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Portraits of Creation: Biblical and Scientific Perspectives on the World's Formation
Drawing on both scriptural evidence and scientific investigation, Van Till constructs a theologically sound and scientifically coherent perspective on the nature of the cosmos. Since evolution and creation deal with distinctly different questions, he argu
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First published August 19, 1990
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February 12, 2025
SOME ESSAYS FROM SEVERAL AUTHORS ON BIBLE/SCIENCE ISSUES
Physicist Howard J. Van Till 1983-2024) wrote in the ‘Introductory Comments’ of this 1990 book, “As the … Coordinator of the CCCS [Calvin Center for Christian Scholarship] study team on the topic, ‘Creation and Cosmogony,’ I would like to provide some background information… that may assist the reader in understanding the scope both of our particular agenda and of what remains to be investigated. The original proposal for this interdisciplinary study included… a concern to address questions in the arenas of evolutionary biology and anthropology… But the CCCS governing board judged… that such important topics should … be the focus of investigation by a research team specially selected for that purpose at some future time…” (Pg. vii)
He continues, “As Christians we rightly seek to grow in our understanding of God and of his works in this world. Focusing our attention here on our efforts to understand the physical universe as the Creation with which
God continues to interact… Specifically we wish to incorporate both what we know (or think we know) by empirical study of the created world and what we know (or think we know) by exegetical study of the Scriptures…. however, we face difficult questions regarding both epistemology and hermeneutics. What do we really KNOW, for example, from the results of empirical science?... what do we really KNOW from the results of biblical exegesis?...” (Pg. ix)
“In my personal judgment the majority of contemporary disagreements among Christians concerning the relationship between natural science and Christian belief arise… from substantial differences in the epistemology and hermeneutics being applied… Resolution will only become possible when … Christian brothers and sisters sit down and diligently do their homework together… We make no pretense of having fully resolved the issues… Hence we urgently encourage further interdisciplinary investigation on these important questions.” (Pg. x)
Davis Young says in an essay, “The discovery of the great thicknesses and regularities of strata cast considerable doubt on the diluvialist framework. Naturalists had increasing difficulty in understanding how even a year-long flood could possibly erode enough material to deposit thousands of meters of sediment and how a turbulent flood could account for the persistent regularity of very thin strata. Another strain for diluvialism came from studies of volcanism in central France … these volcanoes must be remnants of terrestrial activity that was quite ancient in terms of the generally accepted time-frame for the Earth. This discovery led to a vague sense that the Earth might have had some history of its own prior to human occupation. Human history and Earth history were no longer coterminous. Earth history needed to be separated from human history.” (Pg. 42-43)
Later, he adds, “The Christian who believes that the idea of an ancient Earth is unbiblical would do better to deny the validity of any kind of historical geology and insist that the rocks must be the product of pure miracle rather than try to explain them in terms of the flood. An examination of the Earth apart from ideological presuppositions is bound to lead to the conclusions that it is ancient.” (Pg. 81)
Howard Van Till states, “The time scale for the processes and events so far described is astounding. For a protostar with a mass comparable to the Sun, the birth process---from the onset of gravitational collapse to the establishment of equilibrium between thermal pressure and gravity---lasts approximately 30 million years. The main-sequence phase represents the stable adult phase of a star’s lifetime; a star like the sun is computed to remain in this phase for 10 billion years. More massive stars move through their birth and maturation processes more quickly; less massive stars mature more slowly. The Sun, with an arc of 4.6 billion years, appears to be a middle-aged star, roughly halfway between birth and death.” (Pg. 94)
