Falsifiability of Creation
Is Creation a falsifiable proposition? In the ongoing dispute between creationism and evolutionism, many have claimed that creation is also an unfalsifiable proposition, the same as is evolution. This is to say that creation is falsifiable, after all—because the Bible does indeed make multiple testable propositions, not one of which has yet been shown to be false.
Contents
Nature of the Bible
- Main Article: Biblical criticism
All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. II_Timothy 3:16 (KJV)
"Profitable" means that its use can profit its reader for certain things. "Doctrine" is the Greek diaskalia, teaching. "Reproof" means telling someone that he is wrong, while "correction" means setting the person on a straight path. Finally, "righteousness" does not mean "acting in a just manner" but rather "how to be sure that God has justified you," because no person can justify himself.[2]
The Bible, therefore, purports to be far more than a book written by mere men, and different men in different eras.
This very claim is falsifiable, in this way: If anyone can show definitely that any part of the Bible is inconsistent with any other part, then he has shown the Bible to be false. Many have claimed to show precisely that; none have succeeded to date. This is a key test of the Bible precisely because different scriveners set down different parts of it in different centuries, as archaeologists have shown by examining different manuscripts, including the Dead Sea Scrolls and others.
Specific claims
Ancient civilizations
The Bible mentions many ancient civilizations that no longer exist today. If any archaeologist can show that any of those ancient civilizations never existed, then the Bible is shown to be false. In the nineteenth century, many scoffers maintained that no such civilization as Assyria exists or existed. Then archaeologists discovered Nineveh, the ancient capital city of Assyria, and the first of many monuments of that civilization and many of its most prominent rulers.
Ancient prophesies
The Bible predicts many events centuries before those events came to pass. If any one of them did not come to pass exactly as predicted, then the Bible is shown to be false. Again, many have tried; all have failed. Many have suggested that the prophecies of the Bible were all written after-the-fact. This is false; the Dead Sea Scrolls contain manuscripts of many prophetic works, all of which predict events that have come to pass often centuries later. Never once in any such case has anyone shown that an event did not come to pass.
Historicity of Jesus
- Main Article: Historicity of Jesus
Jesus Christ is the best-attested Figure in all of human history. If any part of His life did not take place as stated, then the Bible is false. No one has yet shown that the Bible misrepresents any part of Jesus' story.
More to the point, Prof. Peter Stoner at Westmont College once calculated the probability that any one man could, by sheer coincidence, fulfill forty-eight of the more than 400 prophecies about Jesus Christ, written centuries earlier. The probability turns out to be 10-157. That's a 1 followed by 157 zeroes. That's one in ten thousand quinquagintillion, according to the American system of large numbers--higher than the square of the estimated total number of electrons in the universe.
Is Creation Separable?
Creation as a concept is not separable from the rest of the Bible. The chief reason is that Jesus Himself attested to it, and attested to the Creation Week as consisting of six and no more than six (twenty-four-hour) days.
But the direct falsifiability of the Creation story, apart from the rest of the Bible, is closely related to another story: that of the Great Flood. Perhaps it is for this reason that the central focus of scientific skepticism of the Bible has been on falsifying the Great Flood. The nearest attempt to do so has always been the uniformitarianism propounded first by Sir Charles Lyell. But, as has been shown, Sir Charles' assertion that "the present is the key to the past" remains merely that: an assertion. The scientific establishment has attempted to back uniformitarianism (now slightly modified from Lyell's model, because Lyell assumed no "beginning of time") with tools like radiometric dating. Today the RATE Group at the Institute for Creation Research are conducting a key research program to re-examine the entire edifice of radiometric "date" for geologic strata.
Extraterrestrial life
- Main Article: Essay: Extraterrestrial Life and the Bible
If extraterrestrial civilizations are shown to exist or have existed, whether or not they are visiting or have ever visited the earth, then the Bible is shown to be false and the creation story unreliable. Carl Sagan and others have tried. None have shown extraterrestrial civilizations convincingly. Of all the exoplanets so far found (nearly 200), all have been gas giants, like Jupiter; none has even approximated the makeup of earth. More stringently yet, the Sun lies in a "habitable zone" barely wider than the margin between its own periapsis and apoapsis with respect to the galaxy's core. Where an ET civilization is supposed to have come from is therefore more problematic than ever.
