The Other Copernican Revolution

Dr. Joshua M. Moritz

Joshua M. Moritz, PhD, is Lecturer of Philosophical Theology and the Natural Sciences
at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at the University of San Francisco,
and Managing Editor of the journal Theology and Science.

Beyond Belief Blog

How the great astronomer Copernicus wanted to help humans to grasp the "supreme design."

Psalms 8

The Glory of the Lord in Creation

To the Chief Musician. On the instrument of Gath.

A Psalm of David.

O Lord, our Lord,
How excellent is Your name in all the earth,
Who have set Your glory above the heavens!
Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants
You have ordained strength,
Because of Your enemies,
That you may silence the enemy and the avenger.
When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,
The moon and the stars, which You have ordained,
What is man that You are mindful of him,
And the son of man that You visit him?
For You have made him a little lower than the angels,
And You have crowned him with glory and honor.
You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands;
You have put all things under his feet,
All sheep and oxen—
Even the beasts of the field,
The birds of the air,
And the fish of the sea
That pass through the paths of the seas.
O Lord, our Lord,
How excellent is Your name in all the earth!

Classic Geocentricity theories seem quaint today and are referenced below. The discussion here is based on the revelation of God found in the Bible. We have only scratched the surface here hoping to provoke discussion and inquiry.

Jesus Christ said the skeptics of his day, "You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life." (John 5:39-40)

King Solomon said, "It is the glory of God to conceal a matter. But the glory of kings is to search out a matter."

Jesus also told his disciples: “So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish?  Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?  If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!” (Luke 11:9-13)

We suggest that man ought to be the center of the universe but only the man Jesus is qualified. Psalm 8 raises the question "What is Man" and the letter of Hebrews says that fallen man is about to be restored with Jesus as Trailblazer and Pioneer of a huge restoration.

We each grow up in a culture influence by a prevailing world view. The prevailing can change but we forget this because we think we know more than our forefathers. A small number (<10%?) of citizens in our nation enjoy a personal relationship with the Creator who lives outside, above, transcendent to culture. The Christian Church exists to show the way to know God but has had been a declining influence for many years now. Many think they are “safe” when they probably are not, because they are sheltered by a church, by a “Christian” school or seminary, or by merely running on autopilot as "law abiding citizens" in America. 

The real God is, however, fully involved in every detail of His Creation. He has unlimited power and resources but He owns the whole place and we are house guests at best.

Job was the most godly man in the ancient world about 4000 years ago. He was utterly blameless. Yet God called poor Job into court and asked Job some ego-shattering questions. The Lord Reveals His Omnipotence to Job.

Several main points about Earth being the center of our universe can be discerned from the Bible.

1. Earth was a fixed platform where God stood when He created everything

It is said, in Jewish tradition, that the Creator stood on the "foundation stone," Hebrew: אבן השתייה‎ Even ha-Shtiyya or Hebrew: סֶּלַע‏‎ Selā‛) -- when He created the world. (See footnote on the Foundation Stone).

1. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2. The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep.  And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

3. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. 4. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. 5. God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day.

The first five verses are being observed from a platform outside of the entire ensemble, but from verse 6 on our hypothetical observer is standing on the earth as it were! Look how the vantage point changes at 1:6! 

6. Then God said, “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.” 7. Thus God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament; and it was so. 8. And God called the firmament Heaven. So the evening and the morning were the second day.

Then God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear”; and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters He called Seas. And God saw that it was good.

Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth”; and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. So the evening and the morning were the third day.

Then God said, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth”; and it was so. Then God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also. God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. So the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

Then God said, “Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the face of the firmament of the heavens.” So God created great sea creatures and every living thing that moves, with which the waters abounded, according to their kind, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” So the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind: cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth, each according to its kind”; and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth according to its kind, cattle according to its kind, and everything that creeps on the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

And God said, “See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food. Also, to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food”; and it was so. Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day...

Man was introduced into the creation late in the creative process. Who then is the observer watching God at work? From what platform is the observer looking in and recording the amazing work of a Creator? 

2. The Creator visited earth by choosing to be incarnated here in earth. (Bethlehem) 

Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: After His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit. Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not wanting to make her a public example, was minded to put her away secretly. But while he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.” So all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying: “Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which is translated, “God with us.” (Matthew 1:18-23)

Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And having come in, the angel said to her, “Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women!”

But when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and considered what manner of greeting this was. Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end.”

Then Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I do not know a man?”

And the angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God. (Luke 1:26-35)

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. (John 1:1-5)

3. Jesus, the man who said he was God, was killed by his subjects by crucifixion on Planet Earth. (Jerusalem)

“However, the Most High does not dwell in temples made with hands, as the prophet says:
‘Heaven is My throne,
And earth is My footstool.
What house will you build for Me? says the Lord,
Or what is the place of My rest?
Has My hand not made all these things?’

“You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who foretold the coming of the Just One, of whom you now have become the betrayers and murderers, who have received the law by the direction of angels and have not kept it.” (Acts 7:48-53)

4. The Creator announced He would return and govern the universe from Jerusalem

Now when Jesus had spoken these things, while they watched, He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as He went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel, who also said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven.” (Acts 1:9-11)

Behold, the day of the Lord is coming,
And your spoil will be divided in your midst.
For I will gather all the nations to battle against Jerusalem;
The city shall be taken,
The houses rifled,
And the women ravished.
Half of the city shall go into captivity,
But the remnant of the people shall not be cut off from the city.
Then the Lord will go forth
And fight against those nations,
As He fights in the day of battle.
And in that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives,
Which faces Jerusalem on the east.
And the Mount of Olives shall be split in two,
From east to west,
Making a very large valley;
Half of the mountain shall move toward the north
And half of it toward the south.
Then you shall flee through My mountain valley,
For the mountain valley shall reach to Azal.
Yes, you shall flee
As you fled from the earthquake
In the days of Uzziah king of Judah.
Thus the Lord my God will come,
And all the saints with You.
It shall come to pass in that day
That there will be no light;
The lights will diminish.
It shall be one day
Which is known to the Lord—
Neither day nor night.
But at evening time it shall happen
That it will be light.
And in that day it shall be
That living waters shall flow from Jerusalem,
Half of them toward the eastern sea
And half of them toward the western sea;
In both summer and winter it shall occur.
And the Lord shall be King over all the earth.
In that day it shall be—
“The Lord is one,”
And His name one.
All the land shall be turned into a plain from Geba to Rimmon south of Jerusalem. Jerusalem shall be raised up and inhabited in her place from Benjamin’s Gate to the place of the First Gate and the Corner Gate, and from the Tower of Hananel to the king’s winepresses.
The people shall dwell in it;
And no longer shall there be utter destruction,
But Jerusalem shall be safely inhabited...

