Models of the Past

Looking back into the past, trying to put the pieces of the jigsaw together is a lot like standing under a lamp post at night and trying to figure out what you're seeing in the distance. The farther you look, the more obscure objects become. You might see a car, but what make is it? What colour is it? Is it moving towards you or driving further away?

So it is with the question of how we got here. Most people fall into one of two camps : we evolved purely by chance, or we were put here for a reason. These two camps are very different. One has the utmost faith in chance, co-incidence and astronomical mathematical probability. The other has utmost faith in a Creator and that He has loving intentions plus an awful lot of power and authority.

At an initial glance, most people lean either one way or the other as to which seems most likely to them. But the difficulty western culture has at present is that from a very young age, we are bombarded day and night with  one view being assumed true and the other assumed to be irrelevant fiction. This is completely the opposite to where society was at 100 years ago. But is this fair? And is it reasonable? The pendulum has swung so far towards the evolutionary camp, that there is only one direction it can possibly go from here, and that is back towards consideration of a Creator.

What scientists should be trying to do is construct a model that best fits the past from the evidence we can find. Building a model is like trying to make a jigsaw. Jigsaw makers rely heavily on the picture on the front of the box. But our jigsaw hasn't come in a box. The pieces are everywhere! We aren't sure if we have them all and may be unsure where to start. We need to try not to force pieces to fit together that weren't meant to be. And someone has pointed out that there is a short description of Origins that may prove very helpful, commonly known as Genesis Chapter One. But a lot of people have crumpled it up as spurious and set about the jigsaw without it.

So, which model best suits the facts? Which picture best fits the pieces we are able to find? That's what I'm hoping to address in this blog. I hope it proves useful to those who are also on this journey.