New Reasons To Believe Mini-Magazine: 2009, Vol. 01, No. 02

Pass and Don't Pay

Summers in Southern California ain’t what they used to be. As a kid growing up in the 1970s I recall hopping on my bike and ignoring numerous stage one (“Your eyes’ll burn”) or even stage two (“What are you, stupid?”) smog alerts. By late afternoon all the kids on the block who defied parental orders would be inside with eyes and lungs burning.

Thankfully, three decades later a smog alert is a rare event. It’s annoying now to get the biennial reminder from the state that your car is due for a smog check prior to registration. Ubiquitous smog check stations offer motorists a “Pass or Don’t Pay” pledge in order to garner business.

RTB offers this magazine free of charge for a year (so you “don’t pay” anyway), but we hope you’ll “pass” this resource along to someone who can benefit from these brief, impactful articles. It’s a down economy and, with your help, we’d like to maximize the potential value—far greater than monetary—of New Reasons to Believe. If you think RTB’s ideas stand up to testing, let others know.

Let us know, too. We’d be interested in how and where you are passing along this vital—and, we hope, easy-on-the-eyes—resource. Send me an email at jaguirre@reasons.org.

In This Issue...

"Built-In" Causality Allows Universe's Habitability
by Jeff Zweerink, Ph.D.

Length. Width. Height. Duration.
Cue Sesame Street soundtrack and sing along:
One of these things is not like the others,
One of these things just doesn’t belong ...

You pluck out “duration” prior to finishing the popular jingle, but there’s far more to the comparison than merely space (length, width, height) versus time (duration). That fourth dimension is laden with implications about our very existence.

Humans experience time differently from space. We can retrace our steps and return to any location in space but time moves relentlessly forward. What happens “before” affects what happens “after” but never the reverse. The Bible, in contrast to the prevailing ancient Near Eastern way of thinking about time,¹ accurately described (at the time it was written) this property of the universe, known as causality. Recent advances by scientists seeking to understand how space and time form and interact provide additional support for the biblical notion that causality arises from a Creator.

Earlier Research Leads to Dead-End Street

The Bible clearly states that the universe—and time in particular—had a beginning.² And three seminal scientific advances during the twentieth century affirmed that statement: Einstein’s theory of general relativity, Hubble’s detection of the universe’s expansion, and Hawking and Penrose’s space-time theorems. However, despite these advances, a vexing puzzle remained.

In relativity, gravity allowed scientists to understand how space-time can adopt many different shapes (think large scale). However, behavior of particles at atomic and subatomic scales (quantum mechanics) ignores gravity and has necessitated quantum theory. Attempts to unify both seemingly discordant physical observations have led scientists to pursue a theory of quantum gravity. String theory represents the most popular attempt to provide a quantum theory of gravity. According to this theory, a multitude of space-time configurations exist with different dimensionality and different laws of physics, but testing remains elusive.

A Road to Main Street

Another recent approach reveals some remarkable properties of the fabric of space-time.³ Instead of trying to develop an overarching theory that incorporates both gravity and quantum mechanics, this alternative approach seeks to build from scratch––using basic quantum mechanical principles––a space-time structure resembling this universe. Such a process ensures the outcome obeys quantum mechanics, while allowing the number and shape of the dimensions to unfold rather than be specified.

Initially, researchers simply started with some representative four-dimensional building blocks of space-time, then allowed them to interact under simple gravitational and quantum mechanical rules, and finally observed the outcome. With no additional input, the results ended at one of two different outcomes—neither of which resembled the stable four-dimensional universe in which we live.

Scientists derived two important conclusions from this work. First, the dimensionality of space is not a fixed quantity. Instead, dimensionality can fluctuate and change depending on how the fundamental constituents of space-time assemble. Second, large, smooth, four-dimensional universes like this one are not stable under these rules. 

Realizing that something was lacking in their modeling studies, scientists searched for that missing component. They discovered that adding one simple building block––causality––to the structure resulted in stable, four-dimensional universes. In other words, if the interactions were required to operate such that time always progressed in a single direction, the quantum fluctuations of curvature did cancel out on large scales to produce “normal”-looking universes. Furthermore, the overall results remained unchanged even as a variety of small details changed. 

