In the film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991), the villainous Sheriff of Nottingham dispatches henchmen to kill Lord Locksley based upon a contrived and false accusation. The Sheriff later wields the sword of the slain nobleman against the man’s own son, Robin Hood. When Robin first sees his opponent unsheathe the familiar blade, he defiantly states, “I shall never fear my father’s sword.”

By the time you finish this review, perhaps you will understand why the recently released Thinking About Evolution: 25 Questions Christians Want Answered (2020) reminds me of this cinematic moment.

***

This book is for those who are fearless. Whether you are an atheist, agnostic, theistic evolutionist, old-earth creationist, or young-earth creationist, Thinking About Evolution: 25 Questions Christians Want Answered will both inform and surprise you.

Wherever you may fall within this wide spectrum of viewpoints, everyone is aware that the subject of evolution has divided all the aforementioned camps from one another by varying degrees. Moreover, Darwinism has become centerpiece to the claim that the scientific endeavor is a purely secular one. From its original form, a neo-Darwinian theory of evolution (i.e., modern synthesis) eventually developed and was accepted with little serious scientific critique—until an increasing amount of dissenting data was accrued over several decades throughout various disciplines.

“In more recent decades, the challenge of incorporating several unanticipated discoveries and observations has evolutionary biologists debating whether continued revision of the modern synthesis is possible of if it needs to be scrapped and replaced with an extended evolutionary synthesis.” (p. 39)

Note that extended evolutionary synthesis is not just an extension of modern synthesis (as the name might imply) – rather, it is more aptly characterized as a revision. Likewise, the development of neutral theory has occurred “in response to genetic sequence analysis and computational modeling that challenged the adequacy of modern synthesis’ mechanisms.” (p. 40)

New versions of this old subject of debate are explored by four co-authors with impressive credentials. Anjeanette “AJ” Roberts holds a PhD in molecular and cell biology, conducted postdoctoral research at Yale, and served as a staff scientist at the National Institutes of Health. Fazale Rana holds a PhD in biochemistry and worked as a senior scientist in product development for Proctor & Gamble before joining the Reasons to Believe scholar team. Sue Dykes earned a PhD in paleoanthropology at the University of Witwatersrand, specializing in the classification of hominid teeth. Mark Perez holds both an MA in analytic philosophy and MPA with an emphasis on organizational development. In both government and private sectors, he has taught critical thinking and problem solving.

These scholars possess distinct yet complementary professional backgrounds that offer insight into the peer-reviewed research and beyond. Roberts provides an overview of evolutionary theory, clarifies confusing scientific terminology, helps the reader distinguish observations from inferences, and identifies types of reasoning that may be legitimately employed to make assertions about the past. In addition, she also explains the role of philosophy in science and why there are limits to what science can tell us. Her chapters regarding the inherent limits of natural selection and evolution’s “novelty problems” are masterfully presented.

Rana opens Darwin’s “black box” and describes how the complexity of biochemical systems required for life mitigate against purely naturalistic explanations. As an anthropologist, Dykes offers insight into what we can and cannot yet ascertain from human origins research. The information provided by Rana and Dykes is highly relevant and discipline-specific, but I would have like to seen it clearly contextualized within the RTB Creation Model^* that has served to provide an overarching, multidisciplinary support for the organization’s old-earth creation position for three decades.

Perhaps the most novel approach to the old evolution debate is offered in a single chapter by Perez. He succinctly identifies common fallacies of logic that are endemic to the evolution debate (with examples exhibited by both creationists and materialists). He calls each fallacy out by name and gives examples: the false dilemma, the argument from ignorance, bald assertions, slippery slope, the a priori fallacy, question begging, the straw man fallacy, equivocation, rhetoric and fallacy of irrelevant conclusions.

To be clear, the authors of this book support an old-earth creation and exercise a high degree of data-based skepticism about why observed microbial evolution and microevolution (i.e., adaptive capacity) do not provide de facto evidence for chemical evolution or macroevolution. As they focus on the both the relevant research and methods of reasoning, they unapologetically call themselves evidentialists. This emphasis on the scientific side of the debate (more so than on the theological side) will make many evangelicals uncomfortable; however, because RTB scholars primarily seek to engage practicing scientists, they tend to begin dialogue with data that can be mutually agreed upon. In Christian circles, this might be termed “becoming the scientist to win the scientist” or putting into practice the concept that “all truth is God’s truth.”

