Archives for 2012

 PRO -- "Your response to this issue is the most concise, accurate, and appropriately persuasive assessment and challenge I've ever seen or heard. For myself and others who will benefit from what you say here, Thank you!" CON -- "To entertain any belief other than a literal six days [of creation] is to undermine the veracity of the entire Bible; if one starts picking holes in the creation account then the entire Bible comes into question, for the creation account 'sets up' everything else in the Bible. With the creation account in doubt, God's entire plan for humanity comes into … [Read more...]

A gracEmail reader is outraged because science professors at a particular Christian college have suggested that the "days" of creation in Genesis 1 might not mean literal 24-hour days. He demands that the college "do something" about the science professors, who also believe that God created the universe and that his Spirit inspires the Old and New Testament Scriptures. * * * We should learn to read the Bible to hear its message to us, not to ask it questions which those who wrote it never remotely intended to answer. That is especially true when reading Genesis and Revelation, both of which … [Read more...]

An astronomer whose specialty involves a belt of planetoids orbiting somewhere beyond Neptune says that his scientific work is reasonable only because he believes in God. Guy Consolmagno earned B.A. and M.A. degrees from MIT and a doctorate from the University of Arizona, then taught at Harvard before returning to MIT for three years of postdoctoral studies in astronomy. Consolmagno sees a direct link between faith in the Creator and his own profession of studying the heavens. "Only when you accept the God who created the world and said it was good, only then do you have the confidence to … [Read more...]

A gracEmail subscriber asks: "Can someone who believes in God and accepts the Bible as his word also believe in evolution as the process by which God brought into being the diversity of animal life on earth, including human beings?" * * * For those of us who consider it divinely authoritative, the message of the Bible ultimately matters more than anything any scientist might say. Indeed, for us one clear word of scripture teaching outweighs all the pronouncements of science combined. But merely saying that does not resolve the question whether God used the means of evolution as a tool in his … [Read more...]

A gracEmail subscriber asks: "Can someone who believes in God and accepts the Bible as his word also believe in evolution as the process by which God brought into being the diversity of animal life on earth, including human beings?"  * * * Let me begin by saying that I have not the slightest sympathy for the theory of evolution and I cannot imagine ever believing that it is so. From first grade through my first graduate degree I attended conservative religious schools that opposed the teaching of evolution. To this day, I have never attended a single class in which evolution was taught. … [Read more...]

A gracEmail subscriber bemoans the fact that many scientists today are hostile to biblical faith, and that many Christians concede too much to science. *          *          * The English word "science" comes from the Latin word meaning "to know." Since empirical knowledge comes through the senses, the proper task of science is to observe repeatable natural phenomena and to draw inductive conclusions concerning the processes observed. Some, in the name of science, have gone far beyond that to make pronouncements concerning ultimate origins which no human being observed. That is not science … [Read more...]