The Battle For The Beginning by John MacArthur

Author:John MacArthur
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2009-09-18T23:52:00+00:00

The closest star to our solar system is Alpha Centauri. It is actually a triplestar system, with one star similar to our sun and two smaller red stars nearby. The center of this star system is 4.35 light-years away, and the smallest of the three stars, Alpha Centauri C (also known as Proxima Centauri) defines the outside edge of the system, only 4.22 light years from us. That means when observers from earth look at Alpha Centauri in the night sky, they are seeing light that left that star system nearly four and a half years earlier. And that is the closest star visible in the night sky. Most stars are immeasurably farther away than that.

That raises a fair question: If the universe is no more than ten thousand years old, as most young-earth creationists believe, and as I believe Scripture plainly teaches, how can we see light that theoretically should have taken millions of years to reach us? That's a reasonable question, and I believe there is a reasonable answer. It seems clear that when God created the stars, because He created them to illuminate the earth and be signs of our seasons, He also supernaturally enabled the light to traverse those vast expanses of space immediately. If He is capable of designing such an immense and intricate universe in the first place, He is certainly capable of getting the light across the vast reaches of space in accordance with His purpose. Don't imagine that the light from the stars is merely an illusion or a deception. Scripture indicates those are real stars out there, and what we are seeing is actually light from the stars, not an illusion. So it appears that at the moment of the stars' creation, God accelerated the light so that it would reach the earth in an instant.

Remember that according to Einstein's theory of general relativity, time is not a constant. Some creationists who are trained in physics believe it is theoretically possible for a dilation in time to enable light to travel those vast distances instantly.' After all, as we noted in the previous chapter, even many scientists who subscribe to big bang cosmology now believe that the universe itself exploded out of nothing to its immense proportions in an instantaneous "miracle."'

Again, science can only attempt to explain these mysteries by means of ever-changing theories. But the testimony of Scripture stands sure and unchanging: On the fourth day, "He made the stars also."

Genesis 1:18 repeats the now-familiar verdict of God. "God saw that it was good." Everything worked precisely the way He planned it. It was good. There was no defect. There was no deficiency. There is no room for evolution, because everything that was created was already good, just as God made it to be.

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