Is There Evidence for Creation?

As we learned earlier in the course, there are only a few choices for the existence of the universe: either it is eternal, or it came about from nothing (through time, chance and natural processes) - or it was designed and created by a Designer/Creator.

This section will present just some of the evidence we have for creation and a Creator. There’s so much evidence for creation that we can only touch on a few points in such a short course. A great website for further creation studies would be Answers in Genesis.

A. Scriptural Statements

Can we use statements from the Bible as evidence for creation? Yes, we can! We’ve already established that the Bible is a reliable historical document, so the Bible must be taken seriously.

1. Examples from the Old Testament

The Old Testament begins with this foundational statement: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). God created ex nihilo, which means “out of nothing”! He continued to create throughout six days of the Creation Week, and rested on the seventh day.

Interestingly, if we trace back through history, we find that most cultures (even pagan cultures) measure time by seven-day weeks. There’s no natural explanation for this practice. 24-hour days, 30-day months, and 365-day years are all measured by the Earth’s natural rotation and revolution rates, but there’s no explanation for measuring time by weeks… except that God rooted human history in a seven day Creation Week!

All the Old Testament authors wrote about a Creator. Here are just four examples:

Moses - Moses recorded God’s statement: “For in six days the Lord made the heavens, the earth, the sea, and everything in them; but on the seventh day he rested” (Exodus 20:11).
Nehemiah - “You alone are the Lord. You made the skies and the heavens and all the stars. You made the earth and the seas and everything in them” (Nehemiah 9:6).
David - “The Lord merely spoke, and the heavens were created. He breathed the word, and all the stars were born” (Psalm 33:6).
Isaiah - “For the Lord is God, and he created the heavens and earth and put everything in place” (Isaiah 45:18).

2. Examples from the New Testament

Mark - Mark recorded Jesus’ statement: “From the beginning of the creation God made them [humans] male and female” (Mark 10:6). Jesus didn’t believe that human life evolved out of nothing! In this passage, Jesus clearly states that everything was created quickly, because He says that human beings were created as male and female from the beginning of creation - not after millions of years of gradual evolution!
Luke - In Acts 17:24 we read, “God, who made the world and everything in it… He is the LORD of heaven and earth.”
Paul - "God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can’t see…Everything was created through him and for him.” (Colossians 1:16).
Author of Hebrews - “The universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what is visible.” (Hebrews 11:3).

B. The Delicate Balance for Life on Earth

The explosion of new scientific discoveries in the last 60 years or so has revealed more and more about the precise conditions that are undeniably necessary for life on earth to exist. As the number of known critical variables increases, the odds of a planet with all these elements and conditions to support life forming by chance is virtually impossible. Many of these conditions are highly scientific, but we’ll touch on several that are fairly straightforward.

C. Stellar Scenarios: The Origin of Stars

1. “Big Bang” Theory

a. The Theory

The “Big Bang” is the present prevailing scientific theory of the origin of the universe. Simply put, the “Big Bang” theory suggests that 15-20 billion years ago the universe began with a very small, dense, hot “kernel” of cosmic energy, which exploded — thus the “Big Bang”! As temperatures from the explosion cooled and the young universe expanded, clouds of hydrogen and helium atoms slowly formed. From these clouds of gases, stars and the heavier elements were formed about 10 billion years ago. Eventually stars clustered together to form galaxies. Supernovas and explosions of aging stars occurred, and the fragments combined to form new stars, such as our sun. Other fragments combined to form planets, including Earth, about 4-5 billion years ago.

b. Problems with the Big Bang Theory

Where did the original “kernel of cosmic energy” come from? No reasonable theories have been suggested to answer this question.
What caused this dense mass of energy to explode? And if this extremely dense kernel of energy was so dense that even light waves couldn’t escape, an explosion is highly unlikely.
Why isn’t the universe more uniform in its distribution of matter? Why aren’t the galaxies evenly distributed? Why are there massive clusters of galaxies and “ribbons” of galaxies, with big voids of space between? Why do quasars exist? These mysterious celestial masses are up to 1,000 times brights than our Milky Way and have a staggering amount of energy / radiation. These problems are so great that scientists have had to make up further theories, such as the unproven idea of “cold, dark matter” to account for more gravity.
Why is the universe so “flat”? When things explode, matter normally goes away from the explosion in all directions. If the universe started with a big bang, the universe should be more spherical.
If everything started from an explosion, why do most objects in space have a circular motion? And why do some objects (that were produced from the same explosion) move circularly in different directions? Why do Uranus and Venus rotate in the opposite direction of the other planets in our solar system?
There are 42 moons in our solar system. If they are the result of a “Big Bang,” all of them should revolve around their planets in the same direction, but at least 11 revolve in the opposite direction. Some of the moons revolving around planets have opposite or perpendicular motion to the planet itself! If all matter moved out from a central explosion, there should be more linear motion. All the circular motion and directional differences are hard to explain apart from creation.
Considering the non-uniformity of the universe, why is there such a uniform, smooth distribution of cosmic background radiation (CBR)? This cosmic background radiation is thought to be left over from the Big Bang, and is still thought to be one of the strongest pieces of supporting evidence of the Big Bang theory. But if it is, the CBR would not be uniform.