The implications of this research are far-reaching. The arrow of time that allows us to distinguish the past from the future derives from something outside of space and time. Stated another way, something beyond this universe encoded cause and effect into the very fabric of space-time.

While past and future seem like obvious concepts to the average person, they don’t make as much sense from a naturalistic viewpoint. For example, the basic laws of physics work the same regardless of any direction to time. Given the conditions of a system (for example, an interacting group of subatomic particles), the laws of physics predict the state of the system at any other arbitrary time (past, present, or future). Yet people remember the past but must wait for the future to happen.

Ironically, the same publication that describes this research into causality and dimensionality published an article in the previous month’s issue utilizing a multiverse to explain the arrow of time exhibited by this universe.⁴ The appeal to a multiverse implicitly acknowledges the “beyond natural” (or supernatural) origin of causality in this universe.

=======================Sidebar=======================
Given the laws of physics, life requires a universe with three large spatial dimensions and only one time dimension. A universe with fewer spatial dimensions would not permit the spatial complexity life requires. On the other hand, a universe with more spatial dimensions would not allow stable atoms or stable planetary orbits—both of which play a critical role for life. Anything other than one time dimension means that the future or past state of a system would not relate to the present. In other words, a hypothetical living organism in such a universe would not be able to find food or elude danger because the past is unknowable and the future is unpredictable. By imposing causality on the fabric of space-time, a universe with three large spatial dimensions and one temporal dimension results. Causality allows this universe to be habitable.

Humans on Easy Street

The twentieth century discovery of a cosmic beginning points to a “beyond natural” cause that brought the universe into existence. The arrow of time (that is second nature to us) also provides evidence that something supernatural affected the space-time fabric of this universe. Otherwise, this creation would not have the three spatial and one temporal dimension required for life.

Causality’s significance for humanity is staggering. Without causality, life becomes a mechanical existence devoid of any hope, joy, or intrigue (or even Sesame Street). Furthermore, although our past influences our future, it does not dictate future events. We can choose among a number of different paths for our future. Though sometimes taken for granted, a universe with such features rouses wonder and gratitude.

References:
1.R. Laird Harris, Gleason L. Archer Jr., and Bruce K. Waltke, eds. Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (Chicago: Moody Press, 1980), 370–71.
2. Genesis 1:1 (NIV).
3. Jerzy Jurkiewicz, Renate Loll, and Jan Ambjorn, “Using Causality to Solve the Puzzle of Quantum Spacetime,” Scientific American (July 2008), http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-self-organizing-quantum-universe.
4. Sean M. Carroll, “Does Time Run Backward in Other Universes?” Scientific American (June 2008), http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-cosmic-origins-of-times-arrow.

Crossed off the List:
Is the cross shape of laminin evidence for the Creator?
Fazale (Fuz) R. Rana, Ph.D.

As I travel around the country to speak on the biochemical evidence for an Intelligent Designer, the biblical Creator, I am frequently asked to comment on laminin. The people who mention this protein are usually quite excited, convinced that its structure provides powerful scientific evidence for the Christian faith. Unfortunately, I don’t agree.

What motivates this unusual question is a molecular biologist’s popularized claim that laminin’s structure provides physical evidence that the God of the Bible created human beings and also sustains our lives. While I wholeheartedly believe God did create and does sustain human life, laminin’s apparent cross-shape does not make the case.

Laminin is one of the key components of the basal lamina, a thin sheet-like structure that surrounds cells in animal tissue. The basal lamina is part of the extracellular matrix (ECM). This structure consists of a meshwork of fibrous proteins and polysaccharides secreted by the cells. It forms the space between cells in animal tissue. The ECM carries out a wide range of functions that include providing anchor points and support for cells.

Laminin is a relatively large protein consisting of three different protein subunits that combine to form a t-shaped structure when the flexible rod-like regions of laminin are fully extended. Each of the four “arms” of laminin contains sites that allow this biomolecule to bind to other laminin molecules, other proteins (like collagen), and large polysaccharides. Laminin also provides a binding site for proteins called integrins, which are located in the cell membrane.

