistakenly equated the glacial period with an
imagined worldwide cataclysm which left the earth "without form and
void" (Genesis 1:2) and covered with water, but this interpretation is
impossible. The ice never covered more than a third of the earth's
surface, even at its greatest suggested extent. As a matter of fact,
there was a "pluvial period" in the lower latitudes at the same time
there was a "glacial period" in the upper latitudes. Extensive
rainfall assured abundant water, even in such modern deserts as those
of the Sahara, the Gobi, the Arabian, and the western basins in the
modern United States. Archaeological excavations have yielded
abundant evidences of human life and, in fact, complex irrigation
economies in these now-desolate regions.
There is abundant evidence of human occupation in these lower
latitudes throughout the Ice Age. Some evolutionists are now dating
the earliest fossils of what they consider true men as in the Pliocene
epoch, even before the Ice Age. The Neanderthal peoples seem to have
lived near the edge of the ice sheet in Europe, and many anthropologists
now believe that their somewhat brutish appearance was due to disease
(rickets, arthritis) contracted because of the cold, damp climates
characteristic os such regions.
There is no reason (apart from highly questionable dating methods) why
these peripheral cultures could not have been contemporaneous with the
advanced civilizations of Egypt, Babylonia, and others that were
developing in the lower latitudes. The Ice Age can easily be understood
as lasting several hundred years rather than two million years.
Evolutionary glacial geologists have been debating for nearly a
hundred years as to what may have caused such an Ice Age, without
coming to any consensus. The rocks which supposedly correspond to
earlier ages practically all give evidence of a worldwide subtropical
climate, and the cause of this condition is also a mystery.
What evolutionism and uniformitarianism find inexplicable, however,
the Biblical record explains quite satisfactorily. Before the great
Flood, the world had pleasant topography and climate everywhere, the
latter involving the "greenhouse effect" produced by a vast thermal
blanket of invisible water vapor (the "waters above the firmament"
noted in Genesis 1:6). There were no rainstorms, no volcanic
eruptions, no earthquakes, no blizzards or physical disturbances of any
kind--the world had been prepared to be "very good" (Genesis 1:31) as a
home for man and the animals.
With the Flood, however, all this changed. The vapor canopy
condensed and fell to the ground in violent torrents for five long
months, and waters and magmas burst forth all over the earth through
"the fountains of the great deep" (Genesis 7:11; 8:2) for the same
period. Tremendous earth movements accompanied and followed the Flood,
and catastrophic phenomena of all kinds continued on a lesser scale for
many centuries.
In particular, the precipitation of the vapor blanket gradually
dissipated the green house effect, and the arctic and antarctic zones
grew bitterly cold. The tremendous heat energy released from the
depths continued to evaporate great quantities of water, much of which
was transported to the polar regions by the newly developing atmospheric
circulation, where it fell as great quantities of snow. Soon the
accumulating snowpack became an ice sheet, radiating out from its
center. There seem to be certain references to this Ice Age in the
ancient book of Job (37:9-10; 38:22-23; 38:29-30), who perhaps lived in
its waning years.
The lands have been denuded of their plants by the Flood, and the
air of its carbon dioxide. Gradually, however, the seeds and twigs
from the antediluvian plants rooted and grew again and the new plants
began again to emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Great peat
bogs developed along the ice sheet margins, and peat bog vegetation is
known to be especially effective in supplying large amounts of carbon
dioxide to the atmosphere. Eventually enough of this gas built up in
the atmosphere to restore a partial greenhouse effect and the
temperatures rose sufficiently to cause the ice to retreat to its
present day position. {[1] For more detailed discussion and
documentation of this Biblical interpretation of the Ice Age, see
\\The Genesis Flood,\\ pp. 288-326.}
During the centuries of the Ice Age, many of the great animals that
had come off the Ark, though they survived and proliferated for a time,
eventually were unable to cope with the drastic changes in climate and
environment and became extinct. As the ice later retreated, and the
rainfall patterns changed, many of the pluviated regions became arid
and still other animals died out. The great cataclysm of the Flood,
followed by the smaller related catastrophes of glaciation, volcanism,
and eventual desiccation, drastically changed the character of the
earth and its inhabitants.
08856
\\6. Question:\\ "What and when was the Stone Age?"
\\Answer:\\ Evolutionary anthropologists have divided human prehistory
into several divisions, supposedly marked by the evolutionary stage of
culture achieved. The Paleolithic Era (meaning "Old Stone Age")
supposedly began when man had essentially completed his biological
evolution and was just beginning his cultural evolution. Until
recently, this had been dated at about a million years ago, but certain
fossil discoveries of genus \\Homo\\ have been tentatively dated (by
Leakey, Johanson and others) at up to four million years ago. At this
stage, man was believed to live in a simple, "hunting-and-gathering"
culture, with no stable agriculture, no domesticated animals, no
permanent villages, no use of metals, and no knowledge of writing. His
only tools were of chipped stone, and he lived in caves, if available,
or in the open otherwise.
