(quote from RealReality.org/Real_Faith_and_Reason_Vol_2_-_Scientia.pdf)
“Of course, we can know things about the unobservable past. Suppose you come to your house and find a car stuck in the side of your house with skid marks across your lawn. The skid marks match the tires on the car, so you can guess that the car ran into your house. Therefore, we can guess the origin of the universe based on what we now observe. The universe created itself from almost nothing in a big bang.”
Someone was writing persuasively, but that person didn’t realize the weakness of circumstantial evidence. This claim compares a car crash to ungodly stories about origins. The argument compares a recent event to a supposed event billions of years in the past. Both the recent story and the billions-of-years story extrapolate beyond immediate sense information. However, extrapolation becomes less reliable the further it goes beyond our immediate senses. The brute-beast mind is limited to the senses and instincts. So, what can we know from our five natural senses?
We can trace the skid marks to the car. Even though no eyewitness saw the crash, the observation is proof something happened. We’ve previously observed cars crashing and doing damage. We’ve previously observed cars causing skid marks. Has anyone ever observed a universe forming from nothing?” If people observed universes forming, then the comparison would be valid. However, no one observes any such thing, so it’s a faulty comparison.
Circumstantial evidence can be somewhat helpful if no competing stories exist. Are there competing stories? Two stories compete to explain the origin of the universe. However, ungodly thinkers don’t want God to exist, so they try to quash the truth and push their godless stories. They don’t want anyone to hear what God is saying. We have two competing explanations for what we observe today. One is the big-bang-billions-of-years-no-Flood-molecules-to-humanity story. The other is God’s account of the Creation and the Flood in Scripture. And God’s account fits the observations better than the godless story. In addition, the Holy Spirit assures us the Biblical account is correct. Both the creation account and the big-bang story have unanswered questions. Both have theories to explain those unanswered questions. The theories bring up other questions in both cases. However, the theories for God’s account don’t require fudge factors like dark matter or dark energy to make the math work.
Circumstantial evidence can be somewhat helpful if the explanations don’t conflict with any observations. Does the story conflict with any observations? Is someone making up just-so stories to explain away these conflicts? A detective looking at the car would be suspicious of anyone who made up just-so stories about how the car got there. We should distrust those who make up just-so stories to hide the conflicts between scientific laws and stories about the past.
However, the Holy Spirit leads, teaches, and corrects everyone who knows and follows Christ. We don’t need to depend on the brute-beast mind. The Holy Spirit teaches us the Bible is God’s word without error, and we don’t deny the Holy Spirit’s teaching. God’s revelation is absolute proof. Therefore, we have absolute proof God created the universe just as He says He did. Even with matters like car crashes, we ought to rely on God’s wisdom so we don’t make rash and erroneous judgments.
(end quote)