Laminin’s architecture and binding sites make this protein ideally suited to interact with other proteins and polysaccharides to form a network called the basal reticulum and to anchor cells to this biochemical scaffolding. The basal reticulum helps hold cells together to form tissues and, in turn, helps cement that tissue to connective tissues.

The cross-like shape of laminin and the role it plays in holding tissues together has prompted the claim that this biomolecule provides scientific support for passages such as Colossians 1:15-17 and shows how the God of the Bible must have made humans and continues to sustain them.

I would caution Christians against using this “argument.” I see a number of problems with it. (And so do many skeptics.) First, the cross shape is a simple structure found throughout nature. So it’s probably not a good idea to attach too much significance to laminin’s shape. The t configuration makes laminin ideally suited to connect proteins to each other and cells to the basal reticulum. This is undoubtedly the reason for its structure.

Secondly, the cross shape of laminin is an idealized illustration of the molecule. Portraying complex biomolecules in simplified ways is a common practice among biochemists. Depicting laminin in this extended form helps these scientists visualize and catalogue the binding sites along its four arms. This configuration should not be interpreted to represent its actual shape in biological systems. In the basal reticulum laminin adopts all sorts of shapes that bear no resemblance to a cross. In fact, it’s much more commonplace to observe laminin in a swastika configuration than in a cross-like one. Even electron micrographs of isolated laminin molecules that appear cross-shaped may be misleading. Their shape is likely an artifact of sample preparation. I have seen other electron micrographs that show laminin adopting a variety of twisted shapes that, again, bear no resemblance to a cross.

Finally, laminin is not the only molecule “holding things together.” A number of other proteins and polysaccharides are also indispensable components of the basal reticulum. None of these molecules is cross-shaped.

As I argue in my book, The Cell’s Design, the structure and operation of biochemical systems provide some of the most potent support for a Creator’s role in fabricating living systems. Instead of pointing to superficial features of biomolecules such as the “cross-shaped” architecture of laminin, there are many more substantive ways to use biochemistry to argue for the necessity of a Creator and for the value He places on human life. As a case in point, the salient characteristics of biochemical systems identically match those features we would recognize immediately as evidence for the work of a human design engineer.  The close similarity between biochemical systems and the devices produced by human designers logically compels this conclusion: life’s most fundamental processes and structures stem from the work of an Intelligent, Intentional Agent. (See the article on page XX for an example.)

When Christians invest the effort to construct a careful case for the Creator, skeptics and seekers find it difficult to deny the powerful evidence from biochemistry and other areas of science for God’s existence.

Suggested Resources: The Cell’s Design: How Chemistry Reveals the Creator’s Artistry and The Cell’s Design Podcast

Not Too Tart, Not Too Sweet:
Fine-Tuned Gene Expression of Lamin Provides Evidence for Design

By Fazale (Fuz) R. Rana, Ph.D.

I live in a city in Southern California historically known for its lemon groves. Each spring the community celebrates its history with The Lemon Festival. Along with the weekend’s events, there is no shortage of great-tasting lemonade.

Even though the recipe is simple, exceptional lemonade requires careful attention to detail: the just-right amount of sugar must be added to the just-right amount of freshly squeezed lemon juice.
Biochemical systems are like good lemonade. The levels of their molecular components have to be carefully adjusted. And, as new research on lamin B1 attests, this precision is critical.¹ If the amount of this key protein—found in the membrane surrounding a cell’s nucleus––is altered ever so slightly it leads to neurodegenerative disorders (for example, Alzheimer’s and multiple sclerosis).

Lamins play an important role in maintaining the structural integrity of the membrane that surrounds the nucleus. These proteins also serve as anchor points for the chromosomes found in the nucleus. (Chromosomes harbor the genetic information that the cell’s machinery needs to make proteins, the complex molecules that carry out the various processes in the cell.) Through their interaction with chromosomes, lamins control the production of proteins by regulating how the cell’s machinery accesses the information stored in the chromosomes.

Research indicates that specific neurodegenerative disorders result when lamin B1 is overproduced. This overproduction retards the maturation of oligodendrocytes (a type of nerve cell) and disrupts myelin production in the central nervous system. Myelin is the substance that helps form the brain’s white matter. It is made up of fats and proteins that form sheaths surrounding the fibrous parts of nerve cells. The myelin sheaths play an important role in the conduction of nerve impulses.

