Tuesday, March 5, 2024

My Three E-Books

I have just updated my book God and Cosmos: A Christian View of Time, Space, and the Universe. All three of my books are now available, free of charge, as e-books. To download the pdf files, just click on the links below. For some reason google.drive, where the pdf files are stored, can't handle epub files. If you prefer that format, please send me an email at byl@twu.ca. If you spot any typos or have any comments, please send me an email as well.

1. God and Cosmos: A Christian View of Time, Space, and the Universe. 

Download the pdf file here











Cosmology is the most important subject in the world.

Why? Because it is the story of the entire world: its origin, structure, purpose, and destiny. As people in that world, its story necessarily forms the background for our own personal story. It concerns our deepest beliefs, values, and hopes.

Our cosmology forms the basis for our response to the most fundamental questions about our existence. Our cosmological beliefs shape our morality, religion, and culture. They largely influence our worldview.

Our prime aim is to examine and develop cosmology from a Christian perspective. Very briefly, Christianity holds that God created, from nothing, a two-realm universe consisting of both a visible and a heavenly part, whose history follows God’s glorious plan. The original creation was good. It culminated in the creation of Adam, created in the image of God, to serve him and glorify Him. Unhappily, Adam’s fall into sin corrupted man, along with the entire physical world. Happily, man can be redeemed through the gracious work of Christ. After the Day of Judgment, believers will be transformed to rule with Christ on a renewed Earth cleansed from sin and corruption.

The main challenger to Christian cosmology is Big Bang cosmology, the mainstream secular cosmology currently embraced by most Western scientists and scholars.

This book aims to probe beyond the usual questions of origins and to dig deeper into various underlying philosophical and theological issues. The emphasis will be on the philosophical presuppositions and theological implications of modern cosmology, on the one hand, and, on the other, the significance of the Bible for cosmology.

To be accessible to the general reader, I assume no prior technical knowledge of cosmology. Although specific cosmological models tend to be highly mathematical, this book has only a few simple equations. 


2. The Divine Challenge: On Matter, Mind, Math, and Meaning. 

Download the pdf file here












This book is about the war between God and fallen man. It concerns the double challenge, between God and man, to establish who will rule. The war will be addressed at the level of competing worldviews, and their ability to explain reality and assign meaning. The battleground will range over the realms of matter, mind, and math.

The prime purpose is the apologetic one of showing the superiority of the Christian worldview over its main competitors. The main thesis is that only Christianity offers a cohesive, meaningful worldview. The challenges of modern naturalism and post-modern relativism ultimately self-destruct.

This book is addressed to the intelligent non-expert. Although the discussion will range over various issues in science, math, philosophy, and theology, no prior knowledge of these disciplines is assumed. The aim is to convey the basic thrust of the arguments in non-technical language, as simply as possible. Nevertheless, some of these issues are very subtle, requiring the reader's close attention.

3. How Should Christians View Origins?  

Download the pdf file here.

Its description is as follows:

Are you related to apes? Is Adam just a myth? Is evolution a fact? Is the earth billions of years old? Has science disproven the plain reading of the Bible, particularly concerning origins? Many Christians think so.

This booklet explores the nature of science and the influence of naturalism. It examines pertinent scientific evidence and biblical texts. It shows how basic Christian doctrines are grounded in the historicity of biblical events. It defends the traditional, plain-sense reading of Genesis.

Much is at stake. Pastors, Bible teachers, church leaders, and students need to embrace a Christian worldview that fully upholds God's Word as the ultimate authority. This booklet provides a solid beginning toward this goal.

*****

Thursday, March 30, 2023

Big Bang Christianity?

In an earlier post I noted the importance of cosmology in providing the background story for a worldview. I contended that, to make Christianity plausible, one must critique the current secular worldview, particularly its Big Bang cosmology, and present Christianity as comprehensive worldview with its own, Christ-centered, cosmology.

Unfortunately, many Christian scientists and theologians accept Big Bang cosmology as gospel truth, established beyond any reasonable scientific doubt. They believe that, to make Christianity plausible to our society, Christians should embrace Big Bang cosmology.

Tuesday, March 21, 2023

The Importance of Cosmology

Cosmology is the most important subject in the world.

Why? Because it is the story of the world: its origin, structure, purpose, and destiny. As people in that world, its story necessarily forms the background for our own personal story. It affects our deepest beliefs, values, and hopes.

Thursday, December 8, 2022

Science, Space, and Time

What does science tell us about the nature of time and space? It is widely claimed that, in relativistic physics, space and time are intertwined in a four-dimensional space-time block universe, where all times co-exist eternally. This seems to challenge the common-sense presentist view of time, where only the present instant exists, moving from a no longer existing past to a yet-to-exist future. How well established is the block universe with its static time?