“As we keep Christ at the center and follow the evidence where it leads, we can remain confident that we have nothing to fear from the truth.” (p. 284)

You do not have to agree with these authors to learn from them. Any scientifically literate person who is willing to critically evaluate the latest and most relevant research regarding the topic of evolution will find this book informative and useful in developing a defensible perspective on this much-debated subject.

***

The culture wars of past decades have resulted in the false impression that science is at odds with Christianity and that it may only be wielded by secular thinkers. As a result, it seems that people of faith have often and unnecessarily avoided vocations within the research community. Nevertheless, this book demonstrates how Christians are well positioned to engage scientific disciplines with both rigor and wonder. We need not fear our Father’s world, no matter who may brandish its data.

* Creation Model Approach (reasons.org), Summary of Reasons To Believe’s Testable Creation Model (reasons.org)

Make Your Own Tracks…
Bonus Chapter available at this link:
“Which Evolutionary Hurdles Recognized by Darwin Still Remain?”

Copyright © 2021. Kathleen Lyon. All rights reserved.

The weather used to be a value-neutral subject relevant to everyone in all times and places. “Discussing the weather” was a universally accepted way of making conversation in polite company; however, this once benign topic now borders too closely upon a much more polarizing subject of debate – global climate change.

In Weathering Climate Change: A Fresh Approach, Hugh Ross takes a deep dive into the data to establish a historical baseline by which we can gain an objective perspective on our current climate status. Ross does not deny that humans contribute to global warming, but his analysis reveals a counterintuitive repercussion: a Big Freeze as we enter an new ice age that has been long delayed according to scientifically documented trends. Humanity may be bracing itself for the wrong catastrophe.

Erratic temperature variations have plunged the Earth in and out of ice ages for millions of years. Here’s the real surprise. Over the last 9,500 years, warming and cooling effects have balanced to produce a remarkably consistent global mean temperature that has varied by no more than ±0.65°C. This is in sharp contrast to the 4-10°C fluctuations experienced every few centuries throughout the previous 2.58 billion years. The recent uptick in temperature over the past 70 years (0.8°C) has rapidly cancelled out a very slight cooling trend (1°C) accrued over this long period of balance.

“For the past 2.58 million years, whenever the global mean temperature has risen 2-3°C (3-5°F) above its current value, a glacial episode has followed. Throughout the past 400,000 years, each such global mean temperature peak has consistently and very quickly led to dramatic temperature drops that resulted in widespread glaciation.” (p. 187)

Our multi-millennial span of unprecedented climate stability has permitted a more predictable and reliable production of crops and allowed humanity to progress beyond the tedium of subsistence farming to the pursuit of other interests and achievements. As a result, we have steadily advanced from the diversification of crops, to the diversification of labor, to the diversification of financial portfolios.

“[T]he possibility for the development of global, high-technology civilization depends crucially on…[a] highly improbable requirement. There must be an interglacial episode of extreme and sustained climate stability – exactly what the climate research community recognizes as humanity’s urgent necessity.” (p.147)

In Weathering Climate Change, Ross acknowledges our waning window of stability without sounding an apocalyptic alarm. Speaking as both a scientist and a Christian minister, he seeks to motivate thoughtful, measured, and rational responses that are in keeping with the hope possessed by people of faith. He reminds us that the advancement of widespread civilization is part of our Story as we spread across the globe and carry the Good News of Christ throughout. Given God’s “mandate to manage the world for the benefit of all Earth’s life,” Ross anticipates the “possibility of a win-win-win response to the current crisis…actions that would stabilize the global climate, cool and moderate the global mean temperature, increase the quality of life for people in all nations, and even enhance the well-being of the plants and animals that share Earth with us.” (p. 50) It is probably not insignificant that humanity’s first job was tending a garden.

That said, Ross is not oblivious to the many reasons why the issue of climate change is not as straight forward as we would like it to be. Reactions to the topic range from apathy to anger to anxiety.