Scientists have discovered that the production of lamin B1 must be at just-right levels. If too much is produced it causes a distortion of the nuclear membrane, disruption of the nuclear pores, and altered chromosome structure. It appears that these effects lead to changes in the production of myelin proteins by altering gene expression. Without the proper levels of myelin proteins, the myelin sheaths don’t form correctly. This chain of events ultimately results in neurodegenerative disease (in this case, adult-onset autosomal dominant leukodystrophy).

Such precision and fine-tuning are not unusual in nature: they are hallmark features of nearly all biochemical systems. Moreover, they are also hallmark characteristics of intelligent design. Precision and fine-tuning dominate the best human designs and are often synonymous with exceptional quality. These properties do not arise by happenstance in either art or engineering. Rather, they come about only as a result of careful planning and a commitment to the best craftsmanship possible.

Similarly, nature’s no lemon. The molecular precision and fine-tuning that pervade the design of biochemical systems provide potent markers for the work of a Creator.

Reference:
1. Shu-Ting Lin and Ying-Hui Fu, “miR-23 Regulation of Lamin B1 is Crucial for Oligodendrocyte Development and Myelination,” Disease Models & Mechanisms 2 (Mar–Apr 2009): 178–88.

A Message from Minerals

By Hugh Ross, Ph.D.

One of my favorite words has been hijacked, thanks to Charles Darwin, and I want to bring it back to its original meaning. Evolution has always meant “change with respect to time,” which is a hallmark of divine creation. Cosmology exemplifies this point. Discoveries showing that the universe is neither infinitely old nor static in its conditions but rather continuously expanding and changing (i.e., evolving) since its beginning a finite time ago turned non-theistic cosmology upside down. Everything researchers learn about the universe’s unfolding features speaks of the cosmic creation event and of exquisite design specifically for humanity’s existence and benefit.

Recently, another example of evolution as evidence for creation has emerged. A team of geologists and geophysicists has published their findings about the evolution of life-essential minerals on (and in) Earth’s crust.¹ Their research shows that new minerals arose and multiplied as environmental conditions changed throughout geologic time,² somehow “blindly” preparing and providing for the best interests of a creature who did not yet exist.

As it turns out, the dust particles in the pre-stellar molecular cloud from which our solar system formed contained only about a dozen minerals. Gravitational clumping within that cloud led to formation of a disk surrounding the Sun, and careful fine-tuning of the disk’s features increased the number of minerals to 60. A series of just-right thermal and other developments as Earth was forming increased that 60 to 250.

Once Earth had fully formed, biological processes led to explosive increases in Earth’s surface minerals. The research team found that with each biological “big bang” (sudden, widespread radiation of new life-forms, i.e., creation of new species), a mineral big bang followed. The most dramatic by far was the multiplication that took place after the Cambrian explosion some 543 million years ago.

It appears that life-forms play a crucial and unique role in Earth’s surface chemistry. Living systems “work” in ways that change their surroundings. Their metabolic processes, for example, convert various elements and compounds into other elements and compounds. The enormous diversity and abundance of life throughout the past 543 million years resulted in an especially large number and variety of such conversions—many of which are important for human life and quality of life.

The number of distinct minerals (sometimes referred to as mineral species) now exceeds 4,100. The more we learn about them, as well as about our own biochemistry, the more we understand how they contribute to the existence and functioning of the human body. These minerals have also played a vital role in launching civilization. And today they help sustain our advancing global technology.³ This kind of evolution bears witness to our great Creator.

References:
1. Robert M. Hazen et al., “Mineral Evolution,” American Mineralogist 93 (November-December, 2008): 1693-1720.
2. Crisogono Vasconcelos and Judith A. McKenzie, “The Descent of Minerals,” Science 323 (January 9, 2009): 218.
3. Hugh Ross, More Than a Theory (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2009).

Religious Faces in the Crowd: The Buddha and the Christ

By Kenneth Richard Samples

Among the world’s great religious leaders, only two had such a profound impact that contemporaries inquired as to the very nature of their being.¹ People wondered whether Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha) and Jesus of Nazareth (the Christ) were more than mere human beings. While both are known as great teachers and profound souls, the identity, mission, and message of these two men couldn’t be more different. 