2. “Birth of a Star” Theory

a. The Theory

According to the Big Bang theory, stars are “born” as other stars age and are recycled.

b. The Problems

Contrary to what most people think, the “birth” of a star has never actually been observed. “Infant” stars have been observed (scientists claim they’re about 500,000 years old) and new stars are identified as more powerful telescopes become available, however, the actual birth of a star has never been documented.
The idea of the “recycling” of stars may be valid, but it’s only a theory. Stars age and burn out, and black holes occur as stars run out of energy and collapse in upon themselves, but no complete process of recycling has ever been observed.

c. What Creation says

Genesis 1:14 - “God said, “Let lights appear in the sky to separate the day from the night.”
Psalm 8:3 - “When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers — the moon and the stars you set in place…”
Isaiah 45:11-12 - “This is what the Lord says… With my hands I stretched out the heavens. All the stars are at my command..”

The Bible indicates that God created different stars in a fully functional universe right from the beginning. He created them as supernovas, “red giants,” “white dwarfs,” and “infant” stars. In other words, stars that are different in size, and different in apparent age. Creating with an “appearance of age” is not deceptive (as some critics suggest). 1 Corinthians 15:41 says, “One star differs from another star in glory.” And Isaiah 40:26 says, “Lift up your eyes on high, and see who has created these things, who brings out their host by number; He calls them all by name…”

D. Stone Anomalies: Formation and Features of Granite

There are some very unusual features about granite. This foundational or “basement” rock is igneous rock, or rock that once was liquid, but is now solid.

Granite is the most common crustal rock forming the Earth’s continents. It can be seen on Earth’s surface, especially in mountainous areas where it has been thrust up through the sedimentary rock layers. Sometimes whole mountains are one huge solid piece of granite, such as El Capitan and Half Dome in California’s Yosemite National Park.

1. Formation of Granite

Granite is made up of three minerals which can easily be observed. Scientists, however, are unable to form true granite in the laboratory on a large scale, regardless of the time or the sequence of the cooling cycle. It’s not possible for the granite we see around the world to have come about by molten material slowly cooling down over a long period of time (as suggested by the Big Bang and evolutionary theories).

There are other unusual features of granite. It has no holes or spaces, and the three minerals are uniformly distributed throughout the rock. It also contains some unique, microscopic features called “radioactive halos.” These little halos can only form in solid material, and they’re formed from the decay of radioactive polonium 218, which has a half-life of less than three minutes. The fact that these polonium 218 rings are formed in solid granite is very difficult for scientists to explain. This strongly suggests that granite did not form gradually and naturally, but rather that it’s a “created rock.”

2. Creation Comment

Job 38:4 - “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?”
Psalm 33:9 - “He spoke, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast.”
Isaiah 45:11-12 - “Thus says the LORD… ’I have made the earth.’”
Hebrews 11:3 - “The worlds were framed by the word of God...”

E. Structural Designs: Planned and Purposeful

1. By Time, Chance, and Natural Processes?

Time and chance would produce disorder rather than order. Is it likely that a deck of cards thrown from a plane would float to earth and just happen to land in an orderly design? Would the chances of order be greater if the plane flew higher, giving more time for the cards to float to earth? Of course not! More time, in fact, would produce greater disorder. What’s the likelihood that a tornado blowing through a computer parts warehouse would produce a fully functional laptop?

The fact that structural design is found in nature is not evidence for long periods of time, chance, and “natural processes.” It’s convincing evidence for creation!

2. By Plan, Purpose and Design!

Structure, purpose, and design are evident everywhere in nature. Natural laws and living organisms just don’t happen without intelligent direction. Take, for example, the living cell. The living cell is like a well-organized and functioning factory. If the person dies, all the essentials of the cells remain, but they are no longer functioning. The mystery of life itself needs an explanation. Life presupposes a Creator!

The existence of DNA is evidence for creation. DNA exists inside every cell of every life form. DNA is a large molecule carrying all the genetic information for the living organism. The DNA in every cell of your body carries the genetic material from your parents. The genetic material in the double helix DNA molecule is composed of four chemical bases. The various ways and sequences in which these chemical strands link up directs every function of your body. This is more than just order and structure. This is information! Is it likely that this extremely complex strand, which functions constantly in the microscopic bits of DNA in every single cell of our bodies, could have come about by chance?

