Genesis
1:14 ¶ And God said, Let there be lights
in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them
be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: 15 And let them be for lights in the firmament
of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. 16 And God made two great lights; the greater
light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the
stars also. 17 And God set them in the
firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, 18 And to rule over the day and over the night,
and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.
19 And the evening and the morning were
the fourth day.
The Bible teaches
an earth-centered and an earth-focused universe. Theoretical scientists dismiss
this notion as in order to push an atheist agenda this cannot be accepted.
However, some of the most brilliant scientists have admitted that the earth
appears, from their own observations, to be in a central location in the
universe although they simply cannot intellectually accept that.
Fred Hoyle, one of
history’s great theoretical scientists, wrote in a textbook published in 1975;
However, [refers
to a diagram of the universe] would demand a special relation of our own galaxy
to the universe, since in this figure we have taken our galaxy to be located in
the center of a nonuniform distribution of galaxies. It hardly seems plausible
that our galaxy would be in any such privileged position. So we answer the
above question [would anywhere appear to be the center making the universe
acentric?] affirmatively on intellectual grounds rather than because such an
answer is determined by observation.[1]
The fact that,
according to the observations of many theoretical scientists, based on the data
they have collected based on their own theories and mathematical models, the
earth may be in a central position in the universe is interesting, to say the
least. Regarding the belief that was once widely held by both scientists and
Christians, that the earth was the center of the solar system (geocentric
theory) rather than the sun (heliocentric theory), as Copernicus theorized,
Hoyle had this interesting statement to make. “We now know that the difference
between a heliocentric theory and a geocentric theory is one of relative motion
only, and that such a difference has no physical significance.”[2] Remember there are no
walls, ceiling, or floors in space so determining relative motion without those
reference points can be very complicated and often the evidence and
mathematical calculations can point to one way and also prove the reverse.
In the
controversial book Rare Earth: Why
Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe by University of Washington
scientists, Peter Ward, a geologist and paleontologist, and Donald Brownlee,
astronomer and astrobiologist, put forth the evidence and theory that showed
that for life to exist on earth the universe was perfectly suited and even a
slight variation in much of the observable universe would result in a lifeless
earth.
From our
perspective here the earth appears to be the center of the universe and the
only place where the existence of life is necessary. The Bible here states
clearly that the sun and the moon were created for the earth, for purposes
here, and were not formed by a random process without meaning.
However, modern
ideology, that life is basically an accident and we are insignificant, swirling
in an equally insignificant position in the universe, is the prevailing modern
myth that you are allowing your children to be indoctrinated by in public school
and in college.
By the way, with
regard to the moon in verse 16 the Bible tells us that it does not generate
light of its own…
Job 25:5 Behold
even to the moon, and it shineth not; yea, the stars are not pure in his sight.
…just as we are
told that the earth is not attached to any object…
Job 26:7 He
stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon
nothing.
…and that it is
circular in shape…
Isaiah 40:22 It
is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof
are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and
spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in:
…and that in the
expanse of outer space there is a vast empty place as Job 26:7 stated above,
which we have confirmed by observation.[3]
And yet,
theoretical scientists, in the main, deny the Bible’s truth. However, any
honest reading of philosophers of science will show you that theoretical
science is driven by ideology as much as it is any honest assessment of the
evidence.[4]
Your best bet is
to believe the Bible as literally written. It is a primary source, given to men
by the God who created them, and is thoroughly reliable while the musings of
theoretical scientists are not. The sun and the moon exist to perform certain
functions with regard to the earth, not as accidental events of nature in
space-time.
There is a myth
perpetuated by textbooks and lectures of scientists and philosophers that the
ancients believed the universe was very small. The Christian writer, C.S.
Lewis, referencing a number of ancient and medieval sources, pointed out that
the ancients thought the universe to be quite large in his book The Discarded Image.[5]
[1] Fred Hoyle, Astronomy and Cosmology: A Modern Course (San
Francisco: W.H. Freeman & Co., 1975), 87.
[2] Ibid., 416.
[3] Sarah Knapton,
“Mysterious Supervoid in Space is Largest Object Ever Discovered, Scientists
Claim,” The Telegraph, April 20,
2015. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/space/11550868/Giant-mysterious-empty-hole-found-in-universe.html.
[4] Suggested reading
includes Richard Lewontin’s Biology as
Ideology, Paul Feyerabend’s The
Tyranny of Science and Against
Method, Ian Hacking’s Representing
and Intervening, Nancy Cartwright’s How
the Laws of Physics Lie, Thomas Kuhn’s The
Structure of Scientific Revolutions and The
Copernican Revolution, and E.A. Burtt’s The
Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science, all of which I have read and
have in my library.
[5]
C. S. Lewis, The Discarded Image: An
Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1964), 97-99.
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