Universe
From CreationWiki, the encyclopedia of creation science
The universe is the whole cosmic system of matter and energy of which earth is a part. It is all existing matter and space considered as a whole. The word universe comes from the Latin universus, meaning "combined into one, whole", from uni- "one" and versus "turned."
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Universal Creationism
Universal creationism is the doctrine or belief that the universe was created by God out of no pre-existent entity. The view is thus philosophically opposed to all forms of evolutionism or pantheism. Universal creationism is a fundamental tenet of the major monotheistic religions.
Origin of the universe
The only cosmogony that mentions the absolute origin of the universe is found in the Bible and writings based on it. All other cosmogonies begin with the space-time-matter universe existing in primeval form, then try to speculate how it "evolved" to its present state. The Bible tells us God created the universe (the heavens and the earth) "in the beginning" (Genesis 1:1 ). It also tells us the pre-existent Jesus Christ, "the image of the invisible God," was the one who created and now sustains everything (Colossians 1:15-17 ).
The first verse of the book of Genesis — "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" — is unique in all religion, science, and philosophy. It alone records the special creation of the space–time universe. Space (part of "the heavens"), time ("in the beginning"), and matter ("the earth") make up the space-time-matter continuum that forms the universe. Journalism teachers worldwide have taught this verse to their students as a superb example of a first sentence of a news report. This is because it answers the questions who (God), what (God created), when (in the beginning), and where (heaven and earth) in only 10 words.
Pre-existing material or spoke into existence
The word "created" (Hebrew bara) does not in itself preclude the use of pre-existing material when God created the universe, although this passage does not mention or imply any. Yet Hebrews 11:3 seems to rule out pre-existing material when it says "the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear". Scientist and Bible scholar Dr. Henry Morris said this verse makes belief in theistic evolution (the idea that evolution is God’s method of creation) "an oxymoron." Only special creation of the worlds, carried out by God’s "Let it be" command, can account for the things that are seen.
Universe structure
The main items of the universe are galaxies, stars and stellar groupings, and nebulae (clouds of interstellar gas and dust). Smaller inhabitants include the solar system and various assemblages of planets, comets, satellites, asteroids, and meteoroids. The universe also contains gravitational fields and various forms of radiation.
Age of the Universe
The age of the universe is also the age of the earth, because both came into existence "in the beginning" — although earth originally had no form to it (Genesis 1:2 ). At the moment of creation there were no other planets, stars, comets, or other such bodies in the universe. None of these came into existence until the fourth day of the Creation Week.
Biblical scholars have tried to list a complete chronology of the Bible, but because they disagree it shows the problem is serious and remains unsettled.
Evolution
Evolutionary ages for the universe have varied wildly over the years. Evolutionist astronomers recently added two billion years to evolution’s speculative age, bumping the age up from 13.7 billion years to 15.8 billion years. [1]
Creation
Despite the small variations among Bible scholars, it is obvious from the account of earth’s history recorded in the Bible that the age of the universe is in the thousands, not billions, of years.
Biblical Implications However, an approximate age for the earth and the universe can be estimated from dates and time-frames within the Bible. The main indicators are these:
- Genesis 1 gives the time from the universe’s creation to man’s creation.
- Genesis 5 supplies chronological details from the first man’s creation to the worldwide Flood of Noah’s day.
- Genesis 11 gives the chronology from the Flood to the time of Abraham.
- The historical books of the Old Testament supply chronological information from the time of Abraham to the captivity.
- The chronology of the captivity and restoration can be worked out from some of the prophetic books (principally Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Daniel) and the post-captivity historical books of Ezra and Nehemiah.
- The intertestament period chronology comes from secular records and the chronology implicit in the "seventy weeks" prophecy of Daniel 9 .
The most famous chronology based on these data is that of Irish Archbishop James Ussher. Ussher calculated the date of creation as 4004 BC, which puts the age of the universe and the earth at slightly more than 6000 years. As noted above, there are problems in arriving at an exact date for the universe’s creation. But Ussher did at least use the biblical data to arrive at his date, and many other calculations come close to his date.
Other Biblical Dates Apart from the Bible, early written records of great civilizations extend back no further than around 3000 BC. Before that there are no written records.
Other dates calculated for the Creation are
- Jewish, 3760 BC
- Lipman, 3916 BC
- Lightfoot, 3960 BC
- Luther, 3961 BC
- Melanchthon 3964 BC
- Kepler, 3993 BC
- Playfair, 4008 BC
- Septuagint, 5270 BC
- Hales, 5402 BC
- Josephus, 5555 BC.
References
- ↑ "2 billion years added to age of universe." WorldNetDaily, August 5, 2006. Accessed March 8, 2008.
- The forgotten archbishop Creation magazine article about Archbishop Ussher, by Larry Pierce
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