Taking Back Astronomy: The Heavens Declare “Creation”!

When I was in college, I took a geology class that presented the secular “millions-of-years” version of the history of the earth. Although I believed in biblical creation, I wasn't sure (initially) what to make of the scientific evidence that was presented in that class.

Fortunately, at about the same time, I bought and read the famous book by Morris and Whitcomb The Genesis Flood. This book gave me a framework for understanding geological evidence in light of Scripture. I began to really understand how the rocks and fossils could be explained by recent creation and the worldwide Flood of Noah.

Since then, I have read many other excellent resources on biblical creation that have helped me to understand the evidence in the fields of biology, anthropology, genetics, information science and others-but not one on astronomy. Although there have been a handful of creation-based astronomy books, I have not seen a basic, yet comprehensive, overview that provides a foundation for interpretation of astronomical evidence.

For many years now, it has been my aspiration to develop a resource that will do for astronomy what The Genesis Flood did for geology. It has been my burden to write a book that shows the layperson how the universe makes sense in light of what the Bible teaches about creation. This is the purpose of my new book Taking Back Astronomy: The Heavens Declare Creation!

Taking Back Astronomy

Dr. Jason Lisle debunks the most widely accepted evolutionary ideas about astronomy. Readers are given solid answers to many questions, including the speed of light, the big bang, extra terrestrials, the reliability of the Bible.

The book covers numerous topics, including the “distant starlight problem,” aliens, the age of the universe, problems with the big bang and naturalism, the unique design of the earth and many others. But mainly, the book gives a biblical view of the universe. Here are some excerpts from a section dealing with the age of the solar system:

Many of the planets of the solar system also have strong dipole magnetic fields. Jupiter's magnetic field, for example, is extremely powerful. The magnetic fields of Uranus and Neptune are also quite strong. If these planets were really billions of years old (as secular astronomers believe) then their magnetic fields should be extremely weak by now. Yet, they are not.

A reasonable explanation for this is that these planets are only a few thousand years old, as the Bible teaches …

The moon moves about an inch and a half further away from the earth every year due to this tidal interaction. Thus, the moon would have been closer to the earth in the past. Six thousand years ago, the moon would have been about 800 feet (250 m) closer to the earth (which is not much of a change considering the moon is a quarter of a million miles, or 400,000 km, away). So this “spiraling away” of the moon is not a problem over the biblical timescale of six thousand years.

If, however, the earth and moon were over four billion years old (as big bang supporters teach), then we would have big problems. This is because the moon would have been so close, that it would actually have been touching the earth less than 1.5 billion years ago. This suggests that the moon can't possibly be as old as secular astronomers claim.

And from another section on laws of nature:

In fact, Christianity provides the basis for such scientific research. The Christian expects the universe to obey laws because God created those laws-the “ordinances of heaven and earth” (Jeremiah 33:25). The creationist expects that the laws of nature that applied yesterday will apply in the future as well; this is because God is consistent (Malachi 3:6) and does not arbitrarily change His mind (Numbers 23:19). We expect the universe to be understandable, because God created it and He created us with the ability to reason (Isaiah 1:18) and understand.

However, the naturalist cannot account for these properties of the universe. What reason does he have for expecting the universe to be consistent and predictable? Why should a naturalist be able to assume that the same laws that apply here on Earth also apply on, for example, the surface of the star Alpha Centauri? Applying such assumptions has been overwhelmingly successful, but they are not assumptions that arise out of naturalism, but from the Bible …

If the universe had not been designed by God, then why should it obey any laws of nature? Where did the laws of nature come from, and why do they obey logical mathematical relationships?

Our ministry theme this year for AiG is “We're taking them back.” We want to show people how the various fields of science support biblical creation when the evidence is properly interpreted. It is my prayer that Taking Back Astronomy will inspire many people to think biblically about the universe.