And it shall come to pass that everyone who is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. And it shall be that whichever of the families of the earth do not come up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, on them there will be no rain.
(Zechariah 14:1-17)

5. The Creator announced plans to create a new earth and new heavens

Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea. Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”

Then He who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.” And He said to me, “Write, for these words are true and faithful.”
And He said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts. He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son. But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”
(Revelation 21:1-8)

6. Man, made in the Image of God, plays a central role in the universe! One unique man (Jesus) is in charge at this moment

"And war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought with the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer. So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, “Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death. Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time.” (Revelation 12:7-12)

7. Man is the True Temple 

"For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, you are God’s building. According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I have laid the foundation, and another builds on it. But let each one take heed how he builds on it. For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each one’s work will become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one’s work, of what sort it is. If anyone’s work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.

Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are."

"Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you seems to be wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their own craftiness”;  and again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.”  Therefore let no one boast in men. For all things are yours:  whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas, or the world or life or death, or things present or things to come—all are yours.  And you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s. (1 Corinthians 3:9-23)

Why do we believe current scientific explanations regarding the origin of all things and take naturalistic scientific models as if they had been to us by God at Mt. Sinai? Mostly because we hate God and insist in our own models of reality, whether about Inner Space or Outer Space.

From Jesus: There were present at that season some who told Him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And Jesus answered and said to them, “Do you suppose that these Galileans were worse sinners than all other Galileans, because they suffered such things?  I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse sinners than all other men who dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish.”

Jesus also spoke this parable: “A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. Then he said to the keeper of his vineyard, ‘Look, for three years I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree and find none. Cut it down; why does it use up the ground?’ But he answered and said to him, ‘Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and fertilize it. And if it bears fruit, well. But if not, after that you can cut it down.’ (Luke 13:1-9)

Dante's Geocentricity

The Fall the Angels

Historic Papers on Geocentricity

The Foundation Stone

Jewish tradition views the Holy of Holies as the spiritual junction of Heaven and Earth, the axis mundi, and is therefore the direction that Jews face when praying the Amidah. The other view, that this was the site of the Outer Altar, would explain the holes in the stone which served various sacrificial purposes in the Outer Altar. From a classical Jewish textual standpoint, there is no conclusive opinion on the matter.

The rock is located towards the centre of the Temple Mount, an artificial platform built and expanded over many centuries. The current shape is the result of an expansion by Herod the Great on top of vaults over a summit called Mount Moriah which three millennia ago was the highest elevation in early Jerusalem's proximity to the City of David.

There is some controversy among secular scholars about equating Mount Moriah, the Temple Mount and the Foundation Stone as the location where events occurred according to the Biblical narrative.

Early Jewish writings assist in confirming that the Dome of the Rock, completed in 691, is the site of the Holy of Holies and therefore the location of the Foundation Stone. Pirke De-Rabbi Eliezer, midrashic narrative of the more important events of the Torah believed to have been compiled in Italy shortly after 833 CE, writes: “Rabbi Ishmael said: In the future, the sons of Ishmael (the Arabs) will do fifteen things in the Land of Israel … They will fence in the breaches of the walls of the Temple and construct a building on the site of the sanctuary”.

Rabbis have discussed the precise location of the rock. David ben Solomon ibn Abi Zimra was convinced that “under the dome on the Temple Mount, which the Arabs call El-Sakhrah, without a doubt is the location of the Foundation Stone”. The Travels of Petachia of Ratisbon, c.1180, The Travels of Benjamin of Tudela and The Travels of the Student of the Ramban all equally state that "on the Temple Mount stands a beautiful sanctuary which an Arab king built long ago, over the place of the Temple sanctuary and courtyard”. Obadiah ben Abraham Bartenura, who wrote a letter from Jerusalem in 1488, says that “I sought the place of the Foundation Stone where the Ark of the Covenant was placed, and many people told me it is under a tall and beautiful dome which the Arabs built in the Temple precinct".

Other traditional sources disagreed; operating under the belief that the Southern Wall of the Temple Mount as it stood in their time was the Southern Wall of the Biblical era, they argued that the measurements given in the Talmud do not reconcile. The Holy of Holies ends up being too far north and they therefore locate the Foundation Stone as being directly opposite the current exposed section of the Western Wall, where no building currently stands. This is the view of Isaac Luria and the Maharsh, who state the prophecy that “Zion will become a ploughed field” indicates that no dwelling will be established there until the time of the Redemption. It therefore follows that the footprint of the Temple courtyard and Holy of Holies is situated in the unbuilt area between the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque.

Some believe the position is north of the Dome of the Rock, opposite the Gate of Mercy, which Emmanuel Hai Ricci identifies as the Shushan Gate mentioned in the Talmud. This gate was described as being opposite the opening of the sanctuary.

Modern Jewish academics list four possible locations of the Foundation Stone:

1. The stone that was located beneath the Ark of the Covenant is the one under the Dome of the Rock.
2. The stone that was located beneath the altar is now the one that is under the Dome of the Rock.
3. The stone that was located beneath the Ark of the Covenant is now near El Kas fountain to the South of the Dome of the Rock.
4. The stone that was located beneath the Ark of the Covenant is now inside the Spirits Dome situated to the North of the Dome of the Rock.

The Mishnah gives the height of the rock as three thumb-breadths (min. 6 cm SI) above the ground. Radbaz discusses the apparent contradiction of the Mishnah’s measurements and the actual measurement of the rock within the Dome he estimates as a “height of two men” above the ground. He concluded that many changes in the natural configuration of the Temple Mount have taken place which can be attributed to excavations made by the various occupiers of Jerusalem since the Second Temple construction.

Jewish significance

Temple in Jerusalem. This is the holiest site in Judaism. Jews all over the world pray towards the Foundation Stone. The Roman-Era midrash Tanhuma sums up the centrality of and holiness of this site in Judaism:

As the navel is set in the centre of the human body,

so is the land of Israel the navel of the world...

situated in the centre of the world,

and Jerusalem in the centre of the land of Israel,

and the sanctuary in the centre of Jerusalem,

and the holy place in the centre of the sanctuary,

and the ark in the centre of the holy place,

and the Foundation Stone before the holy place,

because from it the world was founded.

According to the sages of the Talmud, it was from this rock that the world was created, itself being the first part of the Earth to come into existence. In the words of the Zohar, "The world was not created until God took a stone called Even haShetiya and threw it into the depths where it was fixed from above till below, and from it the world expanded. It is the centre point of the world and on this spot stood the Holy of Holies."

According to the Talmud, it was close to here, on the site of the altar, that God gathered the earth that was formed into Adam. It was on this rock that Adam—and later Cain and Abel and Noah—offered sacrifices to God. Jewish sources identify this rock as the place of the Binding of Isaac mentioned in the Bible, where Abraham fulfilled God's test to see if he would be willing to sacrifice his son. The mountain is identified as Moriah in Genesis 22. It is also identified as the rock upon which Jacob dreamt about angels ascending and descending on a ladder and consequently consecrating and offering a sacrifice upon.

When, according to the Bible, King David purchased a threshing floor owned by Araunah the Jebusite, it is believed that it was upon this rock that he offered the sacrifice mentioned in the verse. He wanted to construct a permanent temple there, but as his hands were "bloodied", he was forbidden to do so himself. The task was left to his son Solomon, who completed the Temple in c. 950 BCE.

