Past

History is chock-full of indications of God's action. First of all, God is the Origin, the very first Cause of all things. Reality breathes the presence of an intelligent Designer. An awe-inspiring diversity and complexity couple with unshakeable fixed laws. This presupposes an ingenuity that defies every explanation by so-called science.

But God is not an unmoved Mover. He has not withdrawn His hands from His creation. He is the active Sustainer behind the scenes. He surrounds and sustains our universe of space, matter, time, and laws. He takes great interest in our small planet and man upon it. Whatever its place in the universe, for Him the earth is central. He governs its history. He does so in many different ways. Through great natural phenomena, through miracles, through dreams, through messages and instructions from prophets, through connections with man, and through rules that man must abide by. The greatest manifestation of God was His personal coming to earth in the Person of Jesus Christ.

 

Information

The origin of information

“In the beginning of the WORD. And the Word was with God, and the Word was God. This was in the beginning with God. And through the Word all things came into being. And without the Word nothing came into being that has come into being.”

This is how the Gospel of John begins. The Word contains information. Information lies at the foundation of everything that exists. In our information age, this is clearer than ever before. Where would we be today without computer programs that help us carry out our daily work efficiently and effectively? These programs are built from complex information, are written in a specific computer language, and all have a programmer who used this language to write instructions.

Biologists know that this is no different in biology. All life forms, from the most basic bacterium to humans, are made up of one or more cells that function based on information written in a language. This information is stored in our DNA. The language in which this information is written consists of four ‘symbols’ (represented by the letters A, C, G, and T). That seems like a small number of symbols, but there are twice as many as in the most fundamental computer code (zero and one).

Moreover, the DNA code fills APPROXIMATELY 1,000 SIZEY BOOKS. Every cell contains this small library of information, which determines the functioning and properties of our bodies. Our body contains approximately 100,000 BILLION CELLS with this information. Even one small error in this information can have major consequences for our functioning as human beings and cause a lifelong disability, illness, or disorder. Surely this complexity and precision require the work of a programmer much more than an app on our computers?

"And through the WORD all things came into being, and without the Word nothing came into being that has come into being."

 

Universe

The origin of the universe

The ancient Greeks assumed that the universe was eternal, without beginning and without end. Discoveries in the twentieth century put an end to that assumption. The redshift of galaxies meant that they were flying apart at enormous speeds. The universe, as a collection of galaxies, is expanding. Can the universe then still be eternal? That might still be possible if new stars were to form in the center of the universe at the same speed at which it is expanding. There would then be a kind of perpetual cycle. Thus, the question remained: did the universe have a starting point, or was it eternal after all?

In the 1960s, the fairly uniform background radiation in the universe was discovered. This was interpreted as a kind of echo of a Big Bang with which the universe was believed to have begun. From then on, scientists increasingly opted for a hypothesis of a starting point for the universe, the absolute ‘nothing’, from which everything would have originated by means of this Big Bang. Based on estimated distances and velocities, it was concluded that the central starting point of the universe exploded 13.8 billion years ago, and since then, stardust has been flying in all directions.

How can an ordered universe arise from an explosion of ‘nothing’? That question is not answered by science. The Big Bang hypothesis completely contradicts an important fundamental law of natural science, the second law of thermodynamics, which states that in a closed system there is always a decay from order to disorder, not the other way around. It is then posited that the universe is not a closed system. But if that is the case, Who or What then introduced the information for the increasing order into the universe from the outside? Moreover, besides the problem of increasing order, there are other discoveries that call the Big Bang hypothesis into question. To explain the movements of galaxies, scientists assume the presence of so-called ‘dark matter’. However, this dark matter has never been observed, and therefore, we don't know what this dark matter consists of. It is an unproven working hypothesis. The science regarding the origin and functioning of the universe is nothing more than a construct of assumptions.

Meanwhile, the amount of dark matter assumed falls short of the explanation of the movements of galaxies. Science, however, continues to build upon previously made assumptions. It is time for a paradigm shift. The new data of the last few decades necessitate a totally new view of reality, in which there is room for the Creator and His Word.

