googlef87758e9b6df9bec.html A Sure Word: Is God a Deceiver?

Monday, April 19, 2010

Is God a Deceiver?

It's a strange argument but I hear it often – if the world is only 6,000 years old then God created false clues in order to make the world look much older. In other words, to believe in a literal creation is to believe God is a deceiver! Imagine this hypothetical conversation:

GOD: “Adam, do you see all these trees? I just made them two days ago.”
ADAM: “But, Lord, trees like this take years to grow. So when you said, 'two days' I know you meant many years because you are not a deceiver.”

Isn't that bizarre? Yet people use this argument every day. One example I hear is concerning radiometric isotopes. Scientists measure the amount of radioactive decay that has occurred in a rock sample and then extrapolate it backward to estimate how old the sample is. Such a method is riddled with assumptions but when their estimated age conflicts with our understanding of Scripture, it's the Scripture that they suspect is wrong. Then these people have the nerve to say that the radiometric dating must be true because God would not have planted false evidence to make the rock look older. Well, wouldn't that make His revealed word “false evidence”? If God created the universe over billions of years, then told us He made it in six days, then really He would be a deceiver!

Imagine if someone found a note from his mother that said, “I went to the store. I'll be back in an hour.” Being a curious person, he wanted to know WHEN she wrote the note. He rubs the ink to see if it smudges. He sees a cup of water on the counter and notices that it's room temperature. He asks himself what she might have meant by “hour.” He finally concludes that she actually wrote the note yesterday and so has already been to the store and back. Suddenly, his mother comes in and surprises him.

He asks, “Where have you been?”
She answers, “To the store. Didn't you see my note?”
He replies, “Yes but it looked to me as if you had written that yesterday. Why were you trying to deceive me?”

A belief in an old earth is as strange as the imaginary story above. Why would someone completely ignore the plain words of Someone he claims to trust, seek an answer that completely contradicts the truth, and then act as though the Author who told him the truth plainly is somehow trying to deceive us?

If someone claims to believe the Bible, he should use his understanding of Scripture as the starting point when considering the evidence. Imagine this final scenario:

A man returns home and finds a note from his mother that says, “It's one o'clock and I had to step out. I'll be back in 15 minutes. I baked a pie but be careful because it's still hot!” It's only 10 minutes after one now and he touches the pie and notices it's not hot; in fact it's cooled off. What does this mean? There are at least 3 possible explanations:

> His mother said the pie was hot but didn't really mean it.
> His mother said it was one o'clock but didn't really mean it.
> His mother told the truth and something has made the pie cool off quickly.

Now, some people might start with the assumption that their mothers are lying but I trust my mother more than that. Likewise, I will trust the word of God. When I look at the world, I will start with the conclusion that things are as God said they are and I will use that to help me understand what I find. In the case of distant starlight, for example, I would ask, “How did the light from stars millions of light years away reach the earth in only 6,000 years?” I would not ask, “Why does the Bible suggest the world is only 6,000 years old when we know light from stars took millions of years to reach us.”

Indeed, God is not a liar. When faced with a dilemma where we must choose between the conclusions of men and the plain reading of God's word, we should trust God every time.

4 comments:

Mcginnis360 said...

You are absolutely 100% correct. The earth is in fact ONLY 6,000 years old, and not one single scientist has ever proven different. They try to make "science theory" fact, when it is still only a theory, and has never been proven.

RKBentley said...

Mcginnis360,

Thanks for visiting and for your comments. I've never understood why people claim to want to know the "truth" about our origins yet ignore the truth revealed in the Bible.

Please keep visiting. God bless!!

RKBentley

Johnathan Clayborn said...

Hi Mr. Bentley,

I've read a few of your articles now and I've noticed that you seem to have a very hardened "us vs. them" approach to life.

As I explained in another reply, why can't both views be correct? Time as as we know it is a human invention. If an alient came from Alpha Proxima and we told them to meet us an 2 days, they wouldn't know what we meant. And, if they did understand, would they calculate that time based on THEIR day, or OUR day?

Many creationists seem to take the bible's account literally. If that's the case, why then is the Earth, our planet, the ONLY planet in the known universe where the laws of physics do not apply? I do not understand how modern science can be so easily dismissed and replaced with scripture as being the "truth" when scripture itself is full of contradictions and was written by man anyway. That doesn't seem any more credible than any other theory.

As a "Scientist" and an "Evolutionist" I am fully willing to concede the point that we have NO IDEA how life started, or even the universe for that matter. I am even willing to concede the point that it is POSSIBLE that the origin of life (on this planet or any other) was in fact through God's hand. I am not however, willing to concede the point that the earth was created in six literal days. That defies everything that we know, everything that we observe about our own surroundings. Much of science is based on validated repeatable evidence that hasn't changed for thousands of years. I saw your rebuke to Steven in another post where you attribute that logic to thinking that you're not going to die because you haven't died yet, and that's clever, I'll give you that, but it's not the same. If I've dropped an object off a building every day and it falls at the same speed every day, what evidence is there to assume that one day it will float into the air instead?

RKBentley said...

Johnathan,

You said, “I've read a few of your articles now and I've noticed that you seem to have a very hardened "us vs. them" approach to life.”

Jesus said that we are either with Him or against Him (Matt 12:30). In that sense, it is “us versus them.” However, I don't feel I'm “harden” as much as I am “committed.”

You said, “As I explained in another reply, why can't both views be correct?”

Because the views are mutually exclusive. “Six days” is not equivalent to “billions of years.” The Bible says that death came as the result of sin and ToE holds that death is the process through which we were created. The Bible says the earth was created before the sun and secular cosmology says the sun was created before the earth.

I could go on but there's no need. The opposing views are only compatible if one of them is compromised. Usually, it is the Bible. If the Bible doesn't mean what it plainly says, then it could mean ANYTHING – no matter how bizarre.

You said, “Time as as we know it is a human invention.”

Time is a real phenomenon and is an integral part of the universe. It is also a creation of God and He even created the means by which we can measure time (Gen 1:14).

You said, “Many creationists seem to take the bible's account literally.”

That's not quite correct. As I said in another comment, we accept the plain meaning of the Bible. Sometimes the Bible uses literary devices (like metaphor, simile, hyperbole, personification, etc). When it does, I understand that it's saying something that is not “literal” but still true. Other times, it's saying something that is both literal and true.

You said, “If that's the case, why then is the Earth, our planet, the ONLY planet in the known universe where the laws of physics do not apply?”

Actually, we've ONLY observed how physics works on earth. We haven't visited any planet beyond our star. How do you KNOW physics operates the same on other planets if you haven't observed it? Scientists can only ASSUME physics operates the same everywhere but they haven't been everywhere to test that assumption.

You said, “Much of science is based on validated repeatable evidence that hasn't changed for thousands of years.”

What happened thousands of years ago cannot be observed or repeated. Science is conducted in the present and we draw conclusions about the past. Unfortunately, secular science has many false assumptions built into it that prevents many people from drawing the correct conclusions about the past.

Thanks again for your comments. I hope to hear from you again!

God bless!!

RKBentley