“Gallup has performed annual surveys of American opinion on climate change since 1989. The percentage of those surveyed indicating that they ‘personally worry about this problem a great deal’ stood at 35 percent in 1989 and seesawed between a low of 24 percent in 1998 and a high of 45 percent in 2017.” (p. 18)

Numerous phenomena interact to influence global conditions in complex and interdisciplinary ways. Dr. Ross objectively pulls together the research and offers non-partisan solutions. Weathering Climate Change is data-dense but filled with data-driven surprises. Charts, graphs, and diagrams are scattered throughout its pages to illustrate the story told by the numbers. Ideally, it will help Christians have a meaningful place in the conversation and improve the civility of the discussion. The book serves as a worthy sequel to Ross’ Improbable Planet. I recommend it to any science-savvy citizen who wants to understand the research behind this highly politicized issue.

MAKE YOUR OWN TRACKS…

Strangely enough, scientific investigations are rarely incorporated into late-night comedy shows. David Letterman’s “Will It Float?” segments were zany outliers. Before the eyes of a sleep-deprived audience, sundry objects were tested for buoyancy. The experiment was simple and the results conclusive. The item-in-question was dropped into a pool of water. Within seconds, all predictions were either confirmed or contradicted. Game over. Have a good night. If only all scientific inquiries were so clear-cut and their outcomes accepted with such good humor.

Just for fun, let’s play “Will It Warm (the Earth)?”

• • Fusion occurring within the Sun
  • Weathering of the continental crust’s silicates
  • Cultivation of rice
  • Dams built by beavers
  • Burning of biofuels
  • Saving the whales
  • Logging the oldest trees in a forest
  • Widespread human consumption of ostrich meat
  • Bitcoin usage
  • Melting of the Arctic ice cap

You will have to read the book for answers, but I will provide one that exemplifies the complexity of climate change analysis:

As the Arctic ice cap melts (due to warming factors), more liquid water of the Arctic Ocean will be exposed. Liquid water will more readily absorb heat from the Sun than aforementioned ice. Consequently, more water will vaporize, but it will not remain in the atmosphere indefinitely. It will precipitate out as snowfall over Canada and Siberia where temperatures will remain well below the freezing point for water, global warming notwithstanding. An increasing expanse of ice coverage at these latitudes will very effectively reflect sunlight and cause an overall cooling effect, extending snow and ice further and further.

So, the melting of the polar ice cap is both an effect of global warming and a cause of global cooling. See why climate change research is such a challenge?

“Escape games” are a thing now. People gather their clever, non-claustrophobic friends, sign the proper releases, and pay money to be locked in a room together. A variety of cryptic clues are scattered about to help the willing captives break codes, solve puzzles, and successfully complete challenging tasks that will bring them step-by-step closer to freedom before the clock runs out. Time is of the essence.

In astrophysicist Jeff Zweerink’s new book, Escaping the Beginning?, we find that a number of physicists and cosmologists are feverishly working out theoretical puzzles and experimental challenges to escape the philosophically and theologically confining implications of a Big Bang singularity. Time, and its beginning in particular, is the essence of their dilemma.

Concisely stated, scientific consensus affirms that our universe is exquisitely fine-tuned for complex life in such a way that an external cause agent outside of its multi-dimensional boundaries seems to have been necessary for its initiation. As Zweerink’s old-earth-creationist colleague Hugh Ross has detailed in his fourth iteration of The Creator and the Cosmos (read review), this sounds a lot like the ex nihilo creation of all things as described in the Judeo-Christian scriptures. Many atheist and agnostic scientists find this alignment to be unsettling and unacceptable, yet they cannot make an adequately supported scientific case to the contrary that will stick. But they are trying.

Zweerink provides solid historical backstory on both past and current models of how our universe came to be the way it is. Key scientific discoveries have overturned past theories and bolstered confidence in new ones. Oscillating models and steady state models have fallen by the wayside for the most part in favor of an expanding universe with a Big Bang beginning, but many questions still remain.

For example, the probability of a single universe arising naturalistically with such optimal conditions for advanced life (or even its required chemistry) is so miniscule that atheists are pretty much obligated to invoke the presence of a multiverse where any and all realities occur. But does a multiverse actually subvert a beginning? If so, under what conditions, and how can those conditions be proven?