The Mishnah in tractate Yoma mentions a stone situated in the Holy of Holies that was called Shetiya and had been revealed by the early prophets (i.e. David and Samuel.

An early Christian source noting Jewish attachment to the rock may be found in the Itinerarium Burdigalense, written between 333–334 CE when Jerusalem was under Roman rule, which describes a "perforated stone to which the Jews come every year and anoint it, bewail themselves with groans, rend their garments, and so depart."

Role in the Temple

Situated inside the Holy of Holies, this was the rock upon which the Ark of the Covenant was placed in Solomon's Temple. During the Second Temple period when the Ark of the Covenant was not present, the stone was used by the High Priest who offered up the incense and sprinkled the blood of the sacrifices on it during the Yom Kippur service.

Commemoration in Jewish law

The Jerusalem Talmud states:

"נשייא דנהגן דלא למי שתייה עמרא מן דאב עליל מנהג – שבו פסקה אבן שתייה".

Women are accustomed not to prepare or attach warp threads to a weaving loom from Rosh Chodesh Av onwards (till after Tisha B'Av), because during the month of Av the Foundation Stone [and the Temple] was destroyed.

Citing this, the Mishnah Berurah rules that not only are women not to prepare or attach warp threads to a weaving loom, but it is forbidden for anyone to make, buy or wear new clothes or shoes from the beginning of the week in which Tisha B'Av falls until after the fast, and that people should ideally not do so from the beginning of Av.

In further commemoration of the Foundation Stone, it is also forbidden to eat meat or drink wine from the beginning of the week in which Tisha B'av falls until after the fast. Some have the custom to refrain from these foodstuffs from Rosh Chodesh Av, while others do so from the Seventeenth of Tammuz.

Islamic significance

The Temple Mount, where the Foundation Stone is located, is thought by commentators of the Qur'an to be the place to which Muhammad traveled in the Night Journey. Although the Qur'an does not specifically mention Jerusalem in name as the ascension site, labeling the site as the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Hadith, the recorded sayings of Muhammad, specify that the site is indeed the Foundation Stone in Jerusalem. According to Islamic belief, angels visited the site 2,000 years before the creation of Adam. It is also thought to be the place where Israfil, the angel of the trumpet, will sound his horn on Resurrection Day.

Beneath the Foundation Stone is a cavern known as the Well of Souls. It is sometimes thought of as the traditional hiding place of the Ark of the Covenant.

World Views: Background from Wikipedia 

The Age of Enlightenment (also known as the Age of Reason or simply the Enlightenment) was an intellectual and philosophical movement that dominated the world of ideas in Europe during the 17th to 19th century.

The ideas of the Enlightenment undermined the authority of the monarchy and the Church and paved the way for the political revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries. A variety of 19th-century movements, including liberalism and neoclassicism, trace their intellectual heritage to the Enlightenment.

The Enlightenment included a range of ideas centered on the sovereignty of reason and the evidence of the senses as the primary sources of knowledge and advanced ideals such as liberty, progress, toleration, fraternity, constitutional government and separation of church and state. In France, the central doctrines of the Enlightenment philosophers were individual liberty and religious tolerance, in opposition to an absolute monarchy and the fixed dogmas of the Roman Catholic Church. The Enlightenment was marked by an emphasis on the scientific method and reductionism, along with increased questioning of religious orthodoxy—an attitude captured by Immanuel Kant's essay Answering the Question:What is Enlightenment, where the phrase Sapere aude (Dare to know) can be found.

...The scientific method is an empirical method of acquiring knowledge that has characterized the development science since at least the 17th century. It involves careful observation, applying rigorous skepticism about what is observed, given that cognitive assumptions can distort how one interprets the observation. It involves formulating hypotheses, via induction, based on such observations; experimental and measurement-based testing of deductions drawn from the hypotheses; and refinement (or elimination) of the hypotheses based on the experimental findings. These are principles of the scientific method, as distinguished from a definitive series of steps applicable to all scientific enterprises

Science played an important role in Enlightenment discourse and thought. Many Enlightenment writers and thinkers had backgrounds in the sciences and associated scientific advancement with the overthrow of religion and traditional authority in favour of the development of free speech and thought. Scientific progress during the Enlightenment included the discovery of carbon dioxide (fixed air) by the chemist Joseph Black, the argument for deep time by the geologist James Hutton and the invention of the condensing steam engine by James Watt. The experiments of Lavoisier were used to create the first modern chemical plants in Paris and the experiments of the Montgolfier Brothers enabled them to launch the first manned flight in a hot-air balloon on 21 November 1783 from the Château de la Muette, near the Bois de Boulogne.

Broadly speaking, Enlightenment science greatly valued empiricism and rational thought and was embedded with the Enlightenment ideal of advancement and progress. The study of science, under the heading of natural philosophy, was divided into physics and a conglomerate grouping of chemistry and natural history, which included anatomy, biology, geology, mineralogy and zoology. As with most Enlightenment views, the benefits of science were not seen universally: Rousseau criticized the sciences for distancing man from nature and not operating to make people happier. Science during the Enlightenment was dominated by scientific societies and academies, which had largely replaced universities as centres of scientific research and development. Societies and academies were also the backbone of the maturation of the scientific profession. Another important development was the popularization of science among an increasingly literate population. Philosophes introduced the public to many scientific theories, most notably through the Encyclopédie and the popularization of Newtonianism by Voltaire and Émilie du Châtelet. Some historians have marked the 18th century as a drab period in the history of science. However, the century saw significant advancements in the practice of medicine, mathematics and physics; the development of biological taxonomy; a new understanding of magnetism and electricity; and the maturation of chemistry as a discipline, which established the foundations of modern chemistry.

Scientific academies and societies grew out of the Scientific Revolution as the creators of scientific knowledge in contrast to the scholasticism of the university. During the Enlightenment, some societies created or retained links to universities, but contemporary sources distinguished universities from scientific societies by claiming that the university's utility was in the transmission of knowledge while societies functioned to create knowledge. As the role of universities in institutionalized science began to diminish, learned societies became the cornerstone of organized science. Official scientific societies were chartered by the state in order to provide technical expertise. Most societies were granted permission to oversee their own publications, control the election of new members and the administration of the society. After 1700, a tremendous number of official academies and societies were founded in Europe and by 1789 there were over seventy official scientific societies. In reference to this growth, Bernard de Fontenelle coined the term "the Age of Academies" to describe the 18th century.

The influence of science also began appearing more commonly in poetry and literature during the Enlightenment. Some poetry became infused with scientific metaphor and imagery, while other poems were written directly about scientific topics. Sir Richard Blackmore committed the Newtonian system to verse in Creation, a Philosophical Poem in Seven Books (1712). After Newton's death in 1727, poems were composed in his honour for decades. James Thomson (1700–1748) penned his "Poem to the Memory of Newton", which mourned the loss of Newton, but also praised his science and legacy.

