The people who came to Creation Weekend, October 25 and 26, 2024 were greatly impressed by Dr. Kurt Wise’s passion, depth of information and quality of his arguments. His topics ranged firstly from the nature of dinosaur fossils and what these tell us about their lives and fate, and secondly to God’s dealing with His Creation and how this impacts our estimates of the age of the universe, and thirdly how Christians can interact with our modern society. Specifically we have no need to introduce the reality of God to anyone because everyone actually already perceives the existence of the Creator of Heaven and Earth, whether they admit it or not.
The dinosaur presentation was by far the most popular. With interesting illustrations, Dr. Wise demonstrated the wonderful design of dinosaurs both for appearance and function. Even fearsome dinosaurs however display the impact of the fall of man. Therefore, the fossil record also displays numerous dinosaur injuries and diseases. Next Dr. Wise discussed the nature of sedimentary deposits and where and why dinosaurs are found: specifically we saw dinosaur death poses, articulated skeletons and bone beds, all of which tell us about the nature of the catastrophe that killed the dinosaurs. He demonstrated from the extent of various rock layers, that this flood was indeed worldwide. The audience was delighted with such fascinating new information concerning dinosaur studies.
The third presentation, entitled Compelling Creator, was definitely the keynote message. Dr. Wise based his argument on the self-revealing God of Romans 1:18-21. From this passage we understand that God reveals Himself to all people by means of His Creation. God uses the creation as a powerful message, so that man is without excuse if he fails to acknowledge God who is apart from nature, and yet is the cause of all that we observe.
Dr. Wise therefore declared that we do not need to try to prove the existence of God. People already know that He exists. We rather need to show people the implications of what we see in nature. Compelling and persuasive arguments are the ticket, but not proof. (There is no proof in science anyway.) In this context, Dr. Wise launched into an overview of the implications of what we see in nature.
For a start and on a very basic level, because we observe that every system runs down, loses energy and eventually decays, we know that the universe won’t last forever. Therefore we know that the universe cannot be infinitely old (eternal). We therefore know that the universe had a beginning. If there was a beginning, then we naturally look for a cause.
Another observation in our experience is that every event has a cause. Moreover since we understand that the universe contains all matter (and energy), space, and time, then the cause of the universe must be outside of these features. Since the cause is outside of the universe, which is made of matter or is material, then the cause must be non-material and outside of time. This means that the cause is transcendent and eternal.
Now we turned to what we can learn about the Creator from more specific knowledge about nature. Firstly, we universally observe that information comes from information and in any transmission of information, some of it is lost. Thus, whatever caused the universe to appear, had more information than the universe itself. So, the Creator is omniscient.
The issue of information concerns the nature of language, which comes only from a communicating intelligence. Physicists, cosmologists and other scientists know that the universe operates according to the principles of mathematics. These concepts are basically imaginary or in the mind. An equation may tell us something that is true, but none of it, of itself, is a physical reality. Most interestingly, the universe operates according to the language (principles) of mathematics. Why should the imaginary world of mathematics fit the universe? Since there is a language at the base of the universe, then the cause of it must be a communicating intelligence.
We continue to see the person and work of God in each aspect of nature. The DNA that controls the processes of life for all creatures, is itself a language. Dr. Wise discussed various features of DNA, concluding that like mathematics, it has to come from a mind. Purpose and planning always come from a mind. The several layers of control on how the information in the DNA of each creature is expressed, could simply not have appeared spontaneously but had to come from a planning intelligence.
Dr. Wise then turned his attention to other features of nature which are precisely designed to support life and the universe that we know. For example, if the unique features of water were otherwise, life could not exist. Also, among subatomic particles, the proton is 1000x the size of the electron, but their opposite electrical charges are perfectly balanced. If this were not so, there would be no chemistry and no life.
The most fun topic was chaos. When it comes to chaos, most of us think of our child’s playroom or husband’s workshop. However, the term really means interacting forces that can produce wildly unexpected values (like the weather). In recent years, scientists have realized that most systems in nature are chaotic. For example, in our solar system, scientists cannot explain why planets stay in stable orbits around the sun rather than bumping into each other or whizzing off into interstellar space. Such studies show us that without God’s continuous supervising control, everything in nature would fall apart, even the processes that make life possible.
In the end, having touched on many important characteristics of nature, well known to our modern society, Dr. Wise declared that the cause of the universe was the conscious plan and decision of an immanent, transcendent, immaterial, unchanging, beautiful, omniscient, eternal, communicating personal being who had/has man in mind. It behooves all who understand the nature of the Creator, to turn to the words of Romans 1 and to all of Scripture. The promise and demands of the gospel are all outlined therein. Dr. Wise meant it when he entitled his presentation “Compelling Creator”.
Margaret Helder
January 2025
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