The Buddha

Like Christianity, the religion of Buddhism is traced to a single individual. That person is Siddhartha Gautama (c. 563–480 B.C.). While mixtures of myth and legend make it impossible to completely reconstruct the life of the Buddha, there is a historical core of information known about him.²

Siddhartha Gautama was born into the Indian Sakyas clan in the sixth century B.C. in Nepal near its border with India. Siddhartha’s father was the feudal lord of the Sakyas people and created a life of luxury for his son. Siddhartha is said to have had three palaces with 40,000 dancing girls at his disposal. He received a cultured education that included studies in the arts, warfare (the martial arts), and philosophy. He later married a neighboring princess and they had a son together.

Siddhartha gradually grew discontented with his life of affluence and hedonism. Upon taking a chariot ride into the city he encountered the “Four Passing Sights” (an old man, a diseased man, a dead man, and a monk). These sights represent Siddhartha’s first glimpse of human misery and they profoundly impacted him. For the first time he began to reflect upon the problem of suffering. At age 29, he renounced the pleasures of the princely life, left his family and privileged position behind, and became a truth-seeker. He wanted to uncover the causes and cure of the universal problem of human suffering. 

Siddhartha’s search for enlightenment lasted six years and moved through three distinctive phases. First, he studied Hindu philosophy and meditation from the Indian Yogis. Second, he encountered some Jain monks (an offshoot of Hinduism) and adopted their extreme form of asceticism (self-denial). Nearly starving himself to death, he found asceticism no more revealing than his former life of affluence. Third, now fatigued and desperate for genuine enlightenment, he sat in the lotus position before the Bodhi Tree in meditation. He decided that he would remain in this “immovable spot” until he was enlightened or dead of starvation. On the forty-ninth day, Siddhartha Gautama experienced the ultimate transformation of consciousness (“Nirvana”) and became “the Buddha”—the “enlightened one” or “awakened one.”

Nirvana is the supreme goal of Buddhism for it breaks the cycling of rebirths (reincarnation). The word “Nirvana” literally means “blowing out” the flame of passion (desire is eliminated). Understood as extinguishing the self (nothingness, the Void), some define Nirvana as continuation of consciousness in a mystical state.

This enlightened state allowed Buddha to understand the causes of, and solution to, the human cycle of suffering. The Buddha’s teaching core consisted of the “Four Noble Truths.”

Four Noble Truths

1. Dukkha: The true nature of existence is suffering (sickness, pain, fear, death).
2. Trishna: Misery is rooted in ignorant craving (Tanha: desire for attachment to the illusory world).
3. Cessation: Suffering can be abolished by eliminating the desire for attachment (stop the desiring and the suffering stops).
4. The Eightfold Path: Stop the desiring through concentrated effort (preparation for Nirvana). The Eightfold path consists of moral, intellectual, and spiritual development leading to enlightenment (transformed consciousness).

The Buddha subsequently conducted a 45-year missionary career of converting people to his religion of mystical enlightenment. He died at the age of about 80 years.

The Buddha and the Christ

The title “Buddha” means one who has awakened from an illusory state of consciousness. The title “Christ” is Greek for the Hebrew word “Messiah,” meaning the “anointed one”—the special one who would do God’s bidding. 

Eight Ways Buddha and Christ Differ

• History: While the life of the Buddha is wrapped in legend and evolving speculation, Christ is a historical figure whose life, death, and resurrection is rooted in facts of history.
• Nature: Though the Buddha held an awakened state of consciousness, he was merely a human being, whereas the Christ reveals himself to be both God and man (a single person with both a divine and human nature).
• Character: The Buddha, even with an enlightened consciousness, had moral weaknesses and limitations. Christ, on the other hand, was morally perfect.
• Mission: The Buddha’s mission was to help others achieve Nirvana. Christ’s mission was to rescue sinners by providing a sacrifice for sin.
• Role: The Buddha himself is not crucial to the essence of Buddhism (the Four Noble Truths are the heart of the Buddhist philosophy). On the other hand, historic Christianity is all about Christ (emphasizing his person, nature, life, death, and resurrection).
• Suffering: The Buddha sought to eliminate suffering through resignation. Christ suffered with and for sinners in order to reconcile them to God.
• Life: Buddha’s message is life-denying. Christ’s message is life-affirming. 
• Future: The Buddha offers many lives of suffering with the only hope being extinction (Nirvana). The Christ offers resurrection for the dead and eternal life with God.