“...Though diverse models for the scientific method are available, there is in general a continuous process that includes observations about the natural world. People are naturally inquisitive, so they often come up with questions about things they see or hear, and they often develop ideas or hypotheses about why things are the way they are. The best hypotheses lead to predictions that can be tested in various ways. The most conclusive testing of hypotheses comes from reasoning based on carefully controlled experimental data. Depending on how well additional tests match the predictions, the original hypothesis may require refinement, alteration, expansion or even rejection. If a particular hypothesis becomes very well supported, a general theory may be developed.

Although procedures vary from one field of inquiry to another, they are frequently the same from one to another. The process of the scientific method involves making conjectures (hypotheses), deriving predictions from them as logical consequences, and then carrying out experiments or empirical observations based on those predictions. A hypothesis is a conjecture, based on knowledge obtained while seeking answers to the question. The hypothesis might be very specific, or it might be broad. Scientists then test hypotheses by conducting experiments or studies. A scientific hypothesis must be falsifiable, implying that it is possible to identify a possible outcome of an experiment or observation that conflicts with predictions deduced from the hypothesis; otherwise, the hypothesis cannot be meaningfully tested.

The purpose of an experiment is to determine whether observations agree with or conflict with the predictions derived from a hypothesis. Experiments can take place anywhere from a garage to CERN's Large Hadron Collider. There are difficulties in a formulaic statement of method, however. Though the scientific method is often presented as a fixed sequence of steps, it represents rather a set of general principles. Not all steps take place in every scientific inquiry (nor to the same degree), and they are not always in the same order.

Eastern Religion and Comparative Religion should be checked out because the prevailing scientific model of the universe is a product of western civilization heavily influenced greatly by the Bible and European church history. 

Planck Satellite Data Confirm: Earth May Be the Center of Universe!

Added June 3, 2022

Comments from Friends

From: Eric Finke (finke@comcast.net)

First off, Einsteinian relativity says you get to Mars via the same route regardless of whether the Earth is fixed, Mars is, or both are moving. The only thing that matters is the relative motion. While I agree that creation need not be the physical center of the universe, there is no reason that it couldn’t be either. The Big Bang theory would tell you that there really isn’t a “center” anyway, so the best the standard model can do is say “I don’t know.” I haven’t done much work on Geocentricity since we last talked. This is more a collection of related thoughts putting holes in common scientific explanations. I’ve been thinking along these lines lately.

1. The sun is not a nuclear furnace.
2. The cosmic microwave background radiation observations are firm enough for me to say that the Earth is somewhere very close to exact center.
3. All the experiments I can find demonstrate the Earth could be motionless. Results depend on assumptions and interpretation.
These three, for me, kicked all of my college astronomy courses to the curb. Any one of them separately does away with the standard model of cosmology.

1. The sun is not a nuclear furnace. The temperature at the “surface,” the photosphere, is approximately 6000°C. The corona measures over 10 million degrees C.
""Since the sun's source of energy is at the center, on a simple level, we would expect the corona — the outermost layer — to be the coolest." SOHO is just one of several solar missions exploring this and other mysteries.” Their only real attempts at explaining this are to say that magnetic waves carry energy from the interior through the photosphere – somehow without being detected – or that extremely fast microjets of plasma are constantly breaking through and heating the corona. What they don’t admit is that since the corona entirely encompasses the sun, a 10-million degree oven would in a very short period of time heat the photosphere, only a few hundred kilometers away, to millions of degrees – especially with a supposed 27-million degree source at the center. Clearly they have no idea what is going on and are just trying to make the evidence fit their concept of the sun. That, and the fact that the solar wind speeds up with distance from the sun effectively sinks any known gravity-based theory of sun structure. If the sun is cooler on the inside than the outside, this upends our theory of star formation (which is disproven by the Charles Law anyway), galaxy formation, etc. Start over.

2. “But when you look at CMB map, you also see that the structure that is observed is in fact, in a weird way, correlated with the plane of the earth around the sun. Is this Copernicus coming back to haunt us? That’s crazy. We’re looking out at the whole universe. There’s no way there should be a correlation of structure with our motion of the earth around the sun — the plane of the earth around the sun — the ecliptic. That would say we are truly the center of the universe.” -- Lawrence M. Krauss, July 2006 (he is really antagonistic toward Christians btw) The fact that there is any “structure” at all blows up the Big Bang (sorry, couldn’t resist). Further data gather has solidified Max Tegmark’s observation of statistical anisotropy in the CMB. Since the Big Bang’s ejection of hydrogen would have not created discernible structure, much less one that is aligned with both the plane of the ecliptic and the pole of Earth’s rotation, we need to look for another grand model. Refuting the CMB observations requires making up a new model of matter that is not observable or provable. Occam says nope.
Hartnett’s observations are also very interesting.

3. I’ve looked at the Michelson-Morley experiment a bit, and while it does seem to say what Sungenis suggests, I’d have to dig a lot deeper to understand this. The tilted telescope experiment is easier to understand and again demonstrates the Earth could be at rest. A fixed Earth would mean a very high angular momentum for the rest of the universe, but if stars are not nuclear furnaces and what we see is something other that what we’ve surmised, anything could be possible – perhaps some big electrical effect. Tilted telescope Data.

Basically, what I’ve come to is that we’ve made some wrong assumptions and piled centuries of further assumptions on top of them until we’re beyond the point of ridiculousness, but everyone is so indoctrinated they can’t find their way out. I can remember my professor in the 80s embarrassedly trying to explain to me the existence of dark matter. He knew it didn’t make sense, but I took him at his word. It had to be that way because otherwise you couldn’t explain the movement of the galaxies. We call it “fudging” when one changes the figures 2% to make the math fit. When you have to make up something undetectable to revise the figures by 95%, that’s just inventing nonsense. If they’re going to do that we might as well be claiming giant invisible pink flying elephants are making the wind. I’ve become convinced that’s happened in the astronomical community. If they're telling us the entire universe is made of stuff we’ll never be able to see because that’s the only way the math works, the math is the problem. The gravity model is obviously wrong.

The plasma model does away with the need to conjure up dark matter and dark energy. I don’t understand electromagnetics well, but I do understand that 10^37 times the the force of gravity is enough to get some real work done.

Disclaimer: I may be wrong about anything above. This is a work on progress. And by the way, I do not accept the “flat earth” theories. These are very easily disproven. Seen it with my own eyes.

From Bryce Self

1. The moral center of creation need not be the physical center or spatial locus. In the same way humans made in the image of God are not the strongest, fastest, or otherwise obviously superlative of all creatures. How have we managed to get vehicles to Mars, fly-by probes of other planets, based on a heliocentric model if earth is actually the center of the solar system? However, the billions of light years’ expanse of the universe is surely a piece of scientific mythology, along with the billions of years of chronological time supposedly involved. Even in the creation account, the language is phenomenological — accurately describing things as they appear from an earth-observer viewpoint This is the only viewpoint that we have, or that we presently have the capacity to understand. This limitation is required first by our creatureliness, and second by  our fallenness. It is for us fallen human creatures that the Scriptures were written, and for us in accordance with our common experience rather than for the rare few who have been privileged with theological or scientific sophistication. There is is no question but that earth and humanity are the focus, even if not the locus. The son of God became Man, an act not to be repeated for other races or stellar being that may exist (“He does not give help to angels”). Yes, we are certainly twice unique, not only by creation and by redemption, but thrice unique in that Jesus will rule the universe from David’s throne, in Jerusalem, in Israel, on earth.

