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science and the Bible by Bolton Davidheiser, Chairman, Science Division, Biola College
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S TAN D AR D L E S S O N S */j\ for life . . . from the
T h e a c c o u n t of creation has no doubt been attacked more than any other part of Scripture, and the record of the fourth day has probably met more opposition th an any other p a rt of the description of creation. . . and God made two great lights; the greater ligh t to ru le the day, and the lesser ligh t to rule the night: [he made] the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of heaven to give ligh t upon the earth . . .” For a long time astronomers be lieved th a t the stars and the sun must be a t least several thousand times older than the earth. They were so sure of this, and they spoke w ith such authority, th a t many Chris tians tried to reconcile science and Scripture by postulating th a t what happened on the fourth day of crea tion was a removal of clouds which had, u n til then, obscured the previous ly created celestial lights. Following this came some theories which pu t the earth, the sun, and the universe as a whole at very nearly the same age, compared w ith the pre vious view. Now it is quite common to read in current literature th a t the stars are younger than the earth. In deed, it is now believed th a t a ra th e r large proportion of the visible stars are very much younger than the earth. Some objects in photographs which look dark against the light background of the M ilky W ay are thought to be aggregates of. material which w ill become stars sometime in the future when they begin to give off light. In 1954. a photographic plate exposed to a small portion of the Orion Nebula showed two stars which were not there when a picture was taken of the same region seven years previously. If they existed be fore bu t were too fain t to photograph, they must have increased in bright ness a t least 15 times during this in terval. Some astronomers believe they really are new. The first of the modern astronomers to abandon the idea th a t the earth originated in the sun was Karl
Schwarzschild, who was killed in World W ar I. He postulated th a t par ticles of an original nebula came to gether by their mutual attraction and larger pieces of m aterial collected smaller ones u n til there was a swarm of objects moving in no fixed direc tion. Then the sun swept through this mass and gave it an orderly motion around itself. Now we are told by scientists th a t the earth m ay actually be older than the sun. This is indeed a drastic change in point of view from th a t held not so very many years ago when the sun was thought to be at least several thousand times older than the earth. This is according to the theory of Fred L. W hipple of Harvard, which is a variation of the theory announced by von Weizsacker in 1945. W riting of this, C. Payne- Gaposchkin of Harvard says,* “The idea th a t the earth was formed from a long pre-existing sun has given place today to the feeling th a t the earth and sun m ay have been formed as p a rt of the same process of develop ment, and even leaves the possibility th a t the earth, as such, may actually be somewhat older than the sun as known today.” . . . “On this theory the earth was never gaseous and was never p a rt of the sun . . . Moreover, the sun, as we know it today, may ac tually, according to this conception, be younger than the planets.” Another example of this is found in a bookf by J. H. Rush, formerly a member of the Physics faculty of Texas Technical College. “The other implication of the dust-cloud hypo thesis is th a t the planets were formed w ith the sun, not as la te r accessories. This interpretation means th a t the planets are as old as the sun or even older . . .” I t would be a mistake to say th a t astronomers are agreeing w ith the Biblical account of creation, bu t it is remarkable how much closer they have come to it w ithin the last few years. ‘ Introduction to Astronomy. Prentice-Hall +The Dawn of Life. Hanover House.
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