Was Creation a Miracle?
by John D. Morris, Ph.D. *
The Institute for Creation Research's work lies primarily in the area of scientific research and teaching, but at its core it is a Christian organization. Each staff member holds unapologetically to the Christian faith and Biblical doctrine. But many today would insist that science and faith are mutually exclusive. One involves only hard facts of nature and the other includes belief in miracles of past history. Doesn't natural science exclude supernatural events?
ICR holds to natural law, that the universe and all in it operate according to the laws of nature. We do all our study and experiments within this natural sphere, and never rely on supernatural processes to explain current events. Yet we all insist that a supernatural Creator exists, and has acted in the past.
The real issue facing the creation/evolution controversy is not do true miracles occur today, but did they happen in the past, resulting in the natural world in which we live? To deny the possibility of miracles is to deny the existence of God, a claim beyond the certain knowledge of any finite being.
All natural processes today operate within the boundaries of two overarching laws, which have been verified through countless observations, and never have been violated. They have been applied in every field, and are now recognized as universal laws.
The first such law is the law of conservation, that in all processes, the components going in will be equivalent to the components coming out. They may change form, but the total mass, energy, etc. will remain the same. Nothing can be either created or destroyed.
The second law is the law of decay. The total will be the same, but the energy or usefulness of the components will be less. In any process there will be a heat loss or information loss. The quantity will be the same but the quality will decrease. Statistically it is possible for a far-from-equilibrium process to spontaneously increase in output, but a theoretical exception does not become the rule.
Consider how these laws apply in creation/evolution. The first law says that creation of something from nothing is impossible. Yet here we are! Could our origin be due to processes not observable today? The second law says all things are running down, becoming less ordered with less information present. Yet much available energy remains, and things, especially life, are information intensive. Surely present processes would never produce what we see. And, since things are only going downhill, and aren't yet at the bottom, surely they couldn't be excessively old.
All that we observe supports the Biblical doctrine that the past act of creation was a miracle, indeed.
*Dr. John D. Morris is the President of the Institute for Creation Research.
Cite this article: Morris, J. 2007. Was Creation a Miracle? Acts & Facts. 36 (1).