Finally the glorious return of Jesus will be to Jerusalem.

The power of tradition is great. Quite possibly we need to acknowledge the mythology which captures the imaginations and can easily drowned out the ground truth and the archaeologists again and again.  The moral center of creation need not be the physical center or spatial locus. In the same way humans made in the image of God are not the strongest, fastest, or otherwise obviously superlative of all creatures. However, the billions of light years’ expanse of the universe is surely a piece of scientific mythology, along with the billions of years of chronological time supposedly involved.

Even in the creation account, the language is phenomenological — accurately describing things as they appear from an earth-observer viewpoint This is the only viewpoint that we have, or that we presently have the capacity to understand. This limitation is required first by our creatureliness, and second by  our fallenness. It is for us fallen human creatures that the Scriptures were written, and for us in accordance with our common experience rather than for the rare few who have been privileged with theological or scientific sophistication. There is is no question but that earth and humanity are the focus, even if not the locus. The son of God became Man on this planet, an act not to be repeated for other races or stellar being that may exist (“He does not give help to angels”). Yes, we are certainly quite unique, not only by creation and by redemption, but thrice unique in that Jesus will rule the universe from David’s throne, in Jerusalem, in Israel, on earth. --Bryce Self

2. On August 3, 2023, Bryce Self <onesimus@ix.netcom.com> wrote:

IMO: Physical placement is irrelevant — If it was critical, Washngton D.C. would be in Kansas City. Earth is the moral center of the universe because of Jesus Christ’s incarnation, death and resurreciton, and He will make it the governmental center at His return. We are at the nexus, but not at the center. the perception that we are is just that — an artifact of our observational standpoint. Thgis is not by accident, however, but by design, since the stellar cosmos was ordered for the sake of this planet and humans in particular: “to give light upon the earth… firs signs and seasons, and days, and years.”

It is not narcissism to see ourselves as the center of created significance. This is by inherent Divine design from the beginning, and permanent Divine participation through the Incarnation. “He does not give help to angels, but the seed of Abraham.” Just a few jotted thoughts..

The sun is an ancient symbol of Jesus the Light of the world. Malachi 4:2 for example says, “But to you who fear My name, The Sun of Righteousness shall arise, With healing in His wings...” The true church, which has no light of its own, shines feebly by reflecting the light of the sun. (Eclipses were of course of special interest to the ancients). A beautiful symbolic picture of Christ’s church militant and triumphant is foreshadowed in Song of Solomon 6:10, “Who is she who looks forth like the dawn, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an army with banners?” The church as the “lesser light” rules the night and the greater light rules the day. (Genesis 1:16-18) New Jerusalem was seen in a great vision by the Apostle John in 95 AD which has led to speculation about certain mysterious objects in the sky which might be traveling in very orbits so that they show up locally in several thousand years. The plane of the Ecliptic is tilted 22.5 degrees from the earth’s rotational axis. Arbitrarily let’s assume NJ is in a synchronous orbit. This artificial moon, New Jerusalem, will evidently descend to earth over the present Jerusalem at the close of the Tribulation. Or at the close of the Millennium? No one will confuse the Lord Jesus (likened to the sun) with the moon, (likened to the church) during this seven year transition at the close of the present age.

“Behold, He is coming with the cloud, and every eye will see Him, even they who pierced Him. And all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him. Even so, Amen.

“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End,” says the Lord, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.” (Revelation 1:7-8) 

The seven year Tribulation period following the Rapture, will involve the conversion of many millions of people living on earth who are reached primarily by the evangelistic work of 144,000 of “Christ’s Commandos.” These converts will be martyred and represent a separate class of believers from the church or from Israel.

See To Jew and Gentile and The Time of Harvest

Most Christians today apparently look forward to escaping from this planet (they assume) and going to some idyllic paradise where they no longer need to be involved with lost sinners, or anyone else “left behind” on the planet. Such a fanciful scenario can’t be found anywhere in the Bible! The return of Jesus will not focus on our deeds and accomplishments but on His worthiness as the heir of all things. Jesus Himself will evidently come and go during the Tribulation period while sojourning in New Jerusalem with us, His Bride. Are we not privileged to walk in step with Jesus in those days since we are destined to rule and reign with Him? I see the seven-year Tribulation period as a time of transition from the present grim state of affairs to the open Second Advent of Jesus with His church and the coming of the Kingdom of God right here on earth. These ideas did not originate with me: they were brought forth decades ago by Ray Stedman. I ask that these ideas be scrutinized ruthlessly, but I believe the time of the end is near. My ideas therefore probably require much “sanctified imagination” of course. From the outside looking in, New Jerusalem will reflect sunlight better than the earth’s moon which has an average albedo of only 0.12. If NJ is four-side and not gyroscopically locked in a fixed orientation, we might expect great dazzling beams of sunlight to be shining on the earth by night. It is possible that light from inside NJ might shine out through the 216 foot high outer wall. (The walls may be 216 feet thick, not high? In that case, the walls could be 1500 miles high.) We are not given many details about the interior of NJ, which we have suggested is multidimensional. There is an “exclusion zone” outside the city. See The Excluded Ones. Twelve gates suggests lots of traffic in and out. Presumably there will be controlled down to earth ventures in the service of the Commander-in-Chief.

A few additional details on City Center are given in Revelation 22:

“But I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God illuminated it. The Lamb is its light. And the nations of those who are saved shall walk in its light, and the kings of the earth bring their glory and honor into it. Its gates shall not be shut at all by day (there shall be no night there). And they shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it. But there shall by no means enter it anything that defiles, or causes an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.

And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the middle of its street, and on either side of the river, was the tree of life, which bore twelve fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. And there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and His servants shall serve Him. They shall see His face, and His name shall be on their foreheads. There shall be no night there: They need no lamp nor light of the sun, for the Lord God gives them light. And they shall reign forever and ever.” (Revelation 21:22 - 22:5)

The time frame for the sequence of events in the Book of Revelation after 4:1 is not totally linear and sequential--since John, the observer, was still in his old mortal body when he was given his tour of “heaven.” The reader of Revelation is presently trapped in linear, historical time. Indeed, he or she is constrained to live life one day at a time "down here" from birth to death. The record books of history list our DOB and our DOD. Not so the vantage point of heaven runs on very different clocks. God Himself is the “high and lofty one who inhabits eternity.” (Isaiah 57:15) Past, present and future are eternally “now” to our Lord. God does act within time and outside of time—both. He reveals Himself progressively in history from creation to the Second Advent. It is our present body with several internal clicks, rhythms and cycles that lock us into linear, historical calendars. Our new bodies, already built for us to occupy when we die, run according to very different clocks. 

The Resurrection Body is explained in 2 Corinthians 5.

There is no need for a follower of Jesus to view eternal realities in the heavenly places strictly through the lens of earth-bound lenses. Pay attention to verb tenses in the New Testament! For example, those who know Jesus have already come to New Jerusalem. Looking out through my present old eyes I can not see the splendor just behind the temporal, visible realm. 