No less than Stephen Hawking and Lawrence Krauss “speculate that a quantum law of gravity fluctuates our universe into existence.” (p. 169) In The Grand Design, “Hawking seems to show how to get a self-contained description of the universe with no beginning in time. In contrast, Krauss seems confident about how his model gets the universe from nothing, as seen from the subtitle of his book, A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing.” (p. 144)

Make no mistake, more than the scientific record is at stake.  Zweerink notes that “[p]art of Hawking’s motivation was trying to remove the need for God to ‘light the blue touch paper and set the universe growing.'” (p. 140)  And regarding the work of Lawrence Krauss, avowed atheist Richard Dawkins is quoted as saying, “If On the Origin of Species was biology’s deadliest blow to supernaturalism, we may come to see A Universe from Nothing as the equivalent from cosmology. The title means exactly what it says. And what it says is devastating.” (p. 127)

Since our universe started out infinitesimally small, it seems reasonable to assume that quantum effects might have greatly impacted its development early on. Zweerink concurs that “[o]ne problem plaguing all attempts to address the beginning of the universe is that the conditions near the big bang singularity (usually) demand both general relativity and quantum mechanics. However, scientists do not yet have a proper quantum theory of gravity, although many different approximations exist. In order to truly answer the question, ‘Did the universe begin to exist?’ in an absolute way, we need the proper quantum theory of gravity.” (p. 41) Significantly, he later adds that “[e]very time in the past where cosmologists have developed a model without a beginning, subsequent experimental and theoretical research eventually narrowed the field to models with a beginning.” (p. 170)

Zweerink also points out that, in their grand conjectures, physicists often ascribe God-like qualities to the laws of physics. Might such laws be eternal, or could they somehow bring themselves into operation? Once in operation, could they have the capacity to create conscious beings who can speculate about their significance on an existential level? Alternatively, like Thomas Nagel in Mind and Cosmos, should we assume that consciousness infuses the fundamental fabric of the universe and that the laws of physics are conscious as well? Can such a notion be supported by the evidence? In a very literal sense, it may be that time will tell.

Escaping the Beginning? may be one of the most important books in science apologetics to date for it addresses a radical change in the science-faith dialogue. Space-time theorems of the late twentieth century will no longer provide the winning “slam dunk” in debates. Asking the question, “Why is there something rather than nothing?” will no longer be adequate to convince in academic circles. There will be push-back, but the scientifically savvy believer can still be prepared, ready to offer hope beyond a void of nothingness or a theory of everything.

This book is written with clear and precise language, and its simple diagrams are instructive. Well-stated key points and thought-provoking discussion questions are included at the end of each chapter. Although an historical overview of the science is provided, some college-level physics is required to firmly grasp some of the technical detail inherent to the state of the debate. Unfortunately, this means that cutting-edge arguments will be increasingly less accessible to the science layperson; only those working within increasingly specialized disciplines may be able to discern the significance and validity of data at the leading edge of advancing scientific thought. It is important for scientists of faith, like Zweerink, to remain actively engaged in research and to have a voice—so that more of us can benefit from, and engage in, informed discussion regarding those matters that matter most.

Jeff Zweerink is author of Escaping the Beginning? and a Senior Research Scholar at Reasons to Believe. He is also a project scientist at UCLA working on GAPS, a balloon experiment seeking to detect dark matter. Dr. Zweerink is coauthor on more than 30 papers published in peer-reviewed journals, such as Astrophysical Journal, Astroparticle Physics, and Astrobiology, as well as numerous conference proceedings.

Make your own tracks…
Blog Post: God and Time Theories by Hugh Ross | September 2, 2019
Blog Post: Dark Matter from Before the Big Bang by Jeff Zweerink | August 30, 2019
Blog Post: Gamma Ray Flares Constrain Beginning-of-Universe Speculations by Hugh Ross | August 12, 2019

It’s been said that there are some things that money can’t buy. But although money may not be able to buy good health, it can buy research. In Humans 2.0: Scientific, Philosophical, and Theological Perspectives on Transhumanism, biochemist Dr. Fazale R. Rana teams up with philosopher Kenneth R. Samples to examine the amazing research-driven advances that promise to forever change the practice of medicine and significantly improve your quality of life. In fact, some of these rapidly developing technologies may fundamentally alter the human experience — a prospect both hoped for by some and feared by others. 