As an example, think of the game of “Scrabble.” If you stacked up all the A’s, then all the B’s, and on through the alphabet, that would show design. That kind of order didn’t just happen by itself, and it didn’t come about by chance from a set of Scrabble letters sitting on a table. When you use the letters to spell words, that’s more than just order — that’s information! And those words didn’t come about by chance. They were put together by an intelligent being.

Another example: compare the four chemical groups that compose DNA to a four letter alphabet. Now, using the four letter alphabet, sit down and write an entire encyclopedia of information on the function of the whole human body — and then make a functioning human body out of the information in the encyclopedia! Could such a thing possibly happen apart from intelligent design? Is there the slightest possibility that the incredible complexity of DNA could happen randomly, by chance, over long periods of time, with no design, purpose, or plan? Or was DNA created by a Designer, who had plan and purpose in mind for His creation?

Well known philosopher and devoted atheist, Anthony Flew, shocked his fellow colleagues when he made this statement: “I now believe there is a God... I now think it [the evidence] does point to a creative Intelligence almost entirely because of the DNA investigations. What I think the DNA material has done is that it has shown, by the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which which are needed to produce life, that intelligence must have been involved in getting these extraordinarily diverse elements to work together.”

3. Creation Comment

Psalm 139:13-14— “For You [God] have formed my inward parts… I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”
Psalm 19:1— “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork.”

F. Statistical Improbabilities: What are the Chances?

1. For the Basic Building Blocks of the Cell

Proteins are an essential ingredient in the makeup of a living cell. Proteins are chains of amino acids. The chemical structure of amino acids is very interesting. Scientists refer to their structure as either “right-handed” or “left-handed.” Only “left-handed” amino acids are used to form life proteins, and only “right-handed” sugars are used to form the double helix strands in the DNA molecule. Ordinary chemistry cannot choose between left-handed and right-handed amino acids and sugars.

In a well-known experiment, a scientist named Stanley Miller was able to form some amino acids in a lab — but it didn’t happen by chance! It was done by a highly designed and controlled experiment. There was no “natural selection by chance” of the left-handed amino acids. It’s statistically improbable (in other words, virtually impossible!) that only “left-handed” amino acids would be “randomly selected” to form the proteins for life, and only “right-handed sugars” would be “randomly selected” for DNA. Statistically, it’s impossible that even the most basic building blocks of protein could be formed by chance and “natural selection.” And remember, protein is just one of the ingredients of a cell!

There are many more evidences we could examine in just the area of the basic ingredients of the living cell, but as one final example, consider the following. Proteins are needed for DNA to operate, but DNA directs the manufacture of proteins. Both are necessary for each to function, right from the start! This is also referred to as irreducible complexity. The complexity of the design and interaction of even the most basic ingredients of the cell are clear evidences for creation, and for a Designer/Creator.

2. For the most Basic Living Cell

What’s the likelihood that even the smallest possible living cell would just happen to form by accident? This cell would be composed of 239 protein molecules, each molecule made up of 445 “left-handed” amino acids. The statistical likelihood of the smallest cell just “happening” by chance would be 1 in a 10 followed by 29,345 zeros! (This huge number is incredibly larger than the diameter of the known universe in inches — a 10 followed by only 28 zeros!) So it’s just not possible!

Statistically, how long would it take? How many years would it take, under the most favorable conditions, with amino acid combinations taking place every second, to form just one cell by chance? This number of years would be 10 followed by 119,841 zeros. (That amount of time makes the 15-20 billion years suggested as the age of the universe to be but a blink of an eye!) Now consider that it would take that incredible number of years to make, by chance, just the protein part of the most basic cell. Not even the DNA, and certainly not life!

3. Creation Comment

Ecclesiastes 11:5 - “As you do not know... how the bones grow in the womb of her who is with child, so you do not know the works of God who makes all things.”
Psalm 139:14 - “I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”

Conclusion

From TIME magazine, December 28, 1992, in an article by Dr. Robert Wright (a non-Christian): “There is more to this universe than meets the eye, something authentically divine about how it all fits together. One intriguing observation… is that the universe seems calibrated for life’s existence...”

Research is driving numbers of scientists to rethink their attitudes toward an Intelligent Designer behind this universe. As Christians we don’t have to feel embarrassed or short-sighted when we believe the information the Bible gives us about the origin of the universe and life upon the earth. “For thus says the LORD... who is God, who formed the earth and made it, who has established it... who formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD, and there is no other” (Isaiah 45:18).

Is There Evidence for Creation?