 

The Essence

In Him we live

Man is capable of enormous achievements. The past century has seen an unparalleled explosion of scientific and technological knowledge, and the end is not yet in sight. Scientifically, man is approaching ever closer to the limits of the knowable by unraveling matter and space down to their smallest particles. What conclusions follow from all that knowledge?

Those conclusions are slow to materialize. Man is unable to fathom the essence of things. What matter, energy, space, and time—and the laws between them—are at their deepest level remains a mystery, just like the essence of life and consciousness. That mystery lies outside the realm of scientific research and resides in the domain of faith.

 

If the elements of creation cannot be fully known, how much less the Creator Himself? Science is hesitant even to speak of a Creator. People prefer to speak of ‘Nature’, which ‘regulates’ this or that, or ‘Evolution’, which ‘steers’ the development of life, in the hope of one day discovering how that Nature and that Evolution manage to do so, without resorting to any systematic intelligence outside of visible reality.

The search for the secret behind the origin of things has been undertaken since Darwin, but seems to be moving further and further beyond the reach of science, because it is becoming increasingly clear how complex everything is put together and how meticulously everything is tuned. Even a tiny change in physiological conditions would make life on Earth impossible.

The probability that such complexity and precision of tuning could have arisen by chance is so small that it is impossible within our universe, even within the enormous space it occupies and the approximately 13.8 billion years of its existence. To solve problems surrounding the Big Bang hypothesis, a multiverse is currently hypothesized by many physicists, in which our universe is merely one of countless other 'universes'. According to a recent article, however, that number is very limited. And even with a multiverse, the existence of life in our universe is inexplicable. Others suggest that our universe originated from a 'collision' with another universe. Or that our universe is the result of an experiment by an ancient civilization in an earlier universe. Well, surely some intelligence must have been involved, right?

 

However, there is no more watertight evidence for these assumptions than there is for the existence of God. In essence, these assumptions also involve a belief. For where all those universes ever came from cannot be answered, any more than the question of where God ever came from.

The idea of ​​countless universes has recently emerged in the minds of scientists who could not reconcile their belief in evolution and all the auxiliary hypotheses intended to uphold this belief within a single universe. The idea of ​​God dates back to the very beginning of creation and has been passed down to us from antiquity. The idea of ​​God therefore has much stronger historical credentials.

 

The 66 scriptures that together form the Bible presuppose a God who was already there at the beginning of all things and who will be there when all things cease to exist. ‘He who was and who is and who is to come’ (Revelation 1:17). He is the God of the past, He is the God of the present, and He is the God of the future, whereby He is depicted very dynamically in the future: ‘He who is to come’.

And He comes in none other than the Person of Jesus Christ, the emanation of God’s glory and the imprint of His being (Hebrews1:3). The essence of the universe is not space, matter, energy, or time. The essence is a Person: Jesus Christ, the Creator, who Himself entered His creation.

 

Dawkins

'For no matter how hard man toils in his search, he cannot discover it.' (Eccl.8:17)

Richard Dawkins is one of the ‘new atheists’, a group of scientists who, following the events of 9/11/2001, attempt to very actively combat the belief in a Creator with sharp arguments. The group consists of four scholars. In addition to Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, and Sam Harris are also part of the company. What are their arguments? And how sound are they?

Scientists can be divided into two categories: creationists, who believe in a Creator or an ‘intelligent Designer’ (Intelligent Design) who created and sustains everything, and evolutionists, such as the ‘new atheists’, who believe in a natural cause, without a Creator being involved. Dawkins accuses creationists of giving up on a natural explanation for the origin of the universe from the outset. After all, a God who is the cause of all things is supernatural. What is supernatural cannot be studied and cannot be explained as the result of natural processes. For that reason, according to Dawkins, God may play no role in explaining the origins of the universe, the solar system, and life on Earth. Anyone who smuggles God in as an explanation, according to him, ventures outside the realm of science. Incidentally, some of Dawkins' statements towards those who think differently are downright insulting. A debate between Dawkins and Lennox gives a good impression of what is at stake.

But suppose for a moment that God *is* the great Cause of the origin of the universe. Then science is constantly searching for explanations that do not exist. The origin of the universe, with God as the cause, is not scientifically explainable. As already stated: human intelligence is incapable of fathoming the Creator and His creative actions based on natural processes. If we look at the current state of science, we see a system of theories and hypotheses in which attempts are made to accommodate observations as much as possible. However, this is not succeeding, and time and again hypotheses must be adjusted or even completely rejected. There are natural scientists who advocate for a completely new paradigm of natural science.