Jesus Christ presents a vision of life and reality that is far superior to that of the Buddha. For the historic Christian worldandlife view is uniquely reasonable, testable, viable, workable, livable, and hopeful.
Some Major Tenets

References:
1. Huston Smith, The World’s Religions (San Francisco: Harper, 1991), 82.
2. Winfried Corduan, Neighboring Faiths (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1998).

Smooth Ride for Photosynthesis

By Jeff Zweerink, Ph.D.

As a kid growing up in Missouri, I would’ve said the best way to get down a hill depends on the season. A sideways roll worked well during the summer when the ground was dry, but winter called for a speedy trip on a Flexible Flyer sled with steel runners. The bumpy, dizzying nature of the roll technique meant only a couple of trips down the hill. In contrast, the smooth ride on a snow sled provided hours of entertainment—until it got too dark or cold outside.

Let’s consider a similar scenario in the tiny world of quantum mechanics that suggests purposeful creation. Quantum mechanics is an attempt to understand the behavior of matter and energy on the minute scale of atoms and subatomic particles. Recently, scientists discovered quantum mechanical processes in plants and bacteria that allow photosynthesis to operate like a snow sled instead of a bumpy roll.

Plants use photosynthesis to extract energy from sunlight and then convert the energy to a form usable by other life-forms. It starts when certain wavelengths of light dislodge electrons in plant proteins, imparting energy to the electrons in the process. The energy stored in those electrons must move along the protein where other chemical processes store the energy in molecules for future use.

For many years, biologists thought random molecular motion provided the mechanism for transporting that energy along the photosynthetic proteins. As the molecules “bumped into” one another, the energy passed from one molecule to the next.

However, experiments during the last couple of years demonstrate a far more efficient process in operation.¹ From a classical perspective, electrons behave like independent balls. Quantum mechanics allows the electrons to couple together and move in coherent fashion. Like the runners on a snow sled moving over packed snow, these coupled electrons would move energy along the protein much more quickly than uncoupled electrons (which would make for a bumpy ride). A team of scientists from the United Kingdom devised a clever experiment using multiple lasers to test which process operated in photosynthetic proteins. They found strong evidence for quantum coupling between electrons.

Photosynthetic organisms played a critical role in transforming Earth from a formless, uninhabitable planet to one teeming with life in a diversity of habitats. One of the most important steps in that transformation involved the generation of a permanent oxygen component in the atmosphere. Diatomic oxygen (O₂), efficiently coupled via quantum mechanics, provides—like no other molecule—the capacity to extract the energy required by large-bodied, complex organisms.

This research indicates that photosynthesis would not proceed efficiently enough for life’s requirements without the coupling that quantum mechanics allows. As bizarre as quantum mechanical processes appear, they play an essential role in ensuring that this universe can support complex life like human beings. It’s a smooth operation that points to purposeful creation.

Reference:
1. Ian P. Mercer et al., “Instantaneous Mapping of Coherently Coupled Electronic Transitions and Energy Transfers in a Photosynthetic Complex Using Angle-Resolved Coherent Optical Wave-Mixing,” Physical Review Letters, 102 (2009): 057402. See also Michael Schirber, “The Quantum Dimension of Photosynthesis,” Physical Review Focus (February 13, 2009); http://focus.aps.org/story/v23/st5 (accessed April 24, 2009).

RESOURCES:    The Cell’s Design, Why the Universe Is the Way It Is
 

Remembering Walter Martin

Kenneth Richard Samples

June 26, 2009, marks the twentieth anniversary of the death of an apologist who was well ahead of his time. Evangelical Baptist theologian Walter Ralston Martin (1928-1989) was a unique Christian thinker, scholar, and expert in the study of comparative religions.

The original creator and host of the Bible Answer Man radio program, Martin built a career in Christian radio by answering people’s difficult questions about the Bible and historic Christianity. Author of the definitive work on American-based cults, The Kingdom of the Cults, Martin founded and directed the Christian Research Institute (CRI: an organization dedicated to the study of cults and new religious movements). In fact, Walter Martin is viewed by many as the father of the evangelical countercult movement.