Robert Snow asks about creationists, “What are we to make of claims that conflict so dramatically? Even allowing for the rhetorical escalation that inevitably accompanies public controversy, we seem to be confronted by radically different visions of the world. In one major respect the present situation with regard to the claims of creationists differs remarkably from that of the twenties, thirties, forties, and fifties. During those decades the principal representatives of creationism, such as George McCready Price and Harry Rimmer, were self-taught amateurs without formal scientific credentials. Today the leading creationists have advanced degrees in the basic or applied sciences and are supported by a well-established set of organizations… The broad public credibility gained by creationists since 1970 is closely related to their claim to professional scientific credentials. At first glance both creation scientists and the scientists opposing them seem to have appropriate credentials for making the claims they make. But they disagree, and the disagreement is vehement and bitter.” (Pg.168-169)
Later, he points out, “During the 1980s a number of creationist and anticreationist researchers examined the sites that provided the data for the [John] Morris monograph [‘Tracking Those Incredible Dinosaurs and the People Who Knew Them’]. In the January 1986 issue of Impact (no. 151, ‘The Paluxy River Mystery’) John Morris describes some of the new findings that called into question his earlier claims. Although calling for further research, he warns fellow creationists that ‘it would now be improper for creationists to continue to use the Paluxy data against evolution.’ To my knowledge this is the first time that an important creationist claim has been even partially retracted in material published by the Institute for Creation Research…” (Pg. 194)
John Stek summarizes, “As the history of Christian thought has abundantly shown, the struggle to understand the Scriptures in the light of new knowledge of the world and the attempt to understand the world in the light of new knowledge of the Scriptures is sometimes an agonizing business. To have to reassess views that have been long held as firm (because unquestioned) can be unsettling. From church history comes the classic example of the painful reorientation in both biblical interpretation and dogmatic constructions required by the Copernican-Galilean revolution in our understanding of the solar system. Now that that struggle is over and memory of its pain has faded, we can no longer appreciate its intensity or why it should have been so passionate and so prolonged. But we would do well to recall such episodes in the history of Christian thought in order to face with patience and greater equanimity the issues confronting us today.” (Pg. 264-265)
Van Till says in the concluding essay, “In order to articulate and systematize the contemporary expression of our historic Christian faith, we need theologians and philosophers who can knowledgeably incorporate the fruits of both biblical and scientific scholarship into their theorizing. The efforts of such people must be encouraged.” (Pg. 277)
This book may appeal to Christians studying science/Bible issues.
Physicist Howard J. Van Till 1983-2024) wrote in the ‘Introductory Comments’ of this 1990 book, “As the … Coordinator of the CCCS [Calvin Center for Christian Scholarship] study team on the topic, ‘Creation and Cosmogony,’ I would like to provide some background information… that may assist the reader in understanding the scope both of our particular agenda and of what remains to be investigated. The original proposal for this interdisciplinary study included… a concern to address questions in the arenas of evolutionary biology and anthropology… But the CCCS governing board judged… that such important topics should … be the focus of investigation by a research team specially selected for that purpose at some future time…” (Pg. vii)
He continues, “As Christians we rightly seek to grow in our understanding of God and of his works in this world. Focusing our attention here on our efforts to understand the physical universe as the Creation with which
God continues to interact… Specifically we wish to incorporate both what we know (or think we know) by empirical study of the created world and what we know (or think we know) by exegetical study of the Scriptures…. however, we face difficult questions regarding both epistemology and hermeneutics. What do we really KNOW, for example, from the results of empirical science?... what do we really KNOW from the results of biblical exegesis?...” (Pg. ix)
“In my personal judgment the majority of contemporary disagreements among Christians concerning the relationship between natural science and Christian belief arise… from substantial differences in the epistemology and hermeneutics being applied… Resolution will only become possible when … Christian brothers and sisters sit down and diligently do their homework together… We make no pretense of having fully resolved the issues… Hence we urgently encourage further interdisciplinary investigation on these important questions.” (Pg. x)