Science and science fiction seem to be merging as we rapidly approach what has been termed the “transhumanism singularity” — a moment in time when humans will self-advance so radically that we will be defined differently as a species. The most radical of transhumanists seek nothing short of eternal life and are prepared to download their consciousnesses into a supercomputer if necessary to achieve it. The new lifestyle options and outlooks afforded by emerging technologies will not only impact individuals. Their mere availability will restructure societies and require laws to govern their implementation. 

These are game-changer technologies. 

The same biomedical manipulations that relieve suffering today might be used for more questionable purposes tomorrow. They are causing us to ask new questions of ourselves that we have never asked before:

• Under what circumstances would you consider altering your own genetic code?
• Would you consider replacing your own healthy limbs with artificial ones that would be stronger and more durable?
• How might your lifestyle, values, and attitudes change if you could extend your life indefinitely?
• Could you accept in good conscience the benefits of research advanced through the destruction of human embryos?
• Who should have access to the benefits of these new technologies?

As they say, “The devil is in the details.” Humans 2.0 uniquely combines the perspective and expertise of a scientist with that of a philosopher to help the reader better discriminate between what can be done versus what should be done. Rana and Samples applaud the benefits of human ingenuity but also acknowledge the very human propensity to create new problems that are more destructive than those we solve. Careful to not project a dystopian future, they challenge people of faith to respond to novel technologies with both circumspection and hope. Small group studies will benefit from discussion questions at the end of each chapter, and the book’s numerous references to popular comic book superheroes will almost certainly provoke lively and enthusiastic conversations.

Topics such as gene-editing, computer-brain interfaces, anti-aging strategies, and even artificial wombs are explored with a fair degree of scientific rigor and detachment. If you are science-averse, you can skip ahead to other sections that parse out their social, ethical, and theological significance. There, transcendent principles of the Christian faith are shown to provide a balanced standard by which to promote good science and its proper implementation. Made in the image of God, humans are to subdue the resources of this world for the good of all. We must foresee potential problems and ascertain how to best regulate progress. We must safeguard those who are weak and defenseless. We must engineer in ways that heal, restore, and bring hope.

We must use our superpowers for good rather than evil.

This calls for wisdom. Let the reader taste and see if transhumanism is good. Sample the technologies. Take a few sips and decide if you are ready to drink from this fountain—and if so, at what cost?*

Quite surprisingly, the 1992 dark comedy Death Becomes Her offers some profound insight in this regard. The two main characters are vain, envious, and manipulative women. Their acquisition of immortality only makes them more brazen and insufferable. They can forgo many consequences of their selfish and unrestrained behaviors…but not all. Limitations imposed by the world around them continue to complicate their lives. And, indeed, they will live on forever but in a state that still permits increasing distortion and wretchedness.** Eventually they have only each each other to rely upon despite their mutual loathing. As mortals around them pass away, they linger in their misery and it ever grows. 

The bottom line? Mortality is not our primary problem. The truth is that we are stinkers. We are damaged goods, and no scientist can ever deliver us from the worst parts of ourselves. We need renewal of a different kind. Though the word “redemption” has fallen out of fashion, in our less-than-emotionally-healthy moments we know that we need it. We each need a transformation that goes beyond the physical, penetrating deep down into our soul and birthing a new spirit that can endure the test of time with grace and peace. Will transhumanism distract from a salvation more potent? Choose your savior wisely, for there are many places in the human heart that innovation cannot penetrate.

”…I am the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment.” Revelation 21:6

*Isaiah 55:1-2; Revelation 21:6
**The first couple was delivered from a similar fate by being driven away from the Tree of Life once they had been marred by sin. See Genesis 3:22-24.

In the 1989 comedy Bill and Ted’s Most Excellent Adventure, aspiring musicians Bill and Ted find themselves journeying through time in order to pass their final history exam and to secure the destiny of their future band “Wyld Stallyons.” Along the way, they collect and transport the following “historical personages” to 1988 San Dimas, California: Socrates, Genghis Khan, Joan of Ark (not Noah’s wife), Napoleon, Beethoven, Abraham Lincoln, Billy the Kid, Sigmund Freud, and two random princesses. It’s fun to think about who you might have chosen. Who are a few key figures who have influenced how nations have risen, how kingdoms have fallen, how academic disciplines have been practiced, how musical genius has been defined?