Walter was my first teacher in the Christian faith. I learned my original theological views from him. Not long after I became a Christian I began attending his Sunday classes at Melodyland Christian Center and at Newport-Mesa Christian Center in Southern California. I remember listening to the Bible Answer Man radio program as a new believer and writing down Martin’s answers to various doctrinal and apologetics queries. I had many questions of my own in those early days that I desperately needed addressed. Martin answered my questions or recommended sources where I could pursue explanations in greater depth.

I read, reread, and outlined his book on basic Christian doctrine, Essential Christianity, so many times that some of the pages began to fall out. Yet I still have that original book in my personal library (which has now grown to more than three thousand volumes). Martin helped me appreciate just how important the “life of the mind” is in one’s faith journey.

Through his dynamic lectures and debates Walter taught me how to think about such critical biblical doctrines as the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Atonement, and Jesus’ Resurrection. He also instructed and challenged me to engage the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons that knocked at my door and to defend the faith before the skeptics I encountered during my college days. Martin was an early spiritual father to me and the first Christian intellectual and apologist I ever met.

A few years after completing my theological degree I had the privilege of working closely with Dr. Martin at the Christian Research Institute. My duties included assisting Martin as a research specialist on Seventh-day Adventism and Roman Catholicism. He was a mentor to me as well as to many other young evangelicals who were interested in studying new religious movements. Because of my work with Martin I was subsequently able to publish a number of articles that addressed different theological aspects of Seventh-day Adventism and Roman Catholicism.

I admired Walter Martin especially for his courage to stand up for the truth of historic Christianity. I wouldn’t be engaged in the Christian apologetics enterprise today without Martin’s example and support.

Walter Ralston Martin’s legacy will endure as one of the most distinctive Christian apologists of the twentieth century.

Genesis Flood Extent: What the Bible Says (part 2)

By Hugh Ross, Ph.D.

The previous issue of New Reasons to Believe addressed the extent of the Genesis Flood as indicated by references to the entire “world.” In both its linguistic and historical context, world in the Genesis passages refers not to the entire planet but rather to the “world” of people. So the Flood could have been worldwide without being global.

However, many other Bible passages outside the Genesis text shed even clearer light on the geographical extent of the Flood. The most explicit of these passages is Psalm 104, a beautifully descriptive recap of the major miracles God performed during the six creation days of Genesis 1.

In Psalm 104:6, the writer describes Earth’s appearance before any islands or continents had formed (creation days 1 and 2). Psalm 104:7-8 recounts God’s transformation of Earth’s crust (on creation day 3) from a water world into a surface with both oceans and permanently established landmasses. In verse 9, the psalmist explicitly states that in this continent-forming process, God “set a boundary they [the waters] cannot cross; never again will they cover the earth.” Given that the Genesis Flood occurred some time after the creation days, this passage would indicate that the Flood could not have been geographically global in extent.

The book of Job, in chapters 38-39, also describes the events of the Genesis creation days. With reference to creation day three God asks, rhetorically, “Who shut up the sea behind doors …when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place, when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt.’?” Again the passage implies that in forming the continents God established permanent limits for the oceans, boundaries they could never again cross.

Several more texts seem to underscore the point established in Psalm 104 and Job 38. Two of these are Psalm 33:6-11 and Proverbs 8:25-29. Additionally, 2 Peter 2:5 informs us that God brought the Flood upon “the world of the ungodly.” If humanity had not yet migrated to all Earth’s continents, including Antarctica, Greenland, Australia, and North and South America, there would have been no apparent reason for God’s devastation to extend that far. A similar point is expressed in 2 Peter 3:6: “By water also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed.” Peter seems to distinguish Noah’s “world” from his own, the Roman world.