Eventually, he learned how to make and use shaped stone tools and
developed a simple "village economy." Soon thereafter he began to
raise crops and domesticate animals. Almost at the same time, he
learned how to work metals and make pottery. Then he began to build
cities and true civilization had been attained. Thus, following the
Paleolithic Era, there was the Neolithic Era ("New Stone Age"), then
the Bronze Age and the Iron Age.
It is significant that, until very recently, most archaeologists and
cultural anthropologists believed that all the attributes of
civilization (agriculture, animal domestication, pottery, metallurgy,
urbanization) were attained first by people living in the Middle East,
and that this was very recent on the geological time scale--in the
period 11,000-7,000 B.C.
The dates of the artifacts and the sites on which they were found
were obtained primarily by the radiocarbon method.
More recently, the method of dendrochronology ("tree-ring dating") is
thought to have forced a significant revision in the radiocarbon
chronology, such that the attainment of civilization took place in
Europe and North Africa at essentially the same time as in the Middle
East. It is significant that this inference corresponds precisely to
what one would expect from the Biblical record of the confusion of
tongues and the resultant rapid dispersion and development of cultures
and nations radiating out from Babel.
As each small family group separated from the others and migrated
from Babel (Genesis 11:9), they must have searched for a place to
settle down and establish their own homeland. Presumably the stronger
and more intelligent clans laid claim to the nearest and most
productive regions; others kept on traveling until they could find a
suitable location unclaimed by others.
Because of the changed languages, the different clans could not
cooperate with each other. Therefore, it was necessary that each tribe
become self-sufficient in order to survive at all. It was impossible
to develop a complex culture, with specializations and intellectual
innovations, for several generations at least, until a population large
enough for these purposes could be developed. The immediate essential
was self preservation, and this meant living by hunting animals and
gathering wild fruits and vegetables for food, and using sticks and
chipped stones for tools and weapons, living in grass huts or caves for
shelter.
The people knew how to work pottery and metals, but such knowledge
was useless until they could find adequate sources of metals, clays and
building materials. Similarly, they knew how to raise crops and
domestic animals, but the establishment of such sources of food and
clothing would take many years.
Furthermore, even after they did manage to get such industries
started, there was always a very real danger that another
tribe--perhaps spreading out from a more rapidly developing
center--would invade their community and drive them away, forcing them
to start over again somewhere else.
Thus it is that, wherever one looks around the world, at each site
suitable for human cultural habitation, there is nearly always evidence
of a "Stone-Age" culture when that site was first occupied. Later
occupations (or later periods in the original occupation) indicate
higher cultures, not because of slow evolutionary development, but
because of rapid growth of population, development of specializations,
location of sources of metal and building materials, and establishment
of stable supplies of food and clothing. When a culture was
interrupted by an outside invasion, the latter (if successful) had
usually come from a center of still higher culture, which it then
transplanted to the new site.
It is clear, therefore, that the artifacts found at ancient
habitations by modern archaeologists, do not really reflect man's slow
cultural evolution at all, but rather show the drama of post-Flood,
post-Babel man being forced by God to "be fruitful and multiply and
fill the earth" (Genesis 9:1), as He had commanded in the first place.
The question of the vast period of time assigned to the Stone Age
by evolutionists (from one to four million years or more) needs brief
mention. These ages are purely imaginary, based mainly on the
arbitrary and unrealistic uniformitarian assumptions of the potassium-
argon dating technique. Even the dates assigned to the beginning of
civilization (about 8000 B.C.) are based on similar unrealistic
assumptions in the radiocarbon method. It is amazing that
evolutionists can blithely believe that man's physical evolution was
completed over a million years ago, but that he then completely
stagnated in a cultural rut until he began his cultural evolution only
about 10,000 years ago.
There is no firm scientific evidence to compel us to date any part
of man's history at more than several thousand years ago, just as
indicated in the Bible. The "Stone Age" was not a long period of human
evolution at all, but rather a brief stage in the establishment of new
tribes and habitation sites.
