A study of Genesis usually produces questions . . . lots of them.  Most of them center around creation.  Here are some of the ones that we have frequently encountered.  To ask your own question, click here.

Who Made God?

How Old is God?

How Can the Bible be Scientifically Accurate if It was Written by a Bunch of Shepherds and Fishermen?

What are the Odds of Life on Other Planets?

Haven’t some “Missing Links” been found that Substantiate Darwin’s Theory of Macro-Evolution?

If God Created the World, Why do Pain and Death Exist?

Who Made God?

This is an honest question that involves the principle of cause and effect.  The principle goes something like this: Every effect has a cause.  The principle makes sense when you discuss the universe.  Most people understand that the universe did not create itself. For it to exist, something (or someone) had to create it.  That is why logic and science can support the proposition that God (the cause) created the universe (the effect).

But what happens if you apply the principle of cause an effect to God? If He exists, then what is the cause that produced Him? Ahh, here is the glitch with that question.  People often make the mistake of assuming that for God to exist, God had to be made.  Wrong!  Just the opposite is true.  For an eternal, infinite, all-powerful, all-knowing God to exist, He must not have a cause.  He must not be an effect.

R.C. Sproul writes:

• A self-existent, eternal being exists by its own intrinsic power of being. It is dependent on nothing outside itself for its own being. Since it exists by its own eternal power of being, it is altogether underived, independent, and invulnerable to anything outside itself.
• God has no beginning and therefore no cause. He has always been and He will always be.  God does not need outside support to exist.  This is what is meant by self-existent.

But you don’t have to take R.C. Sproul’s word for the fact that God is self-existent.  King David said it a long time ago in Psalm 90:2:  Before the mountains were created, before you made the earth and the world, you are God, without beginning or end.

How Old is God?

If God existed before the universe began (let’s round off and say roughly 10-15 billion years ago), you might be thinking that He is getting pretty old and crotchety by now. But you can’t try to put an age on God.  For Him, birthdays are inapplicable.  Infinity plus one is no more than infinity.  Or, infinity plus 15 billion years is no more than infinity.  That’s why the Bible describes Him as being “in the beginning, now, and forevermore” (Jude 25).

How Can the Bible be Scientifically Accurate if It was Written by a Bunch of Shepherds and Fishermen?

Parts of the Bible were written by unschooled shepherds and fishermen, but other parts were written by highly educated men. (Moses, who wrote Genesis, attended the leading university in Egypt.)  But the scientific credentials of these men don’t matter, because God was really the Author of the Bible.  The Bible says that these men were “inspired” by God to write the words (2 Peter 1:21).  God used human agents to write down what He wanted to say.

Divine inspiration explains why the Bible is so scientifically accurate. Take, for example, the sequence of Creation events.  Astrophysicist Hugh Ross has calculated that the odds of Moses correctly guessing all of the details of the origin and proper order for the development of Earth (and life on Earth) are less than one in trillions. Moses might have been a good guesser, but he couldn’t have been that good. The only explanation for the scientific accuracy of the Bible is that God used his knowledge (“omniscience”) as the Bible’s source of information.

What are the Odds of Life on Other Planets?

Could God have created life on other planets.  Sure, he could have.  But the odds are against it.  It appears that planet Earth was created especially and uniquely for life. 

Dr. Hugh Ross has calculated the odds of another planet having all of the necessary parameters for sustaining life.  He has analyzed 41 factors and the probability that each feature would fall within the required range.  Then he calculated the probability that all of these factors would occur together so that he could estimated the possibility that a planet would exist capable of supporting life by natural means alone. He drew the conclusion that much fewer than a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of one percent of all starts could possibly possess a planet capable of sustaining advanced life.

Haven’t some “Missing Links” been found that Substantiate Darwin’s Theory of Evolution?

Genesis 1 and 2 says that God created humans in His own image. Darwin said that humans evolved from other species.  Who are you going to believe? 

Darwin said that his theory of macro evolution (one species morphing into another species) would be proven by the existence of “transitional” life forms in the fossil record. Darwin said that archeologists would eventually find these “missing links” in the evolutionary chain.