Tuesday, October 4, 2022

God, Creation, and Space

Some Christian apologists (e.g., William Lane Craig, Hugh Ross) contend that it is scientifically proven that the physical universe began from an infinitely dense point of space (the so-called Big Bang singularity), which marked the creation also of space and time. They contend that, if space and time did not exist before creation, then the universe must have been created by a cause transcending space and time, which they equate with God.

Thursday, September 15, 2022

God, Creation, and Time

Did time exist before the creation of the world? Many Christians believe that time was created along with the physical universe, and that there was no time "before" creation. Is this feasible?

Tuesday, December 21, 2021

Does the Bible Use Phenomenal Language?

Does the Bible speak about reality or only about appearances? Sometimes, to avoid conflict with alleged scientific facts, it is claimed that the Bible uses phenomenal (or phenomenological) language, describing things as they appear from our human, earth-bound perspective rather than being factually correct in a more scientific sense.

Wednesday, December 8, 2021

Canadian Reformed MPs Approve Pro-LGBT Bill C-4

How many Canadian Members of Parliament, or Senators, are willing to stand up for Christian values against the pro-homosexual agenda? NONE. Not a one. Not even the Canadian Reformed MPs Arnold Viersen and Tako van Popta!

Saturday, October 30, 2021

Two Free E-Books Available

I have just updated my book The Divine Challenge: On Matter, Mind, Math, and Meaning. At the same time, I converted it into an e-book, available (free) in pdf format here. This is available also in epub format, but for some reason google.drive can't handle epub, so that you should send me an email if you want the epub file.

Friday, September 3, 2021

What is the Genuine Reformed View of Science?

Numerous writers claim to defend a “Reformed” view of science (for example, [1], [2], [3], [4]). Reformed theology is grounded in a high view of Scripture. Yet, allegedly Reformed scholars often embrace aspects of mainstream science (e.g., evolution, an ancient earth, etc.) that require a re-interpretation of the Biblical text (e.g. a non-literal reading of Gen. 1-11). This raises the question: What should characterize a genuinely Reformed view of science?  
 

Monday, July 19, 2021

The Absurdity of a Solid Dome

 According to many Bible scholars, people of the Ancient Near East (ANE) believed that the sky was a fixed solid dome - in which the Sun, moon, and stars were embedded - supported by pillars, or mountains, at the ends of a flat earth. The Israelites are said to have shared this erroneous ANE cosmology, which is allegedly the underlying idea behind the "firmament" or “expanse” (raqia) of Genesis 1.

Monday, May 31, 2021

God and Necessary Truths

Christianity maintains that only God is self-existent. He is the sovereign Creator, who freely creates everything else. God exists necessarily, in that it is impossible for God not to exist, God's non-existence is inconceivable. The created universe, in contrast, is merely contingent, in that it could have been different, and need not have existed at all. But what about abstract objects, such as the laws of logic and math, which seem to be necessary truths? How do they relate to God? 

Tuesday, April 27, 2021

Review: In the Beginning

An important book, In the Beginning: Listening to Genesis 1 and 2 (2021, Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 371 pages) has just been published by Dr. Cornelis van Dam, emeritus professor of Old Testament at Canadian Reformed Theological Seminary in Hamilton, Ontario.

Monday, February 15, 2021

Why is There Something?

Why is there something? There could have been nothing - no physical objects or laws, no conscious beings, no thoughts, no universe at all. So, why is there something, rather than nothing? 

Tuesday, January 26, 2021

How big tech became big brother

 A relevant video by David Wood (found on the Triablogue site), raising concerns that big tech (Youtube, Google, Twitter, Amazon, etc.), like mainstream media, is increasingly censoring Christian views while promoting leftist ideology.

Tuesday, November 24, 2020

Useful Sites

Here are some sites that I find useful and check regularly. Please inform me of any dead links, or sites that should be added.

Wednesday, October 14, 2020

Finding Adam

The Dutch scholar Dr. Willem J. Ouweneel defends the traditional Biblical Adam, against attempts to combine Adam with human evolution, in his recent book Adam, Where Are You? And Why This Matters: A Theological Evaluation of the Evolutionist Hermeneutic (Jordan Station, Canada: Paideia Press, 2018, 480 pages).

Friday, September 18, 2020

Hijacking John Calvin – More Pro Rege Polemics

A few months ago, in my post Pro Rege Polemics, I discussed a dispute about science and the Bible in Pro Rege, a Dordt University publication. Since then two more contributions continue the debate.

Tuesday, July 21, 2020

Seeing Through Smoke

Here is a new book very relevant to recent events: Seeing Through Smoke: Living the Truth in an Age of Deception (2020), by Dr Jon Garvey. This book (pdf) can be downloaded free.

Monday, July 20, 2020

Some thoughts on Dr Packer

James Innell Packer recently died on July 17, 2020, at age 93. He was one of the most influential theologians of the last century, perhaps best known for his two earliest books, Fundamentalism and the Word of God (1958) and Knowing God (1973). He was also general editor of the English Standard Version of the Bible.