“For you have not come to the mountain that may be touched and that burned with fire, and to blackness and darkness and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words, so that those who heard it begged that the word should not be spoken to them anymore. (For they could not endure what was commanded: “And if so much as a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned or shot with an arrow.” And so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I am exceedingly afraid and trembling.”)

But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel.

See that you do not refuse Him who speaks. For if they did not escape who refused Him who spoke on earth, much more shall we not escape if we turn away from Him who speaks from heaven, whose voice then shook the earth; but now He has promised, saying, “Yet once more I shake not only the earth, but also heaven.” Now this, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken, as of things that are made, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain.

Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. For our God is a consuming fire.” (Hebrews 12:18-29)

The crucifixion alone centers everything in the cosmos surely?

But I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.” (Revelation 21:9-21)

A few additional details on City Center are given in Revelation 22:

“But I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God illuminated it. The Lamb is its light. And the nations of those who are saved shall walk in its light, and the kings of the earth bring their glory and honor into it. Its gates shall not be shut at all by day (there shall be no night there). And they shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it. But there shall by no means enter it anything that defiles, or causes an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.

And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the middle of its street, and on either side of the river, was the tree of life, which bore twelve fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. And there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and His servants shall serve Him. They shall see His face, and His name shall be on their foreheads. There shall be no night there: They need no lamp nor light of the sun, for the Lord God gives them light. And they shall reign forever and ever.” (Revelation 21:22 - 22:5)

The time frame for the sequence of events in the Book of Revelation after 4:1 is not totally linear and sequential--since John, the observer, was still in his old mortal body when he was given his tour of “heaven.” The reader of Revelation is presently trapped in linear, historical time. Indeed, he or she is constrained to live life one day at a time "down here" from birth to death. The record books of history list our DOB and our DOD. Not so the vantage point of heaven runs on very different clocks. God Himself is the “high and lofty one who inhabits eternity.” (Isaiah 57:15) Past, present and future are eternally “now” to our Lord. God does act within time and outside of time—both. He reveals Himself progressively in history from creation to the Second Advent. It is our present body with several internal clicks, rhythms and cycles that lock us into linear, historical calendars. Our new bodies, already built for us to occupy when we die, run according to very different clocks. 

The Resurrection Body is explained in 2 Corinthians 5.

There is no need for a follower of Jesus to view eternal realities in the heavenly places strictly through the lens of earth-bound lenses. Pay attention to verb tenses in the New Testament! For example, those who know Jesus have already come to New Jerusalem. Looking out through my present old eyes I can not see the splendor just behind the temporal, visible realm. 

“For you have not come to the mountain that may be touched and that burned with fire, and to blackness and darkness and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words, so that those who heard it begged that the word should not be spoken to them anymore. (For they could not endure what was commanded: “And if so much as a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned or shot with an arrow.” And so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I am exceedingly afraid and trembling.”)

But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel.

See that you do not refuse Him who speaks. For if they did not escape who refused Him who spoke on earth, much more shall we not escape if we turn away from Him who speaks from heaven, whose voice then shook the earth; but now He has promised, saying, “Yet once more I shake not only the earth, but also heaven.” Now this, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken, as of things that are made, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain.

Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. For our God is a consuming fire.” (Hebrews 12:18-29)

At the end of Day One space, time, matter, and energy had been brought into existence as amorphous raw materials out of which a finished universe would be sculpted and formed during the five days which were to follow. The ancient Greeks thought the four building blocks of the universe were air, earth, fire and water. Four is the Biblical number for the world---the Greeks weren't too far from being on the right track if we compare air/space, fire/energy, and earth/matter. They missed the "element" of time as a building material for the construction of the universe. 

Prior to this creative activity of God none of these entities existed. However God, who is Spirit, existed. In fact He has always existed and His existence is independent of time and space, and also of all created things. It was not necessary for God to create a universe. God is complete and whole in His own Being and the existence of a universe with all its life-forms and awesome extent adds nothing to God. 

Although God is One God, He exists in three Persons. This we know from God's own self-revelation of Himself to us as recorded in the Bible. The Persons of the Godhead work together in Creation as they do in the sustenance and management of the universe, in the redemption of men, in judgment, and in the creation of the new world which is to come. The God of the Bible is a "personal" God. He is a living, intelligent, loving being and has created us capable of relationships with Him and with one another.

  The Bible emphasizes that the universe was created in six days. "...for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it. " (Exodus 20:11)

The Hebrew word for an ordinary 24-hour day, yom, is used. Endless and often futile debates have raged over whether or not the seven days of Creation Week were literal 24-hour days or long periods of time. 

Part of the problem in understanding creation week is that this interval of time---when God was in the process of creating everything---was truly unique and never to be repeated. I have attempted to depict this situation by the following diagram. The time frame we live in now is represented by the broad line extending to the right, but I have shown creation week as a wheel or disk at right angles. "Eternity past"---when there was no universe at all, lies to the left of the colored disc.

Genesis One (since it is recording truth in logos format) describes the order of creation as Day 1, followed by Day 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and finally 7. After that man's history begins. However I have color-coded Days 1 and 4, Days 2 and 5 and Days 3 and 6 to show that they bear a relationship to each other (as will be described a bit later). God is outside of time, so while constructing the universe He could actually have worked on all six days at once, or built them separately as modules and put them together into one pie all at the end. 

There is an "observer" present in the narrative of Genesis One, and the observer appears to be standing on the Earth as his observation platform, but the observer is clearly God Himself in Genesis Chapter One. In Jewish rabbinical legends, while creating the universe God is said to have stood on the "Foundation Stone" which would later be under the Holy of Holies of the Temples in Jerusalem.

My Grandfather's Clock

Clocks and watches driven by quartz crystals and battery powered have run rates determined by basic physical, mechanical laws. Clocks of this kind also measure what has been called "dynamical time." In contrast atomic clocks are dependent upon rates of radioactive decay, by the interval between atomic transitions, by the spectral wavelength of emitted photons, etc. But atomic clocks are not necessarily running in lock-step with mechanical clocks. 

The calendars and clocks used in the Bible for recording historical events are all based on the dynamical time system:

And God said, "Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to separate the day from the night; and let them be for [measuring] signs and for seasons and for days and years, and let them be lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light upon the earth." And it was so. And God made the two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light upon the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, a fourth day. (Genesis 1:14-19) 

To return to the analogy of the pendulum clock, once the clockmaker has designed the clock and built the parts the run rate of the clock has been forever determined. But only after the clock has been assembled and started will it "keep time." As far as the clock parts are concerned, the time-keeping history of the clock begins when the clock starts ticking, not when the component parts are manufactured. 

