“Who’s the Ross?”

ctf • April 22, 2015

Recently, a young pastor of an influential church emailed me asking about scientist and professing Christian Dr. Hugh Ross. I was happy to oblige, as I had spoken at his church many times last year. There are many “winds of doctrine” both in religion and in science these days. The Bible warns that “spirits of strong delusion” will be turned loose upon the earth in the last days. That is certainly happening now. Who is Dr. Ross?

Ross is an astronomer who talks a lot about biology. Well, I’m a biologist who talks about astronomy, but at least I am a state-certified teacher of Earth Science, which includes astronomy. Ross is the author of the Progressive Creation theory. It says hundreds of millions of years ago, God created prehistoric creatures and then they began to go extinct. So, God began creating new and improved life forms to replace these that had failed. Eventually, He worked His way up to – you guessed it – us. Ross’ organization is called Reasons to Believe, and it has many chapters on college campuses all across the country. However, there are many reasons, both scientific and scriptural, not to believe Dr. Ross.

The first, and worst problem with Progressive Creation is death coming into the world before sin. The church in the early years A.D. gave this as one of the red flags to the detection of heresies. Paul taught that by one man sin came into the world and by sin came death. Therefore Jesus, the second Adam, had to bring redemption into the world for us all … which is why we celebrated Easter earlier this month.

Secondly, Ross serves to give Theistic Evolutionists an out for their missing-link problems. Since there were no half-steps between the species because God just created new ones from scratch, then there wouldn’t need to be any link fossils in the sedimentary rock beds on the earth.

Third, it’s just a compromise. Evolutionists and atheists do not respect this, but instead only mock us for having no stomach for a direct confrontation with what they consider “proven scientific facts” of Darwin’s theories. Ross’ works are most appealing to those in the church who are embarrassed by the Bible’s history of the creation found in the Book of Genesis. They are selling their birthright for a mess of pottage, I am afraid. And along with this theory, comes a full acceptance of the Big Bang model of the universe, which has been in serious doubt, especially recently.

In short, Ross is not the boss. And I don’t think that anyone should allow themselves to be taken in by his or any other of the compromise theories out on the market today. Sola scriptura, folks. Only the Scriptures. We’ll be on safe ground both theologically and scientifically only so long as we follow that age-old dictum.

Keep thinking.  DrJ

 

By Bob Dugas May 23, 2025
NS-29 Launch
By Matt Miles May 22, 2025
As many of you may know, I appreciate space. Not space around me, although the older I get the more I appreciate that as well. The things in the heavens fascinate me and have for a large chunk of my life. I love working with our telescopes, allowing people to see for themselves objects that the Lord made on the 4th day of history. When I was younger I followed our Space Shuttle program, and over the years I have had the opportunity to see a couple of those shuttles around the country. Now it is great to see all the renewed interest in exploring the heavenly creation. I know most of it is for evolutionary reasons, yet over and over again something is discovered that points to the trustworthiness of God’s Word. After all, we are to study His creation as Genesis 1:28 states. On a recent trip to El Paso, it occurred to me that Blue Origin’s launch facility is in west Texas somewhere. After some quick searching I realized we were within an hour and half of it, and there was a rescheduled launch window during the time of our meeting. So, with some persuading of my colleagues, we arose early one morning to make the launch. We made it with just minutes to spare. It was spectacular! The whole launch to just beyond the Karman Line (space boundary, 62 miles/100km) and return of the rocket and capsule is about ten minutes total. While Blue Origin is best known for its New Shepherd rocket that carries paying customers to space and back with the biggest windows ever in a capsule, this NS-29 launch was purely experimental with a payload of instruments to measure simulated lunar gravity. Even though it was not a Saturn V, Space Shuttle, Starship or Falcon launch, it was great to hear and feel a launch for the first time, from blast off to the sonic boom return. It has piqued my desire to see a bigger launch now. As I began to reflect on what I experienced, the Lord reminded me of His design. Earth, our home planet, is so well designed for life. There is literally nowhere in all the universe like it. Yet He gave us the ability to discover creation beyond it. The only reason we can launch rockets and do space exploration is because He set it up in an orderly way. Physics works because He established it to work in a predictable fashion. As much as we may never understand everything in the universe from our position here, it works on an ordered reality that is reinforced by God’s Word. This is what drove Sir Isaac Newton in his understanding of physics. He wrote, “The motions which the planets now have could not spring from any natural cause alone but were by an intelligent Agent.” Evolutionists may come up with theories about the origin of things in the heavens, but over and over again they are being shown through experimentation and observation to be wrong. The Lord set the order of everything in the beginning and sustains it by His Word (Hebrews 1:3). So as you look to the heavens tonight, gaze into the depths of space and observe the different facets the Lord placed up there for our eyes (Genesis 1:17). Peer through a telescope at the lesser light of the moon with marvel and anticipation of further human study in the coming years. Check out the amazing observations being made by the James Webb telescope from deep in space. All of these place a perspective of how awesome our Creator is and how much we depend on Him. Our design becomes more and more obvious with every discovery, yet in our universe we appear so minuscule and fragile. Thanks be to God that His infinite focus has, is and always will be here on us! Blessings.
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