Nevertheless, evolutionists continue to search for explanations, and they raise the expectation among their followers that humanity, in the future—possibly supported by artificial intelligence—will find a rational explanation for the origin of the universe. Essentially, evolutionists harbor a deep belief in human intelligence. Man *must* be able to fathom everything with his intellect, and therefore the universe *must* have originated according to laws understandable to us. In this respect, the evolutionist resembles someone who has lost his keys on the way home at night but only goes to look at the single lamppost on the route because only there can he discern anything.

We can get quite far with our human intellect in our understanding of reality. However, the intellect falls short when it comes to unraveling the origin of all things. For this, we are dependent on revelation by the Creator Himself in His Word. The creationist attempts to understand reality in the light of God's Word. He seeks the keys along the entire route by the light of a flashlight and waits for the as yet unexplained matters until the day breaks.

 

Nothing

Does the rain have a father?

(Job 38:28)

‘In the beginning was THE WORD; and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. This was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that has been made.’ (John 1:1-3)

These are the opening words of the Gospel of John. ‘The Word’ (Greek: Logos) is presented as the origin of everything that exists. The Word, that is God. Elsewhere in the Bible we read: ‘God is a Spirit’ (John 4:24). The visible universe of time – space – matter has a spiritual origin, not a material one. Elsewhere the Bible states: ‘By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by God's word (Heb.11:3), so that what one sees did not originate from what is visible.’ And: ‘God has spoken to us in the last days in the Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through Whom He also made the worlds… Who sustains all things by the Word of His power…’ (Heb.1:2,3)

 

Everything is created by God and is sustained by God. Only through faith can we understand this, with our heart. We cannot comprehend this with the intellect. That is impossible. How could we, minuscule mortal creatures that we are (Job 38:4), ascertain by what means the great God produced and sustains the enormous universe with all its variety of planets, moons, comets, stars, galaxies, its diversity of matter and radiation, its laws of space, distances, and gravity? How could we ever discover how He makes all atoms, molecules, and cells function in the world of the very smallest? Yet modern man wants to fathom everything, not only how things work but also how they came into being. Modern man is not content with ‘the Word’ as an explanation. For the Word Itself cannot be explained. Man must be able to uncover all the ins and outs of the origin of the universe. That is to say: to unravel it down to the smallest details. The step from the Word to the universe is far too big. But if you want to explain everything and you do not want to know anything about ‘the Word’, then you must start with nothing.

 

And that is precisely what modern man has decided: the origin of all that is observable begins with NOTHING. And thus man writes his own gospel:

‘In the beginning was Nothing; and Nothing was with Nothing, and Nothing was Nothing. This was in the beginning with Nothing. All things came into being through Nothing, and without Nothing not one thing came into being that has come into being.’

However, it is highly questionable whether anything is indeed explained by this. The very first question one must ask oneself regarding such a view is: What is ‘Nothing’? That seems like a simple question, but just try to imagine that there is indeed absolutely nothing. So, no numbers, no time, no space either. Nothing. If you think of an unimaginable void, you still do not have ‘Nothing’. For you still have space and time. According to the Big Bang hypothesis, space and time also originated from the Big Bang and are still expanding. An absolute ‘Nothing’ is unimaginable and incomprehensible. We humans are placed in a space-time continuum. What we might still be able to imagine is an empty universe, without matter, no moons, no planets, no stars, not a single atom. An empty backdrop. But a situation without space and time, without a backdrop, is incomprehensible to us. That is just as incomprehensible to us as the thought of an eternal God. The great question that we should all actually ask ourselves is the following: What is more plausible, that everything once began with a powerless Nothing or that everything once began with an almighty God? To ask the question is to answer it.

 

‘In the beginning was the Word; and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. This was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that has been made.’

