Those believing in a literal six-day creation week are often labeled as “fundamentalist” and considered naive or hostile to science. This not only happens outside our church but increasingly informs the discourse within our church. There seems to be, both open and smoldering below the surface, a “six-day war” within the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
Media and science insinuate that evolution is a scientifically proven fact, i.e., something that can be verified or falsified through observation. It isn’t. It is “just” a hypothesis—not more and not less. Let me expand.
Information Overload
In 2000 I visited the Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung (GSI) in Darmstadt, Germany, during one of their “open house” events.1 At that time I worked as an editor and producer of radio programs at the Stimme der Hoffnung (Voice of Hope) media center in Germany and was interested in beginning a dialogue with physicists regarding one of the key issues in the creation-evolution debate. I wanted to know what information really was. I wanted to know if information existed before the big bang or if it came into existence only during or after that hypothetical event.
A visiting researcher from CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Geneva that is home to a state-of-the-art particle accelerator, with whom I discussed this, told me point-blank: “I don’t know!” I told him that if we are not able to locate the entity of information within the complex process of evolution, we would need to start from zero regarding the big bang and evolution and suggested to him this definition: “Information is an entity that precedes energy and matter, because it quantifies energy and determines the form of matter.” In other words, information structures matter—truly “formation.”
The well-known Austrian quantum physics professor Anton Zeilinger wrote in his 2003 book entitled Einstein’s Schleier (“Einstein’s Veil”) that “reality and information are the same.”2 Over the past decades quantum physicists all over the world have been brewing their “cosmic stew” involving a number of important ingredients: space, time, energy, matter, and—most recently—information.
The problem is that scientists working with the fundamentals of evolution brew this “cosmic stew” within a closed system called “self-organization.” By extension it includes science, evolution, and many other facets of the scientific worldview. However, there is another model of reality, distinct from the one I just described. This cybernetic model of reality is open for external input. Information is not necessarily part of the system but can enter the system and within the natural laws point to a “last” or ultimate reality. The “cybernator” (does this word actually exist?) is the pilot, or the creator, or the programmer writing software code.
And Scripture?
What do all these rather philosophical concepts have to do with Scripture? Clearly, the Bible presupposes God as the Creator, the one who entered information from the outside and ordered and formed reality. He not only speaks life into being (Gen. 1; John 1); He is also writing the code, including the natural laws, that determines (at least to a certain degree) what will happen in our material reality. The programmer stands above the program—in fact, they reflect two different realities. This ultimate information (or code) determines all the elements of the “cosmic brew.” It controls energy, defines matter, determines structures, and guides reality.
Hebrews 1:3 has a unique way of describing this Creator-God. “He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.”3 His word did not only speak this world into existence—it also upholds it by means of the laws that He inserted in the basic “code.”
The natural laws governing space, time, energy, and matter are based on this information. The comparison to the cybernator (or programmer) underlines the fact that information is not just another ingredient in the “cosmic stew” that is equal in status to the other ingredients. Information determines the framework of all the other ingredients, or in other words more familiar to readers of the Adventist Review, the Creator stands above, ordering His creation.
Time
Time is a key ingredient in the cosmic stew of evolutionists (including also the compromise theory of theistic evolution). Billions of years are apparently necessary so that “auto-organization” works. Time is also crucial to the “big bang” theory. Following this resounding bang the universe is said to have expanded in scalar field time.4 Interestingly, creationists believing in a literal six-day creation are often criticized when it comes to the light of the stars of the fourth day (Gen. 1:14-19). How would it be possible that light from such faraway stars suddenly are visible? Would this not point to a longer process? As I see it, the scalar field time of the big bang and the fourth day of creation are both hard to verify or falsify (and are thus not really scientific) and require a faith response.
Conclusion
Revelation 14:7 links the divine creation at the beginning with the end-time judgment. “Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come, and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water.” The seventh day of Creation, Sabbath, is the focal point of this judgment call. It reminds us every week that the Creator is anxious to spend time with His creatures. It tells us that our loyalty to the Creator is measured in worship and recognition. While we may not understand Him completely, we have come to love Him as He entered our system in Jesus Christ. That’s enough for me. n
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1 The Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung (GSI), roughly translated Society for Research Into Heavy Ions, focuses upon research into theoretical and fundamental physics, nuclear physics, plasma physics, and many more areas related to understanding the basic functions of the atoms and life itself.
2 Anton Zeilinger, Einsteins Schleier (München: C. H. Beck, 2003), p. 229.
3 Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations have been taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
4 Scientists suggest the time of 10-27 of a second—much faster than the speed of light.
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Werner Renz is a retired pastor and radio producer who enjoys asking difficult questions. He lives with his wife, Sylvia, an accomplished author, in Alsbach-Hähnlein, Germany. This article was published June 21, 2012.
