twohumble, we can start with the letter I posted on the other forum:
A Response to Dr. Hugh Ross by Masami Usami
(http://web.fou.telenor.no/fou/ttolge/mn ... /usami.htm)
It is a great privilege to be here to give my testimony and respond to Dr. Ross' presentation.
First I want to tell a little about my own experience. I was born into a Shinto family. In school I learned only evolutionary thinking, so I was an evolutionist when I returned to Japan from Sakhalin (Russia). My brother became a Christian and I was surprised. I thought, "There is no creator and we have traditional, good religion, so why would my brother become a Christian?" I looked in my brother's Bible and read, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." I thought this was an unscientific thought because I had learned that evolution is science, and there is no creation. When I entered university I thought that science was the only way to reach truth.
At the university I searched every book in every field of science to find the answer to the Bible, to prove evolution. In the end, what I learned was that there is no scientific basis for evolution. There is only guess work, assumptions and circular reasoning. So I came back to the Bible and after days of turmoil in my mind, I trusted God and received Jesus Christ as my Savior and Lord.
I agree with many arguments Dr. Ross provides in disproving non-theistic evolution. Many of those arguments were developed by young-earth creationists. Yet some of his ideas do not agree with the Bible. Let us review his view of creation briefly.
1. God created the universe around 17 billion years ago, using the Big Bang. Dr. Ross was so convinced of this theory that he couldn't take the Bible literally. As a result, the rest of his view had to follow the evolution time scale.
2. Creation days are not 6 literal 24 hour days, but billions of years. The present age is the seventh day, which will continue until the end of the age.
3. Death and bloodshed have existed from the beginning of creation and is not the result of sin. Man was created after the vast majority of earth's history of life and death had taken place.
4. The flood of Noah was local, not global, although it did kill all humans outside the ark.
I certainly do not view these ideas as being Biblical. I believe Biblical creation requires these beliefs: 1. God created the universe several thousand years ago. Heaven and earth were created on the first of the 6 creation days. 2. Everything was created in the order mention in Genesis ch.1. These creation days are literal and not long periods. The seventh day is as literal as the rest, one 24-hour day. 3. Death and bloodshed were the result of Adam's sin. 4. Noah's flood was global and killed all humans, land animals and birds except those in the ark. Further, I believe such Biblical creation to be essential to Biblical Christianity.
Concerning the Hebrew word "Yom" (day), Strong's Concordance says, "a day whether lit. (from sunrise to sunset, or from one sunset to the next), or fig. (a space of time defined by an associated term.)" In Gen. 1 there is no associated term to indicate a figurative meaning, so we must take it as literal. In Ex. 20:8-11 Moses used the word in a very literal way. God created for 6 days and rested 1, and thus did God sanctify the seventh day and commanded the people to rest the seventh day. He did not say to work 6 long ages and rest 1 long age. Anyhow, God is not still resting; He is working. Jesus said, "My Father is working still, and I am working" (Jn. 5:17). And Paul said, "God is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure." God is certainly working, not resting. The Bible says "God rested." That is past tense. It does not say, "God started resting." Let's get it right.
If, indeed, those were long ages, all flowers that are pollinated by insects and birds would have become extinct before insects were created. It had to be a short period. Dr. Ross' teaching that there was death before Adam sinned and that his sin resulted only in spiritual death is old news. The heretic, Pelagius, taught this around 400 A. D. The Pelagian view is that man was created mortal. He taught everything about us dies sooner or later, so it is and has always been with man. The principle of death and decay is a part of the whole creation. Pelagius was rightly denounced by the early church, for which we should be thankful. According to Dr. Ross' beliefs, Jesus Christ would have eventually died anyhow, even if He had not been crucified.
Does the Bible teach that natural creation was not affected by Adam's sin? Not at all.
Romans 8:20-22. "For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now." Corruption includes death, part of the futility to which creation was subjected, as in Gen. 3:17, "Cursed is the ground because of you. . . "
I Cor. 15:21-22. "For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive." The words show that Adam's sin resulted in physical death as well as spiritual death. We must not say Adam would have died physically, but not spiritually, had he not sinned. The resurrection of Jesus Christ was physical, not spiritual, so we know that Jesus died to redeem our fleshly bodies, and not only our spirits.
What about Noah's flood? In Gen. 9:11, God said to Noah, "Thus I establish My covenant with you: Never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood; never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth." If the flood was only local, God did not keep His covenant, because there have been many floods since that time, killing lots of people. If the flood was local, why spend 90 years building an ark? Why not just move animals and believers to higher ground? The language of the account, besides passages like Psalm 104, require a global flood . . . destroying "all flesh".
Dr. Ross has many theories. Theories are not based upon absolute truth, and so are not absolutes. Many people think that scientists are completely unbiased and their theories based upon pure observation. This is not true. Einstein said, "But on principle, it is quite wrong to try founding a theory on observable magnitudes alone. In reality the very opposite happens. It is the theory which decides what we can observe."
The Big Bang is no exception. Evolutionists have for a long time presented "proof" of the Big Bang, only to have their "proof" proven wrong. Their assumptions which "proved" the Big Bang, turned out not to prove it after all. This is what Einstein said, "It is the theory which decides what we can observe." The big bang theory is a belief, not science.
Astronomer Halton Arp wrote in "Nature" magazine, "Cosmology is unique in science in that it is a very large intellectual edifice based on very few facts." (Nature, Aug. 30, 1990 pp. 807-812). He means that cosmology is mainly constructed of guesswork and imagination. Dr. Ross would have us believe his edifice is nothing but fact. Dr. Arp says it has very little fact. I have to wonder if Dr. Ross has just accepted the Big Bang blindly, or if he knows the truth of the fragility of the theory and is willingly misleading people.
We are witnessing the collapse of the theories of evolution. The Big Bang hypothesis has largely changed, being modified into the inflation theory. In viewing the history of the universe and the earth, how can we really get to the truth? Since theories are only guesses, what we need is an eyewitness. Here is a good example of that fact. It is the case of Mr. Sakamoto and his family who were murdered by members of Aum Shinrikyo. For 5 years the police and Mr. Sakamoto's mother searched for the Sakamoto family. All theories and ideas were futile. Finally one of the murderers came forward and admitted the crime and showed the police where the bodies were buried. How could he do that? He, committed the crime; he was an eyewitness. Police theories would never have found the truth. It is the same in creation. In the matter of the theoretical Big Bang, who was there to witness it? It is only an assumption of the past. The only possible Eyewitness is the Creator. He really should be taken as seriously as the killer of the Sakamoto family. The police accepted the words of the killer and found the bodies. We might wonder why people will take the words of a killer, but not the words of the Creator God. The Big Bang is now a passing theory - or a passed theory. The cosmology was greatly changed with the discovery of the "great wall." We have material that shows that the Big Bang and other cosmologies depending on evolution are only guess work and assumptions. Truth is usually in the minority rather than the majority. We see that in the record of Noah. Noah believed God and built an ark to save his family and himself. After the flood Noah and his family were then in the majority. This is God's record of the event. We must seek truth and receive God's Word, regardless of men's opinions.