3 PHYLOSOPHY versus THEOLOGY 0 : IN THE BEGINNING

The first book of the Bible starts with: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The land was chaos and confusion.” Based on the chronology of the Bible, theologians believe that this happened about 6,000 years ago. Scientists believe that the universe began with a Big Bang. Based on their studies, they estimate that this happened millions and millions of years ago. Both suppose that there was a beginning, but this is not evident.

Asking who created God is similar to asking what caused the Big Bang or wondering what came first: the chicken or the egg. What caused the Big Bang? What was there before God created the heavens and the earth?

Since today we have a large arsenal of nuclear weapons, the idea that it all started with a big explosion encourages us to ask whether it will perhaps also end with a big explosion. History may be cyclical and consist of periods of construction alternating with others of destruction. Basing themselves on the idea that the universe is expanding, certain scientists assume that it cannot be eternal, but in the case of it being cyclical, this is not an impediment for it being eternal.

The idea that God created the universe, and that God is eternal, entails accepting eternity: if one accepts that God can be eternal, one must also accept that the universe can be eternal.

Even if there was a beginning, one must take into account that history did not necessarily always occur in a linear way. One cannot rule out that periods of construction alternated with periods of destruction.

Although history is eternal, and consists of periods of construction alternating with periods of destruction, to relate history, one must choose a particular moment in time and refer to it as the beginning.

If indeed evolution has been cyclical, when one reads a very old book about the history of mankind and of the universe, one may not only learn something about the past, but also about the future.

The Bible and science chose the same moment to begin narrating their history of the universe, but according to the Bible this happened less than 6,000 years ago and according to science millions and millions of years ago.

Science offers an explanation for this disagreement, because one of its theories says that time is relative. To realize this, one doesn’t have to understand Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity. One only needs to be aware that we measure time according to the orbit and rotation of particular celestial bodies. Who can ensure that we have always been guided by the same celestial bodies?

The first chapter of Genesis says that God created the stars to separate the day from the night and to serve as signs for solemnities, days and years. It is remarkable that before the flood Genesis doesn’t mention the sun or the moon. If God gave names to his previous creations –the sky, the earth, the sea, the day and the night– why didn’t he do the same with the two brightest lights in the heavens?

The first mention of months –a month is the period of time that the moon takes to orbit the Earth– signals the beginning of the flood. Just before this catastrophe God pointed out: “Your days will be 120 years.” Since a day is the period of time it takes the Earth to complete a rotation around its axis, in reference to its position with the sun, and a year refers to the period of time it takes the Earth to orbit the Sun, mentioning days that turn into 120 years, and doing so just before the flood that ended almost all of creation, seems to signal that something very serious was about to happen to the universe.[1]

Genesis describes the atmosphere around the Earth because it indicates that after separating the light from the darkness and calling the light day and the darkness night, God created a firmament in the middle of the waters that separated them from each other. Then he accumulated the waters below the firmament in a single set to reveal the dry and called the dry land and the gathered waters seas. Therefore, if the name of the Earth refers to dry, how do we know that the survivors of the flood returned to the same planet? And why do we suppose that the ark was a ship?[2]

When one reads Genesis one can find another reason for assuming that during the flood something happened that affected the way we measure time. It says that Noah begat Shem when he was 500 years old and that the flood occurred when Noah was 600 years old, but later says that Shem was 100 years old when he begat Arpaksad, two years after the universal flood. These accounts only add up if Noah’s Ark travelled in the opposite direction to the rotation of the major light that illuminated the Earth. But, although time didn’t change according to the Ark’s position in reference to this light, it did change according to the machines with which they measured it and that were based on the duration of a day on Earth.[3]

The chronology in the Bible is based on the ages of the patriarchs and it is remarkable that after the flood, Genesis stops offering the same information about them. Of each of the patriarchs from Adam to Methuselah, Genesis records the age at which he begat his heir, how many more years he lived, and how many years he lived in total. Of each of the patriarchs who were born after the flood, and also of Noah’s son Shem, Genesis says only at what age he begat his heir and how many more years he lived. And of Noah Genesis doesn’t say how many years he lived after begetting Shem, but how many years he lived after the flood and how many years he lived in total.

One usually assumes that in Noah’s time people were very primitive, but if Tubal-Cain was the father of those who forged iron and copper, and people lived that long, he may have made many more inventions. Can you imagine everything Albert Einstein would have discovered about the universe or everything that Thomas Edison would have invented if they had lived so long?

A lot of people distrust what the Bible says about the universe because they think it says that the Earth is flat. However, the story of the creation of the universe in Genesis does not say that the Earth is flat. Nor do the other books of the Bible claim that this is so.

People believe that the Bible affirms that the Earth is flat because of the phrase in the book of Isaiah: “He will gather the scattered people of Judah from the four corners of the Earth”, but this means: “He will gather the descendants of Judah from all over the world.” [4]

Although the Earth is not as some believers claim it to be, perhaps the universe is not the way scientists claim it to be. Their theories are based on the axiom that two parallel straight lines never intersect and an axiom is an idea that is supposed to be correct, but has never been demonstrated to be correct.

[1] Gn6:3

[2] Gn1:6-10

[3] Gn5:32 / Gn7:6 / Gn9:28-29 / Gn11:11 / Gn3:16-19

[4] Is11:12

BIBLE REFERENCES: [1] Gn6:3 / [2] Gn1:6-10 / [3] Gn5:32 / Gn7:6 / Gn9:28-29 / Gn11:11 / Gn3:16-19 / [4] Is11:12

The next 10 articles are:

  4 PHILOSOPHY versus THEOLOGY 0                God

  5 PHILOSOPHY versus THEOLOGY 0                Adam and Eve

  6 PHILOSOPHY versus THEOLOGY 0                The snake

  7 PHILOSOPHY versus THEOLOGY 0                Cain and Abel

  8 PHILOSOPHY versus THEOLOGY 0                Cain’s descendants

  9 PHILOSOPHY versus THEOLOGY 0                The Flood

10 PHILOSOPHY versus THEOLOGY 0                Noah

11 PHILOSOPHY versus THEOLOGY 0                Evil since childhood

12 PHILOSOPHY versus THEOLOGY 0                Repopulating the Earth

13 PHILOSOPHY versus THEOLOGY 0                The tower of Babel

 

 

 

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