 

Cain's wife

'And Cain had intercourse with his wife, and she became pregnant...' (Genesis 4:17)

'My sister.' That is the answer Cain is said to have given to the question of who his wife was. Many people consider this impossible because it would have led to very weak, unhealthy, and unhappy children, with all kinds of diseases and abnormalities. After all, that is the case today. Moreover, it would have involved incest. What is the actual situation with Cain's wife? Was it really his sister?

 

Yes, it was his sister. It is forgotten that human genetic material is no longer exactly the same as that of the first generations of humans. The original genetic material was so pure and perfect that hereditary diseases played no role. But after so many thousands of years of reproduction, the DNA has become contaminated and distorted. As a result, the offspring of brothers and sisters run a high risk of disease and deformity due to an accumulation of genetic abnormalities. For that reason, after approximately 2,000 years of humanity, God set a limit in the laws of Moses on marriages within one and the same family (Leviticus 18).

 

Now, adherents of mainstream science might find it difficult to believe that hereditary material in the early days of humanity was different from what it is today. However, that same mainstream science considers it entirely possible that humans originated from single-celled organisms through an endless series of random twists of fate. The latter requires immeasurably greater changes in DNA than the degeneration of human DNA assumed by the Bible.

Something similar applies to the extensive possibilities for variation within species, which the Bible also assumes in its depiction of the flood (Gen.6:19-21). If Noah had had to include two specimens of every animal race in the ark, the ark would have been far too small. Due to the possibilities for variation within each species, Noah could suffice with including a single basic type of each species. There was still a sea of space left inside the ark. After the Flood, the spread of basic types across the earth, and the resulting exposure to very different natural environments, allowed many variations within the species to form.

The Bible does not teach a static creation in which all forms and characteristics are completely fixed. Creation is dynamic, flexible, and pliable, yet within certain boundaries established by God. The basic material of the species, which God provided in His creation, possessed very rich DNA with an enormous range of adaptability in the event of changing circumstances.

Over the course of time, the conditions under which species live have also changed significantly. The Flood played a very important role in this, and the current diverse climatic conditions in the world demonstrate the extent of the species' adaptability. The snow leopard and the tiger have both adapted excellently to their environment.

However, the enormous potential for variation within species does not mean that the species evolved from one another and that all life developed from a single-celled organism. That is an unfounded extrapolation made in the 19th century by Charles Darwin. From 1935 onwards, Darwin studied vastly different finch families on the Galapagos Islands. However, all these birds still belonged to one and the same species: the finch. What Darwin observed was ‘micro-evolution’. Based on his observations, he concluded in ‘The Origin of Species’, a book published in 1859, that there was ‘macro-evolution’. Seven years later, Gregor Mendel published the laws of reproduction he had discovered, and it then became apparent that ‘micro-evolution’ cannot genetically lead to ‘macro-evolution’.

Mendel’s laws showed that the genetic material of every species is limited. Consequently, a species cannot vary into another species beyond the scope of its own DNA. Furthermore, a daughter variant turns out to be always genetically poorer than the parent species. In other words: a Chihuahua has significantly impoverished DNA compared to a Wolf. Over time, a wolf may well have evolved into a Chihuahua, but a Chihuahua can never mutate back into a wolf. The diversity of forms within animal species, just as with the succession of generations in humans, comes at the expense of the strength of DNA. Purebred dogs are weaker than their original species, and a man can no longer marry his sister.

Darwin had his own view on heredity, which was incorrect. Darwin never knew what to make of Mendel's laws, which were published in 1865. Because science was on the track of the theory of evolution, it could not place Mendel's laws. Mendel's laws, which still stand firm to this day, fell into oblivion for about 35 years and were only rediscovered around 1900. Among others, Hugo de Vries, rediscovered the laws and, around 1902, immediately came up with the mutation theory as an auxiliary hypothesis for the theory of evolution. Random mutations in the hereditary material were supposedly the driving force behind the development of species. Mutations are random changes and involve existing genetic material. They cannot possibly lead to the complex programming of DNA. Moreover, mutations are for the most part harmful. How strong is the belief in evolution if scientists hold gene mutations responsible for both most congenital intellectual disabilities and for the origin of humans from apes?

What science conceals is that evolution is not at play, but rather degeneration. Officially accepted views, theories, and explanations are not infrequently the opposite of the truth.

‘ For the creature was made subject to vanity… ’ (Romans 8:20)