During the 19th-century, while Christians were dealing with the notion of an ancient earth, non-Christians explored the ramifications of an eternal universe. Eternalism played a crucial role in the arguments made for Darwinism by its early advocates. Darwinists conceded that the odds of something as complex as living beings coming about by random chance were extremely low, even minuscule. However,…
Even before Darwin published the Origin of Species, most Christian scholars and scientists had come to accept that the cosmos was ancient. Lord Kelvin (1824-1907) for example, the influential 19th century British physicist and devout Christian, calculated the cooling rate of the earth’s core to arrive at the conclusion that the planet was 20-60 million years old. In America, Princeton…
The Impact of Newtonian Physics: With the rise of Newtonian physics came the reappearance of eternalism. In the 17th century, Isaac Newton (1642-1727) formulated the laws of gravity, physics, and mathematics that successfully described the planetary orbits of the solar system. It would be difficult to overstate the impact his achievements had on the scientific revolution and how western culture…
Historically, the debate has not been between creation and evolution, but creation and eternalism. During the apostolic and patristic eras, the pagans did not argue simply for an ancient earth, they contended that the universe was eternal. Even though Aristotle believed that the world was caused by God, he did not believe that God created the world, in time, in…
In a recent edition of First Things, J. Budziszewski argues that a sea change is about to happen in western culture. The first time the Gospel arrived the in the west, pagans were converted to Christ. Now, as the culture is dominated by a neo-paganism, Budziszewski believes a re-evangelization is about to take place. However, as the title of the…
For about a month we have been looking at the answers given by evangelicals to two questions: 1) did animal death exist before the fall of Adam and Eve?, and 2) what was the impact of Adam’s fall on the rest of Creation? We have summarized the answers provided by young-earth creationists (YEC), by old-earth creationists (OEC), and a hybrid…
Over the last several posts we surveyed the answers given by evangelicals to two questions: 1) did animal death exist before the fall of Adam and Eve?, and 2) what was the impact of Adam’s fall on the rest of Creation? My last post summarized the answers provided by young-earth creationists (YEC) and by old-earth creationists (OEC) for the second…
In my previous post I examined the question of whether or not animals died before the fall of Adam. Young-earth creationism proponents consistently answer “no,” while old-earth creationism and evolutionary creationism advocates answer “yes” in a variety of ways. The respective answers given lead naturally to the question of this post: What, then, were the effects of Adam’s fall? As…
The creation account of Gen 1 ends with the declaration, “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good” (Gen 1:31 ESV). The key issue boils down to what is meant by the expression “very good.” Old-earth creationists and young-earth creationists agree that this is the issue about which they have the most disagreement. More…
Sam Storms has compiled his list of the top twenty books of 2014, and he places 40 Questions about Creation and Evolution at number two. Mark Rooker and I wrote the book for Kregel under the editorial direction of Ben Merkle. Sam says a lot of very nice things about 40 Questions, such as “I’ve been waiting for a book…