1. Where does the idea that God created natural laws so these could act (such as evolution) come from? Is it reasonable?   2. What are your thoughts on Christian websites which deny evolution, and even the existence of dinosaurs?   3. As a scientist can you please give me your opinion on this article of the physicist Hugh Ross on the scientific dates for genesis?  https://reasons.org/explore/publications/questions-from-social-media/what-are-the-scientific-dates-for-the-starts-and-ends-of-the-six-creation-days

Answers:

Historically, the idea of a monotheistic God precedes the idea of natural laws.  All or nearly all ancient peoples thought of the universe as chaotic and inherently unpredictable–subject to the whims of many gods. They did not believe in unchanging natural laws.  The idea that there will be a single set of unchanging natural laws was “discovered” by monotheists.  For example, Roger Bacon proposed in the 13th century that because the God of the Bible is the only God and because he is unchanging, and because he rules the entire universe, the universe should be governed by a single set of unchanging, universal laws.  What I am saying is that the idea of natural laws comes from the idea of monotheism.  Monotheism implies the existence of unchanging natural laws.  By the way, the single person given the greatest amount of credit for proposing the universe is governed by natural laws is Isaac Newton, who proposed the idea of the mechanical universe.  By the way, it turned out that Roger Bacon was right.  His assumption, which he created from his monotheism, turned out to be correct.  In fact, scientists have discovered that the universe is consistent with this prediction.  Monotheism is consistent with the properties of the natural world.  I believe that this is true because monotheism is the correct worldview.

I believe that the majority of Christians who push skepticism about evolution are sincere in their faith.  However, this faith is misplaced, in my opinion.  Skepticism of evolution based on a particular (incorrect) interpretation of the Bible is problematic.  It causes some Christians to be anti-science.  It causes Christianity to look foolish to non-believers.  These people are not doing God or Christianity a favor by taking their anti-scientific, anti-evolution stance.  I wish that these people would change their mind, but some will not.  This makes me sad, but, like I said, most in this camp are sincere in their love of God and in their holding to the incorrect position that the earth is young and evolution is a mostly-false theory.

About dinosaurs, no young-earth creationists deny that dinosaurs existed.  Put it this way, I have never seen this taken as a position by any Christian.  The existence of dinosaur fossils makes it nearly impossible to sustain the belief that dinosaurs never existed.  The majority view of young-earth creationists is that dinosaurs lived fairly recently–only a few thousand years.  Most young-earth creationists believe that dinosaurs lived at the same time as humans, but that they died off at the flood.  This view is completely unsupportable by scientific evidence, but it is the corner that young-earth creationists have painted themselves into.

So, I do not believe that any significant segment of Christians deny the existence of dinosaurs.

I read Hugh Ross’ article.  His view is essentially identical with mine.  I appreciate his attempt to put approximate real dates for the different days.  These are tentative and even speculative, which is why I appreciate his courage to put these dates out there for us to consider.   He is a day-age theorist, as am I.  I cannot vouch for this article being “true,” but I agree almost exactly with what Ross writes here.  Great job, Hugh Ross.

John Oakes