Although God's "wristwatch" recorded cycles of what would later be 24-hour days while He was creating the universe, time was not defined during creation week---at least by the standards we now use to measure time. This is because the universe is in fact a UNI-verse and all its parts and pieces are interlinked and interdependent. Only when all the universe was completed could the planets run properly in their appointed courses and the atomic particles begin their interactions with one another, within and around the nucleus. We can not take time as we experience it now and extrapolate it backwards in history all the way to Day One of creation week. We can, with confidence talk about historical events and their time sequence beginning with Adam's exit from the Garden. This later approach is more that sufficient to establish a universe which was only recently created. Adam One and Adam Two (Jesus Christ) are clearly linked in the Old Testament by a clear line of genealogical ties. The maximum time frame between the Two Adams is clearly only a few thousand years.

Thermodynamics: Entropy Always Increases in a Fallen World

PSALMS 104

1 Praise the Lord, my soul.

Lord my God, you are very great;

you are clothed with splendor and majesty.

2 The Lord wraps himself in light as with a garment;

he stretches out the heavens like a tent

3 and lays the beams of his upper chambers on their waters.

He makes the clouds his chariot

and rides on the wings of the wind.

4 He makes winds his messengers,

flames of fire his servants.

5 He set the earth on its foundations;

it can never be moved.

6 You covered it with the watery depths as with a garment;

the waters stood above the mountains.

7 But at your rebuke the waters fled,

at the sound of your thunder they took to flight;

8 they flowed over the mountains,

they went down into the valleys,

to the place you assigned for them.

9 You set a boundary they cannot cross;

never again will they cover the earth.

10 He makes springs pour water into the ravines;

it flows between the mountains.

11 They give water to all the beasts of the field;

the wild donkeys quench their thirst.

12 The birds of the sky nest by the waters;

they sing among the branches.

13 He waters the mountains from his upper chambers;

the land is satisfied by the fruit of his work.

14 He makes grass grow for the cattle,

and plants for people to cultivate—

bringing forth food from the earth:

15 wine that gladdens human hearts,

oil to make their faces shine,

and bread that sustains their hearts.

The Universe is Hands-On Craftsmanship by a Master Artisan

"Six days you shall labor, and do all your work; but the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God; in it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your manservant, or your maidservant, or your cattle, or the sojourner who is within your gates; for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it." (Exodus 20:9-11)

The six days of creation were a unique, never-to-be-repeated season in which God was at work as a Master Craftsman, Architect, Artisan, Builder and Maker of all things. (Therefore God loves the universe and all the life-forms He has placed in it. Man was the last to be created, not the first, which means that we can not say we are important to God and nature is not). 

Incidentally, Proverbs 8:22-36 is believed by many Bible commentators to be a statement by the Son of God---personified as Lady Wisdom---commenting on the creation period:

"The Lord brought me forth (Hebrew: begot or possessed) me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old. Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth. When there were no depths I was brought forth; when there were no springs abounding with water. Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth, before he had made the earth with its fields, or the first of the dust of the world.

"When he established the heavens, I was there: when he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above: when he established the fountains of the deep: When he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master workman; and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world, and delighting in the sons of men.

"And now, my sons, listen to me: happy are those who keep my ways. Hear instruction, and be wise, and do not neglect it. Happy is the man who listens to me, watching daily at my gates, waiting beside my doors. For he who finds me finds life and obtains favor from the Lord; but he who misses me injures himself, all who hate me love death.'" (Proverbs 8:1-36)

Some false religions have taken Proverbs 8:1 to teach that Jesus the Son of God was the first of God's creative works. This is not correct. The Hebrew verb is closer to the New Testament term "begotten"--Jesus is the eternally begotten Son of the Father.

Since we are houseguests in God's universe, we ought to take note of God's love for His house, and all its inhabitants. The creative work of God clearly shows that man can not be separated from an ecosystem. The entire universe was built with man in mind as God's crowning work of creativity. One lesson of history we ought to now be painfully aware of is man's demonstrated poor stewardship over nature and the lost dominion over creation which God originally entrusted into his hands. 

The Initial Stages: A Universe Unformed and Unfilled

Evidently God did not create the universe in a single step, by one all-encompassing command, as Big Bang cosmology would infer. He created the universe, (visible and invisible), in a time period of six days. During this interval the usual laws of physics were not in effect. We should picture a big sign, UNDER CONSTRUCTION, posted on the job site where creation occurred to remind ourselves not to attempt to understand creation week by extrapolating present day laws and observations backwards from the present. This is one common error of uniformitarianism denounced by the Apostle Peter in his second epistle. The Laws of Physics were undefined until the clock was assembled and started running. The apparent start date was about 5800 BC. Before that, time was undefined! \

Our present Lawsof Physics apply to a fallen universe AFTER Day Seven of Creation Week.

It is conceivable that New Jerusalem should be parked in a synchronous orbit above the Equator. The Moon is in Earth Orbit. Earth has another satellite, soon to be made visible. It's the 1500 mile cube known as the New Jerusalem, or the Heavenly Jerusalem. The implication is that the "Third Heaven" is "higher still" outside the known universe. See: A City in Space,

Secular Astronomy has made some incorrrect assumptions which are now quite clear. The universe is not old!

If one could walk fom the present into the past, we'd find a discntinuity abour 8000 years ago. Furthermore, the universe is damaged at all levels.

A previous article in this series discussed the uniqueness of creation week as described in Genesis One. (The Uniqueness of Creation Week.) The events of creation week were never to be repeated. That is, God is not nowcreating the universe. During "creation week" the universe was created in stages as the hand of God first brought into existence spiritual and material building blocks. Then God molded the four basic building materials---matter, space, time and energy--- into finished form. The universe was formed as a habitat for men and angels, and then filled with living creatures. As completed on the Seventh Day, the universe was exquisitely beautiful, self-renewing and free from defects or flaws. The statement of Genesis 1:31-2:3 indicates that God was thoroughly pleased with all aspects of His creative handiwork after its completion. Six times in Chapter 1 God inspected His handiwork and declared that it was "good," (v. 4, 12, 16, 21, and 25). When all was completed his seventh and final blessing was to pronounce everything "very good."

And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, a sixth day. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work which he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all his work which he had done in creation.

The "hosts" (Hebrew: tsaba) can refer to the numberless stars, or the angels who exist in vast numbers ("myriads of myriads") in the created realm called the "heavenly places." Hosts can be armies of men, or simply all the living creatures who populate the spiritual and the material creations. The universe is compared to a house in Scripture. One first builds the structure of the house, then the house is furnished. Finally the inhabitants move in. The entire process has then been completed and the house put into the use as the owner intended before he began construction.

The above statement "very good" rules out an earlier fall of the angels which was hypothesized in the so-called "Gap Theory" which suggested an original creation in 1:1, an angelic devastation between 1:1 and 1:2 and a restorative creation afterwards. The Gap Theory has been effectively eliminated by Hebrew scholars who point out that such a reading of the text is grammatically very unreasonable.

Therefore as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned---sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come [i.e., of the Messiah, or the Last Adam].

One consequence of the fall of man is the so-called "curse on creation," described in Genesis 3:17-19. Since life and blessing come from God, and God inhabits the spiritual realm, earth's reduced fecundity after the fall can be thought of as a disruption of the power flow of the sustaining energy of the spiritual realm into the physical realm of our "two-storied" universe. The previously perfect "coupling" between the spiritual and the physical dimensions was reduced or disrupted by Adam's sin. Active evil also began to operate in the spiritual world as well as in the physical.