In Classic Christian Thinkers: An Introduction, Kenneth Richard Samples has selected individuals of both profound thought and lasting impact who guided the formation of modern Christendom. These academics collectively made contributions to the sciences, literature, philosophy, as well as theology. They spoke on the weighty themes of theism, the nature of Christ, and the state of humanity. At critical times in history, they reflected deeply on the canon and sought to communicate orthodoxy in the midst of conflict and heresy. Samples’ selections? Irenaeus (c. 130-202 AD), Athanasius (296-373 AD), Augustine (354-430 AD), Anselm (1033-1109 AD), Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274 AD), Martin Luther (1483-1546 AD), John Calvin (1509-1564 AD), Blaise Pascal (1623-1662 AD), and C.S. Lewis (1898-1963 AD).

Church history is not just a recounting of facts, dates, and personalities. It is about how real people authentically engaged the theological challenges of their time and left a lasting legacy by which we can bolster our own faith today. Their musings leave a historical record documenting some of the most influential Christian thought on key doctrines. A refreshingly irenic book, Classic Christian Thinkers focuses on those writers whose insights are often valued across Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant lines of demarcation while not ignoring or discrediting legitimate differences. Did these men get everything right? No. But they effectively communicated rightly about some of the most important and debated Biblical questions of their time.

There is nothing new under the Sun. We are not starting from scratch. There are those from whom we can learn. Let us not repeatedly fall into the same errors of past generations because we are living as intellectual paupers while drowning in a flood of ephemeral information. Samples showcases the lives of saints and scholars whom many have forgotten yet who still have many relevant things to say. Perhaps therein lies the greatness of their works and why their writings have endured. They prove that thinking matters.

How has the Church changed over two millennia? How have doctrines concerning mysteries such as the Trinity, Incarnation, and Atonement developed over time? How has Christendom stayed the course? As noted in the subtitle, this book serves as only an introduction. May this survey inspire and encourage new thinkers, writers, philosophers, and apologists to read more classic works and be transformed by them for, in the end, orthodoxy informs praxis, and a life well-lived in Christ is perhaps the best apologetic argument of all.

Most people would characterize Hugh Ross as a scientist – and that he is. Typically, his books are saturated with scientific detail with many, many pages dedicated to the citation of referenced publications.

This book is different.

Indeed, he could not resist including a summary of what he considers to be the most important scientific evidences of the Christian faith; however, most of the book is about a side of Hugh Ross that gets less public attention. He is, in fact, a pastor, and in Always Be Ready we learn how he has applied the rigor of the scientific method (not just scientific facts) to his evangelistic efforts.

Remarkable stories result.

We find that Ross is an evangelist who was never evangelized. Rather it was science that introduced him to his loving Creator, and it was the Christian Bible that stood out among the world’s other holy books to woo him towards a consummating commitment to Jesus Christ. In addition, he is a communicator who overcame communication challenges associated with autism. The stories that emerge are nothing short of miraculous and many of them qualify as full-fledged adventures.

If the following questions pique your interest, then you will want to check out this new narrative:

• What happened when the president of a school’s Atheist Club converted to Christianity one-the-spot during a science apologetics presentation?
• Can door-to-door visitation be successful?
• Is it too late to share Christ with someone in a coma?
• How can a church respond to the presence of an adult bookstore in the neighborhood?
• What questions regularly invite meaningful and respectful dialogue?
• What role does hospitality play in apologetics?

At this point, a warning is warranted. Something happens to the reader of this book. You read along effortlessly for a while…then you begin to get a bit uneasy. You start to question, “Why do I not have amazing encounters like this on a regular basis?”

Ross gives some very practical advice about how to improve your own ministry to those around you in a winsome way. Some of his ideas and approaches might be new to you, but by the end of the book you realize that he does many things that are not new at all.

He believes that God is already at work in the lives of those he encounters.
He welcomes questions from skeptics.
He joins together with other Christians.
He uses his strengths and learns from his weaknesses.
He fasts and prays.
He simply takes 1 Peter 3:15 seriously.

Read this book if you are a skeptic of Christianity who wants to better understand its attraction. Read it if you are a Christian who wants to be simultaneously encouraged and challenged.

