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As I’ve been writing about Chapter 4, I have to say that DNA is one area that I am not settled on.  What I mean is that while the Evolutionist responses to the Creationist perspective are reasonable, they have not convinced me that there are natural laws by which raw elements could, stage by stage, evolve into DNA-based life.  It doesn’t threaten my faith if there are such laws, because any hypothetically undiscovered law of nature was designed and created by God.  For me then, the question reduces not to whether God did it, but how.  I sure am curious, and the statistical mind exercises and computer simulations I have been reporting on convince me that it is worth researching further.

The problem …

It pains me to call a brother in Christ “the opposition”, but I gotta say that it’s how I feel. 

If you have been following my blog over the last week, I have been reviewing “Evidence for Creation” by Tom DeRosa.  I received the book as a gift from my Pastor, who is also a friend.  He knows I believe in an Old Earth, and he gave me this book coincidentally when I started reviewing Glenn Morton’s evidence for Adam and Noah existing 5.5 million years ago.  Given the fact that God’s timing is always perfect, and the fact my pastor has never given be a book like this before, and it was right after I started reviewing Glenn’s theories in earnest, I decided that …

Well, I had posted some guidelines that I was going to follow during my review of Tom DeRosa’s “Evidence for Creation”, but I have not been able to follow them.  The problem is that, as it appears to me anyway, DeRosa is making comments about science that he doesn’t understand.  His approach appears to be to explain why the science is unreliable and cannot be proven.  Therefore, simply open the one true Word of God, and go from there.  To be honest, I am not enjoying this review.  I feel like I am watching my brother in Christ just shut himself off from all rational reason, and yet that is exactly what he thinks all Evolutionists (from Darwinian to Theistic) …

As discussed, here is a reminder of my ground rules: “Evidence for Creation” (Review) - Ground Rules for the Review
Because I believe DeRosa’s opening paragraphs exclude discussion of any viable form of Theistic Evolution…

I will weigh DeRosa’s anti-Evolution arguments as they pertain to Darwinian Evolution, separately from a (for lack of a better term) Geocreationist Theistic Evolution.
I will be weighing DeRosa’s pro-Creationist arguments as they pertain to Creationist theories in general, and specifically Geocreationist Theistic Evolution.
I am knowingly excluding all other specific Creationist and Evolutionary theories, though I realize there are other theories that are worthy of discussion.

DeRosa begins this chapter with a summary of the …

As discussed, here is a reminder of my ground rules: “Evidence for Creation” (Review) - Ground Rules for the Review
Because I believe DeRosa’s opening paragraphs exclude discussion of any viable form of Theistic Evolution…

I will weigh DeRosa’s anti-Evolution arguments as they pertain to Darwinian Evolution, separately from a (for lack of a better term) Geocreationist Theistic Evolution.
I will be weighing DeRosa’s pro-Creationist arguments as they pertain to Creationist theories in general, and specifically Geocreationist Theistic Evolution.
I am knowingly excluding all other specific Creationist and Evolutionary theories, though I realize there are other theories that are worthy of discussion.

“Why does the Same Evidence Lead to Opposite Conclusions?”

DeRosa’s …

From the first page of Chapter 1, I can see that I might end up repeating myself if I do not set some ground rules for how I review this book.  Consider the second paragraph (emphasis added):
In the origins debate, the evidence leads to one of two conclusions: evolution or creation.  These two basic views are completely at odds and admit no middle ground.  On the one hand, evolution relies on pure random chance as the agent by which matter and energy, over time, are assembled into living systems with all their mind-boggling complexity.  The evolutionary process, we are told, requires billions and billions of years.  Creation, by contrast, relies on the “mechanism” of an outside intelligence which we define …

I received as a Christmas present the book “Evidence for Creation - Intelligent Answers for Open Minds”, by Tom DeRosa.  The gift was from my Pastor who knows that I believe in an Old Earth.  In fact, he let me teach the Creation unit of a multi-week course a few years ago, because I expressed concern that the teaching might alienate people who believe the earth is old.  So, he let me teach it.  For my closing, I said something like the following:
“Now, some of you may be wondering what I believe about Creation.  I am not going to say, though I am sure no one here will guess.  The reason I won’t say is because God’s love for us is …

Gorden J. Glover excellently captures the needless struggle between Theology and Science in his current series Missed Opportunities Part 1 and Missed Opportunities Part 2.  The basic idea is that if all of life did not descend from a common ancestor, then God seems to have missed His opportunity to tell us that in within his blueprints.  In fact, the blueprints appear to be screaming “COMMON DESCENT”.  

Given the purpose of my own blog, to show that science and scripture are really telling the same story, I find Gordon’s posts to be timely and needed.  People need to realize that the conflict between science and theology is artificial, and only due to our stubbornness and ignorance.

Some highlights:

Part 1:
We can …

In trying to weigh the evidence for a recent global flood, versus a prehistoric local flood, I recently came across a blog I was unfamiliar with, criticizing Glenn Morton for ignoring YEC evidence for the flood.  It seems that about 10 years ago, Glenn Morton wrote Burrows cause problems for the Flood.  It concluded that the burrows we see fossilized in the earth’s crust could not be explained by the flood.  8 years later, in 2006, John Woodmorappe wrote a paper addressing burrows and the flood, entitled Are soft-sediment trace fossils (ichnofossils) a time problem for the Flood?  So, I decided to review both papers and see what conclusions I could come up with …

I am about to do something risky.  I am about to evaluate the scientific evidence presented by Glenn Morton for the likelihood of Adam, Noah, and the flood being 5.5 million years ago.  The reason this is risky is because I do not have the scientific background to judge the validity of Morton’s evidence.  Of course, that hasn’t stopped me from evaluating other scientific positions, so why let it stop me here?

In my readings, I have now seen several critiques of his theory.  In my opinion, these critiques fall into two major camps.  Camp #1 is scientifically knowledgeable; often exceptionally knowledgeable.  They do not necessarily refute or misunderstand the existence of Morton’s evidence, but they do not think it proves …