It is even possible for a tribe with a higher culture to deteriorate
to a lower level for various reasons--immorality, disease, dwindling
populations, etc. There are many "Stone Age" peoples living today
(and, therefore, no doubt, there have been similar Stone Age cultures
all through history) in African and South American jungles, New Guinea,
and other places, and most of these tribes give evidence of having
known a much higher level of culture in their distant past. As a
matter of fact, most people living today in highly technological
societies would, if suddenly transplanted in very small groups to
separate desert islands, do well if they could even survive by hunting
and gathering. Stone-Age people, past and present, are not
half-brutish primitives, but intelligent men and women, with complex
languages and relationships, not fundamentally different at all from
Space-Age people.
08857
\\7. Question:\\ "Will man ever be able to create life?"
\\Answer:\\ The popular press has fostered the notion that modern
biochemists and molecular biologists are very close to a scientific
breakthrough which will enable man actually to create life in a test
tube. Many people even believe that scientists have already created
life.
These notions are completely false. Man is not even remotely near
any such breakthrough. Living systems are far too complex to be
synthesized strictly from non-living chemicals.
It is true that scientists have been able to learn a great deal
about the structure and functions of the living cell, and the many
complex organic molecules that operate in life systems. Certain very
simple components of protein molecules (e.g., amino acids) have been
synthesized under very special and artificial conditions. Some
experimenters have been able to link certain amino acids together in
what they have called "protenoids," but these are mere blobs of matter,
with no specific utility or function, not in any way comparable to true
proteins.
Other experimenters have been able to synthesize a virus, or a gene,
or even a DNA molecule, provided they start with a virus or a gene or a
DNA molecule, as the case might be, and provided the synthesis is
carried out in the presence of the necessary enzymes--which can
themselves only be formed at the direction of the DNA. That is,
synthesis of life has to start with already living systems and be
accomplished with the aid of other living systems. This is \\not\\ the
creation of life from non-life!
Most people have no adequate comprehension of the extreme complexity
of even the simplest unit of living matter. In an attempt to determine
the amount of "information" that would have to be programmed into the
simplest conceivable protein molecule to enable it to direct its own
reproduction, information scientists have found such a molecule would
have to be comparable to a machine capable of making at least 1500
successive correct choices between equal alternatives. The probability
that such a synthesis could occur by chance is thus less than one chance
out of 2^1500, which is equal to one chance out of 10^450. Such a number
is unimaginably larger that the total number of words that have ever been
spoken or written by man in all the world's history!
In fact, if one assume that the universe is 30 billion years old
(that is, 10^18 seconds) and that it could hold 10^130 particles (that
is, the number of electrons that could be crammed in a universe five
billion light years in radius), and that each particle could
participate in a billion-billion separate "events" every second, then
the total number of "events" of any kind that could every occur in all
the universe in all time is the product of these numbers-- that is
10^166.
Now the probability of a replicating molecule arising by chance is
one out of 10^450, as noted above. For one of the 10^166 possible
events to have been this particular event is, obviously, extremely
unlikely. The probability, in fact (even assuming that all of these
"events" consisted exclusively of particles trying to come together to
form such a living molecule), would have to be less than one chance out
of 10^166/10^450, or one chance out of 10^284. Since this latter
number is still unimaginably greater than all the events that could
ever possibly occur in all the history of the universe, the possibility
that life could ever evolve by chance is absolutely zero! Even the
simplest imaginable living system could only have come into existence
by intelligent design and special creation.
As to whether man will ever be able to design and synthesize such a
replicating molecule, this also is extremely improbable, though not
completely inconceivable. If he did, of course, such an achievement
would only add to the evidence for the uniquely complex structure of
the human brain, in its ability to solve amazingly difficult problems.
It would certainly \\not\\ prove that any such synthesis could ever
occur by chance in the primeval soup.
As a matter of fact, the complexity of such a replicating
system--already shown to correspond to at least 10^450 ordered and
linked units of information--is far more complex (that is, containing
more stored information) than all the words ever spoken or printed in
all history. It is impossible to see how any team of scientists could
ever solve a problem which required them to analyze and organize more
units of information than events which could ever happen!
Furthermore, the foregoing discussion applies only to a hypothetical
replicating molecule, something which is infinitely less complex than a
real living cell--not to mention man's brain, with its billions of
cells all interlocked into a functioning whole.
Finally, even man's body and brain would be simple to explain com-
pared to his soul--his mind, his conscience, his will, his personality,
his spirituality. If one can believe that inanimate, random, particles
can evolve through vast ages into conscious, abstract thought, and into
moral and spiritual ideals, surely it would be easy for him to believe
that up is down and the world was hatched from an Easter egg! The law
of cause and effect means nothing to such a person.
The only adequate Cause to explain the phenomenon of life is a
Living being. Life comes only from life, and the first created life
could only have come from the Creator. "In Him was life" (John 1:4).
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