That was about 150 years ago, and so far no such “missing links” have been found.  Darwinists have touted several fossils as being proof that transitional forms exist, but upon closer examination, their touting was misplaced.  Here are a few examples of famous “missing links” that turned out to be duds:

• Archaeopteryx. First discovered in 1861, eight specimens of Archaeopteryx have appeared in the fossil record from the Jurassic period. Darwinists cited it as an example of the “transitional” evolutionary step from lizards to birds. It had wings and feathers but also had teeth (unlike any modern bird), a long lizard-like tail, and claws on its wings. But a combination of features doesn’t necessarily mean it was traditional. The combination of structures could be “intermediate” without the creature being transitional.  (Consider the duck-billed platypus. Although it has a bill like a duck and fur like a mammal, it has never been considered as a transitional life form by evolutionists.)  Paleontologists, including Darwinists, now agree that there are too many structural differences for Archaeopteryx to be the ancestor of the modern birds.
   
• Bambiraptor. This fossil, found in Montana in 1993, was about the size of a chicken, with sharp teeth and claws, and a long tail (resembling the Velociraptor of “Jurassic Park” fame). The “real-life” drawings and models of Bambiraptor show hair-like projections on the body and feathers on the forelimbs.  It was proclaimed to be the “remarkable missing link between birds and dinosaurs.” But nothing remotely resembling feathers was found with the fossil.  The hair-like projections and feathers are imaginary.  The reconstructions gave Bambiraptor “scruffy” feathers and made it as bird-like as possible because the artist assumed its position between dinosaurs and birds. One leading ornithologist has predicted that the whole dino-bird theory will turn out to be “the greatest embarrassment of paleontology of the 20th century.”
   
• Archaeoraptor. This fossil was purchased for $80,000 at an Arizona mineral show and was heralded as “the missing link between terrestrial dinosaurs and birds that could actually fly.” The fossil, supposedly smuggled out of China, had the forelimbs of a primitive bird and the tail of a dinosaur.  It was the feature story in the November 1999 National Geographic magazine.  It turns out that Archaeoraptor had the transitional features that Darw2inists were looking for because a clever forger had fabricated it that way (knowing it would bring big bucks in the fossil market).  Chinese paleontologist Xu Xing proved that the specimen consisted of a dinosaur tail glued to the body of a primitive bird.  National Geographic printed a retraction.
   
• Piltdown Man.  For more than 40 years, Darwinists believed they had found the famous “missing link” between apes and humans.  In 1912 an amateur geologist by the name of Charles Dawson discovered fossil evidence of a creature with the jaw of an ape and the skull of a human. Dawson called his creature Piltdown man and promptly brought it to the British museum, where scientists announced to the world that the elusive transitional link between apes and man had been found.  What the world didn’t know was that Piltdown man was a hoax.  Someone had cleverly taken the jaw of an ape and the skull of a man and combine the two.  The sad part of this story is that the Piltdown fossil fooled the experts in spite of indications that it was a fake, since it fit Darwin’s theory of “macro-evolution.”  This so-called “evidence” that man had descended from apes was taught in schools around the world for 40 years.

If God Created the World, Why do Pain and Death Exist?

It’s a legitimate question:  If God created the world, how come there is so much evil, pain and suffering? Why does death exist? If God is so powerful, and if He is so involved on our world, why does it seem as if He is either powerless or unwilling to do anything about evil and suffering?

The Bible makes it clear that God did not create the world the way it is now.  Evil, suffering and death came about because of the disobedience and selfishness of humankind.  By His very nature, God is a God of love, and He created humanity to love and glorify Him. But he did not create a race of beings who could do nothing but love Him.  He created us with the freedom to choose between the benefits of His love and the consequences of sin.

God is not evil, nor did He create evil. As our representatives, Adam and Eve, the first humans, chose sin over God, thereby infecting the entire human race (Romans 5:12). Although evil, suffering, pain and death are present and very real, they are not here for good. In God’s eternal plan there is a new world coming where “there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain” (Revelation 21:4).