Cosmology is the most important subject in the world.
Why? Because it is the story of the world: its origin, structure, purpose, and destiny. As people in that world,
its story necessarily forms the background for our own personal story. It affects our deepest beliefs, values, and hopes.
What does science tell us about the nature of time and space? It is widely claimed that, in relativistic physics, space and time are intertwined in a four-dimensional space-time block universe, where all times co-exist eternally. This seems to challenge the common-sense presentist view of time, where only the present instant exists, moving from a no longer existing past to a yet-to-exist future. How well established is the block universe with its static time?
Some Christian apologists (e.g., William Lane Craig, Hugh Ross) contend that it is scientifically proven that the physical universe began from an infinitely dense point of space (the so-called Big Bang singularity), which marked the creation also of space and time. They contend that, if space and time did not exist before creation, then the universe must have been created by a cause transcending space and time, which they equate with God.
Did time exist before the creation of the world? Many Christians believe that time was created along with the physical universe, and that there was no time "before" creation. Is this feasible?
Does the Bible speak about reality or only about appearances? Sometimes, to avoid conflict with alleged scientific facts, it is claimed that the Bible uses phenomenal (or phenomenological) language, describing things as they appear from our human, earth-bound perspective rather than being factually correct in a more scientific sense.
How many Canadian Members of Parliament, or Senators, are willing to stand up for Christian values against the pro-homosexual agenda? NONE. Not a one. Not even the Canadian Reformed MPs Arnold Viersen and Tako van Popta!
I have just updated my book The Divine Challenge: On Matter, Mind, Math, and Meaning. At the same time, I converted it into an e-book, available (free) in pdf format here. This is available also in epub format, but for some reason google.drive can't handle epub, so that you should send me an email if you want the epub file.
According to many Bible scholars, people of the Ancient Near East (ANE) believed that the sky was a fixed solid dome - in which the Sun, moon, and stars were embedded - supported by pillars, or mountains, at the ends of a flat earth. The Israelites are said to have shared this erroneous ANE cosmology, which is allegedly the underlying idea behind the "firmament" or “expanse” (raqia) of Genesis 1.
Christianity maintains that only God is self-existent. He is the sovereign Creator, who freely creates everything else. God exists necessarily, in that it is impossible for God not to exist, God's non-existence is inconceivable. The created universe, in contrast, is merely contingent, in that it could have been different, and need not have existed at all. But what about abstract objects, such as the laws of logic and math, which seem to be necessary truths? How do they relate to God?
A few days ago on May 17, the so-called "International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia", Tako van Popta, a local Canadian Reformed Member of Parliament (MP), made a public Facebook post affirming that he was "standing with" Canadian LGBTQ2 (LesbianGayBisexualTransgenderQueer...) communities.
An important book, In the Beginning: Listening to Genesis 1 and 2 (2021, Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 371 pages) has just been published by Dr. Cornelis van Dam, emeritus professor of Old Testament at Canadian Reformed Theological Seminary in Hamilton, Ontario.
Why is there something? There could have been nothing - no physical objects or laws, no conscious beings, no thoughts, no universe at all. So, why is there something, rather than nothing?
A relevant video by David Wood (found on the Triablogue site), raising concerns that big tech (Youtube, Google, Twitter, Amazon, etc.), like mainstream media, is increasingly censoring Christian views while promoting leftist ideology.
The Dutch scholar Dr. Willem J. Ouweneel defends the traditional Biblical Adam, against attempts to combine Adam with human evolution, in his recent book Adam, Where Are You? —And Why This Matters: A Theological Evaluation of the Evolutionist Hermeneutic (Jordan Station, Canada: Paideia Press, 2018, 480 pages).
A few months ago,
in my post Pro
Rege Polemics, I discussed a dispute about science and the Bible
in Pro Rege, a Dordt University publication. Since then two more
contributions continue the debate.