...And to Adam God said, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, `You shall not eat of it,' cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth to you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return."

The disruption of the old creation resulting from the fall of Lucifer and a host of angels is the root cause for death coming into human experience, as noted above. What is often overlooked, is the fact that nature itself was also drastically affected (Genesis 3:17,18, Romans 8:19-22) by the angelic revolt. Lucifer before his fall evidently held "the highest and most important post in the administration of the universe...what we would call God's prime minister to use a human analogy." (Ref. 1). His defection from his high post in God's government of the cosmos was serious indeed, not only for man, but also for nature.

For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in travail together until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

What are some of the possible consequences the fall of the angels may have had on the creation itself? These disruptions in the physical universe seem to have included some or all of the following:

The "quality" of time experienced by our first parents in the Garden of Eden was drastically changed at the time of their fall. 

At least five separate "curses" from God which are consequences of human sins are mentioned in Genesis. In some way we do not yet understand the fecundity of nature was reduced by these curses, indicating a reduction of sustaining power from God into the physical creation. Opportunistic weeds, bugs, diseases and maladies are some of the results.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics was apparently not in effect before the fall---the universe was previously self-renewing, The Second Law can be stated in three ways: (1) Energy to do useful work is becoming less available with the passage of time. (2) Orderly systems have a tendency to fall apart, collapse, rot and decay with the passage of time, and (3) The information content of a system (a measure of the degree of order) tends to decrease with the passage of time. Our once orderly, perfect universe is running apart, losing its order and splendor and becoming inexorably more chaotic with the passage of time. (Ref. 3) 

There was quite possibly no radioactive decay before the fall due to a greatly stability of certain atomic nuclei which are now unstable or marginally stable. Radioactive decay may be a consequence of the fall, (see Colossians 1:17, 2 Peter 3:10) (Ref. 4). 

Catastrophes and "natural" disasters, such as earthquakes, floods and famines were unknown in the creation before the fall. Predatory behavior in the animal world was unknown. Thorns, thistles, pests, and disease were unknown.

The Bible tells us of the importance of the spiritual realm in all of life. The subject of events, happenings and laws governing the spiritual world is off- limits to science which must deal primarily with measurements and observations only of the physical realm (Ref.. 2).

At what point in the unfallen time of the old creation did Lucifer rebel thereby throwing a monkey wrench of the universe? We do not know. It must have been sometime after Genesis 1:31-2:1. Though the angelic hosts were in place in the created "heavenly places" of the invisible realm, and though the physical universe was complete, at the end of creation week, scripture is clear: at that point in time everything (visible and invisible) was very good.

The "Gap Theory" was championed by C.I. Scofield, Arthur Custance and others in an earlier generation--in order to accommodate scientific ideas of an old universe. Hebrew scholars have since shown that the grammar of Genesis 1:1-2 will not allow for an interval of time between verses 1 and 2 as the Gap theory suggested. In fact, the verses of Genesis are connected by the generous use of the waw connective, usually translated "and." The Gap Theory suggested a cosmic war by Satan which destroyed the original creation. However the closing verse of Gen. 1 and opening verses of Chapter 2 state that the heavens and earth were "very good" (sinless) and complete with "all the hosts thereof." (This would include angels). Therefore Satan had not fallen at the end of creation week--that came later. The Gap Theory does not hold up in light of good Bible scholarship. Genesis is meant to show a continuous sequence of creative activity by Elohim over 6 days.

The angels fell "first" at some point early in earth's history (though the flow of time in the heavenly places does not mean the same thing as time frames on earth). Evil is in existence by the time we reach the events beginning in Genesis 3.1. How long Adam and Eve were in the Garden before Satan succeeded in luring them away from their innocent trust and reliance on God we do not know. We are given Adam's age---130 years---at the time his third (?) son, Seth, was born outside the garden, (5:3). No children were born to Adam and Eve before their fall and presumably they would have discovered sexual intercourse not long after Eve was taken from Adam's side.

Another question which is difficult to answer is the following. When did the physical universe become disrupted by the fall of the angels? Was it at the time Lucifer fell, or was it when man fell? The New Testament warns us about the dangers of uniformitarianism in connection with the flood of Noah---not in reflecting back to the Garden of Eden events and the fall. This seems to suggest that the laws of nature and the laws of physics were further disrupted by evil at the time of the flood. Jude 6 and 2 Peter 2:4, 5 tell of a sub-group of fallen angels who were removed by the Lord to the prison of Tartarus at the time of the flood. It is not unreasonable therefore to suggest that a physical model for energy and entropy in the early universe may need to take into account a new disruption in the cosmos at the time of the flood. 2 Peter 3:5,6 seems to also suggest this, "by the Word of God heavens subsisted long ago, and an earth formed out of water and by means of water, through which (water) the world that then existed was deluged (kataklustheis) and perished. But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist have been stored up for fire..."

In The Uniqueness of Creation Week a speculative model of how the entropy of the universe may have varied during creation week, and after the fall of the angels and man, was presented for discussion and illustrative purposes. Entropy measures for us not only the energy in a system available for doing useful work, but also the degree of order in the universe. Creation of the high degree of order found in living things implies a large decrease in entropy which in fact has been estimated by calculation (Ref. 5) Thus, entropy during creation week was evidently decreased by two processes: (1) God created matter and energy and filled energy reservoirs, and (2) order was brought out of disorder by the artistic craftsmanship of God who is the Wise Master Builder, (Proverbs 8:22-31). The universe apparently had its lowest entropy on the Seventh Day and we could expect this level to be constant thereafter had evil not entered into the universe. Evil did enter in, resulting in death for man and nature alike.

These considerations and constraints from the Bible show clearly why we must be careful to avoid uniformitarian assumptions when attempting to understand the early history of our universe. As followers of Jesus Christ we can also affirm that creation is dual: material and physical-and can not be rightly understood without revelation and guidance from our Creator. Of greater importance to us than understanding the old, ruined, creation is entering into the new creation God offers us through faith in His beloved Son.

While the concepts of a fallen race of now-depraved humanity and a ruined creation are depressing concepts, the Bible assures us that God sustains the universe moment by moment, guiding, directing and governing in all the affairs of men, angels and nature. (See What Holds the Universe Together)

God is now building a new creation. Eventually He will take the wraps off this new universe and allow the old to disappear. God's plan for a new creation is not advertised on television neither is it the object of study in our leading universities today. The plan and program of God are foolishness to most of mankind.

The Bible says, "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, old things have passed away, behold all things have become new." Are you part of God's plan for a new creation? God's work of re-creation starts with the human heart, with you and me. It was to make this new creation possible that Christ died on the cross, reconciling all things to himself 2000 years ago. If you have not already done so, won't you open your heart to the Creator of the universe and allow Him to make you new? It won't be long until God makes all things new---don't be left out! 

* The Greek NT word stoicheion can refer to the atomic elements, or to smaller basic units out of which matter is built, in such passages as 2 Peter 3:10, 12.

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