“But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.”
1 Peter 3:15

Hugh Ross shares stories from his new book at Reason to Believe’s AMP Conference 2018…

Terrorism. Tragedies. Fake news. Allegations. It’s time to avert your eyes from the anxiety-producing online commentary that drives you to distraction. Turn off your mobile. Sit back and wonder. Look at points of light in a dark, night sky. Was our universe – everything we see and know – inevitable? Is it by chance or by purpose that you consider this question? Reclaim control of your faculties, and contemplate your place in the cosmos.

A seven-year-old, budding astronomer named Hugh Ross looked to the night sky more than six decades ago and asked, “Are stars hot?” A prolonged pursuit for answers set him out on an academic quest, not only into space, but into the past and beyond. Dr. Ross’ newly released 4th edition of The Creator and the Cosmos is an ardent scientific defense of Big Bang cosmology and a call to consider its implications on a personal and spiritual level.

Like me, you may be surprised to learn that the Big Bang Theory requires a defense at this point. After all, it has not only been well vetted by the mainstream physics community, it has passed into the vernacular of popular culture via the title of a popular sit-com. Nevertheless, the most celebrated minds of science still endeavor to know exactly how our universe came to be, and they engage in vigorous debate to that end. After all, the how may imply a why.

The Big Bang is not just a tacit affirmation of “In the beginning…”; it is a theory that leads us to the possibility of a transcendent Creator via the scientific method rather than in spite of it. Its seemingly incontrovertible implications are both profound and unsettling to anyone who believes themselves to be well-ensconced within the fortress of philosophical naturalism. Once 20th-century scientists determined that the universe was inexorably expanding, they could then begin to retrace its early development. Ross reviews a litany of discoveries that permitted scientists to see further and further into the past with increasing clarity. Having retreated so far, they now find their backs up against a single point that defines the boundary of all that is known. Will they now turn and face that which is beyond? The realm that spawned a pluripotent singularity that differentiated into all the space, time, matter, and energy that we experience? A First Cause that set it all in motion?

Dr. Ross very effectively couples physics with Christian evangelism until, under the duress of the data, the intellectually honest skeptic must at least consider that something supernatural is afoot in the universe. This new iteration includes over 70 pages of new content, and the discussion questions at the end of each chapter invite readers to engage in intellectually and theologically rich discussions. Still have doubts at the end of the book? Check out the appendices and online compendium listing hundreds of finely tuned parameters for life. Or, alternatively, just proceed to 30 years’ worth of research compiled by Christian scholars at reasons.org.

Although this book specifically targets challenges to Big Bang cosmology, The Creator and the Cosmos offers abbreviated explanations of other related topics that receive further elaboration in Ross’ other works such as More Than a Theory, Why the Universe Is the Way It Is, Beyond the Cosmos, and Improbable Planet. Dr. Hugh Ross is both the consummate scientist and the consummate evangelist, uniquely qualified to address questions at the intersection of science and faith. If any of the following questions pique your interest, you will want to add these books and others offered through the ministry of Reasons to Believe (RTB) to your reading list:

• How do we know that the universe is expanding?
• Does the quantum eternity theorem offer a viable alternative to a cosmic beginning?
• Why might atoms never have existed, and why must life be carbon-based?
• Why does our solar system’s location in the galaxy matter?
• How does a comparison of Earth’s extinction rate with its speciation rate support a Biblical view of creation and pose problems for the macroevolutionary paradigm?
• Why is a 13.8-billion-year-old universe insufficiently old to support naturalistic origin-of-life scenarios?
• Why was it advantageous for the Holy Spirit to come to believers after Christ ascended from Earth?

The book is written from an old-earth creation perspective that does not support macroevolution. It primarily addresses the concerns of skeptical scientists as well as scientifically literate laypeople within the church. Young-earth creationists may want to venture out and examine this book or other RTB reads in order to explore the robust scientific support for the old-earth position as well as its moorings to an inerrant interpretation of Scripture as affirmed by the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy.

While the SETI Institute still awaits transmissions from intelligent life beyond Earth, the stars have been speaking all along. It is from their language of light that physicists continue to decipher the story of the universe and how it relates to life here on Earth. Tonight, resist the seductive siren call of your cellular device. Look to heavens and be reminded of their enduring and ancient declarations: There is a Creator of the cosmos, and he is the Creator of you.