Even within the Genesis Flood account itself (Genesis 6–9) we see indications that the deluge was somewhat less than global in extent. In Genesis 8 for example, as Noah observes the recession of the waters, verse 5 says he could see the distant hills and mountains from his perspective on top of the vessel. So he released a dove, “But the dove could find no place to set its feet because there was water over all the surface of the earth” (Genesis 8: 9). Apparently the dove flew below the altitude of Noah’s vantage point. But the Hebrew words translated “all over the surface of the earth” in this verse are the same as those used in Genesis 7:19, the text most frequently cited as proof the Flood was global.  Phrases such as “all the surface of the earth,” “under the entire heavens,” and “the whole world” may, thus, refer to an area smaller than the planet’s total surface, say, from horizon to horizon (more or less) or the area inhabited by people, on whom the text focuses.

The Genesis Flood may well have extended beyond Mesopotamia. Most of the place names recorded in Genesis 2-8 are associated with locations within Mesopotamia, but some are not. The notable exceptions are the Pishon and Gihon rivers, which flowed from the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula. It seems possible that the Genesis Flood inundated not only all of Mesopotamia but also the entire Persian Gulf region and much of southern Arabia as well. It’s intriguing to note that the Persian Gulf region was dry land, according to geologists, some 40,000-80,000 years ago, an era that roughly coincides with Noah’s day (based on appropriate calibration of the Genesis 5 and Genesis 11 genealogies).*

As with any biblical question or controversy, the most helpful approach is to integrate all Bible passages that address the subject. Any study of the Flood, then, must also encompass the biblical material on God’s judgment against sin. In other words, why the Flood? That’s a topic for another article.

*See More than a Theory (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2009), 189-90.

A Book Ahead of Its Time

By Krista Bontrager

New Age thinker Eckhart Tolle in his book A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose, asserts the universe is without beginning or end. This idea is hardly new. The concept of an eternal universe pervades the Eastern religions. For example, Jainism, Hinduism and Buddhism all claim that the universe is without beginning or end and that it undergoes cyclical change. Since Tolle is a frequent guest on Oprah Winfrey’s TV show, and Winfrey claims to be a Christian, the question naturally arises: Is an eternal universe compatible with the Christian worldview?

The opening words of the Bible answer that question in resounding fashion: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). This one verse––quite possibly some of the most profound words recorded in ancient literature––summarizes a key foundational truth of the Judeo-Christian worldview: the universe (Ephesians 1:4; 1 Corinthians 2:7; 1 Peter 1:20), and even time itself (2 Timothy 1:9; Titus 1:2), has a beginning.¹

The notion that the universe has a beginning may seem like old news, but it hasn’t always been this way. A hundred years ago most scientists believed the universe was eternal. In 1915, Einstein published his theory of general relativity. His mathematical equations led to the belief that the universe is expanding. Einstein was cautious about this conclusion, however, since an expanding universe would imply a moment of creation. If there’s a beginning, there must be a Beginner (cause). Thus, Einstein added a “fudge factor” to his cosmological constant equations that would eliminate this possibility.

From the standpoint of secular evolution, the idea of an eternal universe has strong appeal. It provides a potentially limitless supply of time in which to allow natural processes to result in bringing about life from nonlife. A universe without a beginning also removes the need for a “first cause,” such as a Creator. In short, an eternal universe allows a scientific escape hatch to eliminate the need for supernatural explanations.

Since Einstein’s day, scientists have uncovered a cavalcade of evidence that confirms the universe is expanding and that it, and even time itself, has a beginning.² Cosmological models such as the oscillating universe theory (embraced by many Eastern religions) or the steady state theory (which promotes the idea of an eternal universe), have been largely abandoned by scientists. In fact, the evidence for a cosmic beginning is so compelling that it is widely accepted, even by those who do not hold to a biblical worldview.

The reality that the Bible proclaimed the universe has a beginning several thousand years before Einstein provides reasonable support for Scripture’s supernatural origin.

References:
1. For a more complete discussion of the Christian view of the origin of the universe see Kenneth Richard Samples, A World of Difference: Putting Christian Truth-Claims to the Worldview Test (Baker Books, 2008), 153-69.
2. Monsignor Georges Lemaître (July 17, 1894 – June 20, 1966) was a Roman Catholic physicist who played a key role in applying Einstein’s ideas and proposed that the universe expanded from an initial point he called the "Primeval Atom," which eventually became known as the “big bang theory.”

Resources:
The Creator and the Cosmos
More Than a Theory