Davis Young says in an essay, “The discovery of the great thicknesses and regularities of strata cast considerable doubt on the diluvialist framework. Naturalists had increasing difficulty in understanding how even a year-long flood could possibly erode enough material to deposit thousands of meters of sediment and how a turbulent flood could account for the persistent regularity of very thin strata. Another strain for diluvialism came from studies of volcanism in central France … these volcanoes must be remnants of terrestrial activity that was quite ancient in terms of the generally accepted time-frame for the Earth. This discovery led to a vague sense that the Earth might have had some history of its own prior to human occupation. Human history and Earth history were no longer coterminous. Earth history needed to be separated from human history.” (Pg. 42-43)
Later, he adds, “The Christian who believes that the idea of an ancient Earth is unbiblical would do better to deny the validity of any kind of historical geology and insist that the rocks must be the product of pure miracle rather than try to explain them in terms of the flood. An examination of the Earth apart from ideological presuppositions is bound to lead to the conclusions that it is ancient.” (Pg. 81)
Howard Van Till states, “The time scale for the processes and events so far described is astounding. For a protostar with a mass comparable to the Sun, the birth process---from the onset of gravitational collapse to the establishment of equilibrium between thermal pressure and gravity---lasts approximately 30 million years. The main-sequence phase represents the stable adult phase of a star’s lifetime; a star like the sun is computed to remain in this phase for 10 billion years. More massive stars move through their birth and maturation processes more quickly; less massive stars mature more slowly. The Sun, with an arc of 4.6 billion years, appears to be a middle-aged star, roughly halfway between birth and death.” (Pg. 94)
Robert Snow asks about creationists, “What are we to make of claims that conflict so dramatically? Even allowing for the rhetorical escalation that inevitably accompanies public controversy, we seem to be confronted by radically different visions of the world. In one major respect the present situation with regard to the claims of creationists differs remarkably from that of the twenties, thirties, forties, and fifties. During those decades the principal representatives of creationism, such as George McCready Price and Harry Rimmer, were self-taught amateurs without formal scientific credentials. Today the leading creationists have advanced degrees in the basic or applied sciences and are supported by a well-established set of organizations… The broad public credibility gained by creationists since 1970 is closely related to their claim to professional scientific credentials. At first glance both creation scientists and the scientists opposing them seem to have appropriate credentials for making the claims they make. But they disagree, and the disagreement is vehement and bitter.” (Pg.168-169)
Later, he points out, “During the 1980s a number of creationist and anticreationist researchers examined the sites that provided the data for the [John] Morris monograph [‘Tracking Those Incredible Dinosaurs and the People Who Knew Them’]. In the January 1986 issue of Impact (no. 151, ‘The Paluxy River Mystery’) John Morris describes some of the new findings that called into question his earlier claims. Although calling for further research, he warns fellow creationists that ‘it would now be improper for creationists to continue to use the Paluxy data against evolution.’ To my knowledge this is the first time that an important creationist claim has been even partially retracted in material published by the Institute for Creation Research…” (Pg. 194)
John Stek summarizes, “As the history of Christian thought has abundantly shown, the struggle to understand the Scriptures in the light of new knowledge of the world and the attempt to understand the world in the light of new knowledge of the Scriptures is sometimes an agonizing business. To have to reassess views that have been long held as firm (because unquestioned) can be unsettling. From church history comes the classic example of the painful reorientation in both biblical interpretation and dogmatic constructions required by the Copernican-Galilean revolution in our understanding of the solar system. Now that that struggle is over and memory of its pain has faded, we can no longer appreciate its intensity or why it should have been so passionate and so prolonged. But we would do well to recall such episodes in the history of Christian thought in order to face with patience and greater equanimity the issues confronting us today.” (Pg. 264-265)
Van Till says in the concluding essay, “In order to articulate and systematize the contemporary expression of our historic Christian faith, we need theologians and philosophers who can knowledgeably incorporate the fruits of both biblical and scientific scholarship into their theorizing. The efforts of such people must be encouraged.” (Pg. 277)
This book may appeal to Christians studying science/Bible issues.
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